[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-path-of-dragons":3,"chapter-path-of-dragons-path-of-dragons-chapter-1183":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Path of Dragons",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1685276,2151,"Book 13: Chapter 45: The Cyst","path-of-dragons-chapter-1183",1183,"\u003Cp>Path of Dragons\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Cyst recoiled from Elijah’s presence, almost like it knew his plans. As he stood at the center of the massive tumor, his Mantle of Authority extended to its full diameter, Elijah cast his awareness downward. Beneath the rubbery, skin-like terrain and below the ocean of half-congealed pus, Elijah felt a spark of awareness. It wasn’t sapience. Nor was it even sentience. But if it was left to its own devices long enough, that could change.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was ever growing. Always evolving. And most of all, it never ceased in its quest to consume its surroundings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Elijah had first set foot upon the thing, it had attempted to devour him. The grooved terrain opened up, revealing a mass of teeth and tentacles. He countered that by funneling ethera through his newly evolved master-tier soul and into his Mantle of Authority.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Cyst could not abide its touch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So long as Elijah kept his mantle active, the tumor kept to itself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That wasn’t to say that trekking across it wasn’t dangerous. It certainly was a treacherous endeavor, largely because the degree of ambient corruption reached heights Elijah had never felt before. Not even at the top of that obelisk where he’d cultivated his silver-tier body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fortunately, with his advancements in cultivation, he could endure even that without much in the way of damage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Most of that was due to the changes in his soul.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It allowed him to activate abilities far more quickly and permitted much larger quantities of ethera to pass through his new channels. Those changes were normal, and they formed the backbone of the upgrade. Anyone who reached the master tier would see similar improvements, though the overall effectiveness was dependent on the quality of cultivation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, where Elijah’s efforts really separated from the pack was in how they affected his Mantle of Authority. First of all, it was much, much wider than it had been when his soul languished in the expert tier. If Elijah focused, he could affect nearly a half-mile radius.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That, too, was expected – as was the intensity of its effect.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What Elijah did not expect was that he could now activate the mantle in three distinctly different ways. The first was the easiest, and it worked just like it had before his upgrade. Adjusting its area of effect was a simple matter of varying the ethereal flow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But it now also featured a passive mode, which saw his branches extended about five feet all around him. In that area, everything was cleansed. He didn’t even need to funnel ethera through it. Rather, it was fueled by the natural circulation of his soul. He could retract it completely if he so desired, but that took concentration.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And finally, if he chose, he could concentrate it down to the tip of his finger. Doing so resulted in a much stronger cleansing effect.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Which is what enabled the first part of his plan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He knelt, focusing his soul down to his finger and tracing a simple glyph at the edge of the Cyst. The thing shuddered under his touch, and the smell of burning tires filled the air as Elijah worked. Geysers erupted all around his kneeling form, but the corrosive pus could no longer appreciably harm him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The resulting rain was not comfortable. And it was disgusting. But to Elijah, it was more of a minor annoyance than the truly dangerous environment it had once been.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once he’d finished the glyph, he moved a few feet along the circumference of the circular tumor, then began anew. Over the next week, he continued that process, taking great pains to draw the symbols perfectly. Then, he moved inward to draw the next concentric circle of glyphs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That took a little longer, mostly because there were more symbols in the smaller circle. Still, he finished after only eight days and moved on to the next.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So it went for the next six weeks until Elijah had used his soul to carve nine rings into the cyst. He had never been an expert on runic circles, and he suspected he never would be. However, Elijah was meticulous enough that he could copy someone else’s work, which was precisely what he’d done. In this case, that meant recreating the stone rings surrounding Dravkein. Though instead of being carved into blocks, Elijah had used the cyst itself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Still, he hesitated before empowering the final symbol.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If it worked, he could move forward with his plan. If it didn’t, he would have to go back to the drawing board. Already, he’d spent years on Gorveth. It would inevitably be years more before he finished with the planet. But failure would extend that time by a significant amount.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With that in mind, he spent a few days rechecking his work.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The advantage of using his soul to carve the symbols was that the cyst was incapable of healing those wounds. Even two months after he’d carved that first glyph, it was still as fresh as when he’d first created it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, he had to take great care to keep his mantle under control, lest he run the risk of sullying his work. He found doing so much less difficult than he might have expected – just another benefit of upgrading his soul.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As he inspected each glyph, Elijah continuously checked his notes. And after a few days, he felt satisfied that everything was as perfect as he could manage. So, he returned to the crest of the cyst, barely acknowledging the roiling tension hiding within the bulbous tumor upon the world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, at last, he completed the final symbol.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At first, he felt nothing. But then, he sensed a swirl of ethera. It was little more than a light breeze, but it quickly built into something much more potent. Within moments, it felt like he’d found himself in the center of the Elemental Maelstrom. Though, instead of being comprised of various elemental energy, it was made of pure ethera.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elijah hadn’t expected such a powerful force, but he knew enough about magic that he didn’t want to be in the middle of it when everything coalesced. So, he sprinted across the Cyst, feeling energy gathering with every step he took.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Finally, he reached the edge, crossed the Abyssal Moat, and climbed to the spot where he’d left his tent deployed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only a few minutes later, a flash of light heralded the completion of the ritual Elijah had carved into the cyst. Following that was a dense wave of ethera that swept across the area.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, everything went still.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Silence reigned across the region.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It only lasted for a few moments before Elijah saw something remarkable. The Cyst had begun to melt. Pus and rubbery flesh boiled, becoming a foul-smelling slurry. Abyssal corruption fought back, but the nine-ring system was designed specifically to eliminate its like.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And it did that singular job quite well.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The only problem was that the Cyst was very, very corrupted. In fact, it couldn’t exist without that malign energy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elijah watched as it turned to a slurry of black and yellow. The glyphs hovered in the air, existing as separate entities from the tumor’s flesh.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, he pushed his Mantle of Authority to its maximum size and potency before wading in. The corruption fought back against his soul, like a clash of fire and ice. But in the end, it was incapable of resisting his power. Still, it was a few hours before it began to evaporate, and that was only the beginning.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An entire day passed before the area covered by his Mantle of Authority was scoured clean. Once it had been, Elijah moved on, slowly circling the liquified tumor. In some ways, he was reminded of when he’d cleansed Central Park. Back then, his mantle covered only a dozen feet. Now, it spanned at least half a mile.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the back and forth was still close enough that he couldn’t ignore the similarities between the two events.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As he cleansed the area, Elijah lost track of time. At some point during his stint on Gorveth, he’d developed a somewhat accurate ability to gauge the passage of the days. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough to the cycle observed by the people of Ithalon and Dravkein that he usually felt confident in his assertions. But this time, the sense evaded him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Part of that was because he dedicated most of his mind to intense concentration on his task. Keeping his mantle deployed at full strength was no easy feat, and the constant churn of ethera required significant focus. The other leaves within his mind fluttered with disconnected thoughts, most of which settled on his intentions. He’d been planning for months – years, if he counted the nascent stages when he didn’t even realize what he had in store. And by now, he had a very detailed idea of what he wanted to do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The idea itself wasn’t all that complicated, but the execution would assuredly take months. Perhaps even years. And that estimate was at least partially assigned due to the layered complexity of his plan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He couldn’t afford to get it wrong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So, even as the bulk of his concentration remained focused on the cleansing, he dedicated quite a lot of brainpower to going over the details of his plans. Enabling that was constant consultation of his notes, which had filled the entirety of three notebooks he’d gotten back in Dravkein. The thin, leather pages were full of glyphs, notes, and abandoned avenues of problem solving.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And hopefully, answers to his predicament.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Elijah finally finished cleansing the Cyst, he found himself facing a degraded well. It was perfectly round and lined with black stone. Tracing the interior was a spiral of stairs that abruptly ended in solid rock.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Above was a freestanding arch that reminded Elijah of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It dripped with clear mucus, and the combination of ambient corruption and the ever-degrading forces of time had robbed it of what had once been intricate carvings. But some remained, and Elijah couldn’t help but stare it with a mixture of awe and a distinct sense of loss.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once, it had marked the entrance to the Primal Realm. Now, it was no more enduring than any other set of ruins he’d found across Gorveth. The Primal Realm was no longer active – and it hadn’t been since the world’s excisement. A fortunate thing, considering that the last thing Elijah wanted was to plunge headfirst into another Primal Realm – especially one that had been left to fester for millennia.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After examining it for a few more minutes, Elijah returned to gather his tent. He deployed it in the center of Druhmor, where he rested for a few days. During that time, he also continued to study his notes until, at last, he felt ready for what was coming.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So it happened that Elijah set out, heading past the Abyssal Moat and to the surrounding area. It didn’t take him long to find his target – one of the enormous abyssal behemoths with whom he had so far avoided a clash. This time, he didn’t hesitate to attack, though he had no intention of engaging in battle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not yet, at least.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Instead, he raced off across the ravine-streaked landscape until he found another.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And another after that.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Over and over, he repeated that process, ranging far and wide until he had acquired a mile-long tail of massive monsters. Twelve, in total, spaced relatively evenly. For the most part, Elijah remained in Shape of the Scourge, but at times, he returned to the Shape of the Sky, which he employed to keep the monsters baited.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For days, he led them along until, at last, he returned to the Abyssal Moat. He blistered across it at top speed until, finally, he reached Druhmor. There, he shifted into his dragon form and started casting Eternal Plague.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The monsters were nearly an hour behind him, so he had plenty of time to build the spell. By the time the first behemoth arrived and Elijah unleashed his spell, it came in an absolute torrent of glittering butterflies. They filled the air, then descended upon the creature, covering it so thoroughly that it almost looked like it had fluttering scales.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elijah didn’t take the time to appreciate it, though. Instead, he attacked it bodily, hammering into it with his hundred-foot-long form. It should have been stronger than him. Far, far stronger. But Elijah had chosen his tactics and battleground well. The same nine-ring system that had begun the cleansing process of the Cyst remained in effect, and they served to drain a good portion of its power. At the same time, Elijah’s empowered Mantle of Authority slammed into it, further weakening it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That, coupled with Eternal Plague and rapid casts of Nature’s Claim served to stagger the creature – at least until the rest arrived.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The butterflies descended upon them as well, and soon, the air was full of yellow spores and clashing giants.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When they were sufficiently weakened, Elijah shifted into the Shape of the Scourge, used Phantom Shift, and leaped from one to the other, loading them with massive amounts of venom. Each attack came with six copies, though the real benefit of the ability was the confusion it wrought.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And finally, when their bodies were so ravaged by his afflictions that they could scarcely stand, Elijah shifted into the Shape of Embers and enacted the most important part of the plan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Building two-hundred charges for the Seed of Ashes wasn’t difficult. Nor was using Flames of Renewal. But the strategy proved incredibly effective. The plan went off without a hitch, and the monsters soon succumbed to the cascade of damage he’d inflicted upon them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elijah wasn’t so much worried about killing them, though. Rather, he was far more concerned with using them as fuel. In the wake of the battle, plants and trees grew from the ashes, filling the air with dense vitality.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It didn’t last, though.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In moments, they gave way to atmospheric corruption and wilted. That left Elijah to stand over them, disappointed and wondering how he was meant to solve the problem.\u003C\u002Fp>",2393,"2026-06-06T13:41:01.983Z",1,"novelbin.me","7cb974c8533d088ba79bf248159dfe5cf2178f3cbb6acfa92acee9d2d0ae927f","path-of-dragons-chapter-1184","path-of-dragons-chapter-1182",1206,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fpath-of-dragons-cover.jpg"]