Chương 208

The Roc's cry was cut short as the cliffside groaned beneath it. Orion, still pouring mana into the [Gravity Cannon] pinning the beast, felt the ground shift beneath his feet. The massive bird had been thrashing against the unyielding weight of the spell, cracking the stone, but it wasn't until that moment that he realized the cracking was part of the plan.

Selene, crouched behind a rock formation fifty feet away, slammed her palms onto the frozen ground once again, echoing the move she had used at the start of the battle. She had been waiting for the right moment to strike, concealing the pulse of mana within the barrage they had unleashed, and now, the mana she had secretly infused into the mountainside at the beginning of the fight finally activated. A much louder crack echoed, and the ledge's stability failed.

A hundred tons of rock, ice, and snow broke away from the mountain face, taking the immobilized Thunder Roc with it.

"Move back!" Orion shouted, releasing his spell and flying backward as the ground vanished beneath the monster. Dorian, still holding onto the Roc's crushed neck, leaped desperately, flickering with light mana as he cast a buff and grabbed the edge of the stable cliff, pulling himself up. The Roc wasn't so lucky. It silently fell into the churning avalanche, buried beneath a tidal wave of debris tumbling toward the cloud layer below. The impact produced a dull, continuous roar that echoed for nearly a minute.

Finally, silence returned to the peak, interrupted only by the team's heavy breathing. +61, 300 Exp Orion landed and leaned against a boulder, quickly drinking a potion from his belt. He felt exhausted and battered, especially since the monster was quite a bit stronger than he was, and he refused to use [Gamma Ray] yet, until he understood it better. That, and the roc's reckless rage, had made the situation more difficult than necessary.

"Is it over?" Luna asked, peering over the edge into the swirling white void below.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I even got a point in Body from that," Dorian said, dusting snow off his armor. He then looked at Selene, and his eyes showed a newfound respect.

"That was insane, by the way. Remind me never to annoy you if your way of dealing with enemies is to drop a mountain on them." Selene just shrugged, though Orion was fairly certain she was suppressing a smile. She must have gotten even more exp than me from that. A few more minutes passed like that as they regained their breath, until Orion felt the urge to push himself up.

"Alright, we should go down and check, just to make sure it, too, was corrupted in the same way." It took them half an hour to safely navigate down to the debris field, and when they arrived, the Roc was barely visible, a shattered mass of metallic feathers and twisted limbs sticking out of the snow. Removing it was thankfully quicker, thanks to gravity magic making the hundreds of tons that buried it much lighter, allowing Orion to quickly perform the grim work.

He cut through the galvanized feathers and into the chest cavity, eventually revealing a small, almost stone-like growth just behind its heart. The same oily grey veins that marred the Yeti Alpha's core were present here, making it impossible to mistake it for anything but silence-originated corruption.

"I almost hoped that a more powerful monster would be able to resist the corruption better, but it seems high-tier two isn't enough," Orion sighed, pocketing the core. If the roc had been mostly clear, he would have felt much more comfortable taking on this entire mission alone, but it seemed like he'd need to recalculate some details. I guess we'll see once we arrive. Depending on what we find, I'll decide. He looked back up the mountain, toward the peak hidden in the storm clouds.

"Now to get back up there," he said, eliciting a groan from the others. As Orion had come to expect, the higher they climbed, the more hostile the environment became, until he was pretty sure that attempting to cast spells with mana outside of the elemental quartet making up most of their surroundings—lightning, wind, earth, and ice—would fail. Perhaps he could eke it out with gravity magic. It seemed to face less resistance than even light magic, which led him to suspect that the earth mana was to thank.

But as things stood, he was growing more convinced that he would need to take drastic steps to avoid a fiasco like the one at the golem facility. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Never let it be said that I'm not willing to learn, he quietly chuckled to himself.

When they finally broke through the second cloud layer and reached the summit, they discovered something very different from the wild speculations they had engaged in whenever they could find the breath for it. Nestled in a saddle between two jagged peaks, an old, weathered stone structure sat. It was circular, topped with a rusted dome that had once been able to rotate but was now frozen shut by centuries of ice.

"That looks like the star observatory," Luna whispered, recognizing the architecture.

"But it must be much older. From the Early Sanctum era? Before they concentrated all the divisions in a single building?" Orion looked at her with curiosity, surprised to learn she was so interested in the Sanctum's history. His own research into the past mainly focused on the mysterious practices of ancient witches, but he had come across a few pages describing something similar.

However, it was not common knowledge, and he made a note to ask if she had any suggestions for what to read to learn more about that time period.

"It's definitely abandoned," Dorian noted, eyeing the snow pile against the heavy bronze doors and the poor condition of the structure behind them.

"Not entirely," Orion said as he adjusted his glasses, focusing on the mana signature he could sense within.

"The signal from the canisters is terminating right inside the main dome, and even beyond it, something is active in there." He had no idea what it might be, other than that it was strong. Sadly, inspecting it was likely to attract its attention, and as he'd already decided, he wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

"Alright, get comfortable, guys. I don't know how long this will take," he said, stepping toward the edge of the peak.

"What are you doing?" Luna asked, confused.

"Aren't we going in?"

"No," Orion said flatly.

"We are students, however talented. This is a much bigger threat than any of us can reasonably handle." Maybe it was hypocritical of him, given that he had just done the opposite a week earlier, but at that time, he had Pauline with him, and the mission was supposed to be just a scouting one. This, on the other hand, wouldn't end anything other than a fight, and he knew for a fact he couldn't face whatever was inside the observatory alone.

He reached into his coat and pulled out a slender rod topped with a red crystal, one of the standard-issue emergency beacons handed out to everyone during the short War over the Belt.

"I suggest you look away and plug your ears!" he warned. Channeling mana into the rod, he angled it upward and away from himself, then closed his eyes. SCREECH-BOOM. A massive flare erupted overhead, illuminating the storm clouds with a bright, unmistakable crimson which lingered in the sky as a universal distress signal visible to every witch within dozens of miles. They didn't have to wait long. Three minutes later, the sound of rushing wind announced the arrival of a patrol.

Five figures on high-speed brooms descended through the clouds, dressed in the reinforced leathers of the Mountain Guard, the witches responsible for preventing enemies from slipping through the ranges. The leader, a stern-looking Magistra with sallow cheeks, landed in front of them, glancing over their battered gear and scorched cloaks with obvious disapproval.

"Identify yourselves," she barked.

"Who fired the beacon? What is the situation?"

"We're all students," Orion stepped forward, drawing her attention to himself.

"I fired the beacon after we reached the peak." The Magistra's face darkened.

"Students? Up here? Look at the state of you. You're lucky you aren't frozen corpses. Do you have any idea the resources you've diverted by firing a Red Flare for a training hike gone wrong?"

"It's not a training hike," Orion cut her off, his voice hard.

"We tracked a trail of corrupted monsters to this location. The local fauna is mutated and hostile, and we just took down a high tier-two Thunder Roc that fought us to the death." The Magistra scoffed, clearly skeptical.

"A Roc fighting to the death and being killed by four students? Don't lie to me, boy. You got in over your head and panicked. You'll be facing disciplinary action for reckless endangerment and misuse of Sanctum resources." She pulled out a binding rope.

"Hands out. We're taking you back down." Orion didn't move, as if she hadn't spoken at all.

"I need you to summon a Veil Priestess here." The patrol witches muttered angrily among themselves about the audacity, and he had to admit that if he were a normal student, that would have been justified.

"You need a timeout in a holding cell to straighten you out," the Magistra retorted, stepping forward with the rope.

"You don't make demands here, boy." Sighing, he decided to take the only path likely to work with these people.

"My mother is Asteria, the Veil Priestess of Potioneering," Orion said, playing the card he hated most.

"And if you don't send a priority message to her right now telling her I found an enemy installation, I guarantee the disciplinary action you're threatening me with will seem like a vacation compared to what happens when she finds out you ignored this." The Magistra froze, caught between anger at his tone and shock as her words sank in. For the first time, she truly looked at Orion—the white hair, the purple eyes, the complete lack of fear—and cursed under her breath.

"If you're lying, Voidwalker," she hissed, pulling out a crystal sphere, "I'll make sure you're scrubbing cauldrons until you're old enough to deserve the white hair, no matter what your mother might say." A flash of divination magic followed, and Orion knew it was echoing off a similar orb within the Sanctum. A tense silence settled over the peak. The patrol witches regarded Orion and his team with a blend of resentment and curiosity. Two minutes passed. Then, the air on the peak suddenly felt different.

The storm's static charge disappeared, replaced by a profound heaviness, and a moment later, space rippled as Asteria stepped through. She was dressed in full battle attire, donning armored robes, her wand crackling with silver energy, and her eyes glowing like twin stars. She descended onto the snow, her aura exerting a tangible force on the mountain. The patrol witches immediately dropped to one knee, heads bowed, and even the Magistra looked concerned.

The silver glow in her eyes dimmed slightly after she scanned her surroundings and saw no immediate danger, but the tension lingered.

"What is going on?" Asteria demanded, her voice cold as ice.

"Veil Priestess," the Magistra began, keeping her head down.

"These students fired a Red Flare. They claim to have found—""Not you," Asteria cut her off, not even looking at her, but straight at Orion.

"You." Although he knew his mother would never harm him, Orion hurried through the explanation, reviewing what led them here, what they found inside the alpha yeti, and their decision to move forward, ending with their arrival at the peak and his belief that it should be handled by someone stronger. His friends were quick to offer support, adding details, and even Selene spoke up to confirm his words.

Asteria examined the strange growth they found inside the monsters with a faintly creased brow before turning her gaze back to Orion. A flicker of pride crossed her stern features, but it was quickly replaced by professional determination.

"You did the right thing calling it in," she murmured, then turned to the other witches.

"Set up a perimeter, it seems like we have a possible enemy of the Sanctum hiding within the observatory. Nothing shall escape!"

"Yes, Veil Priestess!" the Magistra squeaked, scrambling back into the air to obey, and was quickly followed by the others.