Though he knew the direction the earth qi had come from, Cyril had no idea how far he would have to travel to reach the messenger. Given the intensity of the earthquake, it couldn’t have come from too far. Lady Firouza had been capable of spatial manipulation and long-range teleportation, but he doubted she could have cast her ultimate technique across vast distances. If the Earth cultivator message could eclipse Firouza’s abilities, Cyril would take that as a welcome trade in exchange for a couple days locating them.
His golem form pounded through the desert, picking up the pace as he adjusted to the novelty of his new body. Miles passed in a blur. Once his motions became smooth and natural, he allowed his mind to focus on the future. While he hoped his meeting with the cultivator would proceed smoothly, he didn’t want to leave matters to fate.
The transformation into a golem had drained most of Cyril’s core. It took about twenty minutes to fully recover. Once it did, he began covering his body in dense slabs of E-grade bronze. As time went on, he added small details to improve his armor. Rusted iron reinforced vulnerable sections of his body such as his head and heart. Once he shored up his defenses, he grew metal studs out of his knuckles, turning his massive hands into spiked gauntlets.
As he ran, he made sure to keep track of his approximate location. He pulled up a blank Mind Scroll and, after a few quick calculations, sketched a rough map for himself. It was little more than a few markings showing his current position, the settlement, and where Granny Jasmine claimed his tribe was located. He couldn’t help but think about how, at his current pace, he could have made it home in a couple hours.
The temptation to turn away and head straight there was difficult to resist. Only the image of another devastating earthquake tearing through his people convinced him to stay the course. His immediate family would be fine, but he couldn’t say the same about their weaker vassals, let alone the legions of mundanes gathered under their banner.
After traveling more than fifty miles in half an hour, he began to wonder if he had made a mistake. Perhaps the trail of qi had curved off to the side at one point, and he simply hadn’t been able to see that far ahead. He could just be charging north until he hit the Alagos Mountains. The soft blue silhouettes of their jagged peaks peeked along the horizon, hundreds of miles in the distance. Not the most unusual home for an Earth cultivator, by any means.
As the doubts began to pile on, Cyril sensed a noise in the distance--a soft, ethereal melody. After a few moments, he recognized it as the sound of a flute, its tranquil notes blending with the wind in natural harmony. The beautifully eerie music stirred his soul. Qi surged through his channels, twisting into spirals and whorls as if dancing in tune with the song.
Cyril shook his head, breaking himself out of his reverie. Without even realizing it, he had stopped to bask in the serenity of the desert. He calmed his spirit and wrested his qi back under control. The sound had no ill effects on him, but he hated the thought of being caught under some siren’s song.
He continued heading straight, in the direction of the music. After another few minutes, his ears popped as if he had just climbed up a mountain. The world in front of him changed as he broke through the barrier of an illusion.
The nondescript landscape in front of him shimmered. Where before there was nothing, now stood what could only be described as an abstract, deconstructed pagoda. Vertical and horizontal platforms of golden metal floated in the air, gaps of at least a dozen feet between each individual section. Threads of Gravity qi connected them, maintaining their perfect distance even as the platforms rotated about at different angles. The effect twisted Cyril’s mind, as if he was staring at an optical illusion. There were nine tiers to the platforms, tapering until the topmost level was just large enough to support a single person.
Between the shifting platforms and great height, Cyril could barely make out the figure at the pinnacle. They sat in the lotus position as they played the flute, seemingly entranced by their own music. The figure looked like they were wearing a suit of armor made of ivory, complete with a strange helmet formed from a cluster of alternating black-and-white bands of metal.
The tone of the music changed. From tranquil to harsh, sharp, dissonant. Cyril froze in place, his qi stagnant inside of his channels. Even his thoughts refused to flow like normal. Atop the ninth tier, the ivory figure had turned to ebony in the blink of an eye, the alternating white streaks of its helmet bands the only remnant of its former color.
Cyril focused all his attention on restoring the flow of his internal qi. While the dissonant tune possessed a terrifying compulsion, it was no easy feat to seal another person’s spirit. Behemoth, for its part, remained as distant as usual, apparently unimpressed with the situation. Sluggish at first, his qi began to circulate, flowing in a counter-rhythm to the flute’s harsh tune. His spirit broke the foreign energy down within seconds, consuming and digesting it into entropy.
Though he was no longer in the same enlightened state as when he had Behemoth’s full support against the cult, Cyril vaguely remembered the flow and expression of his qi from back in the oasis fight. The moment he regained control over his physical movement, he poured Gravity qi into the spear and hurled it at the distant cultivator. In response, the Gravity qi binding the floating platforms together flared. The segments of golden metal adjusted to block the weapon’s trajectory.
Empowered by the increased rotational understanding from his Third Sphere of Gravity, the whirling spear struck the first platform and pierced through as if it was made of papyrus. More platforms intercepted the weapon’s path. Rival Gravity qi swirled about the weapon, attempting to unravel the rotational forces empowering it. Each successive platform wore down the weapon; by the time the spear broke through the fifth level, its momentum had been reduced to a crawl. It embedded itself halfway through the sixth.
The ebony figure set its flute aside and stood. Echoes of the dissonant song faded away, leaving them in silence save for the soft humming emitted by the platforms. The two Earth cultivators regarded one another, both as still as statues.
Their initial exchange had revealed much about themselves, though Cyril wasn’t quite sure what he was dealing with. Dominions of Earth, Gravity, and…Music? The color of its armor had also appeared to change based on the nature of the flute’s song. He had no doubt this was the embodiment of some important concept, an expression of yin and yang.
This was a bizarre entity he was dealing with, but that was no real surprise. High-level cultivators often pursued unique paths, born from a combination of their spiritual synergies and alternative means of accumulating power. Even if he and the other cultivator had overlapping Dominions, the concepts they utilized most likely differed in significant ways.
Cyril tensed as the ebony figure moved. It flung itself off the top platform, plummeting to earth like a meteor. The figure grew rapidly as it bore down on him. As it closed the distance, he realized it was heading straight toward him.
He cast one Pressure Cantrip after another. Instead of unraveling the technique, the cultivator accepted the blows against its armor. Each impact rang out as if a gong was being struck, but it appeared otherwise unaffected, not even budging from its course.
Cyril flung himself backward moments before the armored figure hit the ground. A nova of sand expanded outward from the site. Cyril landed some twenty feet away, sand splashing against his body. He half-expected some mysterious technique to batter him through the shockwave, but the force was entirely physical.
The cultivator hopped out of the small crater it had left in the earth, landing lightly on one foot, then the other. Did it possess a Dominion of Mass as well, or was it simply harnessing a creative expression of Gravity? Cyril found, more than anything, that he was feeling rather intrigued.
Up close, he realized that the cultivator wasn’t a person in a suit of armor. It appeared to be the armor itself, as far as he could tell. A being forged from metal, though he sensed he was dealing with a human cultivator, or at least the soul of one. It was slender and slightly taller than an average man. Sharp ridges and protrusions jutted from around its joints. The alternating black-and-white strips in place of its hair had clamped down around its head, wrapping it in overlapping bands of thick metal. Additional protection for a weakness, he assumed.
It released its domain, clashing against Cyril’s own. Unsettling vibrations washed over him, disrupting the flow of his qi and setting his mind abuzz. Similar to its flute song. Cyril suspected that if his body wasn’t mostly made of blessed stone, the effect on his flesh and blood would have been devastating.
“What do you want?” he asked.
The cultivator’s domain retreated. All signs of its aura faded away. Cyril relaxed for a moment, until the figure shifted its position, assuming a martial stance.
Despite all the theatrics, this is a true Earth cultivator. Cyril couldn’t help but grin. Those with a primary affinity to the element tended to have some innate similarities in their mindset. One of those ideals was brute force against brute force. Victory through overwhelming strength.
They charged one another. Though it had no facial expression he could see, Cyril sensed a brief feeling of satisfaction emanating from the other cultivator. They met in the middle, both flinging their right arms in unison. Despite the difference in height, their fists collided exactly, as if both had been aiming with the same intention.
The second he made contact, Cyril sent a Pressure Cantrip out of the hand, squeezing as much qi as possible into it. Sand billowed outward from the impact. A ringing sound filled his ears--the metallic man, he realized, was hollow.
Cyril’s hand caved in until it reached the darkalloy prosthetic behind. Dissonant energy flowed out from the other cultivator’s blow, washing over him in a dizzying wave. Thousands of cracks spread throughout his blessed stone body as terrible vibrations tore through him. Fascinatingly, the internal damage he suffered seemed worse than the external.
He stepped back and coughed up a mouthful of ichor. A moment later, his golem body disintegrated, leaving behind his human form, surrounded by a field of evaporating earth qi. He stumbled, his sense of balance disrupted from the vibrational onslaught, but managed to stay on his feet.
A quick glance confirmed that he had given as much as he took. The metallic cultivator had retreated slightly as well. Its right arm had imploded all the way back to its chest, and even its breastplate had caved in. Beyond the fractures in the armor, he saw only emptiness.
The fragments of its devastated limb shifted. In the blink of an eye, the entire arm regrew, and its concave chest returned to normal. Grimacing, Cyril assumed another martial stance, but the other cultivator remained in a neutral position. The bands of black-and-white metal retracted from around its head, sweeping back from its crown in a rough approximation of hair. Its exposed face was uncannily human, that of a handsome man in the prime of his life, all in monochrome black.
“Greetings,” it said, its voice resonant and unnatural. “I have been waiting for you."
