Bab 76: Chapter 55: Consequences
Orion was turning to leave when a faint whistling sound echoed around them. Faey's tears slowed, her gaze shifted with confusion before her eyes widened.
The whistling grew louder, morphing into faint, hollow screams that rose from the earth beneath them.
Orion whipped his head around, a sinking realization gripping him- he truly messed up this time.
A gray mist began to rise from the earth, swirling unnaturally and eerily painting the once serene landscape with an ominous haze.
During his training with Master Shen, he realized that this place was saturated with magic. Every lifeform, from the tallest trees to the tiniest squirrels that scurried about, was connected to it.
Through vigorous training and meditation, he refined his control. Eventually, he could sense the magic around him, glimpsing the threads of energy weaving around him.
Walking idly through a forest or along a road, however, he couldn't sense anything. It had yet to become second nature. He needed to focus to see magic.
But this... he hadn't meant for this to happen.
Orion never believed in superstitions. Why would cutting down trees for shelter or hunting animals for food cause nature to spiral out of control? Survival requires sacrifice.
Sure, if someone went around destroying life for no reason, or hunting for sport- he could understand nature's retaliation. But this?
Even now, Orion justified his actions. Using nature's magic to heal a person- wasn't that restoring life with life? Humans were as much a part of nature as the trees.
Clearly, he was wrong. And now he saw the consequences.
The mist swirled, twisting into shapeless forms before gradually solidifying. Some became humanoids. Their enraged, featureless faces glared with silent fury.
Another took the shape of a wild boar, though it had a far more solid appearance than the rest, tusks glistening under the moonlight.
Among the mist, twisted trees creaked to life, bark peeling back like an open ribcage. More corrupted beings continued to rise, each more disturbing than the last.
"Shadow Spirits," Faey exhaled sharply, hopelessness gripping her as her gaze swept through the hoard. "And so many... There's a greater shadow spirit too." She gestured toward the boar, its defined and material features clearly more prominent than the rest.
Her gaze returned to Orion, whose cold gaze transformed into something more solemn.
Sighing in defeat, he muttered loud enough for Faey hear, "Well, looks like I fucked up again."
"What did you expect- what are you doing?" Faey started to shout, anger flaring in her voice but it shifted to worry as he knelt down, both hands pressed against the dirt. "Stop! Whatever you're about to do, stop it!"
She clawed at the ground, trying to get closer to prevent him in some way.
Ignoring her plea, Orion knelt and focused on the earth beneath him. He could see it- fractures in nature's thread. Splintered strands shooting out like frayed cotton or sharp, jagged wires, giving birth to the shadow spirits now circling them.
A faint, gray mist drifted from each spirit, trailing straight toward him like an accusation.
'Ah... just as they said. They seek vengeance- or balance.' Orion grimly thought, fully acknowledging both the Kinkou Order's teachings and his failure- and arrogance.
The shadow spirits loomed between the wilted trees, lingering at the edges of the dead zone. Crossing the invisible line separating life from this zone, piercing shrieks echoed out as they approached.
Panicking, Faey clawed at his shoulders, eyes wide with terror. "Orion! We need to get out of here!"
Orion's body began glowing a pale green, his arms trembling violently and Faey instinctively retracted her hands in alarm.
"No! Don't- don't do something stupid again..." She pleaded, her hands poised to shove him back. But as she stared closer, her voice trailed off in shock.
Through Orion's shaking, his skin paled and frame was thinning. Faey, stunned, watched as his health visibly deteriorated right before her eyes.
Just like before, Orion's figure had withered into a skeletal husk. Faey could see his ribs protruding, hollow face, sunken eyes, and raspy breaths as he struggled.
For Orion, the concept was the same as before- but instead of using nature, he channeled his own vitality, forcing it back into the wounded earth. Life returned, but not as it should have.
The shadow spirits stopped. Watching. Waiting.
Suddenly, vines erupted from the dead soil around Orion, twisting and curling toward the forest beyond. Petals unfurled, trees began to pulse as color returned, and vibrant life sprang back to life- too quickly, too perfectly.
Flowers blossomed unnaturally, growing in overabundance and twisting into new, unnatural shapes. Bursts of radiant light illuminated the undergrowth. The balance was no longer restored but exaggerated, forcibly bent back into an ideal shape that felt... wrong.
Faey's gaze darted between the shadow spirits dissolving into the earth one by one along with the mist.
'It worked!' Faey thought, bewildered. 'But...how?'
Her voice cracked as she spoke to Orion, joyful but worried. "Orion, that's enough! You did it, it's over-"
A pulse of violet light suddenly radiated outward along the vines and soil into the forest, an electric hum filling the air.
'What am I seeing?' Faey thought uneasily as twisting violet threads rippled and curled around them, bathing the forest in a soft, eerie purple glow.
"Get away from him!" A worried voice cried out in the distance.
"Shit- no!" Orion shouted as ground crackled beneath him.
A final, deafening pulse hummed outward before the energy collapsed inward on itself.
The energy whiplashed back toward Orion, ending in a brilliant flash of violet light and a shockwave outward.
Faey was sent flying back several meters, landing square on her back with the air knocked from her lungs and her vision consumed by searing violet light.
Coughing, she spat some blood into the grass, struggling to focus as the blinding light began to dim.
Silence gripped the forest. No shadow spirits, no haunting screams. The gray, lifeless dead zone and the forest pulsed with fresh life, plants and trees restored.
But Orion was nowhere to be seen.
"Faey!" A worried voice cried out. Akali and Mayyam rushed the now thriving groove and embraced her, their eyes wide with concern as they fell to their knees beside her.
Akali was the first to wrap her arms around Faey, followed quickly by Mayyam. Both clung to her tightly, shedding quiet tears.
Faey couldn't find words. Only pain- physically and mentally- as she clutched them back, trembling. Tears spilled forth as guilt gnawed at her chest.
She had gotten what she wanted. But at a cost.
In the background, Kennen curiously asked, "Isn't this where he first appeared?"
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"AAAAAaaaaa" Orion's form was violent flung through space, the same wild magic that had transported him to Ionia radiated around him. But this time, it was different.
Instead of being pure white with faint distortions along the edges, it was entirely violet. Deep, sickly violet, twisting and curling unnaturally around him.
Unsettled and unnerved, fear clung to Orion as he had no control, no sense of where he was being thrown.
"AGH!"
Orion crashed into the ground, shouting in pain.
Compared to his arrival in Ionia, he still had some strength- but his mind was rattled and disoriented.
Gagging, Orion violently threw up as he crawled to his knees, breathing ragged and shallow.
"No fucking way..."
The familiar smell of rust and iron. A smog that burned his skin and eyes. Air so polluted that one unfamiliar would struggle to breath.
His eyes snapped open, and he was met with a a disturbing, all-too-familiar sight.
The warehouse where the gang battled Silco- and the very place wild magic had torn him away from.
Around him was a caved in, perfect circle formed around his figure. The walls bore blackened scorch marks, and a thin layer of ash coated the every bit of pavement.
"Fucking... REALLY?!"
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone