Malevolent Warlock: Sin Of Eternity-Chapter 332: Three immortal roads

After settling his inner core for days, Leon finally felt it.

The energy from the dead dragon.

It had been sitting inside him like a coiled storm, restless and volatile, but now it began to move. Slowly. Deliberately. Spreading outward from his core and filtering into his limbs, his bones, the very fabric of his body.

He didn't rush it.

He sat still and let it come.

However, he couldn't absorb everything. Try as he did, a stubborn mass of energy refused to disperse. It settled low, just below his navel, dense and immovable like a stone lodged in still water.

(I should be able to use this energy to break into the transcendent stage.)

Leon sat with that thought for a moment.

The amount was vast. Abundant. More than enough to facilitate a leap in strength under normal circumstances.

However, entering the transcendent stage demanded something more.

It wasn't just about having enough energy. It never was.

It demanded a fundamental change in Leon. A shift that energy alone couldn't force. He knew this. He had always known this.

He let out a slow breath through his nose.

"That's enough of that."

He opened his eyes.

Standing up, Leon rolled his shoulders once and walked out of his room, stepping back into the town center for the first time in days. The light hit him differently outside. He squinted slightly.

Rather than heading toward the administration building he turned and made his way to the market right behind it.

"This place is out of sorts still."

He said it quietly, more to himself than anyone.

The market was full of different wares, stocked to the brim. Fabric, tools, dried goods, strange artifacts displayed on worn wooden counters. But there weren't many people around patronizing them.

The stalls sat mostly quiet.

It catered more to outsiders and travelers than locals. That much was obvious just from the arrangement of things, the way the vendors watched the road more than the crowd.

Leon moved through it without hurry.

He stopped at a stall run by an old wrinkly woman, her eyes sharp despite her age, tracking him the moment he approached. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"Hello." Leon pulled out some coins and spread them on the counter without ceremony. "I would like a recent map of the central continent."

The old woman's eyes dropped to the coins.

She wasted no time.

The map came out from somewhere beneath the counter and landed in front of him. And in the same motion, quick and practiced, her sleeve swallowed the gold coins whole.

Not a word about the price.

Of course it wasn't the going rate for a map. Not even close.

But she wouldn't volunteer that information to Leon.

(And I won't volunteer that I noticed.) Leon thought in his mind, tucking the map away with a neutral expression.

"Brother."

A voice came from a particular corner nearby.

"You seem to be new to Fire Town."

A young man was already moving toward him, having clearly been watching from the moment Leon laid coins on that counter. He crossed the distance quickly and thrust his hand out before Leon could fully turn around.

"Why don't you let me show you around?"

Leon looked at him.

The eagerness was almost admirable.

"I am new." Leon responded without much fuss. A cold smile settled on his face.

Dispite the strangeness of this clan settlement, it was quiet and unassuming. That was exactly what he needed. It was the best place to begin searching for the inheritances he had received from Altor, somewhere no one would think to look twice at a stranger asking questions.

"Good." The sleazy looking man leaned in slightly, his grin widening. "Just one gold coin…. I'll take you around. Inside the town, outside the town, anywhere you want."

He had never seen a gold coin in his life.

That much was written all over his face, in the way his eyes kept drifting back to Leon's coin pouch. He had no skills, no capital, no power to speak of. What he had was knowledge of this place and a quick enough mind to sell it.

"That's fine."

Leon smiled and shook the man's hand.

"My name is Amir."

The man introduced himself as Locan.

Locan had grown up in Fire Town from childhood. His mother and father had gone missing at a young age, leaving him with no safety net, no family to fall back on. But he was quick on his feet and quicker in his mind, and in a place like this that was enough to survive.

Fire Town was a small subsection of Fire City, which was itself a small subsection of the Element School's territory. The school kept order over most of it. Beasts were handled. The real threats were only the criminal sort, the lawless ones who slipped through the cracks.

Relatively peaceful, all things considered.

Locan showed him around. Stall to stall, street to street, chattering the whole way.

Then Leon started walking toward the outskirts.

"We are really heading out?" Locan's chatter died off. A frown replaced the easy smile. "I…. was only joking."

He hadn't been joking. But he hadn't expected Leon to actually move.

"I can double the pay." Leon glanced back at him, expression easy. "I'm just quite interested in one of the attractions out here. The Three Immortal Road." He paused. "Heard it's somewhere around here."

Locan stared at him.

There were a lot of attractions scattered across the central continent. Legends and stories told to children at a young age, places that became real destinations for those who grew up and gained enough strength to go looking for them. Call it tourism or nostalgia or something else entirely. That was just how it was.

"Double?" The frown shifted.

Then the greed moved in and replaced it completely.

"Immortal Road? It's not that far away." Locan grabbed Leon by the arm. "Come with me…."

He didn't wait. He dragged Leon forward and pushed straight out past the town's outskirts, into the treeline, moving fast like he was afraid Leon might change his mind.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Elsewhere.

Several groups of individuals sat scattered around a waterfall, perched high at the top of a massive valley. The sound of the falling water filled the air constantly, a low roar that had become background noise to people who came here often enough.

One of them stared out at the cascading white water with a flat expression.

"Three roads lead to three paths." He muttered. "And three paths lead to hell."

"It's immortality." Someone to his side corrected, not looking up.

The first young man didn't respond to that.

He let the silence sit for a moment.

"Hell." He said finally. "If only you knew how many bodies are buried below that waterfall."

He stood up and left the spot without another word, his hands loose at his sides.

This place had become more of a relaxation spot for the members of the Five Elements School than anything else. An inheritance ground in name only. It had been like that for a long time now, long enough that most people had stopped thinking of it as anything more.

No one was stupid enough to actually climb that waterfall path.

Not the young ones. Not the old monsters from the school either.

It was nothing but a death trap, and everyone who knew anything about this place knew it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​