Aurelion walked through the dark, silent passages of the goblin nest, moving from the throne room back towards the main chamber.
In his body every muscle protesting but the physical pain was nothing compared to the storm raging in his mind.
The violation, the forced bargain, the loss of control... it all coalesced into a single, burning desire.
A familiar feminine voice echoed in his mind, a presence that he now had to unfortunately tolerate. "Aurelion, I can feel the anger in your soul. I know the situation you're in is difficult, and I know that even my speaking now will only anger you further. But this was the only way. As you can see, I healed Zura."
Aurelion's mental voice was a cold wall of dismissal. "I do not wish to hear your voice again until I take you to the World Tree in Ulfgard."
He stepped into the main chamber, the one with multiple passages leading off into the darkness. He had expected it to be empty, assuming the remaining goblins had fled.
"They must have escaped," he muttered aloud, turning towards the cave's main exit.
But just as he was about to leave, the sound of multiple, skittering footsteps echoed from a dark corridor to his right.
He turned his head, his single golden eye piercing the gloom. Within the passage, he could make out a cluster of wide, terrified eyes glowing in the dark. Three pairs of large, yellow eyes, and perhaps sixteen or eighteen pairs of smaller ones.
A few timid whimpers came from the darkness.
Aurelion began to walk towards them.
"Aurelion," the voice in his head pleaded, "they are young ones."
"Shut up," he snapped back in his mind.
He quickened his pace. One of the larger goblins, seeing him approach, took a fearful step back. With a surge of fury, Aurelion thrust his spear forward, impaling the creature through its chest.
A shriek of terror echoed through the cavern, and the other goblins began to scatter in a panic.
Aurelion turned his attention to the small, crying younglings. He raised his left hand, and blue sparks of lightning began to crackle at his fingertips, striking the small creatures and sending them into convulsions.
As the cavern filled with the high pitched screams of the young, another of the large goblins, this one with a swollen belly, charged at him with a guttural roar.
It was slow, its bely hindering its speed. Aurelion noticed the swollen abdomen and, with deliberate cruelty, plunged the tip of his spear directly into it.
The creature let out a choked gurgle and collapsed. He ripped his spear free and, without a moment's hesitation, hurled it at the last of the large guardians as it tried to flee down a passage.
He then turned back to the small, whimpering forms on the ground.
A cold smile touched his lips. The blue sparks crackling around his hand began to twist with tendrils of his black energy. One by one, the whimpering sounds stopped.
When silence finally returned, Aurelion stood for a moment amidst the carnage. He looked at the mangled bodies.
A deep, profound sense of disgust welling up inside him. A disgust for their weakness, their filth, their very existence.
He turned his back on the dead and walked towards the exit.
As Aurelion emerged from the goblin nest, he saw that the sky was darkening, the setting sun painting the swamp in shades of orange and deep purple.
He climbed from the chasm's edge back up into the swamp proper and began to walk.
Eventually, he found a large, half ruined tree whose thick roots provided a semblance of shelter. He would spend the night here.
He laid his pack out and took out a piece of dried meat. He stared at it for a moment.
"My fourth day in this damned place," he said aloud to the air. "Five lily petals remain." He took a bite, the tough meat a chore to chew. "If I don't want to be eat a damn goblin or some cursed insect tomorrow, I must finish this."
The very act of speaking to himself was a concession, a way to fill the silence in his mind so he wouldn't have to engage with his unwanted guest. Even this thought only angered him more. He clicked his tongue in irritation and continued eating.
"A swamp lily," he mused lowly. "It wouldn't be in a small place like the Gulper's pond."
He knew he needed to search in a wider, more open wetland. "But even the creatures here aren't that strong... though I could encounter another beast on the Gulper's level."
He finished his meager meal, carefully packed away the rest of his rations, and leaned back against the tree, linking his hands behind his head.
"My muscles burning," he said. "If I encounter a Gulper level creature in this state, I might not be able to escape. Using Limit Breaker again is out of the question; it would tear my body apart."
He let out a slow breath. "I'll handle it somehow."
He closed his eye, but not to sleep. Despite his bone deep exhaustion, he would not allow himself that vulnerability while have a guest. He sank into his void focus, a state that would rest his body while keeping his mind a razor's edge, waiting, watching for any move from the entity within.
In this state of heightened awareness, he could perceive the faint energies of the plants around him, the life in the soil. And he could see the foreign presence woven into his own aura. Thin, white threads of light interlaced with the energy field around his head. He knew instantly what they were, and he pointedly ignored them, keeping his guard raised.
After a few hours of silent vigil, the familiar, feminine voice echoed in his mind again.
"Swamp lilies are a special plant," it began. "They grow in shallow wetlands. What makes them special is that they emit a harmonious energy, one that matches their environment. They are like living energy stones, containing power within themselves. But because they are alive, they must be preserved carefully after being picked."
Aurelion ignored it, focusing on cycling the energy in his Core, directing it through his aching muscles, expelling the used, stagnant energy and forcing his Core to generate new, pure power.
The voice continued, undeterred. "Like the energy you are circulating in your body, the lily circulates its own energy through the living things around it."
He continued to ignore it.
"In return for the energy it gives," the voice went on, "the lily takes an equal amount back from the creatures it spreads its energy to. This is how it sustains its own growth. It has no flesh or bone, but it is a living thing, and over time it has evolved this method for its own development. Every living being can evolve, even those of flesh and bone. If they learn, they can develop in this way too."
Aurelion's focus wavered for a fraction of a second. That last comment had caught his interest. He compared it instantly to the crude methods others used absorbing raw energy from energy stones, risking impurities corrupting their Core.
His mental voice was a cold. "I have no need for a new meditation technique, especially not one that involves taking the energy of another. My energy and I have no need for it. I do not wish to hear your voice again until our business is done. The only reason you are in this body is because of a debt I owed to someone else. Nothing more."
He then shut the entity out once more, his mental guard raised, and continued his silent, watchful meditation.
After Aurelion's final thought, the voice in his mind remained silent for the rest of the night.
Aurelion waited, until the first, gray light of dawn filtered through the swamp.
With a low grunt, he rose to his feet, stretching his aching muscles. The aftereffects of Limit Breaker were a persistent, but he started to use to it.
"This body needs meat to heal faster," he reasoned aloud. "And these dried rations aren't enough." His gaze shifted towards the direction of the goblin nest. "The Gulper's meat... that would be more than enough for my body right now."
A new thought spurred him to action. "The lizardmen likely spent the night here as well. They might come for the Gulper."
He moved quickly, pushing through the dense foliage back towards the battlefield. After a time, he arrived at the pond.
Goblin corpses floated listlessly in the murky water alongside the massive, half submerged body of the dead Gulper, which had listed onto its side.
He waded into the water, his single eye fixed on the creature's flank. "Meat is meat, even from a frog," he muttered, drawing his dagger. He carved a large, thick slab of flesh from the portion of the creature that was above the water, the meat was pale and firm and he wrapped it carefully and stored it in his pack.
His gaze then moved to the Gulper's bloated stomach. "One last thing remains," he whispered to himself.
He wreathed his dagger in a faint golden energy and plunged it into the creature's tough underbelly. The hide was thick, resisting his efforts. He gritted his teeth, sparks of lightning now crackling along the blade as he pushed with all his might, tearing a long, ragged gash.
The stench that erupted from the creature's stomach was vile, and its contents spilled into the water around him, but he ignored it. He rummaged through the half digested gore with the tip of his dagger, searching.
Finally, he found it.
A bloated, half digested form bobbed to the surface. Skulk.
Aurelion stared down at the ruined corpse of the goblin who had taken his eye. "I told myself that I would tear your corpse to pieces," he said, with low, chilling whisper. "And I keep my promises. There is no peace for you even in death, you son of a bitch."
He slung his pack onto the shore and retrieved his spear. He held it aloft, and the tip began to crackle with sparks of lightning. With a roar, he plunged the spear downward, directly into the corpse's left eye socket.
There was a sickening crunch as bone shattered, and he twisted the spear, obliterating what was left of the goblin's head.
He pulled the spear back while the water swirling with gore.
"I always pay my debts," he said to the empty air and turned his back.
After methodically cleaning himself and his weapons in the pond, he climbed back onto the shore and he pulled out his map.
"If the map is correct, I should be near the center of the swamp now," he calculated. He determined his route, and without a final glance at the carnage behind him, he left the pond and began to walk deeper into the swamp.