The Exalt Cultivation Fantasy

Act 4: Fallen Heaven - Chapter 735: Auren, The Index

"Chances of success is 1 out of 13566. Merging two opposite bloodlines in one person will result in immediate death." His lips moved without his will, forced to speak out what his mind calculated based on the immense knowledge crammed into it. His head ached, and his heart was cold. Auren shifted his arms inside the metal casings and wanted to cry. His first memory had been sitting in his chair, speaking whatever his captors wanted to know. His head was locked under an iron helmet, nails embedded in his skull.

"Who are you?" A strange man entered, killing one of his captors, who exclaimed before everything above the jaw was severed.

"I am the Index. I have the answers and can calculate anything you wish to know." He answered again, not from his own free will, bound to speak what the New Dawn had hammered into his brain.

"No. I meant your name. What is your name?" The man asked.

"I am the Index," He answered again.

"Then, you don't have a name? What were you before they put you in this chair?" The man paced around and rummaged in the files.

"Inconclusive. Incomplete. Irrelevant. Ask another."

"I see…" The man read a document and took a seat in front of him. His dark visor studied the pages and then stared ahead at him. "Born here, the one successful case of the evolved mind. No name. No parents. No reason to exist other than to answer and please their lunacy."

"Irrelevant. Ask a question."

"My purpose is to answer and calculate."

"I meant, what do you want? To walk? To see the world outside? To be freed from this chair?"

"There is no need. My purpose is to remain here." He answered.

"Hmm." The man stood and stepped forward. He pulled the nails out and removed the helmet. He tore off the metal casings on his arms and legs,

"This is against protocol. I must remain here." He said.

"This place will be destroyed soon. Your purpose isn't to die in the wreckage, is it?"

"My purpose is to answer and calculate. Dying is not among the required functions."

"Then, follow me." The man lifted him and carried him on his shoulder. Despite asking to follow him, the man acted in oppression and forceful nature. "Calling you Index is a bother. If you have to answer, then answer this: what name do you want?"

"I am the Index." He answered flatly.

"Auren, it is." The man rejected his answer and came up with a name. From where he did not know, but the name…was odd. Hearing it brought a strange sensation to the mind, a weird tingling that warmed his heart, its beating increasing twice-fold.

"Auren…is acceptable. Ask Auren anything, and I will answer."

…….

Auren wheezed and stretched his bloody finger, taking a moment to calm the trembling, and tried to draw another mark. The blood had already dried on his finger, so he cut and made a fresh wound on his palm, dipping his finger in the seeping blood like a quill to ink. After a second, he laid a new node in his formation, ever-growing in complexity and size, and streaked several lines, connecting it to others close by and far away. Looking back, he noted he was a few feet away from the edge, having started from the center and layering out and farther.

'Hold it together, Auren. Hold it together.' He clamped his lips shut and endured the numbness and chill afflicting his arms. Placing a mark on nearly every level of the dark tower and then creating the crucial main configuration drained much of his blood, his face pale and eyes dulling with the loss of each precious droplet. But he persisted and started on the new layer, placing all of his focus on completing his task. The crux of the plan relied on his formation, or else all would be lost, and the Lord's plan would be in vain.

Strangely, as Auren carried on his work, the field of his vision expanded and became clearer the longer he connected to the dark tower's network of Ein. He could see it all. A war raged on below, on the lower disks and the ground beneath. All twelve hundred of their people were not here, but a few hundred did arrive. Fenu and the Azure Sea Company, the beasts of Zeret, and the others in service of his Lord had joined the fray, clashing against Gilbert's group. Celestina and the Brilliant Drake Empire warriors held the line against Gilbert's wives. The four Champions knocked the titan off the floor and pushed it off the edge, buying more time since it needed to climb up.

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Lightning flashed nearby and nearly struck him, but a strange force pulled the thunderous bolt and redirected it elsewhere. Auren couldn't help but divert part of his attention to the two monsters clashing in the sky, one carrying a smirk as the other frowned deeper every exchange. Gilbert raised his broadsword, clouds gathering under the starry sky and turning black, coursing with lightning crackling inside. At Gilbert's motion, the lightning took on the shape of blades, countless swords capable of stabbing every inch of this area. The thunder of thousands of lightning deafened all sounds, warcries mute, and screams unheard. Everyone stopped fighting and stared, some in fear, some in awe, and some with pride, at the terrible might of the Grade Nine.

Ironically, they shone like the glass crystals of a chandelier meant for the grandest of halls, brighter than the suns and masking the stars from sight. Auren had seen one before in the main hall of the Haven Academy when he observed a great gathering and feast for the graduates. But here, there was no music or dancing nor the laughter and smiling of the young, hopeful Exalts. Everyone, older than most and survivors of long years of brutal war, basked in the unforgiving light that descended. The blades rained down in a downpour of sharp lightning, with thunderous booms and chirps assaulting the ears as sparks flashed and arced, filling the air with static.

Amid the overwhelming light, one man's shadow remained in defiance. Lysander widened his smirk, elation and delight filling his yellow eyes. His body, bruised and decorated with wounds in which lightning fizzled out of the dripping blood, rose higher. Lysander clenched his fist, clad in diamond and pulsating tremors of gravitational might, and punched once. Shards of diamond and fine dust formed a vortex, rotating around a dense spinning gem. Lysander's vortex attracted the lightning blades and sucked them in toward the center.

Dust dulled the edges, and diamonds battered and broke the blades. A series of explosions resulted in quick succession, like the rapid beating of drums. Auren clenched his hand and held onto the disk platform, holding out against the frightening storms that formed in the wake of the two powers' clash. One of his eyes shut, but the other could still see through the thin slit of its eyelids. Lysander stepped back several steps and hunched forward, gripping a lightning blade that stuck out from his shoulder. In fact, he had been stabbed by several. On the other side, Gilbert had a few scrapes on his annoyingly handsome face, lacking any serious injuries. However, the Ancestral Mark was duller than before.

"Boring," Lysander said, spitting out blood that crackled with lightning, turning into smoke in mid-air. He lost his smile and stared at Gilbert, signing in clear disappointment. "Your heart's not in the fight. You're more anxious than I am, and you have the advantage. Constantly glancing at that large golem and that guy in the center. Distracted during our fight? I won't even need whatever they have planned to win."

His back faced Auren. Dirt and rocks floated and formed words, hidden to Gilbert but not to him. 'Hurry up.' The rocks said. Auren slapped his own cheeks to concentrate and carried on. Gilbert's enraged shout diminished and muffled as Auren ignored the happenings around him, drawn into the intricate world he was creating. All meaningless distractions departed from his mind and no longer led his thoughts astray. His hand moved fast, driven by the single-minded purpose. This formation was the end of all they had worked toward, and he saw it to be the new beginning.

His Lord, Marcus, Eve, Santen, Kragg, Restel, Astrid, and more depended on him. The world turned silent and dark, his red formation shining clearer and thriving. Auren dragged his knees and encircled the formation, finishing the latest layer, the shape and form nearly complete. A hint of pride welled up in him. He was accomplishing what so many had failed to do before, with countless pioneers and prodigies falling short of his creation. Anytime someone spoke of formations, the first thought of anyone listening would naturally be the city formations that defended them. That was all they were good for, according to common sense, a notion he denied and sought to defy.

Formations often had three functions: slaughter, defend, or enhance. Cities used veins of Ein to power the defense formations, and airships and structures depended on concentrated crystals of Ein or an immense supply for it. Slaughter formations were utterly useless, too easy to spot and stationary, unable to be placed on a moving airship for a direct collision. An unassuming army might be culled by the rampant Ein of such a formation, but wars saw little success as people struck down the nodes with ease. Enhancing formations had more versatility but required an immense amount of resources and often overwhelmed the people meant to benefit from it. All three types were horrid.

Auren grinned, starting on the final layer, inscribing the last nodes of the newest formation in existence, the spell formation. Golems and weapons had intricate cores that allowed the use of certain abilities if the right components had been used, but formations could not invoke a spell until now. He traced his finger and connected two nodes, forgetting the numbness freezing his hand. The excitement, the delight, overwhelmed him and warmed his heart. Dissecting a spell and creating a formation that represented it from scratch was considered impossible, but he had done it.

If only the predecessors who came up with the slaughter, defense, and enhance formations could see him. Whoever conceived of connecting nodes of Ein to amplify and manipulate had started the wondrous world of formations, and Auren desired to be the one who carried it to its proper glory. Perhaps, one day, formation masters would wield formations into battle, slaughtering their enemies while protecting their allies. A single flick of a wrist would create an intricate formation that needed no use of a vein or a mountainous chunk of crystal Ein.

'What do you want to do? What do you want?' His Lord's voice echoed, asking the unanswered question from years ago.

"I want to serve you and bring you victories. I want to be the greatest formation master and change it." Auren drew one last circle and laughed, tearing up at the completed matrix of nodes and lines written in his blood. He leaped to the center and recalled the Champions, their last reserves of Ein kept for this single moment. Uriah faced the north, Mekal turned to the south, Gavuel looked east, and Rahel stared to the west. Raising a hand, Auren slammed his palm on the central node.

"Activate!"