The Elven Cultivator

Passing through the purple halo at the city-state’s edge, Anton officially entered.

The moment he stepped inside, he could clearly feel that the concentration of elemental energy in the air was significantly richer than it was outside.

’So that’s it… This is an Earth Vein Node.’

A realization dawned on Anton.

’No wonder the Mind Flayers chose to build their city-state here.’

He had just been looking for an Earth Vein Node, and here one was, right under his nose.

’If I can take this place, I could build my own cultivation abode.’

Anton’s heart burned with excitement, but he quickly suppressed the feeling and continued forward.

The ground beneath his feet was paved with flat, orderly stone slabs, though they were scattered with rubble, dust, and a mess of footprints.

The buildings on either side, though bizarre in style, were well-preserved. The fleshy textures on the walls still pulsed faintly, emitting a light, sweetly rotten scent.

Just as he had seen from the outside, the buildings here showed almost no signs of damage.

If it weren’t for the stone statues he saw every so often, you would never guess that a war had just taken place here.

Anton’s gaze fell upon the statues scattered along the sides of the alleyway.

They were frozen in various poses.

Some stared blankly into the distance.

Others were captured mid-flight, turning to flee.

Still others were slumped on the ground.

But without exception, every face was a mask of terror and despair.

Their faces were clearly discernible and their expressions eerily lifelike, as if time itself had been frozen at the press of a button.

Anton paused before a few of the statues to observe them closely.

The stone shell was grayish-white and coarse, covered in fine cracks like a dry riverbed.

He tapped one gently with a finger, producing a dull TUK TUK sound. The texture was hard, no different from real stone.

“Petrification…”

Anton murmured.

He had already learned from the fleeing Mind Flayers that the invaders possessed the ability to turn living beings into statues.

However, this petrification effect was different from the abilities of creatures he knew of, like basilisks or medusas.

Their petrification was typically a slow, gradual process. The victim would first feel their limbs stiffen and their movements slow before they gradually turned to stone.

But the Mind Flayers and their thralls before him had clearly been petrified in a single instant.

’Only the Power of Law could achieve such an effect.’

’Clearly, the enemies who killed them were all at the Golden Peak rank.’

Lost in thought, Anton continued onward.

The isolation Array the Mind Flayers had set up also had some effect within the city-state itself.

His Divine Sense was compressed to a hundred-meter radius around him, allowing him to barely perceive his immediate surroundings, but preventing him from scouting for dangers farther ahead.

He had no choice but to slow his pace and remain cautiously alert.

The Sword Pill quivered deep within his Qi Sea, ready to fly out at a moment’s notice.

The deeper he went, the more statues he encountered.

Eventually, he was seeing one every few steps.

He even saw a few exceptionally tall statues, which he presumed were once Golden Peak, High Tier Mind Flayers.

Surprisingly, Anton reached the cavern at the city-state’s center without encountering any of the monsters that had attacked it.

’Those invaders… have they already left?’

The thought crossed Anton’s mind, but he didn’t lower his guard.

At the cavern entrance, dozens of statues were clustered together. Some faced the same direction, while others stood back-to-back in a circle, as if they had been organizing a defense.

But no matter how they struggled, none had escaped the fate of petrification.

Without breaking stride, Anton passed through the statues and entered the cavern.

The cavern’s interior was vast, roughly the size of two standard soccer fields. Its domed ceiling soared to an estimated height of over two hundred meters at its apex.

The ceiling and walls were studded with countless glowing fluorite crystals, whose brilliant light bathed the entire cavern in a day-like luminescence.

Anton’s gaze was quickly drawn to the sight in the cavern’s deepest recess.

There, a massive pool sat, more than twenty meters in diameter and what looked to be several meters deep.

The pool must have once been filled with some kind of liquid, but it had now mostly evaporated, leaving only a shallow, murky, yellow-green layer at the bottom that gave off a pungent odor.

In the center of the pool, a massive head was submerged.

The head was the size of a full-grown adult’s body. Its shape was similar to a Mind Flayer’s, but it was far more bloated and deformed.

Its grayish-white skin was covered in deep wrinkles and furrows, resembling the bark of a weathered, ancient tree.

Four tentacles dangled from its jaw, submerged and motionless in the murky fluid.

The Mind Flayer elder brain.

Anton recognized it at a glance.

The being that controlled the entire Mind Flayer city-state was now a corpse.

Its body was covered in gruesome wounds, as if it had been pierced by some sharp object.

A Mind Flayer elder brain has extremely high resistance to all kinds of Magic, and even to the Power of Law.

Many spells and Law attacks that could kill a High Tier Mind Flayer would have their effects greatly diminished when used against an elder brain.

In stark contrast, however, an elder brain’s defense against physical attacks was appallingly weak.

Its body was so soft and fragile that an ordinary human with a weapon could easily kill it.

That was why an elder brain had to be guarded at all times by High Tier Mind Flayers, or even Mind Flayer arcanists, and could never stray from their protection.

The elder brain is the neural center of a Mind Flayer colony.

Every individual Mind Flayer maintains a connection to its brethren through the elder brain, sharing intelligence and receiving commands.

If the elder brain dies, all Mind Flayers lose their psychic connection to it, becoming independent individuals no longer subject to its control and coordination.

More importantly, without the elder brain to supply and amplify their Spiritual Energy, the might of a Mind Flayer’s own Spiritual Energy drops significantly, and their overall strength inevitably wanes.

The only hope would be for a sufficiently powerful individual among the survivors to absorb the deceased elder brain’s residual Spiritual Energy and memory fragments. After a long metamorphosis, it could evolve into a new elder brain, gathering the remaining Mind Flayers to establish a new colony.

But from what Anton had seen on his way here, this Mind Flayer colony would get no such chance.

And he wouldn’t allow them one, either.

Just then, Anton’s expression shifted.

His Divine Sense detected a presence approaching from a passageway on the far side of the cavern.

He snapped his head up just in time to see a massive figure burst from the mouth of the passage.

It was a creature of exceedingly bizarre appearance.

It looked like a floating sphere composed of grayish-white crystal clusters, over two meters long. The clusters slowly opened and closed, like a lung breathing, and emitted a faint, sighing sound.

In the center of the crystalline mass was a long, thin fissure that resembled a mouth.

’A Sighing Crystal Cluster.’

Anton immediately recognized the monster’s origin. ’Just as I thought,’ he mused.

’Based on the Mind Flayers’ descriptions, I guessed the monsters that attacked their city-state were likely Sighing Crystal Clusters. And now, I see I was right.’

Despite its appearance, the creature was actually a lesser dragon species.

But its bloodline was different from the lesser dragons of the surface world—it was a descendant of Demon Dragons!

Legend tells that in ancient times, a number of Giant Dragons committed the grave sin of blaspheming the Dragon God. For this, they were exiled from the Dragon Race, eternally forbidden from entering their lands.

At the time, the Dragon Race already ruled the entire Dawn Continent.

Even the deep seas fell within the Dragon Race’s sphere of influence.

The only exception was the Dark Nether Realm.

Left with no other choice, these exiled Giant Dragons entered the Dark Nether Realm.

Having lost the Dragon God’s protection, the lives of these Giant Dragons in the Dark Nether Realm were far less comfortable than those of their kin on the surface world.

Establishing a Dragon City was out of the question; they were fortunate just to gain a foothold and cultivate servants and thralls.

Over the long ages, influenced by the environment of the Dark Nether Realm, the souls and bodies of these Giant Dragons gradually changed. Their minds became twisted and insane, and their actions grew cruel and violent.

In time, they came to be known as Demon Dragons.

They became a minor offshoot, distinct from the Dragon Race of the surface world.

Over nearly ten thousand years, the Demon Dragons bred with countless subterranean creatures, leaving behind a great number of lesser dragon species.

The Sighing Crystal Cluster is one such species.

They are descendants of the Stone-Condensing Demon Dragon.

A Sighing Crystal Cluster’s “consciousness” is distributed across every one of its crystals, making it impossible to lock onto. Consequently, they are naturally immune to mental and Spirit attacks, which makes them a perfect counter to Mind Flayers.

Furthermore, upon reaching adulthood, a Sighing Crystal Cluster will generally reach the Golden Peak and will invariably awaken the Law of Petrification.

This is a lesser Law, a sub-Law of ’Stone Condensation’ which falls under the category of Mystic Laws.

A Sighing Crystal Cluster that has mastered the Law of Petrification constantly radiates petrifying energy. Any creature, aside from its own kind, that draws near will be contaminated and turned to stone.

For this reason, Sighing Crystal Clusters have no fear of swarm tactics.

This also explained why the buildings in the Mind Flayer city-state had suffered so little damage.

It was simply because the Mind Flayers were defeated too quickly.

With their mental abilities countered and their slave army rendered useless, a swift defeat was inevitable.

The entire war probably ended not long after it began.

As for why the Sighing Crystal Clusters would attack a Mind Flayer city-state, Anton had a pretty good idea.

Due to their physiology, Sighing Crystal Clusters have no interest in ordinary food; they can survive simply by absorbing ambient elemental energy from the air.

Therefore, their desire to forage and attack is extremely low, and they rarely initiate attacks on other creatures.

There is, however, one exception.

They are zealous in their search for locations with high concentrations of elemental energy to use as settlements for their kind.

An Earth Vein Node, for example.

Once they find a suitable location, they will settle down and cease their migration.

Anton guessed that a clutch of Sighing Crystal Clusters had likely migrated nearby, stumbled upon the Earth Vein Node where the Mind Flayer city-state was built, and attacked without a second thought.

The result was obvious.

In truth, the Mind Flayer city-state had simply been the victim of a senseless disaster.

’These guys really drew the short straw.’

Anton shook his head inwardly, his attention returning to the Sighing Crystal Cluster before him.

Sighing Crystal Clusters were extremely rare. In his two lifetimes combined, this was the first time Anton had ever seen one in person.

The first thought that crossed his mind was, ’The Stone-Condensing Demon Dragon must have had some wild tastes. What kind of creature did it even breed with to create something like this?’