The Third Key
The water’s shape crumbled before Shadow Spear.
But it was too soon to celebrate.
The mana sustaining the musk ox did not scatter. The water that spilled away quickly gathered itself back into form, building up like an ice troll.
There was no room to panic.
For all its corruption, it was still a creature made by a spirit. There was no chance it would go down so easily.
“Bind.”
He still had mana to spare.
Effort built steadily over time did not lie.
He needed to raise the power of Shadow Spear a little more.
If he could summon that same feeling he had when he caught the wendigo—if Shadow Spear began to speak to him again…
…
No. That was foolish.
That feeling had never come when he fought the ice troll, either.
He could not gamble his life on something so uncertain.
“Shadow Trap.”
A shadow deepened on one side of the lake.
He could not complete Shadow Trap in a single instant.
It was a spell that demanded concentration, so he had to give just as much care to the process as to the casting itself.
He could only maintain one spell at a time.
He had not gained the luxury of multi-tasking, the kind that let one mind hold several spells at once.
Without Bind, he dodged the musk ox’s charge.
“Ghk!”
It should only have grazed the water, but a long gash opened along his arm.
He had no time to worry about the blood scattering through the air.
The musk ox’s movement was not over yet.
“Bind!”
He abandoned the Shadow Trap he had worked so hard to make.
By tying up its ankles, he avoided the charge this time.
Stay calm.
A sweet metallic taste rose in his mouth.
Seeing blood made his breathing roughen.
This was harder than he had expected.
He had to dodge while still maintaining Shadow Trap.
It was almost like trying to look left and right at the same time.
He steadied his breathing.
If he reacted only after seeing it with his eyes, it would already be too late.
He had to read the pre-movement and move first.
At least once, maybe twice.
He needed to evade the charge without Bind’s help.
By then, even if his concentration wavered a little, he could still complete Shadow Trap.
“Shadow Trap.”
Could he dodge it?
Yes, more than enough. The musk ox’s charge was similar to the cattle he had seen long ago in Ulbazar Swamp.
The cattle that the Ubalnier had trained again and again.
Lawrence had watched them from right beside the pen.
One mistake was enough.
He pushed off with a wide leap, never letting go of the thread of concentration.
Sharp pain lanced through him.
Lawrence bit down on his lower lip.
Blood welled through the torn gaps in his leather armor.
He had failed to dodge.
It wasn’t a matter of guiding it.
He had simply been too careless.
It was only a little difficult to change direction, that was all.
It wasn’t that the beast couldn’t turn its head.
The musk ox was watching him closely.
It was fine.
Even if he had drawn blood, Shadow Trap had not vanished.
Separate from the pain, his thoughts remained cold and clear.
Sharpen your focus.
Don’t lose your calm.
He wove the shadows together like a tower carefully laid brick by brick.
It happened faster than even Lawrence had expected.
The completed Shadow Trap stretched a long shadow out across the lake.
In this state, he could not aim it at the musk ox.
But that didn’t matter.
This was something he had learned when he first took up Shadow Trap.
Back then, Lawrence had checked the results of every spell that interfered with Shadow Trap one by one.
Shadow Trap and Shadow Spear meant power.
Shadow Trap and Fire Tail meant firepower.
Shadow Trap and Bind meant restraint.
And Shadow…
“Shadow.”
Shadow met Shadow Trap.
There was no explosion.
Like something struck by wind, Shadow Trap was gently shoved aside.
The shadow he had released onto the lake reached the front of the musk ox.
…
Lawrence’s mouth formed a perfect O.
A sound that should never have become words welled up from Shadow Trap.
A roar that shook the earth.
The rending blast quickly turned into a ringing in his ears.
He braced himself for the impact.
Lawrence hunched down.
Moments later, a fierce gale swept over him, and the force of the blast crashed through his whole body.
No voice came out.
The heat-wave turned into a raging current and roared past.
He clung desperately to the ground so he wouldn’t be blown away.
Rain that should never have been there filled his ears.
The uninvited guest caught in the explosion kept battering at him over and over.
The pain did not last long.
His numb back was only burning hot.
His senses drifted away as though his body had broken down.
Grinding his teeth, he caught hold of his slipping mind.
The impact, which felt as though it would never end, vanished all at once.
Thick dust triggered a fit of coughing.
Lawrence covered his mouth with his sleeve and raised his head.
The musk ox caught in the explosion had vanished without a trace.
The massive blast left behind by Shadow Trap was beyond anything he had imagined.
“Child beloved. You are beloved by the untrue.”
Through the ringing in his ears, the spirit’s voice reached him.
“Yet there is nothing more dangerous than a power you cannot control.”
So there was still something left?
The spirit that had risen from the lake spoke again.
“Child beloved. Prove the wholeness of your mind.”
For an instant, their eyes met.
The spirit’s gaze was blue as the sea and deep as the night sky.
Shimmering light.
A whole world manifested inside those pupils.
He was being drawn in.
A strange sensation, of himself growing farther and farther away.
The vague tint spreading through his mind stole away his sense of reality.
Lawrence knew this sickening feeling.
He had felt it when he climbed the Gangama Mountains with Pete.
The phenomenon of Skarma taking root in the mind.
He would never forget how he had lost consciousness and collapsed then.
As soon as he realized what it was, Lawrence slammed his head into the ground.
Within that dazed haze, only pain shone bright.
His split-open head burned.
Blood trickling down as if seared by fire woke his consciousness.
“Accurate judgment. Swift action. Excellent, child beloved. And yet, for that very reason, this body cannot help but test your qualification.”
It wasn’t over.
Through the blurred veil of his vision, he saw water splashing upward.
He had his answer before the thought was even complete.
The droplets that fell began to take shape, just like the musk ox.
Winter bear.
Musk ox.
Reindeer.
All of them northern wild animals he had encountered on the road.
And the spirit’s creatures were not limited to a single beast.
There were five in all.
Worst possible outcome.
His body was already nearing its limit.
A price paid in flesh to take bone.
He already knew how powerful Shadow Trap was.
But he had not expected the shock to be this severe just from being caught in the aftershock of the explosion.
It was a spell always aimed at enemies.
He had only now truly understood how dangerous it was to stand exposed to its power.
Regret came too late, no matter how quickly it arrived.
A head-on battle was reckless.
This was not the time to fight.
Retreat was the right choice.
But he could not go back empty-handed.
Lawrence’s gaze shifted to Al Azif floating above the lake.
There were spells that could retrieve objects from a distance.
He had not learned them for situations like this, but he did have telekinesis magic.
What a shallow line of thought.
The spirit would not wait for him.
Before he knew it, they had already begun to move.
This was no time for telekinesis.
To escape this crisis, he needed an attack spell ready.
He had no time to prepare Shadow Trap.
There was no room to spare, and his body was in the worst possible state.
Even if he matched the timing perfectly, Lawrence himself would not survive.
Just as he was about to prepare Fire Tail instead, as a desperate measure, something unexpected happened.
A familiar book rose between the creatures and Lawrence.
The Key to the Spirit World.
Before he knew it, the grimoire had slipped free of his bag and was summoning a wind.
Not a fierce gale.
A gentle, soft breeze.
For a moment it seemed the pain was fading, and then, astonishingly, the wound began to heal.
What the wind brought with it was peace.
In a place where life itself was on the line, a fleeting calm descended.
For some reason, it felt as if a vast presence stood beside him.
“Veles?”
Impossible.
And yet the wind seemed to answer his voice.
The breeze that had escaped the eye of the typhoon suddenly became a storm.
The approaching water-shape scattered in a whirl of wind.
The water, having lost its form, tried once more to gather itself back together.
But before the wind, such effort was meaningless.
Like leaves caught in a raging current.
The water blown apart by the wind could not do a single thing as it wished.
This was not a phenomenon created by the Key to the Spirit World.
It was Veles’s legacy.
Magic formed by the seal placed in the grimoire’s mouth.
How had he not realized it? Even while journeying across such a long road, Veles must have prepared this wind for Lawrence, so he could make his own way through the world alone.
…
There was no time to be sentimental.
He wiped away the corners of his reddening eyes.
Unlike longing, the wind never stayed in one place for long.
As the wind died down, the water began to gather again.
Before it could take shape once more, Lawrence whispered the activation word.
“Wind.”
It was nowhere near Veles’s whirlwind.
Still, Lawrence’s own breeze was enough to scatter the water apart.
This wind would not stop.
Wind was the most basic of wind attribute spells.
Compared to untrue-attribute magic, it was pitifully simple.
Did the spirit realize that as well?
The water blown apart by Wind quickly returned to ordinary water.
“I felt the breath of a long-missed wind. Child beloved, were you one touched by the lord of wind?”
The lord of wind meant Veles.
At the spirit’s quiet question, Lawrence nodded.
“I met the lord of wind in Dragon Valley.”
“...A wind’s vow is a thing none can refuse. Very well. Then this body shall also answer that ancient vow.”
Had it lost any intention of testing him further?
The vague hostility vanished with that answer.
The spirit drifted calmly across the lake.
Al Azif descended from above.
There was no need to go fetch it himself.
Like Codex Gigas, Al Azif was drawn into the seal.
At last, the Keys to the Spirit World were gathered in one place.
The three keys trapped inside the seal throbbed with violent reaction.
Hummm.
He could not reach out.
The completed Keys to the Spirit World writhed in midair.
“Do not worry. It is the seal made by the lord of wind. Sooner or later, wind will subdue the Keys to the Spirit World.”
Just as the spirit said.
There was no need to be anxious.
It was a seal made by none other than Veles.
The same had happened with Codex Gigas.
Given time, the Keys to the Spirit World would surely quiet down.
“A moment’s reprieve has been granted. Child beloved. You need not remember it. You people call this body Skarma.”
“Skarma?”
Trying to steady his breathing, Lawrence blurted out the question before he could stop himself.
“That’s strange. The Skarma I saw had a different form.”
“Human memory is so terribly imperfect. It is no great surprise to mistake this body for someone else.”
A mistake?
In other words, that statue was not Skarma.
“That was the form of an ancient sinner. An age before the Spirit World and the mortal world were divided. Sinners who committed unforgivable crimes in the era of the gods.”
At the word sinner, the Temple of Sorrow came to mind.
The temple’s caretaker had said it before.
The Silent Penitents, who had committed unforgivable sins.
He had said they repeated repentance until they became prisoners condemned to be captured by others.
So much had happened at once that his thoughts were still in disarray.
And the aftereffects of battle had not yet faded, either.
After taking a moment to gather himself, Lawrence spoke.
“There’s something I want to ask.”
“If you seek an answer, then ask, child beloved.”
“I’ve been to the Temple of Sorrow. Is the ancient sinner you’re talking about the Silent Penitents?”
“You could say that. Or you could say otherwise.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“Not every sinner truly sinned. You must understand that some are punished simply for having partaken of that age.”
“…”
Not everyone had committed a crime.
And yet all of them had to bear the punishment.
Decades. Centuries. Or perhaps millennia.
It was no longer something one could complain about as unfair.
Merely sinners who repeated repentance until the end drew near.
That was what the Silent Penitents who remained in the Temple of Sorrow were.
“What on earth did they do to deserve that…?”
“The span I may share with you is but a fleeting instant. Now that reprieve has ended, child beloved, you may yet seek the answer one day, so long as your journey does not end.”
A dazzling light flooded the lake.
Had the seal finally taken control of the Keys to the Spirit World?
But then Lawrence realized something was wrong.
The light did not fade.
Rather, it grew so intense it was almost painful to keep his eyes open.
His dark premonition had not been wrong.
Light leaked from the Keys to the Spirit World and washed over the lake.
Lawrence heard a sharp crash—the sound of the seal breaking.
“Your waiting was far too long. Ah, at last, am I returning to my homeland?”
Through the sheets of light, Skarma’s voice reached him.
The brilliance born from the Keys to the Spirit World soon swallowed everything.