The Primordial Record

Chapter 1209: Scars In The Earth

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Second Dan Ascendant Verana led a group of fifteen Ascendants, four at the first Dan and the remaining eleven being normal Ascendants who were grateful to work beside an esteemed Second Dan Ascendant as they sought to close the pit of hell created by Shisu, the missing Third Dan Ascendant who must have gone crazy and unleashed a field of devastation that would scar the realm for an eternity.

The forbidden technique Shisu had unleashed had burned a featuring scar on the land, evaporating the ocean and leaving a hole of the Calamity gods below the earth to unleash their presence in the outside world unchecked.

Their presence was spreading corruption in the form of darkness that was infecting any living thing on the surface, turning them into raving Calamity beasts, spreading death to hundreds of continents, and this toll of death was increasing every day. Slowly but surely, this scar on the surface was tipping the balance between Ascendancy and Calamity on the lower realm.

With one Ascendant Sun fighting a war and the other not leaving the heavens, there was barely any light on the lower realms, and the cries of the suffering mortals reached the heavens itself, but no immortal cared.

The Calamity Gods that should have fled deep into the earth after a short time on the surface could now collectively fight against the light of the Ascendant Sun and withstand its destructive light before the Calamity Suns would rise again to strengthen them.

These sixteen Ascendants had been tasked to cover up the scar in the earth, forcing the Calamity gods to retreat, thereby giving the ocean a chance to cover up the area and slowly heal it from the corruption that had taken hold here.

In the beginning, Ascendant Verana thought that this task would be grueling but still achievable, although rare that such devastating techniques were unleashed on the lower realms, it had still happened in the past a number of times, and those scars were healed with a careful administration.

The scale of Shisu's technique was expansive, but many Ascendant battles on the surface usually led to scars on the earth, before now, the Calamity gods below would not dream of staying on the surface for a long time because the scorching rays of the Ascendant Sun would drive them below, and so the earth even without intervention would heal and the ocean would sweep over it, but now the light was failing and they could no longer leave this scar to heal by itself, the rot had become too deep, and the natural state of things had become upended.

Ascendant Verana remembered the precise moment he and his group stood above the massive crater that was filled with darkness. He had been struck with the incredulity of this moment, he heard of this task and had collected it without much thought, knowing that it would be difficult but was a necessary assignment, and he would not have trusted anyone else to perform it.

However, standing over a crater that stretched for almost a million miles, all of which was filled with the miasma of death and madness that the magnitude of Shisu's folly, a fellow Ascendant with the same rank as him really sank into his consciousness.

This world could no longer heal, and yet the Ascendants seemed not to have come to this despairing realization as they waged war on the surface or hid in the heavens, all of them trying not to see that their very foundations were being eroded under their feet.

Ascendant Verana chose at this time to begin making the changes that he could, and when he was done here, he would petition both Ascendant Suns and show them the tragedy being unveiled underneath their noses, even if such a thing led to his eventual demise by their hands.

At this moment there was an Ascendant Sun overhead, and they had noticed that when the light of Ascendancy was above, the field of Calamity gods would cover the crater with a blanket of darkness in order to hide from its gaze. The Calamity god no longer ran from the light, they simply waited for it to fade, and the light was fading more quickly as the day went by.

Were the Ascendant Suns giving up on the lower realms, Ascendant Verana hoped that was not the case, although with a single Ascendant Sun overhead, the damage to the bodies of the Calamity gods was not fatal due to their impossible regenerative speeds, it still caused them great pain. If there was nothing to hold back these foul gods then the war was over and the heavens would not be safe.

Ascendant Verana saw this as the truth, as he observed that when the darkness of Calamity took the place of light, the crater below would transform into a nightmare, as endless fields of tentacles would arise from the depths and reach for the heavens, it was as if they were worshiping the Calamity Suns above, and the corruption they would spew out would darken the space for miles.

Without the light sparkling them to the earth, what would stop these gods from arising and assaulting the heavens?

'As long as I have life in me,' Ascendant Verana thought, 'This travesty would never take place.'

The tried and tested method to heal the wound on the earth was a bit difficult but fairly straightforward.

Since the Calamity gods resided below the earth and then were further suppressed by the weight of the ocean which had been discovered to contain hidden potent properties that could subdue these nascent Calamity gods, the obvious step was to push the Calamity gods underground and then fill up the earth, this would dissipate the influence of the gods over the area and allow the ocean water to return, thereby sealing them in place.

Simple in theory, extremely difficult, and complex in execution. The first problem that would arise of course was that the Calamity gods would not allow themselves to be easily suppressed below the ground, they would fight back and even after they were suppressed and the earth was covered, they had to hold down the pressure on the ground for long enough until the ocean had reclaimed back its territory, else the Calamity gods would simply burst out from the ground.

The Ascendants in this mission had all been carefully selected for their powers and were focused on earth manipulation, force field applications, and general energy control. They were to slip in, force the Calamity gods into the earth, and seal it while weathering the retaliatory strikes from the Calamity gods and the ocean would complete their task.

It was agreed that the Ascendants would be entering the bubble of darkness when the Ascendant Sun was high in the sky because the Calamity gods would be more sluggish during those moments and they could easily be suppressed. It was a shame that the Ascendant Sun could only last for barely four hours daily, and if they wanted to achieve their goals, they would have to be quick.

It took a few moments after their descent to realize that they were wrong about the scale of this disaster, and now five months and twelve dead Ascendants later, Verana was no longer fighting to close the wound but escape with his life to share the news.