Death... and me

[Hard to say.] Sister Orb replied. [It might break out of its shell in the very next second, or it might happen one hundred years later. Who knows? It’s not something we should care about unless it happens when we’re just beside it.]

Rean nodded. ‘Nevertheless, it’s too dangerous. I will have to tell Aien to move his village somewhere else. Otherwise, they will be the beast’s first meal as soon as it escapes.’

Aien noticed that Rean went silent for a moment and couldn’t help but ask, “Is something wrong? Is this crystal’s energy not enough?”

Rean looked at Aien and sighed after hearing his question. However, just as he was about to tell Aien to move his village away, Sister Orb added another thing. [You don’t need to have them move. Did you forget what this Flash Beast is after?]

Rean felt like he was an idiot. Obviously, he understood what Sister Orb meant. Nonetheless, he decided to explain to Aien what this crystal was. “This is called a Convergence Crystal. Inside of it, there’s a creature called a Flash Beast…” Rean then took his time to explain everything.

Aien felt terrified when he heard the whole story. He wasn’t well aware of what it meant for the Sacred Land to not be able to deal with it since he didn’t know how strong the Sacred Land was. However, he was absolutely sure that his village people couldn’t contend against it when the strongest power of their continent couldn’t do anything either. “Let’s leave! I will prepare our village to move out straight away!”

Aelua couldn’t help but ask, “But elder, we need a high concentration of Earth Element to survive. Where will we find it?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Aien replied. “If this thing comes out, we will die even faster than if we try to find a new place.”

Rean patted Aien’s shoulder to calm him down, telling him, “Don’t worry, don’t worry. If there’s a safe place in this Realm of Gods, that would be your village.”

Aien and Aelua were surprised to hear that. “How come?”

“Did you forget what I said?” Rean told them with a smile. “This Flash Beast will always look for the place with the highest concentration of Divine Energy. To be honest, I think the reason why this entire area has so little Divine Energy is because of this thing here. As soon as it comes out, it won’t even notice the existence of your village. The cultivators there are just too few and weak. Even if your town gets ten times stronger and the cultivators reach the Transition Realm, the Flash Beast would still completely ignore your existence. You have no need to move out.”

“I-Is that so? Are you certain?” Aien still found it quite risky.

Rean nodded, reassuring him. “I’m certain. Besides, this thing is perfect for the formation.”

Aien couldn’t help but let out cold sweat as he asked, “Is it okay to touch it?”

“Of course not! Hahaha!” Rean laughed as he replied. “I won’t try to rob the crystal’s energy. Instead, I will use the energy that it’s naturally emanating to power up the Triple Layer Formation. For the crystal and the Flash Beast inside, it’ll be as if nothing had changed at all. We don’t know when the beast will come out either, so you might be in for centuries of free energy. You really shouldn’t move away from this place.”

Aien didn’t know whether to be sad or happy from his words. “Fine…if you’re telling us it’s safe, then it should be.” Aien knew that Rean needed their Earth’s Remnants, so he wouldn’t tell them to stay there if there really was a risk of death.

Aelua, however, couldn’t help but ask something else. “That’s good and all. However…was this cave supposed to be like this? Do all Convergence Crystals create a perfect square-shaped chamber around themselves?”

That was the issue, right? It didn’t matter how Rean, Aien, Sister Orb, and Aelua looked at it. This place was definitely built by someone or something. There’s no way it took this form on its own. That also meant someone knew of the crystal’s existence.

“Now that you mention that…” Rean added, “Looking at the state of the walls and the ground, I can guarantee that not a single living soul has appeared here for a very, very long time.”

It was then that Rean had an idea, so he asked Sister Orb. ‘Sister Orb, while this thing isn’t out, would it be possible to teleport it away? That would be a very useful way to get rid of the problem.’

[Hmm…it’s definitely possible. However, you would need some ridiculously powerful teleport formation. Especially since it has to be sent past the continental barriers. I don’t think the Sacred Land of this continent has any Formation Master capable of doing such a thing.]

Rean shook his head, clarifying himself, ‘I’m not talking about us teleporting it away, but that it was teleported here.’

[That’s…very likely.] Rean’s words reminded Sister Orb of the entrance to this chamber. It was a rectangular-shaped gate, but it was incomplete and missing a part of it. If a teleport formation was used, it would make sense that only part of the gate came together as the teleport formation was built with the Convergence Crystal in mind only. The rest of the things simply didn’t matter as long as one could send the crystal away.

Rean nodded in agreement. ‘Then this place isn’t really where the elemental convergence is happening. It’s somewhere else. Sister Orb, since the convergence isn’t here, will this Flash Beast ever be born? After all, it lost its source of power, right?’

[On the contrary, my dear Watson. Without its source of elemental convergence, this Flash Beast will likely pop up a lot sooner. After all, it will feel hungry far earlier. Well, it doesn’t change the fact that it might be now or in the next who knows how many years.]

Rean sighed in relief after hearing that, as it would probably take a long time. Since the time it would take for the beast to hatch was so big, it gave them plenty of time.