Solar Mage

Chapter 49: Zidden's End

"Oh, there you are Arthur! Let me help you out!"

She flies up to my crater and easily grabs me with one hand and pulls me down to the floor, my body covered in a layer of warm, healing light.

Wow, she's strong. Gods really are something else.

Just before reaching the ground she drops me. My body instantly reacts and braces itself for impact as I softly land on the ground.

Wow, I know I said it before that this healing skill is overpowered, but to heal that quickly? This is insane. I wonder if I'll ever be able to do that.

"I'm so sorry for that Arthur, please forgive me!!"

She says while releasing her flight and slamming into the ground while deeply bowing down with her head to the floor.

Well, she's not all that bad. At least she isn't completely oblivious and knows how to apologize.

"It's fine, let's just not do this a third time to make this a common occurrence."

Tears of water begin to spew rapidly out of her eyes, creating a current almost at the force of a river.

"BUAHHH!! I'M SO SORRY, IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN!!!'

Huh, I never really noticed it before, but I guess gods cry out the same tears like humans don't they?

She screams out, while banging her head on the ground over and over again, causing the room to shake and small rocks and dust to fall from the walls and ceiling.

"I said it's fine, just stop crying, I forgive you!"

She's going to bury us and all of the treasures I worked so hard to get at this rate!!

After banging her head on the ground one last time, she stops crying and lifts it up, leaving a small crater in the floor and revealing a completely bruised forehead covered in small rocks.

What? She was damaged by the rocks?

"Really? You forgive me–"

I quickly charged at her and knelt down, placing my hand on her forehead to check it.

"AR– ARTHUR?!! WHA– WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!"

She screams out, in a daze. Her face as red as a cherry

"Just be still, I'll be done in a second. This is uncomfortable for me too."

Throughout this entire adventure, I've unwillingly had to touch dirty rocks. Now I'm doing it willingly. This is disgusting, but I have to do it to find out if she can actually bleed.

Pyro's eyes swirl around in circles as I continue to hold her.

"Really? Right now? But my face is all dirty, covered in rocks and tears and this isn't my real body–"

She stops talking when her eyes meet mine, which are full of determination.

What is she talking about? Just stay still!

After her eyes meet mine, she closes her eyes and stops moving.

Good, she stopped moving. But why is she breathing so heavily? Is she that uncomfortable? Well, I should just hurry up then.

I move my face closer to hers and activate Heightened Senses along with Body Enhancement, concentrating fully on my eyes.

At this point, Pyro begins to shake heavily as I begin to move my hand closer to her. And in one swift motion, move the back of my hand across her forehead, dusting the rocks off of her forehead.

Huh– it's completely damaged, the rocks were just so finely crushed that it looked like bruise marks. Looks like I was wrong, I should stop trying to find the similarities between gods and humans. It would be much easier to find the differences.

Pyro stops shaking and opens her eyes, full of confusion as I let her go and stand up, while she falls face first to the ground.

Huh? She fell?

She pushes herself off the ground in a rather pathetic manner, with blood rushing out of her right nostril.

She's bleeding! But how was that slow fall able to make her bleed so much when she wasn't damaged at all even after banging her head over and over, even leaving a crater in the ground?

"Ouch, that hurt– it's too bad you couldn't build up the confidence to go through with it–"

She begins to breathe heavily while wiping the continuous river of blood rushing out of her nose.

"But I can take the lead instead if you don't want to. Huff; huff; huff–"

What is she talking about? No, aside from that, could gods turn into monsters? I've never heard of such a thing occurring before, but it looks like they can!

"No thanks, let's just grab the treasures and get out of here."

She slowly rises without saying a word.

I was joking before, but could she really have turned into a monster?

But then, abruptly, she lunges herself at me, but I swiftly move to the side and dodge her attempt.

She slams face down into the ground once again.

Looks like she isn't. It looks like she's listening to my words and keeping her power controlled now, otherwise, I would've ended up in a crater again.

She struggles, but eventually pushes her head out of the hole in the ground she created.

"Aw, come on Arthur, no need to be shy. Let this goddess take care of everything for you."

Her smile disappears and she remains silent as she looks at me, gazing in the direction of the hole, with a serious, almost emotionless look on my face.

Tin. His body has probably already been consumed by the lava, every part of his body melted by now. I want to ask– to have Pyro bring him back to life, but that would be impossible.

"Arthur–"

Pyro begins to say before I cut her off, putting on a cheerful smile.

"Don't worry about it, let's get out of this stupid dungeon."

Pyro's smile also returns.

"Yeah!"

She's a great friend. She can be annoying at times, but I guess even someone with her personality can gain some wisdom after a thousand years.

We walk slowly over the floor of hardened magma, the slime released after I broke its mana core.

"What a shame, there's barely anything that's salvageable from this. Almost everything has been swallowed by the lava."

I say without expressing an emotion of sadness. I reach into my robes and take out Sagey.

"Take every treasure in this room that you can."

"YES, ARTHUR."

The small stone ball says, immediately flying off and storing every visible treasure in its inventory.

Huh, well that's new.

We continue to walk slowly, without exchanging any word until we reach the end of the room, where there is a single blue warp gate standing alone. Me and Pyro stand in silence as we wait for seemingly nothing.

I was wondering what the exit was going to be like. So it was a warp gate huh? Zinc Zidden was an engineering and alchemy genius far ahead of his time, yet his name was never recorded in history. I wonder, was there a sign during the creation of this dungeon that spelt out Zidden Dungeon in the human language? Because there is no such thing anymore and I doubt the discoverer of the dungeon just managed to name it Zidden by accident. There are so many mysteries in the world. I wonder which one I'll discover next.

I look at a wall close to the warp gate with a few engravings on it.

What a shame, I'm sure Zidden would have had a lot to say in his final message. But nothing can be done because of that lava slime's disgusting slime that's hotter than anything I've ever felt flooded the entire room, there's nothing that I can do.

Then, Sagey flies back to me, catching my attention as I concentrate on the empty room behind it, nothing but gray, hardened rock.

"COLLECTION COMPLETE"

"TOTAL ARTIFACTS COLLECTED: 74"

Hm, that's actually not that bad. 74 is quite a large amount. If I remember correctly, the Wolkan only had around forty ancient to divine tier artifacts

"ESTIMATED ARTIFACTS DESTROYED: 251"

WHAT?!?! NOOO!! Wait, no. Calm down Arthur, maybe the artifacts weren't even that good.

"OUT OF THE 74 ARTIFACTS COLLECTED: 2 ANCIENT TIER ARTIFACTS, 15 DRACONIC TIER ARTIFACTS, 57 LEGENDARY TIER ARTIFACTS"

WHAT?!?!?! IF THERE WERE 2 ANCIENT TIERS OUT OF 74, THEN OUT OF 325, THERE COULD'VE BEEN AT LEAST EIGHT IN TOTAL!!! AND THERE COULD'VE EVEN BEEN A DIVINE TIER ARTIFACT IN THE MIX! NOOOO, YOU DAMN SLIME!!! I SWEAR WHEN I DIE, I WILL DEFINITELY KILL YOU OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!!"

I stand, holding my head and gripping tightly on my hairs, utterly defeated. In a burst of controlled anger, I grab Sagey tightly and stuff him back in my robes.

"Arthur, I– I'm sorry, I was watching the whole time but–"

I place my finger on her lips, her mouth immediately stops moving.

"I know, we can talk about it later. I need some time to... make my peace. You can leave me with Rachel now."

Pyro looks down, face full of sorrow and eyes looking as if she would burst out crying at any second. But she doesn't.

I was far too unfair to her, I had thought I was able to control it but I guess couldn't and ended up projecting my anger on her.

"Alright."

She says as a beam of orange light shoots down from the ceiling, as if there was nothing there to block it.

Pyro's beautiful, divine, almost translucent orange spirit begins to leave Rachel's body, starting to ascend up the beam of orange light only looking upwards.

"Wait, Pyro–"

Her ascent stops as she looks back down at me.

"I'm sorry about what I said earlier. Thank you for saving me and Rachel. I will come visit you soon."

Her spiritual body flies out of the beam of light and warmly hugs me.

"Thank you for understanding Arthur. You might not have realized it before but the majority of your anger isn't directed at others, but yourself. I hope you don't take my next words lightly. It wasn't your fault, so don't beat yourself up about it."

We both looked at each other with emotionless eyes, but full of comprehension. Pyro breaks that cycle, smiling cheerfully at me before she returns back to the pillar of light and disappears.

"Well, now I'm just left here with you."

I say while turning to Rachel, now lying on the floor motionless.

I knew she had many secrets, but to be the saintess? No wonder why she had that insane artifact and didn't care that much that I was the apostle. Considering that we're both the two most important figures in the Church right now, we're going to be spending a lot of time together. Hehe, I just had a great idea to get my revenge on what she did.

I grab her and carry her in my arms before stepping through the warp gate.

Wait, aren't I running out of time? I should've asked Pyro to send us back!