The Sinful Young Master - Chapter 291
291: The Chaos elves – 7 291: The Chaos elves – 7 “He must really hate me being here,” he said finally, knowing the words were inadequate.
“It was long ago,” Ekatarina replied.
“But for the long-lived, memory does not fade as it does for humans.
Vareth sees in you the reflection of those who took everything from him.” “And you?” Jolthar asked.
“What do you see when you look at me?” Her silver-flecked eyes studied him with an intensity that made him want to look away, though he held her gaze.
“I see possibility,” she said at last.
“Chaos incarnate in human form.
A convergence that should not be possible, yet exists nonetheless.” “Your ancestor saw chaos as a tool to achieve his selfish goals, and we couldn’t accept that.
But you are different, and I can tell the Elder had seen something in you which made him vouch for you,” she said and paused.
Jolthar watched her; silence ensued.
He guessed that Elder had seen his connection with the goddess, and it may have made it favourable to him.
She rose to her feet in a fluid motion.
“Rest well, child of Kaezhlar.
Tomorrow’s training will test you in ways you cannot anticipate.” As she walked away, Jolthar wondered if her words were merely a statement of fact or a deliberate warning.
With the Ael’koryna, it seemed, nothing was ever simply what it appeared to be.
– One week had passed; Jolthar had begun to settle into the rhythm of his training with the Ael’koryna.
In just a couple of days, he started to live like them and eat like them.
The villagers were warming up to him and shared their food with him.
It was because of how his chaos was visible to them.
They could see the familiar aura around him, like he was one of their own.
His mornings with Vareth, while still brutal, no longer left him completely exhausted.
His afternoons with Ekatarina had opened his mind to concepts of chaos manipulation that challenged everything he thought he understood about power and control.
On this particular morning, however, Ekatarina met him at dawn instead of Vareth.
She wore travelling clothes-dark leather that seemed to shift and ripple like a living shadow and boots that made no sound against the pathways of the settlement.
“Today, we go elsewhere,” she announced without preamble.
“Your training requires…
space.” “What about Vareth’s session?” Jolthar asked, though he wasn’t entirely disappointed at the prospect of missing another morning of having his endurance pushed to its limits.
“He knows.
This lesson takes precedence.” She turned and began walking toward the edge of the settlement.
“Bring only what you wear.
We will not need provisions where we are going.” Curious and slightly apprehensive, Jolthar followed her past the outer ring of dwellings and into the mist-warped forest that surrounded the Ael’koryna territory.
The trees here were even more twisted than those within the settlement, their branches forming impossible patterns that hurt to look at directly.
The air itself seemed thicker, charged with chaotic energy that made his skin tingle.
Ekatarina moved through this alien landscape with practised ease, following paths that weren’t quite there-routes that existed only when she stepped upon them, vanishing again the moment she passed.
Jolthar struggled to keep pace, his human senses overwhelmed by the constant flux of reality around them.
“Where are we going?” he called to her as they began ascending what appeared to be a mountain path, though the mountain itself seemed to shift position when he wasn’t looking directly at it.
“To a place where chaos runs pure,” she replied without turning back.
“To get some fresh air, which would be brimming with life.” They climbed for what felt like hours, though the position of the sun never seemed to change.
The violet haze that pervaded the lowlands grew thicker here, until it seemed they were walking through coloured mist.
Strange sounds echoed from unseen sources-not quite animal, not quite elemental, but something in between.
Finally, they emerged onto a plateau near the peak of the mountain.
The top of the hill is not flat but has a slightly bumpy surface.
And the surface had a lot more to offer.
The sight that greeted Jolthar took his breath away.
A small waterfall cascaded from nowhere-the water seemed to materialise in mid-air before plunging into a pool that glowed with its own inner light.
Around the pool, crystals of impossible colours grew in formations that defied natural law.
“Beautiful,” Jolthar breathed.
“And dangerous,” Ekatarina added.
“This is one of the oldest chaos wells in our territory.
The water you see is not water-it is liquid possibility, the raw stuff from which the chaos is formed.” She approached a crystal formation near the pool’s edge and pressed her palm against it.
The crystal responded by opening like a flower, revealing a hollow interior where something gleamed in the strange light.
From the hollow, Ekatarina withdrew a sword.
At first glance, it appeared to be a simple weapon-a straight blade perhaps three feet in length, with a crossguard and grip wrapped in what looked like black leather.
But as Jolthar’s eyes adjusted to the chaos-saturated environment, he began to see its true nature.
The blade wasn’t metal-it was crystallised chaos, formed into the shape of a sword but retaining all the mutable properties of its source.
Colours shifted along its edge, and its very outline seemed to blur at the periphery, as though it existed in multiple dimensions simultaneously.
“This,” Ekatarina said, holding the weapon out to him, “is Vorthak.
It was forged from the heart of a chaos storm three thousand years ago by the greatest Weaponsmith our people have ever produced.” Jolthar hesitated before reaching for it.
“I can feel it from here.
It’s…
alive.” “In a sense, yes.
Chaos-born weapons exist in a state of constant potential.
They are shaped by the will and power of their wielder, but they also shape their wielder in return.” She extended it further toward him.
“Take it.” “Me?
Isn’t that yours?” “It doesn’t have any owner, and this sword is a special sword which we use in training the young generation.” “Come on, take the sword and hold it.”