The Villain's Apocalypse-Chapter 50: Runes
Chapter 50: Runes
"Take some rest, Mother."
Cassian suggested, exiting the room with a satisfied smile on his face. ’Finally, my two primary goals are almost complete now, ’ he thought, recalling the previous goals that he had set before starting his journey.
Obtaining Orb of Elementus and curing his mother–both were nigh impossible challenges at that time but, now he had almost achieved them, despite his shitty luck and even more shittier system.
[...]
Tch
Ignoring the floating screen, he headed straight to his room. On his way, he ordered the maids not to disturb him in any kind of situation.
"For the rest of the day, my room is inaccessible to everyone. Got it?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Mmm...you may leave."
The maids bowed slightly and left, leaving him to his own thoughts.
He swiftly entered his room and locked it from inside, adding a seal on the doorknob to prevent anyone from entering forcefully.
phew
Wiping that non-existent sweat off his forehead, he rechecked the locks one last time before calling out the System.
"Now, Take out Astralis."
woosh–!
A long, wooden staff materialized itself out of thin air, landing right on Cassian’s hands. The staff radiated a subtle violet aura, flickering like a flame in the wind. The mana within the room shook lightly under its mighty presence, bowing down as if welcoming the king. It had a unique presence, belonging completely to itself.
’Worthy of a fragmented cosmic treasure.’ He smiled, brushing past its surface. Its wooden surface was inscribed with ancient runes that seemed to shift ever so slightly when observed too long.
He held it tightly, feeling a rush of excitement and thrill coursing through his veins. The thing that he was trying to do now was something only he, a person with knowledge about the future, could perform without any errors.
’The concept of merging runes is still foreign at this time period.’ He thought, recalling a certain rune theory founded by the Lunatic Mage of the Mage Haven.
’A lunatic obsessed with the rune magic, calling it the wonder of the ancients. Who could have guessed he was right all along?’
Shaking those thoughts away, he took out a wooden brush from his ring and placed it on the table beside him. The brush had an appearance, similar to that of a painting brush, with silky brush hairs on its tip and a feet-long handle.
Next, he took out several common and unique materials, that he had obtained from the Silvers Mountain Range and Uravis’s Trial rewards. There were countless herbs, body parts of some unknown creatures, and even vials of blood, placed cautiously on the table.
After placing down everything, he took out an old, tattered parchment and slowly spread it on the floor, covering half of the room with it.
haa
’Now the difficult part.’ A soft sigh of resignation and annoyance, echoed through the room, originating from the the room owner himself. His face didn’t hide away the annoyance he felt, recalling the next steps from here.
He had to personally etch the entire parchment with various runes, filling it from top to bottom, without leaving a single spot behind. Furthermore, these runes were unlike the currently applicable runes, found everywhere. They were the ancient runes from the olden era, used by the ancestors, during its research and creation.
’Ah, What a drag–!’
Holding the brush gently with his right hand, he took out a massive leather-bound book from his ring and placed it atop the parchments.
thud–!
With a small thud, it landed on the parchment, creating a soft paper-crunching sound. The book had a thick leather cover on the front and was engraved with weird runes all over it.
’Oh, it’s flipped in the opposite direction.’Annoyed by its heavy weight, he extended his left arm and traced it across the front runes before flipping it down, displaying the front title.
[Ancient Rune Carving Handbook]
This was the book that contained all the ancient rune symbols required for this plan of his to work perfectly. Cassian opened it carefully, each page emanating a faint magical hum—as if the runes itself had a will, watching the reader’s every move.
"I’ll need to start with the Rune of Containment..." he murmured, flipping through to a page scrawled with tightly woven spiral patterns. He dipped the brush into a mixture of powdered moonroot and Abyssal Crimson Drake’s blood, the concoction shimmering faintly under the candlelight.
The original potion had another titan-ranked creature’s blood in its mixture. However, Cassian slightly modified the concoction by using the Abyssal Crimson Drake’s blood, which contained a minuscule amount of its magical properties and its ancestral genes.
’A dragon huh,’ He muttered, licking his lips with anticipation.
It was well known that lesser draconian beings like Drake, Wyverns, Wyrms, etc had a similar ancestor–the Ancestral Dragons or the True Dragons. If he could obtain even one percent of their bloodline, it would instantly enhance his abilities by leaps and bounds.
’Imagine merging the ancestral dragon bloodline with my own bloodline, the bloodline of Sunborns. The possibilities would be endless.’ He couldn’t fathom how strong he would be if it were to happen.
The Sunborn bloodline was a powerful bloodline, originating from their ancestor, Aelius Von Luminaire, The Monarch of Hellfire. Aelius had merged his affinity within his bloodline before his ascension, therefore creating the Sunborn bloodline. The Sunborns were blessed with flames–a trait that granted them the opportunity to awaken a mutated affinity related to flames. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
Hellfires, Sunfires, Frostfires, etc were all mutated affinities, linked closely with their bloodline.
’I wonder what my mutated affinity could be?’ He pondered briefly.
The original Cassian had died long before the story had begun, so he had basically no clue where to start from and unlike normal affinities, mutated affinity only awakens once and that too purely depends upon luck.
Some people are born with it, some people accidentally awaken it during their life-and-death encounters, and people like him, with a bloodline, could awaken their mutated affinity by naturally awakening their bloodline.
’I wonder, is the golden hair and eyes too a genetic mutation? Were my ancestor’s physical traits different from mine?’ He had no clue. The records of previous ancestors were something he had no information about. It’s not that he couldn’t access them but rather, the previous Cassian had other priorities.
’Wait no, he did visit the ancestral shrines during his title ceremony. How come I don’t have memories of that?’
Again, he had no clue. ’Guess I can’t trust the memories much in this matter.’
He shook his head, pushing those thoughts in the back of his head. Although daydreaming about gaining something amazing sounds fun, he had some serious work ahead for now.
Returning back to the present, he continued the rune-carving process.
With practiced precision, he began to draw the first rune.
Lines, curves, and loops formed under his hand, one after another. The brush strokes were confident, yet carried a tension only someone walking the edge of mastery would know. One mistake, even a single misdrawn line, and the entire parchment would be rendered useless—or worse, backfire.
Sweat began to gather on his brow.
[The stroke at the right is missing a line.]
"I know," he hissed, adjusting his grip. "It’s been a while since I worked on something this delicate."
[Shall I assist you?]
"No." His voice was firm. "Your voice will only irritate me further. Just notify me when I’m missing any strokes or lines."
[Noted.]
’When did this thing gain so much sentience?’
[The left rune is too faint.]
His hands were slow yet smooth as they flowed down the parchment.
Rune after rune took shape, covering the parchment in an intricate lattice of ancient knowledge. Time became irrelevant. The sun outside dipped below the horizon, and the candlelight grew softer. Still, Cassian worked, never once breaking focus.
Finally, after what felt like hours, he set the brush down.
The room was quiet—eerily so.
The parchment, now filled with a complete circuit of ancient runes, pulsed once with violet light. The light surged through the entire formation, linking rune to rune like an interconnected neural system.
Cassian stood and stepped back, admiring his work.
’Now... the fusion.’
