Chapter 320 You Underestimated The Wrong Guy [Part 1]
The journey to the hot region was tedious. It was for this reason that Northern had commanded Pangu to go back with Fano and wait for them in the Ice region.
Although Cal objected to this idea, saying it was best that they all moved together and came back together.
But Northern thought of it as a dumb idea. No good came out of walking together. They were a lot in this cohort.
Three Northerns, minus the original, one was carrying Ulzred who surprisingly was still unconscious till now, there was Lamla the Corpse Eater, Raven and Cal himself.
The cohort was of seven; if he was to add Koll and Fano that would be nine. For some reason, Northern felt that number was needless.
Besides, they will still be coming back to the cold region after defeating Sura and retrieving the core from the depth of the volcanic mountain.
No matter what Cal said, Northern turned deaf ears to it. Even when Cal said this was an issue he could easily solve by dispelling his clone and allowing him to carry Ulzred, or even Raven could do the job of carrying if Northern didn't want to.
But Northern didn't agree with him, he didn't oblige to any of Cal's suggestions and claimed his position as the leader.
"If you were going to keep telling me what to do, why didn't you just go ahead and be the party leader yourself?"
It was then that Cal's incessant proffers stopped. And they peacefully, for the main time, continued their journey forward, trailing beneath the spectral light in the sky.
When they left the Ice region, the day had dawned. Their journey consummated two days and one night which they spent with barely enough rest.
As neither of them knew what they were planning. Although Northern made sure to get enough rest.
How he did that was simple: he retreated into the Limitless Void to do so.
Just like how he could retreat his consciousness into the Void, he could also do the same with his physical body. However, Northern had always been worried about the sudden absence of his physical body and the all-of-a-sudden presence of it.
However, with three clones actively around, he could make himself disappear and no one would suspect the unusual.
Although at a point, Raven ended up asking him why he kept making one of his clones disappear and appear again.
That one was an observant one, so Northern was kind of expecting it. But he didn't give her an answer other than:
"I'm just checking something."
It was in that conversation that he was also warranted to ask her,
"Do you trust him?"
Given the fact that Cal was a bit away from them and couldn't hear them, or else he has some kind of superhuman hearing—there was no better time for such a question to be asked.
And her response was:
"I don't know... I don't trust him but I trust you. Do you trust him?"
Northern clicked his tongue silently in disgust.
'Why does her response always have to be weird?'
He muttered to her,
"I don't trust him, not even one bit."
Their conversation for that time was short. They talked about Raven's initial plan and why she'd just abandon it to follow him.
But she allowed him to understand that Terence was in perfect control of the plan and told him not to worry about his share of the cores; she intended to keep her promise to the very end.
However, Northern was still bothered as to why Raven did what she did.
It made no sense to follow him into the rift which she had a number of cores waiting for her which she could use to reach the stage of a Sage.
She could even take his portion and hope for him to die, hence becoming an Ascendant, although that might prove to be more tasking than whatever any of them had had to face to proceed in rank.
He didn't understand her line of thinking at all, and why she would put herself in jeopardy for the sake of a guy that she barely even knows.
'Maybe she likes me...'
Northern thought about it for a while and shrugged at the idea.
Whether or not it is true does not fascinate him as he is not interested in her in any way. Moreover, she's a kid.
So he forbade it right immediately.
On the night of the second day, they arrived at the hot region; alas, their journey was worth it.
Right from the afternoon, they were already beginning to feel a drastic change in the weather condition of the atmosphere.
First of all, the cold slowly reduced as they went further. It got to a point they were neither cold nor hot; it was at that point Raven removed the coat that was knitted for her and continued with her usual black armor.
Then they started to feel so much heat that Northern had to remove the Night Terror armor and use the Twilight Dawn, which made it quite easier for him to mix in with his clone.
When the volcanic mountain came into view at the horizon, the heat was already causing them all to sweat buckets.
All of them except Cal, who said he had a heat-resisting item.
Northern too remembered owning something like that at a time, but his was fire; however, he had sold it all to Hao.
And Selune's amulet did more to him as regards to water than ice, fire or cold. All its Order abilities were awesome but all water-related.
So even though he had the necklace on, it was pretty useless in this regard.
They continued forward nonetheless, and after a while, the entire landscape came into view before them.
Unlike the Ice settlement, this one had no walls. It was an ashen landscape with a sinister tapestry of crimson and obsidian.
The heart of this forsaken land was dominated by a grand palace, its towering spires piercing the sulfurous sky.
Eerie red lights flickered from its windows, casting a ghastly glow that mingled with the smoke and ash spiraling from the volcano's ever-active maw.
Crimson fissures of molten lava etched their way through the ground, like veins of the earth's lifeblood seeping to the surface.
The air was thick with the acrid stench of sulfur and the low rumble of the mountain's restive belly.
Each crack pulsated with a relentless heat, illuminating the settlement in a malevolent red hue that danced on the blackened stone.
The homes of the monstrous denizens, compared to that of the White Walkers, clustered haphazardly around the palace, their makeshift structures barely holding against the relentless heat and occasional tremors.
Built from the same dark stones and scorched materials, these dwellings appeared almost organic, as if they had grown out of the cracked and smoking earth itself.
All of them stood for a couple of seconds, observing in silence from afar.
Separating them and the main settlement was a large river of molten lava.
"So, what's the way forward?"
Raven turned to ask Northern but suddenly jumped back. In that selfsame moment, Cal's sword flashed blindly, cleanly cutting off Northern's head.
Blood sprayed into the air and his body slowly crumbled to the ground.
The stranger lowered his head a little bit and muttered:
"I'm sorry..."
Three of Northern's clones stood frozen, and soon began to melt into the air.
Raven, who had seen everything happen so fast, was entrapped in so much confusion and rage that she froze without meaning to.
He just killed Northern.
Northern was dead?
He killed him.
Why would he...?
Why would Northern die?
She suddenly exhaled. In that moment, all the emotions that were swirling inside of her melted, then she looked at Cal with a cold glare in her eyes.
"He was right about you."
She took a moment to look at Northern's lifeless body on the ground, his head a couple of feet away from the main body.
"Your partner just died and that's what you are going to say? You are not going to cry, go crazy and attack me?"
Raven raised her chin a little bit, gazing at him with a deadpan expression for a little while before she responded,
"I have seen more deaths than you ever have. I watched my own mother die before my very eyes and was not allowed to scream or cry, how much more him."
She looked at him again for a second and returned her gaze to Cal.
"I'm disappointed in you if you think you had him with that."
Cal looked at Northern's body.
He was clearly dead. He had been very keen on the right one. Because Northern was walking with his clone, it was quite difficult to follow which one was the real Northern.
However, he was able to. The main Northern was the one that often hung around Raven, spoke with her while the others just stayed silent.
Of course, that made much sense to him. They were clones after all; talking was a bit too much. It was impossible for him to make his clones talk.
If he could do that, then he'd have been able to permanently copy his abilities.
And it was impossible to permanently copy one's abilities. Because that would mean copying the talents too.
A drifter cannot have more than one talent, because they only have one soul core.
That was Cal's line of thinking and his reason for all his estimations of Northern.
However, he had greatly underestimated Northern.