"Found it!" Loya interrupted as she pointed at a mountain peak in the distance, "The geyser in it has a path that reaches the formation."
"Sweet!" Inala grinned as he pointed at the Muscl, "Do we need these guys to enter?"
"You have Rutham," Loya said, "That’s enough to bring us in an out. Besides, even a Muscl might hold us back."
"How?" Shuwrak Zahara asked, dropping his discussion with Inala.
"We’ll be facing the apex predator of this region." Loya smiled mysteriously, "I’m not going to tell you what it is."
She then eyed Inala, "Since you like to take on strong opponents without prior knowledge."
It was something Inala had made a habit of recent times. To be truly versatile, he had to use limited means to survive in any situation.
With prep time, he was confident in fighting against any opponent, since his build gave him the possibility to do so. Once he had knowledge of his opponent, he could easily prepare to face them. That was a necessity for war but not in an adventure.
Hence, Inala made his basic preparations and then intended to go in blind against an opponent. With his Brully body, after tanking a few hits, he would have all the details about his opponent anyway.
A Brully only sharpens its tool to fight. All its preparations were to strengthen and optimise its build to be as versatile as possible. And then, it’ll simply figure out a way to face whatever situation comes its way.
Inala wouldn’t have picked a Brully if he didn’t plan to live as one. A Brully was a selfish being, one that didn’t even care if its race was on the verge of extinction and just lived its life doing whatever it pleased.
It took some time for Pitorah to reach the peak. He was being protected and carried by Shuwrak Zahara’s Tangible Millinger.
Pitorah had the strangest needs in his growth through the Life Stage as a Knell Clansman.
There were around three sub-categories among Clansmen.
The first category was a Clan based on a Deity. Here, the Deity and the Clansmen entered a symbiotic relationship of sorts and had builds that complemented it as such.
A Mammoth Clansman needed to consume Tusk bone powder to build their body. Similarly, a Cooter Clansman had to immerse themselves and consume Spirit Pools.
The second sub-category was Clans that were offshoots to a Mystic Grade Pranic Beast. Here, the Clan’s existence was to eventually produce its Mystic Grade kind.
The Wean Clan existed to accumulate Boar Kings and eventually cause the appearance of an Empyrean Boar King. This was achieved through Yamahara. Before his arrival, the Wean Clan’s progression path was said to have been incomplete.
The Quip Clan existed to accumulate the Royal Zinger genes and eventually birth the Royal Zinger.
These two sub-categories resulted in successful Clans. They had a proper system for development and a realistic path of accumulation through the Life Stage.
The third sub-category, though, wasn’t as such. It involved Clans that were birthed through the Evolution of Pranic Beasts that hadn’t reached Expert Gold Grade.
They didn’t have a proper accumulation path. Even though they had generally interesting powers, their endgame potential was next to nil, especially through the Life Stages.
A Knell Clansman didn’t have any transformation. In terms of appearance, they were indistinguishable from Free Humans. However, they didn’t have a Human Avatar.
Instead, a Knell Clansman created strange drums that doubled as both a Spirit Weapon and a Life Stage body.
The drum was created by gathering the eardrums of various creatures and stitching them together. The amount necessary to complete a drum followed a complex calculation.
Suppose a Free Human’s eardrum was being targeted. In their natural state, a Free Human with Gold Grade strength had Prana circulating through their body, carried by the blood. On average, anywhere from twenty to fifty units of Prana was carried by the blood in total at a time.
Among those fifty units, a small trace of Prana is present in the blood vessels of the ear cavity. An even smaller trace of Prana is present in the ear drum. This trace becomes part of the calculation.
For example, let this trace be one-tenth of a unit of Prana. Then, when ten pieces of this eardrum were stitched into a drum, the Knell Clansman’s Prana capacity increases by one unit.
At the peak of the Body Stage, a Knell Clansman had a Prana capacity 5200. That meant, to reach that point, the Knell Clansman has to stitch a drum with 52000 eardrums of the above example. This was if the eardrums belonged to a Gold Grade existence.
If the source was from a Silver Grade existence, then enough pieces of eardrums had to be stitched together to have the same Prana quality and quantity as 5200 units of Gold Grade Prana. That was what a Knell Clansman had to do to reach the peak with a body.
And through the Life Stage, only the number of drums increased. A Knell Clansman didn’t have multiple bodies. Instead, their extra lives were in these drums.
If suppose Pitorah were to die, one of his drums would rearrange itself to form a new body. At the 10-Life Stage, there would be nine drums in total. The first drum was considered to have assumed this human form.
In essence, the drums were the actual body, and the human form of the first drum was the transformation aspect. There were more restrictions than benefits in their build. This applied for all Clansmen from the third sub-category, which is why such Clans never survived.
They were easily slaughtered by the Pranic Beasts who benefitted from their evolution from Tribesmen to Clansmen. Even if one of them avoided the slaughter, their progression through the Life Stage was so hard that they died out in the wilds.
That wasn’t all, as Inala observed Pitorah had wounds covering his body. ’Even after I protected him, it still happened.’
The third sub-category of Clansmen were innately repulsed by Pranic Beasts who could feel what type of existence they were. And if they saw such a Clansman, they would attack the latter.
It was as if Sumatra itself didn’t tolerate their existence. Only Clansmen from the first two sub-categories were allowed to survive and thrive.
Of course, that was how things evolved, which started from the three Empyrean Tentacles variants and their relationship between each other.
"Hehe, it took a while." Pitorah laughed sheepishly as he was covered from head to toe by Silver Biome Bombs. Half of them seemed to have been shattered by an external impact. The Rascl he rode was also extremely tired.
Its horn was regenerating, despite being constantly supplied Prana by a bunch of Silver Biome Bombs. That was an indicator of how many times it had been attacked.
If Inala didn’t use his Naran Spirit Weapon to brainwash it, then it too would have attacked Pitorah on first sight.
"You know, at this point..." Inala whispered in the ears of Shuwrak Zahara, "It might be mercy to kill him."
"I know," Shuwrak Zahara nodded, "But let me be stubborn here, alright?"
"Sure, as you say." Inala didn’t argue beyond that. He would help Pitorah, but wouldn’t go out of his way to be responsible for the latter’s life. If he wanted responsibility, he would have stayed at the Sanrey Plains to help his daughter.
Whether or not Pitorah survived was entirely Shuwrak Zahara’s headache.
As the group travelled from one mountain to another, Loya accompanied Pitorah at the front while Inala walked alongside Shuwrak Zahara.
They engaged in hushed discussions, "You sure about this?"
"I thought you wouldn’t ask me about it further." Shuwrak Zahara eyed Inala, "Do you really have to poke your nose into it?"
"Yeah, that’s exactly what a Brully does." Inala shrugged. He then stared at the back of Pitorah to say, "He has a decently strong Nature, but it isn’t anything special for a Gold Grade Nature. Its versatility is a joke."
Primary Nature—Sonar Accum!
A Knell Clansman would tap on their Spirit Weapon—the drum—and accumulate sonic waves within it. Once it was filled to a satisfactory level, the Knell Clansman would release it onto the target.
The sonic waves destroyed the ears of the target and caused an accumulation of static noise as data fragments in the mind space. Overtime, these data fragments of noise would give the target a searing headache whenever they used Prana.
The time it took to recover from it became longer the longer they were exposed to the effect and the greater the noise pile in the mindspace.
Theoretically, this seemed extremely powerful. However, the noise accumulation as data fragments in the mind space only occurred once the target’s eardrums shattered.
For Gold Grade existences, especially Pranic Beasts, it only took a fraction of a second to heal a shattered eardrum. So, Sonar Accum couldn’t even display its power in the short run other than to destroy eardrums.
Worst of all, stacking was of no use to it, since it worked on resonant frequency to rupture the eardrum, which was the easiest part. Having more power didn’t equate to a stronger accumulation in the mindspace, which was the true target of the ability.
Yes, once someone was subjected to its effects, they had little to no hope of recovery. The Knell Clansman could continue to drum without rest and plunge the target into mental oblivion. But to reach that point took time and could at most be achieved with the help of a team.
Of the various Gold Grade Natures that Inala knew about, Sonar Accum was one of the worst in terms of versatility. This was against the insane versatility a Grim Knell displayed, ’Even back in the days, merely after entering the Body Stage, Asaeya was able to rupture Brangara’s senses for a whole second.’
It needn’t even be mentioned how stupidly powerful a Grim Knell was against swarms. This was as a Silver Grade Pranic Beast. The Knell Clansman was based on its Gold Grade variant, post-evolution. That was why he labelled it weak, if not useless.
"We’re here!" Loya announced as they arrived before a massive crater. She made eye contact with Inala and pointed into the crater, "The Stromar Cliff’s predator lives here."
"Be careful," She warned next, "It’s a pretty nasty existence."