Chapter 144: Rising Mountain

  In the deep, verdant jungle of Zarateph, the air was usually thick with the cries of tropical birds and the hum of insects. Today, those sounds were drowned out by a low, constant rumble that vibrated through the root systems of ancient trees.

  Amidst the falling ash and the distant boom of explosions, a man was tearing his way through the vegetation.

  "Quick... Harrison... something... is... taking... over..."

  The ancient, deep voice resonated inside Harrison Aster's skull, louder than the volcano, more urgent than his own heartbeat.

  The meaning didn’t matter—only the urgency did. Harrison ran.

  He ran faster than any man of his apparent age and condition should be able to move. His boney stature, starved by decades of wilderness living, should have collapsed miles ago. The pain in his legs was a screaming fire, but he ignored it. He vaulted over fallen logs, ducked under hanging vines, and scrambled up muddy embankments with a feral dexterity.

  To an observer, he looked like a skeleton wrapped in rags, yet he moved with the speed of a jaguar.

  How could he run this way? How was he even alive after all this time? What was that voice steering him like a puppet?

  Too many questions remained unanswered in the humid gloom of the jungle. However, one thing was certain.

  Something was awakening deep beneath the crust. And this something was calling out to the lone, missing adventurer, dragging him toward the center of the inferno.

  At the edge of the jungle, where the golden sands met the wall of green, a peculiar group was ready to start their own investigation.

  A reinforced wagon, pulled by a massive white yak, stood idling. The team was small but formidable: Raito, Yukari, Zhu, Tanvir, Bob, Mila, Samira, and Malik.

  Bob and Tanvir were perched on the driver's seat, looking like an odd couple—the massive merchant and the diminutive Lord. The rest were squeezed into the back of the wagon.

  "Tama, you ready?" Bob asked, patting the yak's flank.

  Grunt.

  Tama nodded her heavy head and let out a fearless yelp, stomping a hoof.

  "As fearless as always. Good girl," Bob praised. He flicked the reins. "Let's move."

  The wagon lurched forward, rolling into the dappled shade of the jungle path. The temperature dropped slightly, but the air grew heavier with moisture.

  "So, this volcano," Zhu spoke up from the back, her arms crossed. "Can you tell me more about it, boy?" She looked at Malik.

  "Uh, sure, Lady Lihua," Malik straightened himself, adjusting his glasses which were already fogging up. "I am not really the expert on mountains or history, to be honest—archeology is more of my forte—but I will tell you all I know."

  Malik coughed, clearing his throat.

  "So... the volcano. We call it Tur'uga. Where does the name come from? We have no idea. Just people a long time ago, who lived near the area, told everyone that name. To this day, even if you asked their descendants the origin of that name, nobody knows. It's a word lost to time."

  "This mystery is why we deemed it one of the Seven Wonders of Calvenoor," Samira interjected, leaning on Malik’s shoulder.

  "Right," Malik nodded. "As for the volcano part, we know this is true because a lava pool exists within the caldera. Some scholars have investigated it in the past, risking the climb. But... we always thought it was dormant. Inactive."

  "Until now," Mila said grimly, looking at the plume of smoke rising above the tree line.

  "That is what we are here to investigate," Tanvir called back from the driver's seat, not taking his eyes off the road. "Something so ancient and old, which was believed to be inactive for as long as I have existed... this is completely unnatural."

  "Never? Like, never ever?" Raito asked, leaning forward. "Not once has that volcano erupted? I thought volcanoes just do that naturally. Pressure buildup and all that."

  "Odd," he commented. "Even the Quake Lord believes it to never erupt."

  "Look, kid," Tanvir said, glancing back. "I have been watching this land for a long, long time. Not once have I witnessed that volcano erupt. Others, I have. The tectonic plates shift, magma rises... I feel it. But not this one. It is stable. Unchanging. Something that the people of Zarateph have relied on for generations."

  "Tanvir is right," Bob added, his usually jovial voice somber. "That volcano is kinda a symbol for us Zaratephians. That massive stature on the horizon has always given us this weird comfort. Like... everything will be alright since Tur'uga is still there, watching over us. You know?"

  He sighed. "Tur'uga erupting... feels a lot like a bad omen. A sign that the world is breaking."

  "But I thought you didn't believe in superstition, Bob?" Yukari asked.

  "I am not," Bob admitted. "Only money and family. Hohoho. But this one... this one is the only exception."

  "A volcano that never erupts finally erupts..." Zhu mused, tapping her finger on her arm. "That is indeed a massive investigation we are going to have to do."

  She turned her sharp gaze to her stepdaughter.

  "Now. You, Lin," she pointed to Yukari. "Tell the others what Harrison has to do with all of this."

  "Alright," Yukari nodded, taking a deep breath that rattled slightly in her chest. "That is what I would say if I actually understood what is going on."

  "What do you mean?" Zhu asked, her brow furrowing.

  "I actually don't really know how Father... Harrison... is connected to any of this," Yukari admitted, rubbing the back of her neck nervously. "We just assumed he is because he is heading to the volcano's direction like a man possessed, muttering about screams only he can hear."

  "I... I think I'm the one who should talk from the beginning," Raito interjected, raising his hand slightly.

  "Go on," Zhu commanded, her eyes scanning his face for any semblance of a logical explanation.

  "Let me begin from the start," Raito began, leaning against the wooden slats of the wagon as it bumped over a tree root. "It was a week after I ran away from everyone. I was wandering the desert, looking for a way to die."

  The group flinched at the blunt reminder of his mental state back then, but Raito pressed on, staring at his boots.

  "Just when I passed out from exhaustion and hunger, when the sun felt like it was peeling the skin off my bones... he came. Mr. Harrison. But I didn't know who that was at first. He dragged me into the shade and forced this... sludge down my throat." Raito grimaced, a phantom taste of copper and rot coating his tongue. "Sandworm blood soup. It tasted like battery acid mixed with old pennies, but it was warm. It was life. Essentially, he stopped me from dying, which was the complete opposite of my goal at the time."

  "I thought he was just a crazy old man," Raito continued, gesturing vaguely. "A hermit living in the desert alone, rambling incoherent riddles. But he had a bag that he held tightly to his chest like a treasure of some sort."

  "Because I was not looking to live at the time, I just ran away from the old man when he fell asleep. The next day, fate decided to kick me while I was down. A sandworm stampede—hundreds of them running in terror—forced the two of us to investigate the source. It’s funny, in a twisted sort of way. We ended up finding that it was Silux's machines causing panic, drilling their way into the metallic structure like ticks on a dog."

  Raito looked down at his hands, clenching them into fists. "In the battle... the Old Man got gravely injured trying to save me. He threw himself at a machine to buy me time. In the bag he guarded like a dragon's hoard was a torn, water-damaged book. Inside... a picture. A photograph of a young Yukari and two people beside her. That is when I knew he was someone pivotal in Yukari's life, even if I couldn't place the face."

  "And then," Yukari continued, picking up the thread seamlessly, her eyes distant. "When I was diving in Raito's mentalscape, seeing the world through his trauma... I saw that memory. And I instantly knew. The posture, the eyes... that was my father. My missing father from decades ago. He was there, alive, but broken. And I knew I had to find him."

  "After the mentalscape, me and Raito went searching for him," Yukari said, her voice tight. "But once again... he disappeared. Missing. The blood was there in the tunnel, dry and dark, but the body... gone. We wanted to search more, but we got caught up in another battle."

  "So that is why you fidgeted so much back then," Zhu commented, the pieces clicking into place. "So... when or where did you two meet him again?"

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  "In Kah-Kamun Plaza," Yukari answered. "This morning."

  "After returning from the desert, we began searching for him in every Kah-Kamun hospital or healing ward that we knew, hoping maybe someone picked him up from the desert. But we found nothing. He was not there."

  "Instead..." Raito shrugged, a helpless, incredulous laugh escaping him. "That Old Man... he was sitting on a stool in the plaza, slurping spicy noodle soup as if the world wasn't ending."

  "How he got there, we also don't know," Yukari said. "We tried to confront him."

  She avoided everyone's gaze, staring at the floorboards. "But... he didn't know who I was. He knew Lin... but the old, eight-year-old me, back in Jinlun. He believed Mom was still alive and I was safe with her at home. He... he looked right through me. Like I was a stranger. Or a ghost."

  She swallowed hard. "We tried to press him further, yet he was saved by the sudden tremors and eruption. The last thing we know is that he was running in the volcano's direction shouting its name."

  The wagon fell silent, save for the creaking of wheels and the distant rumble of the mountain.

  "So that is why you said Harrison might hold the key..." Zhu exhaled slowly. "Alright. I understand now."

  "You do?" Yukari looked up, puzzled. "You believe us?"

  "My suspension of disbelief has evaporated after our little desert adventure involving time travel and alien gods," Zhu said dryly, leaning back against the wagon wall. "If he is running away from us, confused and deluded... then the tactical solution is clear."

  Zhu cracked her knuckles. "All we need is to capture him and force the answers out of him."

  "Simple enough then," Mila nodded in agreement.

  "Is it?" Raito asked, blinking.

  "Wait, why are you the one who is surprised, kid?" Tanvir asked from the front seat, turning his head so his profile was silhouetted against the passing jungle. "Isn't 'simple plan' more of your specialty? I thought you thrived on chaos."

  "It is," Raito admitted. "But I just did not imagine everyone would be on board like this. And for the record, this time, the plan is not my idea."

  "We know," Zhu said. "Just... this time, since we have too many questions, simplifying our plan is the most plausible course of action. Complication leads to hesitation."

  "Agreed," Samira chirped.

  "Do... do I not have a say on this?" Malik asked weakly.

  "Nope," Samira said cheerfully.

  "Sounds like we have a plan then," Bob boomed.

  He snapped the reins. "Alright! Punch it, Tama!"

  Tama bellowed, digging her hooves into the soft earth. The wagon accelerated, lurching deeper into the jungle and closer to the smoking peak of Tur'uga.

  At this point, Harrison had arrived at the base of the volcano.

  The air here was no longer just hot; it was a solid wall of suffocating heat, thick with falling ash that coated his skin in a spectral grey dust. The vibrant green of the jungle had long since died away, replaced by a wasteland of jagged black rock and rivers of cooling slag that hissed like dying snakes. The smell of sulfur was overpowering, tasting of rotten eggs and burning copper.

  "I'm here, Tur'uga," he rasped, his voice raw and scraping against his parched throat.

  As if the mountain itself recognized the timbre of his voice, the ground beneath his feet shuddered.

  RUMBLE-CRASH.

  With a violent landslide of loose scree and boulders, a hidden fissure cracked open near the base. Dust billowed out, revealing a cavernous maw leading deep into the mountain's throat.

  Harrison took a stride toward the entrance. There was no shred of hesitation or fear in his eyes. He didn't look like an explorer venturing into the unknown; he looked like a weary traveler walking into his own home after a lifetime away. Familiar. Calm. Resigned.

  He had been here before, clearly.

  The interior was a void of absolute, pitch-black darkness, swallowing the faint light from the entrance within a few steps. Yet, Harrison managed to keep walking without a single misstep. He didn't stumble. He didn't trip over unseen rocks. He navigated the invisible twists and turns of the dark tunnel as if guided by a memory etched into his very bones.

  Before long, he stopped. The air pressure changed, signaling he had entered a massive, open space. The heat here was wet and heavy.

  Harrison took in a deep breath of the thick, volcanic air and shouted into the void.

  "I'm here, Tur'uga!"

  His voice echoed through the vast cave, bouncing off walls he couldn't see, returning to him as a ghostly whisper.

  SNAP.

  In the crushing darkness in front of him, a massive eyelid snapped open.

  A giant, vertical yellow slit pierced the gloom, glowing with a bioluminescent intensity that revealed the cavern's immense scale. The eye was ancient, reptilian, and terrifying.

  The size of it eclipsed Harrison himself. Mind you, Harrison stood over six feet tall and could not be considered short by any metric. Yet, compared to the iris glowing in the dark before him, he looked like a mere candlestick standing before a bonfire. The pupil was a vertical black abyss, staring right through him, weighing his soul.

  "You're here....."

  The voice called out to him. This time, it wasn't a whisper inside Harrison's mind. It came from within the cave itself, a physical soundwave reverberating from the walls, shaking the cavern like a bass drum. It vibrated in Harrison's chest cavity, deep and resonant.

  "Yes. I am here," Harrison said, standing his ground against the sonic pressure, his rags fluttering in the exhaled breath of the entity. "What... what do you need me for?"

  "Something... wrong…. I need you... something.... is taking over me..." the voice rumbled, sounding strained, distorted by agony, as if fighting a sickness that rotted it from the inside. "Waking me... from my slumber..."

  "The cure," Harrison interrupted, his obsession cutting through the awe like a knife. "What about the cure?"

  The giant eye narrowed slightly, focusing on the small human. "The cure... ah.. yes... the cure...." The voice hissed, leaking steam. "It will be destroyed... if something happens to me... remember... our deal..."

  "Of course, I remember my end of the bargain," Harrison said, his hands clenching into fists, his nails digging into his palms. "But you... you, do you remember yours?"

  "Of course," the voice hissed, the sound like magma shifting under pressure. "You will get the deal you wanted. You will be reunited."

  Harrison nodded, a frantic, desperate relief washing over him. "Then, what do you want me to do?" he asked.

  "Find the source," the voice commanded, the authority of a god returning for a brief moment.

  "The source of what?" Harrison asked.

  "The source of my awakening... the source of my itch... something.... something...."

  The voice trailed off, replaced by a sudden, terrifying tension in the air. The yellow eye dilated wildly, the pupil expanding until it swallowed the gold.

  GROARRRRRRRRRRR!

  A loud, ear-splitting roar burst from where the voice originated. It wasn't speech; it was pure, unadulterated pain.

  "Tur'uga! What happened?!" Harrison shouted, shielding his face as a burst of hot wind and debris blew toward him, nearly knocking him off his feet.

  To make matters worse, the whole cave started to shake violently, far worse than the tremors outside. Stalactites dislodged from the unseen ceiling, crashing down around him like stone spears.

  "Move... I can't... run...." the voice warned Harrison, strained and desperate, fighting for control against its own body.

  GROARRRR!

  "Tur'uga!" Harrison shouted, refusing to leave his only hope for salvation.

  But the mountain gave him no choice. Everything around him started to crumble. Massive boulders fell, blocking the path forward, sealing the glowing eye away in darkness. In a few moments, the entrance behind him would collapse too, and Harrison would be trapped. Alone. With almost no chance of survival.

  The roar didn't just grow louder; it evolved into a physical assault. A wall of sonic pressure rolled down the mountain slopes, flattening ancient trees like matchsticks and shaking the very bedrock of the jungle until it groaned in protest.

  It didn't stop at the base. It carried over the canopy, a tidal wave of noise reaching the group outside who were still a few miles away from the volcano.

  "Whoa!"

  Bob bellowed, hauling back on Tama's reins with biceps bulging from the strain. The massive yak skidded to a halt, her hooves carving deep, desperate furrows into the dirt path as she braced against the sonic wave. The reinforced wagon lurched violently, throwing everyone against the wooden railings with a collective grunt of pain.

  "Heard that?" Bob asked, his face pale beneath his tan, eyes wide.

  "Sounds like an animal roar," Samira said, covering her ears with her hands, wincing.

  "Or more like a cry," Malik corrected, his voice trembling as he adjusted his crooked glasses. "Of pain."

  "That loud?" Tanvir questioned, standing up on the driver's seat to get a better view. He squinted against the falling ash. "What kind of animal can roar that loud? Almost all the animals in this area ran away hours ago. The jungle is empty."

  He scanned the surrounding vegetation. It was still. Dead still. Not a leaf twitched that wasn't moved by the tremors.

  DRMMMMM....

  The ground shook once more. Louder. Stronger. It wasn't a vibration; it was a heave, as if the world was taking a deep, shuddering breath.

  "Earthquake!" Bob shouted, bracing his legs against the dashboard. "Everyone grab onto something!"

  "No! This is not an earthquake, I'm certain!" Tanvir shouted back, his legs adjusting instantly to the heaving floorboards. "The tectonic plates are stable! The earth itself isn't shifting—something is pushing against it!"

  "But everything around us is clearly shaking!" Zhu yelled, holding onto the wagon's frame with one hand and steadying Yukari with the other, her eyes scanning for threats.

  "I know! We need to find the source!" Tanvir growled, his pride as the Quake Lord stung by the unreadable phenomenon.

  "Uhh... guys?"

  Malik’s voice was small, terrified. He was pointing a shaking finger toward the horizon; his face drained of blood.

  "What is it, Malik?" Samira asked, holding onto him tightly like a supporting pole.

  "Is it just me..." Malik swallowed hard, his throat dry. "Or is Tur'uga Volcano... rising?"

  "What?" Tanvir snapped his head around.

  He stared at the peak of the volcano.

  Malik was correct.

  Second by second, the jagged peak of the volcano started to rise higher into the sky. It pierced the heavy ash clouds, splitting them apart with brute force. The mountain wasn't just erupting; it was growing.

  "Volcanoes don't just increase in height, right Uncle Tanvir?" Samira asked, her voice high and thin, bordering on hysteria.

  "Definitely not, Princess!" he shouted back.

  As the peak moved up, the structural integrity of the mountain seemed to fail. Massive fissures opened along the slopes like cracking eggshells. Rivers of lava, far more voluminous than before, started flooding out, cascading down into the jungle like waterfalls of fire.

  The rumble deepened into something worse—a grinding of continental plates. The roar became deafening.

  And finally...

  BOOM.

  A giant, scaled foot, the color of obsidian and magma, rose up from beneath the base of the volcano. It smashed down into the jungle, flattening acres of ancient trees in a single step, the impact sending a shockwave of dust and debris outward.

  The foot steadied itself, digging claws the size of towers into the bedrock, readying for the main body to rise.

  "Master!" Mila shouted, her sword drawn but looking pitifully small against the scale of the threat.

  "Not good. Not good!" Bob panicked, his eyes bulging.

  "Run!" Raito shouted, his voice cutting through the awe and terror. "Turn it around!"

  Bob didn't need to be told twice. He flicked Tama's reins with a desperate crack.

  "YAH!"

  Tama bellowed in terror and spun around. This time, instead of going toward the rising volcano, the group was running away from it as fast as the yak’s legs could carry them.

  Behind them, the impossible continued to unfold with terrifying majesty.

  One foot became two. Then three. And finally, four massive pillars of obsidian and living rock steadied themselves on the ground. Each foot was the size of a small city, crushing the landscape beneath them into dust.

  And finally... from between the front two feet... the head protruded.

  It pushed through the rock and soil, shaking off boulders like dandruff. A massive, beak-like mouth opened, dripping magma like saliva.

  The shape was familiar. The visage, the image of this creature was clearly a shape known to every child in Calvenoor.

  This giant, mountain-sized creature was undoubtedly a turtle.

  And the lava-spewing volcano... was its shell.

  Its giant, vertical yellow eyes—the same ones Harrison had stared into—scanned its surroundings, blinking away centuries of sleep. Its jaw drooled lava, setting the forest ablaze instantly. Its feet produced immense heat, dehydrating and burning any form of life beneath it just by proximity.

  The true form of Tur'uga.

  The Living Mountain.

  Now in full, terrifying view.