NOVEL WEB Chapter 158- Another cheat
Moving through the monastery's dim corridors, Kyle walked with Aleriana supporting him. He seemed already aware of where he needed to go.
His domain whispered to him, guiding him toward the place he vaguely recalled—underground, near a rock with a lotus on it.
"Where exactly do we need to go?" Aleriana asked, her eyes scanning the surroundings.
But she sensed nothing—no internal energy, no trace of anything that might hint toward the object Kyle sought. No artifact. Nothing.
"A lotus. We need to find a lotus," Kyle answered. The monastery was crumbling, overtaken by web-like grasses, just as the story described—a result of divine energy's absence.
He suspected the Holy Grail might not be in the same location as told. Perhaps things had changed.
Changed how? Maybe... maybe there wasn't a lotus on a rock at all.
"A lotus? Mialthara, pick up the pace!" Aleriana said at once. Urgency rang in her voice as she sprinted toward the faint sound of flowing water.
If there was water, there could be a lotus.
She soon reached an open space, a pond filled with blooming lotuses.
"Now what, husband?" she asked, staring at the pond. She sensed no power, no signature—but she trusted him.
There was little else she could do. This wasn't a wound that an elixir could fix—his heart was missing. Or more likely, it had been crushed.
Olea arrived beside them, silently observing the water.
"Olea, empty this pond," Kyle said calmly. "The thing I need is inside."
There was no lotus on a rock like the story described. Every lotus was in the water. If not for his domain, which let him sense things hidden from others, he wouldn't have known.
But beneath the surface, his domain had seen it—a rock resting deep below.
"Yes," Olea said as she swiftly moved forward, taking out her bot blade. With just one swing, she created enough gust of wind to throw the water back, splashing it around the three edges except for them—it was as if she had given her all into it.
'!'
"Yes, that's the thing, break that rock too," Kyle ordered, looking towards the rock in front of him, convinced he could see the Holy Grail within it, just within arm's reach.
"Yes." Olea nodded before slashing her blade directly towards the rock, sending a soft slice of energy in its direction.
Scrch!
'....'
'This?' Kyle stood there looking towards the rock, which remained unscratched. There was not a single mark on it from the slash. He blinked in disbelief before glancing at Olea, who also seemed surprised. She instinctively leaped into the air with her dual blades.
"Ghost form: Third blade, burst," Olea said, calling out the name of the ability from her subconscious mind, an energy blade manifesting as it landed directly on the rock.
BANG!
There was a huge crash, and the nearby ground shattered. The lotus above it vanished, causing the hollow space of the pond to plummet even further into the ground.
As the dust began to settle, the rock stood unscathed.
'....What is that thing made of?' Kyle thought, feeling more certain that Olea had exerted enough force given the state of her surroundings, where everything—the ground beneath, the nearby small rocks—had been sent flying, forming a big crater with the center being that rock, which still bore no scratch.
"Let me try," Aleriana said without doubt, her confidence growing after witnessing Olea's display of strength. There was clearly something valuable within that rock, given that it hadn't even been scratched. She decided to take action.
Aleriana knelt, gently placing Kyle down.
"B-but wife, I was feeling softness—" Kyle, despite feeling immense pain and exhaustion, managed to make a joke.
"Be quiet for a moment, husband," Aleriana retorted as she jumped down towards the rock, drawing her blade and channeling all of her Qi into a single slice.
With full force, she delivered her strike.
Clank!
Thk!
The rock didn't budge. Not even a ripple of force passed through it.
It was as if her power had been swallowed entirely.
'!?'
"What?" Aleriana was clearly taken aback. Unlike Olea, whose attack had created recoil around her, Aleriana had intentionally focused all her strength on a single point, trying to send it directly into the rock. But the moment her sword touched the rock, it was as if it were made of the hardest material and didn't move at all.
Though it seemed that her attack had been absorbed, it was merely stopped by the rock's impervious surface.
Kyle's gaze drifted to Mialthara.
She stood close, her fingers lightly pressed against his skin, controlling the flow of blood through his body with the same focus as if she were breathing consciously. Each single breath represented absolute focus.
A faint glow pulsed under her palm with every beat she mimicked in place of his absent heart.
Her eyes met his.
She didn't speak.
Just a slow shake of her head—barely a gesture.
But it was enough.
Kyle understood. If she even attempted to use her power to attack that rock, even for a second, it meant letting go of him. And letting go of him meant—
Death.
The silence was deafening.
Kyle turned his attention back to the rock. His expression, despite the pain, was calm… until he thought of something and inquired, "Show status of that rock, system."
Ding!
A system window flickered.
> [Unbreakable Object Detected: Origin Rock - "Ashvat Core"]
Status: Locked by Aetheric Seal
Required: "True Name of the Worthy" or "Keyblood of Aetherline"
He stared.
'Ashvat... wasn't he the dragon—so his core was here in the ninth realm all along?' Kyle's mouth twitched as he looked towards one of the parts that had become the original story's major base for the main characters when they ascended to the upper realms. In their adventure, it became a focus where they needed to search for each part of the founding dragon.
Of course, simply because each of its parts has its own application and use, they were scattered throughout all the nine realms, considering she was the one who created all the nine realms at the time of this world's existence.
'Um, system, can you absorb it?' Kyle casually inquired, thinking that the body parts of that dragon were considered similar to artifacts. The core had never been found in the original storyline, and the story was never completed either, but its existence in the lowest realm, within some rundown town monastery, was unexpected.
Even more surprising was the fact that the Holy Grail was hidden behind this particular core.
So it was clear that whoever did it knew very well about the location of this core.
'Was it Agasthasa?' Kyle wondered, looking towards the rock, contemplating the woman whom these people considered a goddess.
She was likely the one with the highest chance of hiding the Holy Grail here.
After all, she was on the run, and being from the upper realm, she would be mistaken for a goddess by these people who had never seen miracles such as healing the dead or bringing them back to life without making them undead.
[ Artifact infusion commenced ...60%...80%....100% ]
DING!
[ Unbreakable Layered Shell (Activated):
The user can now envelop their domain in an impenetrable shell forged from a near-unbreakable material. This layered barrier reinforces the domain's surface with a rigid shield which can not be broken ]
'....Did I just got another cheat?'