"It sounds like you are helping the draconids," said Thokk, suspicion leeching from his voice. "How can we trust you? When you hide so much?"
"I have placed it upon myself to guard the Rift so that it may bring forth the End. I care not how the End is brought. If it was that the End was such that these Old Gods were all to be awakened in eternal winter, as is foretold among some peoples of this land, then I would not have stopped it," said Kui. "But if it was that the Old Gods were to be killed and their power taken for the purpose of another Endbringer, then I will not truly stop it either.
In battling Valtr, the leader of the draconids, I came to understand that he, too, possesses pure intent to bring forth the End."
"The End?" said Goromir. "But the Sovnar only wishes to bring forth his rule."
"A rule that involves the end of the New Gods, no?" said Kui. "That is what the End means to me. That is what your Sovnar desires, and by extension, what you desire. Our goals are not separate. There is no need for hostility."
"The Old Wolf was sacred to our people," began Loktal.
"And the Old Wolf may still be alive," said Kui. "There are still two active dungeons. Two that the draconids either could not penetrate or found nothing they could hunt and harvest. It may very well be that the Old Wolf is still alive."
"Regardless, these details must be elucidated with further investigation," said the Collector. "We will enter this dungeon and access its core. From there, further analysis will yield more information."
==
The path down to the dungeon was not one of any real difficulty. There were the occasional hostile specimen, mostly comprising of glaciated serpents of various sizes. The environment within the mountain became warmer than the outside, more insulated and heated by the remnants of mana flowing from the core, and thus, the goblin swarm did not struggle as much either.
In an hour's time, the Collector and the swarm reached the core of the dungeon after passing through ten layers, sinking through the glowing ponds of water that acted as localized warp gates for the dungeon.
Here, the Collector and the swarm found themselves in an enormous, dark cavern two hundred meters in diameter. At the center of the cavern, there had been a sizable, dozen meter wide indent in the ground surrounded by faintly gleaming blue ice crystals that formed the structure of a circular nest.
In that sizable nest, there was nothing, though the Collector, as it hovered in the air to analyze, saw fragments of pale white, silvery egg shells. These shell fragments, it devoured, and they were not so much biomass as they were mineral sample, and thus, were recorded as such.
They were shell shards of an old god specimen known as the 'Eyeless Scale', presumably a mighty variant of the glaciated serpents, for this mountain seemed solely occupied by glaciated serpents with the primal Amorak located at the surface likely being a recent and temporary addition.
"Ah, True Frost," said Kui as he touched the nest of gleaming crystals. "The strongest material known to the north. Any that strike one wearing it risk their entire bodies freezing over."
Kui rested his palm flat against a sizable crystal, closed his, and surged out his mana. The ice crystal shattered into dust, and the flakes of glowing crystal scattered around and into his robes, infusing them with their power.
"Like that," said Kui as he turned to the goblins. "Truefrost responds to the magical energy of a worthy wielder. If you desire to make this Truefrost yours to wield, you do it like that. Project your mana in, shape it to your will, and expand it outwards."
"I try it," said Thokk as he immediately put a hand on an ice crystal, because even if he did not trust Kui too much, he could not help but want new weapons and new armor.
"Well, should we all not?" said Goromir. He waved over the swarm. "Come, my brothers and sisters. Let us arm ourselves!"
The Collector floated in the air as the goblins tried to bend the Truefrost to their will. It had already devoured a significant sample of the Truefrost to incorporate into its carapace later. It focused more on the environment, attempting to get a read of what had happened.
There had been an egg, but no fully grown specimen. The egg had been imbibing the dense magical energy of this dungeon core, and it had been well guarded by glaciated serpents and a durable but now defunct barrier, if the flow of concentrations of mana in the area were to be believed.
But other than these details, the Collector could not make out much more. Because an egg was helpless, there was no real signs of a confrontation, and the environment would likely have patched itself together regardless over time.
It had been approximately fifty years since the egg's demise, predating the fighter 'Kui's appearance to the Rift, so no further clues could be extracted from him, either.
If there were clues to be found of the draconids, then the Collector could have to investigate the two mountains with active dungeon cores.
"So…this is where you are," came a resonating voice.
The Collector immediately turned to its direction. It came from the entrance to the cavern that stood high up, leading to a drop down into the cavern.
The source of that voice took that drop and landed with a heavy crash on the cavern's ground, etching out a crater of impact. The goblin swarm immediately reacted by withdrawing their light blade weapons, and Kui stepped forwards, posturing to protect them as he had promised.
The Collector, too, flew down in front of the swarm, and watched as the intruding specimen stepped forwards.
A draconid.
But one of immense power, the Collector could tell, and judging by her aura, one that was muddled. It seemed almost to be like the auras of two individual beings mashed together, and throughout both, there was a chaotic rage of flow that caused blue unity type mana to whirl around her with the raging instability of chaos mana.
"That is a tainted aura," said Kui. "Tainted not only by an instability of emotion, but also by a power that is not one's own. A Fang."
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