CHAPTER 270: THE WISHING COIN

Wang Yu sent his right hand—still holding onto the vial of stardew—into the void rift. The stable tear served as a portal into that formless realm.

To be honest, there wasn't much to feel. There was no sensation of airflow, no resistance or texture—nothing. His arm simply vanished into that chaos beyond the veil. The void and his flesh seemed to be mutually non-interacting.

"How does it feel?"

Avia's voice came from behind. She had already begun to channel void energy, ready to act the moment Wang Yu showed signs of distress—ready to drag his hand back from the rift by force, if necessary.

"It's no big deal. My whole body was even submerged in the void that one time at the library. Just an arm is perfectly fine."

He gave a casual wave of his free hand to reassure her, though his eyes were focused on the vial he had just pushed into the rift. The liquid inside was already transforming, just as Madam Moira had said it would.

The fluid shimmered like a bottled fragment of the night sky—liquid starlight—and began to change. It shifted from a tangible substance into something less physical, more ethereal. Slowly, the liquid began to seep through the walls of the vial like mist. On Wang Yu's arm, a flattened nebula began to bloom—expanding and rotating softly in a tranquil spiral.

As the nebula whirled, radiant ribbons of light were flung outward from its core. They stretched far, vanishing into the endless void—streaks of pure color, adorned with motes of alien starlight, flowing like a stellar river.

Wang Yu had been paying attention to Moira's explanations. This was the second step in preparing a Wish Elixir: the stardew base was starting to resonate with the void and transforming into a wizard. It was no ordinary potion now. In fact, it could command more void energy than all but the top 1% of wizards—though it could only do so once.

Its starlit tendrils reached into the unfathomable beyond, brushing against something—some entity that existed at the far edge of awareness. In response, a flicker of violet light shimmered in the darkness and flowed back along the streams before converging at the heart of the nebula. A halo of deep purple began to suffuse the core, causing it to pulse with subtle, living brilliance.

"All of this... this is void energy," Wang Yu murmured. "But why does it always manifest as outer space? Is it just that the void is vast like the cosmos—or is there a deeper connection?"

As the thought passed through his mind, the nebula collapsed inward. The void-infused essence had drawn enough power; it was now condensing, shrinking into itself. Wang Yu focused.

He readied himself to withdraw the vial before the reverberations of this miracle spread and drew attention from the wrong sort of entities. After all, there were fairy tales about this sort of thing—potions of this kind had once lured the gazes of multiple evil gods.

Moira, standing behind him, watched intently. This disciple of hers had long since shattered her expectations. He had reached into the void without a shred of protective enchantment. Who could do such a thing? Was he even human?

She thought back to that figure of legend, Roland, the so-called God of Wizards. Even his deeds had faded into myth, but this young man before her... he had a long road yet to walk. His journey had only just begun.

"Opening up the vessel of stardew, investigating the mystery of the Sorensen Mountains, and now thrusting a hand into the void... Honestly, you're not just a miracle worker—you're a miracle in a bottle yourself," Moira murmured inwardly.

She shook her head, a strange smile tugging at her lips, half-exasperated, half-proud.

The nebula collapsed completely. The cloud of light and dust drew back into itself and returned to its original form: a bottled patch of liquid night sky.

Yet now it shimmered with violet vitality, alive and radiant.

"Now!"

Without hesitation, Wang Yu jerked his arm back. He had to retrieve the potion before the energy it released could ripple outward and catch the void's attention.

He cursed aloud. His hand had returned, but it was empty. The vial had phased right through his grasp. It had shifted into a spectral state and was now falling into the bottomless void.

"Damn it."

He lunged forward, plunging his shoulder into the rift. His reflexes were sharp, his reaction speed faster than thought, and he just managed to reach the falling potion. But once more, his fingers passed right through it. It had become incorporeal.

His mind reeled. Once more, his body responded instinctively. He invoked the power of the Chariot, unleashing a force that was invisible yet utterly real. That power snapped tight around the potion and held it fast.

Drawing back, Wang Yu exhaled in relief. The vial reappeared in his hand, solid once more. Had it fallen fully into the void, it would have been lost forever.

The vial now lay in his palm, its transformation complete. Within it, void essence shimmered with a living, flickering light. In the void, it had become intangible, but in the material world, it was once again something he could touch.

"My apologies," Moira said beside him. "I neglected to warn you. I never expected anyone to complete this step without wizardry. Overlooking it was a serious failing on my part."

She knew that something would happen to the stardew as a result of the void resonance, but not precisely what. As a result, she had failed to warn Wang Yu.

"It's fine. In the end, everything worked out. So, does this mean step two is complete?"

Wang Yu set the vial gently on the table.

"Yes," Moira said softly.

She stepped forward, picking up the vial. Her eyes lingered on the radiant fluid inside. One of her life's ambitions had just come true, more or less. It wasn't a final product, not by a long shot, but it was a better start than she could have anticipated.

"It feels... incredible."

She smiled. Even if her two disciples had carried much of the weight, she could pretend—just a little—that this was her victory.

"Without the two of you, I could never have done it. This potion... I suppose you could call it a Wishing Coin. It's powerful enough now to grant a single wish, but it's still far from the true Wish Elixir of legend. This half is my gift to you. Take it."

She walked to the cupboard, fetched a high-quality vial, and poured out half the Wishing Coin elixir. Then, she offered it to Wang Yu.

"Despite its association with the void, it's far more stable than that chaotic plane. So long as you don't try to invoke it with mental energy, it should remain inert. Just don't break the vial."

Wang Yu hesitated, then took the offered vial without protest. Another trump card—another miracle he now carried with him.

"Thank you, Madam Moira."

The value of this Wishing Coin was undoubtedly immense.

"Skip the gratitude. Just help me process more ingredients. You'll be heading to battle against that monstrous worm in Liaheim soon, and I'll need every drop of potion I can brew."

Moira was already shifting back to work mode.

A sharp cry rang through Liaheim—the pre-arranged warning signal. The scrying formation watching the distant Sorensen Mountains had detected a shift. The World-Eater... was waking.

A deafening tremor rolled through the ground. Stone and soil clashed and cracked. The earth split apart as a result of tremendous force.

Tree roots were torn asunder, wrenched from the ground. The might of the awakening creature was far beyond anything nature could resist.

The Cursed Fire had long since guttered out. The mountain's life force had been devoured in its entirety. The World-Eater, no longer content to slumber in its cradle, was now fully awake.

Countless eyes opened upon its titanic body, oozing thick yellow ichor that hissed upon contact with the earth, blackening and hardening the soil.

This was the force of corruption the druids had once battled. It had never been vanquished—only sealed within this monstrous worm, which had since become corruption itself.

Segment upon segment of its grotesque body writhed forward, each part sprouting limbs like elongated human arms, clawing through stone and soil. It began to move.

The mountain split apart. A massive fissure tore open, revealing the hollow below. The World-Eater surged upward, devouring rock and root alike, clawing its way toward the surface.

Its body spanned over a kilometer. Yet as it breached the surface, it did not fall back to the earth. It rose.

Its limbs flailed—not through solid matter, but rather the air itself—as if catching hold of invisible handholds that allowed it to drag its massive form toward the sky.

And from the cracks between its armored plates, more worms emerged—smaller, yet born in its image. They poured out like a swarm of pestilence, a second tide following the first.

Like their progenitor, their limbs thrashed as they flew into the sky before diving down in a flurry. The corrupted spawn attacked every living creature in their path—wild beasts, docile herbivores, and even magical creatures not strong enough to resist their incursion. Everything was prey.

Their mandibles distended to match the width of their bodies as they latched onto their victims with ravenous hunger. Fangs and fine tendrils pierced flesh and hooked onto bone.

Then, with a violent beat of their limbs, they heaved their captives skyward—toward the looming, ever-moving bulk of the World-Eater above.

The prey were hurled against the titanic body of the beast. Some still clung to life, twitching and writhing in vain. But it was futile. Powerful limbs lashed out, seized them, and shredded them into pulp with deceptive strength.

Blood and flesh splattered across the World-Eater's massive form.

A thick, guttural swallow echoed. The countless eyes embedded across the World-Eater's surface also served as mouths—and as instruments of corruption.

Chunks of mangled flesh and flowing blood were dragged into these eyes. The lens-like structures squirmed as they devoured the offerings with grotesque satisfaction. Once pale-yellow, the pupils turned a foul, reddish-brown, their stench unbearable.

What remained of the victims' vitality was greedily drained, their husks transformed by the World-Eater's power into a black tar. That vile secretion oozed from the edges of its feeding eyes like tears.

The black ichor rained down upon the forest below. Where it struck, life withered. Plants curled up and died in seconds; animals convulsed, their vitality consumed in an instant, leaving behind only shriveled husks.

And some of those husks, bloated with stolen life, began to twitch. Within them, something stirred.

Soon after, the decayed shells split open, and new spawn—tiny worms flailing with hungry limbs—emerged. They joined the hunt, feeding the World-Eater in turn, birthing more of their kind, a cycle of decay without end.

The sky darkened with the World-Eater's swarm—countless corrupted spawn dotting the air like plague-born flies, a roiling, black haze. They were heralds of corruption, much like the carrion crows that accompanied death.

At the forefront of this monstrous host, a single, massive eye glared—the core of the World-Eater, its only thinking organ. Within it swirled a sickly, yellow-brown fluid, surrounded by rotted, torn flesh.

Could such a thing truly think at all?

In truth, it could not. It possessed no wisdom nor will, only hunger and greed—a ceaseless, burning thirst for life drove it forward in single-minded pursuit.

Somewhere ahead, there existed a being who had nourished it with vitality throughout its long slumber. If it could find and devour this source, perhaps... perhaps its endless hunger might finally be sated.

That primordial thought stoked its appetite to a fever pitch. The life force gathered by its spawn was no longer enough. Like feeding scraps of jerky to a starving beast, it only made the hunger worse.

The World-Eater could wait no longer. Its limbs churned the air with renewed urgency. Its vast, airborne body accelerated with unnatural speed, defying wind and weight. Faster and faster it flew, until even the laws of nature seemed to bend before it.

Its corrupted spawn struggled to keep pace. Some, unable to match its velocity, fell behind and disintegrated, bursting into noxious sludge that rained down from the sky.

In its wake, the great worm carved a terrible path through the skies, leaving behind a trail of ruin where life once thrived. Anything beneath its shadow died, obliterated in its corrosive passage.

With unstoppable force, the World-Eater tore through the skies above the Sorensen Mountains, leaving a deep scar upon the land. In two days' time, it would reach the elven capital of Liaheim.

Elsewhere, hidden in some unknown crevice in hyperspace, two figures in dark suits stood side by side, their faces shrouded in shadow. They were devils. Through a screen of glowing light, they watched the events of the world unfold.

The projection displayed the elven capital of Liaheim. The elves, orderly and efficient, were hard at work fortifying the city.

The living roots of the Forest of Origin had been cleared. Massive war-trees moved purposefully through the woods, aiding the elves in deploying various defensive structures. The maze-lock enchantments were being fine-tuned. They swelled with power thanks to a steady supply of mana crystals.

"...Hmph. The elves still retain a fair bit of strength," murmured one of the devils, his tone tinged with something like resignation. "That strange fellow exposed the nascent creature to them ahead of time and even warned them—rather troublesome, wouldn't you say, Five?"

He clapped the shoulder of the devil beside him.

"Indeed," Five replied with a smile. "And they even made it out of my distorted spatial rift. Surprising, isn't it? Still... his aura feels oddly familiar. I may have stumbled upon something entertaining."

Despite the unexpected turn of events, Five seemed entirely unconcerned.

"Well, it's not like we're any good at direct confrontation," said Three, grimacing. "It's our first time trying something like this. With that special organ, it's practically unkillable, but in terms of raw strength and destructive power... it's barely on par with an average legend. Against the elves' wards and maze-locks, it won't amount to much."

Three sighed, as if genuinely disheartened by the World-Eater's limitations.

"...But then again," he continued, his voice lifting with wicked enthusiasm, "those elves have a Mother who dotes on her children. With her in the equation, we'll easily succeed."

A devilish grin spread across Three's face. He eyed the screen before him with relish.