Transcendence, page 31
part #6 of The Beginning After The End Series
I swung Dawn’s Ballad once more and easily dipped under Uto’s thrust. Just as my blade was about to connect with Uto’s exposed side, I saw it.
The retainer’s black spike magic, which seemed instant in normal time, was rapidly coalescing just where my attack was about to hit. I instantly redirected my strike upward, to just below his arm.
I could see the ghastly mana moving, reacting to my new attack. But it didn’t reach in time. I feigned another attack, then drove my fist into his sternum instead.
The retainer buckled over from the blow. He took a step back to keep himself upright, and a thin trail of fluid too dark to be blood trickled down the side of his mouth.
I was surprised that my attack had actually connected. I paused for a beat before lunging forward with another strike.
It’s in the shadows, Sylv! I screamed internally. Those black spikes can only manifest in areas of darkness. That’s why his spells are always more powerful when they come from the shadows.
Uto’s hand blurred. It blurred. Despite being in Realmheart and having Thunderclap Impulse heightening my senses, I couldn’t clearly see his strike.
His fist hit me like a train. Even with the density of mana protecting my body, I felt myself flicker in and out of consciousness. By the time I had collected myself, I was twenty feet away, with my back up against the shattered trunk of a tree.
Sylvie was holding Uto off, the blood from her fresh wounds coating her black scales. Since her abilities had been sealed, she wasn’t able to keep up with Uto any more than I could, even with her superior defenses.
I got up, pondering whether to try Burst Step once more to outmaneuver Uto.
Sylvie’s sharp tone cut off my thoughts. ‘You’ll be crippled for the rest of your life if you use Burst Step again!’
It’s better than dying here, isn’t it? I sent back, frustration lacing my voice.
‘There are other options to explore before we use that!’ she hissed, twisting her large body to avoid Uto’s attack. She batted the retainer away with her wing before launching herself directly at me. ‘Get ready!’
Realizing that she wasn’t going to stop, I leaped and latched myself onto the base of her neck just before she kicked off the ground. Almost instantly we cleared a hundred feet, and continued to fly higher.
What’s your plan?
‘Like you said, it’s the shade. He’s able to manifest those metal spikes from wherever he wants as long as there are shadows,’ she explained as we rose high enough that the mountain wasn’t blocking the sun.
I winced at the bright rays, but immediately knew what Sylvie intended.
We were fighting in a giant shadow!
‘Exactly. That’s how he was able to conjure his attacks from wherever he pleased. If we fight him here, he’ll be much more limited in where he can attack.’
I steadily stood up on Sylvie’s back. She and I had never fought together like this. In my previous world, I’d had to spend hours training to fight on horseback, and I imagined that had to be easier than balancing hundreds of feet above the ground on a flying dragon.
I barely had enough time to find my balance before Uto appeared just a few feet above us, a black spear in hand.
His shadow-magic spear, which had previously glistened like metal, looked dull now that he had to rely on the shadow his body cast as an anchor for his spells.
Careful not to hurt Sylvie, I pushed myself off her back and enveloped my body in a spherical whirlwind.
Activating Thunderclap Impulse once more, I barreled straight into the retainer’s spear. Sylvie had been right; without the shadows, his attacks didn’t come from all directions—only from the parts of his body facing away from the sun. Black spikes jutted from his body, but the spikes weren’t nearly as dense or imposing.
“You’re pretty smart, pup. I’m glad you found my weakness,” Uto said, his voice muffled by the wind.
It was awkward fighting in the air. Just as Uto was restrained by the lack of shade, I was limited by the fact that I couldn’t fly. Sylvie maneuvered herself around me, acting as a platform for me to jump off of.
Try not to stay too close in case Uto tries to use the shadow your body casts, I sent Sylvie as I rushed in for another attack.
With Thunderclap Impulse’s effects further enhanced by Realmheart, I thought we would be able to win. Trails of ichor leaked from the shallow wounds I managed to inflict on Uto, but his expression unsettled me.
His face, which had been the picture of manic glee, had mellowed into an expression of… boredom.
“Even with this handicap, you haven’t been able to land a single meaningful hit,” he said, his voice somber. “It’s disappointing.”
“Sorry, but I’m not fighting you to impress you,” I spat, spinning around. The fractured tip of Dawn’s Ballad sunk into Uto’s chest. I let the mana coalesced into the blade surge out, and Uto’s entire body became engulfed in frost, fire, lightning, and wind.
I kept my grip on my sword as I felt the two of us starting to drop. For a moment, I thought I had done it. I thought I had killed him.
Then I saw a black swirl manifest from where my sword was embedded into him. My attack had managed to destroy most of the bandages he had wrapped himself with, only to reveal what looked like piercings.
He had little studs of metal all over his torso and limbs, and, to my horror, each of those metal piercings cast its own little shadow around his entire body.
Uto’s horn glowed with a purplish-black light while the shadow from his countless piercings spread entirely around his body.
I tried pulling Dawn’s Ballad free of Uto’s chest, but no matter how much mana I imbued into my body, I wasn’t strong enough to pry it out.
“If you were able to notice my weakness in the short time we have been playing, don’t you think I would’ve found out about it a long time ago?” His voice was muffled by the black mask that covered his entire head and face, except for his horns.
“Sylvie!” I said aloud, letting go of Dawn’s Ballad.
My bond immediately repositioned herself to catch me, but a black spike suddenly shot out from Uto’s body.
I siphoned more mana from my core, manifesting a gauntlet of ice around my right hand to strike the black projectile. I knew if I dodged it, the attack would hit Sylvie, so I smashed it aside instead, successfully redirecting the attack.
Or I thought I had.
Uto pointed a finger at me, as if warning me of something. I couldn’t see his expression behind his shadow mask, but I swore I could feel his hateful sneer.
An instant later, I felt the sharp prick of something against my skin—something coming up from below me.
With the internal lightning-attribute mana art enhancing my reactions, tapping into the mysterious aether around me, I activated the first phase of my dragon’s will.
Aevum, the control over time. With little mastery of and insight to this powerful ability, I was able to briefly stop time around me. Lady Myre had said aether could not be manipulated, only influenced—but in my case, it felt like I was merely tapping into the influence Sylvia had once had over aevum.
Colors flipped and the purple particles of aether around me trembled violently. Uto, Sylvie, and even the black spike almost lodged into my back—it all stopped abruptly. With Uto’s last attack no longer in motion, I was able to whirl away and avoid the full brunt of the impact.
Releasing Distortion—what I chose to call phase one—was much like letting out my breath after being underwater until the brink of drowning. I was barely able to gather my wits as the black spike flew past, disoriented as I was from the near miss.
My body hurtled downward, but just as I landed on Sylvie’s back, Uto reacted. He flashed across the sky like black lightning and struck Sylvie and I simultaneously, throwing us into a downward spiral.
As we plummeted toward the ground like a comet, I flashed in and out of consciousness once more. My entire body was a bundle of agony; I couldn’t discern exactly which part of me was broken.
Without even the luxury of screaming from the pain, I desperately tried to protect myself and my bond using magic.
Change into your fox form! I cried, but rather than obey, Sylvie scrunched her body into a ball, covering me with her arms, neck, torso, and wings. I could feel the warmth of her underbelly as she gripped me harder.
‘You don’t have enough mana to take the impact. At least my body will be able to block some of the force.’
Fool, I replied. Even in my thoughts I sounded weak.
I braced myself for the impact but it never came—or rather, I never felt it. By the time I regained consciousness, I was in the center of a crater, even more exhausted.
Sylv? I tried to get up, but my body refused to listen.
Sylvie? I sent out once more. No response.
A weak moan escaped my mouth as I turned. Sylvie’s body was still underneath me, but her limbs were splayed out and there were black spikes everywhere beneath us—some broken, some jutting out of her.
“No.” I shook my bond. “Sylvie. Wake up.” I shook harder.
“This isn’t funny, Sylvie!” I rolled off her body, scratching myself on a nearby spike.
“Sylvie, please!” My vision swam and I could feel my heart trying to burst out of my chest.
A wave of panic rushed over me, numbing me to all the pain. I crawled desperately, trying to dislodge her arm from a large black spike. I gritted my teeth, holding back sobs while trying to think of a way to help my bond.
“Aether,” I muttered breathlessly as I held my hands against her body. It was a long shot, but I had to try.
I activated Realmheart once more. Every inch of my body screamed in pain at the backlash, but I held on. With the particles of mana and aether visible, I desperately tried to somehow guide the purple particles into Sylvie’s body.
“Please,” I begged.
The purple particles of aether around Sylvie began quivering, as if answering my desperate cry for help. Slowly they swirled and seeped through her scales.
I didn’t know what would happen. Since Sylvie was able to heal me through aether, I thought maybe she could use it to heal herself as well.
Unable to keep Realmheart active any longer, I sank to my knees, pressing my face against the base of Sylvie’s neck.
“You’re going to be okay,” I breathed. “You have to be okay.”
Several black spikes had pierced Sylvie’s body and limbs, but I didn’t have the strength to pull them out. I tried hitting the black spike that had impaled her side, hoping it would come loose from the ground.
I struck at it. I struck again. I pummeled it until I couldn’t condense mana anymore and my knuckles bled.
“Your beast will live,” a female voice said from somewhere nearby. It sounded calm and mature.
Aya?
Desperate and hopeful, I turned around and looked up, but it wasn’t her. It was a girl, but it wasn’t Aya.
Far from it.
It was the girl I had seen at the cavern in Darv.
The Scythe. Except… in her hand was Uto. And he appeared dead.
Chapter 38
The First Scythe
I stared silently at her.
Sweat drenched my skin and my entire head throbbed. My tongue felt like a rag that had been wrung dry. My body felt fear, but my mind was lost in a web of thoughts. I could feel the gears turning as my brain tried to come up with a scenario that would make sense of this turn of events. The conclusion that it came to, however...
There was no way out.
With no mana left in my core, my body on the brink of collapsing from backlash, and my bond incapacitated, I did the only thing I could do. I waited.
The woman stood near the rim of the crater Sylvie’s body had made. She looked fundamentally different from the retainers I had seen up to now.
Her hair was long and reflected the sun like liquid amethyst. Unlike the witch, Uto, or Cylrit, whose complexions had been varying shades of sickly gray, this woman’s skin had the quality of polished alabaster. Her eyes were as piercing as the long black horns that spiraled up from her skull like an impala’s.
Aside from her remarkable physical appearance, what struck me most strongly was her aura—or rather, her lack of an aura.
It wasn’t like when I had learned to hide my presence. Rather, the Scythe’s aura seemed to be there, but controlled—contained like a devastating bomb ready to explode. The only time I had felt this was when I’d met Lord Indrath. Sylvie’s grandfather—the current leader of the asuras—had the same suffocating presence; it made everyone wary of when he might explode.
I swallowed heavily, which was the biggest movement I’d made since I had become aware of the Scythe’s arrival.
She remained still, though. That was a good sign. If she wanted to kill me, she could have done so by now. I wanted to ask why she was holding onto the dead or unconscious Uto by his hair, but couldn’t quite work up the nerve.
I was pretty certain that neither Sylvie nor I had done Uto any serious harm; that meant either he had exceeded his limits with that last attack, or that this Scythe had something to do with his current state. Both options seemed unlikely.
Without moving, I kept using Mana Rotation to passively regain mana. My body burned and my core ached from backlash, but I held on. No matter how much mana I gained, there was nothing I could do anyway; I couldn’t escape with Sylvie in this condition and there was no way I was going to leave her behind. My brain flickered with the notion that it might be worthwhile to fight against this Scythe, but that thought was quickly doused by every other fiber of my being.
So I remained in the same exact position, staring at the purple-haired Scythe. Dozens of possible scenarios ran through my thoughts, but then she did something I would never have predicted.
Reaching down with her free hand, the Scythe snapped off Uto’s horns one by one, as if she were plucking flowers. Without speaking, she casually tossed them at me. I reacted instinctively, as if they were bombs—and for all I knew, they could be. I scrunched into a ball, protecting my vitals. I positioned myself between the severed horns and my bond in the feeble hope that I could somehow protect my two-ton dragon, but nothing happened. The two black horns clattered as they rolled down the side of the crater before stopping anticlimactically at my feet.
I looked at the horns on the ground cautiously, then locked eyes with the Scythe. Her behavior didn’t make any sense; from what I had gathered, the Vritra’s horns were an important part of themselves. Why would she do that to her ally?
Just when I thought her actions couldn’t be more unpredictable, the Scythe lifted Uto by his hair and pierced his body with a thin blade of what looked to be pure mana. The deadly purple blade jutted through Uto’s sternum, but he didn’t react at all. Could he really be…
Whether it was because I was exhausted—physically and mentally—or the Scythe was enacting some sort of scheme, I couldn’t make sense of her actions. At this point, I was just shocked that she had been able to so easily pierce Uto’s core.
Mana and beast cores were dense, hypersensitive parts of the body; the higher the user’s stage, the more resilient they were. Being able to pierce through Uto’s core without causing him complete agony meant that this Scythe had done something more than simply knocking him unconscious.
The Scythe tossed Uto like a ragdoll into the crater, toward Sylvie and me.
“It was a tough battle, but you managed to defeat Uto. You were able to keep him alive, but for safety measures, you pierced his core to ensure that he won’t be able to use any mana art. You did this so you can take him back to interrogate him,” the Scythe said, as if reading from a script.
My initial response was to ask what was going on, but this Scythe seemed like the sort of person who despised needless questions that wasted her time. Based on her actions, it seemed that she either didn’t agree with this war or she had her own personal agenda. I could work with either option, as long as it meant I wasn’t going to die today.
I asked a different question instead.
“Would it be too much to ask your name?” I muttered, my voice betraying me despite the confidence I was trying to project.
There was a slight rising of one of her brows, but that was the only outward change of expression she exhibited.
After a slight pause, she answered, her voice flat, “Seris Vritra.”
Pushing myself up off the ground, I managed to sit up, propping my back against Sylvie’s body. My own body felt like it weighed as much as Sylvie did, but I did my best to appear poised.
“Thank you, Seris Vritra. I won’t forget this kindness.” I dipped my head respectfully. It wasn’t clear whether this Scythe was an enemy or an ally. She seemed like neither, but whatever the case, she had saved my life—and Sylvie’s. For that, the least I could do was thank her, regardless of her race or stance in this war.
Seris cracked a slight smile. “Peculiar boy.”
The Scythe turned, preparing to leave. Then, over her shoulder, she said, “For both our sakes, get stronger—fast. Uto’s horns will be an invaluable resource for you if you can manage to extract the mana stored inside.”
Wide-eyed, I gingerly scooped up the two fist-sized horns and stored them inside my ring. By the time I looked back up, Seris had disappeared.
I wasn’t sure whether it was because Uto was unconscious or because Seris had destroyed his core, but the bed of black spikes—which Sylvie had used her own body to protect me from—had crumbled. Sylvie’s wounds were already closing, and her breathing became more relaxed. I thought white core mages healed fast, but Sylvie’s recovery was actually visible.
No longer worried that my bond might die out here, I turned my attention to the unconscious and bleeding retainer. Dawn’s Ballad still pierced his chest, but it slid out easily when I gave it a tug. My sword had left hardly a scratch on Uto, but Seris’s seemingly nonchalant attack had easily pierced his body and core.
