Ashborn 367: Crisis in the Ash (Part Two) (Patreon)

“We have to run!” Tara said, half in panic, half because she knew the fate of those who dared fight one of those.

“Afraid that doesn’t seem to be a choice, lass,” Cirayus said. “The lad would have returned by now if it were. My guess? He’s found his demons.”

“Then…” Tara bit her lip. “Then we need to help. I doubt there’s much I can do in this state, but you should at least join them.”

“I will not leave you two here. Those Guardians aren’t the only thing that can kill you. The forests teem with starving beasts, only too happy to pounce on weakened prey.”

“Still… Wait!” Tara said, eyes widening. “We’ll go.”

“We will?” Aida squeaked.

“If we go to the site of the battle, you can join in, right? We’ll hide somewhere out of the way, so you won’t have to worry about us. But at least you’ll know where we are, in case other monsters do show up.”

Cirayus frowned. The plan wasn’t great, Tara had to admit. Going closer to the battle would put them in even more danger, and if they didn’t do a good job hiding, then they’d become a burden for Cirayus and the others. The smart thing to do would be to return through the Gate, to the relative safety of the outskirts of the Ash.

Even so, Tara couldn’t agree to that. How could she just slither away when Vaak was putting his life at risk? What sort of ally would she be if she fled in times of duress?

“I’m with Tara,” Aida said, face set in a mask of determination. “I’m not going to abandon him. I just got here! How can we leave now?”

“Should’ve known better than to argue with two hardheaded lasses like yourselves,” Cirayus said with a sigh and a shake of his head. “Besides, you have the right of it. I haven’t fought for centuries for nothing, you know? Even protecting you two, I believe I can help the lad. Though, with that goddess beside him, one has to wonder if he needs any help at all.” 

Tara glanced at Aida, and exchanged a grin.

“Stay out of sight. Move if the danger nears. And shout if you need any help. And don’t do anything stupid!”

“We’d never dream of it!”

— — 

“What’s… What’s going on?” Aida asked, mouth agape.

Tara had no reply. What could she possibly say about the current situation?

She didn’t know what was more astounding. That two Automaton Guardians—vestiges of the gods themselves—were not only here, but actively fighting… Or that Vaak and the Goddess Ashani were actually successful in holding them off.

The Guardians themselves were every bit as impressive as the legends made them out to be. Standing easily thrice as tall as the tallest trees, they made even a full-sized giant like Aida look like a child. They stood like noble warriors with brilliant white armor. Enormous white capes hung off their backs, and though unarmed, Tara knew they needed nothing as mundane as swords and axes to be lethal.

The race that built them had progressed far past such primitive methods, after all.

“This shouldn’t be possible,” Tara whispered in awe and fear. Gazing not only at the battle that raged in the air, but at the equally impressive one at their feet.

For the Ravager had joined the fray, and though he mostly dealt with the swarm of Ash Beasts that absolutely filled the large clearing in which they fought, his performance was no less impressive. It had to be.

In the middle of that clearing was a camp walled with thick, tall palisades, and inside were Vaak’s forces. What condition they were in, or how many were left, Tara couldn’t say. Just that both the quantity and frequency of prana arts firing from the fort were far less than she’d have expected from a force of two hundred demons.

She herself huddled against the wall of the fort, alongside Aida. She’d figured Cirayus’ task was to protect the base, and so there was no better place to hide than right up against it. 

Though she’d called out to the demons inside, there had been no response, so getting in didn’t seem like an option. Not when she had to continuously touch Aida to keep Yuma’s Embrace active.

The beasts fled the Automatons like a mad stampede, fleeing in all directions. From Raptors to Zards to Garga to Shredders, along with several Tara couldn’t identify. Some large, others small. Some that moved with blistering speed, and yet others that were slow and armored.

Each required a different technique to kill, and yet Cirayus and Shan were annihilating them with ease. 

Cirayus wielded Balancer of Scales with such mastery that it was a shame more demons couldn’t witness it. His application of the art would put most masters to shame, as he not only laid down a suppressive weight field, but altered the weight of individual limbs of multiple creatures at once, causing them to stumble and fall, only to be trampled and killed by the beasts behind them.

That the Ravager not only did this to several beasts at once, but that each application of his ability caused several more deaths as the stampede grew more and more confused, showed just how monstrously capable he truly was. This wasn’t simply the mastery of technique at the highest level—it was tactical and strategic brilliance that would have impressed even Jalendra the Wise.

Even Shan was unlike anything he’d been during the tournament, moving around so quickly that he appeared like a black blur of fur and Ash prana fire. Where he appeared, a beast would die, and often, several would fall at once. He dispatched any stragglers that made it through Cirayus’ defense. Despite not a word passing between them, they worked as the most seamless team Tara had ever seen.

“It’s… a battlefield,” Aida whispered. “This is… This is a war.”

Tara had to agree. Between Cirayus and Shan decimating the seemingly endless horde of Ash Beasts, and Vir and Ashani occupying the Guardians themselves, she felt like they were witnessing a great war between the clans.

“I think this is normal, around here,” Tara said. As hard to believe as it was, chaos reigned in the Ash. Monsters roved by the millions, and most demons were nothing but fodder.

“Is it normal for demons to fight evenly against those things?” Aida asked, pointing up to the Guardians.

“No, Aida,” Tara said with a wry smile. “I think that is very much not normal.”

Vaak moved with the same mind-bending speed as his wolf, except he seemed to spend as much time in midair as Ashani, who floated high in the sky, pulling herself left and right to avoid the devastating prana beams the Automatons fired from their chest and eyes.

One nearly stationary, one never stopping. Their movement was as different as their attacks, with Ashani unleashing mighty bursts of Lightning that visibly damaged the Automatons, scorching their brilliant white armor and causing them to become motionless for several seconds.

Seconds that Vir capitalized to the fullest by landing on the Automatons’ shoulders and pressing his palm against their skulls.

“What is he doing?” Aida asked, and at first, Tara didn’t have the slightest clue. As the seconds passed, however, and Vir repeated his attack again and again, she thought she saw something.

“Look at the prana beams!” Tara cried, pointing with her free hand at the devastation wrought by the beams. The red prana—at least, Tara assumed it was prana—vaporized all that it touched, and she felt it was only by some miracle that the base had been spared thus far.

Deep black troughs gouged the clearing in all directions, and if the land wasn’t already black with soot, they would have looked like terrible scars. As it stood, the flat area had become a ravaged mess of small hills and valleys. Nearly impassible.

Which, ironically, made it easier for Cirayus and Shan to defend.

Each strike caught several Ash Beasts in its wave of destruction, and left the land there nearly impassible, forcing the beasts to divert.

Cirayus and Shan, working together, capitalized on this, funneling the beasts into choke points where they could kill them off with ease.

“What about them?” Aida asked. “They’re just as terrible as before!”

“Yes, but look at their accuracy,” Tara said, pointing to the nearest marks, only a frozen or so paces away. “That one was already there when we got here. The ones ever since have been getting further and further away.”

“You think that’s the Akh Nara’s doing?” Aida asked.

“It must be,” Tara said with a rush of hope. “Whatever he’s doing is affecting the Guardian’s ability to accurately strike us.”

Maybe there was a chance they’d defeat these giants. To think Tara had the opportunity to witness such a historic event! The records would tell of this day for millennia to come.

Just, not in the way she’d expected, as that hope that was ripped cruelly apart a moment later. For the prana beams were hardly the Guardians’ only weapons. With their great mass, they could—and did—destroy anything they crushed with their enormous metal boots. And their arms, each as wide as a house, moved with such blistering speed that, like Vaak, they blurred. It was too fast for anything that size to move. It was unnatural, and thus terrifying.

That terror manifested when one of those arms finally caught Vaak, swatting him out of the sky like an insect.

It was followed by eye beams from both Automatons immediately after, slamming into Vir the moment he crashed into the ground.

Tara’s heart nearly stopped. It all happened so fast… One moment, Vaak was gallantly fighting off the divine machinations, and the next… She couldn’t accept this. It couldn’t be real. 

Yet she needed only to look at the mangled, deformed landscape, to know just how destructive those beams truly were.

For not just one, but four to hit Vaak at the same time?

“Sarvaaaaak!” Cirayus roared in the distance, rushing to the site of Vir’s impact, while Shan continued fighting off the beasts, despite howling in pain.

Tara watched on with abject horror, heart pumping madly in her chest, while Aida clasped her hands in prayer  as Cirayus disappeared into the crater that had formed from the impact, leaving only Ashani to fight off the two Guardians on her own. 

It was only when Cirayus emerged from the crater, bounding back to the fort at top speed with Vir in his hands, that Tara despaired.

What the giant held was not the Akh Nara. It wasn’t the wily combatant she’d fought in the tournament.

It was a charred, blackened corpse with only a single limb still attached.