123: Retribution (Patreon)

Vir’s return to the world of the conscious was not nearly as pleasant as his arrival into the dream world.

His entire body blazed with debilitating pain, and it was all he could do to not black out again. Gritting his teeth, he forced his blood to cycle in the pattern he’d practiced.

Praying to Janak that it wasn’t all some weird delusion he had, he willed the prana to move through his back.

The pain grew even more intense, making Vir question whether he’d messed up. But no, there was no error. Vir pushed through it, and finally, the pain began to subside. He could feel the acid’s destruction wane. Whether or not this technique could fully neutralize it was anyone’s guess, but at least it allowed Vir to move.

Just in time, too.

“Apramor!!!” someone shouted.

Vir opened his eyes to see the ebbing light of dusk, and the silhouette of a giant bladed leg poised to swipe down. Without even thinking, Vir sunk into his shadow, narrowly avoiding the limb that would surely have ended him.

There was a time when such mortal danger would’ve fazed Vir. Not a year ago, he’d have frozen stiff, unable to move, stricken with panic.

But now? Vir barely even registered it. His mind had moved on to the more pressing matter—how to end the Matron.

From the Shadow Realm, he saw Vason, frozen in time, having just tried and failed to Leap onto the Matron’s back, while Haymi prepared another Lightning spell, though she knew full well it would do nothing.

Tia looked like she was trying to sneak around the Matron from behind.

Pointless. Only Vason’s tactic had any chance. Magic was futile, and what good was sneaking up on an enemy you couldn’t even hurt? They might annoy it, though that was all.

Vir’s gouging through its thick back armor was a sound one, but Vason wasn’t capable of pulling it off. On his own. But together? They might just stand a chance now that the Matron’s Hunters were gone.

It was a window of opportunity, but a small one. No doubt, the Matron had other Hunter-Gatherers in the area. If the Matron was still alive by the time they arrived… well, Spear’s Edge’s chances of victory would plummet.

Not only that, with the ebbing light, the party would be at a severe disadvantage. Vir didn’t know how well the Matron could see in the dark, but her large antennae likely meant she’d be fine, while Vir’s companions would be essentially blind. The fall of night meant failure and death for the party.

But Vir wasn’t about to let it come to that.

He surfaced from the shadow realm, a handful of paces away from the Matron. Thanks to the long shadows of dusk, the entire forest was his playground now.

The pain returned in full force. Even a moment’s distraction could mean the difference between life and death. And so, he tried not to dwell on the fact that the only thing keeping him alive right now was Parai’s cycling technique.

A single Leap put him atop the Matron’s back. Vir pulled Ash prana through the Matron into his legs, channeling it through his body to his arm to Empower his chakram.

Simultaneously, he released his own body’s prana through his palm. It wasn’t quite Prana Blade, as he’d never been able to get the prana to wrap around the chakram’s ringed edge. Instead, it shot straight out as it would when he used it with the Katar. But it did catch a small portion of the blade, which was enough to make the blade deadly. Deadly enough to cut through the Matron’s carapace.

Chakrams couldn’t even dent the beast’s armor—at least this way, they’d be of some use.

With the chakram lodged into the Matron’s back, Vir then lashed himself to it with some rope that was tied to his waist belt.

“Vason! Jump!” he cried as the Matron fought off Tia and Haymi. The warrior failed to gain the Matron’s back, but now that Vir was atop it and anchored, he could help.

The large-framed warrior Leaped up to Vir, who caught his arm and pulled him the rest of the way.

“Tie in!” Vir shouted, right as the Matron bucked, sending them both off balance. Vir stayed on his feet, but agility had never been one of Vason’s strong suits. He fell to all fours, nearly slipping off the Matron’s carapace, but Vir once again stabilized him long enough for him to loop himself to Vir’s chakram.

There was now just one last piece of the puzzle.

“Haymi!”

“The acid!” Haymi cried. She was currently kiting the Matron, firing magic before circling behind the beast. “Your back! Do you need healing?”

She sounded distraught. For good reason; without Parai’s cycling technique, he’d already be dead.

“Soon. But I’m fine for now. Keep distracting it!” he shouted back. “Enhance Sharpness! If you have any, toss them here!”

Haymi immediately retrieved an orb and scurried over to Tia, handing it to her.

What’s she doing? Vir thought as the Matron moved, slicing at Tia and Haymi with a bladed limb, forcing the two to dodge.

Tia dove, rolled, and then threw the orb perfectly to Vir, just as the Matron swiped at her again.

Guess Haymi’s not too confident in her throwing skills, Vir thought, catching the orb. No wonder—even C Grade orbs cost a pretty penny.

“Hang in there, you two. We’re almost there!”

Vir removed his katar’s Enhance Speed orb, pocketing it and inserting the Enhance Sharpness orb in its stead. Haymi would keep the orb charged thanks to the blood rod.

Hope this works.

Vir slammed his katar into the carapace, and this time, aided by Empower, Prana Blade, and Enhance Sharpness, he finally did some damage.

With firm footing, they both went to work, taking turns gouging into the Matron’s back. While Vason lacked the Talents to augment his strikes, his large frame, Enhance Sharpness, and his longer sword allowed him to nick the carapace when Vir wasn’t attacking it.

They worked as one, falling into a rhythm despite the Matron’s jarring movements.

Right until the Matron learned of their plan. Screeching, the eight-legged beast started moving far more violently, crashing into trees in an attempt to throw them off.

Vir looked at the chakram. Each time the Matron crashed into a tree, it dislodged slightly. It was only a matter of time now.

Vir and Vason did their best to ignore her movements and work as hard as they could, but it proved impossible. The Matron was simply moving too erratically for them to get good strikes in.

Vir exchanged a glance with Vason. “I have an idea. Stay here and hang on, if you can,” he said, cutting himself free of the rope. Vir High Jumped off the Matron and grabbed hold of a nearby branch as the rest of Spear’s Edge watched.

Using his momentum, he hurled himself up to the highest tree top, some forty paces high. Taking a deep breath, he created a prana suction in his legs, but didn’t allow himself to sink into his shadow just yet, thus deferring Dance’s activation. He’d done this once before, against the proctor for his Balar rank exam in Daha.

He hadn’t done it again… because it was an incredibly painful, risky ploy. But extreme situations called for extreme solutions, and so he High Jumped, gaining another ten paces of height before he plummeted back to the earth.

Vir somersaulted in midair so that he’d hit legs-first and forced his eyes to remain open despite every instinct telling him to shut them.

The wind rushed past as he picked up speed. Faster and faster, the ground rushed up to him at an alarming pace.

Vir fired Prana Blade as he fell—one of the few Talents that relied on his own body’s prana, rather than ground Ash prana.

And in the split-second before he hit the ground, he activated Dance, allowing himself to fall into his shadow.

Perfection was a lofty goal, and he fell short. His leg splintered under the force just before the Shadow Realm embraced him. At least in here, he felt no pain. Not from his broken leg, nor from his burning back. It was a small reprieve, but one that Vir appreciated.

Taking his full ten counts of time, he carefully chose his exit location; a spot a handful of paces away from the Matron.

This better work.

Vir committed, and Leaped out of the shadow, augmenting the momentum he carried from his fall.

He’d never moved as fast in his life. In fact, it was all he could do to slash his blade in time, and he barely activated Empower before his strike hit the Matron’s bladed limbs.

Augmented by three magical abilities, and cut by a razor-sharp seric blade, even the Matron’s limb stood no chance.

Vir didn’t even feel the impact. His blade passed through one leg, then two, before digging itself into the third.

Losing no time, Vir Leaped away, fully aware of how easily he could be crushed under the Matron’s weight.

The Matron did not react well to the sudden loss of two of her legs. With her balance gone, she pitched back and fell on her rump.

“Vason! Now… oh.” The warrior had fallen off the Matron at some point. He was now hunkered down behind his tower shield, Leaping at the beast’s maw repeatedly. The constant bashing didn’t seem to do much to the bladed monstrosity, but it did keep her occupied.

“I’ll distract the fell beast. You finish it off!” Vason shouted.

A task easier said than done. The Matron was wounded, but so was he. Vir could pull blood away from flesh wounds to clot bleeding, but there was little he could do for a broken bone. And against the combined pain of his back and his leg, he could barely even stay upright.

And yet, he could not falter here. Not until the Matron had been vanquished.

Gritting his teeth, and placing all of his weight on one leg, Vir climbed up onto the Matron’s back. He couldn’t risk jumping, let alone Leaping, lest he land on his broken leg. He’d no doubt the pain would send him immediately into the land of the unconscious.

The Matron screeched and got back up—after all; she had eight legs. Missing two would limit her mobility, but it wasn’t as though she was incapacitated.

To Vir, every action drove needles of pain into his body. The simple act of hefting his katar took all the willpower he could muster. He looked for his chakram, but found only a gash where it had been.

Right. Must’ve been pulled off when Vason fell.

Vir fell to his knees and continued slicing open the Matron’s carapace. Each strike had little strength behind it… but it did have a lot of magic. With agonizing slowness, chips of the Matron’s armor flew, until its flesh was finally revealed.

Vir had positioned the hole right above where the prana concentrated in the beast’s body—likely its heart.

With every ounce of strength he could muster, he drove his Empowered blade in, eliciting a bloodcurdling screech from the maimed Ash Beast.

But Vir knew that one strike wouldn’t be enough. He withdrew the blade and plunged it back in, twisting it for maximum damage.

The Matron juked and bucked, but Vir forced himself to stay on.

After the fourth strike, the Matron’s energy began to wane.

After the tenth, the Ash Beast finally fell, collapsing on the forest floor, just as the last of the day’s light vanished.

“W-we did it?” Vason asked, stupefied.

“We did it!” Tia and Haymi exclaimed.

But Vir couldn’t hear them. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as the pain faded and blissful nothingness enveloped him with open arms.

Vir slumped off the Matron’s back and crumpled next to the dead beast. Not dead. But not quite alive, either.

He did not hear the cries of the Hunter-Gatherers all around them. Children who’d just lost their mother, and who were out for blood.