162: Ash Wolf (Patreon)

With an explosion of ash, Vir darted to the nearest Ash Wolf, his katar extended. Even in the Ash, Vir doubted many beasts could move as quickly as he could.

Ash Wolves didn’t match his speed, they exceeded it handily. The wolf calmly moved to the side, easily dodging his thrust.

Worse, Vir shot past, giving his back to the enemy. He’d put so much power into his attack, it became extremely difficult to stop, let alone redirect his attacks. Vir flew for another fifty paces before finally slowing enough to dig his heels into the ash.

The moment he did, he was beset by all five wolves, and unlike before, Cirayus wasn’t keeping them from pouncing on him all at once.

Forget attacking, Vir was hard pressed to dodge and block their unending torrent of blows. The moment he blocked a claw, an open maw would be diving for his neck. Ducking that only put him face to face with two more sets of claws.

Vir had wondered why the Ash Wolves’ Balar rank soared so dramatically in a pack. Normally, the effect was additive, but not so with these beasts. Together, they were more than the sum of their parts, acting more like a single entity with five bodies, rather than individual units.

They fluidly and seamlessly pressured Vir, reminding him of Spear’s Edge and also the two Hiranyan warriors who’d ambushed him in the Godshollow.

True teamwork is terrifying.

It was something he’d never quite achieved with Spear’s Edge.

Vir dodged claws and maws, and blocked the ones he had to. He was losing, and his enemy knew it.

I need some way of isolating one from the rest, he thought furiously.

Easier said than done. On the few occasions Vir struck at a wolf, it always moved in a way that kept it close to the pack.

After defending an onslaught of claws, Vir glimpsed the slightest opening, lunging forth with his katar… only to find another pair of claws lunging at him from the sides.

A trap!?

Vir slammed his leg down, leveraging High Jump to abruptly change course. Even then, he wasn’t fast enough.

Claws slashed across his armor, leaving scratch marks across the pristine seric.

“These things are way too smart,” he muttered under his breath.

The attack brought with it another consideration—he needed to be far more careful about damage to his armor. Without a means of repairing it, any damage would be permanent. Haymi’s magic had protected him before, taking damage before the actual armor took damage, but now that he lacked that boon, he’d need to consider when and where he took hits.

Vir wasn’t skilled enough to dodge every blow, but he started focusing on evasion more to protect his armor. Which meant he had even fewer opportunities to strike back.

He needed time to come up with a fresh strategy.

Reaching for his ultimate weapon, Vir pulled prana from his legs and tried to sink into the shadows… Nothing happened. The Shadow Realm remained firmly shut. Then he looked up at the sky and understood.

It wasn’t so much cloudy as it was murky. In the Ashen Realm, day and night didn’t exist. The lighting was always hazy and dim, obscured by the unending ashfalls, which meant Dance was far less reliable.

Sweat built up along Vir’s brow and his breaths grew increasingly labored. The wolves were wearing him down, and if he didn’t do something soon, they’d win.

“One minute,” Cirayus called from some distance away.

Desperately, Vir created more of a suction, pulling so much prana from his feet into his legs until it was practically dry.

It was not an easy task. Ground prana threatened to rush into his body, overloading the wall he’d erected next to his skin.

Finally, just as an Ash Wolf lunged at him, the shadows opened and Vir sunk, freezing time.

Not doing that again, he thought, taking a breather.

Though pain couldn’t find him in the shadows, the throbbing sensation he’d experienced right before lingered in his mind. Forcing Dance to activate like that came with its consequences. It might work for emergencies, but it wasn’t something he could rely on continuously.

It left a sour taste in his mouth knowing his most powerful ability was crippled in the Ash, especially considering all the gains he’d just made.

That said, in the Human Realm, it would’ve been impossible to brute force the ability, no matter how hard he tried.

Just means I need different strengths to compensate. He’d come to rely on Dance heavily lately, and that worried him. In case it ever failed him—like just now—he’d be dead in the water. Or worse, actually dead.

Now that he was in side the shadows, he had a choice: either do what he’d always done, leveraging the shadows to decimate his enemy, or challenge himself to exceed his limits and grow.

He took the latter. Was it even a choice?

His mind turned to speed. Haste would’ve been nice, but as a Rare Tier Talent Vir had no familiarity with, he doubted he’d learn it in the few seconds he had before the shadows ejected him.

Blink.

An ability he’d craved ever since seeing Riyan use it. It was like Leap, just faster than the blink of an eye.

Vir imagined there wasn’t much that differentiated it from Leap, other than the prana it consumed. Vir settled on a plan, but first, he’d even the odds a bit.

Vir snaked a hand out of a wolf’s shadow and skewered its soft belly. It tried to run, of course, but there was no outrunning one’s own shadow. Vir’s arm followed the beast, plunging, retracting, and plunging again with the efficiency of the Pagan Order’s steam turbines. Unending. Unrelenting.

The wolves’ pack mates froze, unable to understand how the disembodied arm had murdered their brother.

They didn’t have long; Vir’s katar soon found its next target and began the brutal assassination again.

There wasn’t a third. By the time he’d killed the second, the wolves had shot away at top speed, leaving only one behind. The perfect test subject.

There was just one problem. With the wolves gone and Vir in the shadows, he didn’t have a full shadow to emerge from anymore. He picked the next closest one. Cirayus.

Vir jumped out of the demon’s shadow, but the wolf had already put distance between them. He needed to close the distance and do it faster than Leap would allow.

“Time!” Cirayus called.

Vir didn’t listen. He’d already committed. Vir surged as much prana into his leg as possible, but this time, he focused not on sheer distance, but raw, explosive power. He envisioned instantaneous transport.

The Talent responded. It yearned for more, sucking prana voraciously through the ground and the air both. It even sucked prana from the rest of his body.

Then it activated. Vir didn’t quite move instantaneously, but it sure felt like it. It was as if he’d taken a punch to his gut, such was the force on his entire body. That was before he crashed into the fleeing Ash Wolf at incredible speed, sending them both to the ground.

When he rose, he found his katar buried in the wolf’s head. Pure luck, more than anything, but he’d take it.

“Badrak’s Blasted Balls, Vir!“ Cirayus thundered, catching up in no time at all, and slapping him on his back. “Now that was a show. Well fought, lad. Well fought.“

“T-thanks. But I didn’t make it in time.“

“Bah. You had a whole minute left. I took a minute off the timer to push you.“

Monster.

Vir didn’t have it in him to reply. His leg throbbed and his whole body ached.

“Dance of the Shadow Demon is truly powerful. And yet, you see its weakness. The Iksana that protected you as a baby also struggled to deploy that power in this land.”

Vir sat back heavily onto the ash, kicking up a small dust cloud. “Did he figure out a workaround?”

“The same one as you, apparently. By fueling it with more prana, he could enter the shadows, though the grimace on your face tells me you ran into the same issue he did.”

“Overdid it. My body doesn’t like that. Blink didn’t help any.”

“Yes. Prana saturation. It afflicts us all.”

Prana saturation? Vir struggled to recall Tanya’s words when he’d snooped in on her lessons. He’d never really understood what that was, as it hadn’t ever affected him. Quite the opposite, in fact. The more prana he held within his body, the stronger he’d felt. He’d never forget the sensation of prana flooding him once he’d learned to prevent it from leaking out.

But then, it wasn’t just his legs that hurt. His arms did too, from channeling Prana Blade.

Could it be the same reason?

Never before had he cycled so much. For the simple reason that there just wasn’t enough prana to do so. He’d always rationed his consumption as aggressively as possible to allow more Talent uses in a prana-starved land.

With that limitation now removed, the prana he consumed was incomparable, even with Parai’s technique boosting his prana efficiency.

“Prana saturation… Is that when the body reaches its prana channeling limit?”

“Aye. No one knows why, but after channeling a certain quantity of prana, the body begins to resist anymore. It is as though prana burns us out. Luckily, the situation is temporary. A day or two of rest generally fixes the issue. One of our most gifted researchers, Saunak, once experimented with it, but his results were inconclusive, if I remember right. And highly unethical. The man was rather insane.”

“Demons have prana researchers?” Vir asked. He’d never heard of anything similar in the Human Realm.

“Oh yes. Plenty. I think you’ll find our knowledge of prana far superior to that of the humans. If I’m honest, felt like I was watching children play with toys.”

“Agreed,” Vir replied. Humans had copied inscriptions for millennia, yet there had been nearly no advancement in that time. To this day, all of their spells hailed from the Age of the Gods. Hadn’t anyone tried to change the inscriptions? Hadn’t anyone studied prana?

Or was it something else? Was there danger involved in doing so?

Vir didn’t even need to think about that—there was lots of danger playing with prana, as he’d found out firsthand. Yet humans were often reckless. Surely there was bound to be someone who didn’t mind losing their lives, who progressed the science?

It has to be something else, then…

Like a restriction. Some limitation that prevented humans from changing the script. Too bad Vir couldn’t look into it until he was back in the Human Realm. He doubted it’d be soon.

“You’d best conserve your prana,” Cirayus said, as he skinned the hide off of some of the beasts Vir has killed. “Seems counterintuitive, but here, your body is the limiting factor. For our purposes, prana is essentially infinite.”

Cirayus was right. Prior to the Ash, Vir could never have guessed just how nuanced controlling his abilities here would be. What would it be like for mejai, then? How many learned the tricks before prana poisoning took them?

First Dance, now saturation… Vir had several developments to consider. Not to mention how Prana Vision continued to obscure his eyesight even now, with Ash Affinity obscuring most everything else.

If only I could tune it somehow…

It was an idle thought, but not a bad one. Until now, he’d simply sent prana to his eyes, and that was that. If he could selectively filter out affinities…

A dozen applications unfolded. If he knew someone’s prana signature and could tune it for only that particular signature, he’d be able to spot anyone, anywhere, anytime. If he wanted to scout for Lightning Affinity mejai, he could easily locate everyone. Even those with dual or triple affinities.

As it was, Prana Vision was good at analyzing an individual. It was largely useless for looking at a whole crowd of people and quickly picking out an individual, unless they had strong affinities.

And if I can filter for strength… Vir could tune out all the weaklings, focusing only on the highest priority threats.

Of course, this was all conjecture. He didn’t know if any of this was actually possible, but something needed to change, or Prana Vision would be more an impediment than a boon in the Ash.

“Your training foundation is passable,“ Cirayus said, plucking a fang from a downed Ash Wolf. “Your foundation is sound. Your instincts, your sense for the flow of battle, and your tactics are all logical and well-honed. Few at your level of strength can get an Ash Wolf pack to rout. Even weak ones here at the edge of the Ash.”

“Thanks to Dance of the Shadow Demon. I’d have been in a lot of trouble without it.”

Though, maybe I can match their speed now, with Blink.

“It is good that you realize it. If you understand that much, I’ve no doubt you’ll come up with countermeasures.”

“Thanks,” Vir replied, thinking of how differently Cirayus treated him compared to Riyan. Riyan would just throw Vir into danger and force him to figure things out. Even when Vir succeeded, the man was conservative with his praise. And when he failed? There’d be no end of criticism.

Respect, Vir thought. That’s the difference.

Cirayus treated him with respect. Yes, the demon pushed him to challenge his limits, but in all situations, he’d been there to back Vir up in case he got himself in trouble. Cirayus pointed out his shortcomings, but also recognized his strengths, and lauded him for his accomplishments.

It felt good. Maybe it was because Vir knew just how incredibly strong Cirayus was. There was just something about the man’s bearing. The way he spoke and carried himself, that spoke of endless wisdom. The aura. It made his words have weight.

I guess it’s no wonder, if he’s lived for four hundred years…

“Now, let us review your performance in depth, shall we?”