Gleam - Chapter 146 (Patreon)

“That’s a Strandwalker. They’ve got really tough chitinous exteriors and hunt in packs,” Chance warned, drawing Essence and letting it flood through his body. His urumi shimmered with gold energy and mist swirled around him, pooling at his feet.

“I don’t see any others,” Bella said, her eyes flicking around the alley. She formed her sword, holding it before her defensively. “I take it by your tone that they’re dangerous?”

“They’re nasty. Really fast, and tough to injure. We’ll probably need to use our centers ,” Chance said. “And keep an eye out for more of them. I think Yamish told me they were often in packs of between four and six, but they could be hiding somewhere. Let’s focus on taking this one out, and if another pops up, split off to keep them from surprising us.”

Yeo drew his kusarigama and the sickle glittered as he started to spin it in a lazy arc at his side. He gave Chance a nod. “Show us what we’re dealing with. We’ve got your back.”

Chance darted forward, a golden hand of Essence materializing behind his right shoulder as his power took physical form. The Strandwalker spun toward him with a chitter, its gangly legs clicking across the ground as it met his charge.

A leg snapped out and Chance dipped to the side, staggering drunkenly to avoid another slashing limb. He bounced back, then sent his urumi out. The glowing blades screeched against the bottom of the Strandwalker’s stomach, leaving a thin furrow in its chitin.

He drove his glowing fist of Essence up into the monster’s stomach even as it tried to crush him beneath it. A brilliant crack ran out and the monster let out a screech as it was hurled back, hitting the ground with its limbs flailing.

It slammed into the crumbling wall of a storefront, sending the whole thing collapsing down on top of it. Letting out another loud scream, the Strandwalker scrambled to its feet. It swayed unsteadily and chittered, disoriented from Chance’s attack.

And, from the darkness at the edges of the square, chitinous clicks echoed out in response. Three more bulbous bodies pushed through the cracked roads and spilled into the square, their many legs tapping aggressively against the floor in a sickening march.

“Oh shit,” Yeo said. “You were right.”

“Bella, finish off the one I was fighting,” Chance ordered, spinning toward the new monsters. “Yeo, take on another one. I’ll distract the last two until you both finish and can help.”

All of them burst into motion, and the Strandwalkers did the same. Chance’s urumi carved through the air, a glowing line of energy rising up from its blades as he poured Essence through it, making sure to draw the monsters’ attention.

It worked. Two of the Strandwalkers jerked toward Chance, their many eyes locking onto him with undisguised malice. There was no time to think about the best way to fight them. Any thought at all would have taken precious seconds that he didn’t have. Instead, Chance let his Essence envelop him entirely.

A small laugh slipped from his lips as he swayed, golden mist swaying off his body and curling into the air. The arm of Karma on his back flexed its fingers, beckoning the Strandwalkers on.

The two monsters charged in unison, both snapping out with their many limbs in an attempt to spear Chance before he could even get a chance to respond. They worked as if they were two halves of a whole, interlacing their movements with each other’s in what almost felt like a tapestry of chitinous, sharp legs.

Chance bounded to the side, his urumi flicking out to keep their attention. It scraped across one of the monster’s bodies and sliced through a building, sending rubble raining down around them.

The monsters leapt at him, and the world became a blur. Chance twisted and stumbled, tripping over himself and dancing with an invisible partner. He bobbed and weaved past every strike, his urumi making a whirling tornado of glowing metal around him.

Finding the opportunity to attack back with two Strandwalkers both trying to kill him at the same time was nearly impossible, but he didn’t need to fight back. There was no doubt in his mind that Bella and Yeo would handle the monsters they were fighting soon enough.

That meant all he had to do was survive – and Chance was particularly good at that. His laughter filled the dark town square, echoing off the walls. No matter what the Strandwalkers tried, while their legs could pass just inches away from Chance, they could never quite touch him.

He was burning through energy at an alarming rate, but the joy of his own Essence barely let him even realize it. As consumed by his own power as he was, Chance didn’t want to do anything but exist.

His glowing hand shot out as he dodged two simultaneous attacks, snagging one of the Strandwalker’s legs and yanking it off balance. It stumbled into the other one and they both hissed in fury, trying to untangle themselves.

And, in that instant, Yeo struck. Glimmers of silver arced through the air, a twisting vortex of metal threads biting deep into one of the Strandwalker’s armor. It screeched in either fury or pain – Chance wasn’t quite sure. While Yeo’s attack hadn’t completely penetrated the Strandwalker’s defenses, it was enough to make it trip over itself as it tried to rise.

Bella took the opportunity to join in the fight as well. She brought her sword down with a cry, sending it crashing down directly onto the Strandwalker’s disgusting head. Her heavy sword, infused and glowing with Essence, crunched into the monster, stilling it forever.

The other Strandwalker snapped for Chance, trying to bite at him. He vaulted into a handstand, kicking both of his legs up into the bottom of the monster’s chin. Chance’s hand of Essence drove up, ripping through the Strandwalker’s armor and driving deep into its flesh. It screamed in pain as Chance ripped his hand free and replaced it with his urumi.

Golden Essence poured out of him and into the monster, ravaging its insides. Bella delivered the finishing blow, slamming her sword down onto the last monster’s head. It jerked one last time, then crumpled where it stood.

For several seconds, the three of them stood in silence broken only by the sounds of their heavy breathing. Chance let his Essence recede and braced his hands against his knees. Bella dismissed her sword and Yeo returned his kusarigama to his side.

“Is everyone okay?” Chance asked, breaking the silence as he examined one of the bodies and glanced around the dark town square.

“I’m fine,” Yeo said. He walked up to join Chance. “I managed to keep enough space with my threads.”

“I’m fine as well. They couldn’t break through my defenses and I was able to avoid getting hit for the most part,” Bella added.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be able to promise that was a one-off thing?” Yeo asked, gagging at the corpses surrounding them. “These things are…

“Hideous,” Bella finished. “And there aren’t more, are there?”

“If you mean here – I don’t know,” Chance said. “Yamish said they could be in packs as large as six, but if there were more in this pack, I’d expect that they’d have attacked already. I think this one was just four. We got lucky.”

“What are these… things doing in Gleam?” Yeo demanded. “I mean, I could understand a few monsters slipping by, but the way you’re talking about it makes it seem like there’s an infestation.”

“There is,” Chance said with a grim frown. “There’s apparently a whole hive of them somewhere in the Old City. I’ve been hunting them at night, but this is the first time I actually ran into this many at once. I think the Old City has been helping filter them out for me.”

“If it can do that, why doesn’t it just kill them itself?” Yeo’s nose scrunched in distaste at the dead monsters. “Should we try to gather their bodies and sell them to the Shikari?”

“Can’t hurt,” Chance said. “I don’t have enough orbs to hold all of them.”

“I have a few,” Yeo said. He reached into his bag, tossing out four small marbles. They collided with the dead Shardwalkers, sucking their corpses in and turning a deep black. Yeo scooped the orbs off the ground and tucked them into his pockets. “We’ll turn them in as a group. Do you think we’re going to run into more of those tonight?”

“I don’t know,” Chance admitted. “Normally, the Old City is pretty good at not giving me stuff to fight when I’m just trying to travel from one spot to the other. This is a little concerning. It means she’s either so overwhelmed that she doesn’t have a choice but to put us against them or there are enough Strandwalkers that there’s no way around them.”

“Well, they’re not the strongest monsters we’ve fought,” Bella said. “I can see how they’d be dangerous, but it looks like the biggest threat from them comes if you aren’t ready or get swarmed.”

“And the fact we have to use center Essence to finish them off,” Yeo added, crossing his arms. “I don’t exactly have a lot of that, you know. Chance, do you think any of these things are somehow tied to Acen?”

Chance blinked. The thought hadn’t struck him before, but they’d appeared roughly the same time that Acen and his marble had – and the Strandwalkers were certainly disgusting-looking enough to be related to the evil Karma within the marble.

“You might be onto something,” Chance admitted. “The monster we’re hunting might be a Strandwalker.”

“And we aren’t lucky enough to have it be one of these?” Yeo rolled one of the marbles between his fingers, but the expression on his face told Chance he knew the answer to his question before he’d even asked it.

“Not even I’m that lucky,” Chance said with a dry laugh that quickly faded away. “Our target may have something to do with the hive. There’s probably no way to know for sure right now, but we definitely can’t handle attacking the whole hive.”

“Didn’t Yamish basically imply it was a single monster?” Bella asked, chewing her lower lip. “It wouldn’t make sense if it was the whole hive. I’ll admit I don’t know much about Karma, but isn’t it more of a tweak what exists rather than manifest what doesn’t kind of Essence?”

“Yeah. It’s more likely the marble would have influenced the hive to do something or could have empowered some of the hive – stuff like that,” Chance said after a moment of thought. “We might be looking for a super-Strandwalker that’s hiding somewhere. I don’t know yet – but we should keep our guard up either way.”

“You don’t say,” Yeo said. He took one last look around the town square, then grimaced. “Right. Shall we continue? This place is starting to give me the creeps. Did you seriously survive here for a month?”

“You’ll get used to it,” Chance said, letting his urumi snap back to its bracelet form around his wrist. He pressed a hand to the walls of the Old City and the stone rippled, forming a new pathway for them.

Yeo and Bella exchanged a glance – for once, neither argued with each other.

“I really hope I don’t,” Yeo muttered, and the three of them headed deeper into the Old City.