Chapter 72 - Two Choices (Patreon)

The mana within Jiran’s aura boiled as it scoured the area around that single drop of blood. Remnants of shredded fabric and skin too fine to see with the naked eye sprung into his awareness as his focus intensified. He followed the trail, quickly spotting two sets of larger footprints on the dirty steps.

Fear and fury vied for dominance as they swept through his body in a tangled, raging river that left him shaking. His fists clenched so hard his knuckles popped. Skin, toughened beyond human comprehension, threatened to tear as he battled against himself. Jiran refused to move, refused to give in to his body rampaging against his will. A dozen ragged breaths later, his breathing returned to a steady cadence that matched the beating of his heart.

Running ahead without thought never works. I have to stay calm. She’s going to be fine. No, she is fine. It’s hardly enough blood for a real injury. She probably nicked herself on something. And knowing her temper, it’s almost certainly her own claws.

Jiran scoured the floor once more, searching for anything he might have missed but his aura was so depleted it barely covered a few meters around him. His eyes found the next clue, another drop of crimson at the top of the stairs. Jiran bounded to the surface, scanning every direction but found nothing else that gave him a clue of what direction they had taken her.

I need my aura for this, I need more range!

Jiran gathered his mana before slamming it through his skin and into his aura. He doubled over from the backlash, barely holding back the bile that leaped up his throat as his guts churned. His aura recoiled from the rough treatment, quivering and crying out in pain that matched the backlash within him.

That’s new. Or it’s not, and I’m only now able to feel it. What am I doing wrong?

He pulled his manabody completely inside himself and connected with it by bringing his body, mana, and aura into the familiar alignment of Oneness. He tried to feed it again, though this time with a gentler touch. Thousands of motes of mana flipped and spun before turning inside out, inverting in a way he couldn’t quite perceive, and joined his aura without a touch of resistance.

A huge sigh of relief passed his lips before he pushed as much mana into his aura as it could take. He ran back down the stairs to grab the last few unfinished fruits left by Pepa. He swallowed them without hesitation, despite their overripe state. Density flowed into mana which converted into aura. Within minutes, his manabody was bursting at the seams, now able to stretch an additional two centimeters.

He pushed it out in a straight line nearly twenty meters long before spinning it in a wide circle along the ground. He found it quickly: Another drop of blood to the northwest, absorbed by the dirt, completely invisible to the naked eye. He found the next drop just outside a seemingly empty cellar. Inside, his aura easily spotted a fake wall leading to a tunnel, another drop just inside.

There’s no way it’s a coincidence. She’s leaving me a trail!

Jiran blasted through the wall and dashed down the tunnel. He exited through a trapdoor beneath the roots of a huge tree, Azurelight nearly a kilometer distant. He found her trail instantly, each subsequent drop almost exactly the distance of his aura from the previous one.

How did the idiots who captured her not notice this? Is it a trap?

The trail led to the base of a regular-sized mountain that abutted with Adelphoros. A narrow gap between two rocks that stretched deeper than his aura could stretch. Jiran sucked in his breath and squeezed through, sliding ever deeper into darkness. Fifty meters of claustrophobic shuffling later, the gap opened into a cavern wide enough for five people to stand shoulder to shoulder. He moved slowly, allowing his aura to quest out ahead of him with a light touch.

The tier fives ahead both felt him the moment their auras touched. When the two of them stood and drew their spears, he gave up any pretense of stealth and boldly walked forward into the widened cavern. Jiran was surprised to find a fully furnished hideout around them: Chairs, tables, food, and multiple branching tunnels that spun off into the darkness. Spread out across their table was a pile of polished bones and a cup for rolling them with two stacks of cut gems.

“Fancy meeting you two here, you might want to fuck off now. I’m not in the best of moods.” A soft, spinning glow lit up the dark cavern as the ring within Jiran’s chest began to thrum with lightly condensed elemental mana.

The hunters shared a look before turning back to Jiran. “Apologies, koroko. We cannot do that.”

“I’d really prefer not to kill you both. Last. Chance,” Six whips of Coating stretched from Jiran’s skin, striking the ground around him and kicking up dust. As the dirt filled the cavern air, his coatings became phantasmal snakes that displaced the air. The mana within his channel churned so quickly that it began to hum imperceptibly, its vibrations sending out visible oscillations that shook the walls.

They both took a step back, swallowing nervously. The hunter with bat ears backhanded his companion on the shoulder, “C’mon Rakech, he’s beyond the third phase and whatever he’s doing is giving me a really bad feeling. This is already honorless enough, I’ll not die in shame while betraying my own.”

“What will we tell the Aahmra?” The other hunter demanded while scooping up his winnings with a huff.

“We’ll think of something, we always do. Thank you for sparing us, koroko. She was not harmed, she is down that tunnel,” Jiran stood aside and let them pass, though he turned to face them as they walked by, wary of a trap until they were out of the range of his aura.

They could try to collapse this place, but I’ve dug out of worse.

It didn’t take him long to find her. She was pacing in a small room, fury leaking from her every movement. The moment Jiran’s aura brushed over her, she leaped at the huge slab sealing her room and began pounding on the stone with her bare hands. He calmed his aura, focusing on washing away his anxiety with soothing emotions. She stopped her mad assault and stood with her arms across her chest waiting for him to move the stone. The second it was out of her way, she rushed into his arms. He wrapped her in a hug and the last of his tension washed away with the smell of her hair and a deep sigh.

Realizing she probably couldn’t see, Light Manipulation gently lit up the small room. She leaned away from him, though not releasing the tight grip she had on him. All thoughts that she might have been in on any of the Aahmra’s plans vanished. The obvious signs of perpetual distress across her face made her emotions so transparent, he might as well be the one who could taste them. “Where is he? I will kill him! H-h-he destroyed it! I cannot fix that much damage. What am I going to do?” Her voice wavered between enraged and forlorn.

“Shh, it’s going to be fine. The Aahmra ambushed me but I escaped and left him in the empire. When I returned to the bunker, I recovered the celophite, too. I’m sure we can figure out how to make another voltree charger. The empire has some amazing smiths and my fourth tier skill should be able to help too, once I get it.” He led her out of the room and back to the main chamber where they sat at one of the tables.

“What of the Aahmra? You say he is stuck in the empire, but there are only two makerdrives left, Jiran! How will we protect ourselves without him? And how will we get help from your smiths if we cannot use the portal for fear of him waiting for us on the far side?”

“There’s a chance he would be, but I doubt it. If I were him, I would leave a few hunters as scouts while trying to ascend. Would your people even want him back after what he did?”

“Of course they would! They are all eagerly awaiting his ascension and coming victory over the alphas. He is beloved to them in a way you cannot understand. He has been protecting us for generations. There is not a single person in Azurelight who does not remember his smiling face from their childhood and the warmth of his aura protectively wrapping around them. Even me… Besides, what other choice do we have?”

“You can’t seriously mean that? You didn’t hear what he said! ‘Azurelight no longer needs ineffective toys and superstitious legends to protect it.’ He wants to rule over your island as an unopposable dictator! Once he ascends, there won’t be anyone, or anything, that can stop him. Including me.”

“He truly said that? And after that lecture he gave me about destiny and respecting the ancestors, too?! What a gaseous bladder of empty wind!”

“Hah! Yeah, he’s definitely a windbag alright. He did a whole evil monologue and everything before trying to capture me.”

“Truly? Was it as bad as one of the Maker’s stories?” She giggled, though the sound was forced, lacking its usual tinkling joyfulness.

“Definitely. So, what are we going to do?”

“That should be obvious,” She clicked her tongue while shaking her head. “You must complete Madra’s quest.”

“What?! That’s not at all what I was expecting you to say. How did you come to that conclusion?”

“Clearly the Aahmra’s betrayal is the catastrophe that you were sent here to resolve. Should you try to face him as you are, you will die.” Jiran could only nod reluctantly at her statement. “The Great Mother guided you here for a reason. You must discover it, gain what power she has to grant you, then use it to crush the Aahmra.”

“That… seems like quite the stretch. You don’t understand how manipulative Madra is. I doubt whatever’s waiting for me at the node is going to be some great power to save your people. She couldn’t care less about what happens to anyone so long as she gets what she wants,” Jiran’s fists shook at the memory of half his life being stripped of him with no explanation or apology, not to mention all the damage his disappearance had caused to his loved ones.

Mayalyn’s delicate hands wrapped around his as she leaned forward and looked into his eyes. The sight stole his breath, instantly calming his frayed nerves. “Of course she thinks that way. Her needs are beyond our comprehension. Do you care for the colony of bugs that your footsteps destroy? No, you only care for your own needs as they are far more important than the food source you just trampled. Do not hate her for being who she is.”

“I’m sure those bugs are pretty pissed at me too. But… I’ll try. So we either bow to the Aahmra and bring him back, or I do Madra’s quest? Do we really only have two options?” Jiran sat bolt upright as he gasped.

Daughter! She knew things would come to this? How? Why didn’t she warn me then?!

“What is it?” Mayalyn’s ears stood up straight and twitched as she cued into the intensity of his thoughts.

“I need to use a technique, I’ll be right back.” Jiran stood up and Mayalyn moved to follow him but he gently waved her back with a smile. When she relented with a huff he grabbed several wrapped portions of preserved meat from a bag in the corner before finding an empty room and sitting cross-legged.

Revelation.

“The quest is related, though not in the way that you think,” Daughter appeared in his mind’s eye, her form as nebulous and full of stars as usual.

“You were listening?”

“Always,” She responded with a chuckle.

“Why didn’t you warn me about the Aahmra?”

“Because you would have tried to resist him foolishly, or not taken him at all. I gave you enough hints to put you on edge without affecting the necessary course of events overmuch.”

Jiran narrowed his eyes, not liking the tone of the conversation one bit. “Necessary course of events? What are you talking about?”

“You should heed Mayalyn’s words, she is wise beyond her seasons. Madra is dying. I am sure of it now. Her pulse grows weaker by the day and her needs outstrip yours and mine. You will not like what awaits you at the node, but you will gain much from it… if you survive. I canno—” Her words were cut off as her starry eyes bulged. A strangled sound escaped her mouth as her hands locked around her throat. The last he saw of her was a pleading face that begged him to understand before she was swallowed by the darkness within his mind.