by Kaden Reed
Shino, having managed to disappear during the fight between the titans, reappeared suddenly in the midst of a group of startled enemies. Lashing out, he seemed to flow between them, ending the lives of several Aku before they had a chance to react.
Amani and Dhurin were working together furiously. Dhurin holding back a growing tide of enemies, as the caster wove one of his trademark cataclysmic spells.
Everywhere that I looked, even though outnumbered three to one the Khanri were slaughtering the unprepared Aku.
“It looks like you have lost Raven,” I tasted blood in my mouth and spat on the floor, “your Chosen have a lot to be desired when it comes to fighting.”
Sneering at me, he withdrew a bone white dagger that I hadn’t noticed from his waist and, cocking his hand back, he threw it at me.
Still in mana sight, my eyes opened wide in surprise as I saw the pure white mana inside. Panicking that this weapon had a similar ability to me, to sever a connection with a Dungeon, I activated my mana blades and struggled to force my broken arms upwards in an attempt to deflect the projectile.
Suddenly, Eli appeared in front of me, the dagger sinking up to its hilt into his back. At that moment, I felt the familiar filling of my core that signaled the return of Akashi’s presence.
Frantically, I searched him with mana sight and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the dagger had entered into his abdomen. While it probably hurt a lot, it wasn’t anywhere near his core.
The relief was short lived however, as I was beginning to look away, I noticed out of the corner of my eye the barest hint of a thread of white mana seeming to break off from the dagger.
I heard Akashi echo my scream of wordless denial as we watched the dagger seem to rapidly dissolve inside his body, the mana finding its way into the network of channels that crisscrossed his abdomen.
Willing the mana to stop with every fiber of my being, I held my breath as I helplessly watched as it swiftly flowed into Eli’s core. When nothing immediately happened, I clung to hope as a drowning man clings to a line tossed from the shore that I was mistaken about its capabilities.
For the briefest moment, our eyes locked as Eli smirked at me, his mouth was moving as if he was saying something. I strained to hear his words when his core suddenly erupted in a torrent of released energy. The stored mana sending a shock wave through the room.
In shock by the sudden turn of events, I barely noticed as my broken body was tossed across the room. As I lay motionless, I could hear several people moving behind me when a now all too familiar voice called out a command, “grab everyone here and take them through the portal.”
Wanting nothing else other than to tear every Aku limb from limb at that moment, I welcomed the fury that engulfed me. Lost in the rage, I could sense a boundless well of power just out of reach and I instinctively reached out towards it. Blindly groping, my mana seemed to make the barest of connections with this vast power.
As if recovering from his own shock, when the connection was made Akashi hesitated for the briefest moment, as if unsure if he should proceed. He quickly relented and strengthened our bond. As a tidal wave of power rush into me, my eyes flew open wide.
********
Instead of seeing the room around me, I was transported into a vision. It confused me at first, but I soon realized that unlike the visions I had been shown earlier, these I was seeing everything from the viewpoint of Akashi.
In the vision, I watched in despair as a man, that I had known for decades, had his limbs torn off by a group of Aku. Casting a healing spell on his barely alive torso, I raged in impotent fury as he was carried through a portal. Our bond came crashing back into me with the force of a whip as it was severed shortly thereafter. The knowledge that this was the first of my Khanri to have been permanently killed, surfaced in my consciousness like I had always known it.
A woman that I had cared for, cornered and alone by her enemies, was beaten within an inch of her life. Horribly mutilated and begging for the mercy of death, I watched in helplessness as they drug her through the portal by her long blond hair. I waited in agony, my imagination alive as it conjured ever worse torments that they may be subjecting her too, as the days crept by. When our bond was finally severed, I wept with gratitude that at least it was over for her.
A Hand was caught out of place during an attack. Their leader already dead, the three surviving Kits threw down their weapons and surrendered to the experienced Aku that surrounded them. I railed in impotent fury as they willingly marched into the portal. It was a week until all three of their bonds were severed. The last holding out for days before succumbing.
In rage, I celebrated as my Khanri charged through a portal to attack the Aku, determined to use whatever weapon they had on the other side to end them once and for all. Each bond that was severed in the coming hours felt like a hammer blow to my heart. Thorn, the lone survivor, was harried for days through Dungeons unknown before slipping back through a portal to bring the details of the failed assault.
Faster and faster the visions came. I felt the pain and loss as each of the bonds were severed. The entire story of each of those Khanri pushing to the surface of my mind for me to know as if it was my own before fading back into obscurity. I watched them every day of their lives in my Dungeon. I cared for them, I grew to love and cherish them. And I screamed in torment as they kept dying.
********
The visions abruptly ceasing, Akashi intoned, “I have watched impotently as my Khanri, my friends, were murdered over the centuries. Unable to do anything to stop the slaughter, I turned to what I should not. I would use the essence of the bonds of each of the Khanri that was killed in my service to create a weapon the likes of which was forbidden by my kind.”
“It took centuries to amass the necessary power. But the knowledge that with each death the Aku claimed would eventually spell their own demise, hardened my resolve,” Akashi continued solemnly, “when I had finally amassed enough arcane mana, I increased my recruitment of Khanri to unheard of levels. I went through hundreds of hopefuls in my Trials, all to find you.”
“Now you know,” Akashi spoke reverently, “the remnants of the bond of every Khanri that has been murdered before you, were used in your creation. I can feel the echoes of their deaths in our bond - their final moments frozen in eternity. And through our bond, you get lost in my rage at the Aku, my desire for retribution for what they have done.”
I rose to my feet, feeling the power from our reinforced bond flowing through me. And with that power waves of Akashi’s hatred of the Aku crashed into me until all I could focus on was the desire to rend them apart with my bare hands. I knew I was made for one thing - to be the vessel of his retribution for all of the lives that had been sacrificed on the altar of this perpetual war. I smiled grimly in anticipation of the coming slaughter as I felt every ounce of mana flowing through my channels vibrate in anticipation at finally being let loose.
“You are my Harbinger. My soul mirror - my will made flesh,” his voice reverberated inside my skull and the power coursing through me sung in response as he slowly uttered my modus operandi, “kill them all.”
I flashed into motion, reaching the nearest Aku within moments, a small man with thin black hair and a goatee. He looked at me in startled surprise as I sank my mana blade into his core. As it released the stored energy in a massive explosion, I pulled my mana channels outside and formed a wedge that wrapped around my body to divert the energy harmlessly past me.
Striding to the next enemy that was facing Dhurin, I grabbed her and drug her screaming to the next in line. Taking both and casually slamming them against the wall, I stabbed each of their cores with a mana blade, reveling in their destruction.
Laughing, I jumped to an Aku that was scrambling to get to the portal across the room. Deciding to try something new on a whim, I wrapped my mana blade around my arm like a glove. Pushing my hand into his chest, I gripped his core in my fist. Yanking it free, I admired it as
it pulsed rapidly like a dying heart, speedily counting down the last seconds of its life.
Spying him across the room, I turned and threw it at the Raven. The dying core fractured as it contacted the stone floor next to his feet, launching him to the side.
Rejoicing in the power that was soaring through me, I charged him as he rebounded to his feet.
I slashed and stabbed with my mana blades, growling in frustration as the Shadowdancer managed to just barely stay ahead of my strikes.
Slipping under my guard, Raven countered with two swift strikes to my abdomen. The blade bent sharply on themselves as they contacted the mana barrier hugging my body.
His eyes growing wide in fear, I watched with my mana sight as he disengaged and summoned his purple mana to wrap around himself. Instinctively I knew he shadow stepped behind me, I turned to see him following the last of his Aku through the portal as it started collapsing.
“No!” I shouted in fury, “you are mine Raven!” Screaming incoherently in outrage, I threw out my mana in a brute force attempt to hold the portal open and charged the struggling gateway.
Suddenly the connection to Akashi was abruptly severed, sending me crashing to the floor.
“I’m not willing to risk you yet Afton,” the pleased voice of Akashi spoke to me, “not yet.”
With the power gone, the pain of my extensive injuries came flooding back magnified a hundredfold. My mana channels felt raw, with several of them destroyed from the massive influx of energy they weren’t capable of handling.
Examining the extent of the injuries to my core, I reasoned that my mana would have burned me from the inside out within seconds if Akashi hadn’t pulled the plug. Even with that knowledge, all I could think about when unconsciousness overtook me was - I was so damn close.
Chapter Sixteen
In Memoriam
“I rise; I train; I kill; I die - all in service to the Akashi.”
- Shino on the Khanri’s purpose
“Come on,” Marty called from ahead as he impatiently watched me struggle to make my way down the hallway.
“I’m hurrying as best as I can,” I replied, putting one foot in front of the other while clutching a staff that I was given by Jax for support.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” Niko said in a hushed voice next to me, one hand under my arm.
“I’ll be fine,” I gently pulled my arm free from her grasp. Exasperated with their hovering I said, “you two go on ahead and save me a spot. I’ll be there soon.”
Reluctantly they both agreed and left me in blessed silence as I methodically made my slow way to the Memorial Auditorium.
I found out after the battle with Raven, when Akashi and I had joined like we did, the magnitude and density of the power he provided me far outstripped my body’s ability to handle. According to the healers, the damage that was caused was irreversible. They knew of no healing spell that was capable of repairing the damage that was caused to my body, let alone my core. Checking it again for the hundredth time, I saw the same blinking F0 that had been there ever since I regained consciousness.
“It will heal,” Akashi’s reassuring voice broke into my thoughts, “just give it time.”
I dismissed his comment with a wave of my hand, “I trust you. I’m not worried about that though.” I paused, collecting my thoughts before I continued, “what do you think about what Raven said? That there are other Dungeons out there that will eventually come and enslave us all?”
I continued laboring on my journey in silence for a long moment before he replied, “it may be true.”
A pang of fear rose inside me at his words, “can you find out for certain?”
“No,” he said immediately before sighing, “I suppose since I have broken the primary law, I might as well break another and tell you more about Dungeons. Most Dungeons are what you would consider bestial or non-intelligent. They only operate on basic instinct - kill, feed and grow. At a certain point, which seems to be unique for each Dungeon, they reach a level that allows them to become sapient - like me. They are able to understand higher concepts.”
Nodding at his words, “that makes sense from what I heard from Thorn earlier.”
“She has been around long enough that she has managed to distill a lot of truth from very little information,” he was full of pride as he complimented her, “I have reached out to all of the Dungeons that I can, but most are too feral to be of any use. The handful that are intelligent enough to understand what I was asking replied in the negative.”
“You see,” he continued, “I can only reach those Dungeons that are connected to mine through ley lines.” I was given the impression of him gesturing at the wider world, “whatever is beyond my immediate reach, I can’t verify. I have to depend on the word of other Dungeons. Which, as you might understand, since most of them are about as intelligent as a particularly vicious family pet, can be considered highly suspect.”
“So, you are saying that we deal with the Aku now and face whatever might come in the future,” I replied frowning.
“Basically, yes,” he confirmed, “our only recourse is to get stronger. Not only to defeat the Aku, we need to get stronger for whatever may come in the future. We have to be ready. Our world depends on it.”
“Have you had any luck trying to figure out how to replicate that weapon that killed Eli?” I knew he has been trying to analyze the weapon’s pattern and try to discern how it was made. Since it was portable, it would be of a great benefit to arm some of our strongest Khanri with it.
“I haven’t been able to figure it out,” he sounded tired, “I don’t even see how a weapon like that is even possible. It injected arcane mana into Eli’s channels and only when that mana reached his core did it become unstable. That contradicts everything that I thought I knew about arcane mana.”
Thinking about what Akashi said I mused, “maybe I can find a way to do something like that.”
“No,” he stated flatly, “don’t even consider it. One thing is for certain, that mana that was injected into him was irretrievable.”
“Why would that matter?” I asked, “other Khanri use skills that consume mana all the time.”
“They are using lesser mana though,” he spoke as if lecturing an unruly child, “the colored mana regenerates naturally over time. That is one of the reasons why I have prepared mana-enriched food, to speed up the recovery process. However, every Khanri only has so much arcane mana. It doesn’t regenerate, so once it is gone - it is gone. That weapon was definitely a single-use artifact because of that.”
I slowly kept walking while pondering the information about the limitations of my class, “alright, I won’t be doing anything like that then. So, the reason I can mold mine is because I have more white mana than a normal Khanri.” I nodded to myself before I continued, “you said that I would have a limited ability to have influence over another’s mana,” I thought back to the first time Marty healed me, “so far all I have been able to do was remove a portion of Marty’s healing spell that was affecting my ability to feel my injuries.”
“You were able to do more than that,” he scoffed, “you sliced through that Magus’s spell and even grabbed a hold of someone’s core and ripped it out of their body.” He continued offhandedly, “oh and you managed to push your channels out of your body and use them as some sort of shield. By the way, I didn’t even think that was possible so, way to go on blowing my mind on that one.”
“But most of that was after I got the huge influx of power from when we deepened our connection,” I said dismissively, “I was talking about what I could do now.”
“Being able to cut through spells and shrugging off spells that are affecting you is not enough for you?” He paused as if he was waiting for a response before he continued, “give it time kiddo. You are already progressing at a far more rapid rate than any Khanri before you. You are treating this like it is a sprint when it is more like a marathon. Everything will come with time.”
Sighing, I walked in silence, contemplating his words before what he initially said jumped out at me. With the fight so long ago and the following several days of recovery, it had slipped my mind until he casually referenced it just now. “Hey,” I said to him speculatively, “during the fight you said something about creating what was forbidden. And just a few minutes ago you mentioned something about already breaking the primary law. What are you talking about?”
“I wondered when we were going to have this conversation,” he sounded resigned, “alright, I better start at the very beginning. You see, every Dungeon is born with the knowledge of three primary laws. The first is to keep information about our kind secret. The details of our existence that I am giving you and, by extension, my Khanri, are strictly taboo.”
A thought just hit me like a loaded wagon, “how come you don’t censor what I say to anyone?” I continued speaking fast, “I thought that was something you could do to every Khanri?”
“I can’t put any bindings on what you say,” he spoke hesitantly, “I have already tried, and the bindings just melt off of you. Effectively, you can say whatever you want to whoever you want, and I can’t do a thing about it.”
I was elated about being able to take all this knowledge up to the civilians. Daydreaming about being interviewed by Sara, the extremely attractive reporter, my thoughts derailed as I considered another aspect of what he said. I asked Akashi, “what will happen if the other Dungeons find out that you broke the law?”
“I don’t know,” he replied calmly, “I suppose we will find out when that happens. The bindings still work on every other Khanri, so nothing you tell them can be leaked by them. Just don’t go blabbing any details to civilians or Khanri from other Dungeons and hopefully we will never have to worry about it.”
I slowly nodded my agreement at his request, the last thing I wanted was even more enemies.
“The second law is to horde mana and grow,” he continued, “this is almost exclusively at the expense of our neighboring Dungeons, but every creature, plant, and stone, has some sort of mana that resides within it naturally.”