“What was the math again? It takes ten men to match a D-rank? I wonder… how many skeletons does it take to account for a single man?” The glow faded from the choir raid-leader. She’d gotten the attention of the populace and given them a direction to run. The rest was just wasteful.
Unlike the glow, her smile grew. “Less than it would take to account for a single woman.”
“Aw, yeah!” Astrea bumped Jii’s fist, and picked up a fallen sword spear with the tip of her foot, flashily twirling the weapon before catching it. While their Essences were opposed, both the powerhouse women were quickly warming up to one another. “A shame for them, that they have to account for two.”
The other students around them groaned. They were on a battlefield; couldn’t this wait? Jiivra copied Astrea, except her twirling lift of the swordspear launched a charging skeleton skywards, sending it careening into a dive-bombing goose formation that exploded from the impact.
No. Apparently the showboating could not wait. The students lived for the distraction from the fight, beaming and giddy as they were given something other than the threat of imminent death to hold onto. Weapons were distributed, and it was time for all that coordination practice to pay off.
They knew where to stand, what order to make the movements in, when to thrust as a unit and jump back as the second line copied their prior action. It had just been with practice staves before, but their resolve hardened when a student discovered that a good stab to the head still did the trick in taking down the skellies.
A choreography of sequential attacks crashed upon the undead horde in fluid waves as the unliving bones mindlessly charged forwards. The space between students allowed fleeing residents to pass through their formation, leaving the practiced steps of dozens of young cultivators undisturbed.
Years of reading and practice, studies on the way of movement and breath, and the ideals of fighting and living in the moment suddenly evolved from theory… to application. If Jiivra had the time or Artorian been present, they would have caught the subtle moments when their students changed. It was the shine in their eyes, the determination of their breath, the sudden steady rhythm of previously panicked heartbeats.
Gazes steeled, and minds found their role as a defender. The purpose in their practice. The benefits of cultivation let them shine, as the people they used to be… ran past them for safety. It clicked. They were no longer of the common crop. They had power. Real, substantial power that let them stand against that which the masses could not. They were the swords and shields. Where each student became a warrior, so too did the flow of their Essence as it adopted their new identity.
When their backs were against the gaping mouth of the cave, only a few final stragglers rushed past them. Perhaps a handful of the students remained shaky, but the majority stepped solidly as stone. They took breaths with the steady flow of a forge’s bellows, moved as water, and comforted against the darkness with the spirit of a hearth fire. At their front, a white robe fluttered, pristine and unscathed. The sight kept their hearts and minds strong, and the song that reached them pulsed waves of power through their arms.
Jiivra was a Paladin, no matter what the church had decided for her. She would stand as the tip of the spear before the endless onslaught. Inspired, Jiivra started singing without realizing it. Skeleton after skeleton burst into bone dust as they made contact with the living defenders. Skulls shattered and shards flew, the blade of her swordspear blurring as the weapon danced in her experienced hands.
Astrea called for the back line to retreat into the cave. Some of the students needed a moment to snap from their battle trance; escape hadn’t been on their minds while caught in the unity of both the song they hummed along with, and the flow of battle. When they came back to themselves, retreat they did. Had they not been descending into caves; they’d have called this an uphill battle with the egregious stalemate they found themselves mired in.
The difference a single C-ranker made was astounding, while the earlier quip had been mostly a joke. It turned out that the ten-to-one ratio remained consistent for both living and dead. While easier to put down, the undead had an entire set of traits designed to turn the tables. This engagement wasn’t the same as fighting intelligent, living beings. The entire dynamic of battle was different.
Where a living opponent would use tactics and guile, the dead only wanted to get to you quickly, and gut you even quicker. Suicidal and otherwise impossible movements were standard for them, and the few skeletons that wielded weapons had zero qualms stabbing through their own comrades in order to reach their prey.
When it was down to an exhausted Jiivra and Astra remaining before the cave mouth, they set in motion the penultimate segment of the plan. Readopting her glow, the tired celestial instructor gave the signal as she broke off her song. “Now!”
Earth-cultivation students planted along the inside of the cave-opening slammed their hands to the walls. With joint effort, they coursed Essence through the dense rock and shook the roof of the cave opening. The faulting rock grit together, and with a calamitous rumble, part of the mountain collapsed inwards.
The consequent landslide rolled massive boulders through the sea of skeletal dead, crushing them to bone meal. Astrea punched the air in victory as she and Jiivra booked it inside. “That should buy us time!”
Inside the cavern, the stampede of people continued when part of the mountainside came down. They had to get deeper, much deeper in order to reach a defensible position. That temporary blockage wasn’t going to buy them as much time as they wanted.
It was awfully dark within the stale depths of the damp passageways. Even with the torches the expedition squads had left stacked and ready for future usage, they called out openings and offshoots they saw and came upon them. They needed the right path, and the maps only went as far as the first big cavity.
They just had to pray that… *Slumpf*. Students skid to a halt on the slippery ground. Some fell outright and skid a few feet further; what they saw didn’t meet expectations. Those still running behind them bowled over their peers. Friends became annoying roadblocks as they tumbled, unable to properly stop on the ground.
It smelled awfully metallic in the wide-open cavity. Jiivra pushed past the students, surveying the opening with confusion. “Where… where is everyone?”
The entire populace of Jian was nowhere to be seen. Nobody had an answer for her. However, with the added illumination their instructor provided, one of the students did have a follow up question.
“…What did we slip on? Is that… blood…?”
Epilogue
Ember gazed about the vast reaches of an endless desert. In any direction visible to Mage sight, nothing but sand existed. Raging dust devils collided with one another as winds sheared at such speeds that the air itself screamed.
Where the ancient Elf stood, there was no such gale. Arms crossed; she narrowed her eyes at a hole in the ground. An area that had been burning for centuries.
The passive power emanating from the crater was enough to rebuke the winds entirely, causing silence like the eye of a hurricane. The howling winds outside the bubble didn’t breach the zone as flame burst from the epicenter, and she waited for the passive ‘push’ to drop away.
That was her cue. With the lull in concentration that had kept her frozen at the edge of the barrier, Ember trudged through the silica and quartz dunes. She sat herself down on the edge of the vast crater and watched two men argue over the results of an advanced game of cè luè Ur; the most recent of thousands.
Deep in the pit sat Pagacco and Duke, using seats and game pieces carved from the meteor that had gut-punched this part of the Pangea ages ago. The current S and Double-S ranked Souls of Fire. Both cultivators from eons past plodded around Karakum, a scorpion-based dungeon Core with a fire attribute. It was currently molded into the shape of a large crimson sphere with a flattened top… because how else were they going to play Ur?
She grit her jaw as she watched the de
lusional duo keeping her from where she needed to be. The Law was calling to her, and it was calling loudly.
Even as an A-rank nine Mage, she was having difficulties existing in their vicinity. Space around them warped and warbled, occasionally flooding miles of desert with greyscale as some of the S-ranked power spilled over from their personal pools. The smaller of the two was usually to blame for this.
Pagacco was an owlkin. No more than five feet tall, he was prone to lighting absolutely everything aflame for the most mundane of reasons. If there was a reason. Admittedly, the pitched, childlike voice somehow remained cute as it spoke in a language lost to this world. Though the meaning was universal. “Abyss, abyss, abyss!”
Duke clapped his hands together; another win that Karakum tallied up for them. Pleased with the result of this year’s match, the Ancient Elf whooped in victory while doing a ditzy little dance. Had the cultivator not been so afflicted by anxiety, he might have hit the next rank by now. That was, if either of them knew how. Currently, motivation on the topic of advancement was sparse, and hidden knowledge was required to pave the way forwards.
Unlike Ember, they had stopped searching a long time ago. Both remained stuck at the rank they held. Duke didn’t remember how he’d gotten to Double-S. Pag had been with him when the Law had originally been vacated, and at the time the best guess had gone to ‘proximity’. She’d never been happy how they both seemed to just play hopscotch with the powers of the universe. Ember remembered them both when they’d been serious; before they had taken childlike forms in their S-ranks… before they had strayed from the path.
She could do nothing about it. An accidental sneeze from Pag would bowl her back across the desert she’d walked to get here, crashing through tall dunes like toppled pins. Yet here she was. “What’s the score?”
Ember’s voice carried, and both the soul-ranked cultivators jumped out of shock. They were so oblivious to their surroundings that even with their insane might, she’d essentially snuck up on them without so much as trying.
“Es-illian-Yaran!” Duke was all smiles, and his excited hands shot high into the air. He was elated to see another Ancient Elf like himself, even if his personal features were entirely manufactured. Being soul-ranked allowed a cultivator to reconstruct their body to appear how they saw themselves. That Duke appeared as a younger lad just showed who his mind believed he really was. It wasn’t something you got a redo on. “Now we can play a game for three!”
Pagacco didn’t quite share the joy, possibly because he’d just gotten his feathery butt kicked. He bristled and snorted, not as pleased with the company. Pag remembered the time Ember had outranked him. She’d thrown his little trainee self all over the arena, but to be fair… that’s what he got for being a cocky brat.
“What’s a Blade of War doing all the way out here? Nothing but drab sand to go around, and nothing to fight. Unless you were wanting an argument with ol’ Scorponok over here.”
The crimson ball hummed in extreme displeasure, and Pag rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. It’s ‘Karakum’. We know. Honestly, a few hundred years and you’d think a dungeon Core would get past basic sapience. At least now it can count up to a thousand one-hundred and…”
He counted on his feathers a moment, but the dungeon core made burning numbers appear overhead. One thousand one hundred and thirty-three. The exact number of Ur matches Pag had won. Oh, how it hated these two. “That! Really, why are you here?”
Ember stood and brushed her legs free of the wayward sand that had kicked up from their surprised movements. It couldn’t be heard inside of the bubble, but the speed of their movements had caused tornadoes to form for miles outside of their crater. “I can safely deduce you haven’t been paying attention to your Law, then? There’s barely been an uptick in the requirement I need to meet for unification.”
Pag fussed and kicked at some sand. The particles accelerated to Mach speeds and broke the atmosphere with concordant booms. “So?”
Ember set her jaw. “So, as the Incarnation… tell me why it’s screaming at me.”
Pag looked at Duke, but the Elf had no answers for him. His hands raised up in the ‘I don’t know’ pose. “I’m not noticing anything, if anything the Law feels distant.”
The Owlkin hooted in agreeance, adding a sagely nod. Childish shoulder-brushing didn’t dent Yaran’s displeasure, and she didn’t need words to convey that. “Is it by chance because you’ve been languishing while I’ve been learning? Because you’ve been sitting here in this crater piddling your time away. Did you forget, Duke D’alam’ukam, that the Laws are a cycling process?”
The boyish Elven’s face molted from playful whim to despondent snarl. “Don’t use that name. I am Duke the Dalamadur. Or just Duke. I either get my Soul-title or I don’t. Not the between. Not without my assent.”
The corner of Ember’s lips turned upwards. Progress. “Well, Duke the Dalamadur. Have you made progress? Have you uncovered more secrets of the flame, more wisdom of the fire, more insight within the pyre?” Ember’s thick tone was scathing. It did the trick.
Duke looked away with a scowl, because… no. No, he hadn’t. He and Pag had resided in the meteor crater for centuries. They didn’t want to be in the new world, not after their old one had left. It was better. Easier. Less painful to remain in the dusty ash and ruin of the fallen. Here, where the center of the ancient glass-reach capital used to be. “...No.”
Pag crossed his arms, scoffing at the Blade of War. “Well It’s not like you’ve done any better. Lady of the eternal A-rank nine.”
It was Ember’s turn to have her nose scrunch up. “Whose fault is that exactly, eats-without-spoon? Are you even aware that you’re wrong? I’ve held flame you’ve never even considered!”
Her tone shifted from irritated to huffy. Those newfound skills in getting under people’s skin were coming in handy. All she needed was a mouthy friend who never stopped poking the world, just to see where it poked him back. Who’d have guessed one old human would have bounced her back onto the path of progress.
The soul-rankers both belted out chords of laughter. “You? You found a fire that we have never seen? Who exactly are the Fire Souls here, Yaran? Did you come all the way to the desert just to complain about how far behind you are out of frustration?”
Ember had them hooked, and brightly smiled. “Starfire.”
The Fire Souls patted themselves on the chest, their giggles dying down to pensive frowns. “That… what? That’s not something that exists.”
Neither of them liked that Ember was nodding at them as if they were children making a simple mistake, and she was a mother chastising them with corrections. “The source of starlight, actually. Lovely stuff, gives a real shine to the surroundings.”
Neither Duke nor Pag were laughing anymore, and they shared an antagonizing look. “Prove it.”
Ember winked at them, just to unsettle their already destabilized footing. As a Mage, she was bound to the first tier Fire Law. Mana was meant to fill in the gaps of the Essences a Mage didn’t have to fulfill the desired effect. So, while she lacked the several requisite Essence channels of her favorite Human to get the mixture exactly right, her Mana didn’t care.
The A-ranked Mage radiated instant resplendence, forcing the S-rankers to shield their eyes. Light as bright as the sun stabbed them right in the eyes. Unlike a C-ranker whose body and Aura remained separate, a Mage had no such separation. The difference was that of choice. Ember was made of Mana, her body serving as the container for her fully developed presence. If she wanted to manifest Aura, it was just an effect spurred by will, intent, and power.
To her, Aura was just another ability in the Mage repertoire. The resplendent light shifted. While Imperceptible to most, both the Fire Souls experienced the shift in supreme detail. The luminance from the stars was—much like Mana—a byproduct of the real thing. The metaphysical step Ember took from facsimile to source forced both of the S-rankers to take a physical step back as the Law t
hey were all bound to personally took notice.
Ember easily held the same knowledge base as ‘Pag the Pyroclasm’, with the exception that the A-rank had discovered and developed this magnum opus. Her fire Essence channel underwent a painful apotheosis, the culmination of all her efforts, as she let the effect flow.
The channel ripped at the edges, only to mend as it instantly made a deep, universal connection to a source of higher purity and concentration. Her expansive Aura-space flooded with literal solar plasma. While the Fire Souls were unharmed, they both felt the intense heat as they bathed in the momentary breath of a miniature nova.
It was… beautiful. Borealis light flooded the sky as Ember’s personal solar flare penetrated the planet’s magnetic shield, colliding with atoms and molecules in the atmosphere. These collisions resulted in countless little bursts of light which built the growing aurora.
The Law ate this knowledge as it learned about photons. Es-illian-Ember collapsed to the ground as the effect concluded. Mana-wise, she’d dropped all the way down to B-rank two, though her real rank remained unchanged. The solar wave had just taken that much Mana from her to complete. She visibly sizzled as heat radiation poured off her body, causing the surroundings to mirage.
She coughed and caught her breath, shifting to sit on her rear as she punched a victorious thumbs-up to the sky. Her smile was toothy and feral, her irises ablaze with internal fire as her Ascended form adapted to the improved affinity channel connection. She now had a perfect channel, where previously it was ‘merely’ strong.
A landscape of glass replaced the realm of sand around them. Ember’s Aura had acted as a gargantuan kiln to the surrounding desert. Tornadoes had frozen mid-spin, the quartz and silica within them flash-melting into instantaneous sparkling models. The landscape of motion was now one of glittering stillnesses. Rainbow light shattered and refracted through myriads of glassified, time-stopped sculptures.
Artorian's Archives Omnibus Page 77