by Aaron Oster
He and the Core had theorized that keeping this many constructs going at once took a tremendous toll, thereby preventing the Beast from coming. But seeing as they had no solid proof as of yet, it was just a theory.
They did, however, know the location of the beast — a volcano thought long dormant, which was visible over the entirety of the Burning Hills, spewing fire and ash once more. While the cloud didn’t reach them all the way here, it could still be seen in the distance. The crater of that volcano spanned nearly fifty miles across, and due to its immensity, had been named the Dreadpit. It was fitting that an Ancient Cavern Beast would make a place like that its home.
Hermit threw himself skyward, extending the black disk to cover a larger area as twin beams of condensed crimson fire blasted from the two Sages. Hermit growled, weaving his Reiki into a roaring cone and sending a blast of purple fire up into the sky.
The two Sages swerved in opposite directions, the pillar of purple fire scorching the air but missing them both. That was the problem with fighting near such a large group. Hermit had to stick close for fear of them moving to pick off any stragglers if he got too far. Kumo could defend some, but he wasn’t a Sovereign, nor was he even a Sage. He was just a Supreme and not fit to be ruling one of the Seven Great clans.
With so many dead, it can hardly be called a clan anymore, Hermit thought, glancing back over his shoulder.
Over the course of their journey, they’d lost over a quarter of their original number. Now, roughly five-hundred people remained of the Sanshoo, a clan that had numbered in the tens of thousands just a couple of months ago.
Hermit streaked to his left, blocking another cone of fire, then blurred forward, clipping the Sage in the chin and sending her reeling. Blood sprayed into the air as he pulled back for another blow, then cursed, streaking back down and diverting another attack.
“We need another fighter who can handle one of those Sages,” the Core said as Hermit shoved back against the attack.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” he growled, weaving the Reiki into the air and triggering a Full-area technique.
Fire erupted from the ground, blasting up in a series of pillars, engulfing both of the Sages for a brief instant. Being surrounded by so much Fire Essence definitely helped improve the power and speed of his techniques. Unfortunately, they were also Fire Artists, making it somewhat pointless.
His Reiki would still burn them if given enough time – it was the only form of energy that could hurt them at this point in their advancement – but time was not on his side. Physical contact was the only sure way to inflict damage, and unfortunately, he couldn’t be in two places at once.
Both Sages streaked from the roaring inferno, hurling attacks at the same time. Kumo streaked to intercept one, while Hermit went for the second. Kumo was a split-second too slow, and with a scream of agony, two Blue-Belts burned to ash within seconds. Roaring, Hermit slammed a foot into the ground, driving a section of earth into the air. He spun and kicked it, sending it hurling into the sky.
The male Sage destroyed it with almost casual ease, only to find Hermit right behind it. Red light flared around him, just as Hermit’s fist crashed into his abdomen, causing him to double over. Where normally, the man might have gone flying, Hermit’s hand snagged him by his shoulder, wrenching him back.
A tremendous force caught him in the side before he could follow up, driving him to the ground. Hermit tore himself free, not having sustained any real damage – other than his clothes – and had to dive forward to shield one of the last remaining children as two concentrated streams of fire blasted into them.
A wave of burning red washed past him as Kumo tried to distract them, and one of the Sages peeled off to return fire.
“How much longer can we keep this up?” the Core asked.
“As long as we have to,” Hermit replied, pulling his arm back and summoning a sphere of gray-blue fire.
He hated committing this much power to an attack, but he needed to give himself some breathing room. Kumo could hold the Sage for perhaps a minute, but he couldn’t defend himself and his people at the same time.
“Kumo!” Hermit shouted, getting the man’s attention.
Kumo, having a better vantage of what Hermit was doing, abruptly cut away from the attacking Sage, everyone else having moved out of the line of fire and dashing back to rejoin the group. As expected, the other Sage, instead of giving chase, moved in to support the one attacking him, should Hermit decide to close for a physical assault.
As soon as the Sages closed ranks, Hermit extended his hand, the gray-blue sphere floating before his outstretched palm. A split-second later, four more spheres appeared in a diamond pattern, two floating above and to either side of his palm.
The five simultaneous blasts caught both Sages at once, though they did manage to throw up a defense in time, and the woman even managed to throw another attack. Hermit shoved the burning Chakra aside, then flashed forward, his palm still extended as five roaring columns of fire blasted into the Sages, driving them hundreds of yards back through the burning forest and away from the retreating group.
He breathed out, twining his Reiki into a complex pattern, then dodged around, leaving the five spheres hanging in the air to keep blasting out their fire for the next couple of seconds. It wouldn’t last very long, only until their power ran dry, but it would be enough to give him the opening he’d need.
Distracted by the ferocious attack, the two Sages were too busy defending themselves as Hermit came in from the side, targeting the male Sage.
The instant before the attack, they both turned, eyes widening. The gray-blue fire vanished, just as Hermit drove his fist, coated in burning black fire, into the Sage’s abdomen.
The man crumpled, folded in half by the force of the blow. Then the fire expanded into a sphere, engulfing the Sage in a ball of black fire. The woman screamed, slamming into Hermit and driving him back a few yards, then reached into the black inferno, ignoring the burns to her hands and arms, and dragged her companion from the flames.
The attack had not allowed for any escape, as Hermit had woven a Containment technique into the Physical to assure the fire would burn hot and remain in one place.
Hermit sprang back to his feet, just in time to see the male Sage get pulled from the sphere. His body was covered in burns and he was thrashing about as black fire continued to lick at his flesh.
The female Sage only spared one glance at him, her features contorted in rage, before throwing her companion over her shoulder and running.
“You will pay for this, human!” she screeched, her voice sounding harsh and not at all feminine.
Though he was tempted to follow, Hermit knew he could not. He’d been away from the group for too long already, so despite losing the two Sages once again, he turned back to rejoin them.
“How many did we lose in that attack?” he asked, as he found Kumo crouched next to a weeping man and woman.
“Seventeen,” Kumo replied, his face twisted in grief. “And one of them was a child, just barely two years old.”
Hermit felt his muscles tense, an unspeakable rage threatening to overwhelm him. He had long ago given up the name of Itachi Hakai, the Sage of Ruin. But now, in the wake of this attack, that man threatened to make an appearance once again.
“There is nothing you can do. The dead are gone. Save the living.”
The Core’s words, spoken with calm surety, helped him regain his senses. Shaking off the last remnants of rage, he placed a hand on Kumo’s shoulder.
“We need to keep moving,” he said, his voice tight and sounding a bit harsh to his ears. “We’re nearly to the border. Once we’re there, we can enlist the help of the Inu clan to get us safely to their capital, Wind City.”
Kumo nodded, rising back to his feet and pulling the weeping parents who’d lost their child along with him.
Hermit left Kumo to speak with them alone. He was an outsider, and as the leader of the clan, Kumo woul
d be able to do far better here than he could.
“How are we doing on the Beast front?” he asked, returning to the front of the group where two Purple-Belt Grandmasters were leading the way.
“None since the Sages left,” one of them replied. “I think we might have a clear way out if we hurry.”
“Then let’s make it a triple-march,” Hermit said, staring ahead through the burning trees.
He could see the border, and for now, nothing stood between them and their escape. The two Grandmasters called the time, and the group, despite being exhausted, all broke into a run, with Hermit himself leading the way.
The border loomed before them, and as they neared the line of sand, dozens of fiery lion-shaped Beasts appeared. They were the same breed as the ones who’d been harassing them for the last few weeks, and Hermit had had enough.
With a grunt, he extended both palms, unleashing a blast of gray-blue fire from each, and sweeping his hands from side to side to clear the way. Fiery Beasts burst into shining specs of Chakra, which Hermit pulled into his Core to recharge himself. Fire Essence was pulled from his surroundings, the fires in the trees dimming and nearly going out as he did.
The blast of power he unleashed tore a furrow some fifty yards across and nearly twice that in length, clearing the way to freedom. The ground beneath his feet gave way, hard-packed dirt turning to loose, grainy sand, and Hermit knew they were safe for now.
“Come on,” he called, standing to the side and making sure the group passed him, exiting the Burning Hills and entering the Windblight.
The burning Beasts that reformed remained where they were, stopping at the border of the flaming trees as though stopped by an invisible barrier. But even as he watched, Hermit could see the haze of red expanding. It was slow for now, inching forward at a snail’s pace and pushing back the Wind Essence of the Windblight, but it was moving.
This Ancient Cavern Beast wouldn’t stay in the Burning Hills for long, not until it had expunged or killed all humans from its lands.
“I’ve never left my home before,” Kumo said, staring back at the fiery landscape they were leaving behind.
His face was covered in soot and ash, his cheeks streaked black and his clothes burned and tattered.
“Home is where your clan resides,” Hermit said, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. “We saved everyone we could, and although there aren’t many left, you still have enough to rebuild.”
Kumo looked over his shoulder to the five-hundred odd survivors of the Sanshoo clan.
“Yes. But how much longer will we live once that monster leaves the Burning Hills and comes here?”
Hermit didn’t have an answer for that. The battles ahead would be beyond difficult and some of the hardest challenges he’d ever face. If the clans didn’t join together in this, they would all fall. He just hoped that they would see sense and that the other Sovereigns who’d been with him that day were doing their parts.
22
“That is a lot to unpack,” Aika said, rubbing Roy’s back.
The two of them were sitting right near the wall of billowing darkness and were being pushed back by the glowing blue stones surrounding Mordio’s prison. Despite his appearance of freedom, this was a prison. He could never leave, never stray more than a few yards from his house, and on top of that, he was slowly dying.
It gave Roy some small amount of comfort that the man responsible for him being brought to the Shah clan suffered right alongside him, but now that he knew the story of his mother, he wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Yes, it is,” Roy said, rubbing at his temples and fighting back a headache.
His mother was alive. His mother was a Beast. How was that even possible? Hermit had told him that despite taking on humanoid appearances, Beasts and humans didn’t intermix. They didn’t have children, and they didn’t have romantic feelings toward one another.
“There is a Dungeon nearby,” Roy said, still staring into the darkness. “Geon has been able to feel it since we’ve arrived. Corrupted Qi has been entering my Core for a while now when I cycle, and I can hear something calling to me. I wasn’t sure what it was until now, but I’m pretty sure all of the answers lie at the bottom of that Dungeon.”
Aika was silent at that. Roy hadn’t spoken any of this aloud just yet, keeping it between Geon and himself for fear of what she might think.
“And you think your mother might be down there as well,” Aika said softly.
“It makes sense, don’t you think?” Roy replied. “I mean, if that man is to be believed, she’s the reason the forest looks the way it does. That curse of his looks pretty nasty as well, and though I don’t know much about curses, I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to go dormant when the caster of said curse dies, right?”
“I don’t know much about curses either,” Aika admitted.
“I do,” Geon said. “And curses can last after the death of the caster, though only if the curse is tied to an item, like a gem or script. As far as I know, any curse injected directly into someone’s flesh will become dormant upon the death of the caster.”
Roy explained what Geon had said out loud, and Aika nodded.
“So, she has to be alive then. The question is, how? In your dreams, your mother was only a Yellow-Belt, but she managed to destroy all of the attackers from the Shah clan and even managed to lay a curse on Mordio that I doubt even Hermit could break. None of this makes any sense.”
Roy sighed once again, then finally turned to look at her.
“I think I’m going to have to go into that Dungeon,” Roy said. “I can’t ask you to come with me. Geon says it’s going to be dangerous, far more than anything we’ve attempted before, so —”
“I’m coming with you,” Aika said, crossing her arms. “I don’t know why you would assume I’d leave you behind, but we’ve been through way too much together for me to abandon you now.”
“But what about your answers?” Roy asked.
“What about them?”
“You still don’t know what happened with Doragon or why he betrayed your father.”
“Nor do I know what happened to my grandfather after we left him,” Aika replied. “But Azure never promised I’d have all my answers the moment I entered. I trust you, and I believe that whatever happens, I’ll get my answers.
“If you need to go into that Dungeon to continue our quest, then so be it. I’m with you, no matter what.”
Roy stared at her, feeling his body flush with a mix of warmth and gratitude.
“Aika, I—” Roy began, reaching out a hand toward her.
He was interrupted then by a flash of darkness as someone entered the protective barrier.
It was a woman, tall and lithe, wearing a set of robes that seemed to be a bit too large on her.
“Ferry?” Roy asked, examining her and beginning to pick out all the familiar features.
“Yes!” Ferry said excitedly.
Well, at least her voice is still the same, Roy thought as the woman bounced up to them.
She was shorter now, only around six and a half feet, which was still very tall, but not nearly the seven-plus feet she’d been before. The robes, which had fit her quite well, now drooped as a result. The fur had retreated in several places on her body – at least, on the parts he could see.
Her face was still covered in it, though it had partially retreated around her lips and chin, leaving a clear patch of dark, tanned skin running down the front of her throat and narrowing as it reached her body.
Her eyes were slightly smaller, her face a bit less angular, and her lips just a bit plumper. The same tufted ears still stood atop her head, but now, a small thatch of black hair grew between them. It honestly looked a bit funny if Roy were being honest, but he wouldn’t say so out loud in fear of hurting her feelings.
Her arms, which were bare – as she still didn’t like wearing clothes – contained several small patches of clear skin, just like her throat. There was a small patch on
each shoulder, a line tracing her biceps, and the knuckles on the backs of her hands all contained the same dark tanned skin as her throat, though it looked a bit more leathery than human skin.
Aside from those changes, everything else looked the same. Her tail still swished behind her, thick and voluptuous as ever, and her feet remained padded and smaller than human ones, though Roy noticed that they did seem a bit longer.
“You advanced,” Roy said, smiling at her. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Ferry said, scuffing her feet and looking away shyly. “Do…Do you like how I look?”
Roy nodded as Aika rose to congratulate her as well.
“You’re looking better and better with each advancement,” she said, taking the still oversized ferret’s hands.
Ferry smiled back, though Roy noticed the smile never reached her eyes, and she let go of Aika’s hands rather quickly.
“Are we going on another adventure together?” she asked, moving to sit by his side and press herself onto him.
“Yeah,” Roy replied. “There’s a Dungeon nearby that we’re going to challenge. There are some questions I still have, and I think…” Roy trailed off as Ferry began purring, rubbing herself into him and sticking her nose into his hair.
“Geon, what’s she doing?” Roy asked.
Though she’d always been kind of clingy, this was something completely new, and he wasn’t sure how to take it.
“Well…How to put this…?” Geon said.
“Geon?” Roy asked, trying to shove the ferret back, only to have her knock his hands away and pull him closer.
Thankfully, Aika intervened, grabbing Ferry by her robes and dragging her off him.
“Fine,” Geon said. “She’s advanced again and is now less a child and more a teenager. Do you remember how you were when you went through your weird human adolescence, always thinking about the opposite gender and how you can impress them?”
Roy did remember that, and it had not been fun. Starting puberty sucked for everyone, but for someone in his position, it had been even worse. The knowledge that no matter what he did, no one would give him the time of day had led to many miserable nights, even when the Shah had done nothing to directly torment him that day.