The air inside the Festering Fen lived up to its name: thick, wet, suffused with the stench of decay.
Ashinaro proceeded as fast as he was able, which in his battleform was quite fast, but it was still going to be tight. He had until tomorrow to reach the arnaphen and return before the blood moon, but he only vaguely knew of their location by way of being warned to stay away from it.
“Do you hear that?” Zanas asked mentally.
“Hear what?”
“I don’t know, I’m using your ears. I feel like there’s something behind us.”
Ashinaro glanced back as he jogged, but didn’t see anything. “There’s lots of monsters here, but they stay off the road.”
“It feels human.”
“It’s probably just the mirewalkers. They’re harmless.”
“You know I can tell when you’re lying, right?”
“Okay maybe not harmless, but they’re not a threat to us.”
“How about you use your new relic to move us faster?”
“I don’t want to fall into a rotslither trap.”
“If you do that, you can just fly out with Whirling Rush, can’t you?”
Zanas was right, and it would be a good test to see how long he could keep up the technique. Without any monsters attacking the golem, the blood loss should be minimal.
He activated Flesh’s Frenzy, launching the golem as far forward on the road as possible, then used Whirling Rush to pull himself toward it.
Hornblade frowned as the drakken shed his skin, then launched himself back into it, quickly moving out of sight.
“That was horrific,” he muttered to himself.
His first instinct had been that some powerful unseen monster had ambushed the drakken and ripped off his skin, but now it was clear it was the effect of a relic.
It was also strange how much he spoke to himself, like he was having a conversation in his head.
There’d been a moment when Hornblade had briefly thought the drakken was speaking to him, informing him about monsters staying off the road; but no, the drakken was simply not in his right mind.
A Lesser Defender had no chance of spotting Hornblade.
He picked up speed to keep up with his prey’s faster form of travel.
Whatever relic he had within him that gave him that ability, Hornblade wanted it.
Ashinaro discovered that he was able to keep up the amalgamated Whirling Rush and Flesh’s Frenzy for as long as he could hold his breath, but the recovery time and subsequent exhaustion rendered it less than efficient for long-range travel.
Over short or medium distances, it was fantastic.
After he finished this quest, he was going to get back to his breathw—
“Look out!” Zanas shouted into his mind.
Ashinaro didn’t see anything. Not at first.
Then a massive object was hurtling toward him.
It wasn't heralded by a rustle of leaves or the snap of a twig. One moment, the dense vegetation beside the road was an unmoving wall of foliage, the next, a dark shape detached itself, launching into the air without making a sound.
He reacted on instinct, whipping his tail forward. It slammed into the attacker's flank mid-leap, the impact jarring up his spine.
He used the collision's force to reverse his own momentum, throwing himself backward in a tumbling evasion, landing crouched several yards down the road.
His attacker landed heavily where he’d just stood, the deteriorated road creaking under its weight.
A mirewalker. Half again Ashinaro’s height and far broader, with long arms and a body thick with muscle covered in short black fur.
Its double-lidded eyes glared at him from a human-like head, though its features were flat and the skull rounder, the skin of the face covered not by fur, but red, rocky flesh.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
[Mirewalker, Gold Beast]
Only a Beast, and yet it was completely unaffected by the repellant effect of the road. That was strange. He’d heard of very strong monsters who could manage to stay on the fay’s roads briefly, but never a Beast. Perhaps the empowerment here was weakened by the holes in the road.
He withdrew his staff from its sling.
A Gold Beast was beyond what he’d been able to handle before. Now, as a Lesser Defender with three new relics, he was eager to see how much better he’d do. He wasn’t fully recovered from using Whirling Rush to travel, but near enough.
The monster lunged for him, covering the distance between them in two powerful bounds, a fist like a furry boulder swinging for Ashinaro’s head.
He activated Flesh’s Frenzy as a decoy, stepping back as his golem met the monster’s fist with the staff.
And was flung backward and right toward Ashinaro.
He quickly let out and took another breath just before it collided into him, letting the flesh meld back over his body.
The mirewalker was faster and stronger than expected for a Beast, even a Gold.
Time for relic number two.
He aimed for the monster and activated the first of Whirling Rush’s effects, exhaling his breath.
An irresistible force yanked him forward like a sea monster on a line, weapon spinning about him of its own accord.
The monster’s fist slammed into him the moment he made contact, and he felt the link to his staff shudder as the damage he would have taken was absorbed by the weapon.
But neither broke, and the mirewalker let out a screech as it was flung backwards from the collision, slamming into a tree and shattering it in a spray of splinters and sodden wood.
It was back on its feet in an instant.
That didn’t bode well.
He might have to run. In terms of power, a Gold Beast was similar to a Peak Defender, which put Ashinaro two thresholds below it, and his new relics didn’t appear enough to give him the edge he’d need for a decisive victory.
“Or you know, I could give it a go,” Zanas said.
“Give what—”
Ashinaro’s question was cut short as the mirewalker launched itself at him again.
Then Zanas manifested in front of the monster.
Its fist slammed into the side of the jester’s head.
Zanas’s head popped from his spine and went flying.
But the headless body didn’t fall. It didn’t even stagger.
It delivered a kick that shattered something inside the monster and caused it to release a choked, gurgling roar of pain as it stumbled back a step.
Zanas’s headless body danced around the next swing and struck again with his scepter.
Then his severed head joined the battle, flying forward and hitting the monster in the face, biting again and again with his mask that looked more alive than ever.
Sharp cracking sounds punctuated the monster’s bellows of pain and fury.
Ichor sprayed from the ruined face as the creature raged and tried to dislodge Zanas’s gnawing head, even as the headless body continued pulverizing the monster with its scepter.
The mirewalker shuddered violently, its movements becoming sluggish, its roars weakening to wet gurgles.
Its legs buckled and it collapsed heavily onto the road.
It convulsed once, twice, then was still.
Ashinaro’s Epitome Veil relic activated, and he felt the monster’s remnant essence flow into him, filtering through the relic.
It didn’t strengthen him in any way, but he’d now be invisible to any other Beasts they came across. Though he could already feel the essence shrouding him dissipating. The effect wouldn’t last long.
Zanas’s disembodied head finally ceased its biting and reattached to its body, then returned into Ashinaro.
The monster’s face had been devoured, past the bone and into the brain, of which little was left.
“That was incredible,” Ashinaro said. “How powerful are you?” If Zanas was truly his familiar, then they should have effectively the same power, but that attack was more than anything Ashinaro could accomplish.
No answer.
“Zanas?”
Still no answer. When Ashinaro peered into himself and examined the scepter bound to his battleform, he could tell Zanas was alive, but also that he was weakened.
Was he sleeping?
“You better be ready to fight when we reach the arnaphen.”
He went over to the corpse, waiting several moments to remove the core on the off chance it transmuted.
The essence within slowed, then stopped.
He was about to dig out the core, when there was a flicker, and it underwent transmutation.
The essence within coalesced, drawn towards the core’s center in swirling streams. The core itself shimmered, its internal structure shifting, shrinking in on itself.
Then in a flash it expanded, bursting out from the body.
It hovered in the air for a breath, then drifted back into the gore.
Ashinaro smiled, the gesture looking sinister on his battleform. A cursed item. Only the second of his life.
And this one looked amazing.
As Hornblade watched the drakken loot the monster the skeleton in the ridiculous outfit had just slain, he was beginning to feel like he actually was walking into a trap.
Hornblade hadn’t detected the skeleton, and then it had suddenly appeared. Even stranger, when he looked into it with his beyondsight, he discovered it wasn’t a familiar. Yet, it didn’t seem to be a monster. And he could see nothing of its power nor race.
And now it was invisible again.
The drakken had seemed surprised at its power, but not at its presence. Which maybe explained the talking to himself.
Zanas was what he had called it.
But if not monster, person, or familiar, that left but one thing: divine.
It did not look like any messenger Hornblade had ever seen, nor had he ever heard of a divine messenger accompanying a godsworn.
But, like the trolls advertised, this was a strange and unfamiliar land, with things the likes of which the civilized world had never heard.
If it was a divine messenger, it hadn’t alerted the drakken to Hornblade’s presence.
That, or this really was a trap.
There was another possibility, he realized. The skeleton might be a living weapon.
Living weapons were even rarer than familiars, and it seemed impossible for a mere Defender to possess one, but less so than a messenger accompanying a mortal.
The drakken used the staff while the skeleton was manifested, but the Ascendent of Shadows could do the same.
It might even explain the weapon’s sudden disappearance. Living weapons were rare enough that Hornblade had only ever seen the one, and their capabilities were a mystery to him.
Which only made Hornblade all the more interested in getting the weapon back. He hadn’t realized what a treasure he’d possessed. And to think, he’d almost not pursued it, and only discovered it again by chance.
The question was, should he continue following the drakken to discover his destination, or ambush him now, while he was distracted with the item he’d just looted?
