Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2 (51 page)

“Since when do you care
about anything other than yourself!? I struggle every day to keep you from
eating everyone around you!”

His reflection shifted
into someone older and with slightly different facial structures. A female face
appeared to his left, a male to his right, and so forth in the background.

/We want grandkids/.

Basilard howled and
smashed the sword against a rock outcropping. At once, it crumbled into a
hundred pieces and the shockwave continued into the next rock thirteen feet
away. The commotion attracted monsters.

Although the majority
of Ceihans avoided this mountain like The Trickster, there was always a handful
stupid enough to enter. Those with curiosity to sate, or despair to melt, or
adventure lust to gratify came. Regardless, most transformed into the B class
monsters now standing in front of him.

There was a large
serpentine creature, five feet in height and twenty in length. Purple bands
crisscrossed along its body and, at odd points, jutted up from its skin into
five-fingered hands. The bands intersected at the tail and continued on beyond
the monster's body into a broad fan blade made entirely of plasma. Its mouth
was lined with rows of serrated teeth, with two incisors in the middle. There
was no head because the mouth was the head and the teeth were the mouth.

There was an insect
humanoid, ten feet in every direction and just as long a wingspan. It was
covered in a scaly hide that vibrated as its wings did, creating a cranking
buzzing sound. Its arms were long and segmented at several areas, and yet it
possessed human eyes and legs. Its odor would have knocked Basilard straight
out if he weren't wearing his scarf.

Between these two
giants, and within the Fog, it was difficult to see the third B class. An
amphibious creature hovered without wings, possessing one hundred and eight
eyes along its entire body. All of them were aglow with an eerie purple light.

“An athon, a wasko, and
a peeping mauve,” Basilard muttered. “Shouldn't be too hard.”

He could have grabbed
the peeping mauve and used it as a bludgeon against the other two, thus
befuddling them and leading them into fighting each other. Then he would rip
the peeping mauve’s core out of its body, crush it, and leave the other two to
kill each other. That was the quickest and smartest way to deal with this
situation, but he after what he just did, he had aggression to work out.

Instead, he attacked
the wasko first. Slipping behind it with a Chameleon Flash, he drove
BloodDrinker between the scales of its back until it was hilt-deep in muscle.
Muttering, “Drink your fill,” he dove on the peeping mauve and tore out all one
hundred and eight eyes with his bare hands. Then he threw them at the athon to
temporarily confuse and pacify it.

The first monster made
an ear-shattering trill as it struggled in vain to pull out the sword that was
eating it alive. It crushed rock with both sound waves and flailing. The second
monster hovered in erratic patterns to buck him off and cycled through all
eleven of its status aliments and all ten elemental attacks. It couldn’t stop
Basilard’s savagery. The third monster caught each eye in its mouth despite
jumping into attacks from the other monsters to do so. As a result, it was
burned, bruised, shocked, poisoned, frozen, and other things before Basilard
was done. When he was, Basilard broke its incisors off and stabbed it in the
neck with them. It thrashed violently in its death throes, but Basilard caught
the tail in his left hand on its first pass and held its head with the other.
When it fell limp and lay still, Basilard released it and reclaimed
BloodDrinker from the husk of a wasko.

“Satisfied?”

The sword hummed.

More monsters raced
towards him, but they didn’t stop to fight. They rushed past him as if they
didn’t see him. He reached out with his senses, but they didn’t pick up
anything. The Fog blocked them. For a second, he regretted sending Tiza away;
her Third Eye would be useful in this situation. That many powerful monsters
were fleeing that area meant that something worse was behind them. It was the
same direction as his destination.

“Knowing my luck,
Eric’s probably fighting that thing. Ancestors forbid.”

He jogged forward,
hoping that his fears were misplaced.

The air stank of both
freshly grown life and decaying organic waste, and thus clearly of chaotic
origins. It changed colors and whirled about as if it had a life of its own.
Spires of violently mutated rock defined the zone's boundaries and dotted in
random places within the circle. Creatures looking half-plant and half-animal
prowled between them, eating and being eaten by creatures even more bizarre. Misshaped
trees, spontaneously grown, opened their trunks to bite him as he passed and
wriggling new grass released chocolate perfume when he stepped on it. Formerly
silent rocks sang nonsense through a plethora of mouths.

A brand new microcosm
had sprung in the wake of the explosion and created a “Chaotic Zone.” These
were dangerous areas of original life, inexplicable terrain, and it was still
changing, still mutating, still growing, and still seeking to add sapients to
its food chain. None of this shook the hardened veteran because he'd seen
chaotic zones in the past and this one was no different.

A roar of pain heralded
a monstrous something’s approach.

It was humanoid and its
skin appeared to be some kind of metal, but beyond that, Basilard couldn’t make
out its body. The Fog contributed to this, but even when it stumbled within
arm’s reach, the exact details of its appearance remained a mystery. It could
anything between a metallic human, a dragon walking upright, or something else.
He stared directly at it, but his eyes couldn’t translate what they saw into an
image his brain could interpret.

A voice whispered in
his ear, “Boss fight: The Plight of Familicide-Grendel!”

The monster attacked
and Basilard parried with BloodDrinker. They engaged in a fierce battle. The Grendel’s
blood poisoned the life all around while Basilard's blood catalyzed its growth.
Their struggle demolished much of the new life in the zone; creation to
extinction within half an hour. The most state-of-the-art Ceihan gun didn't
wield a tenth of the power that these two threw against each other. At last,
Basilard found an opening and cut the beast’s right arm off. It howled and
clutched the stomp as it stumbled backwards. Basilard pressed his advantage,
but then it vanished.

He looked this way and
that with all six senses, but discovered nothing. Then, something heavy and
metallic caught him in the face and he went down hard. Had he been anyone else,
his face would have caved in. Then a foot punted him fourteen feet and he
landed at the base of a carnivorous tree. It swallowed his left arm and began
chewing.

“Bladi Combat Skill:
Severed Limb Poison!”

The blood in that arm
became poison and the tree quickly wilted. Basilard pulled his broken arm loose
and regained his footing. Grendel appeared just long enough to taunt him, its
lips separated into a grin, then it vanished again. Nothing Basilard did could
detect him and he suffered blow after blow until he was bloody all over.

 Basilard was soon faint
from blood loss and unsteady on his feet. Grendel sensed his weakness. It was
time for the kill. It clapped its hands around Basilard and pinned his arms
down. Something in its mind remembered something about brains being nutritious,
so it decided to bite off the head first.

“Bladi Combat Skill:
Retribution!
”

All the blood on his
body turned at once into power. It scalded every surface it touched and
infiltrated through the burn wounds to cause more pain. Its focus broken,
Grendel released Basilard and the Shadow Cloak disappeared. Basilard fell to
one knee and gasped.

“Ancestors, give me
strength.”

The sword sent power
coursing through his veins and kept him conscious. A quick and deep breath of
Fog enabled him to stand up strong. He looked down in pity at the terribly
burned Grendel.

“A freshly created
monster who is nondescript, wields darkness power, and executes unarmed combos.
I suppose that Personality Transformation idea has substance after all.”

Grendel started to
recover, so Basilard put his still bloody hand on his chest and sent more
lances of pain through his body. Then he raised BloodDrinker above its head.

“Forgive me, Eric, but
I have to put you down.”

A giant’s head fell to
the ground as its body collapsed. Both of them disintegrated seconds later.
Neuro landed and held his scythe out to the side. With his free hand, he cast a
minor necromancy spell at a man-sized serpent and it withered into dust like the
giant. Then he used the stolen
kon
to mend a critical injury in Nolien’s
chest.

Life energy entered Nolien’s
body through its gaping hole and mingled with the Fog swirling there. Organs,
bones, nerves, flesh; all of them regrew and knitted together until the wound
was gone. The boy slowly regained consciousness and Tiza’s face lit up with
relief. She hugged Neuro about his neck and pushed their cheeks together in
glee.

“Thank you so much!
That was amazing!”

“I-it was n-nothing,
r-really!” Neuro insisted. “It ju…ah… wasn’t h-his t-time to die yet.”

Nolien sat up, annoyed,
and bit his own cheek to prevent something rude from escaping his mouth.
Instead, he took a calming breath. Then, with noble poise, he said, “Yes, thank
you for that impressive display of healing.”

Neuro shook his head.
“I merely directed life energy to the place of need. You remain the superior
healer.”

The priest’s tone was
polite, but Nolien heard a sneer. Deferential compliments were always a sneer.
Seeing Tiza, dressed up and hanging off him, Nolien imagined someone else in
Neuro’s place. This person praised his “honorable elder brother” while the
noble girl they both strove to impress clutched his arm and leaned into him.
Their mocking laughter echoed in his ear and he bit hard enough to draw blood.

“Mr. Heleti, you were
saying?” Vaya asked. “About how you found the entrance?”

The artificially
created human with the pilfered soul still walked the earth. Basilard explained
the nature of his promise and Neuro agreed to abide by that promise in return
for his help in arresting the true criminal. When the Bladi man saw an
abomination to his own religion, Neuro was tempted to shout “hypocrite,” but
this was not the time nor the place for insults.

“Ah yes.” Nolien
composed himself and resumed his exposition. “Neuro’s necrocraft located the
general location of the lair, but
failed
to find an entrance. I
suggested examining rocks for runes that would indicate movement or
teleportation.”

Tiza let go of Neuro
and resumed her place by Nolien. He stood a little taller and continued, “It
took us hours to find an entrance. Unfortunately, it was old and
decommissioned, and thus couldn’t be opened. So we looked for another one.”

Nolien carefully walked
down a mountain path. Ahead of him was a rocky outcropping and although most
weren't smart enough, there were monsters capable of grasping the concept of “ambush.”
The uneven ground could make for a difficult fight. He didn't dare try a float
spell in this mess: it would either burn his heels, work
too
well and
shoot him up like a rocket, or worst of all, destabilize the Fog and cause an
explosion. The two mercenaries along with the priest approached with caution,
ready to strike a hiding monster. Nothing was behind the rock except for more
rocks.

Nolien tightened the
scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth. It, much like everything else he
carried, possessed special properties. It would protect him from the side
effects of breathing in the fog. As a healer, he understood these better than
the rest, and certainly better than Neuro. Disorientation, confusion,
intoxication, paranoia, and, worst of all, mana mutation; he was confident in
his ability to cure all but the last, but the second rule of healing dictated
“prevention before cure.”

 “After the third false
entrance, Tiza wanted to
create
an entrance, and I had to talk her out
of it.”

Tiza smacked his
shoulder.

Since departing from
Basilard, they only encountered small problems. Neuro killed the monsters they
couldn’t escape from at the cost of years off his life per shot and he cured
the grievous injuries suffered by his companions in the meantime. When inside a
forbidden zone, these counted as small problems. The Death priest kept a
running tally of how many times the other four would have died if not for his
assistance. It was currently fifteen each.

“How can you be so
powerful at your age? You don’t look older than us,” Nolien said.

“I was born to serve
Death and I contemplate it in my every moment. Earthly distractions have no
hold on me. Thus, I am a Razor Spirit empowered by a fundamental aspect of
reality. I am not a dust mind with mundane magecraft.”

“Dust mind?”

“As the Book of Death
states,
‘Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.’
In brief,
a dust mind is one concerned with worldly desires and bodily urges. I am
removed from such things.”

Tiza joined their
discussion by bumping his shoulder.

“So that’s why pretty
girls can fluster you so easily.”

Neuro blushed, fumbled
his scythe, and stepped aside. “I’m still a teenager.”

Suddenly, he jumped
backward and swung his scythe as if to block something. That something bore down
on him. Zettai cowered behind him. Neuro sacrificed another year of his life to
keep her safe from her attacker.

“Reaper! Why do you
attack a fellow of the scythe?”

Black light shined in
the air and became Reno Grade’s, but this form was more fearsome than the one
revealed to Eric. His hands and face were skeletal, and everything below his waist
was black mist. Nothing decorated his robe and the robe itself better resembled
the darkness of a tomb than cloth. The empty pits of his eye sockets burned
with a hatred of life. This form put the Universal Dread into everyone, except
Neuro. He held his scythe against the god with all his power.

“That girl should have
died. Necrocraft killed her. I saw it happen.”

Reno Grade forced him
aside with the power of his divine spirit and raised his scythe again.

“I will make it
happen!”

Something weighed down
his weapon and he turned to see that Tiza had grabbed the shaft. Now she was
trying to wrench it out of his hands. He let her try.

Contact with the symbol
of his office had an amusing effect on mortals. It revealed to them the nature
of the Abyss and dust minds couldn’t handle such knowledge. The inevitable
result was shock followed by catatonia or madness. Her eyes unfocused, her
spirit flared, and her hands fell. He yanked it out of her hands, and by then,
Zettai had run away with Nolien.

He flew after her and
Neuro used his distraction as an opportunity to sneak attack. He lunged with
perfect form and execution, but his scythe passed through the reaper’s form.
The blade was empowered by Reno Grade’s own divinity and thus useless against
him. Instead of cutting his foe in half, Neuro simply bumped into him and was back-fisted
for his efforts. He landed in a patch of red-orange fungi. Reno Grade continued
his pursuit.

Zettai and Nolien ran
as fast as they could, but it was impossible to outrun death. After a look over
his shoulder, Nolien spun on his heels and threw a barrier in his path. Reno
Grade flew through it
and
him like neither existed. It made Nolien
shiver as if he had hypothermia. The reaper drew back his scythe for another
try and flew straight into a monster.

A cylinder-alligator-shaped
beast colored in shades of purple from nearly white to nearly black. It had a
primate arm, a bird wing, a lizard leg, and a fish fin. With these, it beat up
the god that crashed into it. After the first five blows, Reno Grade punched
its main body into the distance, but by then, Zettai had escaped again.

“It’s useless to hide
from me, girl.”

In a heartbeat, he was
directly overhead. She dove behind a rock.

“You were ‘killed’ by
necrocraft and thus highlighted in my divine vision.”

The rock crumpled into
sand under the force of his punch and she jumped away. Tripping over her own
feet, she sprawled across the ground. She turned to face him and shouted, “G-Go
jump in the Sea of Chaos!”

He grabbed her by the throat
with his right hand and lifted her four feet up from the ground. Coldness
filled her from head to toe and despair filled her mind and soul.

“I just might have to
because of you. Modil knows that I violated my parole. Your selfish actions
ruined my operation!”

“You know, for a divine
being, you think a lot like a mortal.”

“
What?
”

“You abuse your power,
pick on those weaker than yourself, and blame others for your own problems. A
minute ago, I was scared of you because you looked like this unstoppable force
of nature, but now, all I see is my dad taking out his anger on me because he’s
too scared to confront its true source. You’re not a god; you’re a worm on a
power trip.”

Reno Grade ripped her
soul out of her body and held in his left hand. She shuddered but otherwise was
unaffected.

“That felt…funky.” She
shook her head and noticed her soul. “So that’s what they look like. Does this
count as an out-of-body experience? Can I talk to myself like this?”

For once in his
afterlife, Reno Grade was at a loss for words.

“Why…
How
…What?”

She smirked. “The
so-called god is asking a puny human for revelations?”

Reno Grade glared. He
would age her into dust for such an insult, but that other mortal stole his
authority over senescence. If he went back for it, Tasio would no doubt find
him and his trump card could not help him. Then another idea came to him. Although
his face remained skeletal, Zettai got the impression that he was leering at
her.

“There are a number of
things I did to little girls when I was mortal. If you’re so sure I think like
one, then perhaps I should do those things to you.”

Zettai kicked his arm,
squirmed in his grip, and shouted, “Creep!” but he only leered more. With his
prey in both hands, he flew up and out of the mountain’s Fog Cloud. He set his
sights on the other mountain because her soul retained a positive impression of
it and he wanted to change that. He flew unhindered and unaware that he was on
someone’s radar.

A divinity such the
resident reaper was higher in standing than a planetary avatar, thus, someone
that tracked avatars would easily be able to detect him. This was especially
the case when he had just exited a Fog Cloud because it would have obscured his
presence. The blip startled Emily and she asked Kallen what to do. Kallen
replied, “Press the Smite Gods button.”

“Uh, Boss, is that
really
the smart thing to –”

“Emily, push the button
right now.”

“Yes, Boss.”

The button activated a
complex mechanism within the airship. First, the radar determined the nature
and distance of the targeted deity. Second, the weapon system accessed the
ship’s on-board archives to find the most effective method of combating this
particular one. Third, the weapon system connected to the engine to re-route
energy from the crystal and/or the mana drive to power the method, and
calculated how much energy could be taken without crashing the ship. Fourth, it
drew on the appropriate element from the lights for this method. Fifth, the
targeting system created support runes for guidance and maximum impact. Sixth,
all the data, energy and elemental power was focused at the airship’s griffin
mouth. Seventh, the interface confirmed the action with the commander.

“Campione Cannon,
fire!”

 A radiant double helix
of white and grey soared from the airship’s griffin mouth on a direct course
for the reaper. It had a fair distance to go, so Reno Grade reached the halfway
point between the two mountains before it struck him. Blind-sided, he fell like
a stone.

“Boss, why do you like
aggravating death gods?”

“Because I don’t like
them, and I plan to become a being greater than their boss.”

Emily shook her head
but didn’t reply.

 Reno Grade lay in a
crater, unmoving. His physical form flickered and the strength of his divinity
diminished. A dragon flying overhead laughed at him on her way.

Zettai stood over him
and outside it. The blast was specially calibrated to hurt reapers and so its
effect on a Bladi was minimal. When it knocked him out, his grip went slack and
Zettai used his arm to climb on top of him. Just before he crashed, she jumped
off and rolled across the ground. She was banged up for certain, but it wasn’t
as painful as what her parents regularly did to her. In any case, she didn’t
take as bad a hit as Reno Grade.

Carefully stepping into
the crater, she used his hand to place her soul next to her body. Based on her
talks with Eric, she assumed that the transfer of souls was one of a reaper’s
authorities and so she couldn’t simply grab it herself and press it against her
chest. Nothing happened. Her soul lay against her body, hovering inside it like
oil in water.

The thought that she’d
be soul-less forever crossed her mind, and then Basilard’s reaction joined it.
Cold fear worse than the reaper crept in. He already thought she was an
abomination. If he found her like this…She shook her head and focused on the
Third Law of Magecraft. With all her might, she wished for her soul to return
to her and, with all her strength, she pressed it against herself. Soon she
felt warm again and sighed with relief. Then Reno Grade stirred.

Zettai gasped and ran
away, but Reno Grade was already in front of her. She turned and he was there.
Again, he grabbed her by the throat.

“Now where were we?”

A second anti-reaper
beam smashed into him, and this one truly destroyed his physical form. When he
re-spawned in the Abyss, he’d have a great deal of explaining to do.

“Boss, we’re gonna run
out of fuel at this rate.”