Ascension Page 5

  Nothing happened.

  “Damn it! Please!” I pleaded, trying again.

  I screamed as another arrow pierced my lower back, dangerously close to my spine. I gripped the handle again, wobbling on my leg, nearly collapsing, when I saw it: there was a faint purple aura around Regis, just like the chimeras.

  My eyes widened. “Regis, quick, come here!”

  “Okay, but you’re not going to eat me, right?” Regis said, uncertain.

  “Hurry!” I hissed. “Get in my hand!”

  The black will-o-wisp darted into my right hand, and I almost cheered in delight when my hand took on a delicate purple aura.

  Quickly, I traced through the runes again, shifting it ever-so-slightly so that its function of opening was enabled.

  Wobbling again as the door unlocked with a hum, my field of view spun and I saw, behind me, the gun-wielding chimera pointing his explosive appendage directly at my chest, a thick cloud of purple light gathered at the nozzle.

  Prying the door open just enough for me to squeeze through, I lurched back inside the sanctuary just as the door shuddered from the force of the chimera’s shotgun blast.

  259

  Round Two

  I toppled forward, collapsing hard on the cold marble floor of the sanctuary, a pool of dark crimson spreading around me.

  Struggling against the numbing grasp that threatened to rip my consciousness from me, I crawled away from the door, desperate to get as far from those monstrosities as possible.

  “Arthur,” Regis muttered, his voice soft.

  All my focus was bent on trying to keep myself alive through the throbbing pain; hot pins were driving through my mind and body with every beat of my heart. I tried not to hear the exposed bone of my leg grinding across the sanctuary floor or feel the arrows tearing at my insides with each movement.

  Reaching a shaking hand over my shoulder, I gripped the shaft of one of the bone arrows lodged in my back.

  I stifled a scream and tears rolled down my face. Without mana to protect my body, even touching the arrow sent spikes of burning agony through my back.

  Letting out a guttural yell like a war cry, I snapped the shaft off. A wave of nausea overcame me and I threw up on the ground. With nothing in my stomach, I heaved water and stomach acid until all I could do was gag.

  Shaking, no longer able to see through the tears and sweat in my eyes, I brought the bone shaft up to my mouth.

  “You’re not going to—oh, yup, you sure are.”

  Regis regarded me with a grimace but I didn’t care. The aetheric aura was pure nourishment for me, and I already felt strength returning to my body.

  I snapped off the other shaft lodged in my side, barely able to keep myself from throwing up again. I consumed the aetheric essence from that as well, and as the flood of power helped to clear my mind, one thought came through with agonizing clarity.

  How the hell am I going to get out of here with one leg?

  The pool of crimson that had spread beneath me began to dry, a good sign that I wasn’t actively bleeding anymore.

  Once I had polished off both arrows, I dragged myself to the fountain. After gulping down several mouthfuls of the clear, cold water, my body grew limp and eyelids heavy, so I leaned back against the side of the marble fountain and let the darkness overcome me.

  I was jolted out of my slumber in a fit of coughs, as if I had been drowning in my sleep. I clutched at my chest, gasping for air. As I shifted, pulling away from the side of the fountain where I’d been leaning, the puncture wounds in my back ached, reminding me that they were still there.

  Suddenly, Regis shot out of my chest.

  “What…the hell…are you doing?” I asked, trying to catch by breath.

  “I swear that wasn’t me. Okay, maybe it was a little me,” Regis replied, a reddish glow emanating from his dully glowing flames.

  I shot him a glare that sent him retreating back a few more feet.

  “I’ll tell you what I found out while you were sleeping, but first, check out your body!”

  I looked down, prepared for the worst. I had been shot three times in the back and once on my left leg before that same leg had been blown apart by a shotgun blast. I had expected to see awful scars, the stump of a leg, perhaps the red rot of infection already taken hold in the wounds…

  When my gaze reached my legs, I couldn’t help but let out a sharp breath. There it was, my left leg—bare from the thigh down but completely intact and without a scratch. I touched, prodded, and pinched it to make it sure it was real, to make sure it was mine.

  “Neat, huh! You’re like some sort of weird starfish or spider or something,” Regis said excitedly.

  I let out a laugh, unable to contain my relief. “You can’t think of a better life form to compare me to?”

  “Well, I was going to say lizard, but they can only regrow their tails and that’s not technically—”

  “Okay, I get it,” I chuckled, studying my leg closely. “I get healing a few gashes and puncture wounds, but my left leg was completely blown off. Do you have any idea how I was able to do that?”

  “I was getting to that,” Regis said. “I don’t know how you got the idea of eating the aether coming from those monsters, but that saved you—no, it more than saved you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your physiology right now is neither human nor asura. It’s something in between because of the sacrificial aether art Sylvie used on you. The problem you had, once you became conscious, was that your mana core is damaged beyond repair. Unlike a lesser, without a functioning—and rather powerful—mana core, you can’t sustain this body.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. How would my own body not be able to support…my body?” I gestured vaguely down at myself, unsure how to more accurately express my question.

  “If you think about why asuras are so innately powerful, it’s because, unlike lessers, their bodies are reliant on mana to operate. From the moment asuras are born, their mana cores are constantly being taxed just to sustain their physical bodies—their very lives. If an asura’s mana core breaks, their whole body would slowly collapse.”

  I grimaced. “Okay, so since I don’t have a mana core, my body is slowly shutting down?”

  “It was, until you savagely started eating the aether from those chimera-creatures like some starving zombie,” Regis explained. “After that, your body began to sustain itself a little better.”

  I looked down at my hands and feet, marveling at how different this body was compared to my old one. It wasn’t just my exterior appearance that had changed.

  “And more exciting still…remember when you were like, ‘Regis, get in my hand!’?” Regis said in a voice annoyingly similar to mine. “Well, you thought that it was the aether from me that you were manipulating, right? It was actually the aether you already had inside your body. For some reason, when I went into your hand, all of that aether you had consumed—which had been spread throughout your body—came toward me.”

  “Interesting…Wait, does that mean you can basically siphon aether out of my body and use it for yourself?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Maybe,” Regis answered before hurriedly continuing. “But I didn’t! Okay, maybe a little, but only once I knew your life wasn’t in danger! Until then, I went inside your leg and made sure all of the aether you had left in your body was focused on regenerating it.”

  I looked at the will-o-wisp, and it was like I was seeing him for the first time. I had to admit, without his intervention I would have been in much worse shape. I even began to wonder if he wasn’t as bad as I had made him out to be.

  “Honestly, you’re damn lucky I was here and that I’m not confident in continuing to exist after you snuff it.”

  Ah. There he is, I thought, amused despite myself.

  “So you said that the aether I consume is spread around my body, momentarily nourishing and strengthening me before it’s all used up, correct?” I asked.

  “Yup. From what I can gather, the aether tries to keep you at an optimal state, so it prioritizes recovering wounds first, which is probably why you don’t feel that much stronger.”

  “Good. And I’m guessing that if you consume the aether in my body, you’ll get stronger too, in some way or another?”

  “That’s what it feels like right now, didn’t you notice?”

  I raised a brow. “Notice what?”

  “My horns!”

  I stared at him, searching through the flickering fire until I found the two little nubs poking up out of the black flames.

  “You have horns now,” I said, deadpan.

  “Damn right! I can feel myself growing into my true power!” Regis flared as his bright eyes shined, and I could feel his exaltation, his unwieldy pride.

  “That’s…great. Cool horns. I’m glad to hear you’re coming into your true power or whatever, because”—I pointed at the metal door a few feet away—“we’re going to go back out there and try to harvest as much aetheric essence as possible, either from the arrows or from those chimeras themselves, and come back here.”

  Regis’s body dimmed again suddenly and he flew down until he was inches in front of my face. “Seriously? To what end?”

  “So I can get strong enough to kill them all,” I said matter-of-factly.

  Crossing through the door and walking up to the triggering point in the hallway wasn’t any easier the second time. The fact that we knew what was coming actually made the anticipation worse, but at least I was feeling a little stronger and lighter on my feet due to the aether I’d consumed.

  With a rumble and explosion of stone fragments, the bow-wielding chimera broke loose from its statue first—the same as last time.

  I broke into a sprint back toward the door to the sanctuary; I couldn’t allow myself to get surrounded or cut off from our exit.

  The goal was simple: consume as much aether from the chimeras as I could while sustaining as few injuries as possible. The fewer injuries I had, the more the aether that I consumed would go into strengthening my body.

  “So,” Regis said as we fled from the sound of more statues shattering behind us. “We split the aether fifty-fifty?”

  “Really, you want to talk about this now?” I scoffed. “Eighty-twenty, after my wounds have been healed.”

  Regis huffed. “Stingy-ass.”

  “Maybe if you become an actual weapon of some sort after getting stronger, I can allocate some more to you,” I replied, looking back over my shoulder.

  The two of us parted ways as the chimera leapt off its podium and landed with a thud. Locking its beady eyes on me, it unhinged its jaw, displaying a mouth full of needle-like teeth, and let out a monstrous wail that sent chills down my spine.

  Maintaining my balance in this body while moving any faster than a brisk walk required a significant amount of focus on my part. It was now nearly as difficult to lightly jog as it had once been for me to literally fly through the air.

  Still, I managed to get close enough to the sanctuary door to feel comfortable. Whirling around to face the chimera, I watched carefully as it ripped off one of its spiked vertebrae and nocked it.

  The chimera released its attack, launching the bone arrow with another piercing howl that tore through the air.

  I rolled out of the way, not trusting myself to attempt a more subtle movement. As the arrow struck the wall, the entire room trembled, and before I could even gather myself, the chimera already had two more arrows ready to fire from its bow.

  It didn’t do that last time, I thought, an unnamed worry prickling at the back of my mind.

  Thankfully, Regis had reached the chimera by this time and was dancing crazily around its face.

  The arrows missed their mark, allowing me some time to snap off the shafts of the arrows, which had both stuck in the stone wall. I consumed the aetheric essence from one of the arrows, but the other I stashed for later use.

  Before I could feel good about things going to plan, the second chimera broke loose. Then the third, and a fourth…and a fifth.

  “They’re breaking out faster this time!” Regis roared, still keeping the first chimera occupied.

  Cursing inwardly, I shifted my gaze between the three grotesque figures racing toward me like frenzied animals and the entrance back to the sanctuary.

  I buried the temptation of leaving this soon. I wasn’t injured, and I had consumed a bit of aether, but that was nowhere near enough now. My initial plan of harvesting a few arrows at a time to slowly get stronger had gone down the drain now that there was the possibility of the chimeras breaking free faster each time.

  I wasn’t strong enough to beat them this round, and I needed to get a lot stronger for the next round, or I had no hope of getting past this floor, let alone the entire dungeon.

  The first chimera to reach me was wielding a whip that appeared to be made from the spine of a large serpent. The whip left a blurred afterimage in the air as the chimera launched a barrage of swipes, sweeps, and strikes, each of which carved divots into the stone and splintered the ground around me.

  Hardened battle instincts and decades of fighting knowledge made up for my limited strength and control over my body. I ducked, rolled, and weaved through the spiked whip, but I was just barely holding on even before the other two chimeras reached us.

  Regis did his best to occupy the bow-wielding and shotgun-wielding chimera while I moved forward with the next step of the plan.

  I had to wait for just the right moment, but when one chimera swung its sword in a downward cut that would have sliced me in two, I slid to the side, staying as close as I dared while avoiding the blade, which struck the ground with such force that it lodged deeply into the marble.

  I clung to the chimera’s arm, tearing at the aetheric essence radiating out from the monster with my teeth. The chimera wrenched its sword free of the floor and shoved me away, but I had consumed enough aether to quickly heal the minor scrapes and bruises I’d taken so far, with enough left over to provide me an instant boost in strength.

  I rolled under the point of a spear, thrust at me from behind by the third chimera, and twisted around as I leapt back to my feet, right next to the chimera’s arm. Grabbing the spear with one hand and the chimera’s arm with the other, I began to consume its aether.

  Strength infused my limbs, and when the chimera punched forward with its other arm, I didn’t immediately crumple under the weight of the blow, although I was shoved away from the creature, breaking my hold on it. Even though I successfully brought up one arm to block the strike, I still felt as though I’d jumped in front of a battering ram.

  I couldn’t help but flinch as an explosion rocked the hall. Thankfully, the shotgun blast was directed elsewhere. Regis was doing his part.

  Stepping away from the slashing sword and then pirouetting past another thrust of the spear, my gaze flashed across the archer-chimera, which had three arrows ready to fire and a clear line of sight toward me.

  Cursing, I dove toward the swordsman, slamming into it hard enough to knock it back on its heels. I let the natural course of our momentum twist us around until my back was exposed to the archer, taking advantage of the moment to draw in more of the sword-wielding chimera’s aether. It thrust its blade downward just as I heard the deadly thrum of arrows being loosed. I threw myself between the chimera’s legs an instant before the arrows impacted it, causing it to stumble back and trip over me before crashing into the chimera with the whip.

  I watched in excitement as the chimera writhed in pain, feeling truly hopeful for the first time. Then the blunt end of the other chimera’s spear struck me.

  Barely managing to guard the blow with my arms, I let out a gasp as I felt bones break from the impact.

  “Arthur!” I heard Regis yell as I flew back and hit the wall with such force that I felt something more than just the wall crack behind me.

  I collapsed on the floor, blood pooling underneath me even faster than when I lost a leg, my consciousness wavering.

  Contorting my body, I used my teeth to clumsily pry out the broken arrow I had saved and began swallowing the aetheric essence.

  The bones of my left arm shifted back into place, and I was able to move it, but my right arm was shattered beyond use. With my strength slowly returning, I managed to pull myself up off the floor.

  The door to the sanctuary was just a few steps to my left, and the temptation to just go back grew stronger. I weighed my options, trying to figure out the best way for me to survive, when a beastly roar captured my attention.

  The sword-wielding chimera and the archer were fighting…against each other. This seemed to have drawn the attention of the chimera with the shotgun, who was stomping toward them despite Regis’s intervention.

  The other two chimeras, however, had realized that I was still alive and were charging toward me. A few minutes ago, I would’ve accepted this as my death, but now a new plan had solidified in my mind.

  My eyes locked onto the lead chimera, which ran just ahead of its spear-wielding companion, and, with a sharp breath, I dashed toward it.

  The chimera brandished its skeletal whip, slinging the deadly weapon around its head as it charged. Just before it was within range, I turned sharply to my right—nearly tripping in the process—veering instead toward the chimera with the spear.

  I only have one shot at this.

  Not wanting its prey to get away, the first chimera struck its whip at me with a sharp crack.

  Now!

  I raised the bone shaft like a shield and blocked the tail end of the whip, causing it to curl around the arrow.

  Come on…

  Now with the tail end of the whip in my grasp, I dove down just below the spear-chimera’s midsection swing and used the whip as a tripwire.

  The chimera toppled forward and smashed into the wall with a thunderous crash, tearing the shaft out of my hand and sending me sprawling. Panicked, I rolled away, expecting the whip to come scything toward me at any moment, but the chimera wielding it had been pulled off its feet by the impact as well.