Myth//OS - Chapter 75 (Patreon)

AN: So sorry I’m late! I went for a ‘short’ walk, and it ended up taking me an hour. That’s the last time I go outside. The hiatus really was a joke, I promise.

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I blinked weakly and peeled my broken body out of the molten tunnel bored by the deer’s lighting beam. Everything hurt. I lifted a hand up to pull myself out, and the bone was exposed along several parts of it. A black, charred mess was left of it from half blocking the beam.

”Heh.” A small, light laugh left me. In spite of how much everything hurt, I felt weirdly cheerful.

[Nighteye stares in horror. How the hell are you still alive? You don’t have a heart!]

I was wondering why everything felt so quiet. I barely managed to lift my head and look down at myself. My chest was almost entirely gone. What was left was a fried mess sparking with residual energy. Each spark caused little twitches and tremors to go through the rest of me. 

”Hhhehaha!” Another laugh broke out of me before I could stop it. Black blood oozed out of me and dripped onto the could-stone that made up the mountain. It sizzled where it connected, and a sharp wave of miasma. It was thick enough to appear like a gas, and looked like it was smiling before it dissipated. 

Laughter rang in my ears to match my own. It was even more excited than mine, though. A feral tilt filled it, and a not-so-subtle pressure settled across my shoulders. A sharp instinct to rip and tear reared its ugly head within me. I could already feel my teeth sharpening into a serrated.

I shook my head and pulled at my connection to what was left of my Ebonshroud. There wasn’t much, but I pulled it through the tunnel back to me. Some of it survived the wave of absolute destruction that the deer launched at me.

By the time it reached me, my chest was already starting to heal. Little tendrils of flesh wiggled out and grew at a rapid rate to regenerate what was lost. It started with my heart, and slowly worked from there. For a moment, a bulbous organ of pumping black blood hung freely in my torso with only small tendrils supporting it.

Then a layer of Ebonshroud covered up the grotesque sight. It flowed and created an artificial set of organs and veins while I waited to regenerate. The cauterized bits of my flesh were devoured by the black ooze while it created artificial organs, and I once more felt my strength start to return to my limbs.

“Ugh—“ I groaned and pushed myself up to a stand. I instantly fell and slammed into the far wall of the seared tunnel. A small tendril of black caught me, though, and saved me from jolting my broken body more than it already had been.

[Nighteye raises a paw to her snout. She’s going to puke.]

I felt like doing the same. I just—haha!—I didn’t have the organs to do such a thing at the moment. I staggered back toward the open sky on the other side of the tunnel. Naturally, everything felt incredibly weak. I doubted I could hold myself up, let alone fight the storm deer.

So much for this rift having a 99% clear rate. That one percent must have met this creature. The level of Wardens that generally came to clear this place had no chance against such a boss monster. I could barely stand up to it as is. In my peak state, I’d crush it. I’d long lost such strength.

That was changing though. I felt that familiar rush of power that I usually kept restrained with dew. It flowed through me like black blood, and reality seemed to warp around me in response. Black and red diamonds flashed and disappeared on the edges of my vision.

I stepped out of the seared tunnel, and the storm paused. Thunder clashed and clapped in applause, and lighting flashed like stage lights to illuminate me. The deer, on the other hand, did not seem impressed by my miraculous recovery. What a downer.

Or maybe not? My overwhelming cheer infected the deer, and it let out an amused huff. That amusement immediately died, and roughly shook its head as if to clear out a parasite. The deer dropped its antlers in my direction and dragged its hoof back in preparation of a charge.

“No fun.” I groaned, though the smile wouldn’t clear off my face no matter how much I tried. “Heh.”

My laugh seemed to do it in, and the stag screeched its haunting little tune at me. Lightning sparked off its antlers, and it directly charged at me with the full force of a storm.

[Nighteye’s fur raises on end. Look out!]

I have it covered, my feline friend. I took a step back—and vanished. At least, in the eyes of the deer. The world abruptly shifted into a washed out mass of greys and blacks around me, and the deer likewise disappeared in my vision.

Should be… about here? I formed a battle axe and stepped forward while cleaving at thin air. It was a small axe given my limited amount of Ebonshroud, but that should be more than enough still. The moment I stepped forward, the washed out look of the world faded and I returned back to normal space. The deer appeared just in front of me while looking around with wary eyes.

”Haha!” My axe slammed into the side of the stag right about where I hit it the first time. Ether Physique surged through me, and the axe cut through the storm armor covering the deer. It continued downward and cleaved off the back leg of the stag in one overpowering swipe.

The moment the axe connected, I felt a rush of warmth up through the Ebonshroud. The uncomfortable worming sensation of my regeneration sped up drastically. The hunger that’d started to rear its ugly head faded slightly. The deer, on the other hand, staggered and disappeared with a flash of lightning.

I took a breath and shook my head to clear it out. I could only do that once—maybe twice tops. Anymore and I’d start slipping into much more dangerous territory. I still had most of my wits about me at the moment, but that could all change in the time it took to laugh.

A tendril of Ebonshroud flicked out toward the leg and picked it up. Unlike what I expected of such a fearsome opponent, the leg was a shriveled mess of a thing. It looked like it’d been dehydrating and aging for a thousand years. Should I beat it to death with its own leg?

I tossed the hunk to the side. Probably not. That seemed extremely inefficient, and I wasn’t made of energy. Right now my regeneration and Ebonshroud were keeping me up. I’d still tire eventually though, not to mention miasma poisoning was quickly becoming a concern.

The stag, apparently, had enough of me just standing there. A dozen lightning bolts shot out at me. Unlike before, I didn’t have the Ebonshroud reserves to block the attacks. Instead I just tanked them. One after the other hit me, and electric fire filled my veins. The damage they inflicted wasn’t nearly as high as the mega-beam, though, and I could already feel it healing back.

I summoned out Thorn’s Defiance and fired a shot. The kick shattered my already weakened shoulder, though the shot flew true. The barrage slammed into the deer. I wasn’t the only one weakening, and missing a leg seriously slowed the beast down.

It screeched once more and staggered back. The storm veil was torn apart across its head and upper torso, and several thorns peppered its body. The main thorn, however, was blocked by a lightning enhanced antler. 

For the first time since the fight started, I got my first true look at the deer. Its entire body was a shriveled, dessicated mess. Aside from the lightning supporting it, the creature was incredibly feeble like its life force had been sucked away for tens of thousands of years.

I reformed the axe. I’d have to suck out the rest of it while I was here. Before I could second guess the wisdom of my actions, I activated Wind Steps and charged at the monster. It should be looking to end this fight just as quickly as I was—that was something I could take advantage of.

The stag’s antlers sparked with brilliant electricity, and a deadly looking ball of electricity formed in the middle of them. I was more than prepared for the attack this time. The moment I saw the electricity gather, I used Dream Shift.

Generally, it was a pretty useless ability. I only had one Nightmare collected, and it was just a cosmetic effect. There was one other side to it though—I slammed into the ground in the form of a cat. 

The moment I shrunk down, the beam erupted in a lethal wave of electricity and heat over my head. “Meow!”

I meant to say Darkest Night, but meow worked just as well. The rest of my ether drained out of me, and an incomparably weak sensation filled every part of my injured feeling body. For a moment, anyway. The light of the electricity back flowed into the black hole, and all light in the surrounding area twisted unnaturally. The black hole snapped shut, and a wave of strength filled my body.

Midstep forward, I transformed back to my usual shape with strength brimming throughout my body. Ebonshroud flowed back up into an axe, and I launched a brutal, two-handed swing at the deer’s neck.

The deer, stuck midcast of its death beam, could only watch with its lightning lit eyes. In one swipe even more brutal than the last, my axe shattered through the half-repaired storm armor and cleaved down through fur, meat, and bone. The head popped off in a spray of black blood.

The rest of the body stood on three legs for a moment. Then, as if realizing it no longer had a head, it collapsed to the side. The storm clouds surging around me likewise collapsed and the rift returned to normal blue skies.

[Nighteye cheers! Her cheer quickly turns to worry.]

“Hehehahahaha!” I choked on my laughter and coughed up acrid black blood. The Ebonshroud axe swiftly swapped to a cane, and I leaned on it heavily. Exhaustion weighed at me. I-I’ll be alright. I just need to get back home. 

[Code: RC-1]

[Rift - Closing: 29:59]

Ether surged throughout the rift. There was so much of it—so much more than I’d felt in any rift before except maybe with that snake eye monster. It welled up into a brilliant display, and the corpse stag started to disappear.

[Skill Tome: Could Steps]

[“The ——— —- walked the sky as easily as the land. Their ruler, the Stag-King, granted them peaceful skies to stride under.”]

[Could Steps - Condense ether to create platforms underfoot.]

[Skill Tome: Stormsurge]

[“You really are quite lucky, aren’t you? Getting struck by the divine isn’t something just anyone can brag about.]

[Stormsurge - Create a localized storm.]

[Stormcaller]

[“When you need me, I will come. Stand strong, my ——— —-“]

[Stormcaller - A bow made of fine antler. Where its arrows hit, a storm will answer.]

There were a few other items that dropped alongside those. This rift had an exceptionally low drop rate for things, though it looked like killing the hidden boss of the rift guaranteed higher chances. I swiped all of it and leaned tiredly against my cane.

Cloud Steps was what I was here for, so I learned the Skill as soon as I got it. It replaced Mictal Fog. The fog Skill got one last hurrah in this rift, but it was generally my weakest one.

[Skills Resonate: Wind Steps, Cloud Steps]

[Output: Sky Stride - Run freely through the air.]

[Merge?]]

Of course I wanted to merge them. I felt a little relief go through me. I figured they’d merge together back when I saw them in the OuroSec files, but it was reassuring to get confirmation. Skills that shared a similar enough name and type tended to resonate. It wasn’t a concrete theory, but I saw speculations about it amidst the OuroSec scholars.

[Aylin Io

Titles: Nyx, Moon

Innate Trait: [Dream Shift], [Adaptive Ebonshroud], [Discerning All-Speech]

Skills: [Echoing Reinforcement], [Brace-6], [Sky Stride], [Ether Physique-4], [Radiance-1], [Darkest Night], [Stormsurge]

Boon: Nighteye - [Guiding Moonlight]

Bound: [Will Wire], [Thorn’s Defiance]]

I filled the last slot with that other new Skill. It seemed like a better version of Mictal Fog, to be honest. I’d have to keep my eyes out for a replacement as well. That was all for the future, though.

The ether cleaned out, and left two items gently floating where the corpse of the deer used to sit. Both were small cores. I recognized one at a glance—an Evo Core. The orange, polyhedral shape was definitely a D-rank core. It looked like one of my Traits was about to get another evolution. 

The other was a crystal of some kind. It burned against my flesh when I picked it up, which told me all I needed to know. It was another fragment. I couldn’t help but feel a little excited at the discovery. The last one had given me Thorn’s Defiance, so what could this one give me? 

It took some time to get back down to the bottom of the rift. By the time I did, enough Ebonshroud regenerated to at least cover up my body and hide the worst of my wounds. I barely remembered to turn it white.

I stepped through the rift—and appeared back in Bastion. Alarms blared fiercely, and a dozen VDS PMCs surrounded the rift alongside two Enforcers. “Wha—?”

The rift trembled behind me and collapsed in on itself. A brief vortex tugged on my hair, and then the rift disappeared like it’d never been there. I just stood there for a long moment. Maybe they won’t notice it was me that closed the rift?

”Warden Moon.” One of the Enforcers coughed lightly as a sensor blared an alarm. “If you’d please come with us.”

”Y-yep.” I let out a sigh and stepped forward—only for everything to fade to black as my exhaustion caught up with me.

— — —

AN: The ending of this was a bit rushed to get it out the door. I might come back and clean it up a bit.