Gleam - Chapter 139 (Patreon)

Chance wrapped up his grisly work several hours later. He’d pushed himself to his absolute limits against the Strandwalkers, drawing every last scrap of Essence from his body in the process.

He’d certainly learned a lot about the monsters – more than he had any real desire to. They were basically only good at two things. Strandwalkers were fast and resilient. That was just about it, but those two abilities made them nasty opponents.

Luckily, they were about as intelligent as a brick. They hunted by sensing Essence and followed large concentrations of it, so Chance was able to effectively distract them by summoning manifestations of Karma by grabbing the karmic threads connected to them.

The only way he’d found to actually defeat them was to use his Knight ranked ability, though. Nothing else had the sheer concentrated power to effectively penetrate their chitinous armor.

In the end, they’d proven to be good training, and he even stored one of the monsters in a monster-catching Orb to turn into the Shikari at a later date. They’d been fairly difficult to fight, so he suspected they’d probably pay pretty well for one. Chance had escaped injury almost entirely, and the only time he’d been hit was when one of the Strandwalker’s legs caught onto his shirt while he’d been low on Essence, ripping it.

The trip outside of Gleam really did wonders for my fighting ability. I’m actually starting to get pretty confident in myself, and I was already feeling good around the time of the tournament.

Chance trudged back to the Whiteheart house several hours before the sun rose, cloaked in the darkness of the night as it inched toward turning to very early morning. It hardly made a difference. It wasn’t like Gleam was any quieter in the night than it was during the day. It was just darker.

He reached the door of the Whiteheart house and pushed it open, grateful that someone had left it open so he wouldn’t have to wake someone else up to get inside. Chance closed it behind him as quietly as he could, forming a tiny orb of golden mist above his finger to light the dark room.

As he turned toward the stairs, Chance’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest and he suppressed a curse. Bella stood at their base, the light from Chance’s Essence reflecting off her eyes and turning them a faint golden.

“Holy shit, Bella,” Chance whispered, his heart racing faster than it had been when he’d fought the Strandwalkers. “You nearly scared the life out of me.”

“Sorry,” Bella replied in the same tone, a grin flickering across her face as she walked over to him. She leaned in and, before Chance could react, gave him a quick kiss on the lips. He stiffened in surprise and Bella arched an eyebrow. “Is something wrong?”

“No, not at all,” Chance said, touching his lips as his cheeks heated. He leaned in before he could get embarrassed, giving Bella a kiss back. “Just wasn’t expecting it. What are you doing up this late?”

“I heard you walking up and couldn’t resist. And I was cultivating, but paused to get some water. Were you training with the creepy monk guy?”

“Yamish? Kind of. I was visiting Ocie. She’s okay, by the way. I just need to feed her an artifact worth a few thousand gold and she’ll recover.”

Bella looked like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to groan or sigh in relief. “Well… I’m glad she’s okay. You’re awful upbeat about sacrificing an expensive artifact, but I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else. Did you want the ring I got in the Ancient Realm? I’m still not sure what it does, but–”

“It’s fine.” Chance shook his head. “You should keep it and find out if it’s useful before you give it away. Ocie got hurt because of my decision, so you shouldn’t have to give anything up in return. We’ll be able to earn the gold no problem – or who knows, maybe we’ll just find the artifact ourselves and not have to buy it.”

After a moment, Bella shrugged. “I won’t try to argue with you, then. I’ll just help you make the money.”

Chance grinned. “Thanks, Bella. By the way, I wanted to ask something. Have you had a chance to use your Knight ranked ability yet? I ran into some monsters that I couldn’t beat without it.”

“Inside Gleam? That’s pretty concerning. And, coincidentally enough, that’s what I was practicing tonight. I’ve been able to view auras and call on my Center, but I haven’t actually used the concentrated Essence to fight yet.”

“You know what it does then? Are you going to tell me?”

Bella grinned and held her hands out. As she drew in her next breath, a shimmer ran down her arms and faint blue crystals formed at her fingertips. Bella exhaled, running one hand down through the air while closing the other one over an invisible hilt.

A blue crystal sword manifested itself in Bella’s hands. It was wider than Chance had expected a sword for someone Bella’s size to be, but it was somehow still elegant. The sword looked like a weapon meant for a king that ruled over an ocean, studded with faint blue gemstones and pulsing with veins of dull green light that ran throughout it. Its hilt was made from what seemed to be polished white jade, and Essence permeated the entire weapon.

“Whoa,” Chance breathed. “That’s a beautiful sword. I didn’t realize Essence could do something like that.”

“From what I understand – which admittedly isn’t as much as I’d like – your Center lets you give your Essence an outlet to take physical form,” Bella said, running a hand down the flat of the blade. Tiny ripples passed along its surface wherever her fingers touched. “Mine is this sword. I… spoke to it, I think.”

“You spoke to your sword?”

“When Rilu was helping me with my Essence problems.” Bella released the hilt of the blade and it vanished in a small shower of crystals that slipped back into her palms and faded from view. “He basically sent me into my own soul, and I met with someone. I think they were my Essence.”

“I guess that makes two of us that have spoken to our Essence,” Chance said with a wry grin. “Good things, I hope?”

“You spoke to something else,” Bella corrected, a flicker of awe passing through her eyes. “That was your vision. Whole different level, Chance. But… yeah. I haven’t gotten to use the sword yet, but it feels right in my hands. Better than anything else ever did.”

“I’m glad to hear that. We’ll get time to practice soon,” Chance promised. “You’ve always been incredible, even with the bad hand you were dealt. I can’t wait to see what you can do now.”

“Stop flattering me.” Bella’s cheeks reddened and she looked to the side. “It’s embarrassing.”

Chance’s grin widened. Bella didn’t exactly have a lot of weaknesses for him to exploit, and this one was particularly cute.

“But you’re one of the most impressive people I know,” Chance said. “It’s not flattery if it’s true.”

Bella’s cheeks reddened even further and she held her hands up. “Please stop. I’m begging you.”

Chance resisted the urge to laugh. He didn’t want to mistakenly wake anyone else up. He settled for pushing past a bit of his own embarrassment and pulling Bella in for a hug. “Okay, fine. I’ll stop.”

“Thanks,” Bella said, her voice muffled by his shirt.

Giving the back of Bella’s head a gentle scratch, Chance pulled back. There was a warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt. It wasn’t exactly the warmth of Karma, but it didn’t feel that far off either.

Bella and I haven’t really had a ton of time together after we started dating without someone trying to kill us. This is nice.

“Are you planning to go back to bed or cultivate?” Bella asked.

Well, originally, yes.

“Probably not.” Chance shook his head. “I’m probably too tense from all the fighting to get any good sleep now. Same for meditating.”

Bella sent a pointed glance at the couch, and Chance took the hint without hesitation. He padded across the room and sat down at it, using a bit of his Essence to make sure he didn’t stub his toe on anything in the dark.

He sent a tendril over to Bella just in case, and she gave him an appreciative nod as she sat down and leaned against him, resting her head against his chest and just below his chin. She grabbed one of his arms and pulling it around her chest like a blanket. Her hair smelled faintly of berries.

For quite some time, neither of them spoke. They just rested on the couch, enjoying each other’s company. There was nothing that needed to be said.

But, as all things did, time passed. The faintest traces of the sun started to poke through the windows of the house, heralding in the morning.

“It’s nice to finally be able to relax.” Chance whispered into Bella’s ear, which was conveniently right beside him.

“Yeah. It is,” Bella said sleepily. She pushed back against him as she adjusted to a more comfortable position, covering a yawn. “I almost fell asleep there. I’m surprised you’re still awake.”

“I’ve been lost in thought,” Chance admitted.

“About what?”

“Well, part of it was just enjoying the moment. The other part was a bit of worry. Acen and Jake… I’m not sure. Something feels bad there.”

He couldn’t see Bella’s face, but he got the very strong feeling that she’d just rolled her eyes. “There’s always some problem. No point constantly worrying about everything, right? We dealt with the biggest one. Compared to Vex, this is nothing.”

I’m not so sure. That marble was… really concerning.

When Chance didn’t respond immediately, Bella laid back in his lap so she could look up at his face. “You think it’s that bad?”

“I don’t know,” Chance said honestly. He absentmindedly started to play with Bella’s hair, feeling the faint tingle of Essence at his fingertips as he recalled the ball of yarn that the golden being in his vision had shown him. “I know we’ll get through it, but that marble was bad news. I’d like if we could get Acen through it as well.”

“You think he’s a victim? He seemed pretty hostile.”

“He could be. I don’t know. That marble was the most wretched thing I’ve ever felt. It was death and evil incarnate, all wrapped up into one little disgusting ball. Acen might not have even been in full control of himself.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Bella promised. “Just don’t get yourself hurt trying to save someone else.”

“I won’t. I don’t agree with Yamish’s views on balance, but I’m not going to sacrifice myself for someone that doesn’t want to be saved. We’ll take things the smart way. To be honest, I’m a little more concerned that Jake finds Acen before we do.”

“The guy’s an asshole,” Bella said. Chance scratched at the back of her head and she leaned into it, then scrunched her nose. “Don’t try to distract me. He’s a dick and you know it.”

“Just because he’s a dick doesn’t mean he deserves to die.”

“Why do you have to be so reasonable about everything? It makes it really hard to dislike people when you keep justifying their actions,” Bella complained. “How am I supposed to feel self-righteous about this when you’re being logical?”

Chance grinned down at her. “Nobody said it was easy. I just think everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt. If it was anything that I didn’t think was life-threatening, then I wouldn’t care at all if Jake screwed up. I just have this gut feeling that messing with that marble is going to end really poorly if you aren’t ready for it.”

“We’ll probably have to talk to Yeo. Jake’s his brother, after all,” Bella said. “I get the feeling Jake isn’t going to listen to a single word we say.”

“That’s his problem. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to try to control what he does,” Chance said. He straightened out some of Bella’s hair, running it between his fingers. “Jake was already warned. If he doesn’t listen, that’s his choice. What I do want to do is make sure Acen can’t keep doing damage.”

“Keep doing damage? Has he done something already?”

“With how bad the Karma in that marble felt? Definitely.” Chance’s face was grim. “We just don’t know what it was yet.”

Rays of sunlight finally broke through the windows in full, banishing away even more of the darkness. Bella let out a reluctant sigh and sat up. “I guess we should get to work, then.”

“Yeah,” Chance said. “Let’s find Yeo and get to it. If we want to deal with that marble, we need to make sure we’re strong enough – but first, I think we should take the exam to advance to Knight so we can get better jobs.”

“Great idea, Chance,” Yeo said, stepping down the stairs and flashing them a wide grin. “That sounds like it should be interesting.”