[Ashborn-B1] 52. Strong Allies (Patreon)

LII

Strong Allies

Red Fang—no, I grimaced, my unnamed blade pierced into the shoulder of a scorn wielding a two-handed axe. The brittle bone underneath snapped, and the undead lost its ability to swing.

One of Skul’s guardians tore into the Scorn an instant later.

My gaze shot past the invalid dead. A frosty blur whirled through the scorn, leaving nothing but frozen prisons and staked undead through the stomach in their wake.

Aurille dashed into the thick of the melee, behind which a chanting scorn pressed a tome close to their chest.

[Scorn Mystic - lvl. 20]

The seven guards arranged around the mystic wore plate and carried shields taller than the wielders. Their shields flared when Aurille launched a volley, forming a bubble around them which not a single one of Aurille’s shards managed to pierce.

The mystic’s pale hand jabbed the tome into the air. A column of black light shot forth like a gout from a bursting fountain. It scaled all the way to the treetops, then exploded, scattering into a thousand particles that rained on the battleground.

Power rippled through the undead horde where the dark light touched their ranks.

I turned to our flanks. The dead didn’t scream or make noise, so the reinforcements trickled in quietly. Their vanguard didn’t boast any plate wearer or mystics. My chick also didn’t spot any staying at the rear.

‘The composition of their armies isn’t the same across the board.’

Fast units, heavy units. They had them all.

A silent scorn leapt into the corner of my sight. My flametalon slapped it out of the air with a flame cutter. Instead of having her on the ground where she’d be immobile, I chose to have her hover overhead.

It made me more vulnerable, but I had another summon to take care of my defence down here.

Skul’s roar was an earthquake. He reared on his back legs so his figure shadowed me. Azure light flashed in his mouth, expelling the shadow. His jaw opened, and a cone of flame blasted the area in front of us. The fires engulfed three scorn at once, then swerved to consume a line of undead trying to charge my position.

The flames buffeted outwards, blowing back my hair. In the wake of the attack, a zone of uncluttered space remained. My chick in the sky glanced behind me, where a scorn wielding two daggers dashed from our blindspot. A tail swipe of Skul sent them flying.

‘So his ability unlocks once he’s reached his final form.’

It hadn’t done that at early, so I assumed it was also because he evolved.

Though Skul could now physically stand, his physique was still partly corporeal. Certain scales were nothing but fire, and wisps of smoke like from his incomplete stages trailed from his limbs. More than that, he’d lost the ability to fly.

‘He’ll likely gain it back once he develops wings.’ Not that he needs them.

Lingering fires whisked out, revealing a molten mash of corpses glued to the ground. The undead weren’t killed but there was no more movement to be had from them. Skul roared again. He slammed down and crushed two slightly more intact undead under his paws.

I kept my gaze on his guardians. Now that Skul had reached his final form, the energy he didn’t need was pouring into them. Their spines didn’t show any sign of forming though.

‘His guardians are locked into the previous stage of his evolution.’

So I could expect them to tread the earth once Skul reached late, huh. ‘Well,’ I thought, holding out my hand, ‘let’s not have them wait.’

Skul’s powers flared and he began dismantling the barriers around the corpses’s souls. If everything worked out, he’d reach late after this—

A frown interrupted my thoughts. The second layer of skin encasing the souls was decaying. Too quickly for it to be Skul’s handiwork.

‘What’s going on?’

Flinging my arm, I spurred Skul on. By the time he managed to kill two of the undead, ten more soul shells had broken on their own. Before long, the dead I’d thought lunch had all dismantled. I whirled towards the edges of the field, where decapitated and dismembered dead lied still as corpses. There was no sign of anything being inside of them. ‘They’re all dead?’ I asked incredulously.

While I tried to combat my confusion with logic, more undead streamed onto the field. I grimaced, shelving the previous conundrum for the current one. Not good.

The dead numbered close to a hundred now. The scorn had shown to be intelligent. After our first strike, they must know we had an escape route no matter how many they sent. In other words, they were fine losing this many soldiers at only a small chance of taking us out. That, or they were bogging us down instead of the other way around. I no longer had an eye on what was happening on the larger map. Could they be surrounding our main army? They shouldn’t be close enough for that to be the case but it was always a risk.

After her attacks bounced off the wall of dead for the dozenth time, Aurille skipped back towards me using a series of platforms.

“We should leave and see what’s happening elsewhere,” she said.

I nodded.

Despite fighting dozens on her own for some time, the Snow Moon heiress wasn’t out of breath.

“They’ll follow us wherever we go, though,” I said.

Which should be fine as long as we didn’t move in the direction of Jake.

“Get off the ground,” Aurille said. “I’ll take care of this.”

I blinked. The pack of scorn circled our position like predators. A black haze of essence rose from the skin of each. Riding the faint whisper of the wind were the chants of the mystic, whose essence was building to the point I didn’t want to be here when they finished casting.

Without questioning her resolve, I dematerialised my flametalon and chick. The moment Ashwing stepped out, the undead rushed forwards. I was in the sky before the first of them reached me. Skul remained on the ground and walloped his way through the advancing dead.

My system chimed right as I unsummoned him too. A glance at its contents confirmed what I’d been waiting for, but I discarded it and focused on the girl standing on a single plate of frost in the air.

Aurille sheathed her blade, then touched her thumb and index fingers together.

There’d been multiple times where I noticed Aurille’s timeless appearance. The way her hair didn’t seem to move, her facial expressions remained unmoving like the wastes in the first trial. Those qualities deepened as a kernel of frost spawned in the space between her hands. It built slowly. Like how dripping water penetrated a rock over centuries. Looking at it was enough to still the expansion of my chest. As if I was scared breathing would disrupt the tranquillity of the technique.

Feathers striking the air in the corner of my sight drew my gaze…my gaze didn’t move.

No. It’s not that it wasn’t moving.

My vision shifted with the speed of a snail. Only then did I notice Ashwing’s wings were not striking the sky but caressing it. The sphere in Aurille’s hands may as well have been a spaceship with how fast it was compared to us.

The Snow Moon heiress glanced down in all of her emotionless totality and spoke:

“Nova.”

The sphere didn’t bound through the air. It merely…fell. Similar to a leaf, it drifted between the enemy techniques crawling towards us and stamping feet that were practically wading through mud.

There was no flash or explosion.

My heart beat against my chest and my lungs expanded in full. Breath turned to mist before it even exited my mouth. From Ashwing’s back, I had a perfect view of the battlefield.

‘I really did think I had a serious shot against an omen.’

But my reflection peering back at me from dozens of statues said otherwise.

I turned towards Aurille, who was kneeling and heaving.

Thank the gods.

The ice underneath her feet cracked, and I guided Ashwing into a dive before she could tumble into the land of stillness she’d created.

Talons wrapped around her waist then dragged us off.

“That…should give Jake enough room,” Aurille huffed.

“More than enough,” I said.

Though there were still enemies in the east and west, they weren’t coming our way but going north. Jake should’ve already passed them up a while ago.

‘Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s already at the rendezvous.’

I scanned Aurille’s spirit. Though she was trying to meditate, it wasn’t exactly easy when she was dangling from Ashwing’s feet. If Gaje or Erri ran into us when she was like this, we were in trouble. So I steered us in the direction of the army. I half expected one or both would strike us from the sky like calling on some bad omen, but the journey back was uneventful.

The multitude of dots pushing across the mountain range enlarged and became full on figures, who looked up at our return. Ashwing touched down in the centre of the formation.

Aurille didn’t sigh but grooves in her face smoothed out when her feet touched the ground. We entered the main tent acting as our headquarters.

“Welcome back,” Rin said.

She was leaning against one of the support beams, elbows behind her head.

“Guess nothing eventful happened?” I said.

“It’s more worrisome than reassuring.” Tsall was holding the map. He sneaked a glance at Aurille and I (his gaze lingered on Aurille). “I take it your mission was a success?”

“Jake is about an hour behind us,” I said, having confirmed confirmed their status during our flight. “They’ll take their second set of recovery pills soon so they don’t fall behind.”

Recovery pills had a negative effect when taken in quick succession—the build up of medical energy would clog your meridians and wrack your body from the inside, forcing growth on organs like a cancer.

The wounded in his team would not be battle-ready for the next day, but as long as they managed to join up with us we should be fine.

“Any changes in our situation?” Aurille said.

Tsall pointed at the numerous dots on the map. “The undead’s fangs are closing but we should make it through.”

“It’ll be a restless march though,” Rin added.

No doubt about it. We couldn’t afford to take it easy when the scorn worked day and night.

“I should probably take a look,” I said.

The others waited for me to continue and explain.

“There may not be a shrine at the end of this path. Even if there is, we don’t know if the scorn are barred from entering.”

The guardians were. But the scorn may not. What if we marched without rest only for there to be another dozen miles of travel ahead of us? We’d tire out without a chance of escape.

“Also,” I said, “I haven’t spotted Gaje since I last saw him.”

Which worried me more than anything. It was possible that he’d gone ahead to lay claim to whatever was to our north. Yet I wanted to be certain.

‘We’re in for a rough one if he surprises us.’

Aurille’s deft fingers swiped a blue pill from her storage ring. “Give me five minutes.”

“How about I go in your stead?” Rin said. “I’m bored to death over here.”

The Snow Moon heiress shook her head. “I’m the only one that can aid in taking Gaje down should he ambush her.”

Rin’s brow touched her skull. “She’s in the air though.”

“Which is too close,” Tsall said. “You’d know if you’d watched his recordings.”

Of course, Erri’s clan wasn’t the only one with access to others’s footage.

‘The Dawnflames didn’t mention it.’ Did they lack the technology of the rest?

Rin and I remained near the tent and chatted idly as I waited for Aurille to prepare. Exactly five minutes later, the Snow Moon heiress exited her meditation and found my gaze.

“That’s my cue.” I patted Rin on the shoulder.

“Good luck,” she sighed. “Don’t forget to scoop up easy tokens if you can.”

“Will do.”

I approached Aurille—

“Lady Sunstrider, can I have a word?”

Turning, I caught Leah jogging towards me. I glanced at Rin, who shrugged, and made herself scarce.

“What is it?” I said. “I’m in a hurry.”

She inclined her head. “Sorry to take up your time. It’s about the monk you brought over.”

My brow raised. “Ori?” A monk’s essence had a distinct feel, so she wasn’t that hard to find in the company. She was currently sitting opposite Ren around a campfire. “What about her?”

“From what I gathered, you saved her from some Black Fangs?”

“Yes…”

Leah leaned forward and cupped her mouth. “Her last is name Stillwater.”

I blinked. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

“Uh.” Leah coughed in her palm. “Well, yes? If my guess is correct, she’s the little sister of Rowan.”

Thought scrunched up my forehead. “The monk that Gaje killed?”

She nodded. “Which means there’s a good chance the party she was travelling with were direct disciples of Monk Gyatso. He’s an influential Abbot in their temples. I should also mention that her brother is one of them and in the Tomb.”

I snuck another glance. Ori’s eyes were glued to the floor as she let Ren talk her ears off. “You’re saying I should find her group,” I said.

“The monks are the most neutral clan out of the pillars,” she said. “Because they make a staunch effort to stay that way, no one has them in their debt. Saving Ori has already put you in a position no other heir of the Dawnflames has claim to. Saving the rest of her friends and family?”

That would put the girl in my debt for essentially the rest of her life.

I hummed. “Not bad.” She was being more than helpful for someone I just met. My arms crossed, though. “But you’re assuming I care about this entire ‘heir’ business. It’s not my goal to become the leader of the Dawnflames.”

Leah shrugged. “I doubt the Vermilion Dawn would’ve said she wanted to become heir if you’d asked her when she was young.”

Touché.

“Also,” Leah continued. “Even if you don’t want to bother with the political struggle, there are some serious benefits to be gained should you gather enough support and be the deciding factor in conquering the Shrine of the Dove.”

‘That’s the shrine the Dawnflames are after.’

Leah spied on Ashwing for effect.

“I suppose you’re right,” I said after a moment. “I think I have an idea of where they may have went. I’ll look around.”

She inclined her head. “Should I let her know you’re searching for them? I can ask for her beacon.”

“Do so. Though I hope it doesn’t destroy her if I return empty-handed.”

“There are ways to make use of that, too,” Leah said.

Blonde hair fell listlessly down the side of Leah’s head. The strands of unruly hair poking out were not enough to warrant a description of bedhead, but were too numerous to say she’d made an attempt at conquering them. Her eyelids drooped slightly, like they were having trouble deciding whether to be awake or sleeping.

Aloof in all things, including the way she just admitted to using another’s grief.

I paused. ”You’ll see what I mean soon enough,” I heard Duke say during the applause in the Gala. My gaze narrowed.

‘Seems like I’m already in the thick of it.’