[Ashborn-B1] 54. Mask Off (Patreon)

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Mask Off

Korin refrained from rubbing his eyes. All the taut nerves in his body slacked at once. He sagged to his knees on the spot but found it in him to glance at the Dawnflame too.

‘That’s the newcomer.’ One of his own had played referee for her fight.

He didn’t have a front row seat, so he missed most of it, but her summons were supposedly incredible. However, what was the dark sensation hanging around her? Korin’s gaze narrowed. It was like…a mass of dark spirits writhed over her shoulders.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he decided.

As long as she was on his side. Really, aside from the Whirling Blade being in the mix, Korin couldn’t have asked for a better rescue squad.

“I agree with you,” Ashe said, eyes cast at the floor. “The difference between killing for greed or love is merely semantics. In the end, someone’s blood is shed.” Essence pulsed around her.

Momentary confusion kept Zev from acting, but he shook himself awake. “Don’t move!” He pressed the knife-tip he had for hands against Zuhan’s throat. Behind him, the Black Fangs jumped to their feet and flourished their weapons. “Or I’ll—”

“Watch out!” one of the Black Fangs yelled.

Without hesitating, Zev threw himself to the side, so the talon’s nails barely missed the back of his head. He landed on his feet at the edge of the island with a grimace. He rushed forward—

Only for a javelin of frost to impede his path. Aurille’s hems didn’t flutter as she drifted onto the top of the stalk, coming to stand between Zev and the other disciples in Korin’s party.

Korin let his back fall onto the floor. They were saved.

The fifteen or so Black Fangs split into two groups. The first, containing the transformed Black Fang, converged around the island and went after Aurille. The second came after me.

A young looking fellow, his chest bare and inked to the brim, brought an axe bearing down. I stepped out of the way and opened up my hip. His widened pupils landed on my blade, which was in a prime position to gouge out his throat.

I didn’t draw. There was something I’d wanted to try ever since reading the specifics of my latest skill.

“Saber, Skul,” I called. “Protect me.”

The feline burst out of the gate with so much force the Black Fang had no time to react. Saber’s fangs locked around his throat, and that was the end of him. Skul exited the gate with all the speed of a snail. His glare bore holes into Saber’s back. The cat brushed them off with a swipe of his tail. For good measure, he also shook his head, showing off the corpse as it bled out between his teeth.

Skul roared—

“Don’t disrupt my concentration,” I snarled.

The balekin shut his mouth. Saber snickered.

Only when more black fangs tried to rush me did they let each other out of their sight. Saber’s Scion call called one of my harpies into the field, which slammed into a feline spirit beast about to charge Saber’s flank. Skul drained the spirits of three others trying to circle me before calling his own guardians into play. The two ghosts hurled themselves forward, one helping to finish off the spirit beast, the other slamming into one of the Black Fangs.

There was a flash as Saber’s fur flared. His shroud snapped to life, spreading to every garden creature. Including me. I didn’t burst on fire. However, I could sense the heated energy rippling underneath my skin. ‘That’s right,’ I thought, closing my eyes. The garden and I are one. In every facet. Even when the garden dragged corpses inside to feed on their souls, I grew stronger too.

I kept that realisation close at heart as I dug into my connection, not with one of my summons, but with the shard itself.

A bolt of lightning swerved between the ghost guardians and the harpy. I didn’t move out of the way and let Skul take the hit.

Saber leapt out of the way of a disciple with a dozen popped veins on his torso and forehead. Every strike of his fists shattered the floor. He was quick, too, making him a problem.

‘One,’ I thought. Hands links, I opened a gate near his feet. It was a small one. One big enough for only a branch to crawl through. And a branch did crawl through. Grey bark launched out of the portal and wrapped around the disciple’s foot. He jumped out of his skin at the sudden art and frantically pulled—

His head whipped around too late to spot the real threat. Saber flew past him, blood arcing behind him like a fluttering cape.

I kept my senses on the disciple’s inside. The second layer of skin around the spirit showed no sign of forming.

‘They’re really no longer rising.’ Was it because of me? This started happening ever since I began killing the corpses. ’But if their strategy can evolve like this, someone must be controlling it.’

That was a frightening thought. Necromancy on this scale should be impossible for anyone in our stage.

Since the corpse wasn’t rising a second time, I wasted no time in dragging it into the garden.

Of the seven or so Black Fangs that come after me, five remained. They were hesitant to approach me, seeing as I had no trouble facing them.

“Don’t grow cold feet,” I said. “I need some more experience.”

Being able to summon a branch on command was good. It’d go far in combat as a utility or restraining skill. However, the weakness of the branches hadn’t changed—they still lost energy just for being out here.

‘That energy must be taken from the cindertree, no?’ How did it regain energy?

‘There should be another way.’ A better way for me call on my garden without costing it energy—

The Black Fangs scattered, each dashing for the exit.

‘Dammit,’ I grimaced. I linked my hands to make the summoning easier, and managed to trip two of the fleeing cultivators. Their weapons slashed into the branches keeping them in place. But, of course, they didn’t manage to put the tiniest dent in the arms of the sacred tree. Skul and Saber launched ahead to finish them off.

More blurring figures rushed past me towards the entrance. But I was already occupied, so I only watched as the rest of the Black Fangs escaped. I turned back to the island, where Aurille finished freezing the leader of the pack. Her ice stopped at his neck, leaving the man able to speak but otherwise imprisoned.

I exhaled and let go of the energies within me.

“Any idea where he may have run off to?” I heard Aurille say as I returned to her side.

The cultivator spit on the floor. “…I’m not…telling you shit. I’m dead anyway.”

Patches of his skin were already turning blue. Aurille’s ice magic was nothing if not effective.

“You’re not leaving here alive,” Aurille confirmed. “However, there are clean ways to die.” She pointed towards me. “You must’ve heard of the particulars of her power.”

The darkness spreading over his face wasn’t a result of the ice.

“To be honest,” I said, “I’d much prefer if I could consume him. He has a strong feral presence.”

Saber moaned as he approached, his blazing eyes stared up with hunger.

Aurille tilted her head at the Black Fang.

One of the monks we saved joined us, too. “Tables can turn quick, it seems, Zev.”

Zev’s lips curled up in a snarl. “Such is the way of our lives.”

In the folds of his face, I saw the black fang of a night ago, who’d tried to kill Ori. He’d been dead when I absorbed him, but I could still hear the cries of his soul if I listened carefully. Those cries, they hid something. Something dear and precious. Something I shouldn’t have ever been privy to.

My gaze lingered on Zev’s. ’What goals and aspirations are you hiding, I wonder?’

His pupils trembled while our eyes stayed locked. There was a world right behind his iris, a reflection of his inner self, but it was too foggy for me to make out.

“He’s—” Zev coughed. “He went after Erri.”

“Erri’s here?” I asked. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Of course she would. Fate would see to it that she was.

“He went alone?” Aurille said.

“Accompanied…by Immortals. Left before anyone could ask questions. Headed north.” Every word was coming out harsher than the last. No part of his face remained hale.

Aurille and I shared a glance.

“Must be shrine related,” she said.

I nodded.

“What—else?” he said.

“Nothing,” I said. “Thanks.” After a moment I added: “I’ll be sure to destroy you if you rise as one of the Scorn.” Surely, the garden must be better than that.

Aurille stretched her hand, and the ice climbed up Zev’s neck. He didn’t try to fight it.

“For what it’s worth,” the monk said before the disciple’s face was consumed fully. “I’m sorry for what happened to your Master. I would’ve done the same if it were me.”

My brow raised but I remained silent.

Zev chuckled. “It’s never the right people at the top.”

Then the frost swallowed him whole. I waited until sea of blue inside him vanished from his body without incident.

Aurille handed me a satchel. “His tokens.”

“Are you sure?” I asked without much gusto. From the clanging, there were at least four in there.

“I don’t need them.”

“Then don’t mind if I do.” I stored the tokens in my storage ring. When I looked up, I found the monk in a deep bow.

“Manifold thanks for saving us.”

“Consider it nothing,” Aurille said.

“Just aiding an ally,” I added.

He briefly introduced himself and the other monks. The only names that stuck with me were Zuhan and Lima. I eyed the other monks. They numbered six. And they weren’t doing too good. Two, including Lima, were unconscious.

Desummoning Saber and Skul, I brought Ashwing into the fold. Her red-gold feather showered the monks.

“How are we going to get them to the army?” I asked. “Should I fly them there?” It was the safest option, though.

“They’ll have to march,” Aurille said. “Whether we bring them to the army or not.”

That’s true. No one would offer to carry the monks. Not when the undead were on our heels. Everyone needed their hands or energy to fight or run.

The Snow Moon heiress addressed the monk. “Sorry, but those of you who can’t march themselves will need to stay behind.”

Fists balled inside Korin’s robes. “…I understand. Could you please give us some time at least? They may yet recover.”

“You can take as much time as you want,” Aurille said. “As long as you make it to the northern entrance in time.” She turned to me. “Gaje isn’t here, so we’re free to return.”

“Rin will be glad to hear that,” I said.

Leaving these monks alone was a risk, but I doubted the Black Fangs would be coming back.

A stray thought made me address Korin: “By the way, are you related to a girl named Ori?”

He looked up. “Yes…how do you know her?” His face darkened. “Did…did something happen to her?”

The monk named Zuhan grimaced. “We didn’t tell you yet, Brother Korin.”

“Didn’t tell me what?”

The other monk looked away. “She sacrificed herself to save us.”

An instantaneous moment passed before recognition of the words dawned in his mind. The colour vanished from his face. The terror gripped deep into his pupils, deepening the dark until it was a vortex sucking in all light.

I held up my hand. “Ori is fine. She’s with the army.”

The darkness in his gaze popped out of existence. “Thank Lady Guanyin…” Droplets streamed down his face unbiddenly. “You saved her?”

I nodded. “Through pure circumstance. I was there when she split off from their group.” I inclined my head at the other monks. “Took care of the Black Fangs hunting her before they got to her.” Which left out a few key details, like how I left her hanging for hours. But hey, what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you. Ori herself wasn’t aware of it either.

Korin went to his hands and knees. “I can’t…I can’t even begin to express how much I’m in your debt.”

“You can think on it as we plan to get all of you out of here.”

‘Either they wake up and we guide them through the mountains, or they stay here.’ Harsh, but there truly was no better alternative.

Turning away from the party, I made for the exit, passing the corpses of the Black Fangs on the way. Since they hadn’t risen, my shard still pulsed for me to absorb them. I grimaced. I really wasn’t looking forward to another one of those episodes.

“Something the matter?” Aurille said, who was waiting near the entrance.

“No,” I shook my head. Branches crawled out of the garden and dragged the bodies inside.

I mentally paused as the final body went inside my garden.

There may be another method…