[Ashborn-B1] 79. Pawn Takes (Patreon)

LXXIX

Pawn Takes

Kayle pressed the button of the circular device on their table after Kiran disappeared. A transparent bubble settled around their table.

‘Handy thing, that,’ Ada thought. ‘Perhaps I should invest in one.’ More cultivators would be able to dodge her detection as she levelled.

She allowed the thought to drift at the forefront of her mind for a second, then pushed it down and focused on the woman in front of her.

“I’m surprised,” Ada said. A smile crept up her face. “I never thought you and I would see eye to eye.”

The object of want of nearly every Dawnflame slowly sipped from her tea before responding.

‘It’s understandable’, Ada thought.

With lips full of vitatlity, curves hiding like serpents in the grass within her dress, and that face that screamed innocence, how could one not desire her? Ada almost licked her own lips.

Kayle put down her cup. “Is it really that much of a surprise?”

A boulder shouted nearby and crashed into the ground. A clump of dirt from the explosion soared towards Kayle, who produced a second umbrella to shield herself.

“Sorry, Lady Dawnflame!” One of the Dawnflame disciples yelled.

Kayle excused him with a smile, which deepened the cloud hanging over the boy’s pupils.

Ada peered from between her veil. For an instant, she thought the cloud swirled, but the sense of motion vanished before she could confirm it.

The boy shot back into the fray, the fires reignited now that his crush acknowledged him.

‘Could it be…’

Kayle collapsed her umbrella. The movement unlatched a stray flower from the inside, which drifted off on the breeze. Its sweet aroma reached Ada over the blood, sweat and grime on the battlefield.

“I liken them to bees, you know,” Kayle whispered. Her gaze followed the petal, then turned to the cultivators doing her dirty work. “Faithful, hard workers who want to see me happy.”

The anguished screams of a few unfortunate souls rolled past.

Kayle turned back to Ada and raised her cup. “Let’s hope we both get what we desire out of this relationship.”

Ada parted the marbles of her veil and reached for her drink.

There were only two types of people that ever did business with their clan. Fanatics, those who seriously wanted to be a part of their cause, whether because of their own volition or because of desperation.

The other group was more nuanced. However, they always involved those who thought to make good use of them—who wanted to turn the Fallen Immortal’s reputation of converting others to their faith in their favour.

In Ada’s experience, the latter were both the easiest and most dangerous to work with. After all, your best best to stay safe from a venomous snake in a forest was to keep it at your side—

Ada smiled and returned the woman’s gesture.

—if you had the reflexes to dodge.

The air was beginning to hum in tune with the worry in Judith’s stomach. She didn’t palm her locator—not only because she knew Caelia’s was off, but because doing so would give the wrong sign to the other disciples of beside her, who were already fidgeting.

Inside herself, though, Judith thought: ‘She’s really not coming?’

Though there were many things one could say about her niece, her not being dependable was never one of them.

Are you scared? Dorothy asked.

She didn’t respond immediately. Her mind examined her feelings.

‘Yes,’ she thought finally.

The fear tried to well up from her stomach now that she’d acknowledged it, but she slammed the lid on it.

Beside her, Garen loomed. His lion armour reflected the light so well he seemed to be radiating. Next to him, despite the recent addition to her powers, Judith may as well have been a regular girl.

“The three of us will take him, Milady,” Garen said.

He counted Tirion in that group, though the boy was still inside the temple. Disregarding the fact that he may not make it out, they’d still need to hold out until he returned.

Could they do it? Her face scrunched up. No, they would have to, no matter what.

The chamber sucked in a breath. Though they couldn’t see it, they felt the essence worming through the ground as alien enchantments and runes fired.

“The doors are closing,” she said. Which meant their fate was now sealed into this room.

No one could get in. No one could get out—

A shout came from the rear of their company.

Garen whirled around like a hungry predator. “What’s going on?!”

Judith wasn’t tall, so she couldn’t see over the mass of disciples. Garen didn’t suffer such limitations. The loyal guard jerked to a stop.

“What is it?” Judith said.

“Well…” he mumbled. “Help, I suppose?”

Her brow went up. Now, she really wanted to know what was happening back there. Luckily, the wave of disciples blocking her view parted. Trudging through their middle, the girl infatuated with him still glued to his hip, was her old flame.

Duke waved merrily at the female disciples he passed up, who did their best not to stare. A feat that was made more difficult because of his drenched robe, which was clinging to his physique.

Her brow rose higher. “Why is he all wet?” Leila was wet as well…

The faint sound of a waterfall rushed from behind them. Judith peered but couldn’t see into the darkness shrouding the entrance. When it closed, the sound vanished.

Duke’s smile froze when he saw her but returned in a flash.

She sighed. He’d always been a master at disguising what he felt.

Oh, Dorothy chimed. Is that him?

‘…yes.’

The spirit giggled. So that’s why you were so distraught! He’s certainly handsome.

Judith rolled her eyes. ‘Handsome but a fiend. You see how he is.’

Some of the girls were literally reaching out to feel him up, though Leila slapped them away with the butt of her spear.

[Fireartist - lvl. 24]

[Sundancer - lvl. 16]

‘Good,’ she thought. ‘They made progress.’ They would not be much help otherwise.

A modicum of surprise crept up behind the elation though. While she didn’t want to disparage them, those two weren’t the strongest of fighters. How did they gain enough experience to level that much? Better yet, how’d they made it through the tunnel?

That’s when she noticed the faces of many disciples, who were not too busy fawning over Duke, relaxing and flushing with energy. They were all staring at the same spot. Duke and Leila were walking pretty close to each other, so it was difficult to see, but there was a third pair of legs behind them.

She frowned. Those robes, could that—

Duke veered away from his companion when she tried to slap him for his ‘enticing behaviour’ towards the opposite sex.

Judith’s chest contracted.

Bangs cut at an angle so even it couldn’t have been the work of a barber, were plastered to the side of her head. Unlike herself, Caelia lacked the blue eyes many in their clan considered the ‘hallmark’ of beauty. Hers were dull. Grey. Lifeless, one could say. But they cut like a blade.

Caelia’s gaze stayed trained on her eye, and Judith had to stop herself from covering the lens. Instead, she inclined her head, while Garen bowed.

“I’m glad you made it, Caelia,” she said. “You had me worried.”

Now that she was here, there was no harm in admitting such.

“What happened to your eye?” Caelia said.

“That’s what I’d like to know as well,” Duke chimed in.

The trio of unlikely travelling companions stopped in front of them. Of the three, Leila was the only one wo had to bow.

“It was a gift. More importantly, what happened to your loca—”

“A gift?” Caelia cut in. “How can you call that a gift? It’s sapping your energy.”

Judith blinked.

It must look like that to her because she cannot distinguish my energy from yours.

Made sense. Scar may be able to do, but he was an ancient weapon spirit many league above them, who knew what was going on to boot.

“It’s a long story,” Judith. “One we don’t have the time for right now. You should enter the temple, Caelia. Tirion is already in there.”

Her niece kept staring her down but eventually turned towards the north. There, the black winged leader of the Fallen Immortals was hovering still in the sky as if his image had been painted onto the world.

As the two omens stared each other down, Judith looked down at her hands. Her fingers quivered around her staff. But this wasn’t fear. The moment Caelia had shown herself, the enmity piercing across the distance had swapped targets, and that made Judith’s knuckles whiten. She wasn’t a priority to him. Not at all.

But how could she be mad at that? Why would anyone in their right mind be after her instead of her niece?

…The thoughts didn’t stop her quivering.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told herself.

All she cared about was getting the job done. As a matter of fact, the Vile underestimating her worked in her favour—

Like a lantern’s whose flame had been snuffed out, the ambient noise in the chamber disappeared.

The sudden switch interrupted the smouldering heat in her stomach from reaching the rest of her body. Garen closed the distance between the two of them and grabbed his claymore from his back.

“Caelia,” Judith repeated, her voice a lot graver this time. “Please hurry.”

To her left, a stone tablet rising more than fifty feet into the sky began to shine. The text on the front translated to:

Slay the Ancient Scorn. 0/50.

Judith did a double-take. ‘Ancient?’ Were there different kinds of scorn?

The name refers to the personal servants of the Arch-Fiend, Dorothy said. The ones standing outside her temple.

The Immortals were blocking most of the frozen pillars from view, but Judith had a clear sight on one in particular: some kind of bat-like creature that was twice the size of a human. The frost encasing it began to drip like it was sweating. Then the ice began to oscillate and crack. The shattering of multiple prison chased away the unnatural quiet in the shrine for a heartbeat. The beastly cries on their heels kept the silence from settling back in.

The bat flapped its webbed arms and launched into the sky. Judith turned to Caelia…only to find that the girl had already disappeared. Off to the side, the temple entrance fell closed.

Judith whirled back raised her staff. Their battle against time had started.