[Ashborn-B1] 86. Wriggling Excitement (Patreon)

LXXXVI

Wriggling Excitement

The thorn pulled and wriggled inside her flesh.

Light bundled in her staff burst. Her footing disappeared from beneath her and she hurled backwards. Her launch came to a sudden stop. She felt the breath being knocked from her lungs…but no more than that.

Her mind shot into her stomach. ‘I…got hit…need to—’

She slid down, and her head hit the ground. ‘…cleanse the wound.’

In her tilted world view, Vyke pushed himself to his feet on the other side of the field. Smoke poured from his armour—a large part of his chest and shoulders had disintegrated.

Belly-laughter rippled from his throat. “I knew you were hiding something. It was good a trick.” His shoulders heaved. “But surely, you didn’t think you were the only one who learned some new tricks?”

Her eyelids closed. ‘I have to…’

Get up, Judith! Dorothy’s voice finally managed to reach her. I’m containing it, just focus on getting up!

Her partner could do a lot—much more than she ever could—but the one thing Dorothy wasn’t capable of was moving their shared body.

Judith’s willpower entered her arms. She shoved the ground away from her…no. She was still lying down; she merely thought she was moving.

Vyke cracked his neck. “Still, you did grow a lot more powerful than I expected. If I’d underestimated you, I wouldn’t have had enough left for Caelia.” Without looking, he stretched his arm at the ground. The earth ruptured and a massive bramble wrapped around his torso like a snake.

The Vile stroked one of its thorns.

“I named him Thorn,” he said. “Not very original, I know, but it sticks.”

He turned on her, then grinned.

Judith, Dorothy sobbed. Please. You need to get up.

Her jumbled sensed and thoughts collided. ‘That’s weird.’ Why was she crying? They’d only known each other for a few hours. Her death shouldn’t…ah, right. They were bound together.

A smirk played on her lips and she chuckled—it was more like a gurgle with the blood distorting the sound. ‘I told you, didn’t I? I’d be more of a burden.’

Fingers tensed. Earth and grime collected under the nails. Straining her eyes, she formed a claw and dragged herself up. Her inadequacies leading to her own death was fine, but Dorothy shouldn’t have to suffer for them.

The bones in her leg had turned entirely brittle and her quaked merely from putting a toe’s worth of weight on it. She reached for her staff which was lying barely within reach. She paused after pulling it closer. The gem at the top had burst and taken part of the skull with it.

She could no longer use it.

“Poor thing,” Vyke shook his head. “Don’t worry. I’ll put you out of your misery.”

Thorn slipped from his waist onto his spear and spun around. Enough pressure bore down on the weapon that the tip began to glow with a dark, pulsating force.

Dodge! Dorothy yelled.

She didn’t catch Vyke moving. Her eyes were too tired to follow him, her reserves too empty to cast anything. Even if they weren’t, she had nothing to cast with.

So what was there to do but for her to close her eyes and accept her fate?

The bundle of light whirling past her couldn’t be missed despite her eyes being closed. Judith blearily looked up. Pristine white armour gleamed. Vyke’s spear and the massive claymore of the knight clashed.

It said something about the Vile that he was contesting the strength of an entity many levels higher than himself.

“Judith! Are you alright?!”

Arms you wouldn’t expect on a musician fell on her shoulder. The extra weight made her collapse, but Duke caught her.

“Sorry,” Duke said. “Are you hurt?”

Her arm went around his shoulders. As he pulled her closer, she studied him through bleary eyes. He was still drenched. The sweat from fighting didn’t help to dry him off.

Leila stepped up beside them. The girl’s expression darkened at the position they were in—Duke with his arms around her back, her head leaning against his shoulder.

“I’m…” Air pushed through her airways and another scatter of blood exited her throat.

She flew into a coughing fit.

“Easy now, easy,” Duke rubbed her back. He changed his grip and took her into a princess carry. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“You should…put me down,” she smiled softly.

Vyke would never let them leave.

As if foretold, the holy blade flew past them—the trio stared after the speeding blur before whirling back on Vyke.

The knight’s attack was no regular swing. Upon impact, the light attached to its blade had burst, slamming into Vyke. It had worsened the holes in the Vile’s armour substantially. Enough so that his entire chest was now visible.

Judith tried to peer despite how tired she was. His skin was wrinkled like that of an old ma and a massive line carved through the middle of his chest like someone had taken a knife to it.

He hummed when he noticed all of them staring. His head tilted. “Ah,” he smiled, recognition dawning. A soft haze clouded his sight as he reminisced. “It’s a scar. A gift from my Father, amongst other things.”

Then obsidian wings unfurled from his back.

“Duke…” Judith did her best to speak but her throat was beyond dry.

Duke whirled around, still carrying her. “Leila, hold him off!”

“Huh?!” she yelled. “Are you crazy?!”

But he was already running.

“You idiot…leave me,” Judith whimpered.

That poor girl wouldn’t be able to stop Vyke for a single second.

In her stomach, the wound throbbed like a heartbeat. Dorothy was doing her best, but the technique was too powerful.

I’ll need to analyse it to destroy it for good. Just hold on!

Before she could so much as respond, the ground near her exploded. Leila skipped over the floor like a rock over water. Vyke landed in front of them. He didn’t break the ground as he did despite his speed. His appearance was like that of a fallen angel:

Quiet. Solemn. Promising salvation.

The barbed and wired spear angled forwards.

‘The bramble is gone.’

“Duke,” she got through er throat. “Below—”

Her view was yanked to the side. She only realised Duke had thrown her after she blinked. The world slowed as the ground crack in front of him, his head not at all pointed in the right direction.

She palmed the air, calling on whatever essence she could…nothing came.

Thorn surfaced.

‘Duke!’ she yelled, more in her head than anywhere else.

But perhaps he’d heard her, for he spun towards her—

And offered her a wide smile.

My eyes widened. ‘Jake—’

“I’ve got him!” Aurille’s voice came over the explosion.

A ball of ice encased the archer. Another well-formed platform had him bounce off and fall to the side of the leviathan’s jaw instead of inside. I didn’t see what happened to Erri.

“Ashe!” Aurille yelled. “Catch!”

I had Skul whirl and swiped the elongated object before it hit me. Turning my palm over revealed…a tube? There was blue liquid inside. I spun back to Aurille, who shaped a series of platforms to ease Jake’s fall.

“It’s an injector!” she yelled. “Stab it into the king, whichever part.”

I frowned. ‘Why does she have this, and why only reveal it now?’ The answer entered my head before my question ended. Based on her words, her clan was already aware that they’d have to battle the king to advance. It wasn’t a stretch then to assume they’d made plans for it.

She likely didn’t reveal the tube because there was no way for her to use it anyway.

And because the others would know she had it.

I quickly put it in my storage ring. “You can’t do it yourself?!”

As if to answer me, a golem looking like a grasshopper appeared out of nowhere behind Aurille. The Snow Moon heiress shaped a barrier without looking, but the monster smashed through it and into her. Aurille was carried across the field.

Though she landed on her feet, looking none the worse for wear, my lips pulled. Besides Jake, she may be the one with the lowest mobility. She wasn’t slow. However, there was a limit to how many platforms she could shape, and the trick with the blizzard was easy to predict.

“I’ll head your way when I can,” she called.

“You’re giving me déjà vu, you know?” I smirked.

Skul bounded past her without waiting for her response and carried me off.

Aurille had stayed behind again, but that didn’t mean the entire horde had changed targets. Dozens upon dozens of golems raced after us.

‘There’s too fucking many.’

Even if I made it, I wouldn’t have the time to do anything!

A welcoming wave of heat that made my stomach curl smashed into me. I whirled east. There, the third pillar burned like an afternoon sun.

I grinned at our fortune. The battle we were fighting was tough. However, because both the king and crane were focusing on us, they hadn’t summoned another wave of golems to attack the pillars.

‘One more.’

Would the shrine end immediately when we inserted the last crystal? Hopefully. But I wouldn’t count on it. We had to claim the Divine Beast at the end. That would be a fight in and of itself.

Because the heatwave had destroyed and slowed the majority of the beasts on my heels. I arrived at the foot of the throne. Contrary to what I expected, the king didn’t fire at me as soon as I arrived.

“You’re cooling down, huh,” I said.

Likely, he could only do one move per rotation—summon more golems or attack. He’d already expended his energy for this turn.

Which meant I was free to do whatever.

‘First things first.’ I tapped Skul on the head. He whirred across the frozen grassland towards the king’s feet. ‘Any part…you said!’

The king watched unmoving as I slammed the needle into his heel. A mechanism in the injector fired the moment I made contact, and the liquid drained into the king’s flesh…or ice, depending on which term you preferred.

I had Skul leap out the way of any retaliation once the liquid drained completely. However, the king remained unmoving. Not only that, but if the solution was doing anything, it wasn’t showing.

‘Might need time to work.’

The king was gigantic.

Convinced that the king wasn’t going to do anything soon, I whirled on the ground.

Time for phase two of the plan.

Jumping off Skul’s back, I placed my hands on the ground near the throne. ‘Let’s hope this works.’

Despite what I said, it was still a gamble whether I could find the powerlines, let alone seal them off. But I had to try. Skul and Saber stood guard as I pushed my roots into the ground. I closed my eyes and the vast emptiness expanded in my mind again.

There was an immediate difference with the last time. Before, I’d only seen the aimless swathes of essence that meandered through the underground. Now, lines of energy lasered through the abyss into the king’s throne.

‘There’s a lot of them.’

At least ten. Do I cut them off separately? Since I was cutting them off close to the surface, I could still manipulate my roots to a degree. However, a single root wouldn’t be strong enough to cut off ten of them and crafting multiple roots would take time and more essence on my part—not to mention the control needed to handle more than one at once.

‘It’ll depend on how this first one goes.’

My roots fired for the first of the lines. The energy source was like an inverted column burrowing into the earth. It was so long I couldn’t see its end at all and thick enough you’d need a few people to link arms around its circumference.

‘Do I just circle it and squeeze?’

The only other way I could imagine cutting it off was to pierce the line and create a hole. That assumed my roots could break their ‘skin’ though. So I settled on the former.

I guided the root into a loop. The more it curled, the tighter the noose became.

‘Here. We. Go!’

Digging my feet into the ground, I pulled as hard as I could. Roots tightened around the column with a snap…

My breath hitched. A jolt shot through my construct the moment the wood made contact. Though it was shocking, the shock wasn’t painful. Instead, my insides flushed with warmth.

My eyes widened. ‘The energy is entering me?’

More energy shot through my roots as the noose tightened, which in turn allowed me to apply more force to cut off the line.

‘Just a little…more…’

I stumbled and fell on my bum when the line snipped in two. ‘Gods be damned. That’s one.’

Didn’t require as much effort as I expected, but it still was a strain. I pushed myself off the ground.

“Nine more to go—”

Brow furrowing, I looked down. Energy was still pumping through my palm.

Mind whirring, I spun on the underground. The end of my root had burrowed into the splicing in the line.

I paused. Then my lips stretched wider then they had in days.

Oh, this was going to be good.