[Ashborn-B1] 88. Preparation (Patreon)

LXXXVIII

Preparation

Judith chest stopped rising.

The borders of the rupture in the sky frayed and rippled—like the universe wasn’t certain of what state it was supposed to be in. A deep, foreboding sensation festered in her belly, worsened by the foreign invasion, and sank into her soles where it weighed down her feet.

A set of twenty tentacles swirled like babies who couldn’t wait to grope everything in sight.

Vyke sighed. “Took you long enough, Anetta. I was beginning to think you were plotting something.”

From the treeline behind him, strode a woman draped in cloth.

Her chuckle was a low, rasping noise. Like stones were being grinded. “The disciples were having some trouble following my orders.” Her head moved up and down his body. “You’ve been quite busy, Lord Vyke.”

“So I have. The remainders?”

More cloaked Immortals jumped form the treeline and came to stand beside her.

Vyke looked them over and nodded. “Then we can begin.”

Without further warning, the older woman lifted her arm. A pulse travelled down the length of the shadow beast’s many arms.

“Scatter!” Tirion yelled.

The holy blade burst into motion and carried Judith off. Around them. Trees shattered beneath the wrath of a decrepit god.

Judith’s knight in shining armour weaved through the attacks with the grace of a cat. A flair the others in her party lacked. Tirion cut his way through three arms that tried to pincer him. Duke and Leila almost got hit, which was more a product of luck than them dodging.

While the monster bombarded their position, the cultists fired dark spheres writhing with shadowy figures at their backs.

“Where are we headed?!” Duke yelled.

Straight into their army was the current direction, but they couldn’t lead this beast there. The damage would be tremendous.

“We’ll head for the temple entrance!” Tirion yelled.

Good thinking. If they were near the temple, Caelia would be in the fight immediately after she exited the temple. That said, it did place their backs against the wall.

But what other option was there?

Judith’s head bobbed as the knight leapt over the charging figure of a dog-like scorn. Every sudden, sharp movement they made increased the fervour of the parasite in her stomach.

She balled up in the knight’s arms.

I’m getting it out, Dorothy’s groaned in her ear.

Despite needing all of her focus to evict the invader from her body, the spirit was still trying to encourage her.

Judith’s lips stretched. ‘You useless sack of deadweight.’

Mother was right. In the end, she lacked the talent. Light flared around the knight’s shoulder. The holy blade charged through a trio of scorn and disintegrated them upon contact.

If Judith could’ve shaken her head without it hurting, she would’ve. Dorothy should’ve never been given to her. If Caelia had arrived earlier and had entered the temple before her…

A deep, painful exhale pushed her thoughts deeper into her subconscious.

The temple towered in the distance. Preferably, they would’ve put her in the temple so they no longer had to worry about defending her, but you could only enter the temple with a key, and do so only once.

There would be no running.

With that thought having replaced her previous, self-sabotaging ones, Judith regulated her breathing. She may not be able to help Dorothy, but keeping her body as calm as possible should make the spirit’s job easier.

The sharp bones of her ribcage jabbed into her organs when she breathed in too far, so she kept her breathing shallow. But also rhytmic. When she reached a point where neither the sudden movements of the knight nor the worming in her stomach bothered her anymore, she called an image of Dorothy to the forefront of her mind.

Of the darling lying on her bed, her hair draped over the frame like she was a princess out of a fairy tale.

Dorothy smiled. Can you hear my sisters outside the entrance?

Judith listened closely. Right, they were there. Not just outside the door but also the window. Judith glanced to the side and caught the head of one—the same sprite who’d called her ugly—peaking past the corner of the frame. The sprite was pushed aside by three others, who all wanted to see what was going on inside the small hut.

Now, when Judith’s lips stretched, her relieve wasn’t feigned.

A pleasant warmth seeped into the very core of her body from every orifice and dampened the cry of each fatigued muscle. Her eyes had long been closed, but as the warmth spread, she felt like she closed them a second time. This time, however, it was her spiritual self which closed them.

The world outside vanished from her senses. But what did it matter? She couldn’t move. Her fate was in the hands of her allies—that was all there was to it. So she kept her eyes closed. All the while, the hooks which kept Dorothy anchored to her body burrowed deeper into her flesh.

And pushed against the surface of her physical limits.

I froze underneath the king’s stare. ‘I’m dead.’

Just moments ago, the king had nearly wiped us all out with an off-handed attack. Now, it was focused solely on me. The worst par was that I’d given up the connection with the network since I thought one of the burrowers had come after me—

The load on my chest vanished after the king looked away.

I blinked. ‘Huh?’

His foot lifted and slammed into the earth tens of metres away.

My brows pulled towards my skull. ‘He’s after the Divine Beast.’

Of course he’d be. I didn’t know what gathering all necessary stones did. However, it must be something in our favour. If he let that happen, the battle would be over.

I extended another root and had it connect to the network.

Given his size and speed, he’d reach the central pillar within minutes…but the giant of a beast paused between each footfall like it needed to prepare its muscles for the impact. Which may not be a crazy theory. Since the monster was made of ice, the reverberations from such heavy steps would travel through the entire body. Then there was Aurille’s potion. Whatever it did wouldn’t be helping the beast.

‘We need to stop it.’ A hard task to complete by myself.

I whirled around. The others were still fighting the crane, so I wouldn’t find any help there—

Feathers slapped the air beside me. “We need…to stop it?”

His guttural voice made me suppress a wince. “Yes.”

‘Why’d it have to be him out of the three.’

I’d much rather fight with Erri than this creep. But beggars couldn’t be chooser, so I hopped on Saber’s back and ordered Skul back into the garden. My trusty tiger was fast, but it still took time to cross the distance the giant had in a single step. Enough so that the king was taking his second step by the time we caught up.

“We’ll need to pick our place to make our final stand!” I called.

Which was fine and dandy, but how were we going to hurt something as big as the king? Firing a few arts wouldn’t do the trick…

Yet I had more than arts up my sleeve, didn’t I? The root still connected to my palm kept extending as if it was a true part of me like Saber’s tail was of him. When I closed my eyes, the entire underground network flashed in my mind. A single root or two wouldn’t do anything, true.

So why not go beyond that?

I held out my hand not holding onto Saber’s fur. The underground structure of plant life burst into movement. Controlling this many constructs at once should’ve been impossible, however, the roots responded to my call like playing children who heard dinner was ready.

Siphoned power surged through each root, and when the king’s second footfall touched the ground, they sprung from the surface like the jaws of a submerged predator. There were so many roots they clouded the horizon.

My open palm snapped into a fist. ‘Contract.’

The constrictor-like roots coiled and chained the king’s leg, which slammed into the earth with even more force and weight than before. But the ground was no longer as sturdy, so the king fell through the floor as if he’d stepped on a pitfall.

His foot buried deeper into the web that were my roots.

Gaje blurred. A amethyst streak trailed after him in the form of a cape. When he rammed into the king’s heel, there was no crash or explosion of sound yet he carved a deep groove in the monster’s leg.

The loss of stability had the king sink even deeper.

I peered at the energy pulsing inside the wound. It was strange. When the move landed, the result was…delayed? As if the world had required a moment to register the attack.

‘He’s not attacking through the physical.’

But then how was he attacking? It must have something to do with the dream space he warped us into. Even the king’s attack hadn’t been able to break through that barrier. However, what if that was because Gaje wasn’t blocking the attack itself? If his powers operated on some kind of dream space, then it made sense he could swipe the attack of a being much more powerful than himself under the rug.

That said, there must be limits to it.

‘I better find out what those are.’

For when this fight was over…

Saber roared.

I huffed. “I know, buddy. Time to get serious.”

Skul came back into the world, making me do a double take as his shadow rushed past me. He was in his full form.

‘How…’

My senses shot towards his tree. The roots of the balekin tree quivered—it was easy to see why. The energy filtering into my garden wasn’t only feeding the cindertree—the entire garden was getting second and thirds to munch on.

Skul’s tree was glowing like it never had before.

Turning to Ashwing’s tree, I lost my breath. The summon lounged on the highest bough and stared to where my spirit would’ve been if I’d actually been inside the garden.

Not a single wound in her wings remained.

I almost called her into the world instead of Saber then and there. The extra mobility would allow me to fight the king better.

But I didn’t.

‘He thinks she’s recovering.’

Though he couldn’t know everything about my powers, it was no secret that my summons entered a rest phase after they were severely injured. Erri had proven that.

And that meant I could him by surprise.

So I kept Ashwing in the garden and rode Saber’s back into battle.

Skul roared with such ferocity that the chill shooting through Saber echoed in my core.

‘Skul’s about to cross into the next threshold.’

It would deactivate Saber’s trait, but Skul’s increase in power would make up for the loss.

I turned back to the king. The behemoth pulled against his chains. Since he was fighting the roots, the ground, and his destabilised leg, he wasn’t winning.

The sight didn’t make me cheer in the slightest. Frost bubbled around his leg wound and the hole sealed shut.

The fight was far from over, and I needed to win this battle while revealing the least I could.