[Ashborn-B1] 91. Rolling Tension (Patreon)

XCI

Rolling Tension

The smell of burnt hair drifted into the air. Flashes hid the dark cultivator’s face. Next to him, the feline woman raised her claw. Her nails gleamed, not white, but a dark red from the blood and grime. A thin, long tongue licked off the blood while she watched me.

I broke our stare and looked out across the remainder of the battlefield. The number of red robes swerving between our enemies was little. ‘We’re nearly wiped out.’ Could I help the handful of remaining Dawnflames? They were still fighting. If I—

Saber stepped up and growled low.

The rumbles passed through me. “You’re right, boy. This isn’t the time.”

“Raven,” I said. “Can you stand?”

No response. Not even a grunt.

The cat-woman laughed. “Don’t worry about him. You’ll be joining him soon enough.”

Not bothering to say anything, I waltzed towards Raven. From the corner of my sight, I saw the girl glance at the others.

“Is she serious?”

Gaje loomed behind both her and the lightning cultivator. Neither of them moved to take advantage of my inattention.

Though some of the Black Fang were fighting the Dawnflames, many remained available for battle. I was outnumbered 1-to-thirty if not more. By all means, I should be quaking in my boots—

My heels crushed the ground. Grass disintegrated, the residual heat pouring from my skin enough to ignite the stalks.

—so why wasn’t I scared?

I stopped at Raven’s side and courhced. My lips neared his ears. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help.”

My words echoed out into the hotter air beyond. I wouldn’t call Raven and me close friends. However, we’d traversed part of the Maze together, and I’d not had a single bad interaction with him.

I fished inside my pouch, removed a restoration pill, and fently shoved it into his mouth—

“What are all of you waiting for?!”

A Black Fang two heads shorter than me and many times wider flashed into view. The dual blades in his hands shone in the firelight coming from the central pillar. Their serrated, red tinge was proof of how many souls he must’ve sent back to their makers over the course of the weapons’s lifetime.

I didn’t look away from Raven. A portal spawned beside his head before his blades ever began their descent. His face didn’t have the time to appear shocked when the tip of the tail pierced his temple and came out the other side. The light in his pupils died. His muscles went slack. His blades, likely his most prized possession, dropped without ceremony.

Skul dragged the corpse back through the portal. I kept the gate open so the breaking of bones and tearing meat echoed across the field.

The strong medicinal energies rushing through Raven gathered in his stomach. His face relaxed instantly. I hovered a palm over his chest. Wood crawled out of the ground and surrounded him like an insect’s carapace. ‘This is the best I can do for you.’

I rose to my feet and turned to the pillar again. Or rather, beyond it, where all the frost in the world converged on the king’s arms. He was almost finished charging his attack.

‘The pillar will survive.’ That’s what we had to believe.

I let my mind sink into the ground. The warp had cut me off from my roots on the other end of the shrine, so the direct connection I shared with them was lost.

But the connection yet existed.

My roots were garden constructs. And while I was normally too weak to sense or direct them over large distances, the shrine was still powering all of them. Their presence was filtering through the distant bond they yet shared with my garden.

With an inhale, I instructed them to burrow their way towards me. My chest expanded lengthily. Ash scraped through my airways, and the fires gushing from the central pillar shot into me like sunbeams beings absorbed by the skin. Within me, their power added to my own and thrummed the strings of my heart.

I held a hand up in front of my face. ‘They’re shaking.’ My fingers. They were quivering.

I may have lost the power coming from the leylines for now, but they had already done their work. The power they’d fed into my garden leeched from the shard and saturated the already filled vessel that was my body even further.

Finally, I turned back to the others. Both the feline woman and the lighting cultivator jerked as my sight fell on them. The girl took a step back. Around them, Black Fangs who were in my line of sight inched away.

In one fluid motion, I stored my blade back in its sheathe. The whistle it made dug into the bones of the Black Fangs and made them shiver. “You two, what are your names?”

The woman caught herself backpedalling and snarled. “None of your business—”

“Raiden and Maya,” Raiden said. He was the more composed of the two.

Which earned him a look from Maya.

“Raiden and Maya,” I repeated the names to myself and nodded. “I doubt I can kill the two of you in a single stroke. But for the others—”

I made sure to lock gazes with each of them.

“—don’t think you’ll survive.”

The final crunch of bone rippled out from the gate. Blood boiled, changed from liquid to gas, then escaped from between Skul’s fangs. Claws dug through the soil. Scales flared and hardened as the energy coursed through his immaterial form.

Saber roared. The red sprites wreathing his frame doubled in intensity. So much heated wafted off the cat that the grass had combusted in a circle around him, creating a field of low-hanging flames.

I stepped in between the two of them.

Gaje was standing behind Raiden and Maya. He’d been waiting for the others to attack. No doubt so they could tire me out. But now, his fellow disciples hesitated. Who would willingly rush towards their demise? There as no glory for the dead.

That said, his plan wouldn’t have worked either way.

“You should’ve waited for me to kill the king.” I cracked my neck.

“Too much…risk,” he grumbled. “Shrine…give you power.”

True, I supposed. Though the others also benefitted, this shrine was designed for flame cultivators. The final burst of power the pillar would emit may push me beyond what they could deal with no matter what skills or how much essence I spent.

My chin inched over my shoulder. Kayle was defending the last pillar. Aedan would no doubt try to stop her, but I had faith that she and Kiran would get the shard to the central pillar. Kayle was tougher than she looked, and no one was faster than Kiran. Except for his sister, maybe.

‘It’ll be okay. I just have to do my job.’

As I turned back, Skul’s aura flared. The first wisps of his ghost guardians filled the air—

The world shifted before their claws had formed. Gaje’s talon was already at my face.

A column’s width of branches shot out my palm and pushed his talon out of the way They should’ve, at least. Instead, my attack phased through his claw like he wasn’t there.

My brows jerked. Reflexes and enhanced powers hauled me out of the way at the last possible instant. I peered as I passed by him. ‘Had he been downplaying his speed?’

His cloak of feathers glowed with a violet haze, deepening my frown. He could be partially inside that dream realm. If so, I wouldn’t be able to hit him.

I flipped and landed on my feet. Gaje tried to chase me, but Saber lunged at him. Where the summon’s blazing claws threatened to strike, Gaje’s cloak closed around his eyes like a shell.

‘Hoh.’

A skill like that was strong, but it must take an egregious amount of energy. He wouldn’t keep it active over his entire body all the time.

Saber flew past Gaje into the waiting arms of a Black Fang with their own bonded animal—a crossbreed between a bear and a wolf, for the canine creature was many times too wide and hairy to be a true dog.

Though my tiger was quick, he wasn’t dodging anything while in the air. I shaped a gate and had him exit at my side. The manoeuvre caught the Black Fang coming up from my rear off-guard, and Saber clawed out his throat.

A root slithering from the portal immediately carried the corpse into the garden.

I whirled towards Skul. His guardians had fully formed by now. They leapt their way into the thick of the enemy disciples. Skul himself chased Maya and Ray. From the way they were grimacing, they didn’t enjoy battling him.

‘This is good.’ If he could hold both of them off, the battle came down to Saber and I taking down Gaje.

The Nightmare must’ve realised the same thing. The instant he landed from his lunge, he jumped away from me and headed for Skul.

‘No you don’t.’

My palm slapped the ground. Multiple panels of wood shout out the ground to block his way.

If he was truly phasing through objects, then a simple wall like this was the best bet at stopping his powers. He’d have to phase his entire body through the barrier. That should cost him the most amount of energy.

He even didn’t try to phase through the first wall. Instead, he hooked a talon around it like a monkey and vaulted over.

I smirked. Why waste time moving like that if he could costlessly shift to the other side?

Maya ducked underneath one f Skul’s swipes, whose backlash sent stalks around them fluttering. But the girl wasn’t content with solely dodging. Her arms locked around Skul’s forearm and pulled, redirection his momentum into the earth. The beast’s landing broke the ground.

“Get him, Gaje!” Her throat trembled with her shout.

Skul’s scales were not safe to touch and burned her skin, yet she didn’t let go. So Skul opened his mouth in front of her face.

The turquoise flames building within almost looked cold.

A flash above the pair. Lighting had woven between Raiden’s grasp into the simile of a spea. He brought the weapon of thunder bearing down onto Skul’s snout like a bolt, slamming Skul’s mouth shut.

Flames gushed past the gaps in Skul’s teeth in the aftermath, none of which hit the Maya. Another disciple joined her for good measure to hold down his back leg. Now, he was fully locked down.

Gaje barrelled forth. Both his talons parted his coat, revealing a deep layer of darkness in the centre where his torso should be. Though that would’ve normally drawn one’s gaze, the attention couldn’t help but shift towards his hands, where the violet haze had become so thick it was almost ink.

That was no regular attack.

Which was I buried my hands into the ground again.

‘Multiply and split,’ I sent the command.

The roots rose in a dome around Skul and swallowed him and his attackers whole. Gaje crashed into the barrier. His strike didn’t even crack the surface.

I blinked. Huh? The speed behind the hit would’ve made me think—

A foreign sensation rushed down the roots towards my palm. I cut the branch off and pulled away just as a wave of violet energy burst from the end.

The energy fizzled in a blink.

Muscles in my forehead contracted. ‘The attack went through my roots?’

I glanced back at Gaje. His feet had dug into the shield wall that were my roots. He raised his talon again. This time, the haze around them was gone.

The wood splintered underneath his strike as if commanded to do so.

I exhaled my held breath. ‘So that’s what going on.’

Gaje prepared another strike, which would’ve broken a large chunk of the barrier, but he leapt back when a flaming claw carved through the shield from the inside.

Because my connection with the wall had gone, the wood grew brittle. Skul’s serpentine form broke through the cage. The centre of his snout resembled a fireplace with how black it had become. He didn’t care. He latched onto the lifeless wooden shell and dragged himself on top. Maya was still trying to hold him down but was carried after the balekin like a mounted flagpole.

Skul smashed her into the barrier on the way out, which finally made her let him go. When Skul whirled around to finish the job, Raiden flashed into view behind him.

“Return,” I said.

He fell through the gate I shaped beneath him and reappeared at my side. Saber snarled at him as he exited. Together, the three of us surveyed the field. Because we’d taken care of some Black Fangs without any hassle, the others were more hesitant to rush after us. That was the thing with the Black fangs—individually, they were stronger than average—but their clan lacked the loyalty ingrained in those of the Snow Moons or the Weapon Empire. They wouldn’t sacrifice themselves for their leader.

And to be honest…

One of the Black Fangs stepped back while stealing a glance at the Nightmare. A light hurled behind his eyes.

Then he bolted.

“Oy,” one of his allies called out after him. “Where—”

“Let him go,” Gaje rumbled.

He landed some ways away from me. With the eyes in his back, he and the others watched the man rush towards the central pillar, where he must’ve believed he would be safer, or the first one to get to the Divine Beast.

I saw the attack coming without looking. A thorn barrelled through the sky and planted itself in the back of the boy’s head. His body paused like it needed a moment to register what’d happened before collapsing.

Other Black Fangs on the verge of running as well jerked to a stop.

Soft laughter rang across the clearing. “You should be more strict with your subordinates, Gaje.”

Of Skul, Saber and I, only Saber glanced to the side—I shared his view with Skul and myself. Blood dripped from Aedan’s morningstar and fed the soil.

‘Another troublemaker arrives.’

One that shifted the probability of me making it out of here unscathed firmly to the other end of the spectrum.

The veiled woman carried another bloody object in her hands. Something that looked like a pumpkin of sorts—

I exhaled. As I did, I felt Aedan smile.

“A present,” she said. “For you.”

She threw it. The thing spun and scattered blood everywhere during its flight. Hitting the ground in front of me, it rolled to a stop.

Kayle’s face stared back at me.