[LD-1] 47. False Prophet (Patreon)

XLVII

False Prophet

Echoing rumbles, like lightning strikes on a dark, rainy night, clattered through the chamber.

Thick muscles contracted and lifted from Kiba’s chest. The ogre put a finger in its neck to crack a muscle. Then, almost if it just now remembered we were still there, it turned to us.

It chuckled. “If I kill him in a single blow, he won’t have time to transform.”

Their voice wasn’t the same speaking through the guardian, but the mannerism revealed who it was behind the exterior.

The revelation had no meaning to me. Just like the words penetrating my skull.A strange sensation rose in my chest that swallowed their sounds before my brain could really register them, so I merely experienced the words similar to how a travel would a conversation in a different part of the world.

Around Aila, blackened silhouettes lay strewn as if in some ritualistic summoning circle. Though their faces were too charred for me to recognise, I knew where Alexa had been at the time of the attack.

A memory of her face overlayed that of the corpse. She had the smile of a little girl.

‘We’ll begin your training the moment I return, okay?’

The apologetic look of a parent who knew they couldn’t help.

‘Sorry to put this much burden on you two.’

My gaze turned to beside the ogre’s feet. Smoke was rising from Kiba’s body. He did not stir.

One of his eyes cracked open to reveal he’d feigned being asleep. ‘We’ll be alright.’

Then he was sitting at the edge of the tunnel, a kaleidoscope of colours showering his face in incandescent light.

‘If the world begrudges us that, then it can go to hell. Your father included.’

I blinked the memory away and turned back to the monster.

Aila smiled.

There was movement behind me. Douglas pulled Emily back before she could slip past the frontline and rush towards the others. He yelled something at her. Then at the other tanks, who quickly closed ranks. Finally, he turned to me.

The sensation in my chest expanded to my stomach, where it simmered in the acid. Bubbles released from the combination of ingredients that popped out of existence.

…Master…!

The sound crashed between my skull and interrupted even Kil’s dialogue.

But his counsel was not needed.

My chest contracted so heavily it shoved the breath out of my lungs. Cull dematerialised. I linked my hands, and four slits carved away at reality.

Aila stared at the phenomenon with a tilt to her head. “An infant territory? That’s rare.”

Black water gushed and engulfed everyone.

A winch passed over Aila’s face as it slammed into her. Still, she raised her staff.

Char rushed in front of me, but he didn’t need to. The Still-Ripple fish burst into the path of the thunderbolt. Lightning crackled over the interlocking pieces of its spine. Pieces of bone broke, but the big summon would take more than a single strike to put down.

Forcing breath into my lungs, I clenched my thighs.

Douglas yelled, his scream nothing more than a gurgled sentence that barely managed to follow me.

Cull materialised again in the brief span it took for the distance between me and Aila to vanish.

I followed Kiba’s example and went low.

A snort. “Making the same mistake as your friends?”

Why were her words the only ones making it through the haze?

It was a worthless question whose answer I did not care for.

‘Char,’ I thought.

A carapace of bones snapped into place around the crystalis. The same white growths pierced out of my neck and did the same to my torso and head.

‘There are no clouds.’

Aila could snicker all she liked. But there were no clouds, so she wasn’t using the skill she’d used on the others just now.

And that should be the strongest skill in her arsenal.

The gem on her staff flashed. I ducked to get beneath the lightning bolt, but she did not fire.

The butt of the staff came up instead.

Bones and wood clanged. The skill had called the bones brittle, and it was true. The second skeleton shattered under the force. But it’d blocked enough for the blow not to reach my face.

I spun back with the force. Before Aila could make use of me being off balance, the Still-Ripple fish ran into her like a freight train.

So it would’ve, had she not cast a barrier.

Sparks burst from the clash and forced me to cast a shield of my own, which Char quickly came to hide behind.

“You know,” Aila yelled over the blaring. “I understand why they were worried about you!”

My brow twitched.

Her lips stretched. “Your skills are powerful for your level. That reaper class is an S-rank class, is it not? A human getting one of those is basically unheard of. Then there’s your class weapon.”

She held her staff in one hand while holding off the Still-Ripple fish. But she stepped forward and took the weapon in both hands.

The mana coursing through the shield doubled.

“All signs of an interesting heritage,” she grunted.

Whipping winds died all at once, and my summon bounced off the shield. But the force keeping me at bay was gone.

I shot forward, sparing a single glance at my mana. Not much left. My next three skills had to count.

A fireball and some arrows shot out of the right side of the field, so Aila kept up her barrier.

Despite that, she whirled on me. “Yet I only understand it a little.”

She stepped out of the way of my scythe as if I was a toddler swinging a stick. However, the tentacle I shaped caught her on the way out.

Cull whistled and cleaved into her thigh—

”Lightning armour.”

I bounced off the spectacular lightning bursting from all over her skin. The thunder didn’t seem a mere layer forming on top of her hide like the bone armour was for me. Instead, the lightning changed a core part of her metal-like exterior, turning it as hard as real metal.

Tremors shot up my arm and tried to make me drop Cull. I gripped harder. The deep death hidden within the scythe rose to the surface and shrouded the blade. Then, I turned the failed swipe into a strike that’d open her gut.

A great shadow cast its silhouette over my face in the corner of my sight mid-spin.

Lightning wreathed around Aila’s fist.

My eyes widened. ‘She dropped her barrier?’ How? Behind her, the flames still whirled through the air.

Whatever the answer, there was nothing I could do. I was mid—

Char jumped in front of me.

He blocked my view, so I didn’t get to see what happened exactly. But something hit me hard. And then I was hurling in the direction of the staircase.

I bounced off the ground like a skippy ball, and my teeth ate straight brick as I rolled to a stop.

The organ in my skull sloshed. My shoulder told me something was out of place.

Yet I pushed myself up in one fluid motion—

The instant I put pressure on my knee, I cried out and collapsed again.

‘What the…what…’

Lightning flashed and sparked around me.

Paralysis status effect applied, the system chimed.

My whole body felt limp from the neck down, so I couldn’t do anything but stare ahead of me at Aila and Char.

A fist twice the size of my head had punched through the summon’s chest.

Aila lifted him into the air and aimed her staff.

‘Char…’ I thought through gritted teeth. ‘Return…!’

In a puff, the tank dissolved into a sludge of black water.

Lightning and fire finally slammed into Aila’s rear. It made her stumble, but she caught her balance on her staff. The arrows did more damage. Almost ten of them dug deep and drank her blood. However, she didn’t even glance at her attackers.

“Only a little,” she repeated, dusting off her shoulder.

The iron in my mouth made some feeling return to my muscles. I pushed myself up once more—

There was a blue flash.

“You’re nowhere near the problem you should’ve been, given your tools.”

Her voice came from right beside me.

I flexed my fingers and shaped the shield without looking.

“That, for example.” Her head poked over the barrier while the tip of her staff stabbed it like a spear. “Why are you using your hands to cast?”

The shield broke. But Cull spawned and rose like the morning sun.

She side-stepped it with ease again.

“Why do you insist on fighting yourself?”

I dropped Cull and jumped away—

The ogre spun with unnatural deftness and planted its heel in my side. The force launched me off my feet, but it wasn’t enough to send me flying.

But it didn’t need to.

Though I landed on my feet, I sagged immediately to one knee. I grasped my side and gasped for air. A crack had echoed from inside me.

Aila approached with easy steps.

“Your skill levels are low. Your battle instincts are raw.” She stopped in front of me and crouched to eye-level. Thick arms came to rest on her knees. “Did we really have to go through all this trouble just to kill you?”

I coughed out a phlegm mixed with blood and wheezed. “…me?”

She sighed to herself. “I suppose they feared your potential. Not that I agree. Ogram, at least, has a title.”

“Joy!” Emily’s scream reached me.

She, Douglas, and the other tanks were rushing over.

Aila shaped another barrier to block the next volley of attacks. As she did, she studied my face. A moment passed, then her head tilted so the ogre’s skull nearly touched the bandaged stump beside it.

My confusion must’ve been visible on my face.

“You don’t know?” she asked, eyebrows touching. She turned away and gazed off into the distance while the sparks flying off the barrier cast out the shadows on the ogre’s face.

“Now why…” Her head angled the other way. “Ah, that was their plan.” A ripple of laughter passed her lips. “That kind of makes sense. Now, I feel sorry for you.”

“What are…talking about…” I groaned.

Her ugly lips stretched. “You were chosen to be a sacrifice. That’s all there is to it.”

…sacrifice?

“It happens,” she shrugged. “Gods like to wager on their most prominent prospects.”

My mind had trouble wrapping around the words, despite explosions no longer rocking my skull.

And then more words interrupted my thoughts.

Safe zone reached. Forceful truce enacted.

Aila huffed and tapped my shoulder. “Do yourselves a favour, will you?”

The ogre rose to its full height.

“Take the exit and your losses. Don’t die as somebody’s pawn.”

Before I could say anything, the ogre’s eyes closed. A tremor passed through the guardian’s, then the beast collapsed into motes of energy.