Toren Daen
Lady Dawn tilted her head at . Though no wind sifted through this zone, her hair rustled as if kissed by an invisible breeze.
“It has taken so ti for you to question of this aspect of our power, Contractor,” the phoenix said.
I spared another glance at the forest around as I walked. In the ti I had taken to look at Lady Dawn, the trees had once again reoriented their spearlike branches toward . “I wanted to practice it in the Relictombs since you ntioned that it was difficult to restrain our asuran signature when I engage the Will. And there’s no guarantee I’ll ever have a more peaceful mont to practice my Will than now.”
The phoenix nodded slowly. “And that was wise. Until your control of my Will reaches precise levels of power, you will be unable to restrain the outpour of power.”
I nodded. My control of mana and inner power had risen greatly as I assimilated the Phoenix Will, as I had to maintain tight control of the mana in my body. I was still undergoing the assimilation process regularly with Lady Dawn’s assistance. From what I could feel, I thought I was likely nearing the ending stages of assimilation. Where it had taken Arthur several years to assimilate Sylvia’s Will, I had so very distinct advantages in that regard. For one, Arthur had Virion to assist in his assimilation.
I had Lady Dawn.
“How exactly can I expect the Will to function?” I asked, rembering how close Lady Dawn’s mind had co to my own when I slipped into the Acquire phase of her Will. “I feel like even my first phase was far more powerful than it should’ve been.”
It was true that the first phase of Sylvia’s Will allowed Arthur to separate himself from the flow of ti, but my Acquire phase allowed to shoot lasers from my hands. They acted fundantally differently.
The phoenix furrowed her brows, no doubt sensing the implications of my words. “Do you know what a Beast Will is, Contractor?” the phoenix asked at last.
I furrowed my brows, walking around a bend in the unchanging dirt road. “Mana beasts of certain power level, usually A-class and above distinction in Dicathen, are able to pass down their unique insight and Will, usually to their young. But mages can sotis extract the Will from a beast core, if they’re lucky.”
Lady Dawn stared into my eyes and held my gaze. I slowly stopped walking, the asura contemplating how to break so bit of information to .
“You are correct, Contractor, but you do not grasp the implications of your words. You know that a mana beast can pass on its insight as Will. But what happens when this beast passes on their Will to their offspring? And their offspring’s offspring?”
I furrowed my brows, trying to piece together what Lady Dawn was trying to tell . She did this often, laying a path for my mind to trod and allowing to reach the conclusion she desired on my own.
Then it clicked. Though the sky above was cloudy, I felt a ray of sunlight might just have pierced its way through. “It compounds,” I said. “All that insight adds up into a single Will. It grows in power as the generations go by.”
“And how long do asura live, Contractor?”
As I peered into Lady Dawn’s eyes, I was reminded of how ancient this being was. Here was a woman who had seen the rise and fall of empires. Here was a woman who had witnessed the flow of ti in a way I could not comprehend. Here was a woman who was older than Ro; older than Jerusalem; older than Babylon.
She was older than anything I knew, and at that mont, I felt the full weight of that age on my bones.
I swallowed. “How many generations has this Will grown?” I asked, a bit of a waver in my voice. The Will had always been a bit of a distant thing for . I had it, true, but I rarely drew on its power or contemplated its aning.
“It is not known how far back the Asclepius Clan’s knowledge has been passed from leader to scion,” Lady Dawn replied. The age in her eyes would grind any mortal man to dust. “It is a nigh-infinite library of condensed understanding, waiting at your fingertips. But to allow you to slowly assimilate that insight, you must activate the Will in stages depending on your mastery. And my own insight guides you through the process. My mind, still holding lingering attachnt to my Will, pushes you along safer paths. You do not break under the strain because I carry you through the shallow currents, as a mother shows her chicks the safest routes to fly. Thus, you access more raw understanding than otherwise would be possible.”
I looked at my hands, clenching and unclenching my fists. That level of power… It was hard to fathom. How many millennia of understanding were condensed into the Will nestled in my core?
“I think I understand,” I said slowly.
“No, you do not. You can not, not without experiencing it further,” the phoenix cut across my words sharply. “But you will understand in ti.”
I chewed on that thought, sparing another glance at the trees around . They unnerved to no end. “So, do I simply… embrace the Will?” I asked. “Draw it to the surface?”
“It will co to you naturally,” the asura said, standing in front of . “The Will desires to be used. Always rember that, Contractor. It is not so mindless force, like a storm or an earthquake. The Will of countless Asclepius asura desires to be learned. It wants to fulfill its purpose.”
“You speak as if the Will has consciousness,” I said hesitantly. “As if it can make its own decisions.”
“The Will is a force, Contractor. But it is also a beast. Through assimilation, you ta that beast. You show it your worth. But it is still a beast.”
I closed my eyes with a shuddering breath, my mind brushing against the Will in my core. It was an alien thing, but I could almost… feel it agreeing with my Bond. About its desires. About its force.
About its beastly nature.
“But do not let yourself sink too deep, Contractor,” Lady Dawn said, drawing back to the present. “For you may not be able to pull yourself from that ocean. Your mind is but one of the many the Will has been a companion to. It does not know restraint. Only you do.”
I let myself drift back toward my core, my mind feathering against the Will’s. It eagerly rescinded my contact, like a curious child touching sothing new and interesting.
It has probably never interacted with a human mind before, I thought with wonder as the Will slowly drew itself up to . And then we intersected.
I felt the power, the knowledge, suffusing in an instant like a shot of caffeine. It was as if all the cells in my body had been laid in a warm bath, the heat suffusing them and speeding up their function. My muscles felt loose and mobile, unseen tensions releasing as my mind brushed against both Lady Dawn’s and Will’s. As the connection solidified, Lady Dawn and the Will seed to beco one and the sa, the experienced phoenix taking the reigns.
But there was sothing else in there, too. Where Lady Dawn was a brilliant light banishing my ignorance and lack of insight, this thing was dark and beastly. It was… dormant. Sleeping. But the light of the Will irritated it, crashing against its eyes and burning its pitch-black scales.
My basilisk blood. It loathes the light. It hates the way Lady Dawn scours away the shadow.
They could not exist together. Not for long.
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I opened my eyes, about to ask a question. But what I saw shocked to the core.
For miles upon miles around , small red fires burned in the heart of every white tree. Those fires should consu the wood, so part of thought. But another part, the one that almost understood, knew that was not how the fire of life worked.
But now, with my senses enhanced many-fold by the first phase of my Phoenix Will, I could truly feel the attention on . It was like spiders crawling on my skin, the legs poking and prodding at every bit of skin with malicious intent. I felt the branches of each and every demonic tree brushing against my face, my arms, my torso, my eyes, my ears–
The Will retreated into my core in a rush, leaving gasping. In the few seconds I’d used it, it had siphoned a significant portion of my mana just to stay active. But the level of understanding had nearly overwheld .
“These trees,” I said with a gulp, staring out at them with fearful eyes, “What are they?”
“They have souls,” Lady Dawn said from beside , a bit of disgust leaking into her voice. “I do not know of their origin. Your senses have not delved deep enough to peer at their secrets. But the fact that they have heartfire… It is wrong.”
I stared with wide eyes at the trees around . Their gnarled and twisted branches seed to have straightened into spear shafts, ready to impale for witnessing their secrets.
“Heartfire?” I asked a bit emptily, trying to get my mind to think again.
“Lifeforce. The fla of vitality. Soultether. Heartfire. All words for the sa thing: the aether that ties the soul to the body,” the phoenix said. Her words trailed off as she stared at the trees. “What did they do to these trees? Who did they do it to before?”
This… this had rattled Lady Dawn deeply. Sothing about that deep red fire, flaring in the center of every tree.
I swallowed. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to test the Will again any ti soon.
—
The first sign of trouble ca as dusk settled. I continued moving on the endless dirt path for many miles, keeping fearful eyes trained on the trees. I never saw them move. Never saw them shift, or heard the creaking of their boughs. And yet their branches stayed trained on like arrowheads, always ready to strike.
The gray clouds in the sky began to shift, moving in unnatural patterns. They darkened ominously as they swirled, casting the land in shadow. I frowned upward, sensing the unnatural movent of the mist above. It was clearly a portent of sothing to co.
Lightning flashed across the sky, heralding rain. A few seconds later, thunder rumbled ominously.
And then the rain began to fall. As far as I could tell, there was nothing abnormal about the rain. No special mana properties. No strange coloration.
But its effects upon hitting the ground were the furthest thing from normal. The entire zone rumbled as trees began to quiver and shake, their roots writhing under the surface as they greedily drank the water the sky gave them. It looked as if massive worms were writhing under the surface of earthen skin, the ripples cascading outward like thunder.
And so of the trees began to change. Crimson leaves sprouted from their branches, quickly morphing and growing. But leaves were not the only thing the trees grew: large, bulbous fruits the color of blood coalesced like tumors on the branches of the trees, before growing too heavy and dropping to the floor.
My breathing picked up as I drew Oath and Promise, mana coursing through my veins. The ambient mana around thrumd with power as I settled into my stance, looking around frantically. Heavy rain soaked through my clothes, adding another chill to my bones beyond the eerie sound of fruits dropping to the floor. Water dripped down my forehead and along the edges of my blades, and the ground beneath my feet began to grow muddy as the moisture seeped in.
The first thing I heard besides the rain was a sound like wood being shoved through a chipper. I oriented on the sound, watching in awed horror as one of the fruits morphed, swelling and changing as it sat on the ground.
Long, wiry white arms thrust from the fruit like a sprouting sapling, white wood twisting in on itself to form a slowly growing figure. The figure that grew from the fruit looked like it was made of the sa white wood as the trees, but that was where the resemblance ended. Short rear legs scratched at the ground, and an angular maw of razor-sharp teeth snarled. A trim, lithe body rippled as wood shifted like veins under paperlike skin.
The water running over its skin reflected its beady red eyes, which quickly glared at .
The creature rushed , hauling itself forward with ape-like arms as long as its entire body. It screeched, a gnarling sound that grated against my eardrums.
And soon, a dozen more screeches joined it. Fruits burst open like cysts all around, sprouting these monstrous creatures in their place.
I sidestepped as the monster leapt at on the path, bringing Oath down in a scything arc as it passed. My blade flashed as it severed the monster’s head from its body, the white maw chittering as it tumbled away. The body collapsed to the ground in front of , roots squirming at the base of the skull where I’d separated the head.
I swiveled in the rain, kicking up water as I brought my sword in a cut toward another creature. My blade cut deep into the wooden body, but not enough. I had to backpedal to avoid a swipe of their claws, but it wasn’t enough.
The razor-sharp claws grew a few inches as I tried to dodge backward, scraping against my telekinetic barrier with a screech like the sheering of tal. Crystalline fractures opened along the barrier where the hit landed, signaling that these swipes were far more dangerous than they appeared.
I snarled, pushing the aether beast away with a burst of telekinesis and following up with a fireball. The rain dampened the effect of my spell, but I was skilled enough that it still seared a hole through the wooden body.
But there were dozens of screeching beasts barreling through the forest toward my exposed position. I was out in the open, and if I wasn’t careful, I would be surrounded and cut down. I needed to find a better position than the muddy path.
I burst forward with telekinesis, my first instinct to get up into the trees. It was sothing that had been ground into my subconscious by my training in the Clarwood Forest. If you were overwheld on the ground, imdiately seek the high ground.
I dashed toward one of the trees, leaping over one of the clawing aether beasts. The tree demon tried to swipe at , its claws extending montarily to give it extra reach, but I used a few pushes against its body to launch further.
The branches of the tree caught like a net. Where before I had never seen the white boughs shift and move, now they tightened around and tried to suffocate the breath from my lungs. They tightened with malicious intent, having finally caught their prey.
Damn it! I thought as my telekinetic shroud creaked, the force from the constricting branches pressing down on it like a snake.
I pushed outward with an unfocused nimbus of fire and telekinetic force, scorching the wood and splintering any branches too rigid to bend. In that brief reprieve, I darted back to the clear, mud path, recognizing that trying to survive in the trees was tantamount to suicide. They wanted to strangle just as much as these beasts.
There were dozens–no, hundreds–of the aether beasts sprinting through the forest now. I blanched, the water seeping into my clothes making feel twice as heavy. They all ca up to my waist when they ran, looking like a tide of death. My footing was unstable as I began to run, sprinting with both telekinetic pushes and bursts of fire from my feet. I held Oath and Promise in my hands, the twin blades my only comfort.
I vaulted over a few tree demons as they reached the path in front of , severing their hands with my weapons as they tried to claw at . The stumps of their hands twisted with roots as they screeched in fury, but while these beasts had outnumbered, I was faster.
I landed on the head of one of the beasts. It showed no shock or startlent from getting a boot to the face, but after I used a flare of telekinesis and fire from my feet to propel myself further along the path, I doubted it would ever show emotion again.
A score of the small monsters were waiting for in the place I was about to land. My mind, already frantic from being surrounded by hundreds of hostile monsters, worked quickly to try and co up with a solution.
I summoned a fireball at my feet, compressing the fire mana into a tight sphere. When I reached the ground, a dozen swiping hands carved gouges into my telekinetic barrier, crystalline fractures rippling out. Before they could attack again, however, my boots hit the ground. My feet drove the fireball into the muddy earth, causing it to detonate in an indiscriminate wave.
Fire washed over the beasts around , the heavy downpour quickly snuffing out any lingering flas, but it cleared a small patch around the monsters.
Their beady red eyes held no emotion but fury and hatred. They continued to charge in an unending wave, not caring for their wellbeing as I tore those who got close to apart. Oath and Promise reflected the lightning flashing overhead as the water tore into my confidence.
I wasted no ti, knowing that my mobility was all that kept alive under the endless tide. I tried to stay above them as I ran, using their heads and bodies as platforms.
But they were adapting to my attempt at escape. As I soared through the rain, a dozen tree demons shed together, using their own bodies as stepping stones to try and intercept in midair. They screeched as I approached, screaming what I assud was bloody murder.
I grit my teeth, seeing the wall of wooden flesh waiting for . I focused on my telekinesis emblem, focusing a burst of power in front of . I pulled my arms close and tucked my knees, then let loose with my spell.
The concentrated force blew a hole through the barrier, and I slipped right through the grasping limbs. I trailed water as my feet impacted the soggy ground. When I landed, however, I finally saw a change in the unending landscape. A tall spire of rock jutted into the air like a lighthouse, the slick stone piercing through the trees. The top was a sharp point, but it was a far better location than my open location here.
If I wanted to survive this storm, I would need to reach that spire.
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