LIGHTNOVELONLINE Interlude - A Decision
A Decision
Three days away from the Hastur’s city, and they still hadn’t encountered anything living. They’ve gone through several territories, Maleatus used one of his perk cooldowns to transport them as far as he could see, and he could do it once a day, sending them days ahead at times. They had crossed a lot of distance, and according to Anashi they had reached the Empire’s southern border. Still, they saw nothing but barren land. Withered oasis territories, others where even the stone seemed to have been drained of color. No monsters, Dome or otherwise. And that scared Selia.
They had set out of the Hastur’s city immediately after they looted their chests. None of them had been able to get in touch with people that they had Far-link Orbs for. Selia’s connected to the one that was in Sigmund’s possession, and no matter how many times she tried to contact him, there was never any answer. She wished she had one that connected to Eratemus, but the man changed vessels so often that one couldn’t really contact him reliably. Anashi’s orb was the same, no answer from the Empire.
Something was wrong, and it made all of them nervous and terrified in equal measure. They had set a fast pace back, a running march. Though some of them could move faster, they had all decided to stick together, they didn’t know what to expect. They had won, the Dome Leader was dead, and yet… Things were not what they expected.
They were sitting on the ground in a small area hidden by tall rocks, resting for the first time since they started the journey back toward the Empire. Selia looked at the demasi woman, the sole survivor of the Empire’s team—or at least the sole survivor who was still on their side.
The woman had her eyes closed, was obviously focusing on something. Selia could see Anashi struggle, her body tense with effort, and then she sighed.
“Anything?” Selia asked.
Anashi opened her eyes and shook her head. “No, it is still… I can’t explain it. My other powers work, even ones that draw from the Ethereal, I just can’t open a portal into it. It is as if something is blocking me from entering.”
Selia grimaced. At first, they had assumed that her inability to enter the Ethereal Realm was because of Hastur, or his city. Now, it seemed like there was something else at play, no matter how powerful the Dome Leader was, there was no way that it could shut down the Ethereal Realm this far away and have it persist after death.
A crack made her turn her head. She saw Zacharia, sitting in a corner with a small rock in his hand. He was squeezing it in his fist, cracking and pulverizing it, turning it to dust. He… he had changed the most out of them. All of them had gotten the titles, gotten stronger with their new items. But he… Even before the rewards, he had changed. His stats were so high naturally that he had crossed the threshold for most of the territories they were passing through. The territory with the Dome had been high tiered enough that they didn’t notice, but two days ago, they reached a territory where it became clear. His steps had cracked the stone he walked on, the air was thrown away in gusts from a barest movement of his body. It was clear immediately that his stats were just naturally higher than the tier of the territory they were in, using them fully just damaged everything. Not all territories were of the same tier, not all Essence that made up the landscape was the same. And thankfully it wasn’t something that he had to deal with in every territory they traveled through, only a few so far.
Selia herself had to deal with it, though not to this extent. There were few territories in the Zenshuen Sect that were low tiered enough that she had to move carefully. At least Zach had managed to keep himself back a bit, not utilize his stats at their maximum all the time.
His power was… surprising.
Three days, that was how long they had been in the Dome Leader’s mind prison. None of them remembered it, but Zach said that he did. That he had lived for thousands of years inside of the prison, all alone. And he had gained strength there that boggled the mind.
Selia couldn’t imagine it. But he was different, that was for sure, even she who hadn’t known him well could tell. She glanced at the woman sitting next to him and wondered how she must feel. Watching her partner testing out his strength on the rock.
Not even he had been able to enter the Ethereal. He could still open a way to other Essence planes, just not the Ethereal.
It worried Selia, it was another thing that they didn’t know. And with the everything else, it just… it added more. They were all still feeling the aftereffects of whatever it was that Hastur did to them, often she would feel her mind spinning, though she couldn’t find a cause. And all of them were tired from the fight, their wounds might’ve been healed outwardly, but something remained.
“You are correct. A will is keeping us at bay,” Zach spoke, almost as if he was speaking to himself.
Anashi and the rest of them blinked. “What?”
He titled his head, but didn’t answer.
Selia cleared her throat. “You didn’t think that we should know that?”
He turned and met her eyes. “I only realized it today.”
Selia nodded. She didn’t know how to talk with him, where he stood in the hierarchy of their group. Obviously, he was incredibly strong for now, but he also seemed to have forgotten all about his life before they arrived in the Dome Leader’s city. He didn’t give his opinion, instead he sat and listened. She had the sense that he was trying to piece things together from their conversations.
Maleatus popped into space next to them with a sound of displaced air, coming back from scouting their surroundings.
“Found something,” he said as he walked into the center of their group. “Dome monsters, straight north of here.”
“How many?” Selia asked.
“A few hundred, I saw a General with them, at least I think it is a General, they are pursuing a group of people into the ruins of a town. They are dying.”
Selia closed her eyes in regret. A general with a small force. They just didn’t know anything, the fact that there had been no monsters anywhere near the Dome Leader had made her suspicious of traps. The people running away…
“And you just left them there?” Zach stood up.
Maleatus met his eyes. “I know nothing about that General or the monsters with it. Even if I was fully recovered, it wouldn’t have been prudent for me to try anything.”
Selia understood, the Infinite Realm was a cruel place. And while finding people that might be able to give them information was important; they were all needed back home. If the Dome Monsters were still active, still a threat, they couldn’t risk themselves without a care.
Zach turned his head, looking at every one of them, and then his right hand changed color and a gust of wind surrounded him as he dashed away before anyone could say anything.
Hiro ran into a collapsed building, looking frantically for a place to hide. The monsters had found them just as they entered the town, he could hear their roars and screeches all around him. His brother had told him to run and hide, and Hiro did what he said. He knew that he couldn’t help, that he would only be a burden. He was sixteen years old, and only level 10. He hadn’t even had access to the Framework when the Dome was opened, and by the time he had turned 15 his parents were dead and his brother didn’t have any Essence to spare for him. All that everyone had, went to those who could fight.
He was terrified, but that was a familiar feeling, he had felt the same way for years now. Ever since the Wall fell and the Empire collapsed, they had been on the run. Most people ran North, trying to out pace the monsters hunting them. Hiro’s brother and his friends had a different idea. They hid, waited for the hordes to pass, and then ran south, getting behind the monsters. It worked, they had been on the run for years, and aside from a few close calls they had been able to avoid the monsters.
The hope had been to find a new territory, someplace safe to settle. But they moved slowly, and were yet to leave the Empire’s fallen territories. They barely even survived, the land was barren and what they managed to scrounge up had been enough to keep them alive but never full.
And now their luck had finally ran out, they weren’t found by just monsters, but by a General too. No one in their group was strong enough to fight that, they could barely take down small groups of monsters.
Hiro’s ears were swiveling on top of his head, listening intently. He heard fighting, screams that weren’t from the monsters, and he knew that the others were dying and he had no chance of helping any of them. His Class gave him one ability, [Lessen Presence], and he used it now. Hiding behind a fallen beam in a house that had burned down long ago, but still smelled like ash to his nose. He hoped that it was enough to mask him.
A part of him wished that he was stronger, that he could do something, but even if he could he was too afraid to move.
The screams outside stopped, and then the only sound was his heart beating in his chest, pounding in his ears. Then, a footstep, something heavy approached and entered the building. He froze, looking through the rubble. He heard the wooden floor creaking, a shadow moving, then… it moved in his direction, getting closer and closer.
Hiro stopped breathing, put his hands over his chest as if that would somehow make his heartbeat less loud. The monster walked over, and he caught a glimpse of it. A four-legged thing with thick black skin, tendrils growing out of its neck and an unhinged jaw that was filled with black bile that was dripping on the floor, each drip as loud as a hammer strike to Hiro’s ears.
It looked around, and then turned its eyes to the place where he was hiding. It got closer, and then it reached over the beam and looked down straight at him. The bile dripped and fell on Hiro’s hand, soaking in his white fur, and he realized that it wasn’t bile at all, but blood.
It growled low in its throat and then…
A low tone intruded, almost like a string being pulled, followed by a gust of wind that whistled. Together they were like a song. The monster disappeared before Hiro’s eyes, and he blinked. For a few moments he remained frozen, and then, he slowly peeked out of his hiding place. The monster was dead, cut into pieces on the ground and a man was standing above it.
A human, with one hand extending into a blade, the air around him was twisting, making him look almost as if he was glowing.
The man met Hiro’s eyes, and he felt—
A roar interrupted the moment, monsters outside the house. The man glanced to the entrance as another monster charged in. Hiro watched as monsters died.
Naha reached the town first by slipping through the shadows. The others weren’t far behind, but she couldn’t wait for them. Zach had run off without a word, and she was terrified that he would get himself killed.
As soon as she arrived, she saw the carnage, the dead monsters were everywhere, broken buildings and cracked ground. She walked, searching, using her True Link to track him. She found Zach in front of a small wooden building, standing next to a white furred ravzor, a young one. He had one hand on his shoulder as the boy looked at the dead monsters and others, ravzors and humans.
“I was not fast enough,” she heard Zach say. “For that I am sorry.”
The boy didn’t say anything, his eyes just looked at the dead with a blank look in his eyes. Naha saw the General, a monster that Maleatus said was the size of a house. It was missing everything but its head, and she saw the signs of Zach’s time related power, Unleash Arsenal.
“Zach,” she said as she approached. The ravzor boy didn’t react, but Zach turned his head to look at her.
“Carnage and death,” he shook his head. Then he looked at the dead. “Innocent lives lost, all that they knew and could be lost forever. All because they didn’t have anyone to help them, to protect them.”
She stopped next to him, and looked in his eyes.
She had been so worried that she had lost him, that Zach that she knew didn’t exist anymore. But this… it was something that her Zach would’ve wanted to do, what he would say. He wanted to protect people, but before… he lacked the power to do it. He had forgotten, but in at the core he was still the same. He didn’t hesitate to move and try to reach these people, to help them. The only thing that had changed was that he now had the power to really change things.
She took his hand and squeezed it. He looked at her, and for a moment she was afraid that he was going to pull away, but then he returned the gesture.
The others arrived behind them, but she ignored them. She shouldn’t have doubted, shouldn’t have let fear make her question and worry. Zach needed her now, and she had to be what he had been for her when they met. Guide him and teach him all that he had to know.
Perhaps now they would be able to achieve what they had dreamed about for so long.