No good. While his blade penetrated the hide, it was simply too thick. The beast lurched, but only became angrier.
All the while, Haymi was being slowly crushed to death.
Not gonna let that happen!
He needed a distraction. Something painful enough to get the Narapazu’s attention off the mejai for even a moment.
And he happened to have exactly that, in the form of a four-legged friend, currently barking loudly on the Narapazu’s shoulder.
Dance of the Shadow Demon activated. Neel’s shadow wasn’t nearly large enough for Vir to pop out of. But it was enough to slip his katar through.
Vir plunged an Prana Blade ruthlessly into the Narapazu’s shoulder from the shadow. While there wasn’t much prana in just his arm, it was enough to penetrate its much softer shoulder.
The damage would be superficial, but he hoped it’d at least react to the pain.
React it did, but not in the way he expected. Realizing the noose it held was useless, the beast flung the weapon aside, then gripped its ax with its free hand and swung in a blind rage, taking a chunk of the surrounding wall with it.
Debris rained down upon them, forcing everyone to flee for their lives.
Retracting his arm, Vir Micro Leaped through the raining debris, barely even slowing, despite the danger it posed. Shrapnel cut into his face, but he hardly noticed.
The moment he was in position, he High Jumped. Using his upward momentum, Vir sailed past Haymi, gouging his prana-augmented katar into the creature’s wrist. The blade wasn’t nearly long enough to render its hand nonoperational—he’d need Blade Projection to do that kind of damage—but it was enough to get the beast to drop the mejai.
Haymi plummeted to the ground, but Vason was there to catch her. He whisked the unconscious mejai away while Tia and Vir distracted the enemy.
Unfortunately, distractions weren’t going to fell this beast, and with Haymi out of the picture, their chances of wresting a victory were grim.
Once again, Vir looked up at the ceiling, but there were no shadows up there. Though he now had a weapon that could hurt the Narapazu, it did him little good if he couldn’t reach its weak spots. He briefly considered cladding his chakrams with prana, but he had no idea how to make that work. His prana refused to obey him the moment it left his body—getting the prana to wrap itself around the disk until it struck its target seemed impossible at the moment.
No, he’d have to do this the hard way.
“Tia, go tend to Haymi.”
“What about you?”
“I’m gonna take down this grakking chal.”
Tia hesitated, glancing back at her injured friend. Then she bit her lip and nodded. “As soon as we’ve stabilized her, Vason and I will re-engage.”
“If you do, just distract it. You don’t have magic armor anymore—you can’t take risks.”
“Neither can you,” Tia whispered under her breath, but Vir didn’t hear her.
Facing the beast, who was currently trying to yank Neel off its shoulders, Vir cracked his neck and took a deep breath.
“Let’s do this,” he whispered, Leaping straight at the giant. It tried to grab him, but Vir was far too quick for the ungainly beast. He darted right past its arms, sliced into its legs, and stopped only when he’d cleared its back.
Before it could turn, Vir High Jumped—all the way up to the Narapazu’s waist—and drove his prana Prana Bladed katar into the beast’s back. Where before, its hide was far too durable to penetrate, his katar now had no issue digging in. That said, there was still a need to baby the weapon—the basic iron couldn’t hold up to extreme stress, even when coated with prana. He only hoped it held up long enough to do the job.
Vir doubted the Narapazu even noticed, but his goal wasn’t to do damage—it was to create a handhold.
Kicking the toe blade out of his boot, he similarly wreathed it in prana, allowing him a foothold. Using his other hand to grab onto existing handholds on the beast’s back, he slowly made his way up. The katar anchored him in place, keeping him attached even when the Narapazu lurched and bucked, trying to throw him off.
Vir held firmly on, making his way up one step at a time… Until the elephant realized bashing Vir against the walls was more effective than flailing around madly. Without Haymi’s Lightning attacks to its head, it was thinking more clearly now, and that made it dangerous.
Vir braced, Toughening his back as the Narapazu slammed him against the wall. He held the first time. He held the second time. Then when the third blow arrived, his world turned white.
He was no longer himself. He was, instead, a giant, in a world of red soil. A world of perpetual sunset.
Another memory fragment? Vir thought. This was neither Shardul nor Ekanai. It was someone else. Someone more ancient. Narak the Destroyer.
Unlike the other memories, this one was riddled with gaps. As if parts of the memory had been irrevocably lost to time, leaving the barest thread for Vir to follow.
In front of him was another giant. Both stood about fifteen paces high—far shorter than the Narapazu he’d just been fighting. Vir felt the giant’s rage. He felt his unbridled power. Prana shrugged through the giant in quantities Vir could only ever dream about. Mostly, he felt Narak’s grief. Narak wept. In one of his four arms, he held a newborn child. And behind him… was a woman. His wife of several decades. Now dead.
Intuitively, Vir understood. The one Narak fought had killed his wife.
The symbol of the Akh Nara on Narak’s chest glowed, activating a beautiful blue tattoo that connected to one prong on the giant’s chest tattoo.
And suddenly the giant weighed as little as a feather. He roared and kicked his enemy. The kick came at superhuman speed, and at the last minute, Narak’s leg grew in weight tenfold, pummeling his foe. Except, his enemy didn’t go flying—he remained in place, his weight having increased fivefold. The enemy giant took the brunt of the impact and Vir could see the force of the impact addle his brains.
He was dead before he even hit the ground.
Comprehension dawned upon Vir—he possessed the same chest tattoo, and both Shardul and Ekanai had the same. Until now, he’d thought of it as a source of power, but now he realized that wasn’t quite true.
Vir fought through the grief that assaulted Narak. It was as if the giant’s thoughts bled into his own, confusing him. Were these his feelings from an era long passed? Or was Narak someone completely unrelated to him? Janak had clarified that Shardul and Ekanai were Vir’s prior incarnations.
If that was true, then weren’t they all just… him? Weren’t they all the same being, merely separated by time?
The realization hit him with the impact of a falling Godhollow. If true, what did that mean? Had his struggles with Ekanai and Shardul simply been struggles with his own self? Who was he?
Vir shook off those thoughts and stared at the tattoo on Narak’s chest. The white tattoo was identical to his own, but the blue geometric tattoo that snaked from his shoulder into a prong of the chest tattoo was something Vir lacked.
It’s a receptacle for other powers! With the memory came understanding. The blue tattoo powered Balancer of Scales, the Baira tribe’s bloodline art that manipulated weight.
Vir could scarcely believe such an obscenely powerful ability existed, but the proof was before his eyes. And he only had half of the puzzle. Without the intricate geometric tattoo to slot into his chest, Vir had no hope of unlocking this great power.
“Reyi,” Narak whispered, gazing at his wife.
Vir never knew a being could feel such grief in his life. Vir had felt much the same when Rudvik passed, and then again when he’d discovered Apramor and Aliscia had been executed. But the intensity of Narak’s emotions far outstripped anything he’d felt before.