Shardul sighed. “Open your primary chakras. The more you unlock, the more of us you’ll be able to access. Focus on the Foundation Chakra for now. One of us shall meet with you then. Assuming anything of us remains after this.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Vir said as the world began dissolving again. “So don’t you dare die.”
He could’ve sworn he caught a small grin on the demon’s face before he was ejected out.
When Vir awoke in the Mahādi Realm, he could see again, and the pain, while not gone, had lessened.
He didn’t know what his ancestors had done, and he didn’t have the time to find out.
For an Ash Wolf faced him down. And not just any Ash Wolf. This beast was cut from a different cloth.
Prana oozed off its hide, so thick Vir didn’t need Prana Vision to see it. It wasn’t just some wisp of prana either. This was like black flame, burning off this god of wolves.
That thing can end me with a thought.
It was also the beast that had dragged him through, though it hadn’t been wreathed in flame then.
Vir couldn’t tell if it had unlocked a chakra, but he suspected not. At least, the pressure it generated seemed to stem purely from the absolutely absurd prana coursing within its body and burning off its hide. To Prana Vision, the beast was a black abyss. Infinite and unknowable.
Vir did the only rational thing—put his hands up and slowly back away. Shardul, Ekanai, and the others had just sacrificed something very precious to give him this new lease on life. He wasn’t about to squander it seconds later.
The Ash Wolf growled, baring its fangs at him.
Good wolfie. Good wolfie, Vir thought, inching away.
The Ash Wolf did not like what it saw. The next thing Vir knew, he’d fallen and was being pulled by some great force.
It ate my leg! Vir thought, writhing on the ground in a daze as the scenery blurred by.
Except there was no pain. At least, not from his leg.
Again?
The Ash Wolf had once again bit into his boot and was dragging him with its mouth. It was a clumsy way to drag someone, and it should’ve been slow, allowing Vir more than enough time to stand up.
Instead, it yanked him nearly as fast as his own running gait.
Where’s it taking me? Vir thought frantically, trying to make sense of this situation as he bounced and jolted. The beast hadn’t killed him. That was good. Except it was dragging him somewhere, rather violently, which was bad.
Escape was Vir’s first instinct, but how? And to where?
Whatever his ancestors had done hadn’t disabled his prana manipulation. He could invoke Dance of the Shadow Demon if he wanted to—the many buildings cast dark shadows—but should he?
If part of him sank into the shadows with the wolf still holding his leg, he wouldn’t be able to sink all the way. Worse, with the wolf’s strength, being torn limb from limb might be a very real possibility. Cirayus had warned him of the many pitfalls of Dance of the Shadow Demon, and this was one.
Nor did he think he could penetrate the wolf’s solid Prana Armor to free himself. Trying might very well anger the beast enough to end him.
Vir decided to wait it out. The wolf would let go eventually, and he could use that opportunity to flee to the Shadow Realm.
Just calm down. Think. Observe, he told himself. Forcing his breaths to even as he was dragged along.
Vir took care to protect his head, then regarded his surroundings as best he could from his poor vantage.
The first thing he noticed was the buildings. Dark and impossibly tall, soaring into the clouds.
They looked pristine, but Vir could tell they hadn’t been occupied in centuries. Like a perfectly preserved dead animal—the parts were all there, but the soul was not.
The architecture reminded him of only one other place he’d seen—Valaka Amara. The Imperium outpost where he’d met Janak.
The buildings here were markedly different. Darker and more foreboding, with lightning continuously raking their tops from the dark, low clouds. Some were so close they made Vir’s ears ring. But the arches, pillars, and spires were all the same.
So this is the lost Imperium City…
It was all Vir could see before the wolf rounded a bend and his situation went from bad to worse.
Over a dozen Ash Wolves surrounded a person.
Vir scrambled to his feet the moment the wolf came to a halt some twenty paces away.
“A Goddess?” he breathed.
She was a being of pure white. A slim woman with stark white hair, wearing long white earrings, a gorgeous white dress, heeled sandals—also white—and wielding a white rod in her left hand, she struck him as an incarnation of Yuma, the goddess of health and fertility.
Or she would be, if she wasn’t sitting crumpled on the ground with her right arm missing, oozing silvery blue blood that marred her pristine dress. Vir grimaced, expecting to see bone and muscle from her torn shoulder… only to find a multitude of black ropes, tightly packed and sparking, arcing small flashes of lightning every few seconds. Despite her bizarre anatomy and her contorted, anguished expression, she managed to look otherworldly, in a divine sort of way.
Which was why Vir’s eyes found her first, despite the hideous beast that stood only paces away.
Vir tore his eyes away from the impossibly beautiful woman to regard the monstrosity she and the wolves fought.
The beast stood fifteen paces in height and resembled a feathered, oversized bat with the legs of an ox and the claws of a bear, extending from its batwing arms. Like the Ash Wolves before it—several of which lay dead and dying—it oozed Ash prana so thick it was visible to the naked eye.
Vir despaired.
I don’t stand a chance against that thing.
28DIRE STRAITS
Vir had shuddered in fear against a single Ash Wolf. This new beast he confronted had killed a half dozen. To fight it was to ask for an early death. And yet…
His eyes flickered to the mortally wounded woman who lay on the ground, bleeding. She still hadn’t noticed him—her eyes were locked on the enemy.
That she was alive in this realm spoke volumes about her power. And even she had been so grievously wounded. As much as Vir wished to help her—and perhaps gain her good favor and protection in the process—to try would be suicidal.
Sorry, lady. I can’t help you, Vir thought, slowly backing away.
Right into the Ash Wolf who’d brought him here, which shoved him forward.
“Hey! Cut it out!” Vir shouted, but the wolf wasn’t having any of it, growling as it pushed him, nearly making him stumble. “I can’t beat that thing! I’ll just die!”
The woman finally glanced at Vir, and when she did, Vir thought his heart might stop. Not because of any aura or prana. The woman had some Lightning prana in her, but not anywhere near the level of the beasts surrounding her.
Rather, it was the look of desperation on her face that made Vir pause. She said nothing, but Vir knew. If he left, she, and all of her Ash Wolf friends, would die.
It’s none of your business, a voice in his head said. The voice of reason. Just slip into the shadows. You can escape from the Ash Wolf. It’s not even holding you anymore. Don’t throw your life away!
It was too risky. Vir was barely alive himself. He pulled prana from his legs and prepared to descend into the shadows…
The woman slammed her rod on the ground. A blinding flash of lightning hit him at the same moment as thunder burst his eardrums. They didn’t even ring—Vir simply heard nothing in its aftermath.