“Stop!” Vir cried, but only blood came pouring from his mouth.
Even as the beast’s upper half slipped off its legs, plunging to the ground, it continued to swipe relentlessly—clutching doggedly onto its final moments of life.
Its head crashed into the ancient road. Its legs fell over, and it finally stilled.
Vera’s wrath had finally come for the creature. Just as it had for the dozen fallen wolves that lay scattered around it.
It was a Pyrrhic victory.
Vir couldn’t walk. He couldn’t even crawl. How he maintained consciousness, he did not know. Perhaps it was the pain, preventing him from slipping into the darkness of unconsciousness. Perhaps it was his desire to ascertain the woman’s health.
He pulled himself across the ground with a single arm, slowly making his way to the white woman, who lay prone in a pool of her own blood.
The light in her azure eyes had winked out completely, and she moved no longer.
I was too late, Vir thought. I couldn’t save her. And now, I’m critically injured.
He didn’t even know if his wounds could be healed. Certainly not on his own. Not without Cirayus.
“C’mon,” Vir choked out, desperate to reach her. “Don’t die on me. Wake up!” he shouted. To no avail. The goddess was well and truly dead.
Vir just stared blankly at her features. Her eyes remained open, staring back at him in death.
Why! Why is it always like this? I never have enough power. I can’t protect a single person. How am I supposed to save a clan?
An orb fell in front of Vir’s eyes. He felt it thump onto the hard black road.
The crystal was the size of a C Grade orb, and it swirled with black Ash prana, yet it radiated a beautiful twinkling white inside, filling it with a mysterious energy that was part prana, part physical.
It’s beautiful.
Awooo! an Ash Wolf howled, right next to Vir’s head. He barely heard it, given the state of his ears.
The wolf was running from the orb to the dead lady’s back, howling madly.
What’s it… Wait. It’s trying to tell me something?
Vir propped himself on a shoulder. “You want me… to do something? With this orb?” Vir’s thoughts came slowly through the haze of pain. “You want me to give it to her? But she’s dead. Can’t you see?”
The wolf howled in frustration, placing a paw upon the woman’s back.
With a hiss of steam, her back dissolved away to reveal her innards.
Except, instead of organs and blood, a clean compartment revealed itself, containing something very familiar.
“An orb! It’s spent, though. It’s… I see. You want me to—gah!”
Debilitating pain wracked Vir, sending him crashing to the ground.
Darkness crept in at the edge of his vision.
He began to black out.
No! Not now! Not when I was so close…
29ASHANI
Vir did not slip into the blissful land of the unconscious, where the peace of dreams awaited. Blaring pain from his broken leg barred those gates.
Pain made worse by an Ash Wolf—the one who’d handed him the black orb earlier. Now it stood with a paw on his leg, howling in desperation.
It’s scared, Vir thought. For… its master?
Vir reached for the orb but found his body sluggish and unresponsive, as if wading through thick syrup. The experience was similar to when he used Haste, except instead of the world slowing around him, it was his own body that moved with agonizing slowness.
Grabbing the orb, Vir braced himself for the next ordeal—pulling himself to the white lady… or whatever she was. He wasn’t sure, with the black metal ropes sticking out of her shoulder and the orb receptacle embedded into her back.
Vir didn’t care if she turned out to be another Ash Beast at this point. She was sapient. That was enough for him. And maybe… just maybe she could heal him. He had no good reason to believe she possessed such capabilities, but something about her bearing struck him. Not in the way Cirayus did with his chakras, but something else entirely. It was a stretch, yet it was all he had.
If only that wolf could drag me again, Vir thought. When he looked around, the wolf had disappeared. He caught glimpses in the distance. Is it… fighting?
Vir blinked to find that a number of small, hedgehog-like foes had moved in, and the wolf was now embroiled in a fierce battle to keep them at bay.
Looks like you’re on your own, Vir, he thought, bracing himself for the torture that was to come.
Heaving with all his might, which wasn’t much at all, he began to close the gap, one inch at a time.
Two inches. Five, then ten… Vir lost track of time. Had it been a minute? An hour? He couldn’t say; his life’s only purpose was to crawl. To advance at all costs.
Whenever darkness crept in and he fell, the wolf’s howl forced him right back up, and again, he would crawl.
She wasn’t far. Ten paces at most, though it might as well have been ten realms.
Where others might have failed, Vir persisted. When he reached his limits, the Ash Wolf brought him back to reality. Vir didn’t know how, but through sheer willpower alone, he closed the gap and finally… inserted the orb into its socket, sliding it in place.
The receptacle retracted into her back, and a lid slid shut over it. No trace or seam remained, revealing flawless pale skin without a single blemish.
Except that was all that happened. The white lady’s arm was still a stump, and she still lay in a pool of blueish blood.
All that for nothing?
Vir sat back, too injured and exhausted to try anything else. That had been it—his last resort.
What now? Vir thought, his mind too addled to process much of anything. Be it analyzing what his ancestors had done to keep him alive, or even to try and find a way out. Was there anyone else here? Was this truly the fabled Mahādi Realm? How would he ever get back?
The woman began to glow. The black ropes within her arm elongated, tightening like muscle. It continued to grow, forming an arm, then a delicate hand.
Am I seeing things? I must be seeing things, Vir thought. It was little wonder, considering the state he was in.
Her skin regrew near-instantly. She rolled onto her back, sitting up in one elegant motion.
Her eyes fluttered rhythmically, then found Vir.
“Who art thou? Thou hast bequeathed the holp due Ashani? By way of choice?” she said with a strange, exotic accent Vir couldn’t place.
Uh, what? Is that another language?
The woman smiled, and Vir’s heart skipped. “’Tis as the spring mornwater. Thou rest be bestowed of the holp now Ashani.”
Perhaps Vir might’ve made sense of her words some other time when his mental faculties hadn’t been robbed. Now, though, it all sounded like gibberish.
“Who are you?” he croaked as the world darkened around him.
The woman gazed into his eyes.
“Servant to Whom Keepeth Fate. By way of the shepherd.”
Vir’s rest was deep and without dreams. When he finally awoke, it felt as though he’d slept for millennia.
Instead of ash-darkened skies, Vir found himself staring up at an unadorned ceiling.
Vir sat up, groaning in pain. He’d been placed on a hard bench-like surface, which explained his soreness.
The surrounding room was fairly normal, aside from a few oddities. A sofa floated above the ground in the corner, along with a small table—also floating. One entire wall of the room was glass, overlooking an empty street three stories below. Storm clouds roared in the distance, though the roar of thunder couldn’t be heard at all from inside.