Vir briefly considered killing as many beasts as he could to force the main body to drain its own reserves, but quickly abandoned that idea. The three minions he’d consumed had barely refilled his reserves. He’d be the one to run dry first, and then he’d truly be exposed.
Where is it getting the prana?
Creating fully grown Ash Beast abominations out of thin air had to have consumed an immense amount of it.
Think, Vir. What else can you do? What’s its vulnerability?
Vir looked out at the beast’s main body in the distance. Could it be so simple?
The massive hemispheric blob couldn’t move—at least, not that Vir had seen. Which meant it must’ve had protections. But did it have protection against someone draining its prana?
Vir surged out of the shadows and lunged for the main body. He’d hoped for a small sliver of opportunity to attack—a window before the mob readjusted to his tactics.
He’d been wrong.
Grakking Ash!
52
THE PRANA GORGER’S LAIR (PART TWO)
Vir sailed through the air, and for the first time in his life, he truly lamented his inability to change directions mid-flight. It simply wasn’t an ability one appreciated until the need arose.
The need had arisen, and now, Vir would give anything in the world to have it.
The creature hadn’t just adapted. It’d nullified Vir’s attack even before it’d begun.
Showing impossible speed, the monsters steadily crawled up the hemisphere, covering it in a layer of armor. Armor that comprised their own bodies.
It was better than armor, actually—dozens upon dozens of projectiles shot at Vir, even as the main body’s tentacles smashed down left and right. Each wielding Warrior Chakra, and several coming far too close for comfort.
Vir barely managed to activate Haste in time, allowing him to twist away and avoid a tentacle by a hair’s breadth. Less, actually.
Vir felt the icy grip of death as the tentacle brushed against his skin. Prana Armor negated the damage, though even that brief encounter left it severely depleted.
As much as Vir wished to sink into the shadows and regroup, he didn’t have that luxury right now. He continued sailing through the air—directly at the dense swarm of beasts. With each pace of distance closed, the chance a projectile actually hit grew.
And with Prana Armor running low…
It’s what they want!
The beast wanted him to smash into it. So it could pummel him with unavoidable Chakra attacks.
It was a trap, and Vir refused to let himself fall into it.
Time slowed to a crawl as Vir maximized Haste. Doing so burned his internal prana reserves at a furious rate, but it was a necessary sacrifice.
Mustering his concentration, Vir focused on a Phantomblade spike that sailed toward him in slow motion.
The issue with Haste wasn’t that his body moved slowly—it was that every tiny movement generated tremendous force. After all, to the world, he was moving tremendously fast. And speed generated force. Except force was not what Vir wanted. Surging prana into his arms to Toughen them, he reached out, and as delicately as possible, grasped onto the incoming projectile.
Vir’s greater mass met with the spike’s fearsome speed, stopping it cold. In the process, he altered his own trajectory.
Letting go of Haste, Vir plummeted to the ground… and into the Realm of Shadows.
If he was to defeat this monster, he’d need a new plan. One that accounted for its surprising level of intellect.
It was no use. Whatever Vir tried, the enemy countered with a prescience that made Vir wonder if he was actually fighting an Iksana wielding Clarity—the Ultimate Bloodline Art that allowed them to glimpse the immediate future.
He tried cleaving a path with Blade Launch. He tried surfacing next to the giant beast’s hemisphere to drain it. He’d been thwarted every time by minions who rushed to fill their fallen brethren’s place.
And through it all, his frustration rose. Frustration, not at the strength of his foe, but his own weakness.
Chakra-laden spikes whizzed past his ear as Prana Darts fired outward, annihilating anything within five paces.
The opening bought him a few precious seconds, but as always, it did little good. More spikes followed, forcing Vir to dodge.
There was one reason, and one reason alone, that explained why he couldn’t deal with this foe with ease. His utter lack of defense against Warrior Chakra.
The Shield Chakra protected against such attacks, and the Heart Chakra allowed one to recover from them—essentially healing the soul.
However, bemoaning his deficiency, as cathartic as it was, would not help him defeat this foe. He needed a new strategy, and needed it soon. His prana reserves were so depleted that Vir could feel the lethargy seep into his muscles, and Prana Armor was all but stripped away. From the earlier tentacle’s swipe, and from the handful of near misses he’d had since then.
It was only now, with his back against the wall, did Vir realize his mistake.
He’d been thinking of this foe as a beast. The same as all the others he’d fought in the Ashen Realm—their minds broken by the Ash. Their tactics lacked both depth and breadth, making them easy to dispatch once one understood their strengths and weaknesses.
Except here, in the Demon Realm, there was no such prana poisoning. No overwhelming pressure that slowly corrupted the minds of all creatures who lived there. That usually meant the monsters here were far weaker. In fact, this might’ve been the first time Vir encountered a foe similar to himself—a beast capable of retaining its prana reserves in a deficient, barren land.
Perhaps as a direct result, it developed intelligence. Vir had known that from the first moment he’d fought it, yet he’d been unable to alter his tactics. If he had… perhaps he wouldn’t be in such dire straits.
Maybe I should retreat…
It was nothing more than an errant thought. Were this a year ago, Vir might very well have done exactly that. Were this the Vir who thought of only himself and those close to him, he’d have turned tail long ago. It was the sensible choice, of course.
But when he scanned the battlefield, when he took in the hundreds of weapons and pieces of armor just lying unused, he understood that fleeing was not an option.
Time was not on their side. Vir had to return to his demons before their supplies ran out. He didn’t have the luxury of waiting around another several days for his prana to recover, and the prisoners needed this equipment if they were to have a fighting chance. He’d need it to prove that they really had braved the dangers this pit posed.
Vir used the remaining moments in the Shadow Realm to formulate yet another plan. When his time ran out, he exited.
Prana Blade wreathed his talwar, its low consumption making it one of the few effective weapons Vir had left.
With precise applications of Micro Leap, Vir danced with death as he darted between lethal Chakra-laden swipes as he cut open enemy minions.
Before him, arms were severed, and legs cut. He sliced the digits off the minions’ paws and stabbed into their abdomens.
Never killing. Only injuring.