The air around them burned, swirled with force as Iron mana streamed from his rapidly depleting reservoir. Scorio felt his presence suffuse the air, his might, his rage, his intolerance to defiance.
The hemisphere caught the rock fiend’s front half within its curvature; Scorio felt his power wash over the beast and saw it freeze, shrink in on itself, then back away.
Its change in attitude was shocking; its flames diminished, it shook its head as if wanting to sneeze, looked uncertain. Knowing he had but moments before his Igneous Heart guttered and died, Scorio took three steps forward and leaped, causing his aura to wash completely over the rock fiend.
It raised its huge head to stare, small eyes flaring bright as it watched Scorio fall upon it like a bolt from the heavens.
Still screaming, Scorio smashed his fist through the beast’s head, talons shearing through rock and bone and brains in one terrible strike, removing a third of the fiend’s skull and splattering it against its own chest and forearm.
He landed in a crouch before it, breathing heavily, just as his Heart died. For a moment the loss of power was shocking; he gasped, rose to his feet, saw that he stood within the twin forearms as a man might within the sides of an archway.
The fiend rose before him like a hill. It swayed, ichor pouring from its shattered head, and then with a gargling groan, it collapsed to the side, back legs giving way, massive forearms toppling sideways. It crashed to the ground and lay there, splayed out, monstrous and huge, its burning purple flames flickering and then dying out altogether.
A black archway appeared in the far wall.
“Damn,” whispered Scorio, looking at his hands, then back at the dead fiend. What had his aura done to it? The beast had looked… stunned. Overwhelmed. And there was no way Scorio could have defeated it as an Emberling. Even with his companions, this would have been a grievous battle.
But as a Tomb Spark, he’d destroyed it alone.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” he whispered, and punched one hand into the other palm. Fierce resolve burst into him like a flash flood into a slot canyon, and he strode to the distant archway.
“Watch out, Jova,” he said to the darkness about him. “I’m coming for you.”
Chapter 78
Scorio paused before crossing through; took a moment to settle his emotions, to control his excitement, and gather Iron mana back into his Heart. It was wonderful to have his reservoir be so compact again. To be able to ignite it with ease. But that very facility spoke to the dangers that lay on the archway’s far side: he was now entering the Tomb Spark run of rooms, alone, and with a fractured Heart.
He had to play it careful.
When he felt ready, he pushed through the darkness and stepped out into a great sphere of a room. He stood at the sphere’s base, a circle of iron under his feet, and directly above him, some fifty feet over his head, lay the exit, a black circle incised into the roof of the room.
“What the hell?” muttered Scorio, staring up in alarm and dismay. Was he supposed to fly up there?
The sphere of course was dark, so he studied it with his darkvision, and saw that the walls weren’t perfectly curved; the sphere was a polygon, each facet six-sided, with facets than he could count.
He extended his senses and tried to pick up on invisible densities, any hint of danger in the room, and found… nothing. Was he supposed to run up the sides? Were only those Great Souls who could fly or leap supposed to pass this chamber?
Hesitant, curbing his frustration, he stepped out of his hexagon, placed his foot on the next facet, and immediately the whole sphere rolled. Or his own sense of internal balance changed—down became the facet onto which he’d stepped, while his iron hexagon seemed to have slid up the side of the sphere a step.
But more than that—the sphere came to life. A huge gout of pale, green liquid rivered forth from a facet on the sphere’s other side, undulating toward him at terrific speed as if waterfalling over the edge of a cliff. Scorio let out a cry and ran on, moving to the next facet, causing his center of gravity to shift again, just as the river of liquid poured itself into the facet on which he’d stood, the spray that came off it burning his skin and causing it to tingle as if frostbitten.
But more rivers of acid were pouring forth; wide-eyed, Scorio stared about himself, feeling trapped, as a dozen such torrents rushed across the inside of the sphere, sinking into their opposite facets and creating a three-dimensional maze before him. Turning, trying to keep track of every deluge, Scorio almost missed the one that erupted upward from under his own feet.
There was no time to leap aside; reflexively, he summoned his shroud directly beneath him and felt the gout of acid push him upwards, even as it sprayed out to the sides. The shroud protected him completely, acted as a board upon which he balanced as he flew across the room, propelled by the power of the jet.
And right into another one that was running perpendicular through the interior of the sphere. Scorio bit off a cry as he leaped off his shroud, more of a wild toppling to the side as he didn’t have perfect balance, and crashed down through the air, avoiding two other jets to land with a bone-jarring thud upon a new facet.
The whole sphere rolled to re-orient around him.
Wild-eyed, he shoved himself to his feet, saw that he was closer to the black facet than before. But now the dozen main jets that crisscrossed the sphere branched, each splitting halfway into three roving rivulets that poured across the far facets, splashing through each other, spraying the air with acid.
“You’ve got to be—” began Scorio, then broke into a run. He brought his heightened form forth, wanting the protection his scales afforded him, and shielding his head raced up the side of the sphere, which turned with him so that he seemed a rat in a wheel, racing but never going anywhere.
A stream of acid washed over him, and with a cry, he summoned his shroud again. The stream deflected right off, but he could feel his mana dropping precipitously. Another sprayed toward him, curling in as if on a leash, and with a grunt, he dove under it, but not quickly enough; he felt the acid wash over his shoulder, felt his scales begin to soften, their interstices to burn.
Up to his feet, gasping for breath, to sprint on, only to stumble and then back away as a jet rushed right at him. He spun aside and then summoned his shroud again as a third washed over him. The shroud deflected it once more, but just as he ran past the jet his Heart guttered out and died.
Four more facets to go. Trusting to his native athleticism, recalling his endless runs through the ruins, his morning sessions on the Academy track, Scorio dug deep into his reserves and bolted for the black segment. Two streams of acid crossed before him, coming at him like an “X,” and he dove over the apex of their intersection, hit the ground in a rough roll, and came up on his feet, only to careen into yet another gout.
The acid washed over his right arm, submerging it completely for a brief second, but it was enough; the scales lost definition, seemed to wilt, and pain stabbed into him in a latticework of flame.
His mind recoiled at the thought of what the acid would have done to his naked arm.
But there was no time for anything but one final leap. Scorio dove headlong into the black facet, punched through the portal, and emerged in a mad dive into the seventeenth chamber.
Mania had him by the throat; the pain was building back up in his arm, his hand, and he knew what it presaged: a slow, terrible decline in vitality, a loss of power, an inexorable fall into the abyss.
This time, though, he wanted none of that. He wanted to hold onto his newfound might for as long as he could, to fight with daring and fire, to wield his techniques and abilities with reckless abandon until he flared out in an explosion of blood and violence.