Arcanist In Another World-Chapter 18: Deep Inside

Valens scrambled away as he let go of the Fireball, pulled his palms up and used Light Feet to throw himself back. He banged the side of his head to the wall, tasted metal in his mouth, sucked at his gums and swallowed the slimy spit in his throat. That proved to be one of the best bargains in his lifetime when the black streak flashed past him and stabbed into the back wall. It drilled half-way in and ground the solid stone into fine dust.

His stomach felt strange when he thought about an alternative scenario in which he was the one who got drilled through the middle. His skin was painfully softer than a stone wall, after all.

“What did you do?” Nomad rasped as he stretched a hand out toward him, Valens taking it and pulling himself wincing up his feet. “It wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“So you’ve got a way with these creatures, then?” Valens said. “Tell me more. As you can see, we’ve hardly had a promising start.”

“Incoming!” The woman’s voice had a harder tinge to it now that she stood all alone against the Ward. It’d come out of the hole and warped itself yet again to that humanoid form, two eyeless sockets gazing at the woman’s spear.

It moved. A limb flashed out from its chest and smacked into the woman’s spear, sending her reeling, shattering every bit of confidence she’d carried on her face. Her stance broke and the spear nearly flew out of her grip. She steeled herself with a grunt, pulled the weapon up and stepped hesitantly back, giving Nomad a biting glance.

“This woman’s gonna be the end of me,” Nomad grumbled. He patted Valens on the shoulder and raised his sword, green fog rolling off his shoulders. “Things happen, Val, and you’re not even level 50. No shame in that.”

“What about the woman?” Valens muttered, heart thumping in his chest. “I can’t see her level—“

“She’s 88. I got ten levels over her, but she’ll be alright. Promise,” Nomad said, and clicked his jaw. “I’m going in. Stay back.”

Nomad leapt over to the pair and slid slowly closer to the Ward, giving the woman a chance to breathe. He shrugged the green fog off his shoulders and let it splash across the ground in an ethereal carpet, armored feet barely making a sound as he moved in.

The Ward’s response to the new challenger was to send another limb forth. It lashed over with unimaginable speed, aiming for Nomad’s sword. In response, a sickly, slimy green tongue shot from the ground, and caught it in mid-air, dragging it closer to Nomad. He crushed the shadowy limb under his armored feet, and cleaved it away with his sword for good measure.

He let out a throaty, rasping roar, his long steel gleaming dangerously sharp. He dodged another limb on his way, moved round it and stabbed the sword into the Ward’s mass. The tip sent a shower of sparks about it. He ducked under a sweeping, screaming streak that aimed for his head, wrenched the sword free and brought it up in a nasty thrust for Ward's chin.

Back and forth they went at it. Two limbs of different natures clashed. Nomad blocked where he could, stabbed when he found a chance, crushed whatever shadowy tricks the Ward had tried.

It almost seemed he was a bad match for the Ward, unlike how he put it. That was odd, was what Valens was thinking. Unreliable and rather strange he might be, but the undead hadn’t seemed like a man who’d lie in the matters of brutal exchanges.

The woman had finally decided to keep him company, going for a thrust of her own, the spear widening the holes torn by Nomad’s sword over the Ward's body. Not much of an effect, Valens had to say. She sweated like a dog. She huffed and wheezed more than usual. She hardly seemed able to keep up with the speed of the fighting.

Going against your Healer’s word was never wise. That was one thing. But then, circumstances often changed. Valens could see the poison working its way through the woman’s blood flow, making her falter or drop in times she least expected, making her clumsy, turning her mind all foggy and slow.

He couldn’t use a Lifesurge over this far, not that a Lifesurge could immediately force the poison out, and Nomad was giving more and more openings the longer the fight dragged on. Valens felt a twinge of guilt whenever the Ward aimed at his naked legs. A full plate would’ve at least given him a peace of mind instead of forcing him to cover for his plateless openings.

What do I do?

Valens flexed his aching hands and glanced over to the fight. He could send another Fireball and hope that it wouldn’t catch the woman or Nomad on its way. Or a Gale to twist things up a little just to give his side a moment of relief. There was also the possibility of casting an Inferno to set everything ablaze.

Certainly a reliable option, one that I should keep as a last resort.

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He could guide some mana threads to bind the creature, or cast a Gravitating Earth to trap him into the ground, but it had a slippery, changing form that Valens couldn’t be sure if that’d work. His spells didn’t seem to do much, either way. The Fireball from earlier had just burned there within the creature as a candle might burn over on a table. Some lights and warmth, was what it had all managed to accomplish.

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Through the Resonance, he tried to catch the minute mutterings of the rotten mana. That was what kept the creature animated. If he could somehow impress upon that mana his own control then theoretically he could do whatever he wanted with the damned thing.

Trouble was, he had no idea what to make of it. It was close to death mana, but felt completely different as well.

It pulses each second like a heart, thumping loud when the Ward sends a limb forth. There’s a slight disconnection when it does that. A gap in the Resonance. Perhaps I can use that?

The ambient mana stirred. Valens felt it close in his chest. He trailed the Resonance and saw the woman’s skin had gone slick with sweat. Her bones cried in a muffled, pained set of frequencies. Her left elbow clicked out of its place, sending a jolt that trailed down through her ribcage. Something was not right with her blood flow. It was almost boiling.

“Stop whatever it is that you’re doing!” Valens yelled at her. “You’re going to kill yourself!”

Smoke wafted off her fingers, her cheeks, and her arms. She clenched the spear tight and strutted out to face the Ward, face twisted up in cold fury. When a shadowy limb made for her, she tried to swat it away with the spear. The wooden shaft cracked, and sent the woman stumbling back.

Except she leaned forward, somehow pushing up against the shadowy streak. Nomad was about to tear it off, but paused when the woman glared at him. Her eyes were dark. Some color had smeared her pupils in a reddish, crimson bleak. She huffed out a rasping breath and threw the spear bits away. She lunged in and drove a fist into the Ward’s face.

“Mad! Mad! Mad!” Nomad let out a whistle as he blocked two shadowy limbs with his green fog. His emerald eyes snapped to Valens for a second. “Told you she’s mad! We’ve got a Berserker in our hands!”

“What’s that mean?” Valens asked, but perked up when he caught a shift in the Ward’s Resonance. The moment the woman’s fist found purchase in one of the gaping holes round its body, a sudden gap had opened in the rhythm of that rotten mana. A longer, scattered gap, which meant opportunity.

Hesitation is the enemy here. Trust your instincts. It will work.

Valens sprang forward, Lifesurge threads tingling the tip of his fingers. He moved round the green blanket of fog, coming at the Ward from a side that he hoped it wouldn’t catch. Nomad eyed him with doubt. Valens gestured at him to do something that’d aid the woman. She was screaming her life out under a barrage of tendrils.

Nomad grumbled and swung at the Ward, the sword clanking harmlessly off its steely skin. When that didn’t work, he rammed a plated shoulder into its torso and hauled the sword in an overhead grip to take a sweep at it.

That gave Valens the time to cut down the distance. He was close now, a few steps away from the Ward’s side. If he could touch it, if he could send the Lifesurge threads into the creature’s body—

Thousands of dark streaks filled the cave. They caught the woman and riddled her with holes, spattering her face in a shower of her own blood and pain of her muffled cry. Nomad’s helmet got a thick, wriggling tendril going through it. It nearly split his skull. Two others had him from below the armpits, lifting him high as if he weighed nothing more than an empty sack.

More were coming at Valens. Dozens of them lunging across the distance with sharpened tips. He threw himself sideways with a Light Feet, kicked the wall and scrambled back… back from the chaos. Pain bloomed in the Resonance. A familiar agony sparked alive just below his ribcage.

He gazed down at his chest and saw the dark tendril wiggling its way through his flesh.

Blood was streaming from the sides of the wound, soiling his robe.

He choked out a scream.

The pain filled his head with blinding lights.

He blinked to try and force his will over the panicked Resonance. Tried to pick a set and focus on his mind to mute down the pain. He could feel bits of the dark limb slithering inside his chest, tiny snakes worming their way through his bloodstream toward his heart. The core. The source of his song.

Fingers blazed. A Gale picked up and lashed at the tendril. Inferno’s song roared, but the flames fizzled out the moment they came into existence. Valens coughed out blood and wheezed back trembling. It was cold, and got colder still, until he finally wrapped his hands around the limb and tried to wrench it away.

There wasn’t much strength left in his fingers. Not much of anything, for that matter. His blood ran cold, and warm, and cold again. Blood pooled inside his mouth. His whole body shook.

Even then, Apathy was stitching the holes of emotions opened round its hardened shell. A Resonant Healer’s mind was strong. Stronger than pain, Master Eldras had once told him.

Valens forced himself to blink through it all and called out a pair of Lifesurges. This close, with skin contact to the creature, he could feel that rotten, foul mana like a breath hissing at the nape of his neck. It was there, within reach. Pain was just a price he had to pay.

Lifesurge threads oozed into the tendril around where it stabbed him. Someone shouted. A sword’s steely song got cut off sharply. Valens couldn’t catch any of it. His whole mind was focused solely on the mana that animated this twisted creature.

More sounds over a squashed, muffled rhythm. Guiding the surge threads around the Ward’s assembly of rotten flesh was like picking his way through the bowels of the earth. He was blind. He’d never been blind in his whole life. Every turn and twist had a lingering, rotten trickle that fought back against his life mana.

His chest heaved. Breath caught in his throat. The Lifesurge threads, the ever benign and helpful life mana strings, started assaulting the rotten mana spheres. Valens didn’t have to do anything. He just felt through the Resonance alone the brutal invasion seize the Ward’s shadowy limb inch by inch.

Then there was light.

His vision came back to him as the life mana conquered valuable space.

It filled his head with a dreamy, wavering illusion of a maze, one that housed terrible spheres of rot and thousands of paths that went nowhere.

Valens saw it all and sent more mana to his Lifesurge threads, bolstering their growing bloodlust.

…….