Blessed Time: The Complete Series: (A LitRPG Adventure Box Set), page 123
Worse, Karell seemed to be responding to the screams. The daemon was no longer on the ground. Instead, each and every one of its steps landed on discs of crystal, solidified from the air itself and hanging motionlessly for the fraction of a second that the monster needed to scurry through the night sky after him.
They fell to the ground, in the monster’s wake, a steady rain of glass as Micah redoubled his speed in an attempt to flee the monster.
A bolt of acid flew past Micah, forcing him to dodge downward. More blood leaked from cuts on his face and arms as Regeneration and his Arcana skill began to lose their ongoing battle with the wailing heads.
He glanced quickly over his shoulder. Micah was almost back to the paved highway between Red Sands and the capital. Hopefully, his companions had fled as soon as the daemon was summoned. If he barely had the resilience to fight the creature, there was no way that Drekt, let alone Leeka would be able to survive within a thousand paces of the beast for more than a second.
With a sigh, Micah slid his spear into the leather holster he’d attached to the back of his armor. Usually, the weapon never left his hands, but it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to come close enough to the daemon to use a melee weapon. Hells, even the mana of his Flight spell would probably be shattered by the screeches and howls of the monster’s eyes.
“I had hoped to avoid using this so early,” Micah whispered to himself, reaching into the leather satchel he kept at his side and pulling out an ornate scepter.
The second both of his hands were on the artifact’s hilt, power thrummed through his body. On their own, both the crown and the scepter were strong, stronger than any other enchanted item Micah had laid hand on, but together they amplified each other.
Suddenly, the colors of magic around him snapped into focus and the night was as bright and vibrant as a bazaar at noon. Green wind mana swirled through the air. Gold earth mana set the desert ablaze, dotted with the brown wood mana of cacti and the brownish blue blurs of oases.
Only where the daemon had passed was there nothing. Slag and ruin stretched in its wake, the power of Elsewhere destroying both reality and mana. Even the air itself felt thin around the monster as it sprinted toward Micah some dozen paces above the desert. As if the monster’s very presence on Karell weakened the barrier between Micah’s world and the deadly chaos of Elsewhere.
It lunged forward, extending one of its claws toward Micah. He pushed his will into the scepter, using his mind to scoop a huge divot of sand from the desert and fling it in the way of the oncoming attack.
As the dry soil flew through the air, Micah reshaped it, pushing the sand into an angled plane just in front of the daemon’s yawning mouth an eyeblink ahead of the burst of acid. The tight stream of liquid exploded into a cloud of droplets, most of which blew back into the daemon’s armor and face where they began hissing angrily.
Both of the heads stopped screaming for a second, their eyes going wide with pain and shock, and the circles of crystal stopped appearing under the monster’s legs. It stumbled in the air falling toward the desert below where it landed in a huge dune of sand, legs kicking furiously.
Micah used the scepter’s telekinesis to catch three of the crystals, accelerating them until they were moving so fast that even his eyes couldn’t track them, and crashing the projectiles into the monster’s underbelly.
The first blow cracked its shell. The second broke it entirely, and the third lodged itself deep in the monster’s abdomen.
The sand dune surrounding the daemon exploded, the sand flying up into the air and freezing as the twin heads began to wail once again. In front of Micah’s eyes, the dirt transformed into rot and slime before pattering back down to earth and coating the crab’s acid-pocked shell.
Below Micah, the crab glared up at him angrily from its two weeping eye-heads. It clacked both of its claws soundlessly, clearly angry at having taken damage, but not yet ready to initiate a new attack.
Micah shifted his grip on the scepter. Everything around the monster was dim, but he had already grabbed a handful of boulders that were half buried in the sand a league or so away. They were rushing toward the two of them with enough speed that they would beat the sound of their passing as they pummeled the daemon. It was only a matter of seconds before they accelerated to-
He froze. Out of the corner of Micah’s eye, he saw a glint of steel. A half dozen ranks of soldiers, all atop riding lizards and led by Gwen, were galloping across the sands toward his battlefield. Either someone had alerted her to their fight, or the elite blessed of the capital had sensed the summoning ritual and ensuing struggle, but her presence put him in a bind.
The rocks slammed into the daemon, battering and upending it. Micah could tell that its left pincer was damaged, probably out of commission completely, but that didn’t matter. If the Princess joined the fight in an effort to help him, it would all be for nothing. Even if the crab didn’t attack her directly, its sonic attacks would erase her and any warrior without the protection of Arcana from reality.
“Fuck,” Micah whispered to himself, zipping past the monster in an attempt to draw it away from his relief, all the while whispering the words to Deja Vu.
He’d expended a fair amount of mana, and Micah wasn’t excited by the prospect of fighting the daemon at full health with half of his resources depleted, but at least this time he knew what to do. Spells were almost worthless. Only the scepter itself stood a chance, and the artifact barely used any mana. It was perfect for the tight spot he found himself in.
The last word to the spell left his mouth, and Micah felt himself being yanked backward. Five minutes wouldn’t take him back to the manor, but even if he engaged the daemon earlier in its pursuit, he could lead it away from the road. That should-
His eyes widened as a squirming shape was ripped out of the daemon in front of him. Formless and wriggling, like a worm made of mist, Micah could feel the daemon as it was pulled back with him. Its spirit rocketed toward him, as if they were both magnets.
They slammed together, unable to avoid a collision, and Deja Vu shattered as the daemon passed through Micah’s skin, merging seamlessly into his body. His eyes rolled back up into his head. Flight sputtered and failed as he lost consciousness, plummeting to the empty sand of the desert as the world went black around him.
ELEVEN
FUGUE
Micah opened his eyes. His bed creaked slightly under his back as he shifted slightly, bringing back a brief twinge of nostalgia that he couldn’t quite place. Light streamed in through an open window as the smell of sizzling bacon wafted into his room from where his mother was cooking breakfast in the kitchen.
His stomach growled, churning angrily as it demanded food. Micah sat up in his bed, forehead scrunching as he looked around his bedroom. For some reason, everything seemed… big.
“Miiiiicaaaaaah!” Esther screamed, slamming open the door and running to the edge of his bed. “Momma said to wake you up. Breakfast is ready and she didn’t want you to be late for your apprenticeship with Keeper Ansom again.”
He blinked at her. Micah had least seen Esther maybe four hours ago. He knew that the person in front of him was his younger sister, but at the same time, he wasn’t sure exactly how she had turned into a child since he had last talked to her.
Micah threw off his blankets, exposing his knobby knees and bony ankles. His eyes widened as he looked his body up and down before holding a hand up to the light. It was pink and soft, fingers tender and uncalloused, as if years of hard training with his spear simply hadn’t happened.
A finger poked into his side. Esther was barely a half pace from him, stubby finger extended and her face fixed into a frown.
“Are you just gonna go back to sleep, Micah?” she asked, a hint of a childish lisp slurring the ends of her words. “Momma is gonna get mad at you if you just go back to sleep. She said that you’re gonna be in trouble if you miss another lesson with Keeper Ansom.”
The smell of bacon triggered another growl from Micah’s stomach. He slipped his feet off of the bed and stood up, wobbling for a second as he adjusted to his shorter stature and ungainly teenage limbs. Maybe Micah would have spent more time in his bedroom trying to figure out what was going on, but he was ravenous. It was like he hadn’t eaten in a week.
Esther ran ahead of him, losing her balance and bouncing off of a wall en route to the kitchen. By the time Micah walked in, she was already sitting in a chair at the table, her bare feet dangling as she kicked them back and forth.
He frowned. The room was much bigger than he remembered, the table stretching almost twenty paces. For some reason, child versions of Trevor, Drekt, Leeka and Eris sat there as well, staring at Micah as he walked in. Even more bizarre, both Telivern and Ravi stood in the corner of the room, near Jo and Sarah, his former teammates that hadn’t followed him to Sandrovok.
For a second, Micah had entertained the idea that he had traveled back in time again. He remembered trying to activate one of his time spells during a fight with… something. Maybe the spell had gone wrong, sending him further back than even his blessing.
But this wasn’t right. Leeka and Eris had never been to Pereston, and Sarah had never been in his home. This wasn’t a memory. It wasn’t him reliving something that had already happened. It was something new. Something different.
“Are you ready for breakfast, Micah?” his mother asked, her back to him as she labored over the stove. “I bet you’re really hungry, so I made sure to cook plenty for you to eat.”
His stomach growled again as she turned, a smile on her face that seemed to stretch from ear to ear. For a moment, he frowned at her too white and too sharp teeth, but then he saw the food. A giant plate of it heaping with sausage links, toast and eggs.
The plate clattered on the table, and almost before his mother could remove her hand, Micah stabbed his fork into a piece of sausage, popping the red hot tube of meat into his mouth. He chewed once, breaking through its skin and releasing a spray of borderline boiling juices before immediately swallowing.
It was delicious. The food sent a warm thrill through Micah’s body, like a shot of endorphins from a morning run.
His throat burned, but that didn’t stop Micah from cutting a square of egg, his fork scraping against his plate as he moved it onto a slice of toast. The fire beneath the stove crackled, sending a spray of sparks out into the kitchen along with a wave of smoke.
He paused, toast brushing his lips as the smell from the eggs filled his mouth with saliva. The table was silent. All of his friends were staring at him wordlessly, simply watching Micah eat without any move or sound of their own.
“Go on, Micah.” His mother’s voice broke the silence. “Eat. I know you’re hungry. It’s been so long since you’ve had a chance to really gorge yourself.”
She smiled again, lips stretching until they practically touched her ears. Her yellow eyes glowed like lanterns through the smoke that was spewing out of the fire.
His mother licked her lips. She was holding another pan full of food, her bare hands sizzling and smoking as she held the cast iron handle without any sort of protection or covering.
Micah set his fork down. Emptiness and pain blossomed in his stomach. It was like needles were ravaging his flesh, but Micah did his best to ignore the sensation, instead pushing the plate full of temptation away from him.
He tried to pull up his status, only for nothing to happen. For the first time, a thrill of fear ran down Micah’s spine.
“A shame,” his mother said, clicking her tongue. “I had hoped that you wouldn’t notice that I was in here. It would have made things so much easier.”
She set down the pan, taking a seat directly across from Micah. Frantically, he began mumbling the words to Wind Blade, only to find that they were foreign and alien. He was pronouncing them right, but they weren’t interacting with his mana to create a spellform. They were just words.
“That won’t work,” she continued, taking a seat across from him. “None of the gods' little tricks will work here. We aren’t in their precious world. We’re someplace else. A place that runs on different rules.”
“Elsewhere?” Micah croaked, his eyes locked on the sharp teeth, each the size of his index finger as her grin expanded, growing until it covered most of her face.
“Elsewhere doesn’t have rules,” his mother replied. “Elsewhere is the spot where fools try to carve havens of stability and normalcy like this one. It's where you go to make rules, not follow them. No, this is someplace new. Someplace special.”
Micah glanced around his table. The rest of his friends and family were there, but there was something off about them. All of their expressions were blank. It was like they were dolls or wax carvings, physically present but vacant.
His stomach cramped, the sudden spike of pain doubling him over. Micah’s face hit the table, barely a hand’s span from the plate of food.
The aroma wafted over him, causing Micah’s mouth to water. Almost of its own accord, his right arm reached toward his breakfast. He didn’t even notice as the oily sausage burned his fingertips. Once again, the meat was touching his lips when Micah paused.
He dropped the food, wincing at the pain in his hand as he levered himself up into a sitting position with his left arm. His mother shook her head at him before her face went slack, adopting the same vacant expression as all his friends.
“Come on, Micah.” Trevor’s voice startled him. “Aren’t you hungry? We’ve spent so long fighting monsters and preparing for some apocalyptic final conflict. You haven’t really stopped to eat. You deserve a break.”
He turned his attention to his brother. Trevor was only sixteen or seventeen, but Micah had seen him at that age in Pereston so many times that he would recognize him in a second. What he didn’t recognize was the sharp smile creeping across his face.
“You’re not Trevor,” he whispered, wiping the last remnants of the boiling grease from the sausage on his pajamas as he glared at the thing that wore his brother’s shape. “Who are you?”
Trevor’s eyes went vacant just as Esther spoke up from the other side of the table.
“If you think hard enough, you know the answer to that, Micah. It doesn’t matter, though. You’re hungry. There is food in front of you. You don’t need to worry about these memories and fragments. Just eat.”
“Not until I have an answer,” he replied, shaking his head to try and focus himself. Esther, Trevor and his mother had all been right. He was hungry. It was like his stomach was devouring itself.
“This doesn’t need to hurt,” Drekt said. A quick glance confirmed that Esther had reverted to her former doll-like state. “I mean, I don’t really care if it does hurt, but it will be quicker and easier for both of us if you stop resisting. It’s inevitable in the end. You don’t have any way to touch me in this space, and the hunger will only build until you’re nothing more than a ravening beast.”
“That might be interesting actually,” the being continued, still in Drekt’s body, “to see what depths you would sink to in your hunger. After you consume your emotions and rationality, I would love to see the look on your face when you turn on your friends. Devouring your feelings and memories for them until you are nothing more than a mass of uncontrolled hunger.”
Micah bit his lower lip, fingers digging into the familiar wood of the table as another cramp rocked his body.
His eyes returned to the plate of food in front of him. Every instinct inside of him screamed a warning. That whatever it was, it would cripple him. If that wasn’t enough, the entity taunting him had doubled his resolve. Micah wasn’t sure what the food would do, but if the creature wearing the skins of his family wanted him to eat it, there was no way he would willingly.
Still. He swallowed. Hunger was gnawing at him, leaving him hollow as it robbed him of his rationality.
The food looked so good. He could stay firm after just a taste. One more-
“Stop.”
Micah froze, a piece of toast crunching under his teeth. He hadn’t even remembered reaching for it. Frantically, he spit the bread out, pushing it away from him.
“I can help.”
This time, he hadn’t imagined it. There was a woman somewhere around here. He couldn’t see her, and her voice was distant, like she was whispering in another room, but despite all of that, Micah could make out each and every word.
A wet muzzle pushed itself against Micah’s cheek. Almost immediately a rush of thoughts and images overwhelmed him.
Hunger. Devour. Pain. Forget. Hunger. HUNGER. FORGET.
He reached up, pushing Telivern away. The stag opened its mouth, revealing the sharp teeth of a predator as it stepped away from him.
“Micah, you’re inside your own soul. The daemon is trying to trick you into consuming yourself, but you’re the one in control here. Let me help you.”
Memories flashed quickly. The battle with the daemon. His attempt to revert time. The two of them merging together and shattering the spell.
“Who are you?” he asked. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“What a silly question,” his mother replied. “I thought I told you. You already know who I am if you think hard enough. It just won’t change anything. Eventually, the hunger will consume you and you will eat.”
Micah felt a ghostly hand on top of his own. He looked up, taking in the translucent and barely visible form of a thin woman, her hair pulled back and tied into a tight braid.
“After all of these years, I have more power than I could ever imagine,” she said quietly. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t imagine that the passing time would make me so stupid.”
