Depthless Hunger: A Progression LitRPG, page 60
Zae Zin Nim carefully picked up the potion and took a sip.
The liquid was more potent than she expected, flowing into her throat with a chill that exactly matched her corona of mana. It certainly couldn't refill her qi, as the herbalist had said. But it was surprisingly aligned with her own body, presumably from the sample of blood that she had given. If she let the potion fill her body to the limit, then focused her qi solely on her breakthrough, would that be enough?
It was her only hope. She drank the entire potion and then let the bottle shatter.
Immediately the qi in her dantian began sloshing wildly, disturbed by the new energy. Zae Zin Nim quickly swallowed her final pill of condensed qi, aiming to fill her dantian to the absolute maximum. Yet the mana was rushing so hotly, it was still throwing her off. The corona was rotating wildly, threatening to destabilize everything and let her qi bleed out.
The obvious solution would have been to eject her Coldfire Corona and abandon that aspect of herself completely, to use it as nothing but fuel for her advancement. She rejected that almost before she knew that she had done so. No, she needed to preserve everything.
At last she stabilized the corona so that it formed a ring around her dantian. In its pale light, her dantian seemed full as well, but the corona was spluttering. She realized that she was bleeding all over her body, enormous amounts of bile pouring from her scars as she skated next to a horrible deviation.
Before her mana could gutter out, Zae Zin Nim swallowed her remaining pills of medicine, then ate the mana plums for good measure. That restored the corona, which she was pleased to note automatically soothed the remaining disturbances in her core. Both her dantian and her body felt cool and calm despite the wild energies she had just barely contained.
Yet, when she finally focused on her dantian to push it over the edge, she realized that she had lost precious drops. She was on the verge of breaking through, so she couldn't abandon her effort - her qi was already swelling beyond her ability to contain. If she stopped now, she would deviate and ruin her cultivation foundation forever.
How long would it take to restore those drops and push herself over the edge to Nascent Foundation, drawing from the feeble qi around her? It might have been an hour, maybe a half of one, but it was definitely too long with the monster horde rampaging through the city.
"I'm sorry, Kai. There just isn't enough time."
She whispered the words into the empty room, then focused on the inferno within her.
.
..
.
At first Kai felt better, charging down the street of monsters. His body had been recovering from his earlier battles and most of the stronger monsters had been cleared, so his stamina was restored. His human and monster sides coexisted uneasily, but he was managing to combine his tactical calm from his duel with Inafay with the ferocious power within him.
Not far ahead, he saw several hunters desperately fighting a defensive action. He lunged on them in an instant, a spiritual claw tearing into the pack of monsters from behind. They rallied and cut down the rest, so he started to move past them. None of them even looked familiar... wait, one was the scarred warrior he had met during the Hunter Trials. Having 67 Power had seemed so impossibly high back then.
That was laughable now that he'd glimpsed the scale of the world. All the way up to the unstoppable warriors he'd seen at the Frontier, but Kai couldn't afford to think about them now. Not when he was running toward a monster that appeared all but invincible.
The armored beast continued to stomp forward at a slow rate. It might take it an hour to travel all the way to the highest point of the city, but considering that no one seemed to have harmed its body, it might be able to do just that. So long as it was alive, the defense of Monskon City was hopeless.
If he'd been in a child's story about monster hunters, the beast would have a single weakness, like a differently colored piece of armor that made the entire monster die when touched. Most likely, it was just massive and stupidly tough.
As he got close enough that he stood in the monster's shadow, Kai realized that it didn't even seem to be paying attention to him. It simply dragged one foot forward after another, crushing buildings or other monsters indifferently. So long as it wasn't aware of him, he had a chance for an ambush. Then again, it was getting closer to the inner wall... Kai decided to use leverage instead of aiming for a surprise attack that would likely glance off.
Just as the monster started to put its weight down on its left foot, Kai swung a claw as hard as he could. The claws skated off the leg's armor, but the force was enough to push it forward. Instead of another shuffling step, the monster lost its balance and crashed to the side, demolishing one half of the street.
Soon after, a house-sized arm swung down toward him. If the monster had been any faster, Kai would have been crushed, but it attacked about as slowly as it walked. Even so, he had to throw himself away from the point of impact and he could feel the jarring crunch through his teeth. The monster was slow, but not stupid. It had guessed his location instantly from that attack.
While it was lying on its side, Kai ran closer as quietly as he could. The plates of armor by the neck were smaller, since they needed to bend more. After the first strike, he doubted that his claw could hack through, but he might be able to penetrate.
Kai focused on extending the spiritual claw from his hand, then drove it in between the plates. He felt something give way and his claws bit into flesh. Three lines of blood poured from between the plates, so he only needed to stab another claw in and he could tear it open, just like the previous monster...
When the entire head began to move, Kai couldn't let go fast enough. One side of the monster's head slammed into his body and Kai hurtled through the air helplessly. He smashed through both sides of a wooden house before tumbling across the ground and coming to rest against a stone wall.
It wasn't possible. Maybe if he had Zae Zin Nim, Rallia, or anyone else to form a better strategy. But with almost no resources left, the gap was too large. Only the Frontier elites could have beaten this monster.
Unwilling to give up, Kai drank one of his healing potions, but he still couldn't see a path forward. The giant was getting up, apparently ready to ignore him and move on toward the largest group of humans. He could barely even see the blood stains on its throat armor.
As his fingers brushed over the larger flask in his belt, Kai realized that he hadn't properly examined Juray's potion. It looked like it was designed to assist his Physique, like the previous enhancement potion but more powerful.
His flicker of hope died almost immediately. He'd been pushing up against the barrier to E-rank for a long time and taken in more than enough power. The problem wasn't energy, it had always been in his head. Drinking the potion now would just waste her work.
Both his monster and human sides were trying to use his body in different ways, struggling to make it develop in opposite directions. He understood that now, when it was too late to do anything about it. Kai started to turn away, to consider another strategy, only for the world to grow dim. Surely he couldn't be so weakened from one blow...
Suddenly he felt himself falling into his own mind, losing himself in the vision. He desperately scrabbled to remain focused on the real world, but the dark island was already rushing toward him.
Chapter 108: The Last Dregs of the City
Had he smashed her with a box?
That was Inafay's first thought as she struggled back to consciousness. All her battle instincts were still blaring and she very nearly took a swipe at the healer who was tending her. It took several seconds for her body to catch up with the fact that Kai had defeated her.
And that he'd been right. When the boxes had started exploding, she'd realized that they were filled with coins and other valuables. Most likely they had been lying to her in order to make her go along, which made her feel a chaotic mix of anger and guilt. There was no time for any of that.
"What's going on with the battle?" she demanded. The woman shrank back and stammered a reply.
"I-I'm sorry, milady, but the barbarian forced us to stay in the city. It looks bad... I know you wanted to escape, but we had no-"
"That's fine, that's fine!" Inafay burst out of the bed and looked around for her gauntlets. Lying just beside her, good. She tugged them on and unlocked the door.
"Please, you took a serious blow! You need to rest."
Inafay checked her head for blood, saw that it had been cleaned off, then shrugged. "I'm healthy enough to fight. Let's go, before everything turns bad."
None of the others stopped her as she pushed her way up to the deck. As soon as she got a look at the city, she realized just how badly things had gone. The largest threat was clearly an absolutely gigantic monster stomping through the lower city. Her wind abilities were always weak against armored opponents, so she had absolutely no chance of doing more than annoying such a beast.
She was more likely to be able to help the main group of defenders, who were fighting just above the wall to the inner city. As she watched, she saw several of her peers defending the entrance. There were even vines flowing over the gate to reinforce it and monsters flying away from hammer blows. So that was what Kai had done with those two.
Since they seemed to be holding, she looked for anywhere else in the city that could use her help. Immediately she saw Kai fighting his way down the central street, alone. But it was nothing like their fight not so long ago. When he swung his hands, she could see the impact of invisible energy like three giant claws tearing through monsters and anything else in his path. If anything did get close, he tore it apart with strength he hadn't shown during their duel.
At first she was furious. Had he been treating her lightly by not using his full power? But as she watched Kai fight his way toward the largest monster, she realized that she had it all wrong.
He had given her a fair fight, human against human. Whatever he had done to change himself, he was unleashing his monstrous powers on opponents who deserved to die.
Inafay couldn't help but grin. Oh, she wanted to try to fight him like this, but she could respect that he hadn't. One more thing they would need to talk about after the battle was won. Surely Hannagan Lantrian couldn't be so stubborn after Kai had helped save all Monskon City. All she needed to do was make sure that the battle was won and everyone could begin rebuilding.
Something flashed underneath the ship and she turned in time to see a monstrous eagle pass over the defenders on the inner wall. One of its four wings had been partially torn off, yet it was still faster than most monsters she'd seen. The hunters didn't seem to have a good counter, because they all flinched or retreated.
That gave the monsters below time to near the gate. Inafay could see that the gates themselves had been torn off their hinges, which mean that only the single Earthenshield she could feel forming a stone barrier was holding the entrance. Once he ran out of mana, the monsters would tear into the last part of the city and begin slaughtering.
She knew exactly where she needed to go, then.
So far the monstrous eagle had been completely ignoring the airship, but Inafay intended to change that. When it circled around for another pass at the defenders, she sent out a wind burst. Just when she thought it might strike one of the wings, the entire creature rippled and her mana passed through harmlessly.
When the eagle finally turned toward them, Inafay felt the world twist around her. If her clan hadn't forced her through the early Frontier training, she might have collapsed right then. Even though the effect was more intense, she forced her way through it and prepared a more powerful burst.
Before the eagle could dive toward the ship, she thrust out both fists to emit two larger spheres of wind. The eagle twisted sideways to fly through them, but that was when her trap hit. Both spheres began circling around one another, hot and cold air forming a whirlwind that quickly picked up her mana. Soon there was a green tornado burning over the city with the monster caught in its most intense gales.
It wasn't enough. Inafay poured in all the mana she could, but her most intense winds had always been reserved for close proximity. She could maintain the tornado for some time, she just knew it couldn't kill the tainted monster.
Within the slashing mana, it continued to distort itself until it barely resembled a bird of any kind. It couldn't dodge the whirling threads of mana, but it bent along with them. An ordinary monster would have been torn apart, but it was not only surviving, it was regaining strength. When it reformed one wing and attempted to flap out of the tornado, it nearly escaped.
Inafay choked and dropped down to one knee as she struggled to shift the tornado. She had enough mana left for one good blast, but the tornado was her strongest technique from a distance. If that couldn't work...
"Hey!" She shouted toward one of the officials watching the battle in horror. "Don't just stand there, fly toward that thing!"
"W-what?"
"Move the airship closer! Quickly, before I wear down!"
The official she'd yelled at was too stunned, but another one rushed down to the control room. Soon Inafay felt the ship lurch closer to the monster pinned in midair. That possibility gave her the strength to stand again. She didn't need to tear it apart from here, just keep the winds moving fast enough that it couldn't escape.
Even as they got closer, pulling up almost alongside the monster, Inafay could tell that it wasn't enough. She could have poured all her mana into the tornado and still not killed it.
Not that she'd ever been intending to do that.
Inafay sprinted for the side of the ship and leapt off the side, directly into her own tornado. She drew in a deep breath, pulling back in all the mana that still circled in the air. For a brief moment she was suspended in the air in front of the eagle. It was beginning to reform, injured but still strong enough to stretch a talon toward her...
Then she unleashed all the mana she had left into a sphere. The raw power kept her in the air for several seconds as the sphere raged around them with the fiercest winds she could muster. She saw the flying monster finally tear apart, its remnants scattered to the streets below.
After that, she fell herself. She had really been hoping that someone would jump to catch her or something.
With nothing left, Inafay bounced painfully off a rooftop and then hit the street. The impact stunned her and would definitely leave a mark, but that was meaningless compared to the real problem. She'd used up every last drop of her mana and it had left her in the middle of monster-infested territory. Considering how difficult it was for her to get back to her feet, she could only hope that the defenders had seen what she had done.
No such luck. As she limped down the street, Inafay saw monsters pass by. Several noticed her and turned back. Several dogs, a boar, and one of those evil deer... she might have been able to bludgeon the others to death with her gauntlets alone, but those deer were too fast.
It lowered its razor sharp antlers toward her and charged. Inafay took a deep breath and raised her fists for all the good it would do. Only three paces left... two...
A monstrous hand closed around the deer's antlers and jerked it back. Inafay turned blearily toward her savior, then her eyes widened in shock.
"No way..."
Chapter 109: The Balance of Human and Monster
The dark waters ejected Kai onto the island, no matter how he tried to resist. Either he had passed his mental limits or some part of him wanted this. All of the confused forces within him must have reached a critical point that required a resolution.
He stumbled through the glassy sand to the central circle. The ghostly statues of the monsters rose easier than before, responding to his presence. This time, he could feel his human strength more strongly inside himself. This place was just a representation created by his mind, not truth. There had to be some way to bring both halves of himself into balance.
Nothing leapt to mind, his two halves as distant as before. Or was the problem that they weren't halves? If he needed to perfectly balance both sides of himself, he would have a hard path to walk.
Perhaps the answer lay in the monstrous force in the center of the circle. Kai approached hesitantly, but nothing leapt out at him. In fact, whatever presence had been there before seemed to be quiet. He stared down into the sand, willing himself to see more. The sand began to pull away, but it only formed a pool of dark water that reflected his own face.
What was he supposed to do now?
It might be that he needed to embrace the monster within himself. It could be that he needed to strengthen his mental discipline and bring it under control. Or perhaps the balance he had imagined earlier. There were a thousand potential patterns he could invent.
All of them equally frustrating, because it didn't matter. He didn't care what he was, he just wanted the strength to make a difference. Monster or human were just irritating labels, but he needed to balance them according to some cosmic system that probably hated him just as much as every other system of power he'd encountered.
Unless...
His mental world began to contract as he pondered the idea that it really was all arbitrary. He was the same person no matter whether he was technically considered a human or a monster. It wasn't that he need to balance human and monster sides, or choose between the two, the truth was that both labels were wrong.
As Kai walked around the island, it all began to dissolve. No representations of the monster essences, no strength within himself, no dark pool at the center. All just mental illusions that could easily lead him astray.
