Ashborn Primordial 3: A Progression Fantasy Epic, page 61
“V-Vir!” Maiya yelped, flushing furiously. “What are you doing?”
“Well, since you can’t walk, I’ll just have to carry you, won’t I?” Vir said with a smirk.
“I didn’t say I can’t walk! I just said—!”
Vir bounded down the corridor, retracing his steps. Maiya squirmed in his arms for a moment before accepting her fate and wrapping her arms around his neck.
Just as she was getting used to the sensation, Vir Blinked, eliciting a startled yelp from her.
Her expression went from bewilderment to suspicion, and finally darkened, landing on grim acceptance.
“How can you move so quickly?” she asked. “Blink isn’t supposed to take you this far! This is cheating!”
Vir’s tension eased. Whatever happened to her had spooked her to her core. He was glad to see a bit of her usual demeanor resurface.
They soon reached the magma fields, and the heat hit them in the face.
“This… might actually be worse. Is there anywhere cooler?” she asked.
“Well…” Vir said, looking up.
Maiya followed his eyes and promptly gasped when she found the floating islands.
“Are those…”
“Yep. Don’t ask me how, but they are. And that feeling of wrongness you’re experiencing? It’s because that isn’t a sky up there. We’re underground. This whole… world… is underground.”
Maiya went silent as her eyes meandered around the stunning scene.
“Are sights like this common in the Ash?” she asked softly.
“‘Not quite like this,” Vir replied. “But I’ve seen some things you wouldn’t believe.”
“I’d like to hear about it. If you don’t mind. But, y’know, maybe after we get out of this oven?”
Maiya gave him a small smile. He knew she was forcing it, but was glad to see it, nonetheless.
Gods… I’ve missed her.
Vir’s heart clenched. What if this was all a deception? What if he was dreaming and none of this was real? These moments they were sharing together… Would they remember them after? What did it all mean?
Vir shook off the thought. “Just leave it to me,” he said.
“Look at you! Talking so big. Since when did you become so dependable? Is this the Ash’s doing?”
Vir stared into her eyes, smiling. “I’m not the same person I was when I entered this place, Maiya.”
Maiya, still cradled in his arms, blushed furiously, but she didn’t manage much more than that, because Vir High Jumped to the sky, sending them soaring three hundred paces into the air.
Maiya gulped and tightened her hold around his neck, leaning in closer against his chest, which made Vir feel very… nice.
Can’t get distracted, he thought, his eyes threatening to slip down to Maiya’s.
The task at hand required intense concentration or it’d be a very long drop. The few hundred paces he’d managed, while impressive, was still nowhere near the height of the floating island he’d initially fallen from. Those hung about a mile in the air.
Luckily, there were intermediate islands he could use to bootstrap his way up. Enough of them to allow him to reach each with a single Leap or High Jump.
There was just one issue.
It was why he hadn’t spotted them earlier, and why he couldn’t just rest atop one of these islands—most were tiny. So small, in fact, they were barely islands at all. More like floating pieces of rock in the sky, hardly wide enough to stand on.
Vir landed on the tiny sliver of rock he’d aimed for, then balanced on one foot, taking a few moments to locate his next target. How the miniscule island didn’t fall from his weight was beyond him, but so was a translucent Maiya. This whole place was one nonsensical thing after another.
Locating his next target, Vir Leaped, aiming precisely so he’d land exactly where he’d intended. The margin of error was small, but he’d had a lot of practice getting used to his abilities in the past year. He wasn’t about to miss.
Maiya stared up at him inquisitively but kept quiet, fully aware of just how much concentration he had to muster.
Vir made his way up, leapfrogging off of each rock, sometimes bound for a distant rock that he could only just barely discern with Prana Vision.
They climbed higher and higher, the volcanic basin falling away into the darkness. Eventually, they found themselves atop one of the massive floating islands, and Vir set Maiya down.
“We should be safe here for now. We should be able to—?”
He let her go, but she didn’t. Grasping his arms, Maiya brought her head to his chest and leaned against him.
“I’ve missed you,” she murmured.
With just three simple words, Vir’s mind went blank.
78
REUNITED (PART TWO)
“No way!” Vir seethed. “Princess Ira made you go through that awful ritual? When I saw you in the Ink of Clarity—”
“You saw that!” Maiya cringed, her toes curling reflexively. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and she covered her face with both hands. “That was the worst! Oh, gods! The whole time, I kept thinking how lucky I was that you hadn’t seen! It was that thought that let me weather the ordeal!”
Vir patted her back awkwardly.
While he was relieved she hadn’t lost her way and actually fallen in with those cultists, another part of him resented the princess for forcing her into such a demeaning ritual.
Princess or not, nobody should have had to endure anything like that. Least of all her personal operative.
Through it all, a small voice in his head whispered that everything—all of this—couldn’t possibly be fake. It was far too detailed. Too real.
It whispered that Maiya wasn’t real.
Vir wasn’t even sure if he wanted it to be fake anymore. Yes, something strange was happening to Maiya, and her presence here put her life in jeopardy. Had he a choice, he’d send her away at once.
But if this really is all a dream, or a hallucination… It’d mean their time together here never really happened. That it was a made-up figment of his imagination. He’d awake, and just like a dream, it’d all be gone.
“You were… very brave,” Vir said haltingly, earning him a scowl. They stared each other in the eye for a long moment before bursting out laughing.
They sat together atop a grassy hill in peaceful silence, Maiya resting her head on Vir’s chest. The spot bore a striking resemblance to Rabbit Hill, their hangout spot in Brij. It, too, was adorned with a large tree, though the scenery it overlooked was incomparable to the backwater village.
Floating islands drifted lazily before them, the peaceful scene betraying none of the chaos that had taken place earlier.
For that brief moment, Vir forgot the world. Content to be reunited after so very long. Longer, Vir suspected, than Maiya had, owing to the time effects of the Ash.
“I’ve… really missed this,” Maiya said after a while. “More than I thought.”
“Me too, Mai. Me too.”
Maiya cocked a brow, smiling coyly. “Mai, huh? Since when did you start copying my parents?”
“Since… now? I guess?” Vir honestly hadn’t even noticed. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“I like it,” Maiya said, smiling gently. “I liked it when Mom and Dad used to call me that. I liked it very much.”
Vir wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her semi-translucent figure closer, though even as he did, he worried he’d somehow break her if he grasped too hard. Like she was made of glass.
“That demon back there?” she said after a moment. “You said it was Ekanai? Was it the Ekanai?”
Vir sighed. “Do we really have to talk about that right now?”
While he knew this blissful moment couldn’t last forever, he dreaded it coming to an end.
But when Maiya looked into his eyes, confused and distraught, Vir knew the feeling was a lie. There was no true bliss here, only willful ignorance. There could be no peaceful reunion until Ekanai had been dealt with.
“I wish I could tell you, Maiya. Ekanai should’ve died a long time ago. He had to have died for me to have been born. Did he hurt you?”
“No, nothing like that,” Maiya said, looking away. “I was… at an Orientation Camp with the Children of Ash. It was going pretty well, too.”
“Really?” Vir asked with suspicion.
“Well, as well as such a camp could go. They made us do this leap of faith—we had to jump off a cliff into a pool of blood far below.”
“That’s…”
“Insane? Yep. Welcome to my world. Thing is, they moved it when we jumped.”
“They tried to kill you!” Vir asked in alarm.
“Sure seems that way,” Maiya replied. “I’ll have to dig into that when I get back. Whoever they are, they can’t hide from me for long. When the three of us jumped, I was afraid that was it, for them at least.”
“Wait, who are these people?”
“Ah, right, I haven’t told you about them, have I? So, Yamal, he’s a real character…”
Maiya spent the next minutes filling Vir in about Yamal and the Silent One, and how they met and became close.
Vir was suspicious of the man, and when Maiya mentioned how he was useless in a fight, Vir grew anxious.
“Hey,” Maiya said with a smile, squeezing his arm. “Relax. He knows not to make any moves on me. Besides, having a group that’s loyal to me is really useful in an organization like that. Despite Yamal’s issues, I feel like I lucked out. He and the Silent One are among the few sane ones in my batch. He’s pretty smart, too.”
Vir exhaled. “I know. Just… I wish I could be there for you.”
“Me too,” Maiya said quietly. “Anyway, we jumped together. I knew we wouldn’t make it, so I relied on my Blunt Force Protection orbs to absorb the impact.”
“Did that actually work?” Vir asked. Mejai defensive armor wasn’t designed to nullify falls like Light Step did. He’d never thought to try using the magic protection in that way.
“Sorta?” Maiya grinned sheepishly. “It did keep us alive… But I kinda broke some bones. And one of my B Grade Life orbs. Oops!”
She stuck her tongue out and winked at him.
Vir rolled his eyes. “Most people would be in tears over losing such a precious orb, you know? I guess you’re just swimming in seric, aren’t you?”
Maiya waved away his concern. “It’s fine. I can get as many of those as I want. Problem was, I only had one left, so I healed my broken leg, but couldn’t heal my ribs.”
“Your ribs are broken?” Vir asked in alarm.
“That’s the thing. They aren’t. Not here. I’m not even wearing the same clothes! I was wearing a faded brown robe, not this old one-piece. I haven’t worn this since Brij! And I’m obviously not in the practice of walking around barefoot,” she said, wiggling her toes.
“So, how did you end up here?”
“We missed the pool, but we crashed through the ground, into a large shaft of some kind. That led down into a tunnel that was protected by Children guards.”
“A secret lair?”
“Who knows? I took out the guards and entered the room they were defending. There was this tree… except it wasn’t like any tree I’d ever seen. It was like the trunk became the ground, and continued up, making the walls. I… can’t remember much of what happened after that. My mind went fuzzy, and I felt myself moving, like a trance. I think I might’ve touched its trunk? Next thing I knew, I was in those caves.”
A tree that functions like an Ash Gate? Vir thought, looking over Maiya’s form. No. This is something else entirely. If she were really here, she’d have died from prana poisoning already. What could that room have been? And why was it under guard? Is there more to the Children of Ash than I thought?
“It’s so bizarre,” Maiya said. “What are the chances there happened to be a tunnel leading to that lair right where we landed, right? What are the chances the Children held their Orientation Camp at that exact spot?”
“You’re saying someone wanted this to happen? That they orchestrated these events?” Vir asked.
“Seems that way, doesn’t it?” Maiya asked. “But who or why… I haven’t a clue.”
Vir had to agree. Except he didn’t know if it was a who, or a what. After all, who could have timed it such that Maiya not only touched that tree, but Vir did too? At the exact same time? There were far too many coincidences for it to have been mere chance, and yet, such a feat was far outside the means of any mortal.
Was it Janak? Or another god, perhaps? Vir’s head swam with questions and no answers.
“Once I got here, I roamed around for a bit,” Maiya continued. “I heard a sound, so I went towards it. That’s where I found that demon, standing hunched over in that room. He attacked me without warning.”
“He attacked you?” Vir asked, panicking. Was I too late? Is that why she’s this way?
“Don’t worry,” Maiya said hurriedly. “You came before he could do anything. But, er… I can’t use magic, Vir. It’s like all my blood, sweat, and tears have come undone. Like… it’s been a waste.”
“It hasn’t,” Vir said emphatically. The more he heard, the more it felt like some third party was at work here. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but something brought us all together. Ekanai’s dead, Maiya. It’s impossible that he’s here. And, to be honest, the same goes for you. All I can say is we shouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet. I wish I had the answers, but I don’t. And until we know more, you can’t say things like that, alright? Maybe you’ll just wake up and this’ll all have been a bad dream.”
Maiya rolled her eyes. “Uh, huh. Sure.”
“Whatever it is, we’ll find a way out of it. Together. I’m… I’m strong now. Strong enough to keep both of us safe.”
“I know,” Maiya said quietly. “The way you Leaped up here? I didn’t want to distract you, so I didn’t say anything before… But that’s impossible, Vir. No Talent wielder moves that far. If that’s any measure to go by, I can’t even begin to imagine the gains you’ve made.”
Maiya bit her lip as she said that, though Vir failed to notice. He was busy retrieving his katar, though doing so just reminded him of the chakram Ekanai stole.
Vir popped to his feet and held out his hands, helping Maiya up.
“If you thought that was impressive, check this out,” Vir said, firing off a Katar Launch Barrage. Deadly arcs of prana blasted out of his blade one after another, so thick with prana they became visible, even to Maiya’s eyes.
The Prana Blades ripped deep gashes in the grass as if ravaged by a giant claw.
It was the same Talent Kamna used against him in Daha, just thrice as powerful and with about a dozen more blades.
He looked back to see her jaw hit the floor.
Prana Current flared and Vir allowed a trace of his accumulated prana to seep out, forming black flames that burned off his skin.
This time, Maiya fell on her butt, pointing comically at where his strikes had landed.
“What the grak, Vir!” she stammered. “What the grak!”
Vir grinned. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I can only do stuff like this in the Ashen Realm.”
Mostly, he didn’t add. The immense prana reserves in his body allowed him a few full power blasts regardless of where he was at, and Prana Current ensured he’d be able to regain what he lost, though perhaps not immediately.
Vir looked forward to testing his powers against the challenges faced by the prana-starved Demon Realm. Despite the setbacks he’d face, he was confident his gains in the Ash would give him an unfair advantage. Assuming, of course, they made it out of whatever this surreal place was.
Maiya shook her head. “This is all just karma, isn’t it? Compensating for the lack of prana you had to live with your whole life, isn’t it? I’m happy for—!”
Vir Blinked to Maiya, nearly smashing into her as he grabbed her by the waist before Blinking away.
If he’d been just a second slower, Maiya’s head would’ve been cut clean off.
And standing where she’d been just seconds earlier was none other than Reaper Ekanai, twirling Vir’s Artifact chakram with a wicked grin.
“Enjoy your little reunion?” a raspy voice said. “I hope you said farewell. No? A pity. At least you will die together.”
79
ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
Vir didn’t wait for Ekanai to finish his speech. Blinking to the demon as he emerged from the ground, Vir unleashed a Katar Launch at point-blank range. The disc of pure black prana blazed out, so thick it became visible. Ekanai was far too close to dodge.
Then a raging torrent of Ash prana flowed into the demon’s chest. His tattoo glowed, and Ekanai leaned and twisted slightly away. The blade passed by with less than an inch to spare.
What was that?
Not only had Ekanai dodged a blow that should’ve been impossible, Vir’s own chest tattoo had never glowed with prana like that before.
Ekanai showed neither fear nor excitement. His movements had been so casual, so easy, as if preordained that Vir’s attack would miss.
Alright, so you dodged one. What about a dozen?
Blinking to Ekanai’s back, Vir tapped into his body’s prana reserves to fire a Katar Launch Barrage. Blades of pure black prana erupted from his katar, all bound for Ekanai. Vir even altered his aim, firing several where he expected Ekanai might dodge to.
Except, when the blades reached their target, the ghael was no longer there.
A clang sounded from nearby. Vir whipped his head to find Maiya with daggers raised in an X guard, blocking Ekanai’s strike.
Dance of the Shadow Demon.
Vir’s heart nearly stopped as he shoved prana into his legs, Blinking once again to close the gap.
“Don’t you dare harm her!” Vir roared. His momentum sent him hurtling right at the demon, but like his previous attacks, Vir missed.
