Edward’s breathing was haggard, his body was drained, and his situation was bad. That burst of energy he had used to pulverize the skinwolf was just about all he had left in him, there was simply no way he would be able to take on the rest of them.
It felt like shit, the only real option he had was to run away. Here he was, supposedly dedicating himself to training to fight the cult, only to be interrupted at the very beginning by factors outside of his control.
His nose twitched as he clenched his fists, his body tensing, a plan was brewing in his mind, one that could be “considered” as training. Being as there was not a lot of time to think, he proceeded to put the plan into action by bursting out towards the skinwolf that had pulled ahead of the pack.
He felt a sickening thrum attempt to subvert his mind, an influence that was easily brushed off. The skinwolf’s ribcage had already split apart, a disgusting smile cracked upon its face, its arms outstretched, ready to embrace him. Only, he wasn’t the same, naïve kid that had fallen for its traps. This time around, he had a good plan.
Right as he was about to collide with it, or more aptly, the inside of its chest, Edward hopped to the side, and then tackled it off of the rock formation.
The two hung in the air for a brief moment, before plummeting into the icy waters that lie below. Edward had not lost his acclimation to the cold waters, so it proved to be no issue for him to experience it again.
The skinwolf, on the other hand, was not so lucky. Upon contact with the water, it began to thrash around with great strength and ferocity, flinging Edward away from it. Then, it broke the surface of the water and began to desperately claw its way back to the rock island.
This was not what Edward had been expecting to happen. He didn’t know exactly what he’d been expecting, but this—this desperation to run from the water, was unsettling. Goosebumps ran up his arms, as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, not even the weight of the water was enough to keep them down, much less gravity.
Tension filled the air as he watched the skinwolf race up the rock wall, only slowing down once several feet were between it and the surface of the water. The rest of the pack was at the top, their ribcages closed, and their body condensed into their more wolf-like form. They’d also gone silent, which was strange, as they’d been chattering with their cracking bones just moments before.
There was enough evidence for him to realize that he had messed up. Whatever was frightening the skinwolves was unlikely to be his friend.
The thought had barely crossed his mind when he felt a searing pain in his right leg. Without even a moment for his mind to process what had happened, he was dragged down beneath the water’s surface.
Instinctively, he tried to fight back, to pull his leg from whatever horror had latched onto him, to no avail. If anything, it made it worse, as he felt something pierce deep into his leg, tearing his flesh as it went.
It was not time to worry about that though, he was now operating on borrowed time, only a minute or two of this and he would run out of breath. He hated to do so, but he forced himself to open his eyes beneath the water in order to figure out what exactly he was being drowned by.
With nothing to leverage himself on, Edward was like a leaf in the wind without a tree to hold it down, blowing wherever the wind wanted it. That was to say, before he could put his plan into motion, the creature began to flip him over in the water, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
The situation, despite being rather dire, was not all that bad. He still had plenty of breath left in him, and the rolling around didn’t hurt him at all, outside of the obvious damage done to his leg in the process.
There was, however, no chance for him to figure out a method to escape. Everything had been happening too fast, and the flipping was rattling his brain. The only thing he could think of was to swing like hell the moment it stopped rolling and hope for the best.
A bright light flashed in his eyes, ensuring that plan would never come to fruition. Edward had felt his head hit something, likely a rock or the ground, and had involuntarily let out a gasp of air.
Dazed, his instincts kicked in once again, as he attempted to kick the thing that had a hold of him. If it felt the few that hit it, it did not respond to them, as it just kept on rolling. His struggles meant nothing to the beast, falling on deaf ears.
Water gushed down his throat as he took an involuntary breath. Almost instantly, his lungs burned, feeling as if they were tearing apart. Then, as he felt one last kick land on the creature, his consciousness left him.
Interim
He returned to consciousness underwater, however, unlike before, his lungs were now full of breath. Not one to hesitate, he hurriedly began to swim upwards, only to find that there was no air gap at the ceiling.
Frantic, he rapidly began to swim towards a different part of the cave, attempting to find even just a small pocket of air. His arms and legs burned from the effort, but it was nothing compared to the fatigue he’d felt from wading through the water for hours on end.
Of course, that did not make the situation he had found himself in any less dire. He was running out of breath, and fast, as the exertion from the swimming used up what little air he had. Once again, his lungs felt as if they were on fire, as he forced himself to not take a breath.
In desperation, he had flipped over onto his back, and began dragging himself through the water by gripping the ceiling of the cave. This tired his arms out even more, as they once again began to feel leaden. His hands were being torn apart from the effort, as his fingernails were ripped out in the process of clawing his way along the rocks.
Only a few minutes had passed, but that was all the time he had. Edward had lost consciousness for the second time.
Interim
The darkness was bliss, the pain in his hands, arms, and lungs had left him. A part of him wished to remain there forever. That part of him promptly died out, as a jolt passed through his body, bringing his mind back to reality.
Underwater again, no hesitation existed within him as he launched himself from the cave’s floor to the ceiling. Just like he had tried before he died, he flipped onto his back, and began scampering along using the rocks as grips.
Once again, he did not pay attention to the abuse he was putting his body through, allowing it to be torn apart as he tried to escape his fate of drowning once more. Five times was enough for him for a lifetime, but he had a good feeling about this sixth attempt.
Or at least, he did until he spotted a dark shape burst towards him from the corner of his eye. The last thing he saw was a gaping maw close in around his head and neck, before he felt his body begin rolling over, his legs dragging along the ceiling, ripping apart his skin.
Interim
Attempt number, twenty-something. Died due to suffocating. Attempt number, twenty-something-plus-one. Died to another creature of the depths. Attempt number, twenty-something-plus-two. Creature of the depths again. Attempt number, twenty-something-plus-three. Drowned again.
Edward did not remember the entire experience clearly, but he did remember two key details. One, that he died either from drowning or from the rolling creature of doom. And two, that he died over fifty times over the course of several hours.
Finally, he managed to escape from the ubiquitous presence of death, not by successfully finding an air pocket after his many attempts, but instead, by the dungeon finally kicking him out. Now, he was just there, laying on the ground in his hole, unable to fall back asleep after what he’d gone through.
It wasn’t necessarily the trauma of the event that prevented his sleep, instead, it was the helplessness that haunted him. Drowning is one thing; he couldn’t really prevent dying like that unless he somehow became part-merfolk. But letting a creature in the dungeon kill him, that did not sit well with him.
Sure, it seemed like he could beat skinwolves to death with no problems, however, was that impressive? Did it take any real effort on his part? Did it challenge? Did it make him better in any way? No, he’d been exhausted after exerting himself for hours in freezing conditions, and the whole fight had still taken him a couple of seconds at most to win.
For whatever reason, their fear also did not seem to work on him, so it wasn’t even like he could use that to temper his mind or anything. Which brought him back to the original point, dying to the first real threat he encountered in the dungeon, without being able to fight back in the least.
And he could make up poor excuses about being tired the first time around, ones that might be justifiable considering he’d also been unexpectedly ambushed. In contrast though, what about the times where he was freshly alive and had the knowledge that it might attack him.
The only excuse might be that he had limited time because he can’t breathe underwater, and that he was fighting it on its home turf. But in all honesty, he didn’t care for excuses like that. After all, would he make those if the cult killed him one day when he finally worked up to attacking them?
Or even further than that, could he still use those excuses if they attacked him on his home turf? They clearly were interested in him enough to attack him when he was in that crowded room, so why would they not go as far as to attack him in his own home? It seemed like that would be a far easier operation with fewer sources of interference.
In any case, sleep was not an option. That left only one real thing to do—train.
He hadn’t talked to Gerald in a while, and he kind of wondered what it had to say about the rather interesting events for the day’s dungeon dive. Not to mention, it had yet to explain how to do the “Heart of Something” technique.
They were supposed to start working on it while in the dungeon, but extenuating circumstances said otherwise. Not that it mattered too much, what was a couple of wasted hours in the face of what was likely to be a multi-year-long process.
‘Gerald, like usual, we got a bunch to talk about. My time in the dungeon, as well as how to start that Heart technique you were talking about is what I want to focus on though.’
“Are you sure you do not wish to rest? Forgive me if I am overstepping, but what you went through was another particularly brutal form of torment, wasn’t it? I, for one, am all for efficiency in matters such as training, however, will you be able to focus?”
It was a good question. He knew the importance of rest, that it was vital for development and getting stronger, as well as recovery. Those were all likely considerations of Gerald when it asked him if he was alright, yet it was missing two crucial details in its assumptions. One, that he was simply not able to sleep. And two, that the deaths did not affect him.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
The focus might be a bit of an issue; however, it was better to work on that side of himself anyways. Consider a bonus to the training.
‘I get what you’re trying to say, but I’m fine. Can’t sleep is all, so kind of wanted to get a head start if I’m going to be up anyways.’
“I will trust that you know what’s best for yourself. We can begin training in a moment, but before that, we should talk about your fight. Actually, scratch that, what I want to talk about is a specific part of your fight with the skinwolves.”
That brought a pause to Edward, the skinwolves weren’t at all what was focused on. They went down far too easily to still be on his radar, his issue was with whatever had been snapping him up in the waters. If the next time in the dungeon was another fun water experience, he’d have to have a way to deal with them or else he’d suffer another several dozen brutal deaths.
Let’s face it, looking back on his death to the first skinwolf he encountered was rather embarrassing. He’d literally let himself die, and not even to a big or strong creature, but instead, something that he could easily kill with what little fighting experience he had.
‘Gerald, you aren’t getting what I’m getting at. I had no issues beating the shit out those skinwolves, even as tired as I was. What I’m worried about are those godsdamned beasties that were tearing me to shreds in the water. They just ignored me as I beat on them!’
“Yes, those ‘beasties’ you refer to are quite scary. They appear to be some type of crocodilian-type creature, reliant on ambushing their prey and drowning them. At this stage in your training, there is no expectation that you should be able to defeat them in the water. That’d be like defeating a fire elemental in a volcano, it’s just not feasible unless your strength is far, far greater than your opponent’s. Trust me on this, it won’t be long before you’ll be able to rip them apart with your bare hands, and I mean so quite literally.”
“Now before you change the subject again, let’s talk about your fight with the skinwolves. You said it was extremely easy, however, did you ever ask yourself why that was the case?”
Uh, wasn’t it obvious? They had little to no real physical strength, and rocks could easily shatter their skulls. But maybe he should answer the question in a more proper manner.
‘Skinwolves are not physically strong, nor are they particularly durable, so I just overpowered the one I killed and bashed its head in with a rock. I’d imagine I could do something similar to any skinwolf I encounter unless that one happened to be unnaturally weak as far as skinwolves go.’
“While those two things are true about skinwolves and all of them are more or less like that, you are missing the point I am trying to make. Wasn’t there a crucial, deciding factor that resulted in you dying to the first one you encountered? And didn’t something similar almost happen a second time? What was missing this time that allowed your attacks to be so decisive?”
Oh shit! What Gerald was saying made it all too obvious. Where was the fear? The first time he’d fought a skinwolf he’d been completely paralyzed, allowing it to eat him. Or at least he assumed that it was eating him. If not, it was just doing some weird form of torture for its own strange reasons.
Regardless of whether or not he had been eaten, it didn’t change the fact that in his first and second encounters with a skinwolf, he’d been captured by such an intense feeling of dread that he was rendered unable to escape. Fortunately, the second time around, Gerald had snapped him out of it, and he ran off.
Critically, he did not feel a single shred of fear towards the skinwolves when he’d fought them in dungeons a couple of hours ago. Subconsciously, he had chalked that up to his ambush on the skinwolf, giving it no time to do whatever it did to cause the terror in him.
However, did that explanation hold up under scrutiny? After all, the skinwolf he’d killed certainly might not have been capable of causing fear in him under such short notice. But what about the half a dozen or so other skinwolves that had been operating at full throttle?
Now that he was really thinking about it, he had felt a weird sensation brush past his mind. It had been so slight that he’d ignored it during the moment, and forgotten about it afterwards, but could that perhaps have been the effect of their fear magic?
‘Wait, you’re talking about the fear, right? Damn! I had just thought about the fact that their fear didn’t seem to affect me and I forgot about it already.’
“Yes, that’s exactly what I was talking about. The skinwolf possesses a potent, inherent magic that instills fear in a target. However, after the eruption, this fear magic has thus far been shown to have absolutely no effect on you, as you just said. While certainly a boon in its own right, I fear that this new ability of yours may prove to be a weakness in the long run if not dealt with in the proper way.”
Edward started spasming there on the ground. How could the goldfinger interpret resisting a magical effect that causes you to be so scared you cannot move as a possible weakness? Like, wasn’t that the entire reason that he was able to casually deal with the skinwolves?
Whoop dee doo, there is one less threat for him in the dungeon. How terrible!
But seriously, as far as he was concerned, this was more than a minor boon, it was a great one. When he confronted the cult, he wouldn’t be scared. Fear and dread wouldn’t cloud his mind and his actions, he’d be able to operate at full capacity without worrying about the little things that chipped away at his will.
And yet, despite not buying into what the goldfinger was saying, he couldn’t help but want to hear it out. It clearly thought that there was an actual issue with his lack of fear, and even if it turned out to be unfounded, it didn’t hurt to listen to it and see if its theory held any water.
‘Imma give it to ya straight, Gerald. I ain’t buying what you’re selling. Me not being afraid was what allowed me to kick those skinwolves’ asses, right? So how is it that that can be a bad thing for me?’
“It’s good that you are willing to listen to reason, despite your misgivings. Quite simply, skinwolves operate in a pack, and as such, their magic works together and stacks, making the effect stronger. Now, you are able to ignore that stacking effects when it is half a dozen skinwolves working together. As such, after the fight, you had written skinwolves off as a non-threat. But is that really the case? What if the number of skinwolves you encounter doubles? Or triples? Would your resistance still win out? Or would the skinwolves’ fear magic prevail?”
“If we didn’t stop to ask ourselves this question, what do you think might have happened? It goes even further, is this lack of fear only towards skinwolves, or is towards all fear in general? All I’m saying is that you should never overestimate your abilities, or underestimate that of your enemies. It will be the death of you if you do so.”
…That was a great, godsdamned point. He could already think of two examples where he violated that rule recently. One, as soon as he found out he could easily defeat skinwolves, he tackled one off of the rocks just for the heck of it, and then he almost immediately paid for it by getting snapped up by that crocodilian-thing, as Gerald put it. And two, he was kind of underestimating the cult, despite the fact that technically speaking, they were supposed to have already successfully killed him according to Gerald.
Wait a minute…didn’t that also apply to how he was treating Gerald? After all, he had assumed that it would always act in the open, as if it did not have an ounce of trickery in it. And now that he thought about it, wasn’t the whole “Heart of Rebirth” thing a bit too literal if it wanted to take over his body? It would, quite literally, be a rebirth for him if he was an evil ghost like he suspected was the case for a while now.
There was likely no issue in keeping close contact with it, as the saying was, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,” after all. Still, that didn’t bode well for him, as no matter how many times he reminded himself not to trust the goldfinger, it never seemed to sink in.
This was something like the third or fourth time he had done so, and yet even now, it was like he was fighting against the urge to treat the entity casually, like it was actually his friend. He had thought that subtle influence had been wiped out when the connection had been reformed, but it seemed to have only burrowed deeper, now acting in an even more secretive manner over a longer period of time.
The only solution he could think of for now was to alter the portions of the Heart of Rebirth technique that he suspected might adversely affect him. It was a brilliant solution, solving his concern regarding the goldfinger’s dubious intentions, while also keeping his suspicions on the down low.
‘Okay, okay, I’ll be sure to stay careful around skinwolves from now on. It might also be a good idea to test other things that used to scare me to see if they still do.’
‘—Now that we’ve talked about the fights though, even if it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted to focus on, maybe we can get started with some training?’
“It does appear to be the time to do so. Let’s start by establishing that the technique you are about to learn is very dangerous if improperly done. I cannot emphasize that fact enough, if you accidentally lose control, it could result in your organs failing you, sudden tumor growth, and it is even possible for your heart to literally explode. Not to mention you might accidentally fry your nervous system or weaken your skeletal system to the point where you just turn into a pile of goop.”
“With that being said, despite the many possible ways that you could find yourself dead by practicing this technique, I still chose it for two fantastic reasons. One, there is likely no limit to the growth you could achieve using this technique. I’m talking, one day, as long as you don’t die, you could probably become strong enough to lift a mountain. And that’s not an exaggeration, it’d just take a lot of training and time.”
“Then, number two, almost all of the risks involved in practicing this technique can be eliminated by your ability to try things out inside of the dungeon. Any mistakes you make while inside of there won’t matter. And after practicing enough in the dungeon, there’ll be very little chance of you screwing it up when it comes time to try it for real in reality.”
Oh yeah, that was quite reasonable. Since the method was dangerous if done improperly, he needed to practice a bit in the dungeon before attempting it where the consequences would be permanent. What a “good” plan, with “insightful” logic.
Not! Why was he mentioning the countless ways he could die from the technique only at this point in time? Sure, giving him a warning before he actually started training in it was the right way to do things, but in this case, wasn’t it the far better option if it had told him when it first brought up the technique?
Its like, imagine if your friend told you he had a plan to make a lot of money really quick, and then right before you did the thing to make the money, he drops a, “Oh yeah, you might die, don’t worry though bro, you got this.”
Seriously, who does that type of shit? At this point, even if he had a reason to put his full trust in the goldfinger, he wouldn’t do so because all of his plans seemed to involve a near-certain chance of crippling injury or death.
Edward’s irritation easily slipped into his words, his exasperation preventing him from getting the words out in one go.
‘Why—in the world—would you only bring that up—now? And not, let’s say, when you first mentioned this plan of yours?’
“It was not relevant at the time. Tell me, do you have an issue with the training I have planned now that you have obtained this information? If so, let me assure you once more, due to your ability to enter into the dungeon, there should be almost no risk to your training of the technique.”
Gerald somehow sounded completely baffled by his annoyance, despite the fact that its voice was completely monotone. Had dying, or however it was created, fried its mind? Now it just thought everyone was fearless towards death like it.
And the potential to die, or grievously injure himself, wasn’t an issue for him at all. The issue he had was that he would like to know far ahead of time if there was a chance that either of those two outcomes would happen.
To put it as simply as possible, he didn’t care about dying or getting injured, as long as he would still be able to destroy the cult in the end. Bonus points, too, if he was able to take out Gerald at the same time. If his death was necessary to take out both, then he’d consider that taking out two birds with one stone.
But that did not apply here, as this was a risk of death that he had not had time to prepare for, and it wasn’t even going to have a direct effect on Gerald or the cult.
Edward’s were gritted, as he began to imagine himself strangling the goldfinger. If only it had an actual body that he could do it to. Every word of his was laced with venom
‘Before I fucking lose my mind dealing with you, let me make it explicitly clear. I am not afraid of death, or injury, or even perpetual torment. What I am afraid of, is that I will go through those things for no. Fucking. Reason.'
‘And, that I won’t know about the fact that I was ever at risk to begin with. New rule for you from now on, if you’re making a plan that involves me, tell me if I might die when you are introducing it to me. Not right before we do it.’
“New rule, tell you about the risks when I’m introducing a plan to you. Got it, seems simple enough. Now, tell me, are we still going forward with your scheduled training?”
‘Of course we are, who the fuck ever implied that we weren’t!’
“Excellent, in that case, lets awaken your ability to sense mana, if you haven’t already done so in the past. I’m assuming you haven’t, right?”
Stupid, ugly, dumbass goldfinger doesn’t even experience a slight fluctuation in its emotions. It only took it a single moment for it to swap back to focusing on training. Godsdammit, that pissed him off about the goldfinger as well.
Not that it was wrong to do so, it just irritated him that the thing never lost its cool and was always technically right in the end, while in comparison, he was constantly angry or making wrong calls, sometimes both things at the same time, too.
You’d think losing almost every part of you would force you to maintain some type of balance, but it turned out, even a little bit of your old self in that situation would render you permanently off kilter.
But what was the topic at hand again? Something about him using mana? That couldn’t be it though, he never learned how to use mana…
…
Oh, it was about him learning to do so if he hadn’t already. That made way more sense than him magically being able to use mana.
‘Nah, there be no mana sensing from me. How does one go about learning to do so?’
“Well, we will be using a method that is closely related to the process you will undergo in training the Heart of Rebirth technique. Not the exact same, mind you, only a specific portion that is in no way dangerous to you. What I’m referring to is, of course, mediation. Ideally, we’d have someone artificially increase the mana density of the area to make it easier on you your first time around, but we don’t, so you’ll just have to make do with pure effort.”