“You can let go of me now, Sir Knight.”
A gentle tug on his arm and Transient Cardinal’s shy voice jerked Lucian out of his observations.
He felt confusion wash over him for a moment, before recalling his subconscious course of action with a sudden jolt of mortification.
Quickly—but carefully—extracting his arm, Lucian spun around and slightly dipped his head in apology, cheeks red in embarrassment.
“Sorry for that. I acted reflexively.”
“No need to worry. I didn’t mind.” Transient Cardinal absently tucked some stray hairs behind her ear, a faint blush dusting her cheeks a rosy hue.
However, before the two could continue, Julia’s shout from up ahead called them over and interrupted the moment…
“Come on, lovebirds! Time’s a wasting, and all that.”
In the most embarrassing way possible, unfortunately.
Lucian’s lips slightly quirked up in amusement, even if an ember of embarrassment flickered in his chest.
Feeling it was unnecessary to provide a verbal response, he turned around and started walking; catching up to the other four rapidly.
Based on the footsteps right behind him, it was clear Transient Cardinal was doing likewise.
Bone white grass crunched underfoot as Lucian walked out the double doors, ferocious winds from the brewing storm buffeting his entire frame and causing his hoodie’s sleeves and cargo pants’ hems to flutter wildly.
Prior to leaving Galaxia, something he’d been wondering about was illumination outside of the Dormitories. Considering the heavily overcast skies and the seeming lack of light sources, it hadn’t been clear how they would be traversing through the briar maze. Lucian’s doubts were laid to rest the moment he stepped outside.
While the crimson thorns looked like they had been recently dipped in fresh blood, the clear, sanguine glow emitting from the numerous pointed tips made it obvious they served more of a purpose besides inculcating an eerie ambience.
The only reason the raven-haired man hadn’t noticed them up until this point was the abundance of firelight within Galaxia.
Before joining the others at the arched briar-woven entrance, Lucian veered to the side and brushed the back of his right hand against the dense wall of clustered black leaves; triggering his Knowledge implant in the same move.
Name: Bloodthirst Briar.
Descriptor: Glowing brambles that live on freshly spilt blood.
Remarks: Watch out for any sudden movements, the briars haven’t been watered in quite some time…
The exact moment the mellifluous voice's last words streamed into his ears, His eyes snapped back over to the Bloodthirst Briars.
He stood frozen, left leg raised in mid-stride, as he rapidly searched for any disturbances in the dense, suddenly far more sinister, black-leaved wall.
Finding nothing amiss after several tense seconds, he turned back around and walked over to the other five – keeping an eye out, if only via his peripherals, on the evidently dormant Bloodthirst Briars throughout.
“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, man.” Cherub inquired jocularly the moment Lucian was in comfortable speaking range.
Instead of offering a retort, the raven-haired man rattled out his findings post-haste.
The mood shifted drastically as the five listened on. Of them all, Tsumiki’s expression was the ugliest. While she had chosen the Knowledge implant as well, she hadn’t thought to trigger it as of yet – something foolish in hindsight.
Lucian fell silent after reciting the information verbatim and took note of their varied expressions. It was crystal clear all five were worried, but it didn’t look like any of them were overly frightened by the prospect of walking into a maze of bloodsucking brambles as well.
With a single, firm clap, Julia broke the silence.
“Thanks for letting us know, Lucian. Things could have gotten dicey if we’d been taken off guard while exploring the maze’s depths.”
The other four offered their own words of gratitude, forcing her to pause for a brief moment before she continued.
“Sentient or not, it doesn’t matter. We’ll have to go in to find a way out, anyway.
“According to the map myself, Cardinal, and Lucian found, we’ll have to travel through the six concentric circles, get to Heavenly Constellation Spire, and then find a way to the unnamed location somewhere in the Northeast.
“Any questions?”
A mixture of shaking heads, murmured negatives, and a single exuberant “Nope~!” greeted the honey blonde’s proclamation.
Lucian shot Transient Cardinal a sidelong look while shaking his head, amused, yet unsurprised, by her excitable delivery.
“Great.” Julia declared, drawing his eyes back her way. “Now then, as we discussed just now, Boris and I will lead at the van, while Cherub and …”
----------------------------------------
The bright scarlet ‘6’ vanished like a desert’s mirage, before an even brighter ‘7’ shimmered into existence and hovered in its place.
The instant Lucian fully crossed underneath the briar arch, the ferocious winds died down like it had never existed; leaving a heavy blanket of oppressive, unnatural silence in its wake.
Quite a few metres in, the straight path forked off into two directions, one curving to the left while the other, to the right. As a result, past a certain point, he failed to see what lay deeper within the briar passages.
“My Perception implant is telling me both directions are equally as dangerous as the other. How about yours, Cherub?” Julia piped up, tearing the silence asunder.
“Mine’s the same, boss lady.” Cherub reported instantly.
“Boris? Cardinal? How about your Instinct implants?” Julia continued without missing a beat.
“Nope~!/No.” They replied in tandem.
“Why not head to the right?” Lucian jumped in before anyone could interject. “Might as well copy what we did in Galaxia and see where that takes us.”
After a brief moment, a staggered chorus of assent, both verbal and wordless, rung out from the others – everyone agreeing to the suggestion after some thought
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Julia clapped before striding forward, a last comment thrown over her shoulder. “Excellent. Let us be off, then.”
Lucian waited for a couple of seconds, letting the others take the lead before trailing along at the end of the pack; Transient Cardinal falling in step right alongside.
Time passed as the sixsome proceeded deeper in.
Eventually, as he walked around the corner, the raven-haired man watched the entrance to the briar maze disappear from sight out of his peripherals. As a result, all he could see in front and behind him was black leaves, crimson thorns, and white grass; with intermittent glimpses of the storm clouds, high above, to break up the monotony, whenever snakes of lightning swum through the greyish-black depths.
Silence was still a constant companion, however, even the rumbling of thunder failing to pierce through the stifling blanket.
Lucian’s gaze wandered across the unchanging passage as he continued his trek, focus still sharp even as minutes crawled by.
On the Bright side, the maze had been pretty straightforward thus far, meaning that he didn’t have to constantly keep an eye out on random off-shoot passages while walking.
As if reacting to his thoughts, a low, carrying thud, almost like a footstep except magnified a hundred times over, sounded off from further ahead and ripped away the blanket of silence.
Lucian immediately went on alert. Bringing up his end table in a guard position, he squinted and focused on the path ahead, trying to pierce the crimson-tinged gloom and discern the noise’s origin.
Less than a second later, a second thud rung out, as if the unseen entity had taken another encumbered step. As a result, the group of six came to a stop.
Lucian opened his mouth, ready to ask Julia and Boris if they could see anything, when a pair of voices cut him off.
“Danger incoming, friends.”
“Whatever’s coming is a fair bit more dangerous than you Knight!”
Lucian sent a deadpanned, sidelong look down at Transient Cardinal for that odd comparison, but shifted his eyes away after a moment. Focusing back on the path ahead, his hand flexed around his end table’s stand as he waited; heavy steps growing louder and louder.
Soon enough, the creature responsible for the noise rounded the bend ahead.
It was immediately obvious why the unseen steps had sounded so encumbered.
A humanoid in the shape of a man, towering at over three metres tall, slowly lumbered out of the gloom.
Most of the skin on the colossus’s upper body was flayed off, exposing the bloody, pulsing muscles underneath. Its arms were outstretched and nailed to a gigantic pitted cross by gleaming spikes and thick chains, size comparable to the humanoid’s own height and covered in suspicious brownish-red stains.
The humanoid’s upper body was bare of any clothing, but its lower body was covered in a filthy, raggedy loincloth that preserved its modesty.
While its size and appearance were undoubtedly vomit-inducing—and even now, Lucian could hear retching noises coming from one of the others up ahead—the thing that caused alarm bells to go off in his mind was its eyes.
Falling from the humanoid’s bowed head was a tangle of matted, grime-coated hair, obscuring its face and neck from sight. Unfortunately, the one thing it failed to hide away were its unnaturally glowing orbs; each alight with a burning malice intertwined with madness born from suffering beyond human comprehension.
Before the flayed humanoid could take another ponderous step, an end table, twisted white cord tied around its stand, arced at its muscular legs; Boris having thrown one of his wrist-secured flails.
“What are all of you waiting for? Attack!”
Lucian was finally spurred into action by the sight and Boris’s gruff tone.
Speeding forward, he ran at the humanoid from its side, skirting around the others in the process. At the same time, Boris’s end table spun around a single one of the humanoid’s legs, wrapping it up in coils of twisted white canvas.
Another makeshift flail, this one with a glass-embedded table leg attached, arced at its unburdened leg a split second later; Tsumiki copying Boris’s actions.
Both ropes stretched taut, one after another, Boris and Tsumiki straining at their respective ends to topple the flayed giant…
Only for the humanoid to take another ponderous step forward, the forces exerted on its restrained legs seeming to have no effect whatsoever.
Meanwhile, Lucian was halfway to the humanoid, Julia and Cherub already several steps ahead while Transient Cardinal was a step behind. Seeing Boris and Tsumiki’s futile efforts, he wondered if attacking the thing’s legs would bear fruit.
There was no choice but to try, unfortunately.
As if hearing his thoughts, Julia’s husky contralto suddenly rung through the air.
“Lucian, circle around the giant and make skin contact as quickly as possible! We’re definitely going to need some information to bring it down.”
Acknowledging the order with a quick affirmative, he peeled away from the others and ran right alongside the wall of Bloodthirst Briars.
At the same time, he tuned out the honey blonde’s instructions to the other two, knowing better than to split his attention during such dire circumstances.
Lucian eyed the gap between the dense wall of black leaves, the humanoid’s side, and the shadow cast by the iron cross’s arm, making sure he could pass through with room to spare; in case he needed to dodge away from an attack.
The sound of shattering porcelain drew his eyes momentarily towards the fight, catching sight of scarlet-tinted white shards falling from the creature’s tangled hair as well as Julia’s extended hand.
From what he saw, the projectile didn’t seem to have had any effect. Casting his eyes away, Lucian focused back forward and dashed under the humanoid’s pinned left arm; without it seeming to react even a jot.
Instead of stopping immediately, Lucian ran past and created a fair bit of distance before turning back around. All the while, the clear sounds of combat and plodding, encumbered footsteps never ceased – even for a moment.
Contrary to his expectations, a swaying curtain of snow white hair and determined pale blue eyes were the first things reflected in his eyes after whipping back around.
“The hell are you doing here, Cardinal?” Lucian hissed reflexively, the question slipping out the instant the thought surfaced in his mind.
“Fuck it, never mind that. Cover me while I get info on the colossus.” Instead of letting the young woman respond, he verbally backtracked before sprinting off.
“Got it!”
Lucian’s ears registered the white-haired waif’s assent, but his eyes remained focused forward, unwilling to shift his attention from the goings-on.
Boris and Tsumiki were still attempting to bring down the colossus with their makeshift restraints, Cherub and Julia having joined them, adding two more pairs of hands to the effort.
Unfortunately, from what Lucian was seeing, it didn’t seem to be having any visible effect.
He tossed his end table to his other hand steps away from the humanoid’s back; a dull throb of pain pulsing from his bandaged palm from the soft impact.
Lucian’s eyes darted around the colossus’s loinclothed legs and found a threadbare patch that would give him access to the skin underneath.
His unburdened hand lashed out the moment he was in range, accurately tagging the bare bit of thigh poking out.
Even as the Knowledge implant’s mellifluous voice caressed his ears, Lucian used the colossus’s intimidatingly solid thigh muscles as an improvised springboard to push back and reverse course; unwilling to stay within its shadow for too long.
Name: Apostate Wraith.
Descriptor: A creature neither living nor dead. Skin like bronze; flesh like iron; bones like steel.
Remarks: Enemies of the Master; tortured in life, enslaved in death.
Lucian seared each word into his brain before yelling them out verbatim. He made doubly sure to project his voice and enunciate every syllable as he did, so the other four, further away and beyond the Apostate Wraith, could hear him clearly.
A sudden thought occurred to Lucian as he went over the colossus’s information for a second time.
Glimpsing fluttering white hair out of the corner of his eye, he skewed his head to the right and locked gazes; light brown meeting pale blue.
“Guard my back?”
“Of course.” She confirmed, not missing a beat.
Lucian shot her a smile full of teeth before sprinting back the way he came, hand slipping into his hoodie’s right pocket.
Five steps away, his fingertips touched cool glass. Four, and his hand withdrew, clutching a test tube full of neon yellow liquid. Three more steps, and he brought it to his mouth, teeth biting down on a yielding rubber stopper. Another two to go, as he bit down, hard, and spat it off to the side…
One more step and with his eyes focused on the back of the Apostate Wraith’s knee, Lucian cocked his arm back before whipping it forward; Toxic Essence fanning out violently and splattering all over his chosen target.
Instantly, plumes of white steam and sharp sizzling erupted from the skin hit by the Toxic Essence, a garbled, incomprehensible roar leaving the colossus’s throat even as its affected knee buckled.
Lucian paused, stunned by the effectiveness of his idea, but was brought back to the present by a long streamer of white; Transient Cardinal darting past his momentarily frozen form and taking immediate advantage.
In the time it took him to switch his end table back to his dominant hand and discard the empty tube of Toxic Essence, the white-haired waif had already scrambled her way partially up the kneeling colossus’s back.
Using the shallow pits in the iron cross and her pair of table legs as footholds and improvised climbing picks, respectively, she scaled up the Apostate Wraith’s back like a particularly nimble albino chipmunk on a mission for the heartiest of nuts.
Knowing he was nowhere near as nimble or dextrous, Lucian swung for the colossus’s semi-disabled knee, hoping the Toxic Essence had weakened it some.
Instead of bouncing off durable skin, like he’d feared, his improvised mace sunk in a touch and left a clear impression.
Buoyed by his success, Lucian rained down several more rapid blows on the spot, causing the flesh to sink further inwards even as syrupy, coagulated blood oozed out from the deepening depression.
At the same time, Lucian kept a steady eye on Transient Cardinal’s ascent while paying attention to what the other four beyond the Apostate wraith were doing.
It looked like Boris and Tsumiki were attempting to bring the humanoid down to both its knees, end table and glass-embedded table leg securely wrapped around its uninjured leg while both cords were stretched taut.
In contrast, Julia had somehow gotten herself up to one of the colossus’s broad, skinless shoulders and was smashing her improved former table leg down on its bowed head in a two-handed grip; without any obvious effect, unfortunately.
Lucian wasn’t sure what Cherub was doing,, but the occasional glimpses of brown reassured him that the man wasn’t down for the count just yet.
Though it took some time to describe, Lucian digested the others’ positions and what they were doing in a flash before focusing his eyes on Transient Cardinal.
With Julia standing on the Apostate Wraith’s right shoulder, the white-haired waif had no other choice but to lay claim to its left after her rapid ascent.
Instead of ineffectually beating down on the colossus, it looked like she was taking her time to look for something specific.
Lucian started when the colossus begun rising from its kneeling position, the sound of straining fabric clear in the relative silence.
“Someone needs to kill the wraith right bloody now. Tsumiki and I won’t be able to hold on for much longer.” While Boris’s voice still sounded measured, the strain underpinning it was clear.
Lucian’s end table, having faced minimal resistance up until now, suddenly struck something hard; a strong reverberation racing up his right arm an instant after.
“Just hold on for a bit more! I’ve almost got it!” Transient Cardinal’s voice was fatigued yet firm, the climb up the colossus’s frame seeming to have tired her out.
Lucian looked down, quickly checking what was proving to be so resistant, and beheld metallic bones gleaming crimson; the surrounding flesh having been reduced to minced meat.
“What are you even trying to… WAIT A MINUTE, ARE YOU CRAZY?!” Julia, having remained quiet for quite some time, finally broke it – only for her calm tone to transform into an uncharacteristic shriek.
Lucian’s eyes were drawn skywards at the honey blonde’s incredulous tone.
Only for him to be just in the nick of time to watch as the apparently insane white-haired waif artfully performed a swan dive off the Apostate Wraith’s noggin before somersaulting and staking her dual table legs into its unguarded eyes on the way down.
An unholy roar of impotent rage followed Transient Cardinal’s controlled descent, the sound cutting off like a stuck pig just as the young woman primly landed on her feet atop the bone white grass; akin to a smug feline.
Lucian opened his mouth, unsure whether to congratulate his white-haired partner for her incredible acrobatics or reprimand her for her sheer recklessness when an alarming detail registered in his consciousness.
While the Apostate Wraith’s motions had ceased completely, its position in death as well as the heavy burden carried on its back caused it to teeter forward.
Initially unnoticed, it was only when Lucian’s subconscious pointed out the colossus’s tottering, looming shadow when alarm bells finally started blaring loudly.
Not wasting a moment, he inhaled a large lungful of air, opened his mouth, and bellowed with all his might.
“BACK AWAY! THE FUCKER’S ABOUT TO FALL!”