Chapter Ninety Eight

An Epilogue

Zilnek fled into the crowds while simultaneously seeking escape from them. He didn’t want any to see him, his shame too great. He finally found a small back alley that gave him privacy and he crowded into it before hunching into a corner and seeking solace in his own misery. He glanced around furtively, searching for any prying eyes before flipping open his status with fear, seeing the blackness of what he’d become shown on his very status. Unbeknownst to him, his status screamed out the name of his new class: traitor. And in his list of titles, a new angry title showed itself. He knew it was new, even if he could not understand what it was. There was a feeling of disgust that infused the title when he stared at it. With trepidation, he pressed upon the small title, knowing he could not understand what he would find, but still too curious to deny bringing it into existence before his eyes.

Betrayer (Inferior Title): You have betrayed friend and family. You will find no mercy in the eyes of those you have betrayed. Find no succor or peace.

* * *

Garnedell shuddered, leaning against the wall where Master had dragged him. He felt his chest pounding like the earth shaking thunder of galloping horses and his heart thudded so hard in his chest. He struggled to breath, his deep gulping breaths just not enough to satisfy himself even as he felt his thoughts fading. His thoughts began to fade and he fell into distraction for a time until suddenly he felt the libraries shudder and the geas stuttered into effect. It swirled around him caressing him before suddenly swooping into his chest and surrounding and caressing his heart. He breathed deep and felt like he’d taken a full breath for the first time.

While he was grateful for the full breath, he knew it was a very bad sign. The geas would only form to protect the libraries and if they needed protecting. Garnedell sighed and looked down at his thighs, still seeing them torn to shreds. He blinked in surprise when he felt Master shuffle back towards him and he instinctually slapped a hand against his Master’s calf before he felt healing flood his system. It was so much, but it was so poorly controlled and done Garnedell actually felt relief that his Master wasn’t quite so universally capable.

The geas firmed and Garnedell couldn’t withhold himself any longer, and began speaking to Joe. He had to teach the background and for that the geas was patient. Garnedell pushed it as long as he could but the geas grew impatient. Garnedell turned to his status, now understanding a bit of what he was seeing with Joe’s instruction. His health, or HP as Joe called it, was long gone but what he found odd was that his stamina was also slipping away. All was well until it emptied, and then his heart had gone from the pounding thunder of galloping horses to an overwhelming crash of an earthquake and breathing grew even more difficult. That was when the geas had appeared and taken grip of his heart. He’d calmed at that, but the geas only grew more insistent. A soft sigh escaped his lips even as he felt himself accepting fate, releasing libraries to Joe. He didn’t have much time after that, the geas satisfied and releasing him. With that release, his strength quickly waned. I … I don’t want…

* * *

Joe screamed. A primal roar from the depths of his heart erupted outwards in an uncontrolled rage while his Presence flared wildly, its normally well-defined edge rippling almost as if hurricane winds blasted outwards across its border. His Presence stormed wildly, waving in hurricane conditions without control across the entire area, the enemy freezing for a few moments.

His very existence shattered, his vision cracking like a shattered mirror before the shards of his periphery faded and disappeared from existence, his only thought and awareness the single lighted center holding the corpse of Garnedell, dead against the wall. Pain mounted and everything around him continued to disappear, quickly following after his lost vision, he found sound and awareness all zeroed out leaving only Garnedell’s pale blue corpse available to his senses. His ears heard nothing, all sounds gone as he struggled to focus on a possible breath. His vision only saw the corpse. His smell blanked entirely, despairing that he might catch the scent of rotten death but still struggling to grasp any hint. His skin numbed, unimportant, as did his sense of taste, turning to ash and tasting nothing but that which was revolting. His Presence grew ever more unstable and soon exploded outward. Joe’s thoughts dissipated with his Presence’s explosion.

Suddenly, a shard of vision erupted into his periphery, sound leaping to its accompaniment as danger spiked awareness and Joe snarled in rage. The shard revealed a cat from this floor leaping at him, its snarl vividly caught even as the sound of its howl erupted in crystal clarity in his ears. Joe answered in kind, kindled fury infested with disgust. Leave me alone! His spear snapped out without thought and buried itself into the cat’s mouth. A twist and a snap had the cat dead and whipping from his spear. The vivid shard encapsulating the leaping cat snapped to nothingness immediately and his thoughts turned back to Garnedell, hopeless panic welling again before another shard flashed into existence, just as vivid and just as overbearing in its insistence to acquire Joe’s focus.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

A shadow with massive paws came at him, its coloring, once covered by deep shadow, now somehow vividly detailed yet still dark. The eyes peered outwards, dead and without emotion even as the mouth snarled wide for his throat. Joe’s rage erupted outward once again, monumental. His Presence flashed outward in a singular circular tidal wave. Go AWAY! The shadow beast froze while the wave swelled over him but Joe cared little for thought at the moment. His spear whipped out with intensity reinforced by his rage and the spear buried itself through an eye and directly into the brain. The shadow beast spazzed then collapsed to the floor and Joe returned to Garendell, once again quiet within his world as all was only blank blackness but for Garnedell.

Only moments later, another shard of brilliance flipped on in bright white against the black of the void, something like a goblin centered within that shard, already striking towards him. Leave. Me. ALONE! Joe’s wrath erupted past control and the blank blackness of the void faded to a red ocean of waves upon which reality began to piece itself back together. Each shattered piece showed a monster of some kind, charging towards him. His vision turned red. His hatred had lost his target, but … this will do… this will do! His rage swept through him then abruptly disappeared just as quickly even as his mana swept up into a frenzy, flashing outward from his chest out towards his limbs, scattering outwards in a lightning like web that broke against his skin and shattered against it while thumping into his muscles with a rhythmic pounding while the shear column of steady mana struck his bones and his entire abdomen and chest cavity, infusing his bones and organs with some kind of mana sheath that surrounded and soaked them in mana bubbles shaped to that organ or bone.

The mana that when to his head attached itself to his eyes, nose, and ears with delicate traceries of power that simply and instinctively attached to each organ and any attendant muscles. His brain was both sheathed and soaked, exactly identical to his bones and torso organs, but also had a living breathing spider web construction of mana that spread throughout his entire brain unique and unusually different from his other organs.

Time stopped, each shard manifesting a different monster ordered themselves instinctively by danger, time, and distance. His mind considered and discarded dozens, then hundreds of plans, each shard shifting or manipulating within time or space until the most optimal path to eradication was formed. This process continued until the nearest monster came too close for his mental processes to continue then he simply reacted with the most optimal plan and path. He moved, a hurricane of slashes and movements that no mortal eye could track, flashing down and into the corridor in an overwhelming tornado of destruction even as his conscious faded for he did not care anymore.

Joe was gone. No conscious remained. His eyes were devoid of any emotion or thought. He came to a stop once he’d enacted the totality of his current plan and looked on down further into the corridor leading ever deeper into the dungeon. Rage swelled along the edge of empty eyes but could not overwhelm the void, and emptiness washed death across the dungeon. More plans formed, more organization by monster, time, and position rapidly iterated until he moved once again, only a split second between his last rushing strike and his next. A human form leapt at the monsters, a beast without care tore into the monsters. Joe lost himself in a fury induced fight where everything he had went into destroying as many of the beasts as he possibly could. The monsters raged back, claws swiping arms and legs while jaws clenched on thighs as he stood in the only entrance, a wall unwilling to allow any to pass.

The pain of the slashes were fleeting and while the bites lasted a bit longer until he could kill and remove the beast from his legs, his legs rapidly healed. Even then, it felt like each slash or bite were so shallow as to leave nothing more than scratches. Despite that, pain strobed in his mental state, a background throb like the arrhythmic beat of a deep base drum. But it always faded away rapidly and Joe quickly grew to ignore it, his strikes aimed at striking as many monsters as he could, his cold hatred uncontrollable.

He didn’t know how long he lasted, but his raged was instantly cooled when a slash snaked across his shield arm and stayed. He ignored the initial strike, still unconcerned, but quickly breathed in deeply in shock when cold realization washed through him as blood dripped down his forearm onto the floor, the pain no longer a flashing strobe, but now a deep unending burn. He quickly pulled back defensively, and began to give ground, shocked to see that he’d pressed into the flood of beasts and left his defenses far behind. He struggled for a bit to control his anger and come with a plan while keeping the monsters at bay. His limited options made his choice very easy. He continued slowly returning back to his defenses and settled in once again while grimacing about his burning forearm.

His cold rage had calmed and he glanced towards the corpse of Garnedell before turning back to the oncoming beasts. Squaring himself, he prepared. Right. Shield. Spear. … no armor… My other weapons… time to use the sword? No… range. Skills? Nothing useful… but.. uh.. right now… uh… attack skills… nope, magic, nope… so then… defensive or enhancing… nope… would really be nice if I had a heal ….

Joe clenched his teeth in anger and fired off a heal on his arm. The mana leapt to his skill and his skill flooded across his arm with ease. It emptied all his mana, but somehow he’d been almost full so the heal almost completely healed his forearm. Only a small reddened oozing line was left of his wound. He then flipped open his status and pushed it to the side, leaving it well outside of his focus but close enough that he could make sure he saw his HP, mana, and stamina. All three were dangerously low, with mana and HP zeroed out. His stamina hovered at about thirty percent and he frowned even as he shivered. A small touch of terror slithered down his spine as he realized how close he’d gotten to simply losing it all.