Chapter 72 Near Infinite
The smell of charred and burning flesh mixed with the scent of blood and flaming timber. A thick smoke filled the ceiling of the tunnel. Isaac moved his arm from its place covering his face. “Shouldn’t we be suffocating?” Isaac asked. He wasn’t sure if he could suffocate while running death flames through his system but no one else should’ve been able to breathe. “Now that I think about it, why is there breathable air down here in the first place? The mushrooms don’t photosynthesize so they aren’t making oxygen and there are only things that use oxygen down here as far as I can tell.” He looked up, from his perspective, towards Lenna for an answer.
“I’m surprised it took you this long to ask.” Lenna commented. “A bunch of gods got along for once.” She began. “Dri’El, a bunch of dwarven gods, and some random others decided we all needed to be able to breathe. Gia consented so they cast a spell on her to make all air beneath her surface breathable.” Lenna shook her head. “They didn’t stop to think that it might’ve been a bad idea.”
“How so?” Isaac questioned.
“They didn’t specify what kinds of creatures could breathe the air.” She let silence hang after her continuation in order to keep Isaac’s brain working.
“Wait.” Isaac said eventually. “Can a fish breathe the air down here?” It sounded ridiculous but the way Lenna had been leading him it was the logical conclusion. The gods simply stated something along the lines of ‘all air beneath the surface is now breathable’ but since they didn’t specify what kinds of creatures could breathe it something even stranger happened. Instead of changing the air beneath the surface to have a high enough oxygen content, they caused a permanent effect to make it so that all creatures can breathe the air beneath the surface as long as they are beneath the surface. A plant could breathe pure oxygen and still be able to photosynthesize.
Lenna smirked beneath her helmet. “Yes.” She replied. “A tree, a fox, and a fish can all breathe the same air.”
“Deity scale magic is insane.” Isaac commented. His magic was insane to most conscious beings on or in the planet but a permanent effect of the magnitude they were talking about was akin to creating a second moon.
“Yes.” Lenna agreed but then fell silent as she continued meditating.
A minute or two later Claus nudged Isaac’s foot that was still hanging off the end of the wagon. “It’s catching up.” He spoke in his deep gravelly voice.
Isaac sat up and saw that the monster was approaching them at a noticeable rate. They had gotten quite far from the original cavern but not nearly far enough. Isaac sighed and jumped down. “This is annoying.” He commented and vanished.
Isaac appeared behind the monster and started walking back towards the main cavern. The monster took a moment to orient itself on Isaac and then began wiggling and pulling itself back the way it came in an attempt to chase after him. Once back in the main cavern, Isaac had to teleport a few times because the monster moved faster than walking speed, Isaac repeated the same song and dance he had done with the monster earlier. It preferred to roll after him as it was faster than trying to slither and Isaac used that to his advantage as he got it to form back into a ball again before returning to the rest of the group.
“We can’t keep doing this forever.” Isaac commented upon his return. “Eventually it’s going to come up with another way to come after me or it’ll just start ignoring me entirely.”
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“What makes you say that?” The more experienced guard that was still with them asked. Isaac couldn’t see his face behind the man’s helmet but he sounded middle aged and battle worn.
“It’s shifting between worm and ball forms faster than it was earlier.” Isaac replied and looked back over his shoulder down the tunnel. He couldn’t see the monster anymore due to the gentle bend in the tunnel but he could feel it getting closer by the second. “Not to mention it is moving faster than it was before too. Either it’s learning or it’s evolving. Both options are bad.”
“I’ll move to the front with the rest of the guards.” The experienced guard told Isaac. “There is nothing we can do back here. We’ll try to get the wagons moving faster. We should be able to turn the rest of them around soon. There is another larger cavern about a mile from the one we met you in.” He explained.
“That’s hardly soon.” Isaac commented. “We haven’t even gone half a mile yet.” The Ori-Masa were fighting while retreating. The wagons all needed to be pushed backwards by hand because the horses were facing the wrong direction. Isaac estimated that the current fighting force clearing the way for them was probably just Kahtesh and a handful of guards. “Aria said that there were wounded.” Isaac began. “How are they being utilized?”
“Utilized?” The experienced guard asked. “What do you mean?”
“If a man is missing a leg he can still shoot a crossbow. A man without an arm can hand another a fresh bolt or direct a horse.” Isaac explained. “We don’t have the luxury of dead weight. I understand if someone is unconscious or if moving them could kill them but we have a paladin, a ranger, and a cleric here. As long as they don’t bleed out they’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
The guard nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.” He told Isaac and then waved to the other few guards that were still around. “Let’s move!” He ordered and the group headed towards the rear that was now the front of the wagon train.
“When was the last time this country has seen true desperation?” Isaac asked under his breath.
“A very long time ago.” Wo Lu said. His elvish ears had only barely understood what Isaac had said over the sound of rolling wagon wheels. “Why?”
“When out of ammo beat the enemy to death, when the weapon breaks grab a stone, if there are no stones then use your fists, if your arms are broken then bite out their throats.” Isaac said while staring back the way the monster was approaching them from. “A soldier should know that. Failure is not acceptable when your children are behind you.” His face was a hard frown with furrowed brows. “A country’s fighting spirit is expressed in its soldiers.”
Wo Lu was silent for a long moment before nodding. “You have seen some very unpleasant things for someone so young.” He eventually told Isaac. “You are right, but only partly.” He continued. “These men are guards, not soldiers, their children are behind them yes but they aren’t trained for, nor do they expect to be involved in, a pitched battle.”
Isaac shook his head in the negative. “No.” He told Wo Lu. “They are warriors who live in the Innerworld. They are warriors who work in the Innerworld. They are warriors whose families live in the Innerworld. They need to be stronger than the world they live in.”
The experienced adventures were all silent for a few long moments. Isaac had no idea what he had seen in his past life to make him feel so strongly about what they had been talking about but he felt his own words in his bones. Some things were beaten into the soul. Some things didn’t require memory to know and this was one such thing. A person cannot protect someone if they cannot protect themselves and in order to protect oneself they need to be stronger than the threats against them. Eventually the near silence was disturbed by a familiar ugly mass wiggling its way up the tunnel towards them, rib bones clinging to the walls, floor, and ceiling all the while.
Isaac sighed. “Back to work.” He commented and repeated his baiting routine.
The monster was definitely getting faster. It was now moving along the tunnel at running speed. If things continued at the same rate then eventually it would start moving so fast that Isaac’s mana regeneration wouldn’t be able to keep up. He had to teleport a lot in order to bait it away and he could feel himself cutting it closer and closer. This time he had barely managed to get it back into a ball before he teleported away. He managed to teleport the rest of the way back to the caravan but by then he was exhausted again. Even with him getting better at playing with the monster in order to force it to change shape repeatedly he wasn’t gaining any kind of safety net.
Eventually the promised time arrived and Keith rose from his sitting position. Claus and the silver rank adventurers had moved to the front to help the guards at some point so it was just Wo Lu being lookout with Keith and Lenna meditating and Isaac being bait. “I would like to wait longer but it looks like you need me now.” Keith said and pointed the end of a length of gnarled wood with a ruby at the end towards where the monster was about to come from.
“I have near infinite mana.” Isaac replied. “‘Near’ being the key word.” He was breathing heavily as he had been forced to run a bit of the way in order to not pass out from mana exhaustion.
Keith nodded and waited. As soon as he could see the monster he began a familiar chant. “Open gate to torment and fury.”