The energy within Adrith began to fade, he was constantly being struck, orb after orb. The pain was unbearable. He could feel as he tried to move his energy within his body, his entire body was being siphoned of all its energy. He could even feel something deeper being pulled away from him. Adrith could not see, he could not hear, he couldn’t even feel his surroundings.
All he could do was move, running like a madman, as there was no other option.
Death wouldn’t save him.
Not from this.
He’s seen what happened to the Awoken who were killed by these monsters. These creatures were able to defy the divine. An Awoken wasn’t safe from these soul stealers.
The only way to survive was to kill the Soul Reaver corrupting the soul.
Yet Adrith couldn’t.
He wasn’t strong enough.
No normal men were strong enough.
30 knights were barely enough, and they still lost many.
What could he do?
Adrith felt it, he was struck again, yet this time, the pain became too much. His eyes bulged, and he began to fall.
The energy within his body began to fade. He couldn’t handle the pain anymore. It was awful, the pain ran to his very bones. It felt as if every bone in his body were set between vices and twisted, splintered, stripped, and then pulverized.
Evelyn could only watch in horror, as the moment she was near Adrith, she could sense the only scraps of energy left within him had surrounded his heart.
And that too fades. His entire body was completely filled with the foreign and sickening energy of the Soul Reaver.
BANG!
The stone under Adrith’s feet was then turned to dust. Adrith’s foot had slammed with such force it pulverized the stone and launched himself forward. His body righted itself, stopping itself from falling. His stride was restored. His eyes were hollow. Evelyn’s heart sank as she saw something terrible, he didn’t die. His body didn’t fall. He had none of his energy left, it felt like he was completely taken over.
She thought that if they died they would come back again. All that would need to happen is that you died and then you came back. Isn’t that what happens when you’re an Awoken?
Why is his body still here?
Evelyn’s eyes then opened wide as she made a realization.
There had to be divine magic involved. To return the soul to a body. Yet what if the soul was corrupted
Had he become a Revenant?
Evelyn flinched, she was mere inches away from Adrith as he came at her like a bullet. She then felt magic come from Adrith, as she could feel a surge of energy she did not even know was within him. Adrith’s arms wrapped around Evelyn as she felt herself get pulled with such force it nearly knocked her out. It felt as if she was slammed by a block of stone as she was brought so high that she could see the roofs of buildings and even the top of the Chimera Dragon.
Evelyn was stunned for a moment, yet the moment she felt that she was beginning to fall. She began to look frantically around until she remembered she had cast her Wishing Star spell. She yelled out, panicked as she tried to call her spell,
“Hear me, Wishing star that lights the night, answer me!”
In that moment the golden disc that was left behind, flew up and caught them with a solid slam. Evelyn gritted her teeth as she felt herself hit the disc hard and could feel Adrith’s grip slowly slipping. She threw her arm out as she took hold of the disc, the edge cutting into her skin as she tried to hold this man.
She couldn’t know if he was dead yet or not, he had performed multiple miraculous feats. She couldn’t even tell if he was human or demigod, his natural physical feats and instincts could mean he was a demigod, yet he performed so little magic or other skills she couldn’t be sure.
Evelyn began to look below, she could see underneath her that the monsters meeting each other spelled a disaster would happen. Yet it was what she hoped. The Chimera Dragon began to fight the Soul Reaver and the Revenants. The fighting looked incredibly intense, as countless physical attacks, magical slashes, crimson red orbs of death, and purple energy blades that warped the space.
Yet even though the Chimera Dragon was surrounded by countless monsters all working together to kill it. The multiple attacks the Chimera Dragon can perform were formidable. By changing its body into countless blades, whips, spikes, spears, and other weapons to attack with it made the numbers not matter. Yet the physical hits did not matter, the Revenants form did not care about physical attacks, the Soul Reaver did, however. The attacks began to rain down onto the Soul Reaver with such terrible speed that it was being overwhelmed.
The Revenants constantly threw attacks at the Chimera Dragon, each one seemed to affect it, however, eventually, the attacks seemed to have no effect. The Chimera Dragon began to create new appendages, it formed 2 smaller heads with wide open mouths. They could not move, yet they roared and screeched as they began to build up energy. Once the heads stopped screeching, the energy was full, and the heads would let out a blast of purple energy similar to a Soul Reaver’s corruption blade that would annihilate any Revenant caught in the blast.
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The fighting was fierce, yet quick, as Evelyn watched, she was cautious of holding Adrith, yet, she did, she hoped this was his idea.
All the foreign energy with Adrith then disappeared at that moment. Leaving in Evelyn’s arms the husk of a man, yet there was something she could not understand. His body began to pulse with energy, she turned quickly as she prepared to let him go, yet she then sensed something terrifying. From his very core, there seemed to be another energy within him, and it was much different to his own. Yet a moment later, it seemed oddly comforting, the energy that began to move through his body swirled and spread. The energy flowed like a warm breeze.
A roar shattered the seemingly calm moment that Evelyn found as she looked down to see the Chimera Dragon had nearly won. The energy in the area began to slowly be drawn away from them. She could see the multiple shattered blades and the slivers of metal armor of the Revenants, and the puddles of Soul Reaver goo being pulled into the body of the Chimera Dragon.
Evelyn’s eyes then spotted multiple silvery white crystals being moved and drawn into the Chimera Dragon. She winced as she thought about those crystals being taken up, yet she couldn’t do much about it, all she could do is leave. It was then she felt her belt be tug on, her eyes cast down, and saw Adrith’s hand had dug out her wand from her belt and was now pointing it towards the Chimera Dragon.
“By my command”, Adrith said with a weak voice that staggered.
“With a tight grasp-”, Adrith took a sharp breath in as it seemed hard for a moment for him to breathe.
“-of iron hands, heed my command-”, Adrith breathed out these words as his voice became even weaker.
“Pull”
Evelyn’s eyes shot down as she saw a few crystals and what seemed to be metal pieces flying up toward them. She saw them starting to wave and fall, as she noticed Adrith’s hand was beginning to slump. She took the wand from his hand and lightly flicked it, “Hear me, eightfold constellation, answer me, Guiding hand”.
From this incantation, eight silvery hands flew from her and began to grab onto as many objects as they could. Each hand was able to grab something, she was hoping for more crystals, yet she had grabbed onto multiple pieces of metal.
‘At least they could be used for something’, was a thought that crossed her mind as she began to fly towards the tower and head to next floor before the Chimera Dragon took notice of them.
She flew up the tower quickly, yet it felt much more relaxed, it was very easy to fly through the tower when she wasn’t being chased by a horde of vengeful spirits and a horrifying arcane monster who could rip the soul out of people. Without any issues, Evelyn brought them to the top of the tower and began to set Adrith down, he needed to rest, and she needed to see what she collected. Yet the moment she set Adrith down, she noticed he already began to shift trying to get up.
“Whoa whoa, you should be resting”, Evelyn said as she saw him sitting up.
Adrith waved his hand as he began to take in some deeper breaths, “I had enough, besides, can’t stay here long. The bastard will want to make its way up when its done fighting down there”.
Evelyn shook her head, “Then you should rest as you can”
Adrith lightly gestured to her, “If you’re so worried about me, hand me one of those cores”
Evelyn sighed as she looked to their spoils, she saw 3 pieces of dark matte metal, 4 silvery white crystals that had in the center a reddish black energy swirling within, and a piece of stone. She sighed as she took one of the crystals and handed it to him, “Make sure to use it at the right time”
Adrith took hold of the crystal, Evelyn’s eyes then immediately opened wide as she saw all the energy disappear and Adrith’s energy spiked.
“What the hell?! I just told you to-”
Adrith held up his hand to silence her as she could begin to feel the energy within him begin to circulate and calm. She watched curiously as she began to cast magic over Adrith to see how the energy was moving. She saw within Adrith him beginning to circulate the energy within his body, transforming it from the energy of a monster to that of himself, before it completely calmed and he allowed the energy to settle, restoring a decent portion of his energy.
“I-I haven’t seen something like this before”, Evelyn confessed.
”It’s something we were taught as Knights, even in training”, Adrith said, very nonchalantly.
Evelyn nodded as she said, “I see, well if you could show me that could be quite helpful”.
Adrith shook his head, “I’d need to show you how to circulate your own energy. It’s not something easy, other than that you can just use the energy for quick empowerment”.
Evelyn nodded, “I know of that, it’s something all adventurers do”. Evelyn began to take hold of one of the cores as she said, “Well, I’ll be using this one to repair your boots, they have been quite damaged and I think we will need to do more running”.
Adrith’s helmeted head tilted as he said, “How are you doing that?”
A smile came on Evelyn’s face, “Oh so now I know something you don’t? Well how about I give you a demonstration”.
Evelyn drew herself close to his legs as he began to take off his boots. Once he set them on the ground for her she set the stone between the boots and began to pour energy between the crystal and the pair of boots, “As I input energy into the crystal it will begin to take on a form of my choosing. Based on my experience, I can make it take on different forms, such as different materials, or other things. Sadly in my experience, all I can do is make the crystal transmute into a material I have on hand to either add to it or repair it. However, a skilled craftsman could even make a sword solely from the monster core”.
Adrith nodded as he followed along with the information. He watched his boots become transformed. His boots began to glow as the monster core began to split into 2 pieces and began to surround the boots and slowly began to meld with the boots, making them look brand new.
Evelyn nodded to herself as she said, “Alright, that’ll do, let’s hope you can keep these even after your mending wears off”.
Adrith sighed as he began to put his boots back on, “Let’s hope, I’ll be quite upset of we used that core just for them to disappear after a bit”.
Evelyn gave a dry chuckle as she said, “Yeah, well I think we both will when we make our way up and have to leave this place naked”.
Adrith shook his head as he began to look toward the staircase, “We should get going, that thing will probably be finding the last of any Revanents before it comes up here. With the multiple floors still, we should be able to outrun it”.
Evelyn quickly said, “Wait, you should try and use your mending on these items”.
Adrith turned to the pieces of metal and shook his head, “They have magic in them, I can’t”.
Evelyn slightly deflated as she said, “Oh, well, we should at least take them, we might be able to sell them for something when we get out”
Adrith tilted his head to one side lightly before just carrying on, “Maybe, we could maybe find a smith interested”
Evelyn nodded her head as they began to set off again, they had reached the 53rd floor, one step closer to their freedom, just with a bit of a scare.