In the back of my mind I wondered where Sunflower was, but figured she was probably just watching from a safe distance and waiting for a moment to fire her bow, no doubt afraid of hitting me.
I managed to strike a glancing blow along his flank, scoring a shallow cut into the lacquered top layer, but then his spear slammed into my cuirass, knocking me back and off-balance. Before I could regain my composure and move out of the way, the butt of his staff hit me in the head with such force that my whole world reeled and my vision turned black for a second. Without missing a beat, the tip of his spear stabbed me in the shoulder, but was caught by the protective scales of my Katabira jacket. I blindly fumbled for the shaft and managed to wrench it away from shoulder with my free hand, while also pulling him forwards. I let go and moved towards him as I returned my katana to its scabbard and immediately performed a devastating Quick Draw that cut through his entire side as he fell past me. Lacquer, leather, iron, and skin was torn apart, and yet none of his blood spattered the earth beneath the pale tree.
I stumbled away from him as I beheld the damage I’d inflicted, feeling suddenly very nauseous, dangerously-woozy, and out of breath.
“Not… bad,” he acknowledged, breathing heavily. “But we are just getting started!”
Nobushige spun his blade in an elaborate show of skill and with each spin and flourish, the cross became redder as the glow from the crimson grooves spilled over onto the rest of the weapon. His eyes too became crimson with the glow, and I had a brief flashback to my fight with the Forlorn Intruder in the arena.
I dodged sideways as his spear thrust towards me all of a sudden, my body once again predicting his movements. The next set of strikes, swings, jabs, and thrusts I avoided flawlessly, while somehow not exhausting the last of my stamina, which in fact seemed to bloom and replenish ever so slightly. It seriously made me wonder how many times I’d fought this boss in the past. How many times had my body been speared through before I’d learnt how to perfectly sidestep and dodge his attacks while not overexerting myself? For this kind of muscle memory to exist, it had to be quite a lot I imagined.
My attention snapped back to reality[1] as I tripped on a stone while trying to sidestep another frenzied spear combo, and I only barely managed to avoid receiving a permanent face rearrangement from the cross-shaped blade by somersaulting sideways and sending forth a minimally-charged Quick Draw mid-air to counter his follow-up sideswipe. The impact of my blade and the metal-reinforced shaft of his spear reverberated through the air like the sound of a hollow bell and, before it ended, I had turned on the spot and fired towards him, while he was still struggling to regain his composure. I drove my katana into his stomach all the way through to the hilt, so that only my handle was visible.
Nobushige looked down at me with an odd kind of expression, kind of like he wasn’t all there. He let go of his spear and grabbed my shoulders, and I quickly performed my Lacerate, freeing my blade and cutting him in half… or so I thought. His grip on my shoulders tightened and he picked me up off my feet and threw me down the side of the hill.
My sword flew out of my hands as I tumbled down the patchy dirt, rolling head over heels, over and over, until I eventually settled at the bottom. I tried to stand, but I was so dizzy that I just sort of fell over onto my side. In my discombobulated state, I scanned the ground for any sight of my blade, and found it lying ten-or-fifteen metres away. I briefly turned back to look at the top of the hill, and, to my heart-dropping dismay, saw that the Crimson Warrior was steadily making his way down towards me. With adrenaline pumping through my veins, I scrambled upright and started sprinting towards my sword that lay waiting nearby. I looked back again, with panic forming a knot in my stomach, and saw that Nobushige had reached the foot of the hill and was now in a full sprint. Not looking where I was stepping, I tripped on a loose rock, but I managed to catch myself and continued frantically running towards my weapon. The rhythmic clatter of his armour became louder and louder as the Crimson Warrior neared, and I sprang towards my weapon, grabbing it with one hand and using the other to push myself forward with the momentum, somersaulting my body and landing on my feet.
I twisted around just as him and his cross-shaped spear passed by, scoring a shallow groove across his flank with my reactionary strike, then spun around and sliced him down his back, managing to rend a thin line through his armour. Nobushige spun and flung his spear wide. I dodged under it, the trail of the red-glowing blade passing just above my face, then rolled away out of reach as he stabbed it towards me in a series of thrusts. On the last jab I dodged left of the blade and pushed towards him, aiming a Quick Draw right at his exposed face, which he blocked with his left hand, where the armour was thin enough for my blade to cut right through.
The Crimson Man kicked me in the chest with an angry yell, and as I was pushed away, I saw that I’d completely destroyed his left arm, severing it down its length into two useless flaps, one with two fingers attached, and three on the other.[2] Strangely, no blood spilled forth from the grievous wound, and when I thought about it, none of his other wounds seemed to bleed either, perhaps owing to the mysterious power of the red spear.
The Crimson glow in his eyes, and the one on his weapon, flared with a sudden fury, but before he could leap for a me, a shaft suddenly sprouted from the side of his neck. He swivelled his head and regarded Sunflower who stood at the foot of the hill, several metres away. I quickly tried to exploit this distraction, but as I charged for him, he easily slapped his spearhead into my stomach and sent me tumbling backwards, a significant portion of my stamina suddenly robbed from me.
I watched in horror as he sprinted towards Sunflower, while easily dodging her frantic arrows fired his way. It seemed to me as though she was using every ability in her arsenal to try and stop him, as she constantly changed stance and the arrows fired from her shortbow made different sounds and followed alternating trajectories. At the last possible moment, she fired something that looked like a shotgun blast of thin arrows, but it only halted him for a second, and then he simple swung his spear through the air and cleaved open her armour and sprayed her blood to the air.
“NO! STOP!” I shouted, as I tried to run towards him.
Sunflower fell backwards, a distant look in her eyes. Part of me knew that I could still save her, but the realist in me knew that I’d never make it in time.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
“Blood Raven!” I shouted.
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To cast the spell ‘Blood Raven’, you have sacrificed a memory.
A Sigil of the Watcher has manifested on your body as an indicator of the memory you have sacrificed.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
You are unable to cast any Watcher-granted Spells for the next:
—12 days 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds—
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A crimson light flowed down my outstretched left arm, and then from my wrist shot forth a raven of my own blood, its emergence sending a shuddering ripple of pain up through my arm. Alongside the pain also came the dreadful feeling of something being ripped out of my brain, but it was far more pronounced than the two times I’d experienced it before.
The raven soared across the ground between us and exploded dramatically against the back of Nobushige, who suddenly froze, his cross-shaped spear mid-jab.
Five seconds! I yelled at myself internally.
With as much speed as I could manage, I thundered across the soft earth. In the distance, our borrowed horse was determined to eradicate the last few resilient patches of grass, so focused on its task that it remained oblivious to the violence nearby.
I came up behind Nobushige, who was just about to regain control of his body, and hammered my sword down in a Helm-Splitter strike, cracking through the back of his helmet’s immaculate crimson finish and settling itself in his skull, producing an odd sigh of relief from his lips. Before his body could collapse down upon itself, I withdrew my blade and charged a Quick Draw with the remnants of my stamina and parted Nobushige’s head from the rest of his body with my cleave. The background drums ended in an explosive finish the moment his head bounced off the ground and settled a few metres away.
For a moment, the headless Crimson Warrior stood petrified like a statue, but then as the glow retreated away from the shaft of his spear and back into the red groove, his body collapsed in on itself, jettisoning blood from the severed neck and various wounds all over his body, as though the floodgates had been flung wide. Blood blossomed out of his body in a fountain of red rain that showered the earth around him, while his head watched from where it’d landed.
I stumbled backwards, away from the gruesome display, and landed solidly on my ass when my legs gave out. The world tilted and spun, while the uncomfortable wooziness of exhaustion weighed heavily on my body like an invisible blanket. I tried to stand, but immediately fell back down, the sudden motion combined with the dizziness making me heave my guts out, leaving a puddle of foul-smelling sick next to the crimson pool that had formed around the body of Nobushige.
Just before his body, Sunflower was herself sitting back up, a potion already in her trembling hands.
For the next few minutes, I sat with my ass planted on the ground and wondered if I’d ever be able to stand again. Then, as my stamina replenished little-by-little, I tried once more, and fell on my knees just like the first time…
My head just didn’t feel right, and when the adrenaline had faded from my body, I sensed a dull pain just above my right temple. I lightly prodded the area with my hand and felt hard, blood-crusted hair between my fingers, as well as the sticky sensation of blood coating my skin. It was possible I’d sustained a concussion from the blow to my head, although I wasn’t certain. I tried standing again, and, as if stuck in some kind of nightmarish loop, I collapsed to the ground just like before. How I’d managed to stay upright during the fight was a mystery to me, but one thing was for sure, I’d be stuck here unless Sunflower could somehow carry me onto the horse. Thankfully, two ‘solutions’ hung tied to my waist, their bloodred contents sloshing about inside their translucent containers.
I detached one of the flasks from the loop that secured it and wrenched the cork stopper from its neck with what little strength I could muster. In my eagerness to gulp it all down, some of the liquid ran down the wrong pipe and triggered a coughing fit, but once that passed, I felt the nourishing sensation of the healing liquid permeating itself throughout my body in waves that one-by-one cleared my head and dispelled the dull, throbbing pain.
Although my legs shook violently as I tried to stand, I didn’t immediately drop to the ground. It took a few shaky steps to regain my balance, but then it was as if nothing had ever happened.
When I noticed the sun was nearing the horizon, I suddenly felt a sense of urgency. I wanted to return to the hidden village and report my victory to the Lady, in the hopes that it would trigger the next Stage, but I also didn’t want to leave until I’d searched the floating wisp above Nobushige’s body.
“Are you okay?” Sunflower asked.
I felt embarrassed that I’d forgotten her existence for a minute, but then responded, “I’m better now. How about you?”
She nodded. Her face was still a mask of fear. I didn’t judge her for it. After all, she’d been one second away from death.
“I had to use my Watcher ability,” I commented.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. At least you’re still alive. But I do hope I didn’t lose an important memory.”
“It’s weird how my ability is one made to flee, while yours seemed more like it was created for offense.”
“I suppose that’s the unique nature of them,” I replied. “After all, if they are moulded on our personalities, then it makes sense.”
Sunflower looked down at her lap. Her blood still stained her armour and a hideous rend in it exposed her pale skin from shoulder to navel.
Considering the one memory I’d gained, I suddenly realised that I hadn’t actually been the offensive type in the real world, instead I’d been the quiet obedient daughter, not the person I was now, who charged headfirst into danger or self-sacrificed a memory to save someone else.
I helped Sunflower stand and then went over to the body. When I passed my hand through the wisp, it revealed only one item to me, however, it was an item of quite some worth I thought.
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‘Yari of the Crimson Demon’
-Melee Weapon-
Spear > Jūmonji Yari
“Nobushige was believed by many to be one of the strongest warriors in the land, and it was said that his skill with the spear was unparalleled. When the bloody struggle for power gripped the region and the rains turned crimson, the people no longer hailed his skill, but instead feared it, knowing that if they stood in his way, his blade would one day come for them.”
Trait(s):
‘Bloodlust’
‘Blood-soaked’[3]
‘Corrupted Blade’
Equip
Discard
Weight: 1.9 kilos
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The item art showed the spear with its red-lacquered wooden shaft, which had three golden rings attached along its length at evenly-spaced intervals, with one situated directly below its cross-like blade with the unusual red fullers. It had three unique traits, which read in their respective order: “The wielder becomes faster with each kill”; “The more blood the blade spills, the sharper it becomes”; and “Any strike from this blade, whether successful, blocked, or deflected, siphons stamina from the opponent to the wielder”. All around, it seemed a very powerful weapon, though I wasn’t too keen on switching from a sword to a spear.
After reading the flavour text, I wondered what this World would’ve looked like had peace reigned instead of war, but I suppose that in a time of peace, those who live by the blade are not as appreciated as in a time of war, and for people like Nobushige, or heck, even myself, the battlefield is where we make our name and earn our bloody glory. The trick, however, is to avoid becoming a blood-lusting demon like the spear’s former owner.
Although the spear weighed nearly 2 kilos, I put it in my inventory, as I was sure it could fetch a pretty penny if sold to the right buyer. Sunflower assured me that she didn’t need it, so I tried not to feel bad about taking the only reward.
The additional weight once again pushed me over the weight limit of 7.5 kgs, reducing my stamina pool and movement speed. Part of me was a bit annoyed that all I ever found were weapons, but perhaps that was just how this place worked, though I wouldn’t have minded looting his crimson Dō. After all, it was pretty terrifying to behold. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to wrench the armour off his body.
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[1] ’Reality’.
[2] Imagine splitting a bamboo stem unevenly down its length, except this piece of bamboo has fingers…
[3] It was pretty obvious what the theme of this weapon was…