Chapter 106: Fear Not Death
They decided to strike while the iron was hot.
*****
Nara woke up again, not knowing what was dream and what was reality. She had seen many variations of dreams. Some were completely unique situations involving nobody she knew at all. Other times she saw friendly faces she missed. Each time there was always a portal. Every time, a voice rang out in her head.
She always stopped short.
The voices whispered to her that her pain would end the moment she stepped through. Sweet, tantalizing release from pain and suffering was just beyond and inconsequential threshold. Oh, how the voice of the devil dripped like honey.
She had told Aliyah she would attempt to leave her room every day. It gave her a rough clock, although Nara couldn’t remember how many days had passed, even after Aliyah told her. Her hallucinations told her other things. Had it been weeks? Or just days? Months?
There was nobody outside her door. The facility was quiet in recent, but the quiet today was sharp and brittle, as if Nara’s heavy steps upon the floor would shatter it and send her plunging down through the mountain spire.
She didn’t have a heart, but today the nightmare bug decided she should feel what it would be like to have her heart seize up. She staggered, clutching at her chest as she struggled to move.
Her eyes flickered up towards a scene in the common room that replaced her blood with ice water.
Ceram stood in the center of the common room, holding a researcher at knife point, blade pointed towards his throat. The other researchers were had huddled against the wall, or slipped away in the initial chaos. Jiro and Aram were restrained with manacles seated in chairs. She saw Aliyah, similarly restrained.
“Hey, Nara, how have you been faring? Did you sleep well?”
“No.”
“Maybe I can help with that.” He pointed towards the portal, “Walk though, and nothing happens. It’s as easy as children’s music, right?”
Nara remained silent, unsteady on her feet and staring at Ceram.
“You’ve still got it, pretty. Oh, you’re something else.” He slowly walked closer to Nara, struggling researcher still in hand. Ceram began ranting. “Lina was the next favorite, the next in line for leadership. She was oh so perfect; the embodiment of all our harmonious ideals! Pleasant, pretty, perfect. You can’t imagine the thrill I felt when I learnt that bitch was a filthy traitor. Turns out, this whole time, I was right, and she was wrong. She failed The Advent, Not I. So Big Sister Hellis Fallen, you know what she said?”
Ceram leaned forward, “It’s my chance to prove myself. Use any means possible to prove myself and earn the respect I deserve.”
Those words felt like sharp blades that punctured lungs she didn’t have, sending her into a coughing fit.
“Worse for wear, aren’t you? It’s understandable.” He said with a complete lack of empathy. “I’ve never seen the nightmare beetle in action. Most don’t warrant it. I really can’t imagine how it feels to be tormented by infinite varieties of pain and hallucinations so real you can tell dreams from reality. Which one does this seem like to you, a dream or reality?”
“I…can’t tell,” she said softly. “I can’t tell.”
“Awwww, poor thing,” He crooned mockingly. “I really can’t understand why you have resisted for so long.” He waved the knife around and gestured: “Walk through the portal.”
Nara didn’t move. Her eyes met the researcher in Ceram hands. His name was Tyler.
“I’m sorry,” she said to him.
Tyler closed his eyes, tears trailing down his face as Ceram slit his throat. It wasn’t a pretty cut. Bronze rank strength tore through muscles, bone and flesh. The knife was extraneous. Tyler thudded to the floor, still alive, but not for long. Nara wondered if he regretted his choice to stay, or if he was as prepared for death as Jiro claimed he was.
“You still can’t tell if this is reality or not?”
“No.”
He whistled, impressed. “That nightmare bug has really done a number on you. But I think it’s time you start treating this like reality,” he said.
He crossed the room to Aliyah, yanking her up by her hair. She stifled back a scream.
Nara felt sick to her stomach. She knew what was coming and she was powerless to stop it.
“This is your friend, right? Aliyah Sahar, Magic Society researcher. Age 38. Specializes in array magic, but recently transitioned to astral magic. Dabbles in a variety of topic, including the physical sciences. Basic artifice capabilities,” Ceram recited. “Nothing important. And nothing I can’t kill.”
He dragged Aliyah closer to where Nara stood, “Offering the sanctuary of the harmony is our benevolence. Do you think any of you are that important? That we don’t already have researchers with your capabilities and specialties? That our own people aren’t capable of what you are just barely touching upon as if it’s some new and revolutionary discovery? Pathetic, backwater, and infantile. I’ve known more about the world than you all back when I was a teenager. I’m not even exceptional.” The admission hissed like scalding steam.
“I think you know what to expect, Nara,” he said. “Step through that portal, or I kill your dear little runic friend.”
“Okay,” she breathed. “I will.”
Aliyah stared at Nara, her expression furious, and mouthed, You. Will. Not.
*****
Aliyah did not want to die.
She wanted to explore the cosmos, find the answers that the world kept locked away. She sought it both—the secrets of science and magic. What was a world like without magic? What answers had they found?
She had heard but the barest crumbs of that exquisite cake from John, and she was captivated. Fascinated. Aliyah was obsessed with all there was to learn about the world. She had not realized her view had been so narrow. How could she only notice magic, and not the basic tenants of reality itself? She felt them now; she saw them now.
The sunlight. The ground. The waves. The moon and the stars. The world around her whispered and she wanted to listen.
How did it all work together, magic and reality both?
Aliyah would not let herself become the reason for her friend’s eternal torment. As much as she loved the world, she let it go.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Nara took a single, slow step forward.
“NARA EDEA YOU WILL NOT ENTER THAT PORTAL. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, NEVER. DO YOU HEAR ME?”
She took another staggering step forward.
“Even if you cross that portal to save me, Nara. I will end myself. It does not matter what they do, I will find a way.”
Nara looked up at her, tears already blotting out her eyesight.
“Please don’t say that,” she begged. “Let me do something good.”
“You’re running from reality,” Aliyah hissed out words she didn’t believe in, but what may stay those feet a few steps. “You step through that portal you damn your world. It may be one thousand years later, but when this tragedy repeats, it will be your fault. Not only do you damn your world, Nara, you condemn this one. Sen, Encio, Eufemia, and John. Their lives, their families. You have no idea what they will learn from you, why they are willing to go this far.”
Nara finally stopped.
“How touching,” Ceram said with fake cheer. His expression told an opposite story, creased with anger and fury.
He couldn’t kill Aliyah to shut her up, that would defeat the purpose of taking her as a hostage. But now the bitch had run her mouth, and the recognition he was so close to earning faded one more, just out of reach.
“Oh well,” he said. “Nothing more to it.”
He grabbed Aliyah head between his hands and snapped her neck with brute bronze rank strength.
With a thud, her body dropped to the floor.
*****
Nara was wailing, clutching Aliyah’s body as her life faded away.
“Please help,” she cried. “Anyone please!”
Ceram grabbed Nara, pulling her off Aliyah.
He leaned in, his words intrusive to Nara’s mind.
“We can revive her. It’s not too late.”
Nara’s eyes fixed on him, anger and despair surging in a volatile mixture sealed in an airtight container. For a brief moment, the pressure erupted.
-------
-Racial Ability [Free Spirit] has transfigured into [Soul Sanctuary]
-[Legion] has offered the [Blessing of Legion]. This will influence the evolution of [Free Spirit] to [Soul Sanctuary] to a new form.
-[Accept? Y/N]
-------
Nara didn’t care what it was and accepted. Whatever power was offered to her, she took. She wanted nothing more than to rip Ceram’s head off.
For a moment, her body glowed with iron light, and she heard three words in her mind, telepathically communicated to her by Chrome through the new effects of her racial ability before the suppression manacles once again cut off the connection.
“Take her body.”
The three words shaped the molten metal of revenge and reforged it into something colder and sharper.
*****
Ceram started to laugh, manically.
“Aren’t. You. Special!” He said, his head thrown back, “A racial ability evolution, here and now? Do you think this changes anything. You’re still below me. At my mercy.”
Nara had a singular purpose bestowed upon her by Chrome; She must retrieve Aliyah’s body.
In this world of magic, resurrection was real. As real as…magic. Nara could not store living beings with a soul or motive spirit directly into her inventory, but she could store dead ones. With the time pausing properties of her inventory, Aliyah’s body would be preserved until she found someone to resurrect her. It was a gamble whether it mattered—resurrection magic would not work if the soul had left the body—but Nara would achieve this objective and take the gamble.
Nara knew a gold rank healer with resurrection abilities, and his god would owe her this.
The obstacle was Ceram. She was just out of reach of Aliyah. She could take things in and out of her inventory at a distance, normally, but the suppression collar greatly restricted her range, even when she temporarily managed to push its effect off.
These thoughts swirled within her mind and calmed her. She kept her rage and despair simmering at a temperature just below boiling. She was ready to crank up the heat the moment she needed it.
Wild rage and despair had managed the first push. She needed to harness and control them to manage the next few steps. It was critical she succeeded on the first chance. Nara had no more second chances.
“For a special woman like you, as I said, we’re willing to do you favor. Revive your sweet friend. But you understand, I want to see a little sincerity.”
Nara took a shaky breath—she had inadvertently returned to human bodily functions with her mental turbulence.
“I’m not expecting much from you. I just want to see you beg.”
Nara knew what to do. Her mind remembered Eufemia—someone, it seemed, who’d get her and Aliyah out of this mess alive. She should have known that Eufemia had always been the survivor amongst them. She just didn’t realize to what degree until now.
*
“How do you act so well, Eufemia? It’s amazing—it’s so realistic.”
Eufemia scoffed. “Realistic? No, it’s not. Not on the stage. What’s up there in the light is something beautiful. Real ‘acting’ is ugly. But well—how do I do it?” Eufemia’s eyes sharpened. “You’re not capable of acting convincingly Nara, not in any way that isn’t also true to you.”
“So, what do I do, if I’m so incapable?” Because surely, it may be a skill that she may need. It was the reason for their eclectic party, after all, to learn from each other: It was Sen’s intention.
“What you always do. There’s a part of you where the ‘act’ is ‘real’. You hide it, I can tell. You keep yourself calm and contained, packed in that little box of yours.”
“I thought you couldn’t read my aura.”
“I hardly need to read your aura for that. We’re all always putting on an act. We all want to be seen in a certain way by other people: more confident, more capable, more intelligent, kinder, stronger, funnier, casual, or serious. Everyone does it, it’s just to what degree.”
Ceram expected the innocent, scared, helpless young woman in the throes of despair. That was still Nara. She may have a goal now, a goal she let consume her mind to push away the terrified girl sitting in the corner crying, but she was still that person. That had not changed. It would be easy to play the part.
Often Eufemia said she had done whatever it takes. Now, she would channel Eufemia.
She whispered, quiet and shaky, and pleaded with him for Aliyah’s life—he leaned in closer to hear. If she had her aura, she would have been able to sense his euphoria, his sense of accomplishment, as she was there begging and beaten.
When Nirvana was not in use, it stayed as a formless, shapeless accessory. No one could even touch it when it swung from Nara’s ear. It had been there, the entire time, unable to be removed by any of the Adventists: a weapon in plain sight.
Bronze rankers were tougher than iron rankers, and they benefitted from the effects of rank disparity. This effect was especially pronounced with naturally hard parts of the body, like bone, but less effective with softer and thinner tissue, like the eyes and the ears. The lethal Way of the Hunter told Nara what locations of the body were still vulnerable at which rank. The ear with its delicate semicircular canals remained a weakness at bronze rank.
It was fortunate that Ceram was the way he was. He was a shallow, impatient man with an inferiority complex at what he thought was the finish line of an infuriating chase. He thought he would finally be acknowledged. Lina had fallen; It was his time to rise.
Quietly and quickly, Nara transformed Nirvana into an ice pick, then plunged the icepick-Nirvana through his other ear, piercing his tympanic membrane and rupturing his ear canal. In the next instant, she sprang from her crouch, smashing his throat with an upwards chop, crushing his esophagus to prevent any spell incantations—she hoped she had put enough force into her blow—luckily, she had.
A bronze ranker had faster reactions than an iron ranker, so Nara intentionally aimed to catch him by surprise. With vulnerabilities, surprise was still an effective weapon.
The next two steps would be the hardest.
Ceram didn’t know what had hit him. He choked on air, words grating against a crushed windpipe, and his sense of balance had been destroyed by the pick that she had plunged into his ear. She grappled his body, pinning his upper body to the floor so he could not leverage his superior strength. His legs kicked out to yank her off, but she kept her head low, and he was uncoordinated. If he wanted to teleport now, he could—he must not have a teleportation ability. It didn’t matter either way, Nara just needed enough time to get to Aliyah.
But since Ceram was there, a flopping fish on a chopping board, Nara focused her aura, raw strength combined with control overwhelming the suppressive force of the shackles. She had to distribute her aura strength to two locations. Nara’s blade’s edge rage pushed enough power and precision through to temporarily lift the effect. She manifested the bronze rank dagger into her hand and plunged down on Ceram’s neck.
The rank rejection would eventually force her hand from the dagger, even if she could withstand the pain. But she had long enough; the looted knife was lodged in his neck. He wouldn’t die from it; bronze rankers could withstand the punishment and the blood loss. For a while, anyway.
The last thing Ceram saw was an ice pick stabbing into his eyes.
Ceram let out gurgled screams from behind her as Nara crouched in front of Aliyah’s body. Once again, she focused her drained spiritual strength, pushing against those ever-burning shackles for one final pulse of power. It was just a moment and that was all she needed. Aliyah’s body disappeared from the floor, safely stored away in Nara’s astral domain.
Jiro had never seen the ferocity of an adventurer before. Few had the chance. He had made it to bronze rank through cores that he afforded from his construction projects and array applications. He could not take his eyes off the iron ranker that dismantled a bronze ranker with an ice pick. It was morbidly stunning; a deadly ferocity of one who had stepped over the edge and plunged into the darkness without hesitation.
She stood, slightly swaying. She spoke to no one in particular.
First, she apologized.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I will not go through that portal to save any of your lives.”
Her friend had already died. None of them were so valuable to her as Aliyah was.
“I’m selfish,” she continued. The room was quiet except for Ceram’s gasps. “I need to live and escape so that I can revive my friend. Which means all of you may die.”
She paused and looked off at the corner of the ceiling as if she expected something to be there that wasn’t. Jiro wondered if she was still hallucinating.
“If you kill all of them it is because you are cruel. It serves no purpose. I will not change my mind.”
She said one final thing before she left the room.
“My death does not scare me.”