Anton trembled from head to toe as he rode along the wave. Water roared in his ears as he raced along the surface. The board beneath his feet moved like a living thing as it sliced down the surge. It felt like flying. Water peeled overhead, a barrel thicker than a house. He leaned forward, knowing he had to go faster — not even enough space in his mind to wish he was anywhere else.
He shot through the barrel as the mass of water crashed into the island. The center of the wave sloshed up, but the two wings swept out into the lake.
[Dandelion Gaze]
Anton’s silver eyes leaked out, and he saw himself, a speck of a man racing down the heaving floodwater — corpses and rubble staining the tumbling foam. His eyes spun out and found Bella still riding and whooping with joy. They spun out further and spied a raven flapping with a shard of Mirrorbell in its talons.
It flew toward the bubbling patch of blood in the lake as the boss’s head rose. No. It couldn’t… Couldn’t they catch a break?
The raven flew into the opening in the Boss’s skull and straight into its brain. He had to tell Zoe. Had to let her know how to end this goddamned quest.
One of his eyes raced toward the top of the island, but how could he convey that information with a silent orb? He needed to —
The essence of the Mirrorbell bubbled behind his eyes.
[Evolving Technique: Dandelion Gaze]
[Incorporating: Mirror, Sound]
[Crystalizing Technique….]
His omnidirectional vision blinked away as his technique collapsed. The sudden disorientation made him wobble. The plank shimmied under his feet and almost pitched him into the crushing wall of the barrel.
A multifaceted sac ballooned behind his eyes. It wedged against his brain and tunneled his vision. His vision tunneled. A vignette of darkness obscured the chute of raging water.
[Technique Crystalized: Window Spore]
He breathed and pumped Skein into the technique. Understanding blooming as he leaned forward on his board and shot toward the light beyond the barrel. Eighteen silver spheres raced out of his eyes and shot beyond the water and into the air. Perfectly spherical, droplets of liquid mirror reflected everything they saw. Anton raced an orb back toward Zoe.
###
The lake water ran crimson with the blood and offal of the dungeon boss, but still, that hate-filled monstrosity clawed its way toward the island. Yellow eyes burned like feverish suns, the water sizzling around them with an iron stink. They fixed on Zoe even from thousands of feet away. Part of its brain lay exposed where Oriz’s grass blade sliced effortlessly through the skull. Lightning flashed out in fits and bursts. Was the boss using bursts of Lightning essence to keep itself alive?
It would explain the odd, jerking motions of its single arm, as the claws rose from the water and down, dragging it onto the shore now, and again, flinging its hand forth to dig into the rock and dirt and heave itself up the hill. Jaws clacked with teeth taller than her. A pale, bloodless tongue flopped and tasted the air.
Zoe could hardly stand. Her enhanced Vitality patched at her wounds, but she needed days to recover. What could she do to prepare herself? How could she take out this monster charging through the forest toward her?
STATUS
Name: Zoe Chambers
Level: 26
Body: The Bell At The Center Of The World (Rank 2, Progress 6/10)
ATTRIBUTES
Might: 73
Vitality: 32 (+12)
Dexterity: 24
Willpower: 72
Insight: 32
Skein: 74/232 (+12)
Titles: Intrepid, Lodestone, Fools Rush In (Incomplete), Quest Breaker, Glutton, True Believer, Magnifying Glass
Techniques: Our Hearts Toll As One, Self Reflects The World, Mind’s Eye Incision
She hadn’t realized her vitality increased by 12 from the stolen essence. It had felt substantive, and focusing on her Vitality allowed her to redirect the flow of healing into her ribs. It itched furiously, micro-fractures snapping into place like pop rocks under her skin, but each breath she took was easier than the last. Her appreciation of the Mind’s eye technique deepened. No wonder Oriz was so curious, this was an incredible way of increasing her abilities… provided her hunger didn’t take control.
She just had to figure out how to work in tune with her curses.
One of Anton’s silver orbs dove from the air and hovered before her. She grinned, a flinching motion from the bruise in her jaw.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“I’m scared out of my mind!”
The orb hovered closer, and the light faded as the mirrored surface slid away to reveal Anton’s terrified face.
Zoe’s eyes widened.
“Your technique! And, you’re crazy…”
“Bella’s idea…”
The view split and Bella cheered at them from where she stood relaxed and easy on her board.
“I have no regrets!”
Zoe’s heart lifted.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“I’m glad you’re both —”
“Zoe!” Anton, tight-lipped with stress, interrupted her. “The Mirrorbell fragment is inside the boss’s brain.”
Zoe nodded. Of course that was the case, but all she had to do was outlast the dying creature. Every movement, the boss spilled itself. A length intestine wormed through the fallen trees, and the hill ran slick with blood. It would bleed itself out, and then she could find the fragment inside the corpse…
[Quest Updating…]
Zoe’s eyes widened as she tapped the system.
[Consume the Mirrorbell Fragment: 4/6]
“No!”
“Zoe,” Anton’s voice filled with panic. “It’s propagating inside the brain. You have to get inside --”
The orb vanished as the boss wailed. A screech that dragged through the air like claws on a chalkboard. Raw enough to shatter glass… and techniques.
It was coming close, and Zoe flexed her fingers. They weren’t broken. Good.
Looking over her attributes, her breathing evened out. Her heartbeat slowed. That was her accomplishment. 73 Might made her 36 times stronger than she had been when she first boarded the plane. She bent down and lifted a brick. Her hand squeezed into a fist and the brick crumbled. It hurt. Everything hurt, but she was strong enough. Her Dexterity was 6 times higher than it was. She was so used to thinking about her stats compared to each other, thinking about their failings, that she forgot how far she had come.
She knelt as the boss screamed its way through the forest. Breathed deep.
Trees shuddered and fell. Clouds of rock and dirt flew back with every swing of the claw. As it drew closer, the trees no longer concealed the bulk. The pale grey flesh of the head, and the swiveling yellow eyes peeked over the canopy. Lightning played between ragged fingertips as they poked through branches before yanking the trees out of the way.
Even injured, she was more powerful, more capable, than any human before her. She sprinted forward, charging down the uneven terrain.
The boss smashed through trees a hundred feet downhill. Fifty feet. It roared, yanked the earth, and hauled.
The boss sailed through the air like a projectile from a catapult. Its tongue lolled, its claws dripped blood, and its eyes burned.
Zoe leaped. Her chain wrapped around her fist as she flew up toward the boss.
Its eyes flashed, but its body hung limp. Even though it saw her, it couldn’t move. It had to wait for the next jolt of Lightning essence through its body, and Zoe had counted down how fast those jolts were. Every three seconds. Which meant she had more than enough time.
[Self Reflects the World]
She crashed into the creature’s cheek knee first. Her mirrored skin reflected the force straight into flesh and it parted before her like leathery clay. Blood stink filled her nostrils. Her mind clicked away from the moment, and she grabbed a hold of torn skin to stop herself from falling as the head continued falling to the ground. She pulled back her chain-wrapped fist, screaming, and drove her blow hard and deep into the burning yellow eye.
Foul sulfuric liquid blasted her. It flashed away from her Mirrored skin. Her chain unfurled from her fist and whipped into the brain beyond. She could carve through the eye tissue, the flesh, the nerves, but her chain bounced futilely off the adamantine bone.
[Skein 45/232]
She hoped she had enough Skein for her strategy to work. Together, they crashed down like a meteor.
The skull crushed Zoe into the rubble.
[Skein 7/232]
Her Mirrored skin absorbed the impact, she gasped as it cracked her armor and sank into her injured body. Muscle frayed. Bones snapped. Blood burst up from between her lips. But the technique didn’t cancel. Though stretched, the armor held, and it reflected the force.
Skein detonated out in an irregular cloud around her. The boss shrieked as the force drove into its cheek like a train. Flesh liquified and spurted away. The lips shredded to reveal long fangs bending and tearing at the gums. Cracks shot up the jawbone and through the now-empty eye socket.
The force blasted the head off of Zoe, enough for her to avoid its impact. She coughed and crawled away as it howled.
The sound of raw pain shook the air like a rope. Deep throbs of core hatred bucked her cells. Her pain became a groan, became a shout as she grabbed at her Sound essence, and forced it to loop through her body. The effects of the roar had to be supernatural. There was an emotional weight, something infectious, that she presumed was the influence of the Mountain of Hatred. She didn’t know how to resist that, but she could resist the sound itself. She spun out the essence and tuned it to harmonize with the boss’s howl.
Zoe heard the sound as though she were thrown off a mountain peak, blinded by the rush of air, drowning in static, falling into the thrashing agony of the roar —
Her body shook.
It felt like she was tearing herself apart, and then it clicked. She found the harmony, and the roar vanished. Blessed silence.
Clouds of grey dust billowed out from the impact and drifted out beyond the crown of the mountain in a loosening halo. Lightning sparked from the still-living boss. Half its head was a skull, shorn over the ear. The other side glared. Groaning words came from the ruined jaw.
Hatred. Blame.
Lightning flickered down the monstrous arm. It flopped and reached for Zoe before the current died. The hand swept away the bricks and split planks ten feet from where she crawled. Gravel pinged across her bruised back.
She stood and collapsed. The impact broke her leg, but she couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t feel anything… Her chain wrapped down around her leg, squeezed, and supported her. The pain came now, deep throbbing against the itch of Vitality, but at least the chain let her stand.
Zoe limped toward the boss as fast as she could. The single yellow eye rolled to track her. Grey folds of flesh creased as hatred distorted the remnants of the boss’s face. Lightning flashed in the dark of its pupil. The clawed hand swept toward Zoe. Fingers splayed for maximum area. Zoe couldn’t jump high enough to clear it. The bottom finger clawed at the rock and sent detritus spraying. Zoe dove toward the hand.
Her chain wrapped around her leg and pushed her off the ground. Zoe’s intact leg heaved. She dove toward the hand, screaming with exertion, and passed between the splayed fingers.
The boss roared and swung its hand back, but the Lightning charge died and its arm collapsed like a felled tree in the dust.
Zoe pulled into a ball as she hit the ground and rolled, coming to a stop against a pile of bricks. One more time.
She hauled herself to her feet. The boss was so close she felt the rage radiating from its eye like heat cooking her skin. So close she could see the brains inside the sliced skull. So close she could taste them.
With her Skein so low, she couldn’t rely on techniques. She needed to rely on her body.
She charged.
Lightning pulsed through the cavern of peach-colored flesh. It arced out toward her face but dissipated as the boss’s arm sucked at the essence. The claws swept back toward her. She leaped toward the opening in the head. A finger swept into her broken leg and shattered the broken bones. She screamed as she spun forward and slammed into the boss’s brain.
She gasped as the wet flesh swallowed her, and brains filled her mouth. She spat at the bitter, puppeteer-like taste. Pink obscured her vision. A tingle across her skin as the Lightning essence faded. In three seconds, it would return. She had to kill the boss.
Her chain retracted from her leg — agony as it collapsed — and lashed out at the massive organ encasing her. Zoe whipped her chain, tugging on her shoulder enough to spin her as it shredded brains to slurry. A low moan reverberated through the skull. The tingle on her skin became a prickle like knife tips.
She flailed. Clawing. Gnashing. Striking her chain against bone. She bit a hunk of brain away and screamed into the space as her skin burned. Any second now the Lightning essence would roast her flesh and boil her —
Intense cold embraced her.
She sagged, slipping down into the ragged brains as though it were a slowly fraying hammock. Everything was still except her gasping as the death energy rushed through her. Tears leaked from her eyes even as they chilled to frost. It was over.
All she had to do now was incorporate the fragments.
Her body slumped down onto the skull. She blinked where she lay aching and alive. The center of the brain was hollow, a space the size of a small bedroom, the pink mess of tissue surrounded her like horrific candy. But she wasn’t alone.
A man hung suspended in the pink flesh. His body writhed, boneless, formless, pitch dark as an empty sky, except for the claws, and the teeth floated through him like starlight.