Azrael fell backwards, dragonfire inexorably racing towards him. The bright flames roared and rushed, descending upon him like a shooting star – wonderous, bright and slightly surreal. Even behind shut eyes he could not escape it, the light of the fierce flames banishing the shadows that usually hid there. He could imagine the shadows fleeing behind him, stretching from the base of his feet to the wall of the cavern behind, in a desperate bid to escape the raging torrents of flame. They too would be subsumed in time, as the fire turned him to ash.
Unless he wasn’t.
He hit the cavern’s stone floor hard, the stone was hard and unyielding – painful – but the shock of pain shook an old forgotten memory loose. The stone was blissfully cool compared to the warm air of the cavern and the blazing flames and he instinctively tried to push himself further - not into the earth, but into his own shadow.
He fell – sinking – and the fire roared through the space he had occupied moments ago, the formerly cool stone rapidly expanding, cracking, glowing red and finally melting into a pool of molten lava.
Azrael didn’t notice, not from where he was hidden – drifting – in a realm of swirling shadows. Here it was blissfully dark and blessedly safe. His skin no longer felt like it was melting and his eyes no longer felt like they were being stabbed with blazing daggers. Here, there was no light, no heat and no cold. If he had to compare it to something, he would have compared it to being underwater, with no proper up or down. There was no fire here, no light, no direction and no gravity. There was nothing but shadows. Even space seemed to avoid this place, distances deceptively close and strangely far at the same time.
However, even here the light of the dragonfire seemed to touch, shrinking the shadows around him into narrow paths. These paths constantly moved as the dragon’s breath moved, casting and banishing shadows as it illuminated the cavern. Were it not for the unnaturalness of the realm – devoid of sound, sight and sensation – he might have been tempted to stay here. As it was, he quickly felt the need to return to reality, like a diver needing to return to the surface. This shadowy realm wasn’t a place people were meant to stay in for long.
Seeking a shadow to exit from he trusted his intuition to guide him, only to discover something he’d never experience before. One of the shadows was blocked. There was something there… he felt it shift and two eyes turned towards him. He shivered, suddenly eager to be out and quickly racing to pop out of the nearest shadow.
Emerging with a reflexive gasp for air, Azrael hid behind the fallen boulder whose shadow he had just emerged from. A shudder went through his body and he forced himself to regain control. He felt [Calm Mind] work in overdrive. His breath caught, staggered and laboured, before slowly evening out. That thing in the shadows had him spooked. The shadows had previously been his safe space to escape to. Now he had learnt that there was something else there. Not something else, he corrected himself as he rechecked the brief memory – somebody else. Someone else who knew how to walk amongst the shadows.
For an eternity and a half, he just lay there, his heart beating overtime. Between the dragonfire and the mysterious entity he felt like he’d brushed too close to death. Far far too close. He closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the cool stone. He was alive. Alena was alive. A half-sob of relief escaped his lips.
From somewhere in the cavern there was another scream. Another person down. Another person not alive. That could have been him just then – burnt to a crisp until not even ashes remained. Even his shadow would have been erased. It would have been like he’d never existed. And Alena would have vanished from this world along with him, no word, no warning.
That was the power of dragonfire. It erased. Just like it almost erased his village. Like it almost erased his people. They were his people, despite his best attempts to distance himself from them Despite his best attempts to push them away. They relied on him. They trusted him. And he’d promised that he would protect them from the dragon. That he would kill it at all costs.
…at all costs.
And yet, despite his best efforts… no, despite the best efforts of two-hundred players, it still stood.
Indeed, the dragon had now righted itself, blood pouring from its head, where it had impacted the ground. Blood poured from its stomach. Blood poured from its flanks. Blood poured from hundreds of tiny wounds.
And yet… it still stood.
They had thrown everything that they had against: swords, spears, arrows, magic. And yet, it still stood. He’d thrown everything in his arsenal against it… and yet… it still stood.
Almost everything.
There was one Skill. One Skill that he’d avoided. One skill he’d feared to use. He let out his last shuddering breath and righted himself. He pulled up the Skill in question from his [Status] – the Skill he’d gained from surviving an encounter with the Primordial of the Void.
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[Void Shaping]
Even the eternal, the infinite, the unbreakable and the impossible can change.
By drawing on the power of the void you may exert influence to change the form of physical matter.
The skill allowed him to draw upon the unstable energy from the other side of reality. It allowed him to draw upon the very same energy that had almost killed him. It was powerful. He’d experienced its effects on himself. It had ripped apart his whole existence – both mind and body – warping, shredding, twisting and piercing everything that made up him. He had survived. He had willed himself to survive, but a scar remained. It had marked him.
It was dangerous.
He feared it.
He needed it. It had saved him before.
It changed him. How, he didn’t know, but he was afraid.
He was afraid to use it. He was afraid to fight a dragon without it.
All power came with a price.
All responsibility came with a price.
He wasn’t sure he could afford to pay the price.
He wasn’t sure he could afford not to.
Azrael balled his hands into fists and then opened them. His hands were shaking. He balled them again and sought the point within his soul, where he was linked to the Void. It sat there, upon the ruined remains of one of his skills, a bleeding scar – a gate – upon a warped pedestal. He mentally reached out, feeling the Void respond to his touch and then he drew upon it, slowly and carefully coaxing it with his mana.
Someone, somewhere, screamed. He ignored it, drawing out and leading the unstable energy like he was leading the child across a tightrope. One mistake was all it would take for him to actually end up dead. He would never forget the feeling of his existence ripping apart, or the sights void energy bursting uncontrolled into reality.
He swallowed, his mouth dry and pulled the unstable energy into reality. It strained, rolling and roiling, testing his control and slowly eating at his mana. He fought to keep it under control. It was hard. What come next was harder. Like the Skill’s description said, the violent energies of the void interacted with the physical world. What he wanted to do was something else. He wanted to purposely create a Skill. He didn’t even know if it was possible. But he had seen things when his body and consciousness had been ripped apart in the Void. He had seen things that a mortal mind couldn’t properly comprehend. Amidst the destruction and rebirth of entire galaxies, he’d seen matter and mana move, meld, clash and create.
This cave was full of [shadow] mana, just as much as it was full [fire] and [heat] mana. They were two opposites, existing in equilibrium. Fire chased away shadows, shadows swallowed fire, but fire also gave life to shadows. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. It was a truth. [Void] would let him take this truth to the extreme.
Even if [Void Shaping] didn’t recognise [Shadow] as something to interact with, it would – soon. He would make it, because as the skill said ‘Even the eternal, the infinite, the unbreakable and the impossible can change.‘
It was impossible to have a cloak of shadows. He had seen Alena do it.
It was impossible to ‘make’ a new skill. He would do it.
The void only affected matter. He had felt it rip apart his mind.
This game worked with intent. He intended to make a skill. He intended to succeed.
The only thing was, despite being able to use [shadow] mana he’d never learnt how to do it himself. The game had gifted it to him, through Alena. She was the one who had acquired [shadow] mana. Not him. Not yet. Yet he needed it. He needed it now. So, he did the last thing he thought he would do. He settled into a position for [Meditation], drowning out the clash of metal on scales and the shouting of people fighting for their lives. He let it all fade away, just like it faded away when he was in the shadow realm. He held that image, the misty swirls of silent greys and subtle blacks.
And then he wove.
Streamers of shadow materialised as he plucked them out of the air. They were soft intangible wisps, yet they stuck together like tar – unwilling to separate. They flowed together, but each strand remained its own, held together by [Void], mana and his will. They shifted, they strained and they flowed. They shrank from the light and they drank it in greedily. They evaporated and the coalesced, trapped between the intangible and the tangible – the untouchable and the touchable.
And at some point the cloak simply… was. Blue screens had flashed in his vision, but he ignored them, unable to afford losing concentration. They were dismissed, for another time.
Now, he threw the finished cloak of shadows across his shoulders and it draped itself comfortably across his shoulders – almost weightless. A further twist of mana and a touch of void and a suddenly brilliant crown of blazing gold flames hung above his head, casting shadows and feeding the cloak. He pulled up the hood of his cloak, the crown and cowl working together to obscure his face. Only his eyes – as golden as the flames themselves – were recognisable from under the shadowed cowl, glowing as he continued to burn mana.
Harnessing the powers of the void required little energy on his part, but keeping it controlled required mana. Even now the ever changing, unstable energies sought to tear into everything that made up reality. He pulled up a single section of his [Status]
Race: Human (78%)
He let out a sigh of relief. It hadn’t changed. He’d managed to be careful enough.
He turned to the battlefield, watching the Dragon forcefully bat someone away. Another one down. They were less than ten now, including him. He downed his last three mana potions, dismissing the expected [Status] message that popped up.
Warning!
Due to replenishing over a quarter of your natural mana capacity through external means, within a short period of time, your natural mana regeneration will be stunted for a period of time!
He strode back onto the battlefield, his partially refilled mana ticking down like a timer.