CHAPTER 30 - TRUE STRENGTH

Earlier this morning…

A warm wind billowed through the forest, causing lime leaves to flutter and rustle. In a few more hours, we’d reach the place where Rarq, Lena and Fern were last seen. The group walked silently beside their horses, ready to fight anything that came close.

“Hey, June.” Winter sidled up towards me, starting a conversation.

‘What’s up?’ I yawned as I replied.

She paused for a moment, as if trying to phrase what she was trying to say next in a particular way. “You know that we’re about to probably go into a dangerous situation, right?”

‘Yeah…? Why?’

“Rarq, Lena and Fern aren’t exactly weak. If they managed to get themselves stuck in such a situation, it’s probably because their opponents were much, much stronger than them- or they had some sort of way to nullify their magic. Neither of which are something that’d be easy for us to take on.” She stopped to take a breath. “And that’s why I have something to ask of you.”

Oh, boy. Was this my time to be a star?

‘Alright, alright! What is it? What is it?’ I couldn’t wait to see what kind of task she had for me.

“In the worst case scenario. Worst, worst, worst case scenario, you hear me…” She said seriously. “I want you to use the magic that you did before. That dark, black orb, void magic you used.”

I was a little confused. ‘Didn’t you tell me never to use that because it was dangerous?’

She nodded. “That is the exact reason why I want you to use it. If things go the wrong way, that unpredictable thing might be the only way to save us.”

‘But… what if I end up hurting or killing someone? I’m the Bar- I mean, I’ll have to take responsibility, won't I?’

A loud guffaw echoed through the forest, breaking the tension that had settled between the entire party.

“He’s scared of killing someone!” Edith cried hysterically, slapping his thigh as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

“Oh, shush, Edith. You realize not everyone was forced to kill when they were children, right?” Verity sighed and took out a small loaf of bread. “Just chew on this and shut up.”

“Ah, right. One more thing.” Winter said, ignoring them. “It’s about Cherry.”

‘Yes…?’ Anything that had to do with Cherry was bad news.

She paused yet again. “I just want to remind you that you are L’Der and Gifted. But before that, you are father and daughter. Even though she may be more powerful than you…”

Damn it, why’d she have to remind me?

“She is still a child at heart. She’s only been alive for, what, a few weeks? All she’s ever known is the wasteland Oblivion is and violence. Do you want her to grow up to be like us? Not saying that we aren’t fantastic people, but… you know what I mean.” She gave me an encouraging smile, but to no effect.

‘Why are we having this conversation now?’ I asked blandly. I didn’t like Cherry. Full stop. That was it.

She frowned. “Are you telling me that you’ve never considered that we could die out here?”

I-I didn’t know what to say.

An awkward silence fell between us.

“I didn’t mean to ruin the mood. I was just trying to remind you that even though you’re practically immortal, there are still some things you haven’t tried that could kill you. Or worse.”

Verity face palmed. Jay chuckled. Winter looked around dumbly.

“What?”

“You just ruined the mood more by saying that.” Verity explained.

“Oh, um, sorry?” She offered, and shook her head like she was trying to clear her thoughts. “Anyways, as I was saying. Though she’s strong, she still needs guidance. And that’s your job to teach her. If we get back to Agridia, hopefully she’ll learn a skill like yours that grants her a human form. You can teach her to meld into a normal, human society. Maybe even send her to school.”

‘Papa, what’s Agridia?’ Cherry, who was eavesdropping, floated opposite me.

‘Agridia is the place where we all came from. It’s like out here, except instead of trees there are houses and there are so many more people. We’ll go there once we finish our mission.’

I swear her eyes lit up at that. ‘More people?’ She exclaimed happily. ‘Does that mean I’ll make new friends?’

‘I… guess?’ I offered, not really knowing what to say. She seemed to be really obsessed with this whole ‘friends’ business and I didn’t know if it was my place to interfere.

‘Promise?’ She asked, leaning in even closer to me.

I sighed. ‘Alright. Promise.’

----------------------------------------

The teal sky. The luminescent moon. The trees swaying in the slight breeze. The creatures that prowled through the night.

The glowing embers.

The smoke.

The little flaps of burnt pink potato skin.

The ashen chunks of potato flesh that rested in the grass.

The man standing in front of me cackling in delight. The body of another man, his limbs bent at angles that shouldn’t’ve been possible for a human.

The wood that trapped this human form.

None of it affected me. As time seemed to slow, I thought to myself calmly. ‘Why did this happen?’

And then it hit me.

Cherry was gone. Gone for good. Dead. No longer existing.

But my mind didn’t want to accept that.

I looked down slowly.

The wooden bindings had disappeared.

My right leg took one step forward without my direction. Soon, the left leg did the same. By my side were my scaled, clawed arms, turned in an upwards position. My claws were clearly stained with a mix of rat and human blood.

As I looked up, I caught sight of a few notifications blocking my vision. I couldn’t quite make sense of them.

[Warning: {Bloodlust} has taken complete control over your {Potato Body}. Mental state is being drained. You may experience confusion or intense headaches.]

In a blur, my right arm swung forward, aiming to tear out the man’s throat. He jumped back and said something that came out as a mumble to my ears. It sounded like something along the lines of; “Playtime is over.”

Something else snapped in the distance, but I couldn’t have cared less. I just wanted to sleep. To die. To disappear before the inevitable grief took hold of me. However, it was too late.

Memories of Cherry swept through my head like a storm, clearing away the drowsiness and confusion.

The moment I sensed something odd about her as a seed. The time when Mox had tried to name her ‘Arthur’. The fun times we had playing ‘hot potato’ with the group together. The not-so fun times we had when she outdid me in front of everyone. The times where she’d pile up questions impossible for me to answer. The times where I deemed her annoying, simply because she wanted my attention.

Good, bad, fun, sad, they were our memories. As little as I liked her, she was still my daughter. I had promised to take her to Agridia.

And now she was gone.

Just like that, I snapped back into reality, no longer harbouring wild anger. It had been replaced by a clear, cold hatred. The sadness could come later.

“I am going to kill you.” I declared, and pointed a clawed finger at Lando. “Prepare yourself.”

“Oh?” He seemed mildly displeased, yet intrigued at the same time. “And how do you plan to do that when you haven’t even seen my true form yet?”

As he spoke, something bulged out from under his skin, causing it to tear and rip. His body shook as it grew and soon, his clothes had fallen off his body. Literal tree trunks had replaced his human body parts. His wooden body was covered in a shiny layer of blood, making him look demonic under the moon’s glow.

The thing that had changed most was his head. Now firmly attached to his upper body with no trace of a neck, his face had too turned to wood. Burning red eyes shone from within two black holes in the hollow skull. Tree branch horns grew out of the top of his head, growing a few crimson leaves.

Instead of human hands and feet, he swung around wooden blocks that were perfect for standing- and crushing. He now towered over me, at least double my size.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

His voice boomed throughout the forest for everyone to hear. “You should have seen the look on your face when I killed your poor daughter. It was like the world stopped for you.”

He was still trying to provoke me.

Instead of continuing to listen to him, I read through the profile window that had appeared before me. I was already expecting something like this when Elric’s profile had only become visible to me when he’d shown his true form.

___________________________________________

Lando Trinity

Level: N/A

Race: Demon Elderwood

Type: L’Der

Class: Mage

Path: Path of the Nightmare Sadist

Applied Faith: None

Combat Power: 35241%

___________________________________________

I felt a little hope die inside as I saw his combat power. He was more than three hundred times stronger than me, even in this boosted form. I didn’t stand a chance.

“Oh? Are you scared now?” He raised the stump that was his hand and pointed it at me.

Without warning, a solid spike of wood shot out of it towards me. I barely managed to twist my body away in time. A second later and I’d have been a potato on a skewer. Thankfully, I already had a little practice with this kind of dodging practice with Elric.

Not giving me any time to rest, another spike came for my chest this time and grazed my arm as I backflipped away. Eight seconds ago, I would’ve told anyone who asked that I didn’t do gymnastics. It was amazing what the body could do to stay alive.

So focused on where the next attack would come next, I failed to notice the wooden tendrils snaking out from the broken houses.

By the time I realised they were holding my legs firmly to the ground, it was too late. The next spike had already shot out, and it was heading straight for my stomach. I had no time to move.

Splurt.

My jaw dropped open as I stared down at the massive wooden pillar pinning me to the ground. I could barely register the pain.

It was over, and I hadn’t even had a chance to attack.

Lando smiled what I assumed was a victory smile- it was hard to tell when his lips were made of bark. Taking his time, the back end of the spike split in two and curved around. They snapped tightly together, trapping my arms to my sides. Unlike last time, these bonds were practically unbreakable.

Once I was brought only a few centimeters away from his grinning face, he stopped. “Let’s play another game, shall we?” He asked energetically.

I ignored him, instead counting down the seconds ‘mutation’ had left before it canceled. It wasn’t long.

“I’ll give you another two choices. One, you can stay here and be a good potato while working for me. I’ll need you to sign an L’der-Gifted contract so you don’t go running away back to those friends of yours. Actually, what kind of friends are there? Didn’t they just ditch you to die? While you’re thinking up the answer to that, I’ll give you option two. I can send you to the same place that I sent your daughter. After some torture, of course. I’ve got some new methods I want to try on vegetable beings, and since Elric is gone, you can take his place.”

Ten seconds left before I reverted. My xera capacity was now at an astounding thousand because of the buff from ‘bloodlust’.

It was now or never.

“So, what’s it going to be, potato?” He pressed on.

“Hey.” I said quietly, my eyes closed, concentrating. ‘You got quite a few things wrong there.”

“Did I now?” He asked mockingly and brought me closer.

The anger disappeared slowly, but my killing intent remained. A smile spread across my face as I pictured the faces of each member of the Haven guild. It’d be a shame I wouldn’t get to know the three we rescued better. Oh, yeah. And Cherry.

My first child.

A bundle of joy and energy that brought happiness to whoever she went near.

I spoke the words I had neve dared to say before. “I love you, Cherry.”

And just like that, I pushed out all the pent up emotions and feelings I’d bottled up all these years. Frustration, at my parents for not caring for me properly. Anger, at being used as a tool. Happiness, at finally being accepted. Pride, at being needed by someone. Sadness, at not getting to spend much time with my first child.

It wasn’t a spell that Winter had taught me.

Hell, it probably wasn’t even a spell that properly existed.

But it was my spell.

My power.

And whatever happened after would be my doing.

Every noise around me died as the tiny black orb appeared in front of the elderwood’s face. He didn’t seem too afraid and mocked it. His mouth opened and closed but the sound didn’t reach my ears.

All the while the black orb grew.

Starting out at the size of a mere baby pea, it absorbed everything around it, dragging even sound into its core. Flaking pieces of bark, detached wooden beams, sand and dirt flew up to meet it. Whatever went in was never to be seen again. As it got larger, its gravitational pull got stronger, to the point where even strips of wood began to peel from Lando’s skin. Still unable to move, all I could do was marvel at the beauty of destruction.

Then the rumbling began.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Lando’s expression turn into one of horror as an ear splitting crack rang out. His neck. It was coming apart.

Well, he wasn’t wrong. We were all going to die, whether or not ‘the tales were true’.

I watched my xera tick down to seven hundred. It had been only about a minute since I’d used the spell, and it’d consumed over half the camp and three hundred xera. All the while it grew and grew and grew. By this time, it was now the size of my head and a black, electric like energy crackled about. Its gravitational pull was so immense that even the very space seemed to tear and be pulled into its core.

The rumbling grew louder too. Several large cracks had formed in the ground, collapsing huts and caving in the sunken plot of land even further. And then something huge and blindingly white burst out of the ground a dozen metres away from us. My mind was so broken that I couldn’t even get a good look as it flew into the sky.

Lando spun around, still holding me, only to be met with a burning beam of light. It caused him to stagger back a little as flames burst into life on his chest. The beam had barely missed me by a few centimeters.

“June! Are you alright? Where’s Cherry?” A familiar voice called from below.

“Winter? You came back for me?” I asked in both relief and shock.

“Of course we did. We don’t leave our own behind.” Mox grunted, solidifying the air to trip the giant tree.

Now renewed with energy, I used god’s hand to perform a sideways chop to Lando’s neck.

It was all too much for him, and his head popped off like a button.

He tottered to the side, flailed about for a few moments, and crashed down sideways over the camp. If he wasn’t holding me, I would’ve been sucked into the black core with everything else. It was a miracle Lando’s body was heavy enough to even fall at this point. The terrified screams of both prisoners and guards alike filled the air.

For a moment, I blacked out as I hit the ground, still trapped in Lando’s hold.

“June. June. You alright?” Verity asked, shaking me awake. A black blade had formed in her hand, which she was using to cut the wood that bound me.

“Yeah… I think so, at least.” I replied groggily. “Is that dark magic? I thought you could only use water?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Something changed after Kearan opened that portal.”

“What happened?” I asked, shaking my head.

“The monster fell, remember?”

“No…” That wasn’t what I meant. “Why are you here? Cherry died so you could escape. Why would you come back to save me?” My voice began to break and I could feel the tears about to fall.

“Cherry… died?” Her eyes widened as she stumbled away. “You’re kidding…”

However, her realisation was cut short by Mox. “Get up, you two!” He barked from a few metres away. “June! Stop your magic!”

Right.

The grief could wait. The black ball, now the size of a hut, was so strong that it even pulled nearby trees in. If Winter had knocked down Lando any later, he wouldn’t have fallen. We’d both have been sucked into the orb’s core.

I glanced at my xera capacity. It was currently at five hundred out of two hundred. Even though mutation had already concluded, the effects still temporarily remained.

‘Stop.’ I thought, trying to shut off the connection between the black orb and myself. ‘You are no longer needed.’

I felt its gaze shift towards me, like it had a consciousness of its own. A word formed in my mind, filled in by the black orb itself.

‘Hungry.’

The connection remained, but something had changed. I was no longer supplying it xera. It was drawing xera off me.

No matter what I did, the connection remained, and the spell continued. I could do nothing to stop it.

“Mox! I can’t stop it!” The end of Lando’s body lifted up and began to slowly drag across the ground into the orb.

Mox cursed and gestured to Winter. “Just run!”

He pulled me up, but as I stood on my feet, the world titled to the side and my body swayed.

“Wait, Mox. I can’t walk.” I could barely see properly and a piercing pain in my head made it difficult to even think, let alone tell my body to move.

He hesitated for a moment, still clutching my arm, and sighed. “Sorry about this, June.”

Splurt.

The tip of his sword poked through my back, steadying me. I was so lost that I couldn’t even feel the pain.

Grunting, he twisted the blade around my potato body and thrust his hand in to yank it out. As I left my human perspective, a shrill scream filled the air.

None of us had time to care, for we were too busy running. I watched the black orb pull my human body into itself, devouring it along with various other objects.

My xera count was back to a hundred once more.

Seventy five.

Fifty.

Twenty five.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

And finally, zero.

Now close to a hundred metres away from the orb, a rush of air burst from Mox’s feet as he jumped, yanked a patch of grass to give himself a final boost, and scrambled over the hill.

It looked like the grass was rooted deeply, after all.

A shockwave exploded out from the black orb as it closed in on itself, silencing the screaming. We were thrown away like ragdolls, flying a good few metres away.

And for a moment, there was complete silence. But then a rustling in the bushes behind us disrupted it.

A familiar mop of red hair peeked out. Kearan. His face was slightly battered and still incredibly pale, but overall, it was great to see him actually standing on his own two feet.

“You made it all back.” He said, sounding relieved albeit relatively surprised.

I couldn’t help but wonder why he felt surprised by that.

“Yeah, and in one piece too.” Mox added, before fishing me out of his pocket.

I could barely feel his fingertips on my skin. Now that the adrenaline rush was over, my pounding headache had returned. Whether or not it was due to the stress of the day, the loss of Cherry, or even just plain overuse of my abilities, I felt dead tired.

“Thank you, June. Really. You saved us.” Kearan said sincerely.

I didn’t reply.

I was already fast asleep.