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Volume 3
Chapter 31: Unexpected Event
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PLOCK! …………….PLOCK!
It was a sound that encompasses all senses. A sound that registers as a knock to death’s door. Soldiers in the front lines often hear this sound when they are dying as their senses creates a hypersensitive phenomena that hugs the mind and soul.
But in this place, surrounded by bones of the deceased, the curse that put him to silence awakens every 30 days to be renewed.
PLOCK! …………….PLOCK!
The sound that comes from the sky, a shadow that has no boundaries. Like a floating inversed sea of black blood, dropping one after another in the altar that has but a single cup.
PLOCK! ………PLOCK! …….PLOCK!
The droplets of black liquid started to become heavier.
Thicker, more viscous than before, the liquid starts to drop faster, heavier, one drop at a time.
PLOCK! PLOCK! …PLOCK! …PLOCK! …PL…
One after another, the drops became bigger. One after another, they began to group. The afternoon sky bade the red horizon, like that of blood, its vermillion dye was terrifying to the eyes.
The wind died, leaves stopped moving, the drop of black blood continued on without stop. They maintained a pace that every single drop was of neutral shape and size, same pace, filling the cup and over flown.
Days went by like this, the full cup’s contents that had over flown lay there on the floor. The ground of dust and bones, of dried up meat, rotten flesh, and crushed skulls, was all dyed in the black liquid. It crawled on from the altar where it appeared, reaching the throne made up of bones.
There, from the center of the throne, first came a figure, limbs and head made up of black shadows.
In all the days as the bright moon shone above, its light in the dark shone down the throne.
Stars were glittering, like crying for help, the ancient evil, sealed and forgotten, had started to awake.
The dead wind started to blow again, days passed since it began. Colder, harsher, dryer, and scented in blood, a sign of the ominous threat that ruled this land.
Of ancient evil, this spirit came, known for his crimes who killed many lives.
In the throne, the dark shadow took a more solid shape, the limbs and head seated in it was more man than a beast. But there was no man in that silhouette, just the dark and ominous shape of what looked like a man.
Days continued to pass, until the last crescent stage of the moon, and there the shape opened its eyes.
Blue like fire, burning with life. Nothing but black the shape was breathed life. Its body was made of black smoke, more blacker than the night and the darkness of the forest. Its eyes were the only distinction on its origins. Its blue spark was life, nothing more.
The drop of black water from the altar had stopped, the cup filled to the brim as the eyes of blue wandered to its direction.
All the liquid that flowed out from the altar was now absorbed by the black body and only the cup of pure black liquid was left untouched.
Then the eyes of blue fire wandered to the direction of the gathered bones around the altar, until finally settling on the limbs that formed his body.
The blue eyes squinted when he saw his black skin and he tried to scream but no sound came. His lips wasn’t given back to him. His sense of smell was there but not his lips.
Not even a moan got out, no matter how hard he tried.
He cried to the moon as he raised his hands. He moved them to try to touch his chest but there was nothing there to touch. No pain, no senses, not even when he tried to tear his flesh apart. No pain registered to him but he still knew that strength was there.
Only the sense of sight, smell, and hearing was left for him and when he finally looked up, he saw the bright moon shining down.
Clear white liquid flew out his eyes and the black man in deep black smoked body without a shadow knelt down to the filthy ground.
No sound even came from when he collapsed as if crying. He only looked up to the moon and raised his hands open wide, as if he was asking why.
He wasn’t trying to reach it nor he was trying to blame it. The black smoke body with blue fire eyes looked as if he was pleading for the moon for a reply.
He tried to removed his skin but only black smoke was removed. He tried to dig something off his chest but nothing was there.
The tears he was crying did not stop until he noticed the cup full of liquid, lying, waiting, in the altar of filthy cloth and stones.
That was when he remembered.
His eyes widened in surprise as he felt pain in his chest.
He collapsed to the ground as if a million ants were crawling and eating him. He tried to scratch them off but it consumed his senses that he convulsed.
In his chest he felt pain hugging him, like hot water, he trembled at the touch of pain on his black smoke skin.
Then a symbol of sorts came and his eyes showed pain, as the symbols came in red, blazing fire fonts.
The symbol was a large circle, with two different sized circles intertwining each. The smaller circle at the top left quadrant and the bigger one at the bottom right. In the sphere where they meet, there was the symbol of a crescent moon, then there was a smaller crescent moon inside the first with a teardrop at the bottom and a diagonal line that connects the two.
When the symbol finished being embedded, his trembling body stopped convulsing and he was relieved of the punishment… as of the moment.
He raised his body, trying to stand up but collapsed on his knees on the filthy forest floor.
Looking at the moon, he pleaded again.
But no answer came, as like in the last 45,000 years.
But he never forgave as he never forgot. The curse that put him in this eternal misery. The cup that is the answer to his plead. For he knew that he cannot touch that cup because of his body of smoke. So he will wait.
…he will wait.
Until that day comes when someone reach this place, he will wait until someone comes and free his frozen heart. But it’s not going to be easy.
Because as much as his savior’s fate resides in the moon and its blessing, he can’t control this cursed body to not test the one who will save his soul.
Arms cast down, devoid of spirit, only his tearful eyes and silent cry echoing in the moonlit night.
He look up to the moon and closed his eyes.
“Please, my savior, thaw my frozen heart.”
Opening his eyes, the blue fire became red.
And so he moved.
Unable to control his body, the curse on his chest was the sign that the carnage has already began.
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The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The birds flew as Karim looked up. His expression wary of the sudden silence of the crickets. Their fifth night towards the forest border was suddenly engulfed in the silent night.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Asked Siva as he was feeling the sudden change in their escort leader’s behavior.
“It’s too silent.” Karim said as he rolled his eyes from Siva to the rest of the team.
Siva raised his head as he chomp on the piece of meat on his hands. Then he summoned Dragunov and it was gone at the next second.
What was left was just a sort of blue quarter sphere embedded like a heart on Siva’s left chest.
“What is that?” Asked Hawkeye and Siva looked at her with a concerned look.
“Ah, I’m just testing something out.”
“Is that your Dragunov? I never notice that when you’re wearing it like normal.” Said Volt and ate his own meat-in-a-bone.
“Yeah. But I’m using it in another way than what I’m usually used to. I’ve never tried this before until now so I can’t be sure yet if it’d work.”
Samara sat beside Siva’s left and she stared at his chest close enough that it seems she was burying her face in there. This made Agatha flustered and she too went there to take a peek.
“It looks like a plasma ball. What is it?” Samara asked.
“It’s um… I really can’t answer that now.”
Agatha raised her head and Samara followed, their clothes were a little loose that their clea… ehem, that some skin was being seen.
Yet their eyes were innocent, especially of Samara who seem to have her Engineer blood rekindled with the spark of technological curiosity.
“Why?” Agatha tilted her head and Siva’s face blushed as he look over at Volt and Karim.
But Karim seemed to express irritation on Hawkeye’s direction which made Siva’s own expression dully, and he frowned at the sight of such display.
“E-Ehem, anyways, we have to eat faster. We’re running out of time and if we don’t hurry we…!!”
Siva gasped as he quickly took a surprised stance behind him.
Summoning his sword on the right hand, he took a guarding stance. Exchanging in reverse grip he stretched out a left hand into the direction of the forest’s darkness.
“Siva?” Samara asked, trouble in her expression.
“Hey, what is it?” Volt asked him too and he gave Hawkeye a nod.
Hawkeye took out her bow and pulled a bright bluish white arrow. The arrow didn’t come from any quiver and was automatically summoned when she combed her hand.
She released the arrow towards the direction of where Siva was stretching his hand and the arrow lighted a straight line until it hit a tree from a far.
“Nothing.” She reported as she narrowed her eyes to look sharply in the dark.
Then, Volt raised back to Siva as the latter looked at Karim who seemed to be alarmed.
“What was it?”
“I…” Siva looked back in the darkness and he gripped something in midair but frowned. “I don’t know, I-I felt another presence and when I focused the pieces on that direction, it… it vanished.”
“Something like the vanishing body you’ve been telling us this past few days?”
Siva looked at Volt and nodded. “I think it’s a new kind of Predator.”
Hawkeye was thinking and Siva glanced over her and then to Karim who was frowning again.
With a step forward, Samara summoned her dual cannons and it hovered beside her without effort.
“Is it the «Chitin Shell» now?” She asked.
“No. it’s not a monster, it’s something different. It’s smaller.”
“A Predator?”
Siva looked at Hawkeye who went beside him, shaking his head. It was there that he heard a clang of a giant blade as it rested on the giant root of the tree where they were.
He turned his eyes and saw the escorts, armed and dangerous looking, poised to strike at anytime. Volt and the others were all busy checking the surroundings that he was the only one who turned his head behind.
Then from the left he saw the archers pull out their bows and just like Hawkeye, but rather different, their arrows came from magic incantations, ability-made arrows with magical attributes.
Red and Blue ones were pulled and then became big, it was once pointed at the ground then raised towards them.
His eyes widened as time felt slow, the arrows became bigger, lights intensified, and when they were released, their target froze in shock. Siva froze in shock.
“What the…”
Two heavy swordsmen appeared above him while two more had flanked them at their sides.
The arrows were fast and it was all going towards him.
He was the target by all the attacking forces right now.
He tried to move but couldn’t do it. His legs felt heavy and his mind was frozen. His reflex told him that he should disappear, use «Lightning Step», then counter.
But on the first move that his mind had given, a sudden feeling of being bound by ropes came to his mind. As if being grounded by giant hands, he stopped moving and another order was given.
«Return»
The arrows came faster than he could blink. No. He can’t even blink for he was too shocked at the sudden turn of events.
10 meters. 5 meters. His eyes followed the trajectory of the arrows. Burning arrows and freezing arrows. If he was a monster, it wouldn’t work that much because of their anti-magic bodies.
Predators, though a little less, also have the same anti-magic defenses on their bodies.
Aliens, however, are weak against magic but they have numbers and their physical strengths are one to fear.
But players, they have 100% damage from another player’s magic spell.
Whatever spell was imbued to these arrows, they were all going to work 100% if they hit. Though still not that enough to kill, depending on where it hit, if the attack was made with paralyzing effects, then it will put the target paralyzed.
But in this case, it was fire and freezing arrows. It was an attack made to hurt with the burning sensation of a fire arrow and the freezing sensation of a freezing one.
Chest and stomach, the arrows pierced his body. Siva groaned in pain as he collapsed back from the impact.
Then, he saw the shadows of the men fall upon him.
Pain registered on his mind and he came back to reality. A familiar vision came back to his senses. He saw his parents in that accident and Baron on his arms, bleeding, not moving.
He saw himself unable to do anything.
Weak, powerless, nobody, trash. That was how he saw himself. Rex Kingsley was powerless to say something in front of Augustus Laniary.
The sudden swing of his decision, pushing him to the limit of his senses, he can’t let that happen. He mustn’t die here. He had no money to buy another avatar and he certainly does not have enough time to start careers all over again.
As the shadows fell upon him, his left hand reached his left chest first. After that, there came a spark. It was just short but it wasn’t that powerful.
The stun grenade would be rendered powerless in front of the attacking two’s thick armors.
But they weren’t the target. The target was himself. It was a move that needed instant reflex and quick decision on his part. The fear of the «Lightning Step» is still there but it doesn’t mean that «Disintegration» was limited to that.
In his right hand was the «Black Ender» in reverse grip half embedded to the heavy swordsmen’s blades.
What he did was to control the pieces using Telekinesis on his body and speed up his reflexes. The arrows were all stuck to his chest and Siva could feel his life draining away by the burning and freezing sensations.
“Siva!” The first to react was Volt and he tried to attack the two but on his side was a heavy swordsman and in order to protect Agatha, he met the attack.
“Why are you attacking us?!”
Samara shot the approaching heavy swordsman from her side and Hawkeye countered with arrows to the two archers.
Another spark came and Siva was in his black mask mode. Dragunov was then summoned back in full gear but he had two shots that made his body bleed. On his chest was a red burning mark while on his stomach was a blue area, freezing his insides.
But he gritted his teeth and endured the pain. How many times has he endured pain in this level before?
The Dragunov «Disintegrated» again and there was another spark. The Black Ender vanished from its embedment on the two giant blades, and when it came again it hit the two giant swords’ hilts and split it in half.
The two surprised heavy swordsmen was knocked back and landed beside Karim who was then in his ready stance to cause an attack. They fixed their weapons using nanocubes. And they took formation beside their leader, Karim.
From the far back, hails of ice came to attack Volt and the others while a burning lava tidal wave came from behind and threatened to devour them all.
With quick reflex, the two heavy swordsmen jumped away from the deadlock while Samara pointed her dual cannons at the giant lava tidal wave and the hail storm and attacked. The magic was cancelled along with the ice storm and it created a fog that covered the whole area around.
It was then that shadows from the dark came to join Karim. And this made Volt angry as Siva hissed.
“You bastard! I knew there was something wrong with your actions.”
“I’m only following my orders.” Karim’s statement was both cold and short.
“Tell me, why do you want to kill us? Why now?” Volt took over as Agatha tried to heal Siva.
Karim’s expression was grim but he maintained his pose. No. In fact, he even lowered his stance a little more, spear up front, left leg guard, he was like a tank but also a harpoon who can both talk and glare back.
“We should have done this sooner but Siva’s guard is always up and it was hard to take up an opening from the archer’s attention.”
“You didn’t answer the question.” This time, it was Siva who was pissed off. “Why do you wanna kill us?”
“Does it matter?” Karim lowered his stance again but this time, the other members with him along with five others more who had slim figures and black clothes all made their stance. “If you die here, then we will be able to come back to the camp and finish our quest.”
“I asked you why, why are you attacking us?”
Karim didn’t answer instead, the Mages from far behind released fireballs and icicle daggers, Tier-3 spells that was both high manna costing and very hard to formulate.
The fire balls reached them but Siva took them all. He crossed his arms and did something that made himself hug the smoke. Because if he dodged, Agatha would’ve been hit.
“Siva!” Agatha cried and she cast another healing spell.
Karim used the opening to attack and he skillfully used the spear like it was an extension of his body.
It wasn’t a skill nor an ability given by the game, it was real martial arts using the spear. The spear had a slim end, unlike the first one he used to cause an impression but it was fast and was deadly as Hawkeye was thrown away when she was hit.
With wounds, she crossed her arms and the heavy swordsmen all also started their attacks.
The archers targeted Agatha while Volt dealt with two heavy swordsmen and two slim assassins who just came.
“You will hinder our plans.”
Karim’s voice echoed and with it, from the smokes, his spear pierced through Samara. It was aimed at her face and she froze to the speed of the attack.
Its movement was like a whip. Fast and deadly. Precise and accurate, the angle made for a quick kill.
Samara’s eyes widened in shock. Her mouth agape, she couldn’t breathe. The spear was aimed at her eye, straight on, without mercy.
But then there came a black shadow who parried his attack with precise timing and countered using a spark that came from the subsiding smokes clouds.
Recovering her baring, he aimed at the place where her attacker should have been but the smoke parted with her blast, hitting a heavy swordsman instead of Karim.
Karim landed far, without a bruise nor injury, but he was glaring at the owner of the shadow that parried his spear. The sword was black, the wearer had black pants and white polo and he had a black mask. In his chest was a blue module, like a heart, it was shining bright with the moon above.
But below the mask, he was gritting his jaws, glaring at Karim who never cared for him.
“Why?! Why are you attacking us? Answer me!”
Karim took another stance and the Mages at the far back began to prepare another spell.
“Not all of you. Just you,” Karim said and this made Siva very surprised. “If you’re gone, then your quest will not interfere with ours.”
“Wha—”
“Please, just die.”
Karim’s spear end widened, transformed, morphed into a halberd. One end had a sharp edged axe while the other end had an anvil hammer. Its blades shone red in the dim darkness of their bonfire and Karim’s pose was as intimidating like a real martial artist.
Then it glowed even redder until it was blood colored and he swung it down towards the ground.
All the heavy swordsmen also slashed the air, just like that ability Garin had, they used it to attack Siva.
Siva’s left hand reached his chest fast and then a blue spark came. But in front of him came a barrier made up of bluish particles and with his left hand, he called for a lightning.
The lightning came from his hand from an E-Grenade, taking the shape of a crude, uneven sized sphere that protected them all.
It was a technique that he first thought of on the spot a few days ago. The technique that made him survive the relentless attacks of Cassiopeia’s boys.