Chapter 59 – A Leap of Terror

After he appeared back in Ziecherhein’s Node, Adam awkwardly landed on one leg, causing something in his knee to crack. He waved his arms to keep his balance. Slowly, his sight and other senses started functioning again, showing the utter madness around him.

The top of the pyramid was a battlefield. Roots of all shapes and sizes fought Thalers in unrelenting carnage as the rain splattered down from Worhaelis up above. Adam panted, forcing his body to move away from a giant covered by Overgrowth. It mercilessly smashed its club into a unit of Thalers, felling two of them. A masked Thaler leaped up, conjured a Marrow sickle which neatly slid through the giant’s neck before the Thaler hit the ground again. Somehow, new Thalers came into being around the pedestals at the edges of the platform. Their bodies appeared out of flashes of green light.

An unnatural, earth-shattering roar emanated from below. The enormous mass of Overgrowth Adam had noticed in the Node before turned out to be a humongous Root monster which stood next to the pyramid. Its hemispherical body was roughly shaped like a mix between a sea anemone and a grotesque fleshy flower. It swung its massive tentacles—made of vines and the interlocked bodies of Roots—which threw desperate Thalers away as if they were puppets.

Adam darted between the chaos around him, evading fights as he looked for Caine. Oh, splendid idea, Oliver! Go to the Node! We could—

Something hit Adam’s temple with all the subtlety of an anvil. His vision and thoughts blacked out for just a moment before he found himself flying. The wind and rain brushed his skin as he fell. Like a flash, the idea that maybe he should do something about the rather inconvenient situation flared up in his mind. He widened his eyes and hastily, just in time, he twisted his body to break his fall. At full velocity, he slammed into one of the great blocks that formed the side of the pyramid.

The air was pushed out of his lungs. Raw pain surged through his body. Adam’s wrecked body rolled over and stopped just in time before he would have fallen over the edge. With his body convulsing in a foetal position, eyes squeezed shut, he screamed in silence. Everything hurt, from his shoulder to his back and legs.

“Stay alive,” his heart hissed, sending desperate waves of comforting heat all over his body.

With difficulty, Adam craned his neck up, sending painful cracks down his spine. Desdemona looked down at him from the top of the pyramid and grinned savagely. The grim shape of the Tomb and the horrifying aurora loomed up behind her like an omen of doom. Oddly enough, green metal chains were wrapped around her torso. Although they had been when he’d first seen her, they weren’t there when they’d fought in Ziecherhein.

Roaring with savage laughter, Desdemona engulfed her body in the familiar aura shape of snarling fangs and pincers. She jumped towards Adam like a meteorite, bathed in orange flames, that plummeted down from the sky.

Adam groaned exaggeratedly as he stood up on wobbling legs, letting his left arm hang limply. The sheer pain made it easy to act like he was too hurt to fight, but the flame inside him still burned like an inferno. He dropped to his haunches, gritting his teeth in pain. Above him, Desdemona raised her blade.

Instinctively, Adam gathered Inner Fire in his legs and kicked off at full force, launching himself into the air. Desdemona reacted quickly; her blade deftly changed direction for a stab, just as Adam expected. He pushed the blade aside with his lower left arm, feeling the sharp edge slice through his bracer. The pain of the shallow cut was a cheap price to pay. He punched, hitting her full in the face with the force of their combined momentum behind the impact. Something cracked in Desdemona’s jaw.

Adam’s punch changed the trajectory of her fall, causing her to spin through the air like a bizarre children’s toy. He landed safely at the side of the pyramid and rolled to break his fall, but Desdemona crashed down on a block that stood a level lower. She fumbled her sword, and it clattered the long way down the pyramid.

Adam lowered himself to her level, his left arm still burning with pain from the fresh wound. She groaned, her face covered in blood, but stood up nonetheless. Her chain has the same pattern as the trails of Association. It wasn’t there within Eulenschloss or Ziecherhein but was at Catherine’s Node? Then it dawned on him.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

“You’re part of Caine’s Realm!” Adam said. “I get it now; you’re connected to the Realm because you’re Caine’s memory of Desdemona!”

Desdemona spat a wad of blood at him and kicked sideways. Adam had no choice but to block her leg with his wounded arm and yelped.

“What else could I be?!” she snarled as she followed up with a downward swipe from her clawed hand. However, her movements were slower since Adam’s punch and her fall. Adam blocked her arm near the elbow, grabbed it with both hands and hurled her over his shoulder. She landed flat on her back, her head towards him.

“We used to fight side by side, back in the War of the Prophet!” Adam panted as he rushed down for an arm-lock. “Why are you trying to kill me?!”

Desdemona doubled over, stretched out her right leg, and slashed him with the blade on her boot. Adam screamed; hot blood flowed richly out of the line of pain down his eyebrow and through his cheek.

In the blink of an eye, Desdemona was on him. Adam lay on his back, one arm trembling in the effort to keep Desdemona’s clawed hand away from his face. With an Invocation of the savage orange energy, Desdemona elongated her teeth into fangs. Adam’s other arm quivered in an effort to keep her from biting his jugular out. His heart desperately sent waves of Inner Fire to both arms.

“Stay alive!” it hissed.

However, Desdemona’s muscular body was heating just as well, undoubtedly empowered by the Inner Fire of her own left heart as she went for the kill.

Adam’s eyes widened when he smelled something odd: the stench of death. A grey haze lay in Desdemona’s bloodthirsty eyes as she elongated her teeth even further.

“What—” he uttered.

“Die! Stop your questions and DIE! You’ll finally get what you deserve…”

Having no options left, Adam looked up at the shimmering green aurora that loomed high up the Node. Despite the instinctive urge to look away, he thought of the disaster of Ziecherhein, of Alef, and all the other brave people who had died instead of him. That he had dared to survive. He shivered as he embraced the knife of guilt that pierced his soul. I WILL redeem myself!

Barely able to see through the blood flowing down his face, Adam roared with all the self-hatred he had inside of him. As his left heart screeched Schultora’s name, his Invocation scraped his veins from the inside, damaging his flesh. It burned like savage abrasions all through his body. However, freshly extracted Inner Fire converged in his arms. Gritting his teeth in the titanic effort, Adam pushed Desdemona’s clawed hand and snarling mouth back.

“YOU FAILED!” Desdemona screeched, her face torn in a mixture of pain and intense rage. Veins and tendons bulged all over her red-hot, muscular body. The blind fury seemed to empower her, making her able to return Adam’s force in full. “Despite all your damned ‘research,’ Zachalynn had to—”

From the corner of his eye, Adam saw two massive tentacles of the Root monster near them. “Watch out!” he screamed. “GET BACK!”

Desdemona sprang up and Adam slipped away to dodge.

The giant appendages—made of tree trunks, bodies of Roots, and vines—swung straight towards them. Adam sprinted as the guilt made way for fear, and he embraced it. Let it keep me alive. Reflexively, he turned his attention inwards and felt the mark of Osaehin flare up. Held in the tight grip of unnaturally enhanced terror, his body glowed in yellowish light. Nimble as a summer fly and light as a hummingbird, he jumped off the pyramid in the nick of time. The massive tentacle crashed into the stone blocks, sending intricately decorated rubble flying. Desdemona had leapt to dodge, but one of the vines managed to grab her ankle. She hissed curses as it yanked her away through the air.

Adam soared down through the air alongside the outstretched limb of the Root monster. Far away, the floor of the Node edged closer. Although he’d dropped from quite a height after Desdemona’s kick, it was nothing compared to the long distance between him and the shallow water down below. Pure, condensed fear rushed through his veins and gripped his throat, making his breath come short and shallow. Reflexively, his senses pulled his attention to spots where he could hold on to, hide, or do anything necessary to survive.

Adam stretched out his hands to a loose vine that hung from the tentacle. The muscles in his arm trembled in the effort to hold on and reduce his velocity, but the vine snapped off. His eyes darted towards the next spot. A mass of Roots with interlocked arms and legs formed the side of the monster. Adam grabbed them, desperate as a baby monkey clinging to its mother. However, due to his momentum, the Roots he held on to ripped loose from their formation and fell down with him. Without a thought, Adam pushed one of the shrieking Roots away in mid-air.

The awfully shallow water at the bottom of the pyramid was close now. Letting his instincts guide him, Adam took his posture. Like a salmon from a waterfall, like a sea eagle catching prey…

Adam hit the water from an angle, protecting his head with his arms. Pain surged through him, but he’d decreased the velocity of his fall enough to survive. He rolled over the bottom and bumped into a body of some sort. A fish or a combatant, he wasn’t sure.

He rose from the water, gasping for air. Wild-eyed, he panted and stared around with utter disbelief that he’d survived somehow.