A tense tiring few hours later, Miles was still moving as fast as Nameless Movement could allow it.
That second altercation seemed to have riled up the rest of the Hordred rats considerably more, for the patrols of blooded silhouettes scouring the maze had nearly doubled. It was getting to the point that even Blood Vision was having trouble separating one creature from another, their presence populous to the point that Miles had to think for a moment to understand exactly what he was seeing.
None of them behaved as one would expect from an ordinary rat, or... animal. Their movements were militarily organized and methodical, as if they were privy to knowledge about the maze that he himself did not have.
The smaller rats were the most dangerous, for they sensed him well in advance and sounded the alarm with a hideous screech, instantly summoning hordes of rats to their location. After one or two close escapes, Miles learned to give any advanced notice of them a wide berth.
That was how, by utilizing the information from his vision and other senses as much he could, he managed to avoid a third encounter despite making quite reasonable progress through the maze.
Frowning, Miles came to a sudden halt. it was not to rest, but to avoid a group of patrolling rats. Their converging movement suggested what lay ahead was another crossroads. It was in those few moments of rest, that he felt his heavy, erratic breathing.
The weight of his suit caked in Hordred rat blood. The heavy oppressive feeling of being in an enclosed space. The musty warm air of the cavern. That almost claustrophobic sensation arising from having to run through endlessly identical hallways of cold iron. Muscles exhausted by hours of running begged for a proper rest, but Miles would not allow it.
He had barely held out against the Hordread Rats before, even wasting five rounds of the Caucon to take the lives of half a dozen rats. It was a ridiculously terrible trade, especially considering the fact that there were literally thousands of those smaller rats.
He refused to waste any more of the Caucon's ammunition, not when he had no idea what else he would have to face in this Doorway. Unfortunately, he also had no other way of taking down a potential Sonokinetic, not from a distance.
Miles felt his fists tighten at that familiar feeling of helplessness, but the self-loathing did help ignore the pain, the physical pain from fatigued muscles at least.
He grit his teeth, forcing the exhaustion and conflicting emotions into a corner of his mind. Since he would undoubtedly fail to survive any brainless attempt to take the rats all on his own, avoidance was the priority.
With a few more seconds to refocus, Miles proceeded to dash into the now clear hallway.
Another hour passed, endless dashing and carefully avoiding patrols of the Hordred rats, when it happened.
With a sliver of hope, the Lykaon ring came to life and Cadmus answered with what Miles had requested before, “CURRENT MAZE ANALYSIS COMPLETION: APPROXIMATELY 21%. INSUFFICIENT FOR COMPLETE MAP GENERATION. FURTHER DATA AND ANALYSIS WILL BE REQUIRED.”
Any expectations were dashed mercilessly. Had he had any weaker of a mindset, Miles may very well have given up at that point. But he simply forced his screaming muscles to get him to run even faster.
Having hopes broken was something he was familiar with, but it seemed the corporate AI had not spoken to say just that.
“NOTICE OF IMPORTANCE. THE PREDICTIVELY CONSTRUCTED MAZE MAPPING SHOWS SIMILARITY TO A SELECT FEW LABYRINTHINE STRUCTURES AVAILABLE IN CACHED LYKAON NETWORK DATA. A SOLUTION TO THE MAZE MAY BE PLOTTED BASED ON AN AGGREGATE MAZE FORMED OF THOSE LABYRINTHS.”
Miles narrowed his eyes at the revelation. He wanted to inquire about these so-called 'labyrinthine structures' recorded in the network and their sources, but it was not the time nor the place. If Cadmus said it was so, it would be so.
What he needed to know was something else, “Cadmus, how is the confidence percentage?”
“BASED ON CURRENTLY MAPPED DATA, APPROXIMATELY 32% PROBABILITY OF ACHIEVING AN EXACT MAZE SOLUTION.”
Miles considered it, even as he passed through another crossroads and chose the path that avoided the patrol of a half a dozen Hordred Brutes. It was true that he was tired and exhausted. A part of him wanted nothing more than to leave the situation up to chance and to just accept this offer.
But these were not betting odds. Not when the stakes were his life.
“Noted, but that probability is far too low. Cadmus, notify me if you calculate better odds.”
It actually took far more from him than expected to say it out loud. It was the harder decision, but it was not all bad.
If this similarity was something beyond mere coincidence, the chances of Cadmus confirming it would be far quicker than mapping enough of the maze in its entirety.
So, with a hand pulled through blood speckled hair, Miles sprinted through the hallway, continuing to adhere to the principle of always turning left.
***
Surprisingly, things continued to go rather well. Even as he covered more and more of the different paths of the maze, Miles managed to give himself the occasional break, just enough to ensure he never fatigued himself to complete exhaustion.
According to Cadmus, the completion of the maze mapping was still a way-away, but so far it had been perfectly consistent with a particular few Labyrinths cached in the Network.
The probability of similarity had risen to nearly 40% and Miles fully intended to use it to solve the maze if the odds rose any further. For the moment though, he was at a junction, having just returned from a dead end.
The path that caught his eyes next was quite similar to the cold iron hallways elsewhere, except… Blood Vision highlighted the splatters of crimson all over it with visceral clarity. The walls were painted with splatters of glowing red, as if vandalized with blood.
Miles had initially avoided it for that very reason, but as far as he could see there were no blood silhouettes of creatures in the vicinity. It was just some blood. So, he proceeded to dash through it.
The familiar scent of blood reached him almost instantly, the telltale stench of iron and faded life.
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Miles’ mouth watered his desire riled up far more than even when he had bathed in the blood of slaughtered rats.
His nostrils expanded, analyzing the scents.
There was reason for it. This blood was rippling, pulsing with life, and it was fresh...
Yes, it was extremely recent.
Hours? Minutes? Seconds…? No, even more.
Instantly Miles was wary, the rest of his senses spreading out to detect any unexpected surprises. That was when he tugged upon the scent thread just enough to realize...
The blood was not ‘merely’ recent. It was alive.
It was only when he was right in the middle of the hallway that he witnessed it himself. Brought to life by some unseen force, the splatters of blood flowed in reverse, gathering into droplets. Those drops met each other, coagulating to form solid pinpricks of glowing light. The blood formed crystal, heart crystal.
As if they were magnets of blood, even more droplets gathered around them, instantly forming the blooded silhouette of something resembling a whole creature.
Barely a second passed, and what Miles had thought was a splatter of blood had became a small rat-like creature. It was not just one, the same had happened all over the hallway, bringing over a dozen of these blood-formed rats into existence.
Stranger yet, their heart crystals blinked as one in perfect synchronization.
These rats were different from the Hordred. They did not scream in alarm, for unlike the Hordred Rat Alarmers they were eerily silent. Nor did they attack with cones of sound like the Hordred Sonokinetics.
They were small blessings, for the rats borne of blood fell down upon him, from the walls, the ceiling and the cavern floor. They pounced with supernatural strength that should not have been possible for their small figures, easily reaching him despite his mid-running posture.
It was a rain, no, a bombardment of eerily silent yet crazed rodents.
Miles had not expected it, but he was not entirely taken off guard either.
There were far too many bursts of wind stabbing into his skin, too much to dodge them all.
Miles focused, immediately noting two spears of wind piercing down from the ceiling, boring down into his exposed neck. Aided by gravity, they were set to reach him first.
He dodged both the rats with a single sidestep.
A swipe with the rock spike skewered one, and struck the other in that same move, slamming it into the ground, so hard that it did not rise again.
The remaining gusts of wind struck him from all around, and Miles was forced to defend with an arm. It was an onslaught of a horde of beating, pulsing warm bodies slamming into his suit. Unfortunately, there were too many rats to defend with a single limb.
Miles winced, as the force of the bites and scratches struck him through the suit.
Grunting with muted anger, he smashed the arm into a nearby wall, a painful slam that rippled through his own bones.
Three rats on his suit sleeve were crushed between his arm and the metal wall, knocked down onto the ground, quickly finished off as they exploded about his boots like bursting fruit.
But the rest of the rats held strong, and they had no intention of remaining still. Disgusted shivers crawled over his skin as the vermin began to scurry all over his body.
It was a grotesque, violating experience, but Miles had long forgotten the disgust of being covered in mangy rodents.
All he felt was rage.
Instinct took him, the presence of blood and wind his guide.
He dropped the rock spike and began to grab at the rats with his hands, two at a time, mercilessly smashing them into the walls.
Some of his fingers bent the wrong way, but most of the blood that splattered over the walls, him, and into the air, was not his own.
The terrible fragrance of the strange living blood that had formed these rats in the first place wafted over him, pulsing, beating with life and vitality.
It only excited him more.
Miles managed to take down another six rats in this manner, before he was forced to let out an inadvertent howl of pain.
Something had stabbed into his throat.
He reached for his neck and mercilessly ripped off the rat that had skewered his jugular. The act ripped out a chunk of his own flesh as well, but he barely felt any of the pain.
[External Bleeding detected. -0.7 BP lost.]
Perhaps it was a short-sighted decision, for blood splattered down his chest, gushing out of his neck like a crimson waterfall. Instantly, Miles felt delirious, unsteady on his feet, forced to hold one hand over his blood gushing neck, hoping to staunch the blood loss.
[External Bleeding detected. -0.6 BP lost.]
Even so, fueled by whispers of impotent rage, he managed to smash in the head of the rat that had dared to bite off his neck.
But there were so many left.
The rats acted as one, scurrying towards his hands, neck, and under his suit.
Miles could tell he would not be able to stop them all. Not with just two hands.
For a moment, time seemed to slow, and the clarity of his senses seemed to rise up a whole level.
He could not believe he had not realized it before.
The blood, whether splattered on the floor, his boots or his suit, was not ordinary. It was truly alive.
Of course it was, it had formed these filthy rats after all.
But the thing is, it was the same with his own. His own blood, gushing down his neck despite his best attempts to stop it was even more extraordinary.
Even though it left him, it was still an intrinsic part of himself. He was its vessel, its home.
[External Bleeding detected. -0.5 BP lost.]
Perhaps that was why Miles managed to hear it, a call from the blood itself, and perhaps, that was why it obeyed him, like subjects before a king.
[Discipline: Haemomancy molds the blood.]
Like clay in the hands of an artisan, there were a myriad shapes his blood could take. It was up to him to decide what it would become.
DEFENDERE.
A sound akin to forming scabbing crystals.
Miles pulled back the hand staunching the wound over his neck almost instinctively.
He could not tell for sure, but the skin on his neck felt like it had been frozen solid. The bleeding from his ripped off throat had stopped, and for some reason, the rats that reached his neck just fell down, bleeding, as if stabbed multiple times.
The blood over the hand, his own blood, remained within his control…
There are certain actions that feel like dreams, done out of pure instinct, and could never have been done willfully. That is exactly what Miles felt as he observed the blood over his hand and what happened next.
PUGIO.
A familiar call, and Miles watched, almost half-present, almost absent minded, as the blood that had begun to dry, became dynamic.
[Discipline: Haemomancy molds the blood.]
The blood undulated, expanding and compressing, shifting into an equally familiar elongated form.
The same tinkling resonance of solidifying crystal and the blood form in his hand hardened, transforming into that familiar dagger. An assassin’s blade.
A dot of light flashed within the crystal blade, vanishing as soon as it had appeared, but the hilt remained solid within his grip.
Unlike the rock spike, this weapon was much smaller, but the difference was that it was a part of him.
Barely a few seconds had passed, but the rats had moved.
One had even managed to reach his hand.
The creature prepared to sink his teeth into his wrist, when there was… a flash of blood crystal.
The rat was slashed nearly in half, its severed body falling off him.
Miles was not in the best of conditions, and his aim was barely sufficient. The blade had also slashed through a chunk of his own arm. At least it should have, but nothing happened. It had passed through his flesh, like a ghost.
He was confident now. This weapon could not hurt him.
That which was borne of his own blood, would never harm it.
A bloody grin creeped over his face, and Miles began to slash the dagger over him, his other hand reaching for the occasional surviving straggler.
There were still many of the creatures left. Though the pain of their bites was muted, Miles saw red.
Like a focused, emotionless machine, he began to grab, smash, slash and rip apart the rats.
The crazed rodents managed to get in a few good scratches, but it was nothing as serious as ripping off the side of his neck.
It was only after an unknown amount of time later that he finally came out of it.
Miles' neck felt strained, but he was no longer bleeding. The assassin’s dagger was still in hand giving off a strangely comforting presence.
His heart thundered in a familiar, unfamiliar sensation. Adrenaline surged through him, and he held onto his knees, heaving heavy breaths of sheer exhaustion.
It seemed his instincts had taken the helm, for none of the rats remained.
All that was left were splattered corpses, and the scent of that living blood.