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278. Is It Over?
🕑 Added 2025-01-13 15:00:09 +0000 UTCThe figure pitched forward. Red-hot magma coursed over the ground, pouring into the undergrowth and lapping at the feet of the trees. Fires popped up everywhere, rushing here and there through the forest as the lava found new material to ignite. Slowly, the figure slumped to the ground.
“So… I guess that’s that?” Wisp said at last. She’d scrambled into a tree and clung there, upside down, eyeing the flames licking at the base of her tree.
Scar sat behind Rufus on his broom. She crossed her legs and leaned on her hand, no longer bulked out with muscle. “It hasn’t gotten back up yet.”
“It’s best to not underestimate it,” Ike replied. He stood in the lava, or rather, on it. He’d used Storm Clad to cool a good chunk of lava around his general vicinity and stood on it, then re-cooled it whenever a new wave of lava came his way. That, plus his steel feet, meant he basically didn’t have to worry about it.
It wasn’t real lava, in any case. It was useful to think of it as lava, because it was that dangerous, but it wasn’t actually molten rock. More molten blood, but blood of a far higher Rank than anyone present.
Which was shocking. The monster was only Rank 4. Sure, they were Rank 3s, but for its blood to be of such a high Rank that Ike couldn’t place its Rank for certain? That was strange. It was as if the monster was weakened, or had once been much stronger when it had grown this burning body, but now could only maintain Rank 4.
Not that I’d be surprised if that were the case. It had been sealed away in this trial for gods-only-knew how long. It was only natural that it had lost energy and power from the seal. In fact, if he’d created the seal, Ike was sure he would have built it deliberately to weaken the creature over time, or, if that was impossible, to at least seal it off from replenishing or gaining strength.
All that meant that they faced a weaker version of the figure than what had wiped out the original castle, if Ike’s guesses were correct. Still, recalling his fight with Llewyn, he didn’t feel that this one had felt as dangerous as Llewyn. That, too, had been an up-Rank fight, but this time, he’d simply one-shot it. Sure, there had been tactics to it. He’d had their underlings lead it away, then kite it around for a while so that he and the others could recharge their energy. And if he thought about it, there was no reason why their biggest hits shouldn’t kill the monster. After all, for all that Ranks were pretty stiff barriers, he had successfully fought up-Rank before, and everyone else here was the cream of the crop for the king’s trial… which, he was pretty sure, was limited at Rank 4, not Rank 3. None of them felt like Rank 4s, but that only spoke to their power, to be able to overcome all the Rank 4s who’d entered the trial realm. And if four people who could fight up-Rank hit one monster with all their strength, why shouldn’t it go down?
And yet, he still watched it, waiting. Some instinct, some sensation, told him it wasn’t over yet.
Plus, the voice in the sky hadn’t said anything yet. The trial wasn’t over. Until it spoke, he wasn’t going to move.
The body slumped. It laid prone on the floor, completely motionless. The ruined, burned husk began to cool, crackling and groaning as it settled. Magma dripped slowly inside the body, visible through the vast cracks. Ike frowned. Doubt began to creep in. Maybe they had killed it, and the trial was just being reticent. It didn’t always talk at the end of trials, or at least, didn’t talk immediately. And again, it was their biggest hits. They’d held nothing back. Hadn’t tried to test its strength or measure its power, but simply hammered it to death. Its biggest asset was its self-healing, and they’d overcome that by hitting it with a huge wave of damage all at once. On paper, this technique was a sure-win, kill-every-time. It was just that things so rarely went according to paper, that Ike was surprised that they had this time.
With a horrendous crack, the figure’s hand tore off its wrist and smashed down into the forest below. The hand struck the ground and shattered, breaking into a thousand tiny bits of charcoal.
Scar looked at Ike. “Come on. It’s dead. What are you waiting for? Do you need me to sing? I’m not fat, but I am a lady.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” Wisp complained.
“Not a lady,” Scar muttered, and Rufus snorted.
“I’ll show you who’s the fuckin’ lady. Bet you aren’t even planning to eat your mate,” Wisp muttered.
“That’s not very ladylike behavior,” Ike pointed out. “Cannibalism is generally frowned upon in human society. Moreso in high society.”
“Yeah, and that’s your loss. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. You’re overlooking a perfectly good source of protein for your growing eggs!” Wisp said, spreading her hands.
Scar licked her lips. She glanced at Ike. “Is this a spider thing?”
“Yes,” Mag replied, alighting on a branch nearby.
She breathed out, putting a hand to her chest. “Phew. Sometimes beasts are a little too much for me.”
Ike looked at the figure, then turned to Mag. “From above, are there any signs of life?”
Mag shook his head. “Only remnant mana, but anything this big will have a bit of mana left in it for… could be days, weeks, even months, before it fully dissipates. If it fully dissipates at all.”
Ike pursed his lips, not fully satisfied with that answer. That meant it still had a mana signature. He shook his head. “You guys can leave, but I’m going to stay here and monitor it for a little while longer—”
Crack.
The figure’s torso trembled, then split open. The charcoal opened right down the seams, revealing the heat buried deep within. Inside the figure, its heart still throbbed.
Ike lifted his sword. Scar jumped to her feet. Wisp whirled around and steadied herself atop a branch. Mag directly took to the air, fleeing without a second thought.
The heart beat once, twice, three times—then stopped. It began to go dark.
Scar sighed again, relieved. “Thank the gods. I thought it was about to revive. That really shocked me!”
Ike threw his hand out, demanding silence. She frowned, then lifted her head—and stared.
A charcoal hand poked through the heart, human size, piercing it from the inside out. A second hand joined the first, and the two hands pulled outward. The heart squelched and trembled. When there was about two feet of slit opened in the heart, a dark head appeared, then shoulders. A slender charcoal figure squeezed out, coated in the heart’s blood, stained molten red from head to toe. It laid on the ground for a moment, immobile, weak as a newborn deer.
And yet, the power that exuded from that form was a dozen times stronger than that of the huge figure. Ike’s animal instincts screamed for him to run. So run he did—directly at it. He smashed his sword down on its head. If it was weak, then he’d kill it now, before it had the chance to be fully born.
And then he stopped. Mid-step, halted dead. Not on his own power. He looked down, slowly.
A wrist pierced his chest. Fingers poked out through his shoulderblade. His flesh seared and spat as the charcoal person baked him from their very presence.
Wisp stared, silent, still, but hatred burning from her eyes.
Scar shrieked. “Ike!”
Rufus held her back, backing away on his broom.
The figure’s crude face split open, no less shapeless than the giant figure. It lifted its other hand, pointing slowly at the rest of them. For the first time, it spoke.
“This man is the wisest of you. If he had successfully struck me while I was weak, perhaps I might have died. If you had all followed his example, it would have been guaranteed.”
It yanked its hand out of Ike’s chest with a horrible squelch. Ike fell to his knees. His whole world was pain, nothing but pain. His heart beat weakly, barely struggling to keep on. Blood poured from his chest, but not as much as he expected. The wounds had cauterized shut. Body Reforging Art activated, yet struggled. The burns were too much, too extensive. It couldn’t heal him fast enough.
Light began to fade from his vision. As it dwindled to a single point, he forced his head up, forced himself to look at the figure, as much as he could.
The figure smiled. “But you are all fools. So you will die.”
Ashes flying, it burst toward the other three.
