If I had more ti, and there were not countless sources of death bearing down on , I would like to know why Dara was looking at with hate more than anything.
That mont of confusion filled with anger, as a part of began to scream, how dare she look at in this manner? Did she understand what it took for to get to this point?
This anger was a bit irrational; a part of my mind knew it, but at this ti, I did not much care about being reasonable, and my eyes lit up as I could feel the ground shaking a bit as demons neared .
I cast Arc Lightning into a cluster of six demons that had erged from the broken ground twenty ters past the cookfire, and the chain killed all six.
Their bodies fell in a configuration that allowed to cross over them without changing my walking pace.
Bari said sothing behind . I thought I heard my na. I glanced back to see that he was being restrained by Dara as he tried to follow .
’Good, keep him far away from , I am the one that should draw the hatred of the demons... even your own as well.
My heart suddenly felt heavy, and I hated this feeling, and then the wave that had been getting closer to all this while reached .
Leading the waves were sixteen demons, and I had only fifteen percent Anima Depth left.
This realization blew away all the irrational anger in my heart, leaving with a cold focus that was almost frightening in its intensity.
The demons ca at in two converging lines from the north and the south-east.
I sucked in a deep breath and committed just five percent of my remaining Anima Depth to a double cast, and I barely succeeded. Maybe it was because I pulled a bit from my reserves, but the bolts of lightning swept out with impressive power.
One combined Arc Lightning and Surge to each line, and the two chains went off simultaneously, branching across the demons in their respective columns, the discharges crossing each other in the center of the camp without interfering.
The two lines collapsed in synchronized waves, as the demons fell in two long rows.
I had killed them all, and it helped that they had been clustered together, allowing my bolt to travel through all their bodies before losing power.
The streams of essence entered as a chorus rather than the individual notes of the smaller kills, and I nearly groaned with pleasure.
There was sothing about the warmth entering that was almost relaxing, as if it was massaging my soul, and only in such high numbers was I feeling this effect.
Was this the effect of reaching the so-called Earth Gate?
[Stored Essence: Eighty-Five Demons]
[Surge 43 → 45 (Acolyte)]
[Arc Lightning 43 → 46 (Acolyte)]
[Staff Resonance 19 → 22 [(Initiate) — Rare]
The cascade of notifications was now arriving so fast that I could not read them all individually. I let them stack and pushed forward, knowing I had reached the point of no return... I had ten percent Anima Depth.
This was the threshold, and I gave myself a little ntal cheer for having reached it deliberately.
I had calibrated my casting to bring here at this point in the loop.
For a mont, I allowed my sense of the surroundings to fade, and I pulled power from my Anima Depth, crossing below ten percent.
I felt it in a way that the earlier loops had never let feel it, because the earlier loops had crossing this threshold accidentally, in panic, with the soul-cost arriving as confused damage.
This loop I crossed it on purpose, and the mont the threshold passed, I felt my soul open.
That was the only word for it. A door I had not known swung inward, and on the other side of the door was a brightness that was not Anima.
It was deeper, more fundantal; it was the substance of who I was, the self that the Anima Depth had been a asurent of.
Below ten percent, I was not casting from my reserves. I was casting from .
The next cast left my staff different. The Arc Lightning that erged was not a discharge of energy. It was a piece of Elric Voss made into electrical form, and when it struck the demon that had been advancing on , the demon was erased.
Its iron-dark hide flashed white-hot for a fraction of a second, and then, the body ca apart in vapor, the particles of it dispersing into the air with a sound like a held breath being released.
I had not just killed the demon... I had unmade it.
[Stored Essence: Eighty-Six Demons]
I stood with my staff, visibly smoking, and the air around was warm.
Mortal Shell at six ranks was holding the cost for , as I felt the binding deepening, and my body taking the weight of the soul-burn that should have arrived as mory loss or self-fragntation.
I would be paying a price for this. I knew that. The price would not be small. But Mortal Shell was reducing it by a fraction the system had not yet specified, and at six ranks, the fraction was perhaps small. At twenty ranks, it would be larger. At fifty, larger still.
All I knew was that I could still think, then that ant I could still kill, and that was what I did.
I kept casting and killing, knowing that any mont could be my last.
Hearing a sound that was not from demons, I glanced to my side and saw survivors. More than the four at the cookfire. As I had cleared sweep after sweep across the camp, and the demons that should have been killing the rest of the expedition had been redirected toward .
Small clusters of survivors had erged from cover, but they did not move; they were watching the boy who was venting steam from his breath and walking through the camp, casting lightning that unmade demons.
Ten people, perhaps. Maybe more. I did not count. People who would have been dead by now in any previous loop, alive because the demons had decided I was the more interesting target.
User Comments
0 comments from readers