Chapter 77
[Rex’s POV]
Felicia’s father, Draven, had quickly taken control of the situation at the Burning Sprite. Although I had never heard of him, the way the other soldiers—and more notably, Klaus—hung on his every word said enough on its own.
“The Umbral Arm is unable to move from his position by the eastern gate. Prior to relieving us, he relayed the general plan. Words fail to express how surprised I was that a student of the academy would be the one to suggest holding his peers hostage.”
He was addressing the room, but still staring directly at me.
“Calculating. Monstrous. Heartless. But certainly effective…”
He broke eye contact for the one second he seemed to approve of my actions, then went right back to scrutinising me.
“Even so. With Gaspard Sylvain holding the academy grounds, only an arrogant fool with a deluded sense of self-worth would think they could so easily seize control keep the students from fleeing.”
“Is it just me, or does this guy have a problem with you?”
Axel whispered from my side.
“Hmm… I can’t say for sure, but I’ve seen those eyes in a father before. He probably thinks I did something to his daughter.”
Those eyes I mentioned were once my own. There’s nothing worse than seeing your child being led astray by some horrid, manipulative…
Memories surfaced, and, like an automatic response, I took the mask off a fallen watchdog and put it on myself. The memories retreated, and a relaxing calm washed over me.
“To that end, Klaus and I shall deal with the knife-eared traitor…”
Draven went on to explain our immediate course of action.
“The can remain here. The Solean numbers have already been reduced to a level that future attacks are not much of a concern. The rest of you need only clear the rest of the rabble out. Felicia, darling, roll out the map.”
His tone went from commanding to caring at breakneck speed as he addressed his daughter.
“Yes!”
The soldiers all gathered around the bar as they reviewed the defenses of the IMA, their circle clearly and deliberately blocking Axel and I out.
“What a load… He’s still going to bring Felicia, but kick us to the side?”
I muttered.
“You pissed?”
Axel nudged me with a smirk.
“Aren’t you? This is a huge opportunity for us to elevate our position.”
Axel fixed me with a bemused yet silent stare, then pulled me out of earshot from the others.
“Imperial military hierarchy places the therian division as an independent entity, or ‘branch force’. They only have to listen to orders from royalty, and may not direct orders to those of the ‘central force’, unless an official joint operation is in effect.”
As the resident battle-maniac, Axel’s apparent uncaring attitude was a surprise. Up until the meaning of his words dawned on me.
“In other words—”
“We don’t have to follow Draven’s order to stay put.”
I finished his sentence.
We shared a sly smirk and checked to make sure the others were still busy. Even Evelyn was occupied explaining to Bodo and Linus why some of the attackers seemed to know her. That particular topic was only of minor interest to me, so ducking out took priority over eavesdropping.
We were out of the front door with nary a peep from anyone.
By my estimate, only two or three hours had passed since the attack began, which was apparently enough time for the general public to stop stampeding through the streets and find a safe place to hide.
Even so, distant sounds of combat continued to echo out from various directions.
“Reckon Olly will be fine?”
I asked, giving one last look back at the tavern.
“I could not care less. C’mon, man, we need to move fast if we’re gonna steal the glory tonight.”
Axel began running up the road, and I followed suit.
Signs of battle were certainly present all over, but it was not as bad as I expected. I envisioned bodies blanketing the roads, the tragic sight of a half-singed child's toy abandoned and trampled, and half-dead warriors crying out for help.
The fact that things weren't quite so bad despite everything alleviated some of my concern for the townsfolk. It really did appear that the Soleans were doing their best not to cause any excessive damage or civilian casualties.
“...let me know if you see any mage bodies.”
I spoke to Axel, who casually looked over his shoulder.
“Gonna go all corpse ripper on another guy? You know, people equate that to necromancy, right? Did you learn that trick from Tilly?”
“Not exactly…”
“Well, if it's not a Druid thing, then I'm guessing that horned thing inside you must be behind it. Don't think I'm just gonna forget about all that. I want an explanation once things calm down. Well, y'know, assuming we don't die and all.”
He threw his head back and roared in laughter.
“...Right.”
I kept calm so as not to let anything show.
The question of how Axel knew about the soul within me wasn't really one I needed to ask. I had no memory of the time between Bridgit attacking me and hearing Merk's plan of attack, and that in itself was enough for me to know something must have happened to my body.
I cannot sleep nor be knocked unconscious without immediately entering either the Crucible or the Feral Abyss, depending on the time of day. Since that did not happen, and I awoke without any injuries despite the head trauma, it was likely another force had steered my soul in my place.
The second voice was becoming increasingly furious with my lack of action, but it was not like I could find a mana organ at the drop of—
“Heads up!”
A bloody object came flying at me. Axel had pitched a straight ball with a relaxed grin.
I caught it and sighed deeply at my friend's antics. He had evidently plunged his hand straight into a dead Imperial soldier and ripped it out with monstrous precision.
“What? Is it only cool to do it to Soleans? Stop being so racist and do the thing. Oh, go for a fire spirit this time!”
Axel looked eager, and I had to agree that becoming a living inferno sounded pretty amazing. So, without further ado, I followed the same process as before.
With the chaos affecting the town, there were many more fire spirits around than usual, so granting Axel's wish wasn't much of a challenge.
The circle was drawn in blood once again, and as it began to glow, a flickering flame appeared and grew into a miniature fox-like shape.
“Nice! Now, combine it with an earth spirit. Become a volcano!”
Axel’s enthusiasm brought a smile to my face, but he was asking for the impossible.
The Mana Organ in my hand burst as the spell finished, but something was strange.
The little spirit looked to be caught between worlds as it flickered in and out of existence. In addition, the spell circle was still active.
“Whoa!”
Axel sidestepped as a nearby body began to rise on its own. In fact, every corpse within sight, regardless of what state they were in, began to rise as if being pulled by an invisible wire.
Then, they broke.
They twisted, bent, compressed, and they rid themselves of their flesh and organs. Their skin stretched and wrapped itself around the floating gore, containing the juicy filling like a set of viscera-filled dumplings.
The remaining bones were left intact, however, and they carried the flesh-sacks towards the spell circle. A small band of marching skeletons had come into being.
“This is a little much, even for me. Is this meant to happen?”
Axel looked ready to strike them down.
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My head was throbbing as the two beings seemed at odds for the first time, but I chose to signal for Axel to stand down.
Whatever was happening, it sounded like something I would need to face sooner or later anyway. Although I empathised more with the voice of the Stag, it was the Wendigo who had been watching me for seven years. If they believed I was ready, I would trust their judgment.
The skeletal servers arrived and formed a ring around the circle. They raised their offerings high and ceremoniously placed them around the edges.
The flickering flame spirit vanished, and the sacks of gore unfurled, like the blooming of a demonic garden; the contents were revealed.
A putrid smell assaulted my nostrils, but as I tried to step back, a crimson root whipped around my ankle and anchored me.
The root had come from the centre of the spell circle, which was also where all the viscera were coalescing. The skeletons stood behind me, covered with still-dripping blood. Their hollow eye sockets seemed to peer into me with an intelligence that a puppeteered body should not possess.
They formed a wall behind me and gently ushered me into the circle.
“Rex? Seriously, man, what the hell is going on?”
Axel's voice grew muffled and distant. My senses were committed to the creature emerging from beneath my feet.
The crimson root grew and twisted into a giant, bestial claw. It let go of my ankle and began pushing against the ground. A hulking body of twisted roots clawed its way out and stood before me. It had the shape of a four-legged beast, though it had no discernible head.
The groaning noise of expanding wood accompanied its movements. The before me was not alien. It was certainly different compared to our last meeting, but I knew this creature.
It raised a mighty paw to the nub of thorny red roots as if looking for something. Then, it reached over me.
My skeletal audience was effortlessly crushed in the monster's grip, and the shards of bone began to float by their own will.
They locked together, breaking and reforming to create the shape that the beast required. Finally, the bones of the fallen had been repurposed into a large, canine skull. The beast grabbed the skull and placed it atop its thorny nub.
Immediately, the eyes lit up with crimson flame, and the mouth opened with a heavy exhale.
“Air. air.”
The beast spoke slowly and surveyed the area.
“Called into death. As is my role. Pathetic beings fighting for a mundane cause, no doubt. And here my replacement stands. Will he survive the trial to come? Or will he relieve me of my duty?”
The beast loomed over me.
“A gift I gave once of my own volition, through blood and death you were bound. A curse I now lay upon thee, death will be your desire.”
That familiar voice that rattled my mind delivered its greeting in riddles, and before I could react, I felt a familiar sensation.
Our souls were being melded together, but this was different. Normally, I would be leading the process and dictating how we adapted to suit one another.
But instead, the beast was controlling everything. It did not seek to form a harmonious union, but rather a dominant control.
It lifted me into its maw, and I felt myself fade.
Not my consciousness. My very being. From my memories to my goals, it all became a vague, droning noise.
I was consumed.
***
[Axel's POV]
The monster Rex had summoned consumed him. I was about ready to hit it with a , but then it began to shrink and reshape itself. It looked just like a human, only with a wolf skull for a head and gnarled wooden bits sticking out in various places.
“Rex? You alright?”
“Fine.”
He stared straight ahead, and his voice sounded a little more contorted than usual. But his voice and body always changed when he fused, so this wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
Or so I would like to believe. I still felt somewhat uneasy around that form. In many ways, it was just like when he transformed to deal with Bridgit, from the animal skull to the body of roots. And yet, his presence was totally different.
“We are to kill the children of Eve? A morbid task, but my protégé has assessed it as necessary. Come, Storm Child.”
He addressed me by some bizarre title and took the lead.
I knew it for sure in that moment. Rex was no longer calling the shots. Still, I the mysterious creature wanted to help with our original objective. And if they were anything like the last being to hijack Rex’s body, they would probably be way more helpful than Rex himself.
“Wait up.”
I followed along, keeping my thoughts to myself as we traversed the street.
“They lie in wait like vultures seeking to pick our bones. An example will be set.”
Rex spoke nonsense again, and immediately after, multiple cries of pain echoed down from above.
I looked up to see three men impaled on a trio of wooden stakes. They had been penetrated from below, each one through the gut. Somehow, Rex could cause these natural weapons to erupt from the ground below with no obvious movement.
They were still alive, squirming in a futile attempt to free themselves. But Rex did not even look their way.
“Let their screams serve to dissuade further distractions.”
I tore my eyes away from the men; their crossbows had been dropped after the surprise attack against them, and a set of gnashing teeth emerged from the ground to consume the weapons.
Something about that scene made me feel uncomfortable. There was really no good way to describe further the anxiety this creature seemed to instil in me. Everything was just .
“Storm Child.”
Rex was suddenly facing me.
“Y-yes?”
I wanted to hit myself for stuttering like a wimp.
“Your trepidation is disgusting. The lost soul holds you in high regard, but the storm before me is but a spark in the wind.”
“You calling me weak?”
I smirked. If anything could fix this unpleasant feeling in me, it was a good old death match.
“Mana is to Eve as air is to us. I sense a child of hers who embodies her essence well. There can be no hesitation if you wish to overcome such a being.”
“Goddamn, man! Just speak normally! There's a tough guy ahead, right? It's probably Gaspard. We just gotta kick his teeth in before his buddies gang up. How hard is it to say that?”
The skull that had become Rex’s head seemed to widen its permanent grin somehow.
“Slaughter. Drench the soil in their blood. Feast upon the fallen!”
That much was plain to understand. However, I didn't like how this thing could go from poetic musings to bloodthirsty screaming so quickly.
Just what was I dealing with?
Before I could think about that question, Rex suddenly began moving at breakneck speeds on all fours.
His mouth opened wide, and the apparent bestial war cry caused me to cover my ears.
I focused my aura and ran at full speed, yet I still arrived at the academy entrance a full five seconds after my deranged companion.
Rex had already put every elven attacker on high alert by the time he came barrelling towards the main door.
A hail of arrows flew at him with pinpoint accuracy, each imbued with a different spell.
And despite his speed, they all hit their mark before he could react.
Or so it probably appeared to the elves. In my eyes, it just didn't seem like he cared to acknowledge such pitiful attacks in the first place. Each arrow broke upon his bizarre body, and a surge of thorny vines erupted from his back in response.
They twisted and bent as they extended all the way to the rooftop of the main campus building, and in the blink of an eye, four elves had their chests caved in.
As the vines retracted, they took with them the hearts of their victims and were deposited into their master's mouth.
Rex did not stop his charge, and he rammed his side into the doors without any regard for personal safety.
It did not immediately open, which secretly filled me with a sense of superiority, especially when I arrived right after and blew the doors right off their hinges.
“Arrêtez! Plé prèz el nouve éviscérons à cochae quil souillent!”
One of the elves had their blade to a quivering student's throat as they babbled something in their language.
I immediately moved to attack them, but they were already ten feet off the ground and skewered to the wall by the time I covered the distance. Naturally, the cause of that was the massive twisted root that Rex had summoned from the ground.
Feeling a little annoyed at how fast he was able to pull that trick, I rushed to leap over the crowd of terrified students cowering on the ground and drive my knee into an archer's nose.
His head popped as we hit the ground, and I immediately aimed both hands at a pair of incoming attackers.
With my fingers forming a V-shape, I focused mana into my hands and condensed electricity as tightly as possible. Then, using my Gift, I replaced all the mana with aura, causing the opposed nature to repel the mana at full power.
The result was a pair of loud bangs and two dead knife-eared pretty boys. Or girls. Never can tell with this lot.
“Axel! Help me out of these!”
One of the students came running to me. Unlike most of them, who were unrestrained, this girl had some kind of metal contraption covering both her hands.
Seeing as the girl in question was a diamond-ranked priest, it probably did something to disable her power.
“Sure. Don't move.”
I drove my elbow down hard, and it shattered without issue.
“Yes! Thank you, Axel!”
Isolde immediately set to healing members of the crowd, likely those who tried to resist before our arrival.
“The rest are gathering outside.”
I jumped as Rex silently appeared next to me and spoke.
“I know not why you collude with a false light, but they will not be of use to us. Come and bathe in the fountain of life with me, for our calling is to slaughter, as our nature demands.”
He walked straight past his peers and right back out the way he came.
Then, as if his presence was the only thing keeping the impending chaos at bay, the room erupted.
Many students began running towards their dorm rooms, and some ran straight to me, bombarding me with questions and demands. Others remained in shock and silently huddled on the ground in varying states of distress.
I caught sight of Guy checking on a wounded Professor Kuhn. Meztili was standing by the doorway, staring out at Rex. Isolde was healing Leon, and many teary-eyed students were praying for his safety.
There was too much to take in. Too much to sort through, and no time to drink it all in. They all had their stories to tell, but that wasn't my problem. I came to fight strong opponents, not babysit a bunch of morons who couldn't save themselves.
What I needed was the elven leader—a man strong enough to demand two high-ranking therians team up to defeat him. would be a worthy venture for Axel Lionheart.
I ignored all the voices around me and gently pushed Meztili aside.
“That's not him.”
I whispered just low enough for her to hear as I passed her by. I knew the girl had some interest in Rex, though whether it was romantic or not was hard to tell. I also heard about her exploits in Farrowgate. She might be helpful in the coming fight, but there was no guarantee she could survive another showing of her power.
So even if just a little, I wanted to discourage any chance of her doing something stupid. Rex would not be pleased if she died for him after all.
I stopped just once to add another line of reassurance.
“You should take care of this lot. I’ll bring him back alive, I promise.”
As always, I couldn’t read what was behind those bandages. But she nodded silently. That would have to be enough.
I quickly found Rex in the central courtyard, where a group of 20 elves stood lined up. One man stood at the front, his upper face obscured by a mask. He held a remarkably crafted glaive, one that clearly bore numerous enchantments. It had to be the Eclipse Edge. The weapon that the soldier mentioned to Merk earlier.
“...You at least appear capable of reasonable discourse. State your name.”
The elf spoke to me, his voice filled with superiority. And hatred.
“Axel Lionheart, and you must be Gaspard. The man who gets off on killing the innocent.”
“Innocent? There are no innocents among the Imperials and those who aid them. The crimes of your kind will not be repaid, even should we execute every one of your tainted blood. But it will at least soothe the ancestors’ fury.”
“Quite radical of you. Technically, I’m a Solean, so will you listen to me, or do I still meet the criteria of your kill-list?”
He paused, but only briefly.
“The Imperials those who aid them. Royal outcast or not, I will send your soul to the you hold so dear.”
He pointed his weapon at me. But he was interrupted before he could continue.
“Child of Eve. To talk of souls and their destination, how blind have you become? Through blood and flesh and bone and agony I shall remind you, my cousin, of our lot in life.”
Rex spoke in what could best be described as a cryptic threat, though Gaspard regarded him curiously.
“Con’a?tre notté le?en avec, Progenitor... Qu'êtes-vous?”
“I am the in-between. He who could not step forward, but dared not step back. I find my calling in testing those who follow my path. Those who fail or flee are stricken and cursed. Those who persevere may find guidance in me. I cannot be the spark that ignites, but I can be the body that protects it. I can be the claws that greet those who seek to snuff it out.”
Rex responded to the elven question, but I could not understand either party.
Gaspard seemed similarly confounded, but the creature somehow enamoured him.
“Pau importaté votre origine, j'I-el mau convictions. El’vous forré un shanc de partir en paix. Ex'osé, elje n'aurai d'autrel recours que de te couper.”
“We have our roles, Child of Eve. Yours is to sate my appetite and elevate my protége.”
They both took a combat stance, and I realised that whatever they had just discussed was likely not a negotiation for surrender.
“Storm Child. I leave the fodder to you. Join me after so your fury may be felt by an ardent admirer.”
Rex and Gaspard collided, one side sending an explosion of spear-like roots from the ground, the other sweeping them away with his glaive.
His slash conjured a blade of moonlight that left white flames in its wake, yet it was snuffed out by the thick purple smoke that Rex exhaled.
They clashed, claw and blade, and their single-minded fight quickly dragged them away from the rest of us.
That left me alone and surrounded by the remaining elves…
I cracked my neck side to side and activated my .
“Alright then… no need for that slow burn crap, let's just break through it all!”
