Book 6: Chapter 35: Into the Darkness
Victor roared with fury and dove toward the opening at the base of the throne, but it slid closed as he hurtled through the air. He smashed a shoulder into the huge stone seat, and he felt it give, but nearly imperceptibly so. Victor was just contemplating pulling his gigantic hammer from his storage ring when the first of the wampyrs slammed into him, screaming in a strange mixture of fury, fear, and pain as it found the courage to brave his banner’s light and strike a blow for its fleeing lord.
Victor whirled, fury incarnate, and hacked Lifedrinker’s razor edge through its throat, sending a fountain of hot, black blood spraying forth. Then the horde was upon him, and despite his superior size, strength, and skill, he found himself losing ground, being pushed away from the dais upon which the throne sat. Victor growled curses in fury and pain—he was fast, and Lifedrinker, enhanced by his spirit, cut the lesser wampyrs like a scythe through grass, but he was overwhelmed as they clawed over each other, pressing him from every angle, like swarming ants upon a grasshopper.
As their clawed hands grasped and grabbed, pulling at his arms, his helmet, his armor, even his legs and ankles, Victor felt a strange panic, almost like claustrophobia, grip him as he found himself unable to swing Lifedrinker. The wampyrs behind him had taken hold of her haft and were using her length for leverage to pull his arm back. They screamed in agony as the ghostly flames burned their evil flesh, but still, they held on, yanking, howling, and gnashing. Victor had had enough; he bunched his legs, instinctually channeling his Energy to break free with a Titanic Leap. He exploded upward, wampyrs clinging to his every limb, and nearly smashed into the high, vaulted ceiling.
His helmet brushed one of the colossal support beams, and then he began to descend. He’d shed many of the clinging creatures, but some still held on tight, not enough, however. Victor found he was able to swing Lifedrinker again, and so he did, smashing her edge through the skull of a wampyr holding tight to his left leg. The creature fell away in a shower of black, steaming blood and brain matter. Victor’s feet hit the marble floor, and he charged for the tunnel entrance. A wampyr on his back bit and clawed at his neck and arms, trying to get past the rim of his helmet, finding purchase in the flesh not covered by his wyrm-scale vest.
Victor roared in pain and mad frustration, reaching a hand over his shoulder to grasp the creature’s bat-like ear, yanking it hard as he ran. He felt flesh tear, heard the monster scream, and then it was off his back and falling behind him. When he reached the archway leading to the tunnel from which he’d come, Victor whirled and faced the throng of wampyrs chasing after him. He was insane with fury at this point, completely letting go of reason, letting his rage consume him. He had no intention of allowing Dunstan to get away, had no intention to flee these creatures. If a slaughter was what the wampyr lord had ordered, Victor would deliver it.
The first Wampyr to leap into the tunnel with him met Lifedrinker’s edge and was split from its right shoulder to its left hip, falling in two bloody, squelching halves at his feet. Victor roared into the mist of blood, and the charging creatures slowed, realizing they couldn’t overwhelm him as easily now that they couldn’t surround him. Victor didn’t pause, didn’t think; he squatted down, smashed a fist into the open chest cavity of the wampyr that he’d just split, and yanked out its hot, black heart. In a calm, relaxed setting, Victor might have balked at what his Quinametzin alter ego was doing, but his titanic, rageful self didn’t flinch. He’d eaten worse—arachnid hearts, night brute hearts; this was nothing, just a snack.
He tossed the steaming morsel into his mouth and bit down with his strong jaws. The heat of the blood seemed to intensify as he swallowed, and he felt it explode with Energy in his gut as his Quinametzin bloodline did its thing, capturing some essence from the slain wampyr and sending it into him. Victor felt his nearly depleted rage-attuned Energy surge with renewed power as the heart’s Energy flowed into his Core. As his vision darkened to deep crimson, tunneling on the edges so his only focus was before him, the creatures keeping him from his prey, Victor let loose.
He cast Energy Charge with fear-attuned Energy, streaking to the front of their pack, punching Lifedrinker’s smoking axe head through the central wampyr’s chest, and blasting a dozen of the creatures back into each other, breaking bones, cracking skulls, and rupturing flesh with the thunderous impact. Then he began to lay about himself with Lifedrinker, moving like a graceful executioner among the condemned, hacking limbs, cleaving skulls, and smashing bones. All the while, he continued to roar and scream his fury. Soon the air of that underground hall was thick with a hot, humid mist; blood and piss and fear filled the air.
Whenever the wampyrs began to crowd around him, using their numbers to overwhelm him, Victor would charge or leap away, regrouping in the tunnel and slaughtering those who came after him. When the creatures grew too wary to pursue, he’d charge them instead, starting the cycle anew. Twice more, Victor ate the hearts of his foes, and each time, he felt his Core swell with the Energy, not only refueling him but expanding, pushing toward advancement. The idea of it made him laugh all the more, reveling in the slaughter and the fact that, while he wore the awful creatures down, he grew more powerful.
To their credit, the monstrous wampyrs never gave up, never fled. Perhaps they couldn’t—the only exits to the great hall that Victor could see were the tunnel in which he stood and the closed throne. His banner’s light kept them from regenerating and likely reduced their strength and potency. Something about the light shed by his bloody sun was too real for them, too like the sun outside, and it burned their exposed wounds, sizzled their blood, and stole the confidence from their movements.
When the attacks stopped coming, and Victor stood in the tunnel mouth surrounded by piles of corpses and pools of blood, it was almost a surprise to him. He’d gotten into a rhythm of death, a dance of destruction, and nearly lost track of his purpose beyond fighting and slaying. He stood, a gore-covered giant, chest heaving, axe dripping and sizzling with the blood of his vanquished enemies. After a moment, when it registered that he’d won, that the fight was over, he strode toward the throne, but not before the System decided the lull in his fighting was enough, that it was time to award him the Energy he’d won.
Gigantic pools of it, gleaming golden in the dark, began to form above the mounds of corpses, and soon, they flowed together and streamed toward Victor, joined by thinner streams from the corridors above where he’d fought his way to face Dunstan. The shimmering purple and gold Energy told Victor these creatures weren’t much higher than tier five. Still, altogether, the Energy he’d won from them was enough to lift him into an insensate paroxysm of euphoria. He arched his back and yawped like the titan he was, and his victory sound echoed through the chamber and into the corridors above.
***Congratulations! You have achieved level 56 Battlemaster, gained 10 strength, 9 vitality, 4 agility, 4 dexterity, 3 will, and 3 intelligence.***
***Congratulations! Your Core has leveled: Advanced 6.***
Victor’s fury hadn’t survived the flood of euphoria, and when he finally fell back to the floor, refreshed and renewed, he was no longer Berserk. He stood and took stock; it seemed the wampyrs who’d been willing to fight were all dead; no sounds of pursuit or reinforcement came from the tunnel. The room was silent save for the occasional drip of blood from one surface or another into puddles on the floor. Victor looked at the throne and frowned. Though his rage had faded, his determination to chase Dunstan had not.
Lifedrinker still smoked with the fire of inspiration, flickering with white flames ignited by the shard of his spirit he’d sent into her. “Are you good, chica?”
The axe didn’t answer him with words, but he felt overwhelming confidence and affection as the haft vibrated eagerly in his hand. Victor smiled and then looked at the mounds of dead wampyrs. He could spend some time searching their hairless, naked, mangled corpses for loot, but instead, he figured he could earn some points with his ancestors. He walked around the room, casting Honor the Spirits on each pile. As they burst into ghostly fire, he gathered the lone corpses scattered here and there and sent that pile to the spirits as well. After burning that last mound of bodies, he held Lifedrinker before himself and pronounced, “This fight was for you, Chantico. Thank you for saving me and granting me your flames!”
“Now let’s see about this pinché throne.” Victor was about to summon his maul from storage, but then he saw the bloody smears near the rear corner of the throne where Dunstan had been scrabbling with his mangled arm. He studied the marks and the stonework and then reached out to press on a loop of stone with a hairline gap around it. It pressed down with a soft grinding click, and then the throne rumbled and slid to the side, revealing the dark hole down which Dunstan had leaped.
“Okay, chica, what am I supposed to do here? Jump in there? That fucker can fly; what if it’s a mile deep?” Victor summoned a Globe of Insight, sending the ghostly light down through the hole. All he saw was the orb in a void of blackness. He sent it further and again, only saw the orb, even as it grew small. “That’s one big damn hole or cave or something.” He looked at Lifedrinker, studying her ghostly flickering flames. “I’m going to take my spirit back for now. Time to change things up a little.” Lifedrinker pulsed with emotion, sending it into Victor through his hands, where they held her.
The emotion was so raw and direct that Victor momentarily felt it was his own. He felt like someone he loved was leaving, like his heart was breaking, like he’d be left all alone, and he found himself on one knee before the open hole in the ground, blinking back tears. “Jesus, chica! It’s not that bad! I’ll be right here, like always.”
“Not the same!” Her words came to his mind in a rushed whisper, tinged with despair. “I’ve never felt so close to you before. This is more, Victor! Please don’t leave me long.”
“I won’t. You know I fight a lot. I’ll share my spirit with you again.” Reluctant acceptance came to him through the axe, and Victor breathed a long, shaky sigh. He carefully severed the connection of Energy to the spell, and he felt his spirit come back into him, expanding his potential and adding to his attributes and Energy. He wiped his forehead, breathing a deep, shaky breath, unable to lose the feeling that something about him was different. Had his spirit changed while it was with Lifedrinker? Had he changed from the connection they’d shared?
He found himself cradling the axe, still kneeling by the hole, and shook his head, standing up and growling as he tried to refocus his mind, remembering why he was there. “Time to find this pendejo. Okay, buddy, if you want to hide in a deep, dark hole, maybe I should give you a reason to fear the dark.” He knew that Dunstan had fled into the depths, weakened and horribly wounded, but the wampyr had the ability to regenerate. Could he have fully healed in the time Victor was fighting his thralls? Victor could have; he knew that, especially with the aid of healing potions. Surely, the wampyr lord had healing potions . . .
“Oh well. I’ll find him. Then, if I need to, I’ll beat him down again.” Victor reached into his Core, pulled out a thick ribbon of fear-attuned Energy, and cast Aspect of Terror. As the shadows poured forth, cloaking his body in their cold embrace, he groaned and growled, used to, but not loving the feeling of his body changing, stretching, twisting into something terrible. Perhaps it was his mind growing accustomed to the effect, or maybe it had something to do with the strength of his Core and his powerful will, but the metamorphosis seemed faster, less jarring, and, though his sense of himself, of Victor, fled to a corner of his mind, he still felt aware, in control, as the shadows fell away to gather at his taloned feet.
The world had grown colorless, just a field of gray-scale angles and shapes. As he’d changed, his Banner of the Champion had faded, and Victor knew, on a basic level, that his glory-attuned Energy couldn’t share his pathways with his fear-attuned Energy; they were incompatible. He thought about that, about how his inspiration Energy was probably the same, as his Aspect of Terror stalked around the hole, turning to glare around, noting the absence of life, of Energy in that big, vaulted chamber. There was nothing there to feed his hunger, nothing there to share his fear. No, what he sought was down below, through that dark opening. Without another thought, he dropped through.
The space he fell into was gargantuan—a vast underground cavern in which a city might be erected. Victor didn’t fall; he spread his black-feathered wings and banked, gliding in a wide circle as he scanned the gray expanse. He saw signs of life, little glimmering spirits among the stones and boulders so far below. He saw them in the heights, near tunnel mouths and adjoining caverns. They were pitiful little things, hardly worth the effort to chase down. No, he sought something more; the foe that had fled him was down here, and it had a rich spirit, something worthy of his time.
Ever widening his spiral, he glided, peering into the darkness with his smoky purple-black eyes. No shadow could obscure his quarry; the blooming glow of spirits was the only color in his world, the only brightness. He knew that when he saw the object of his hunt, it would be like a star rising in a black sky. So vast was the cavern that he could only see two sides of it, even from his high, spiraling flight. He began to bank away from the walls, into the darkness, further toward the distant reaches of the enormous space, hoping to find the extremities.
Hunger gripped him, twisting his mind and making him consider desperate ideas. Should he leave this place? Could he fight his way to the surface where he might find more spirits to feast upon? He’d only been wearing the Aspect of Terror for a dozen minutes, yet it was already twisting his intention. Yes, there was a feast for him down here, but it was hiding, and how enriching could one spirit be? Shouldn’t he seek more fruitful pastures? Couldn’t he find a city nearby? Something like the one he’d glimpsed back when he’d been new to the Aspect? Surely there must be better hunting grounds than . . .
Victor was saved from further debate with his terror-born self by the rushing flap of great leathery wings and Dunstan’s savage roar as he tore through the air, driving a yard of steel, the tip of a great pike, through Victor’s side, forcing him down, twisting and bleeding, toward the rocky ground. He didn’t feel pain, not in that shape, not as a manifestation of terror. What would be the point of that? No, he felt the spear, knew it was piercing his shadowy flesh, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was his loss of control. Dunstan was much larger than he, and his wings were powerful. Soon, he’d crash into that ground, and he’d be trapped by that glimmering, dark-metal pike.
In the corner of his mind, Victor reached into his Core and summoned forth a thick rope of rage-attuned Energy, letting it loose in his pathways as he invoked his Iron Berserk. Suddenly, the Aspect of Terror opened its razor-edged beak and screeched with fury, a shriek that elongated and rose in volume as his mass surged, doubling in an instant. He twisted, wrenching the pike sideways, ignoring the pain as he furiously lashed out with his talons, grasping Dunstan’s shoulders and squeezing, driving their long, dagger tips into his skin, griding down into the bones.
The wampyr lord roared in agony, twisting the pike, still piercing Victor’s shadowy torso. They tumbled together, falling rapidly, but the Aspect of Terror was in control now, and it cracked open its great wings, taking charge of their descent. Now, it was Dunstan falling backward toward the ground, with Victor’s nightmarish form on top, wings spread wide. Still, when they impacted the ground, despite his back and head smashing into the hard, stony surface, Dunstan held onto the pike, and the leverage it afforded him, poking through Victor’s body, sent them tumbling apart.
When the dust settled, Victor lay twenty paces from the downed wampyr, the pike still jutting from his guts. He grasped it with a bloody talon and yanked it free, allowing his shadowy flesh to swirl and close over the gaping holes. Dunstan was already on his feet, a tremendous, spiked mace in one hand. “Quite the transformation. A more suitable guise, indeed. I felt the loss of my children, fiend. Trust that your kin will suffer for an eternity to pay the passage of their souls. Come then, you’ll not fare so well down here in the shadows of my seat of power.”
The Aspect of Terror studied the brilliant, flaring spirit. Such colors! It pulsed from yellow to ochre to crimson, always bright, always alluring. It was speaking, saying some words that didn’t register, but it didn’t matter—here was a feast worthy of his efforts! He lifted his razored beak and shrieked, sending out a wave of fear-attuned Energy, watching to see how it would affect this spirit. Would it take root and begin the process of converting its Energy into something he could consume?
Dunstan stepped back from the screech, holding the mace high, ready to strike the monstrous nightmare should it leap for him. He reached up to touch the puncture wounds on his shoulder with his free hand. He smiled as his fingers felt his flesh knitting closed. His eyes flashed with crimson light as he began to summon Energy. The creature snapped its wings, leaping for him, claws extended. Dunstan whipped his spiked mace as fast as a thunderbolt, deep red-black Energy enhancing the weapon. It smashed into the nightmare’s side, but the creature completely ignored the attack, falling on him with slashing, stabbing talons and beak.
The Aspect of Terror ripped and clawed, ignoring the crushing, puncturing blows Dunstan delivered to its side, ignoring the blasts of dark, burning Energy that rolled out of the wampyr. Victor’s Berserk Energy, his nightmarish form, was durable beyond Dunstan’s ability to harm him. For each crushing blow that bent or broke his bones, shadows poured forth, weaving around the damage, knitting him together. His very flesh was shadow, and as Dunstan damaged it, more flowed to fill the gaps.
Meanwhile, he ripped and tore, but that shimmering, glowing spirit never broke, never bled forth, never flowed into him, shaped into fear. Dunstan was resilient, and the Aspect of Terror couldn’t rip him enough to pull him apart, couldn’t break his will, not in that dark place. Deep in the corner of his mind where he’d retreated, where he’d gone to allow the Aspect to do what it did best, Victor became aware of its frustration. Dustan healed too quickly and was too strong without the light of his Banner weakening him.
Victor knew he was the one really in control, knew he could banish the Aspect of Terror with a thought, but he also knew he was in a gigantic dark space. If he couldn’t fly, Dunstan could flee. If he dropped the Aspect, he feared the wampyr would escape. Instead, he considered an alternative. With a desperately fervent focus of his will, he urged the Aspect to look to his chest, to his lungs, to feel the fire burning there. He urged it to use those roiling flames.
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