Chapter 83

Chapter 83

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The First Peak, The Eighth Floor, The Dungeon

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Aston shivered with his entire body as the end of this frozen mountain came into sight. It'd only been three days since he'd left the minotaur village with Wave, and he could say with certainty that he understood what his father meant. The world was more than the Tenth and the village there. At home, it was temperate and pleasant. The trek across the desert had been exhausting. It was the first time he'd ever experienced sweating, which he decided was simultaneously relief and annoyance. It cooled him down, but it also made his fur stick and itch in the most unpleasant way. The Creator had shaped Towers to live on the Ninth, and his carapace kept him at a comfortable temperature.

Wave tried to pass off that he was fine, but the glaze his eyes gained and the way his mouth hung open by the end of their crossing didn't look good. He'd drunk plenty of water after they'd seen the human, reasoning that he wouldn't need it to fight. He looked better after, so Aston worried less.

The Eighth was, as had been expected, the other temperature extreme. The sweat in his fur, which had been such a boon in the desert, betrayed him. It cooled rapidly and let the cold through what should have been insulating fur.

He was glad that the walk to the Third Peak Village was short. The snowbolds helped him clean the freezing sweat from his fur and gave him plenty of warm furs to sleep with over the night. He felt far better in the morning, and the village's high shaman gave him a cloak. She claimed that it'd been pulled from the frozen corpse of a guilder, a party member of the human on the Ninth.

He didn't particularly care where it came from. It was warm, and that was enough. They offered one to Towers, but the Scorpan refused it. He claimed that his carapace worked just as well for cold as heat. Aston wasn't sure about that, but he'd give Towers the cloak if it came to that.

They left early the following day. The manasun only just lightening the horizon. He'd let out a pleased grunt as the cloak kept the wind at bay. Even though it didn't completely cover him, having been made for a smaller being, its effect wrapped around him entirely. From the frog of his hooves to the tips of his horns.

The mountain climb was made far easier thanks to Wave's knowledge of the passages and shortcuts through the frozen rock. They briefly encountered the Air Spirit, who urged them to move quickly. Aston wasn't sure what she meant by, "He should get the chance to see the next stage. I owe him that much at least," but he knew the words weren't intended for him.

As the sun seemed to set the sky aflame with a riot of colors, the most spectacular sunset he'd ever seen, they approached the 'beginning' of the floor. Just inside the cave leading to the Seventh, an unusual pair waited.

A grey drake-kin stood tall, eyes accusing and cradling a monster core as large as his hammer's head. Beside the monster stood a human. Aston narrowed his eyes at the woman, and she shrunk back, half-hiding behind the drake-kin. He'd heard of the human living amongst the Drake-Kin. His eyes scanned her as they came closer. He wasn't sure what he expected. He'd never seen a human before. Pale skin, bushy, untamed hair. Shivering at the winds as they blew into the cave.

She looked... entirely unthreatening if Aston was honest with himself.

"Hello, Wave." The drake-kin greeted. Wave stopped in his tracks, and his eyes widened in surprise as the drake-kin continued. "Long time no see. You know, it's polite to keep in touch with your family. No Sprite messages, no house calls. A girl might think you'd forgotten her entirely." The words were teasing, but Aston could hear the hurt in her tone.

"Hue!" Wave exclaimed, his shock instantly turning to happiness. Aston blinked in surprise as the ordinarily serious and reserved being rushed forward to envelop the drake-kin, 'Hue,' in a tackle-hug. She barely handed the core off to the human in time as Wave crashed into her, and they fell to the stone floor. They immediately started squabbling, and Aston understood. He smiled at the reunited siblings as they argued and caught up, still rolling on the floor.

The human eyed the minotaur and scorpan warily as they approached at a more sedate pace. "This is for you, I guess," she said awkwardly, holding out the core with shaking arms. Aston accepted the core with care, then turned to face Towers, The scorpan nodded, and turned sideways. Aston opened the pouch hanging from the scorpan's shoulders and slid the core in. With the core secured, he turned back to the woman.

"Thank you, human," he grunted. The human language was strange, but he was capable of speaking it. She shuffled in place, and there was an awkward silence between them, broken only by the still squabbling siblings. As Aston opened his mouth to speak, the human beat him to the punch.

"What's the Tenth like?" She blurted, then immediately backtracked. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. It was stupid of me to ask. I'm sorry." Aston touched the rambling human's shoulder with a kind smile. He had her measure.

"Peace, human. Nothing to be sorry about," he reassured her. Beside him, Towers nodded.

"The Creator has always taught that curiosity must be encouraged. How will you grow without asking questions?" Towers proselytized. The human shook her head, having taken an unconscious step back.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand the language Scorpans speak." She admitted. Towers made an understanding noise, and she flinched back.

Almost. Because instead, Hallmark stood quite still when a deep rumble emanated from the bushes behind him. He whirled in a smooth, practiced motion, drawing his sword and bringing it up to skewer the leaping beast as it lunged. Every movement exacerated the pain emanating from his broken ribs, but he pushed on regardless.

But no beast was lunging at him. Instead, he saw a ball of blinding light building within the maw of a maned creature superficially similar to the Tigers on the Third. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he threw himself sideways as the ball turned to a beam. He winced as his ribs shifted, but kept moving as the beam followed, trying to circle around and strike the beast from the side.

He didn't anticipate the three smaller, maneless beasts jumping from the bushes, standing to guard the first's flank, and unleashing less powerful beams. Hallmark let out a bark of laughter he would call an expression of pure joy as he rolled beneath their shorter-lived beams. Others would liken it to the unhinged laughter of the insane, as it never ended. In fact, it only grew when the larger beast's beam spluttered and died.

Both could be true, Hallmark reasoned, as he stood facing the quartet of golden-furred beasts. His laughter finally stopped, and he chugged the final mouthfuls of healing potion. He threw the bottle to the ground, where it smashed and a grin that stretched ear-to-ear grew across his face as he rushed the beasts, sword already swinging. Hallmark ignored the sharp pain in his chest making itself known once again as he activated the enchantments. He ignored the shifting in his chest as the potion pulled his ribs back into alignment. His blade stopped dead as it hit the smaller monster's spine. He pulled it back, slicing through the monster's muscle, then thrust into its chest. Its heart was pierced, and he saw the light in its eyes die.Finally, something he could actually kill.

He leapt back as its companions made their displeasure known. They gave way to the larger as it approached, and Hallmark knew the look of challenge and revenge in its eyes. With a final click, his ribs slotted back into place, and he felt ready to kill.

This was going to be FUN.

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The Dungeon Core, The Eleventh Floor, The Dungeon

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This is our best chance at survival! Why can't you see that!? I raged at the insufferable soul formed of what I could only describe as distilled stupidity. After quietly listening to my plan, Instincts decided it was a trap and renewed the fighting immediately. After a brief struggle, I squeezed it into the tip again and used the momentary advantage to get a message to Wave. He was the nearest non-manabeing monster that could actually retrieve the core I needed.

Instincts quickly took advantage of my distraction, and a minute later, we were locked in a stalemate that had persisted for all these days. Now that I was paying attention, I could feel the sheer density of the mana around us. How much it'd grown from when this all began.

If I had to, I'd compare it to air and water. Once sparse but ever-present, it now filled every crevice and facet. The Core was almost full to bursting, and I knew that the accretion disk could hold many times the amount in the Core. In fact, I could feel the beginnings of that dangerous over-full feeling I'd experienced shortly after my 'rebirth.' I sent that feeling to Instincts.

Do you feel this?! This is our impending death. It's not someone trying to shatter us, but your stubbornness and paranoia that will cause it! We need to bleed off some of the building mana, at the very least!

The simple soul felt dismissive as if it considered ME more dangerous than that feeling. It was absurd. If it'd genuinely been with me since my reincarnation here, it had once felt this feeling too. I vividly remembered the certainty that if it continued, I'd DIE. I'd once attributed those feelings to Instincts, but now I wasn't so sure. Had it not felt those feelings? As the dominant soul at the time, had I somehow sheltered it? Or was it really just dismissing the danger?

I couldn't be sure either way and asking these questions did nothing to help my current situation.

The increased density of mana changed how we were using it. Where once it'd flowed like water against the other's, now it scraped and pushed like tectonic plates. The only reason I hadn't compared it to rock earlier was because there was still some shifting and give. The moment it reached that density, then passed that threshold... would be it. The End.

And I refused to die a second time. I blinked, surprised at my own thoughts. A Second Time? So I had died? I only remembered falling asleep, then waking up floating on the ocean stuck inside a gemstone. I imagined narrowing my eyes at an imaginary horizon. Something was going on here. There was definitely more to my reincarnation than I'd previously thought.

My wavering attention cost me a little, as my frontline faltered. Cursing, I shoved the miserable little soul's mana back. I let my attention be consumed with our conflict. There was no point theorizing at the moment. Either Wave would return with the core and I would get this imbecilic soul out of my core, or we'd all die.

To that end, I kept the pressure up, forcing Instincts further and further to the side of the core. It'd take days to get it there, but I'd be ready by the time Wave arrived.

I'd get this thing out of MY body or die trying.

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