230: Karmic Reprise

Vir’s eyes struggled to open, as if he was waking from a thousand years of sleep.

Staring up, he found an unfamiliar ceiling. The ash-darkened skies Vir had grown accustomed to were nowhere to be seen, and the same went for the ever-present lightning. They’d been replaced by… Vir couldn’t tell. It looked almost like night, though there were no stars.

Vir brought a hand to his face, expecting it to be blackened by soot, but to his surprise, they were clean.

Where in all the realms am I?

Sitting up, he found a grassy knoll, unblemished by even a speck of ash.

Vir simply stared at the beautiful green grass as it swayed gently in the light breeze. How long had it been since he’d seen flora like this?

His fingers brushed the thin reeds, just to make sure it was real. It was. It reminded of the hill he’d lounged on with Maiya at Balindam, watching the sun rise.

Looking up, Vir stared at the pitch-black sky for a long moment before he realized he wasn’t looking at a sky at all, but a cavern. Distant cavern walls curved slowly up to the roof. One so enormous, he could scarcely even see the ceiling—only its dim prana signature gave it away.

And yet, the land wasn’t dark. It was lit as though it were a cloudy day outside, with soft shadows playing over the hills nearby despite the lack of any visible light source.

Is this really the Ashen Realm? What happened?

Massaging his head, Vir struggled to recall the events leading up to this moment.

We were fleeing from the Ash Beasts. Running. To the… beacon. That’s right, the beacon!

Deep underground, Vir had seen a labyrinth of tunnels. He’d headed to the position where they came closest to the surface. And then…

Nothing.

Everything after that was a blank. Had he somehow been captured and transported here? If so, why would they leave him such freedom?

Vir stood up shakily and took stock of his situation. He was alone. Or at least, Cirayus and Shan weren’t anywhere nearby. He did have his katar and chakrams, though, and he wasn’t in any immediate danger.

Cirayus had been carrying their supplies, including their food and water, so Vir made it his top priority to locate them.

Guess I’d better get a lay of the land, then.

The soft shadows made Dance of the Shadow Demon difficult to use, so Vir Leaped away.

Immediately, he noticed the relative lack of Ash Prana in the ground. The Leap that should’ve taken him a hundred paces only took him thirty, forcing him to triple the time he spent charging the ability.

The prana density surprised him; while still higher than anything in the Human Realm, it was far lower than he’d ever seen in the Ash.

I suppose I should prepare myself for the worst… But still, where is this place?

Vir Leaped again, this time activating Prana Current and sparing a full second to allow it to charge before blasting off.

Current not only helped attract the surrounding prana, it also prevented his body’s ultra-dense prana from leaking back out to the low-density atmosphere.

He sailed through the air… and sailed right off of a cliff.

No. Not a cliff, Vir realized in horror as he plummeted.

The ‘ground’ he’d been on hadn’t been the earth at all. It’d been a floating island. One of many, and he’d just jumped off.

No wonder there wasn’t much prana available… There simply wasn’t much ground to pull from. It didn’t explain why the air was nearly devoid of it, though.

Wind rushed against his face, faster and faster. Vir had fallen many times, but never quite this far. The ground was so very distant it didn’t feel real.

It was.

His stomach lurched and fear began to overtake him as the jagged, rocky magma landscape neared. The ground below was as far from the floating island as could be. Volcanoes belched rivers of molten hot lava that flowed across the land, forming pools where they met.

Let’s just hope I don’t land in one, Vir thought.

Leveraging the prana in his body, he activated Light Step, softening his landing.

He crashed hard. Obsidian rock split under his boots. He hadn’t crashed into a magma pool, though it almost didn’t matter, because the searing heat would cook him in just minutes if he didn’t do something.

Vir reeled from the impact. His bones shuddered, but his prana-strengthened body absorbed the impact.

Would be really nice if I could fly, he thought, eyeing the rocky bottoms of the islands that floated high above. There were over a dozen, though even the lowest of them was far too high to Leap to.

Vir quickly located the nearest area devoid of magma and Leaped, hoping to find some reprieve from the oven he was currently in. He noted that though the prana density was greater down on the surface, it was still far lower than normal for deep within the Ash.

Either he’d been transported out of the Ashen Realm entirely, or he was at the periphery.

It was when he reached the apex of his arc when he sensed a shadowy blur in his peripheral vision. There was gracefulness about the way the figure moved that felt immediately familiar to him.

Cirayus?

Vir Leaped again the moment he toughed the ground, chasing after the shadowy blur, but he soon lost sight of the figure.

Prana Vision would’ve lit Cirayus up, though. Especially in a low-density region like this.

Confused, Vir arrived at where he’d last spotted the shadow, only to find an empty rock field that led to the foot of a volcanic peak. This mountain had no magma flowing out of it, however, allowing Vir to draw closer.

As he approached, the scree grew larger, until he was Leaping over tall boulders. For most, the rock field would’ve been unnavigable, with plenty of opportunity to break or sprain one’s foot. Luckily, Vir wasn’t most people—they barely slowed him down.

Is that a cave?

Vir spotted an opening in the distance. He hadn’t known what caused him to head in this particular direction, but it’d paid off. The narrow passage led into the mountain, and Vir felt cool air flow from within.

Pausing at the entrance, he considered his options. If he entered, it’d make him impossible to find. If Cirayus and Shan had been transported nearby, that would be the worst possible decision.

And yet, as he looked up at this vast underground world, he wondered what the chances of that really were. He had fallen off a floating island to end up here, after all. He doubted either of them would do the same.

Meanwhile, he was sweating bullets, and without an immediately obvious water source, Vir decided that preserving whatever he had left took priority.

Besides, maybe that shadow went in there.

With his weapons drawn, Vir cautiously entered the cave, though he was forced to stow both katar and chakram only a handful of paces in, as the tight passage forced him onto all fours to navigate.

It was very obviously a natural cave, though that wasn’t what caught Vir’s eye. It was the marks on the ground. Marks that looked distinctly like boots. And fresh, if he was right.

They’re in here. Whoever they are.

Cirayus wouldn’t have fit within the narrow confines of the tunnel, which meant this was someone—or something—else entirely.

Were this a year ago, Vir would’ve shied away in fear. But it wasn’t, and he hadn’t battled Ash Beasts day in, day out for nothing. Here, within these caverns, he could strike with impunity.

I can take them. And maybe they’ll have some answers for me.

Dance of the Shadow Demon activated, and Vir looked out at the world from the realm of darkness.

He’d expected pitch-black terrain similar to the Imperium vault tower, but bioluminescent moss covered many of the halls and cavern rooms, affording a low level of green-yellow light, softening the hard rocky surroundings.

Vir took his time, methodically using both his eyesight and Prana Vision to search for the shadowy entity.

To his chagrin, he found no trace of them.

When his ten counts were up, Vir reappeared in one of the larger caverns. With a ceiling twenty paces in height and a hundred across, it afforded more than enough room to move around.

Vir was about to sink back into the shadows when he whirled. It was far, but he’d caught the direction the sudden sound came from. It almost sounded like metal on metal. Like a clang.

Vir proceeded cautiously down a tunnel that connected to the cavern on high alert.

Then he heard it again.

That’s… a voice?

It was very far, echoing through the tunnels. Sinking into the shadows again, Vir once again found nothing; he wasn’t close enough. With both weapons in hand, he crept through the tunnel, correcting his course every time he heard the sounds.

The voice was speaking as if they were having a conversation, but Vir couldn’t hear any other voices. He was still too far to make out the words.

Alternating between Dance and walking, Vir steadily homed in on their position. It was a woman’s voice. She sounded panicked. Afraid.

“Back! …. What… on?”

Vir hastened his pace, swimming through the shadows and Blinking when he surfaced.

“Not… Real!”

Her voice grew increasingly frantic. A knot formed in the pit of Vir’s stomach.

That voice…

Vir finally found the room, sinking into the shadow.

But the scene before him was not what he’d expected.

There was an entity in the room. Full of Ash prana. With gangly limbs, Vir recognized the form immediately—an Iksana ghael.

What’s one doing all the way out here?

The ghael brandished a katar menacingly, its attention focused on the other being.

Vir had almost missed her. Her prana signature was nonexistent—it was as though she didn’t exist at all.

But there was another reason his eyes hadn’t noticed her earlier. In the darkness, he’d seen her… and he’d seen right through her.

She’s… translucent?

As though her body wasn’t fully there. Incorporeal.

Then she turned, and the light shifted in just the right way that Vir finally saw her face and the color of her hair.

Maiya!?

Vir didn’t think. He didn’t need to. Maiya was here. He didn’t know how, and at that moment, he didn’t care. She was in danger. And anyone who threatened her was an enemy.

Exploding from the shadow, Vir surged for the ghael. Chakram Launch ripped out at the same time as Vir hurled the disk, sending a double wave of destruction at the gangly enemy.

Vir followed up with a Katar Launch and placed himself between Maiya and the demon.

The demon didn’t retreat, opting instead to block the attacks, to Vir’s great relief. Few enemies could defend his full powered attacks. Especially not when one of them was an Imperium Artifact chakram.

His magic flew to the demon and slammed into his outstretched palm.

Vir steeled himself for the gruesome spectacle that was about to come. He only wished Maiya didn’t have to see it.

But there was no spectacle. Vir’s prana simply vanished upon contact with the ghael, and, unbelievably, the enemy plucked his chakram right out of the air. The weapon immediately shut down, and the demon grinned savagely.

How?

Nobody should be able to touch those blades and live. Not even Cirayus could manage such a feat. It was the only weapon that evened the odds in their duels.

It wasn’t only the ghael’s impossible feat that surprised him, though. Vir had never seen such pure malice coalesced so perfectly into a facial expression. He didn’t think it possible for someone to bear that much hatred.

“V-Vir?” Maiya squeaked, trembling. “W-what’s going on? Where am I? How…!?”

“It’s alright, Maiya. I’m here now. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“Would you like to bet on that?” the demon asked.

“What?” Vir spat, giving the demon a disgusted look.

“How about we make a wager? If you protect her, I shall concede.”

“Just who do you think you are to make demands of me?” Vir rasped.

“And if you fail… well, I’ll consume her.”

Consume? A chill of dread trickled down Vir’s spine.

“What’s that supposed to—”

“To teach you. To force you to learn. Because you never have.”

Vir froze. “Who are you?”

“Me?” The ghael said, brushing his gangly fingers against the black V shaped robe that covered his chest.

Vir stared, transfixed, as a brilliant white tattoo slowly came into view. He didn’t need to wait for the demon to fully unveil it, for he knew exactly what it was. He’d seen it countless times, after all.

“The world once called the Reaper, for the thousands of lives I took. Reaper… Ekanai.”

With those words, Ekanai began to fade into the shadows.

“Do not hate me. You, and only you, are to blame for what is to come.”

Vir’s eyes remained glued to the spot where the demon disappeared. His hands were shaking.