22: The Akh Nara Sends His Regards

Under the starlight of a chilly desert night, Vir threw his chakrams and his chakris at the tree above Riyan’s abode.

He hit, he missed, and then he collected them all to throw again.

The biting cold served as excellent motivation to keep him active—the moment he stopped, his cooling sweat made him shiver and freeze. The metal chakrams didn’t help, sucking the heat out of his hands at an astounding rate. Without Riyan’s half finger gloves, Vir’s hands would have frozen hours ago.

But even with the gloves, his fingers still touched the disks, forcing him to stop and stick his hands in his armpits to warm up. Of course, when he did, the rest of his body cooled off, forcing him to walk a tightrope between exertion and rest.

The effort had been worth it. Just a day after receiving the chakrams from Riyan, he’d become proficient enough to hit his targets at thirty-five paces away... Most of the time.

It wasn’t enough. Vir craved more.

He imagined himself surrounded by bandits. He saw himself sailing through the air, launching chakrams at multiple enemies, midair, upside down. In his delusional fantasy, the opponents ringing him had all collapsed by the time he’d landed.

Reality was not so kind. Whenever he attempted to do anything even remotely flashy, he either met with injury, or made a fool of himself. Thankfully, nobody was watching.

Or so he’d thought, until a pair of blue eyes stared at him from the darkness, just fifteen paces away. A wolf, and where there was one, there were always more.

Vir froze. Fear flooded his body, triggering his fight-or-flight response. His heartbeat quickened, enhancing Prana Vision.

He quickly scanned the hill, but found nothing. No prana signatures. It really seemed to be just this one animal, all by its lonesome.

Then he noticed the beast’s protruding ribcage. The animal barely had an ounce of fat; it was starving.

That made him a little sad, but any sympathy he had for the animal evaporated when the wolf howled and charged him. Vir could almost feel its hunger as saliva flew from its maw.

There was no way Vir could flee. It was a hundred paces to Riyan’s front door, and the wolf was too fast. It’d be on him before he’d even gotten it halfway.

Luckily, he had several lethal flying weapons in his hands. And eyes that told him exactly where the wolf’s heart lay.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he launched a chakram at the beast.

The wolf saw the incoming disk and swerved, but even if it hadn’t, Vir didn’t anticipate the wolf’s trajectory well enough—it would’ve missed either way.

He threw his other chakram, but that one also missed.

“Grak it!” He shouted. The wolf continued to close the distance.

Now he only had a single chakram and three chakris remaining.

What’s wrong with me? He thought. He’d hit the tree just fine. Why couldn’t he hit the wolf?

Vir began lobbing the smaller chakris. The first missed. As did the second. The third made contact, but bounced off, its blunt training edge barely nicking the beast’s hide.

“Badrakking thing!” Vir cursed. Was his last remaining chakram even sharp enough to be effective? He had his doubts, but now the wolf was upon him.

Time had run out.

Vir adopted a combat stance, forced to use his chakram as a bladed melee weapon.

The wolf leaped into the air, aiming for his throat... but Vir’s Kalari training hadn’t been for naught.

He crouched and twisted, just enough to avoid the wolf’s open jaw. He sliced upward with his chakram, aiming for an artery that flowed through the beast’s belly.

The wolf yipped as Vir’s chakram met flesh. He was just as shocked as the beast; he hadn’t expected the bladed disk to penetrate its hide.

His surprise made him hesitate. Vir clucked his tongue as the wolf darted away, eyeing him warily, its blood dripping onto the sand.

He’d lost the opportunity to press his advantage, all for a minor injury. The chakram hadn’t penetrated the artery he’d been aiming for. In fact, all it did was make the starving animal angrier. It growled and shuddered and glared at him.

In close quarters, the wolf had every advantage. Its powerful jaw could rip through Vir’s neck, and its claws could easily mangle his limbs. How many times would he have to injure the wolf before it gave up and ran away? How many more encounters could he survive without being injured himself?

Not once did he think about actually killing the beast. He simply wasn’t good enough to pull that off—trying for a lethal strike may very well result in his own death.

The wolf leaped at him, and once again Vir adopted a defensive Kalari stance, his legs spread wide with his weight on his rear leg.

But this time, his enemy was smarter.

Just as Vir swung to intercept its attack, it changed directions, zigzagging the final few paces to throw him off.

The tactic worked. The wolf had bypassed his attack entirely. He was defenseless now, and there was no time to do anything other than guard his face and neck.

The wolf took a vicious swipe, tearing through the skin on Vir’s forearms.

“GAAAAAH!” Vir screamed.

Searing heat shot through his arms, threatening to double him over in pain. Tears welled in his eyes, but he blinked them back. He couldn’t allow his vision to be compromised in the middle of a battle.

It’s just pain. You can handle this. It’s just pain! Nothing more... He told himself.

The wolf mounted him, pinning him underneath. But unlike when Vir had performed the same move on Maiya earlier today, the wolf simply didn’t have the weight to keep him down. Vir slashed his chakram at the beast’s soft underbelly and rolled to the side, throwing the animal off.

But not before the wolf took several more swipes to his face and shoulder, rending his skin open in several places. Rivulets of blood traced red lines down his face and arms, soaking his hands red.

The moment he stood up, the beast was on him again, unrelenting in its ferocity. It gnawed his pants, sending him crashing back to the ground.

As he fell, the beast locked eyes with him, its hunger palpable. Then it lunged… For his throat.

Vir saw every little detail of the wolf’s maw. The razor-sharp, yellowed teeth. Its oozing saliva. Its tongue that sought the taste of fresh meat.

I can’t get away! Being caught mid-fall, he could not evade.

This is bad. Really grakking bad...

Bile rose in his throat. An existential dread paralyzed him—the primal fear of being eaten alive. Vir felt something warm and wet dribble down his pants.

Pathetic, he thought. Just pathetic. I’m gonna die here? Pissing my pants like this?

His thoughts drifted to Maiya and to Rudvik, and the world seemed to fade from his eyes.

Then something else took control, robbing him of the sanctity of his own body. Something primordial.

Ekavir of Godshollow was gone. Reaper Ekanai had arrived.

Prana Vision intensified.

With a single-minded focus, The Reaper tucked his legs mid-fall, his boot striking the lunging wolf’s face, sending him spinning. Ekanai turned the momentum into an aerial somersault, touching lightly off the ground with his hands before executing a perfect cartwheel that took him back to the tree.

Vir watched on in horror, no longer in control of his body. Once again, the being who’d treated Maiya as useless dead weight—as an enemy to be killed—had taken over.

Without even breaking his cartwheel, Ekanai picked up a chakram embedded into the trunk and launched it at the wolf. That would have been impressive on its own... But he threw it upside down, in midair, before his hands touched the ground!

Then he did it again, lobbing another chakram.

This was the finesse Vir had dreamed about!

One chakram slammed into the wolf’s face between its eyes, stunning the beast before bouncing off. The second tore into its foreleg.

He wasn’t done yet. Ekanai righted himself and twirled the deadly disk around his index finger, spinning it faster and faster, until it whirred an inch from his face, threatening to cut his cheek open.

But there was no danger here. Not for the Reaper. After all, he’d practiced with these weapons for decades. He’d felled thousands upon thousands of Ash Wolves in the blighted plains of the Ashen Realm.

The Reaper had earned his title.

He launched the chakram, and it tore through the air with more force than anything Vir had ever thrown before. Despite its blunted edge, despite its many chips and shoddy construction, the training chakram sliced through the wolf’s hide like a blade cutting water. It carried such force that the wolf lost its balance and staggered.

The chakram hadn’t bisected the beast, but it certainly had dealt it a mortal wound. Ekanai strolled up to the beast, lobbing chakris as casually as one might throw a pebble into a pond.

Every disk hit the exact same spot, expanding the wound caused by the earlier chakram.

The Reaper arrived just in time to see the light fade from the wolf’s eyes.

He kneeled and stared at the dying beast. “The Akh Nara sends his regards,” he said in a voice that was several octaves lower than his own. A voice that spoke of power and experience.

‘You can run, Ekavir. You can hide.’

The Reaper turned Vir’s body toward the abode. Horror seized Vir’s mind when he realized what the demon was about to do.

‘But you cannot avoid your destiny.’

Ekanai opened the door to the house, silently stepping in.

No! Nonononono!! Vir thought in panic.

‘Our journey is one of strife and regret. Cease this nonsense. Become the one you were born to be.’

The door to Vir’s bedroom swung open, revealing a blissfully sleeping Maiya, her soft snores the only sound within the room.

‘If you cannot cast aside the shackles that bind you, then I shall reap from you your most precious possessions.’

The Reaper placed the blade of Vir’s katar against Maiya’s throat. Still asleep, she frowned.

Don’t! Don’t do it! Vir thought frantically, fighting back with every shred of willpower he could muster.

‘One by one. Until you BREAK.’

I. Won’t. Let. You!

Vir wrenched his body from the Reaper and stumbled back. Without thinking, he bolted out the room, through the hallway, and out the door, sprinting as fast as he could. Before he’d realized it, he was back at the wolf. Heaving, he collapsed to his knees and threw up.

What in all the realms!?

Ekanai had almost killed Maiya. Last time he’d been possessed, the demon had made a threat. This time, he’d proven without a shred of a doubt that it was no mere threat. If Vir let him, the demon would kill Maiya. He’d kill Neel.

It was exactly the same as the Godshollow. The demon had once again taken total control of his body... And there was nothing Vir could do to control it.

His head swum, consumed by an unending torrent of emotions. The idea of having control of his body wrested from his control scared him in a way he’d never known. Who else lived inside his head beside him? Would Ekanai one day decide he wanted to take over forever, exiling Vir from his own body?

And yet…

Vir sat down and crossed his legs, forcing himself into meditation. His wounds burned and would need Riyan’s medical treatment to prevent infection… but that would have to wait.

Soon, his breathing calmed, and his thoughts cleared. He forced himself to identify the pattern, and it was obvious.

The Reaper only possessed him when his life was in danger.

The revelation hit him like a falling Godhollow. This was simple. Simpler than he was making it out to be. If he didn’t want that demon possessing him, he simply had to stay out of danger. Or at least, he just needed to avoid life-threatening situations, which suited him just fine. He didn’t have a death wish, after all.

It was the only countermeasure he could come up with against someone as strong as Ekanai. But even when armed with this knowledge, he found himself entirely unable to get back up and go inside. Unable to face Maiya, whom he’d almost killed just moments earlier.

So instead, he curled up into a ball and sat there. Alone.

When the heat of exertion had left his body and the icy grip of the summer night once again chilled him to his core, he finally opened his eyes and stood up.

There were no more answers to be had tonight. Fretting over it would get him nowhere, but there was something he could do to calm his nerves. Something that would at least allow him to gain from this terrible situation he was in.

Approaching the dead wolf, he gingerly retrieved the weapons lodged within its hide—a task that took far more effort than he’d expected.

Vir hesitantly twirled a chakram around his index finger. He twirled it faster and faster.

He lunged forth and launched the chakram. The disk ripped through the air, embedding itself deep within the nearby tree’s trunk.

No way...

With growing excitement, Vir picked up several more chakrams and chakris, lobbing them all at the tree using different techniques. He twirled some, he launched some horizontally, and others vertically, like wheels. Each and every one hit its mark.

It was as if his muscle memory had been imprinted with someone who’d perfected the art. Reaper Ekanai. His skill had bled into Vir.

Bet you didn’t expect that to happen, did you?

It was a cosmic irony that the more Ekanai controlled his body, the stronger Vir grew. And yet, doing so came at a cost of endangering those he cherished and loved.

Vir immediately attempted a cartwheel, trying to replicate the incredible acrobatic feat he’d executed perfectly only moments before.

Instead, he faceplanted onto the sand and collapsed in a sprawling heap.

Guess not everything transferred.

So maybe he hadn’t received all of Ekanai’s skills. And maybe it was like how he’d obtained Prana Vision in the Godshollow. Maybe it took a lot of practice to get right. He didn’t care.

He’d just gained a powerful new ability. One that had cost him sovereignty of his own body, but one that also promised to make him a master of the chakram arts, if only he put in the effort. Just like in the forest, his memories of Ekanai’s superhuman feats had already begun to fade.

Except this time, he knew exactly what he had to do to keep those memories. He should have returned to Riyan and reported everything. He should have sought medical treatment for his wounds. He did neither.

Instead, Vir tore his shirt and bandaged his wounds. Then he picked up his weapons. He didn’t know how to stop these demons from possessing his body… But he did know that there was power to be gained here. Great power.

The night was still young. There was training to be done...