Chapter 222: ...Autarch's Key (6)

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The Kirin roared and charged towards them.

A wyvern type monster, not quite a dragon but not quite not a dragon.

It’s long equine body surged with electricity, both through its quill-like fur and nervous system, propelling the ancient horse-god come alive from chinese folktales to a deadly onslaught equal to that of a lightning storm.

A grade-2 monster.

Equal in power to the Imugi.  The [Kirin] was much smaller, yes.

But what it lacked in power…

It made up for it with pure focus and hatred.

The Kirin bolted, quite literally, and appeared on the other side of the room.

And the party went flying.

Zenom sheathed his bastard sword, diving to the side but it wasn’t fast enough.  His cloak went up in flames as well as the entirety of his left leg.  The Holy Knight didn’t scream as much as he groaned in pain, his face twisted in sudden agony.

L’teya fared no better, her entire body covered in stone.  A spiderweb of cracks appeared through the entirety of her body, and stone moaned as entire fist-sized chunks were gouged out of her arms, which she’d used to try and defend herself.

Perhaps it was a given, but my master was the only one who didn’t react to the Kirin’s charge.  He’d moved long before the Kirin even bellowed, using some kind of strange footwork combined with a non-friction Core type ability to get out of the way.

Arrosh ran back, covered L’teya with his ragged cloak and dived out of the way.

The air turned foul, and the scent of ozone surrounded us.

｢ Kirin casts [1.6B Horsepower, Baby!] ｣

The Kirin lowered it’s head…

And Arrosh pitched forward, holding L’teya by the arms.

Zenom had just regained his feet, just to fall backwards –his arms flailing like he’d just caught the nasty backend of a bazooka explosion.

Every single adventurer in the vicinity lost their footing, falling to the floor as the entire fucking Spire pitched to the side.  Invisible cracks appeared in the magical wall separating all of us from the arena where the other party was fighting for their lives.

Then came the crack!

I’d heard the crack of lightning before, often enough whenever Kyrian cast his spells.  We’d fought against monsters whose abilities defied common sense, delving into the realm of the magical beyond what we were already used to.

I’d never seen a sonic boom before.

A very fabric of time itself splintered, originating from the space in front of its horn, where the Kirin had fired off a beam of pure energy.

Not magic.

Not some biological heat given off by moving fast.

Not steam power.  Electricity.  Not lightning.

Nothing like that.

Energy.

Mass times speed of light squared.  E = mc^2.

Energy doesn’t have a shape.  Form.  Just… if I remembered right, vectors –directionality.  Maybe even that was wrong.

But what it does have, is a visible effect.

It cut off Arrosh’s legs at the knee.

No, not cut off.

They disappeared.

Then…

And only then…

Did my brain register the crack! From before.

It wasn’t ear-deafening.  It was rather quiet, compared to what I’d seen the Imugi capable of doing –a deep soul-resonating bellow that shook me to the depths of my Soul, sending my mind into the fringes of madness that eldritch-type horrors on a scale larger than planets could induce.

The Kirin..

The Kirin scared me.

It reminded me of a Nuclear Bomb.  How people felt when they first saw Dynamite, gunpowder, bow & arrows.

A deep ringing hollow despair that spelled DEATH in capital letters.

Like seeing a bomb descending from the sky and knowing that you’d never outrun it.  That this alien creature who resembled a horse covered in fur was a minor god made flesh, and it could manipulate the laws of reality in a way that we couldn’t comprehend.

Zenom screamed.

The top half of body around his shoulder had been sheared away.

They’d been nowhere near the path where the Kirin’s horn was pointing at.

Arrosh rolled over, his legs just stumps.  

L’teya was unconscious.  Her eyes and ears had blown out.  Scraps of meat, not eyeballs, hung from the sockets, looking like flattened intestines.  Worm-like meat oozed out of her ears.

‘Her body is stone… the beam had a different effect.’

Two seconds.

That’s how long it took.

They’d die.

I looked across the room.

Arione’s eyes were flat, but his lower lip was trembling.  Clover wasn’t even looking past the walls, her eyes shut closed and tears dripping.

Delas was sneering, along with the [Players].

But there was something they all did that was the same.

They all leaned forward, pressing up against the invisible walls as close as they could.  As soon as the cracks repaired themselves, I saw more than one adventurer relax, lick their lips which was followed by their pupils dilating.

We adventurers are beings who put our lives on the line each time.

And we’re the best ones at sniffing out death.

They were getting ready to witness the death of other adventurers.  Those who’d succeeded in coming up to the top of this Spire, having survived the Imugi, being stranded at Sea, and all the other hundreds of tiny little events that led to this single moment.

To learn something.  To watch.  To observe.  To better prepare.

Because through death, us adventurers learn.

The Kirin trotted towards the nearest body.  Zenom.  A deliberate angle to it’s movements, the horse-deity stopped just short of kicking the barely-breathing Holy Knight…

And it nudged him with his nose.

Zenom screamed as the Kirin’s lightning-hot-breath and quills embedded themselves into the bloody pulp of his shoulder.

The Kirin, not caring, began to lick.  Slowly.

Zenom kept screaming.

Without thinking, I drew [Snow Scream] and cut the curtain separating me and the arena –where the Kirin was massacring those I cared about.

Nothing.

Not even a scratch.

And the air on the other side of the wall trembled.

And Jared appeared again.

…[Invisibility] type Core.

“Slaveborn.”  He greeted like nothing was wrong, like he wasn’t trapped in the room with the rest of them.

Jared Akka Xalud looked fine.

He wore not shirt, just like before.  He wore loose baggy pants.  His brown-hair, twin streaks of orange on either side like antennae, was the only distinct thing about him, plus the missing arm.  His body was well-toned, but not too muscular.  Average height and average looks…

The War Prince leaned his back against the wall, his voice coming warbled through the solid curtain that created this makeshift arena.  “Have you made a choice yet?”

I wanted to ask what he was referring to, but my throat refused to work.

Jared pointed across the field, where the Kirin was still lapping up fresh blood from Zenom’s wounds.

The Chalice.

It was empty.

“Tell me who, Slaveborn.  And I will save the rest.”

Jared said the words without any emotion, empty of inflection, as matter-of-factly as he could.

Zenom let out one last scream, swinging with his other arm towards the Kirin.  His fist bounced off. The Kirin huffed angrily, and nudged its snout deeper into Zenom’s wound.

Zenom’s body began to shudder.

Jared knocked on the window near my face, a smile stretching across his face.  “Knock knock, Slaveborn.  Hello?  Anyone there?”

I said nothing, watching.

Helpless.

Unable to do anything.

Just like when Kyrian died.

Oh God.

I wanted to throw up.

They were all going to die.

There was no time for me to give orders, and there weren’t any orders to give.  There was nothing that anyone here could do to face off against a Grade-2 monster.  We could create the best combat-oriented party possible –Arione, Me, Arrosh, Jared, Skaris, Clover, Zenom, Freier– and the chances of us killing a Grade-2 monster…

‘There’s always a way out in MSS.  Always.  Always, always, always.  Multiple ways out.  It’s a fuck-it-all game, but it’s not an impossible one.’

‘And you’re living proof that it’s beatable –because you beat it on Original Difficulty.’

My head spun.

What possibilities?

Was there a way out of this? For them?

The Chalice.  It was the only way.

I had to choose.

“I…”  I hesitated.

Jared looked to me.

And I met him squarely in the eyes.

“...L’teya.”  I whispered, my voice harsh but soft, “Grab L’teya and put her in the chalice.”

And Jared’s smile stretched from ear to ear, supernaturally wide and unnaturally curved.

“Thank you for proving that I made the right choice.”

Then the nearly naked plain man leapt across the field in a blink, turning invisible once more.

And reappeared right above the Chalice…

Jared Akka Xalud dove right in.