WIEDERGEBUTE Act III: Chapter 8

After making my way past Demon Beast Gate, which had been repaired after the Demon Beast attack and now sported two massive towers with giant ballista sitting at the tops, I used the Flash Step to quickly pass through the mountain pass that separated Nevaria from the Demon Beast Mountain Range.

Kari was clinging to me as I traveled. Her arms were around my neck, her face buried in my shoulder to protect her from the wind as her hair billowed out behind us. She was still holding onto her ranseur, which added some created some wind resistance that slowed me a bit, but I hardly noticed it. I would have used wind manipulation to protect her, but I was no wind affinity Spiritualist.

I didn’t stop moving even after we reached the ravine, using the Flash Step Version 2: Jump Step to bypass the ravine and travel deeper into the forest.

Bucharest was located in the direction opposite of where Catalyna’s group had traveled. They had gone north-west. We were traveling south-west.

I raced through the forest without stopping. Using the Flash Step, I traveled several hundred meters within the blink of an eye. My Spiritual Power was churning as I pushed myself to move faster.

Even if someone learned the Flash Step, very few would ever be able to use it for long distance travel like I could. Speed was the focal point which determined the basis for this technique. A Spiritualist’s proficiency with the Flash Step was determined by how fast they could get from point A to point B in the least amount of steps. Most people couldn’t travel more than 15 to 20 meters using it.

While Kar and I had modified the Flash Step so people other than me could use it, I was still the creator and the one who had the most proficiency with the technique. I could travel 200 meters within a single step if I really pushed myself.

Right now, I was really pushing myself.

My awareness of the world around me had become distorted as I raced through the Demon Beast Mountain Range. Trees and plants blurred into streaks of green. To accommodate for the sudden distortion in my perceptions, I channeled lightning through my eyes, blinking several times as my ability to perceive light sharpened, allowing me to see exactly where I was going.

Barely a split second after I emerged from a Flash Step, a Demon Beast leapt out from the trees and lurched toward me. It had a snake head for a tail, the body of a lion, and the face of a goat. A Chimera variation. This forest was not its natural habitat. Even so, I did not let myself become distracted or surprised by the sudden appearance of this creature.

Using the Flash Step, I stepped onto its head and shoved lightning into its body. The beast roared. It was an agonized shriek that echoed through the forest for only a second as the Demon Beast’s brain was fried. It crumbled to the ground with a loud thump, but I didn’t pay attention to the carcass anymore.

I was already moving.

It took two hours for me to reach Bucharest. The crumbling buildings of the ruined city eventually came into view. Architecturally different from Nevaria, the buildings looked like they had been bigger and flashier than the city I lived in. I heard that before the Catastrophe, humanity had created many cities that could have even rivaled Midgard.

I stopped using the Flash Step after reaching the border of the city.

Setting a slightly shaken Kari back on her feet, I craned my neck around to observe the city while my companion slammed the butt of her ranseur into the ground and tried to regain her breath. Her knees were wobbling. I was sure the incredibly high-speed journey had left her disoriented.

“You okay?” I asked.

Kari nodded. “Yes, just give me a moment to regain my bearings.”

I nodded and observed the city some more.

Much of Bucharest had been overgrown. Trees covered a good portion of the city, vines hung from the walls of the few buildings still standing, and the sound of Demon Beasts echoed from all over. While many of the buildings lay in ruins, a good few were still miraculously standing. These buildings were between four and five-stories tall.

“So this is Bucharest,” Kari murmured. “I’ve always wanted to explore this place, even though it’s already been completely mapped out.”

Bucharest was was the closest one to Nevaria, therefore making it the most easily accessible. What’s more, the Demon Beasts who made this city their territory weren’t been that strong—or they hadn’t been until the Basilisk showed up.

“We should begin our search for Geirolf now,” I said. “Let’s stick together. I’ll use Spiritual Perception to try and can located him.”

“I understand.” Kari pulled her ranseur from the ground and twirled it around. “I’ll help you out however I can.”

The two of us made our way into the city, and I quickly activated Spiritual Perception to try and located Geirolf.

Spiritual Perception was a sensing Spiritual Technique that allowed Spiritualists to sense the Spiritual Aura of others. Spiritualists like myself, who were more sensitive to Spiritual Power, could even detect the Spiritual Residue left behind by other Spiritualists and Demon Beasts.

The world around me shifted. All the colors disappeared, shifting into varying shades of gray. The grass growing from between cracks on the street, the vines hanging from buildings, and even the buildings themselves, all of it had turned monochrome.

However, while I could no longer see the world in color, that didn’t mean color had entirely disappeared from my perceptions. Kari appeared to me as a bright flame of pure gold. This was a denotation to her elemental affinity, which was light.

“There are several B-rank Demon Beasts here,” I said at last as several more flames appeared in my vision.

“R-really?” Kari looked startled. “I was told there were no Demon Beasts above C-rank in Bucharest.”

“That’s how it used to be,” I explained. “But that changed after the Leucht Family used Dyr to draw Demon Beasts to Nevaria.” I turned my head and looked at a building as though I was looking through it. “This is only a guess, but Dante and Rainer believe that these Demon Beasts are ones that came from deeper in the Demon Beast Mountain Range. They were drawn here by Dyr’s power, but when Dyr died, the power was no longer guiding them to Nevaria, so they ended up making this city their new territory.”

“Oh. Yes, that would make a lot of sense,” Kari murmured.

“Let’s keep moving,” I suggested.

Our journey into Bucharest continued, but though we claimed a lot of ground, I still couldn’t find a single trace of Geirolf’s unique Spiritual Signature anywhere. This could mean one of two things: either he was still outside of my range to perceive him, or he was dead. However, even if he was dead, I should have still been able to detect the Spiritual Residue left by his remains. I was hoping that meant he was alive.

We turned into a wide street that looked like it had once been a bazaar. It was hard to tell because nothing remained of the stalls that would have situated either side of the road. After several thousand years, the wood and fabrics had rotted away, but I could easily imagine street vendors lining up on either side of the road, hawking their wares to people passing by.

As we began walking, a loud roar echoed around us, causing Kari and I to stop. The ground shook. Boom. Boom! BOOM! I could already see it with my Spiritual Perception, the creature coming in our direction. It appeared in my vision as a massive red flame that walked on four legs.

“A Behemoth is coming out way,” I muttered with some shock.

“What?!” Kari looked at me in surprise.

Just then, a giant creature appeared from around a building. It stood on four legs thicker than several tree trunks combined. Each time it raised a paw and brought it down, the ground shook as though it was being rocked by an earthquake. Its elongated body, covered in purple fur, rippled with muscles as it moved. Lips peeled back in a snarling muzzle, revealing rows of jagged sharp teeth. Two horns were situated on its forehead, one near the top, and the other, slightly smaller one, sitting immediately behind it.

Kari sucked in a breath. “I never expected to see a Behemoth here!”

Behemoths were B-rank Demon Beasts with the potential to become A-rank Demon Beasts if they lived long enough. This one was clearly still a B-rank. If it had been an A-rank, it would have been much bigger, at least two or three times its current size.

I wondered if this creature was the same one Kari and I fought in my previous life.

“Let’s not waste any time! Kari!”

“Right!”

Kari and I split away from each other as the Behemoth opened its mouth. A large sphere of fire agglomerated inside of its mouth, glowing bright red as it became condensed and then released as a massive beam of fire. The flames were so hot I could feel them even from a distance, but I didn’t panic.

Grabbing the handle of the Dragon’s Tail Ruler, I began channeling the water element into my blade, forming a thick shell of highly condensed water around it. As the beam of fire came in my direction, I swung the blade. The Dragon’s Tail Ruler easily sliced through the Behemoth’s fire breath. Once the Behemoth realized its attack wasn’t doing anything, it stopped using fire breath and rumbled toward me with massive footsteps that shook the city.

However, while the Behemoth was wholly focused on me, who I guess it deemed was a larger threat, it was unaware of the true threat now directly beneath it.

Kari.

While I had been keeping the Demon Beast’s attention, Kari had used the Flash Step to appear beneath the Behemoth. With a loud battlecry, she swung her glowing golden ranseur at the nearest leg. An agonized and enraged cry was released from the Behemoth as Kari’s blade tore through the ligaments of its front right leg. Dark blood sprayed from the wound and splattered the ground, but she ignored that and swung at the left front leg, tearing through that one as well.

With another liberal use of the Flash Step, Kari disappeared from beneath the Behemoth, which could no longer hold up its own weight and fell face first into the ground. The earth shook even more fiercely than it had before. I needed to bend my knees to keep myself from being knocked to the ground.

During that time, Kari had ascended into the sky and was weaving her ranseur in intricate patterns that caused the tip to glow more brightly than ever before. I could sense the immense surge of Spiritual Power being emitted from her body as it was channeled into her weapon. As she began descending, the blonde woman finally activated her technique, thrusting her ranseur at the Behemoth.

Divine Buster Cannon was a powerful technique that created a massive cone of light energy. This energy was so intense that it had the power to vaporize any object it came into contact with. In my previous life, Kari had used this Spiritual Light Technique many times to kill Sekbeists, which were all susceptible to Spiritual Light Techniques.

The technique roared as it slammed into the Behemoth’s head. A bright light erupted from where the technique struck, forcing me to close my eyes.

Having seen this technique plenty of times before, I knew what was coming and lowered my center of gravity by bending my knees. I was just in time. The intense aftershock of the attack slammed into me, pushing my body backward as I slammed the Dragon’s Tail Ruler into the ground and used it to protect most of my body. Several chunks of debris hit me, but my body had been enhanced by Body Forging Pills. I barely felt the debris as it struck. When the aftershocks finally died down, I set the Dragon’s Tail Ruler on my back again and opened my eyes.

The Behemoth was still there. However, the giant creature was now without its head. All that remained was a cauterized neck. There was also a massive hole in the road below where the head would have been. Meanwhile, Kari was standing next to the Demon Beast, leaning on her ranseur as she took several deep breaths.

I walked over to the hole in the road and peered down. The hole, which had perfectly smooth edges, led to the first floor of the sewers beneath Bucharest. I could just make out the floor and judged the drop to be about 10 meters.

“What should we do now?” asked Kari. “Are you thinking of traveling into the sewers?”

I nodded. “I’m beginning to get a good idea as to what happened here. I think Earland, Geirolf, and Mikkel came to Bucharest, not expecting there to be any high-rank Demon Beasts. They probably ran into this Behemoth right here, or perhaps one of the other B-ranks I can sense, and were forced into the sewers, where they ran into the Basilisk. Earland and Mikkel were separated from Geirolf somehow. They managed to escape, but I suspect Geirolf is still somewhere down here.”

Kari agreed with me. She pulled her ranseur out of the ground and walked over to me. She peered down the hole, frowning as she looked at the small spot that was visible thanks to the light seeping in from above.

“Let’s not waste time here,” she said at last. “If Geirolf is down there, then we need to hurry.”

“You are correct. Let’s go.”

Kari and I jumped down the hole. The fall was short, barely a second. My feet met the ground, and I bent my knees to absorb the shock of impact. Kari was right beside me. We stood up at the same time and looked around.

It was impossible to see far in this darkness, but Kari rotated her left hand in a circular motion, generating a small ball of light that sat above her palm. The light cast away some of the darkness. Even so, we could only see about fifteen meters in any one direction.

“Which way should we go?” asked Kari.

“I have no idea since I still can’t sense Geirolf using Spiritual Perception,” I sighed. “This city is so vast, and the sewers are every bit as large. All we can do is choose a random direction and hope we get lucky.”

“That’s… not what I was hoping to hear,” Kari admitted.

“I know.” I gave her a wan smile.

Since we really had no choice, the two of us chose a random direction and began walking through the vast underground network.

***

Because they had nothing to do, Lin and Fay decided to remain in the infirmary and look after Earland and Mikkel. They were too worried to sleep. Dante and Rainer had told them to try and relax, to take a break, but they couldn’t stand the thought of doing nothing.

Of course, all they could do now was watch Earland and Mikkel while they slept. Lin was sitting on a couch that had been moved into the infirmary for her. She had a leatherbound notebook sitting on her lap and was writing something down. Occasionally, she would dip her quill in a bottle of ink that was situated on a small table next to her. Meanwhile, Fay was polishing her gauntlets, which she had already polished several times.

She gazed at her gauntlets. The Runes etched onto their surface were ones she recognized from having seen them several times before, but she honestly didn’t know how they worked. Part of her wished Eryk were here so she could ask him about them.

“How long do you think it will take before Big Sister and Darling return?” Lin suddenly asked.

Fay looked up from the gauntlets, gazed at Lin, and shrugged. “I do not know. I’m not even sure how long it will take them to reach Bucharest, though I imagine they will be gone longer than a day.”

“This princess… does not like the idea of those two traveling outside of Nevaria without her,” Lin confessed.

“Neither do I,” Fay said.

“She wishes she could help them more.”

“I feel the same way.”

“Do you think there is something we can do?”

Fay smiled uncertainly at her dark-skinned companion. “Maybe in the future, but right now, about all we can do is sit here and wait for them to return.”

“This princess hates waiting,” Lin sighed before growing silent.

Seeing how Lin wasn’t going to speak up again, Fay began tracing the Runes on her gauntlets, studying their shape. There was Thurisaz and Kenaz, one which meant purging and cleansing fire and the other representing the vital fire of life. There was also Nautiz Reversed, which could mean constraint of freedom. The last one was Sowilo. Like the others, this one had many meanings, but she believed it probably represented the elemental force of fire, or the sword of flames in this instance.

As she was trying to figure out how these Runes all fit together, a groan from one of the beds alerted her to someone waking up. She and Lin glanced at Mikkal at the same time as he slowly opened his eyes. The young man blinked several times, his unfocused gaze roving around the room.

“Where… am I?” he asked.

“You are in the infirmary located in the Nevarian Spiritualist’s northern headquarters,” Fay answered as she stood up.

“Nevarian Spiritualist…? So we were able to make it,” Mikkel sighed as he closed his eyes, but then he opened them and glanced at her and Lin as they came up to the bed. “Geirolf… we need to rescue him. He’s still… still underneath Bucharest.”

“Do not worry,” Lin said. “Big Sister and Darling are already on their way to save Geirolf.”

“Just the two of them?” Mikkel looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. “That’s not enough people. They’ll be killed!”

Fay frowned but tried her best to sooth the man’s worry. “Relax, Eryk and Kari already know about the Basilisk.”

While Mikkel looked surprised, he quickly shook his head. “No, it’s not just the Basilisk that’s the problem.”

Fay did not like the sound of that, and from the worried expression on her face, neither did Lin.

“Is there something else that could pose a threat to Eryk and Kari?” she asked.

“There is.” Mikkel’s expression was both grave and imploring. “There is a threat even bigger than the Basilisk—the person who is controlling it.”

***

Much like the sewers beneath Nevaria, the ones underneath Bucharest had a small slope downward that allowed water to flow smoothly through it. Similarly, there were dozens of pathways that branched out in all directions, and these lateral passages led deeper into the sewers. Fortunately, the similarities ended there.

Unlike Nevaria’s sewers, these ones did not have the stench of piss and feces. It was probably because they had been unused for so long. While the water flowing through these channels was murky and brown, it was more on account of mud from the roots that had pushed through the bricks than anything else. This place was covered in vines and other plant life.

I couldn’t accurately figure out how much time had passed since the two of us had come down here, but it felt like hours had gone by. Kari and I had journeyed through numerous passages, traveled down stairs, and went ever deeper into the sewers.

My Spiritual Perception was active. I was extending the range as far as I could, but so far I hadn’t found anything. There were no Demon Beasts this far down. My guess was that all of them were afraid of the Basilisk.

Kari and I were completely silent as we traveled, but that just meant the sound of our footsteps were extremely loud as they echoed along the walls. My fiance held her ranseur in one hand and a light sphere floated over the other. The sphere was bright enough to illuminate the path before us, but it didn’t extend more than ten meters in any given direction.

Suddenly, I stopped.

“What it is?” asked Kari, her voice a soft whisper.

I turned my head and stared through a wall on our left. Narrowing my eyes, I extended my Spiritual Perception in this direction and saw a fading green flame.

“I’ve found Geirolf,” I announced at last.

“You have?! Where?” asked Kari.

“This way. Follow me.”

Kari and I increased our speed as we traveled through several more tunnels, and I kept my Spiritual Perceptions on so I could monitor how close we were getting to Geirolf. We soon came upon a section of the sewer walls that had crumbled away. It was a large path about 20 meters wide that was reminiscent to a natural cave, which the two of us soon traveled down, until we reached the end of this tunnel where he found him.

“Geirolf!” Kari raced toward her brother, though she fell to her knees upon seeing the state he was in. “Oh… Oh no… Geirolf…”

I grimaced as I closed the distance as well. Geirolf’s armor was gone, and so were most of his clothes. His bare skin was covered in bruises and lacerations, many of which were an ugly purple. However, that was nothing compared to the missing limbs.

Geirolf’s right arm and left leg were gone. I couldn’t tell if his limbs had been bitten off or torn off, but the flesh around each wound was jagged and torn, suggesting that they had not be cut off. His thigh had a leather belt around it, acting as a makeshift tourniquet. His arm did not have one. Blood dripped from the wound, but it wasn’t as bad as I would have imagined. The blood had clotted. I recognized the work of a Blood Clotting Pill.

“E-Eryk…” Kari turned her head to me. “Geirolf… he… his arms and legs…”

“I know.” I knelt beside her and observed Geirolf, whose breathing was incredibly labored. “It looks like he’s been relying on pills to stay alive, but he must have run out recently.” I gestured toward the pouch by his left hand, which was empty. “My guess is after running for as long as he could, his body eventually gave out and he collapsed here.”

“What… can we do?” asked Kari. “Can we save him?”

“We can.” I reached into the pouch at my side and began rummaging through it. “Fortunately, I already foresaw that he’d be heavily injured and decided to bring the only pill I know of that can save someone at death’s door.”

Kari’s eyes went wide. “You mean…?”

“Yes. I mean the Immortal Phoenix Pill.”

I found the jar I was looking for and pulled it out. After uncapping the jade jar, a thick medicinal scent spread through the cave. I tipped the jar and let the alchemy pill fall onto my palm. It was about the size of a very large marble, had a mostly red color, but featured several blue phoenix shapes scattered across the surface.

“This is one of the pills Feinrea made when I was teaching her,” I said. “It isn’t as good as the ones I can make, but it will work perfectly for this.” I studied Geirolf and realized something. “I doubt he’s conscious enough to chew or swallow a pill. Hold his mouth open please.”

Kari already seemed to understand what I planned on doing. She set Geirolf’s head on her lap and held his mouth open. I hovered over Geirolf as I popped the pill into my own mouth and broke the soft outer shell with my teeth. The fluids gushed forward, but I didn’t let them enter my throat, and instead slowly allowed the medicinal liquid to seep from my mouth and enter Geirolf’s mouth. He coughed as the liquid traveled down his throat and tried to spit it back out, but Kari began massaging his throat so the liquid could travel through his esophagus more easily.

“When he begins thrashing, hold him down,” I said to Kari.

Her eyes were still wide, but she nodded and began observing Geirolf.

Steam hissed from his body as the lacerations covering his skin began healing up, slowly closing before they disappeared to show healthy skin. The bruises also vanished rather quickly. However, this was the easy part. The difficult part had yet to come.

A pained groan escaped Geirolf’s mouth, but it soon turned into a high-pitched wail as he began thrashing around. Kari quickly held him down. Even so, he bucked and kicked and hit her with all his panic-fueled might. Kari didn’t budge. Like me, her body had been reforged using the Body Forging Pills, and it would take far more than a man weakened by walking so close to death to hurt her.

As Geirolf’s thrashing continued, the leather belt around his leg became undone. The clotted stump began bubbling and undulating before a large white bone suddenly sprouted from the leg. The bones grew. It was a slow and painful process, but eventually, even the bones in his foot had been perfectly regrown. This was followed by muscle fibers growing from the stump, covering the bones as they wove together. Then, at last, flesh grew along the muscles, leaving behind a perfect leg.

The same thing happened to his arm.

The high-pitched screams soon died down and Geirolf entered a deep sleep. As the man’s body relaxed, Kari breathed a sigh of relief and stopped holding him down.

“It looks like he’s going to make it thanks to that pill,” Kari said.

I nodded. “The Immortal Phoenix Pill is one of the most powerful alchemy pills in the world, though it isn’t the highest ranked. However, now that he has taken it, the pill will never work again.”

“That’s fine.” Kari smiled as she set Geirolf’s head on the ground and shifted so she was sitting with her legs crossed instead of her thighs tucked underneath her butt. “He’s going to live now, and that is what matters. We just have to keep something like this from happening again.”

“Yes,” I said. However, before I could say much more, another voice echoed through this cavern.

“It seems even more intruders have decided to enter my base,” the voice was a deep baritone. “I guess those two humans managed to escape back to Nevaria, though I’m surprised you arrived here so soon.”

Kari and I responded instantly, leaping to our feet and grabbing our weapons. Kari held her ranseur in a two-handed grip, the dual-tipped blade pointing in what she assumed was the direction of the voice, while I had grabbed the Dragon’s Tail Ruler and held it loosely at my side. Spiritual Perception was already active. I could see the figure walking toward us. I sucked in my breath.

This person was nothing but a black flame so dark I almost couldn’t see him even with Spiritual Perception.

A figured soon appeared in front of us. Tall and rippling with powerful muscles, the figure walked toward us with an arrogant swagger, the black cloak that wreathed him in darkness billowing behind him. His face appeared slightly human. However, his nose was flat, nothing but two thin slits, and he didn’t have any eyebrows. His skin was so pale it bordered on white. Glowing red eyes peered malevolently at us as a grin threatened to split this creature’s face.

It was a Sekbeist Elite.

He was staring right at me.

“I never would have expected to find a half-breed here,” he said at last. “I could have sworn we’d killed off all your kind, but I guess we missed one.” He shrugged. “Well, no matter. You’re about to die soon anyway.”

I prepared to use the Flash Step as this Sekbeist spoke, but then I caught sight of something slithering in the darkness. It soon appeared, coiling its massive body around the Sekbeist Elite, a gigantic snake covered in black scales, with sharp fangs and eyes capable of petrifying anyone who looked at them.

The Basilisk had appeared, and it was being controlled by a Sekbeist.

This was not good.