[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 28: The Sage

Sam only made it a few steps before rocky debris began to pelt him from above. Snatching Komachi from beside him, he hurried into a sheltering overhang as larger bits of rubble rained down into the ravine.

Rather than taper off, as Sam was accustomed to, the earthquake grew in intensity. The very land seemed to scream out in wild-eyed rage, and it took him a long few moments before he realized buried deep within the groaning rock was a voice.

The voice of a creature larger than he could fathom.

The ogre?

It made no sense. There was still time left, wasn’t there? Why was it waking up now?

Those thoughts were immediately replaced with, glad I’m at the bottom of this ravine.

It was one thing to fight a golem a few feet larger than himself. But to fight a humanoid ogre the size of a mountain? Nah, hard pass. At least not until he was stronger.

“What’s going on?” Komachi asked, confused and scared. She hunched down as low as possible. “Is it mad we burned and looted the golem?”

At first, Sam almost dismissed Komachi’s worries as that of a spooked and overwhelmed cat. Though she spoke and wielded magic, Komachi retained animalistic behaviors. How much, he wasn’t sure. Even so, he had spent many years with her as his house cat.

After so much time, it was sometimes difficult to look beyond those years. Even if she had seemed like an odd cat even back then.

He felt compelled to reach into his Inventory, struggling with the small opening of the pouch, and pulled out the [Golem’s Eye]. It practically magnetized to his hand.

Reading its Shardscript, his stomach knotted with dread.

“Oh,” he said. “Cool. Cool-cool-cool.”

Komachi yowled with dismay.

[Golem Eye]

(Magical Artifact) (E-Class)

(★★Unusual III)

Prized for their magical potency, golem eyes are highly sought after. Even a weak golem can be harvested for an eye much stronger than their current strength would suggest. However, many eyes are entwined with the creator of the golem, or a guardian. In these cases, the eye is often unusable until said guardian is destroyed. You are afflicted with [Uneasy Gaze].

[Uneasy Gaze]

The ogre guardian of the golem eye you have purloined is aware of your presence. Through the golem eye you carry, the guardian will learn of your location. Kill the guardian, or never stop running.

“Something baaad’s happenin’,” Komachi muttered, reading it too.

Sam immediately threw the [Golem Eye], hoping it would get crushed in the raining debris.

Instead, it stuck to his hand as if it were glued.

Super.

Sam spent a few minutes trying to pry it off but learned that it would only transfer to other parts of himself, or his Inventory. Nothing else would work. He even tried sticking it to an item of his then dropping the item, but was unable to.

Komachi attacked it, going all out with swatting paws to no avail.

“So,” Sam said, stuffing the eye into his pouch. “A mountain-sized ogre is aware of not only who I am, but where I am. And it’s awake. The very same one I assume that the quest told us about.

Pulling up the quest prompt, Sam frowned.

Quest: Battle Royale I

Escape the starting island to survive the ogre’s coming rampage.

Time remaining: 17min

“Oh cool, it looks like the ogre being awake has drastically shortened the window to get off this hellish floating island.”

With a frustrated wave of his hand, Sam dismissed the notification and tried to think. I’m at the bottom of a deep ravine. It’s not big enough for the ogre, so that buys me some time. But it also knows where I am… and this is presumably its home turf.

Checking the item description again, Sam tried not to grit his teeth in frustration. The eye said nothing about deactivating once he was off the island, which meant that the ogre would presumably try to chase him.

Things just keep going from bad to worse around here.

There was no way he was going to get off this island in 17 minutes. He didn’t even know how that would be possible. Maybe there were sky ships or something.

And immediately, his mind conjured an image of Bowser’s airship from early Mario games. A massive sprawling thing filled to the brim with cannons the size of small houses, incendiary weapons, and countless other hazards, all chasing after him.

Forever.

Stupid thing is probably level 100 too, Sam grumped to himself. Though a small part of himself felt a strange, almost traitorous thrill at the prospect of such a monstrous creature hunting him.

It was a little unsettling.

Back around the bend in the ravine, vivid blue light shed forth. The first thing that came to mind was people bearing torches. Of course, the color wasn’t right, but if he could create odd colored flames from a campfire, maybe some other cohort did as well.

More likely it was monsters, anyway.

He didn’t stick around to find out.

Ducking from one overhang to the next, and doing his best to keep close to the ravine wall, Sam avoided most of the rubble that rained down upon him.

Just when he thought it was beginning to subside, a boulder the size of small sedan bounced off the wall just a foot or less above his head and smashed into the riverbed, shattering it like pottery.

What it revealed was a gaping black maw into the darkness below. Water rushed into the void. After taking a few moments to stop his heart from hammering in his chest, Sam realized something.

“Dafuq is that?” Komachi whispered.

Taking a few cautious steps closer to the ragged hole, he swore he saw something down below. The rough outline of something darker than the surrounding space, but it was so dark he couldn’t be sure what it was.

It might be a large building very far away, or small buildings close by. I’ll check back once it’s daylight. That can’t be too far away, right?

Sam pushed aside all intrusive thoughts about what sort of day/night cycle this place had. So far, it seemed close to what he was used to on Earth, but you never knew.

Not as if I can do a damn thing about it.

Pushing onward, the raining rubble did seem to have stopped. Either the ogre was fully awake now, or it had decided something else was more important than Sam.

Every few minutes he would look up into the darkness, expecting to see a massive glowing eye peering down from the top of the ravine.

It never came, thankfully, and nearly an hour later, the ogre was firmly out of his thoughts.

As they walked beyond the source of the river’s water, a large waterfall high up in the darkness by the sound of it, the ravine shrank.

Its two sides joined together in one stony, rubble-strewn walkway without any visible holes leading to the darkness below.

He relied mostly on Komachi’s superior sight to let him know if he was about to walk into a hole, but there never seemed to be one.

Instead, several sources of dim light marched ahead in a rough U-shape that illuminated a large stone doorway.

“A dead-end.”

“But there are shinies,” Komachi countered optimistically.

“That there are,” Sam said, giving her a little pat on the head. “Let’s hope that we don’t have to backtrack.”

That blue light caught up to him again. He had nearly forgotten about it.

The slim profile of a glowing phantom floated along the path after him, garbed in a simple kimono with a feminine face shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat. It was hard to pick out details. The edges of the figure were hazy.

Some kind of monster maybe. If crystal butlers were possible, why couldn’t ghosts be as well?

Sam’s [Charred Claymore] was unsheathed and readied as soon as he noticed its approach. Not a hard thing when even the tiniest bit of light was visible in the lightless depths.

He had been using the strange lights ahead as a sort of beacon, but now he spun around and faced his assailant. “Who are you?”

She looked up, revealing the demonic grin of an oni.

“Oh, a demon, lovely.” Sam tightened his grip on the hilt and dropped his voice so only Komachi could hear him. “Get into the armor, Komachi.”

As odd as Il’dran and Islegard were, they didn’t hold a candle to the abject strangeness that was Komachi listening to Sam’s command without a hint of obstinance.

Tucked inside his armor, Komachi took out her tiny wand with the bell-shaped flower at the end and jingled it as quietly as she dared. Sam could feel the warming sensation of [Regen] cast upon him, even though his HP was full.

In one swift motion, the phantom oni unsheathed a curved katana and slashed into Sam’s claymore.

Immediately adopting [Power Stance], Sam twisted the large greatsword to soak the attack against the blackened flat of the blade. The oni laughed, enjoying herself.

The greatsword reverberated like a tuning fork, and the two weapons stuck together no matter that the oni wrenched on it.

With one hand left gripping the hilt, Sam punched out with his free hand, trying for a highly unconventional second-strike that would have gotten him immediately expelled at a tournament.

“Ow, you bastard, that was my tit!”

Sam stared. He recognized that voice. “Raiko?!”

“Yes, Sam!” Raiko said, touching down. “I just wanted to see your strength.”

“Aloha, you fucking psycho! You could have just introduced yourself, you know.” Letting his blade fall point-first to the ground, he gave her a more critical look. “Are you dead? You’re looking a touch… ghostly.”

“Near enough,” she admitted. “I knew I shouldn’t have spoken! You’re not fighting me anymore.”

He motioned to their surroundings. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t really the best place for a grudge match, y’know?” The last thing he needed was to get injured right before the ogre tracked him down.

It can probably smell blood like a shark, too. Can’t imagine any other way this day could get much worse.

“Grudge match?” she asked in utter confusion. “I’ve no bad blood against you. I’m your ally, Sam! I crossed worlds to find you and your cat on Earth. I saw your potential. How a man of your caliber was wasted on the mundane. Now that we’ve both gotten a second chance in this new shattered realm….”

Sighing, Raiko sheathed her katana and removed the mask that had appeared to be a demonic visage at the time. “I’ve been looking for you for some time.”

“To fight me,” he said, still not sheathing his sword but not making any overtly threatening motions, either. He had thought they were allies, but perhaps now that Islegard was… well, “saved” didn’t seem to fit the bill, so he settled on “not obliterated” maybe Raiko saw him as a challenger.

Komachi angrily jingled her bell in Raiko’s direction.

Raiko flashed a far more human and friendly grin at Komachi, then spread her arms in a placating gesture. “While I’d enjoy fighting you—again, not as enemies—I truthfully want to level up with you. To battle alongside one another, and perhaps even climb the Ascension Layers together. I said as much, when you pulled free the [Shatterblade]. Though, the Layers are new.”

Sam was a bit taken aback. “You’ve got a real strange way of going about it.” Normally he’d chalk it up to some weird mainlander thing, but Raiko wasn’t even from Earth. Which, now that he thought about it for more than two seconds, perhaps her weirdness was normal.

“Our cultures are quite different. Fighting amongst warrior friends isn’t seen as an act of betrayal, but comradery.” She tilted her head. “Wait, you’re not one of those filthy solo levelers, are you?” For some reason, she almost sounded joking to a self-deprecating degree.

“Not exactly by choice.” Sam gave her the cliff notes on what happened since he last saw her.

“So that’s how [Death Sense] picked you up,” she said, grim. “And I caught you in the middle of you running from a boss monster hunting you down. Don’t stop on my account, I’ve got your back. And a place to go.”

Sam slowly replaced his greatsword into its baldric. “Sounds good. So you’re like… a ghost or something? You look all…” he made a motion with his fingers, “wiggly-woo.”

Raiko moved closer, looking him over with interest. “Yeah, I’ll speak plainly. I’m just about dead, and stuck on an island with a Settlement Core to protect. Good thing I’ve a bloodline, or I’d be truly marooned.”

“You too, eh? And here I thought bloodlines would be super rare.” He chuckled and explained what little he knew of his Breaker bloodline. It wasn’t much.

“Bloodlines are incredibly rare, Sam,” Raiko explained earnestly, circling him. “Incarnates are an even scarcer phenomenon. You and I are…. well, unusual to say the least. If we were born on the same Worldshard, I would have heard of your extraordinary bloodline from continents and kingdoms over.”

That certainly put things into perspective.

“Huh. Well, all right.” He pointed at her. “You still didn’t mention whether you are or are not a ghost. You’re translucent, Raiko.”

She stared at him. “Sure, yes, I’m effectively a ghost.”

“Awesome. Not ‘awesome that you’re nearly dead and experiencing an out-of-body episode’, but you can tell me if those lights over there are some sort of deadly trap. Y’know, since you’re a ghost. It looks too interesting to be anything else.”

With alacrity, she flew over to the point of interest and paused.

“No explosions,” Sam noted. “That bodes well.”

“Unless they only blow up on living people,” Komachi muttered.

“Well, break me, I can’t believe what you’ve found,” Raiko said in awe.