Chapter 26 - Tomb Guardian
The guardian didn't wait for a moment for Liesel to process the fact that she was basically fighting something afflicted with the Ashening Curse. It lunged forward with its heavy sword like an ape. Its strength and speed were barely dampened from losing its dominant arm. The only thing it achieved was making its predictable maneuvers a little harder to foresee. It fought less poised and more like an angry, drunk man, who had all the strength of a berserker and none of the grace of a warrior. It wielded its blade like a club that would shatter her bones no matter which side she was struck from and then snap her body in two.
Liesel had to give up on guarding altogether and instead keep dodging the large, powerful strokes from the blade. A dark trail of energy followed it.
And her feet were feeling the drain of using so much Enforcement so quickly.
The ice ring shattered under the onslaught. After a minute or so, she could predict its movement. The sheen on its armor had returned by that point, so another Impact Rune would not startle it. The worst part was the fact that it had abandoned all the red lines and now actively pursued her no matter which side she went on. So naturally, Liesel guided it towards the door, where she could be sure her back wouldn't be ripped to shreds by the cold mist.
The blade struck the door, digging into the stone. The fissure coiled through its surface from the impact, but the door was too large and dense to be affected in any meaningful way. It was stuck.
Liesel Enforced her arm, along with the blade, and struck the white ceramic hand with it. It chipped a little on the surface. But a second strike was impossible as it yanked its sword out. She was again forced to dodge its unrelenting strikes. One mistake, and it would take one of her limbs, if not a pair. Of course, between her and it, she was the one with very limited stamina, and very soon, she couldn't keep up her Focused Senses and had to drop it. She tried to replenish her Materiality again.
[68/100]
That would have been her seventh replenishment if she had reached a hundred, but her nerves couldn't manage it. They simply refused to take anything through the veins as though they were clogged up.
Fortunately, her Soul Veins were not burned, just swollen from overdrawing. She could still spread the Materiality that was inside her body to use Enforcement and Layering.
The Enforcement technique allowed her to evade its ever wilder but predictable strikes. At the same time, there was a pit in the bottom of her stomach. Its speed had only risen, and it showed no sign of exhaustion. Against its endless stamina and Materiality, she had to be the one to land the killing blow, and every moment she spent dragging the battle was a moment she inched closer to her inevitable fate.
As it swung its sword again, Liesel jumped to the side. As the sword plunged into the ice, she rushed forward, enforcing the foot that stomped on the flat side of the blade at its center. The Guardian stumbled forward, and since its feet usedblades to glide on the ice, losing its balance meant it fell flat on the floor.
Liesel jumped away, conjured the Impact Rune again with all the Materiality in her body. She stabbed the sword into it as the guardian jumped back to its feet, landing on its ice skates. Liesel thrust her sword at its wrist again, but it dodged. Then it struck its shoe blade at her hand. Liesel stepped to the side and tried again. The guardian twisted its wrist, wrenching the blade out of the ice.
It had been a minute, and her nerves were a little calmer now. So she shoved her hand into the back pocket and tried to soak up any Materiality she could find. Without Enforcement, she would not get past the speed and strength of the Guardian after all.
[Materiality +9]
And her body burned in agony.
Not enough!
She could feel her Soul Veins rupture as they suck the materiality. It burned. But she kept at it.
[Materiality +32]
That should be enough.
Liesel told herself as she steered the guardian towards the door again. If it buried its blade one more time, that would be enough. She was quite fortunate that the Door Guardian couldn't fight like a poised swordsman without its dominant hand. If it could, she'd not stand a chance.
Unfortunately, the destroyed ice floor from the onslaught of heavy sword strikes didn't make for the most pleasant footing.Her foot sank into the fissure on the ice, between a hurried dodge and exhaustion in both body and soul, forcing her to undo the enforcement a moment too early. And the next moment, she was crashing down onto the floor. Her butt hit the hard surface, sending a shock up her spine. Her ankle twisted, and the numbing burn promised it had snapped. Liesel clenched her teeth, acting on her first instinct of keeping her sword from using the rune on the ground.
She heard the hiss. The flashing sword was crashing down toward her face. She felt its weight before it struck her.
Focus!
She tilted her upper body to the side, allowing her shoulder to be in line with the strike. She weaved Layering over the narrow space where the sword would strike, clenching the sword harder in her hand.
[Materiality -35.2
Materiality 0.7/100]
Focus!
The first point of resistance was her vest, which did very little in the face of this force. Next, it met the white layer of Materiality. It struck. Liesel immediately unweaved the enforced area, and that brushed away all the impact before it could have shattered every bone in her upper body. The edge of the blade sank, touching her collarbone with little force. It was not enough. The sword pushed down on her bones, trying to cut it without having to withdraw, which was what Liesel wanted.
Liesel's mind burned with white agony, threatening to burn her consciousness away.
Focus!
She clenched her teeth. The Guardian applied more force to the sword. But that was bearable now. She angled the sword with her fine shoulder at the Guardian's wrist and stabbed with the little materiality she had. It whipped forward like an arrow cutting through the air. It met the base of the wrist.
The Impact Rune exploded. Her own sword was knocked away from her weak grip. The Guardian's sword was also ripped away from its grip and knocked out of her shoulder. It brought another wave of pain that consumed Liesel's sanity.
Her sight returned, dark and barely holding onto reality. The Guardian stood there, frozen.
She may have destroyed the magic on its wrist, but that was not enough to kill it. She had wanted to take away its sword, and that was a victory for her. It only needed to stomp on her head once to kill her. And she didn't have any strength to move.
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It didn't, though. It seemed lost, even without a face to express its distress. Then it started moving. It walked up to the sword, lowering onto one knee. It gripped the hilt and tried to lift it. Its hand was ripped out from the arm socket of the armor, failing to even lift the heavy blade an inch from the ground. The ashened hand turned to ashdust, stolen by the mist storm. It didn't move again, though.
Liesel's own shoulder ached. She lay on her back for a while. Hours, probably.
"Should I heal you?" Auram asked. Probably for the tenth time in the last ten minutes.
Liesel managed to shake her head again. She had gathered enough strength to take her foot out of the fissure. Even if it was broken, she couldn't see it. It hurt and refused to support her weight. It took some effort to stand up on her other foot, but she managed. She dropped the Materiality Core from her fingers. She was up to thirty again. She looked for her sword. She might be able to shove it up the open arm plating and use an Impact Rune to destroy it from the inside.
It was unnecessary.
She approached the unmoving armor. She gathered the Soul Unravelling Rune in the palm of her left hand. Her entire vest was soaked in blood, and walking in it didn't feel great. She would've taken it off, but that might be a little too active work with her one shoulder barely hanging on to her body.
The door guardian looked up when I stood in front of it.
"Can you speak?" Liesel asked, and the armor didn't respond as it never had. She settled her hand on its face.
[Soul Unravelling Initiated!]
Hundreds of threads blinked across the knight's armor, like lightning in the sky. Each time they blinked, the number of threads doubled. Then, they blinked once, consuming the entirety of its form. There, it started to unravel like threads of light. It swirled under her palm. Liesel focused her Perception inside her body once again, trying to observe what happened to the threads within her soul.
They were absorbed through the tendrils of her Soul Vein, wrapping around her arm. They all coursed into the core of her Soul Form. There, all the energy gathered into a clump, forming a shining orb. From there, a tiny thread came out, and it started wrapping into a ball of twine.
[Soul Unravelling Successful!
Soul of Sarvikal, the Tomb Guardian, has been captured!
Analysis and Extraction Process started.
Estimated Time: 72 Hours 14 Minutes]
Liesel exhaled. The sword was still there, but the armor had been part of the demon. Liesel didn't understand how that worked.
The humming of the mist slowly calmed down. Quiet and cold, it retreated to its original boundary. The ice field was devastated. Liesel found it hard to believe she had won somehow. And through the calm mist, she saw figures manifest.
Liesel exhaled. Of course.
She walked over to her sword. It wouldn't help much. There was no way she could fight demons. As her fingers wrapped around the handle, the silhouettes turned into people. Yehia was charging first. Healer Borran was behind her, as well as Fiya, who had not yet healed completely and shouldn't have been traversing the mist.
Liesel let go of the sword, standing up.
Their faces reflected surprise at the state of the ice field.
"What are you all doing here?" Liesel asked.
"Did you kill him..." Yehia's words drawled to an uneasy halt as she took in Liesel's injuries.
"I will explain later," Liesel replied. "I am a little tired right now."
With the relief that she was safe came an overwhelming heaviness in her mind. She blinked once, unable to keep herself steady.
Then her vision went blank.
*******
"Holy fuck!" Garvin uttered as he observed the devastated ice lake, mouth agape.
Sarkot jabbed him in the chin, and the other warrior hissed in pain, spitting blood that stained his lips red.
"It must've been a spectacular battle. Can't help but wonder what else she is hiding?"
Garvin opened his mouth, and the insidious nature of his words reflected on his face before they left his blood-stained lips. Sarkot jabbed him again to shut him up.
"Don't you dare say it was a fluke."
"I wasn't!" Garvin complained, regretting his words immediately.
Kurvam looked back at him. The team leader had been silent since he returned. He had also been very much shocked by the remark. As it would seem, Verka had convinced the Seer to send one of the Commanders from the Westfront, stationed at the Markonn Fort. Now, Verka would have to return to Saffron Helm to take back his request.
Again, the expedition leader made no angry remark and kept on walking, looking at the damage to the ice lake.
"Was it like this yesterday?" Sarkot asked Yehia, who was a few steps behind him, hovering over Fiya like a mama bird. The mage was still ill, but recovering.
"The ice was sinking yesterday," Yehia answered. She glanced at Fiya.
"How's she doing?" Sarkot gestured at the missing vice leader, who should have been beside Kurvam, not that it had happened once since the start of the expedition.
"Borran says she'd wake up by evening," Fiya answered.
"Oh. For her injuries, that's fast," Sarkot said. He wouldn't have been surprised if the vice leader had been gone for a week or two. But that was just another secret not for him to know. He was fine with it. She was a trouble that he hoped he could tell his children about. But he was worried he might be trampled into the ground before then.
They all gathered around the stone door.
"It's not open still," Kurvam looked at Verka as if the warder should have an answer for it.
The warder observed the door closely, creating a ladder out of small floating barrier constructs.
"It needs a key."
"It must be with the Door Guardian," Verka added as he climbed down. "Where's his body?"
He glanced at Yehia for an answer.
"I haven't seen it."
And they spent a while looking for the body, but couldn't find it.
There's no way that armor could've been destroyed, right?
Sarkot found even the thought to be harrowing. But even after looking everywhere, including the mist, they had to conclude the body had been destroyed completely.
"Irresponsible vermins," Kurvam grunted under his breath. His patience finally snapped, not that it had lasted for any significant time. He kept uttering colorful names for the vice leader. Then his ire shifted to Yehia and Fiya.
"How did you even know that woman was going to kill the Guardian?! She must've informed you, right?"
He marched towards Fiya, who shrank behind Yehia.
"Do you have any idea how fucking stuck we are, bitch!"
Yehia's lips curled into a mocking grin as she prepared her spear. The woman had no sense of self-preservation.
"What about the sword?" Verka suggested before a fight could break out.
Sarkot exhaled the breath he had been holding. He'd like for this day to end without any remarkable incident. And he knew deep in his guts that it was impossible. The only thing stopping a tragedy from striking was in a coma right now. They were trapped with the son of the Chancellor, and no one wanted their ire, not even Sarkot, no matter how outrageous the demand might be.
He glanced at Borran, who might object. Sarkot begged the divine that he would still have the courage.
"It is about the exact width of the keyhole in the door," Verka added. He barely managed to lift the heavy blade, though.
Kurvam knocked him to the side. Like a rag doll, Verka stumbled and fell onto the ground. The captain picked up the sword.
"Make a stair!" he hissed at the warder as he marched towards the door again.
Verka did. The leader reached the height and inserted the sword with ease, but it was loose. So they tried again with the sheath. Not before Kurvam berated Verka for being wrong about the width of the keyhole. This time it fit. He twisted the sword, and the mechanism in the door tucked the hilt away from their hands. The door opened. A dark mist veiled the second layer.
Kurvam jumped down to the ground, grinning.
"Let's check out the second layer."
"No," Fiya said. "Liesel defeated the guardian. I am not going in without her."
Kurvam's face turned red to the tips of his ears instantly.
"Don't you—"
"She's not wrong," Yehia said. "I don't know how dangerous the second layer of the Necropolis will be, but I don't think I want to go inside without someone who can take control when the wind blows north."
That was two, and Barron would also throw his weight behind them.
"Anyone else?"
Sarkot didn't want to be on the bad side of the leader. At the same time, nothing was more stupid than following him into an unknown place when the healer and a mage had already refused. The secondary warder was Yehia, who would keep him safe because Verka was only loyal to Kurvam when he was leading the team. Very rationally, he could see the problem with going inside. He glanced at Garvin, raising a brow.
Sarkot would not stand against Kurvam alone, but three meant he could easily argue he wanted to make sure the mage and the healer returned to the base safely. The ruin was drastically more dangerous today.
Garvin shook his head. He was going to follow Kurvam.
Sarkot didn't know why. He took a step back.
"Sorry, boss. I think they'd need another blade to get back to the base safely. We cannot risk the healer and the mage so early. And I think it would be best..."
Kurvam narrowed his eyes, and Sarkot forgot his breath.
"It would be best to go inside when both the mages are healthy. Today, we will become sacrifices for no greater cause, but your untamed ego."
Unfortunately, Kurvam didn't listen.
He would return an hour later. He was the only person still unharmed. The rest were faring much worse. Verka, on the other hand, had his arm ripped from his elbow.