Ch 188 – Poison Jar II
They collided in midair, Deacon’s crossed shortswords catching the Antlion Prince’s outstretched claws in another grinding deadlock. The impact sent both of them spiraling downward toward the ground.
The earth rushed to meet them as the wind screamed past Deacon’s ears, loud enough to drown out his ragged breathing, while chitin scraped against steel in a shriek that set his teeth on edge.
Deacon wrenched his right short sword free from the clash by twisting his wrist and driving the blade straight toward the Antlion Prince’s exposed throat with every ounce of strength he could muster while they were still falling, but the Antlion Prince’s head snapped to the side at the last instant, and the blade skittered across its chitinous jaw instead of punching through, leaving behind a shallow cut that began to leak dark blue blood.
The Antlion Prince let go of Deacon's left sword entirely and slammed its freed hand into Deacon's ribs hard enough that Deacon could have sworn he heard something crack inside his chest, phantom pain lancing through his torso like someone had driven a spike between his bones, and his grip on both weapons failed as they tumbled away through the air and vanished somewhere in the lingering smoke from the Flame Mine he'd cast seconds ago.
Shit, Deacon thought as the Antlion Prince's wings beat hard enough to haul both of them back up into the air for a brief moment before the creature folded them tight against its back and sent them into a dive, using its weight and momentum to drive them both straight down toward the ground below.
The earth rushed up to meet them faster than Deacon could process, and they crashed into the dirt in a tangle of limbs with Deacon hitting first and the full weight of the Antlion Prince slamming down on top of him, driving what little air remained in his lungs out in an explosive gasp as his back struck the crater hard enough to send fresh cracks spiderwebbing outward from the impact point like a pane of glass hit with a hammer.
Before Deacon could even think about rolling away or getting his hands up or doing anything except lying there stunned, the Antlion Prince's hand was wrapped around his throat and squeezing, the creature's fingers digging into the sides of his neck with enough pressure that he could feel his pulse hammering against the chitin plating while his windpipe was being crushed.
His hands shot up on instinct to grab at the Antlion Prince's wrist as his vision started tunneling inward from the edges, everything fading to gray and black around the periphery while his fingers scrabbled uselessly against the smooth chitin trying to pry the grip loose, but the creature's strength was too great, even with Power Boost active at 10%.
The Antlion Prince leaned in closer until its mandibles were inches from Deacon's face and that sickly grin was filling his entire field of vision, dredging up memories he'd been trying to avoid for the past month and a half, memories of Jass’s chest caving in, Sam's body being pierced straight through by that very same chitinous arm, before both were tossed aside like garbage.
Through his fading vision, Deacon saw the Antlion Prince's right compound eye start pulsating with purple light, the same glow he recognized from Solomon's Fourth Temple, and he knew the creature was charging up one of its subsonic attacks to unleash at point-blank range, where there would be no dodging or blocking.
Gritting his teeth against the pain of channeling more power into his body as he pushed Power Boost to 15%, Deacon was completely unaware of the dark red runic tattoos covering his torso growing brighter in response to the increased energy saturating his body.
With that additional surge of strength flooding through his muscles, his right hand released its grip on the Antlion Prince’s wrist and shot down to his belt, where his fingers found the leather-wrapped hilt of one of his backup daggers.
In one smooth motion, he drew the blade from its sheath and drove it up into the soft joint where the creature’s arm connected to its shoulder, the Power Strike enhanced steel punching through the thinner chitin plating and sinking to the hilt with a wet sound that was somehow audible over the blood pounding in his ears.
The grip on his throat loosened as the Antlion Prince reared back with a screech that sounded like metal scraping stone, and Deacon sucked in a desperate breath that burned going down his bruised windpipe while his left hand came up from his opposite hip with a second dagger aimed at the creature's throat where he could see softer tissue between the chitinous plates.
But the Antlion Prince twisted to the side before Deacon could complete the strike, its body moving with that impossible speed as it ripped its wounded arm away from where the first dagger was embedded, dark blue blood spurting from the wound and painting across Deacon's face and chest, and the blade in his left hand cut through empty air before the creature's remaining leg came around in a kick that caught him in the side of the head.
Deacon's skull snapped to the side and his vision exploded into white stars that blocked out everything, his body going limp from the hit that rattled his brain like a stone in a can, and the Antlion Prince wrapped both hands around his torso and lifted him off the ground like he weighed nothing before slamming him back down into the cratered earth with enough force to drive the crater even deeper.
The impact knocked what little air had returned to his lungs back out and sent waves of pain through his back and shoulders and spine, but underneath all of it, Deacon's instincts were screaming at him to move, to do something, to not just lie there and let the Antlion Prince finish him the same way it finished Sam and Jass.
His left hand still gripped the second dagger, and he swiped it at the Antlion Prince’s chitin, catching it across the abdomen and actually biting in, sinking maybe an inch before grating against something hard inside and sending more dark blue blood spilling out across both of them.
The Antlion Prince staggered backward from the strike, its only remaining leg nearly giving out as it tried to keep its balance while pulling away from Deacon's blade, and that opening was all Deacon needed to roll backward and get his feet under him before launching away to create distance between the two of them.
But the moment his boots hit the ground, and he'd managed to put maybe three meters between them, Deacon saw the Antlion Prince's right compound eye pulsing rapidly with bright purple light that came in waves growing faster and more intense with each repetition.
Before he could fully process what was happening or cover his ears, a concussive wave of subsonic energy erupted outward from the Antlion Prince in an expanding circle that distorted the air and blasted toward him with devastating force.
The wave was barely visible except for how it made everything shimmer and warp like heat off sun-baked stone, but the force it carried slammed into Deacon head-on and made his brain feel like it was being shaken apart inside his skull. His sense of balance was destroyed as the subsonic frequencies tore through his inner ear and rattled every bone in his body.
His hands tried reaching up to cover his ears even though he knew it was too late, but his arms only made it halfway before they dropped limply back to his sides as his body went slack from the assault, his muscles refusing to respond to anything his brain was trying to tell them.
Through vision that kept doubling and tripling as his eyes failed to focus, Deacon could see the Antlion Prince sprinting toward him with its right arm extended and claws spread wide. It seemed unbothered by the fact that its right compound eye had been drained of all color from generating the subsonic attack and rendered useless, and it crossed the distance in a blink, its hand positioned to punch through Deacon’s chest and rip out his heart.
That grin had grown even wider as it charged, the same expression it wore when it killed Sam, when it tossed Jass aside like she was nothing, and seeing it again so close made something in Deacon's chest twist with rage and grief and self-loathing intense enough to cut through the disorientation.
As the Antlion Prince closed the final gap, Deacon raised his head despite how much effort it took and bit down hard on his own tongue with enough force to pierce straight through the muscle almost biting off his tongue entirely and barely attached by thin threads of muscle, blood oozing from the wound and staining his teeth while more spilled down his jaw in thick rivulets that dripped off his chin.
His right fist clenched tight enough that his knuckles went white as orange flames erupted around them from Flame Armament being cast, but the moment blood dripping from his jaw struck those flames, something changed, the fire transforming from orange into blood-crimson.
Not discriminating with his fists, Ignis Sanguinis: Bloodflame Armament enveloped them as Deacon channeled every ounce of stamina he could muster into the Power Strike behind a rising uppercut, feeling his arm muscles swell and strain under the energy he was forcing through them.
The Antlion Prince couldn't stop its momentum even if it wanted to, its claws reaching for Deacon's chest with fingers spread to maximize damage, and at the last instant, Deacon tilted his body just enough to let those claws pass by with maybe a quarter of an inch of clearance, the tips barely grazing his singed collar of training suit.
With a roar that came from somewhere deep in his chest, a sound equal parts rage and grief and hatred aimed at both the Antlion Prince and himself for not being strong enough when it mattered, Deacon's bloodflame-wreathed fist smashed upward into the creature's lower jaw with enough force that he felt chitin crack and shatter under the impact, fragments exploding outward as a massive column of blood-crimson fire erupted from the contact point.
The flames blasted upwards, engulfing the Antlion Prince's entire head in fire so intense that Deacon could see through it to watch its skull char and blacken, chitin bubbling and melting while softer tissue caught and burned until there was nothing left except ash and smoke caught in the updraft.
But the rage in Deacon's chest demanded more, demanded complete destruction of this shadow that had been haunting him, and with another roar just as primal as the first, his left hand blurred forward with the dagger and drove it into where a human heart would be, steel punching through weakened chitin and sinking to the hilt.
Without pause, he dragged the blade down in a gutting motion that opened the Antlion Prince from sternum to navel, dark blue blood gushing over his hand and arm as he carved through whatever passed for organs, but just as the steel reached where the creature's navel would be the entire shadow puffed out of existence like it had never been there, leaving Deacon standing alone with his fist raised and dagger extended into empty air.
The moment he registered what had happened, the environment around Deacon rippled and reset itself back to its original state, the scorched crater and lingering smoke and all the damage from their fight vanishing as though none of it had ever occurred, and Deacon found himself standing back in his starting position on the unblemished Training Field with not a single scratch on either his body or his clothes.
Gasping and huffing from exhaustion that was very real despite the illusory nature of the shadow fight, Deacon stayed on his feet even though he could feel his muscles torn and stressed to their limits from pushing them too far with Power Boost and Power Strike and everything else he'd thrown at the Antlion Prince's shadow.
For a few seconds, elation budded in his chest at finally killing the creature after a month and a half of losing every single fight, at actually landing the killing blow and destroying what had been terrorizing every waking and sleeping moment of his existence.
But just as quickly, he stomped that feeling down and crushed it under the weight of his guilt, because the voice in the back of his head that sounded disturbingly like his own spoke up with words that cut deeper than any blade ever could:
If you could have done this when it mattered, Sam and Jass would still be around.
Spitting blood into the grass as his tongue finished healing from where he'd bitten through it, Deacon turned his head to look at Esmerelda's Soul Bottle resting on a tree stump a few hundred meters away, the gold and green contents pulsing softly in the afternoon sunlight that filtered through the trees surrounding the Training Field.
While fixing his gaze on Esmerelda's soul, Deacon's mind began to play its tricks on him the way it always did when he looked at that bottle for too long, his vision overlapping the glowing container with a memory of Esmerelda herself sitting cross-legged on that same stump with her eyes closed and with that wistful serene expression on her face she always seemed to have whenever she meditated.
Blinking, Esmerelda faded away, leaving only the Soul Bottle sitting alone on the stump, and Deacon’s eyes shifted back to their dead crimson slits as he turned away and reached for the pouches on his thigh, his fingers closing around his throwing daggers just as another Antlion Prince’s shadow materialized in front of him.