Inertia: Beneath the starlit veil [Progression Fantasy]

Cyrus Solaris

I traveled east for an hour, sprinting as fast as I could and occasionally using the leftover molted casings of larger insect behemoths as places to rest.

It felt like I was making no progress. The heat was intensifying, causing the air to shimmer and the horizon to warp.

My body was losing water fast, my skin slick with sweat, drenching my shredded combat suit.

At this point, I was even hoping to run into a behemoth. At least I could eat it and replenish some of my strength and hydration.

For some reason, even the behemoths seemed to stay away from this part of the rift. I didn’t know much about them or the insects they seemed to mimic; I just knew their hard exoskeletons made them difficult to kill.

I pushed my desires aside and pressed forward east, but as I continued, something in the sky kept tugging on my attention.

I came to a halt, pulled out my telescope, and pointed it at the orange sky of the rift. There was a faint white object twinkling in the sky, resting between two planets that hung low in the atmosphere.

It was a star.

An asterism, to be exact.

I zoomed in further with my telescope and saw the five stars forming a circle called the Shield of Tyr.

This asterism contained an anomaly. One of the stars went missing in real time. My grip around my telescope tightened, and my pulse picked up.

I quickly took out my spectrometer. I allowed the machine to retrieve the different rays of light.

It spat out several colors, but I focused on the thin white ray of light. It was faint, just like its source.

Damn it.

I didn’t have much time before the next cycle started and the asterism activated. I didn’t want to be here when it did.

Its effect was greater than being washed away and drowned by a tsunami.

I hurried and put all my instruments away and sprinted as fast as I could.

I didn’t bother dodging the vegetation or the leftover husks of dead insects; I just ran through them, letting my orbiting moon smash and crush whatever obstructed my path.

It was all going to get destroyed anyway.

I could feel every beat of my heart as it pushed more and more blood into my muscles, amped by the cosmic energy I imbued it with.

The hot surface scorched my feet, slowly burning away the padding that protected them.

Faster, Cy, Faster.

Then, a larger, rocky, oblong structure crashed into the earth a couple hundred feet ahead of me. The shockwave launched me backward, sending me crashing onto the steaming ground.

My head spun, and a strong gust of debris blew everywhere, but my eyes were fixated on the sky.

I was too slow.

About a dozen or so large rocks were falling from the sky, descending at terrifying speeds.

The Shield of Tyr’s asterism activated.

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And now I was in the middle of a meteor shower.

I gotta move; otherwise I will die.

I shook off the disorientation and began sprinting again, my moon still orbiting me as I tried to calculate where the next meteor would fall.

A crazy idea, but I had no other choice or gambit to bet on.

I was able to dodge a few but was soon sent hurtling back by the impact of another.

I still didn’t know how much farther I had to go, nor how long the asterism would last.

I picked myself off the ground and began sprinting again, this time with my telescope in hand.

There is no way I am gonna survive running on the ground; it would be only a matter of time before one impact sends me directly in the path of another. I needed to figure out how to stay off the ground as much as possible.

I looked at the nearest meteor that was going to fall in front of me, and an Idea sparked.

I dashed forward.

Sprinting with all I could muster towards the spot of impact, when it was within range, I leaped off the ground and reached for the rock, pulled myself up, and jumped higher into the air off the meteor.

Soaring higher into the air, I narrowly missed the impact. There was a little relief, but now I had another problem.

How was I going to stay in the air?

My ascent stopped, and now I began to free-fall like the other meteors that manifested in the orange sky.

I panicked as the aggressive wind began pelting my face.

My eyes darted everywhere, looking for another launch pad to propel me forward to the east.

All of the other meteors were too far away.

Then a large shadow loomed over me; I looked over my shoulder.

For Pantheon's sake, you gotta be kidding me.

A larger meteor manifested above me, gaining speed on me quickly.

Within a second, it was bearing down on my spine.

I felt a crack, and I let out a piercing scream.

I tried to use gravity well minor on it to slow it down and take off some pressure while also maintaining my moon’s position.

The meteor was too heavy and putting way too much strain on my brain, nearly frying it in the process, and the pain was too much to fight through, as I felt vertebrae fracture and snap.

My legs went limp.

The ground was fast approaching.

I looked at my moon floating at my side.

I reached out and rolled my body from underneath the meteor, and clasped onto my moon.

I used gravity well minor to keep my moon floating in the sky, and I just hung in the air, staring down at the newly formed crater.

My grip started to falter, so I pulled myself up and rested my chest over my moon. It was uncomfortable, to say the least, but it beat splattering against the ground.

I doubt the Hydra Scale could bring me back from that.

Catching my breath, I tried to wiggle my toes and swing my legs; nothing happened.

For now, I was paralyzed waist-down.

It took my eyes a while to recover fully after my run-in with the hollow branch. How long will it take for my spine and nerves to repair?

Why did I even try that idiotic idea?

My mind raced, negative thoughts compounding.

Then another shadow loomed over me.

Damn it.

My panic grew.

I can’t die here.

Think, Cy, Think.

Then I remembered something from our midterms.

I fought through the mental strain and the pain, and used tidal push on my moon, launching me east at great speed.

I couldn't even be bothered to check whether another meteor was coming; I just hoped Gravisense would cover my blind spot. I needed all the focus to maintain gravity well and tidal push at the same time to get out of this situation.

I streaked across the terrain feeling like a comet, losing track of time, until I saw the terrain change to something rich with color and fertile.

Further in the distance, a large, pointed structure came into sharper focus. I looked a little harder and realized it was another pyramid.

The Blood Chateau has to be around here somewhere.

My eyes and my moon began to drift, and before I knew it, I was crash-landing into what looked like a really nice, soft piece of grass.