Casek took a steadying breath, his brain screaming at him over the wild, exuberant drumbeat of his heart to keep his composure. New power thrummed through him, and fortified muscles strained to flex their newfound strength. Casek knew better than to get caught up in the fervour. The Bel’gor he’d been fighting had been far stronger than he, and it wouldn’t do to fall into the trap of believing it would suddenly make the fight easy.
Becoming the hunter was a very different game to escaping him, after all.
Ahead of him, the Bel’gor eyed him through its eight obsidian orbs, the newfound hesitation sending a shiver of satisfaction through Casek. Behind it, a profusely sweating Raelynn carved her way through a mass of Drau to get at the Bel’gor still trying to kill her, despite its several severed legs.
He concentrated, flowing power into his foci, and his blade shimmered into existence. It was not dissimilar to how it had been before, its gently curved blade gleaming darkly just as it had before. Now, though, the once-simple steel guard appeared oaken brown, with subtle detailing that gave it the appearance of wood grain. Atop its surface, delicate lines of gold weaved their way across, interweaving vines dotted with golden leaf. The plain leather wrappings around the hilt had also changed, now dyed crimson and tied in a way that created a neat diamond pattern up each side, revealing the bone-coloured hilt beneath.
Still simple. Even more beautiful to his eyes than before.
Casek met the Bel’gor’s eyes, the silent roar left by Tauph’s absence in his mind screaming despite the din of battle echoing around the caves. He still didn’t know what or how much his companion was sacrificing by allowing him to do what he did, but Casek knew in his gut it was no small matter. There had been genuine fear in Tauph’s voice, even as he volunteered.
He wanted to promise himself he would never cycle Tauph’s power again, to swear an oath as binding as he could, but he knew it would be a sham. If they survived this fight, there would be others. New enemies that outmatched them. What would he do then—allow those enemies to kill him and Tauph both to keep the oath?
Tauph’s scream rang through his mind, a callous reminder of the pain he’d put his companion through, and wondered for a moment if that might be better.
The Bel’gor bristled, its confidence returning, and Casek forced himself to focus on the fight before him. Before anything else, he had to make Tauph’s sacrifice count. If he didn’t kill this thing, then thoughts of future oaths were utterly meaningless.
He took a ready stance, holding the blade with both hands, its point angled towards the ground, and his mind provided a name for the pose from somewhere deep within: Amadán. The beast scuttled forward, its speed inhuman as it had been before. Except now, Casek could track how it moved. Not only to flee by taking advantage of the agility of his smaller body, but to actually react to the threats it posed.
It reached him in moments, spearing a sharpened limb out at him at a speed that would have certainly skewered him before. Instead, Casek stepped into its guard, slipping past the strike at the last possible moment, and delivered a brutal strike to the offending leg, close to where it joined with the main body.
His sword made contact, and with it came the sickening, grinding pull as the edge ran across the creature’s flesh. This time, however, instead of a battle of magic, his blade cut a deep fissure in the limb, dragging a shriek free from the Bel’gor’s fanged mouth. Casek scowled and quickly altered his feet to bring his sword around again.
He had intended to take the leg with his first strike, but the second would have to do.
The creature’s limb tumbled away before dissipating into black mist and being added to Casek’s own strength. The Bel’gor stumbled back from him, not quite understanding how quickly the tables had been turned on it. It was still slightly stronger than him, true, but strength was not all there was to a fight. Now he was capable of doing proper damage to his enemy, Casek’s experience and skill could come fully into play.
He refused to let up, darting into the midst of its tangled limbs, where it couldn’t effectively strike at him, before the Bel’gor could regain its composure. He’d taken its front left leg with his first attack, and with practised efficiency, he targeted the right, a trio of well-placed slashes removing it at the base.
This time, the creature’s scream filled the cavern. It was a piercing howl that reverberated around the crystalline structures surrounding them. It edged back from him, opening up new distance between them, the forelegs it had been using as its primary weapons now gone. Another garbled hiss issued forth from its mouth. Casek frowned as a group of Drau skittered reluctantly around the beast and threw themselves at Casek.
To him, that was unmistakably the order of a superior telling their subordinate to fight for them. If that was the case, the Shadowspawn were far more sentient than he’d given them credit for.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The weaker Shadows spilled out around him, trying to attack him all at once to get at some kind of weakness. With his new strength, however, it was a useless gesture. His sword flashed faster than they could react, leaving only a black mist where once Drau had stood.
Casek saw the Bel'gor skirt around the melee, trying to take advantage of the distraction, in plenty of time to prepare himself. It waited until it was fully behind Casek as he dispatched its weaker kin, before launching itself forward using its powerful hind legs.
He whirled to face it. A mix of clear spittle and violet venom flew from the tips of its extended fangs as it leaped at him, and he lashed out with a diagonal strike from the bottom up as he sidestepped. Sticky, tar-like ichor sprayed from the wound across the Bel’gor’s face, three of its eyes burst like cut blueberries.
The foci absorbed a shock of magic from the wounded Shadowspawn as it staggered away from him, and Casek used the opportunity to glance across to Raelynn’s fight—just in time to see her run her longsword through its skull, finishing the beast for good.
He grinned, and strode over to his own Bel’gor as it struggled back to its feet, its movement a grotesquely large-scale mockery of a half-swatted spider. Casek picked out the leg supporting most of its weight and cut it away, sending it sprawling back to the floor. It flailed some more, globules of silk pulsing from its rear as it tried everything it could to escape him, and with a crisp cut, Casek removed another of its legs.
It squirmed and chittered pitifully, and Casek pressed his boot onto its torso, pinning it. The strength it once held had been stripped away by its wounds, and now, powerful as it was, it lay helpless beneath his boot. He considered doing as Raelynn had and simply killing the creature. To do otherwise was certainly a risk—but hadn’t he earned the right to take it? When would another opportunity like this present itself?
He activated the binding mechanism on his weapon and thrust it into the thorax of the Bel’gor. The titanic rush of power flooded into him again, a violent storm that threatened to entirely overwhelm him—but this time, he was prepared. He allowed the Bel’gor’s magic to surge into him, carving its own deep lake of power within him.
Already there were vague whispers in his mind, filling the absence left behind by Tauph, but Casek had expected that, too. After a few moments, the binding was done, and the cavern fell into sharp silence.
Raelynn was the first to break it, clapping a hand onto his shoulder.
“Well-fought. I was worried when the second Bel’gor turned up, but you handled it well.” Her brows knitted together. “I’m surprised you had enough strength held in your foci that you still managed to advance, though. You must have been right on the cusp before the fight.”
“Nobody was more surprised than me,” Casek lied, and Raelynn laughed.
“I bet. Now look at you—Second Circle, with a Bel’gor bound to prove it. That kind of thing normally takes months in the field. Years in practicality. Then again, nothing about this last week has exactly been normal.”
“You’re telling me,” Casek said. “So, what’s our next move?”
“There’s only one thing we really can do—push on. There’s still no sign of Idris inside any of these stasis crystals. We’ll keep going deeper until we find him.”
Casek nodded, and they set off again through the now-silent crystal tunnels, only looking at the figures encased within long enough to confirm the man they were searching for was not imprisoned inside.
Soon, they spotted a dark shape on the floor in front of them, which quickly revealed itself to be another laddered shaft downwards, leading to a brand new cavern beneath. Casek licked at dry lips as he felt the presences beneath—an admittedly depleted swarm of Shadowspawn, but a swarm nonetheless.
Beyond that, however, lurked something else. It was subtle, but there was something about that which felt intentional, as though its totality was being kept hidden from observers.
“Hey,” he murmured as they peered into its depths. “How common are Shadowspawn stronger than a Bel’gor?”
She shrugged. “Not especially on Pyria—they’re here, but few. You getting cold feet?”
“I’m just trying to be prepared,” he answered, not able to find it in himself to banter back. “What are the odds we could kill whatever comes after?”
“A Daemon?” Raelynn said, scoffing. “Zero. We’d be fucked.”
“Raelynn, when we were fighting back then, I saw the Bel’gor order a bunch of Drau forward to attack.”
“That kind of thing isn’t unheard of,” she answered. “Stronger shadow-entities have been known to command lesser ones who fear them. It’s pretty natural.”
“What if something bigger sent the Bel’gor to protect its supply of food?”
“It’s more likely they came to protect their supply of food—or add to it—than there be a Daemon here. They’re normally found in much larger population centres.”
“But it’s not impossible?” he pressed. Casek really couldn’t say for sure what he was sensing, but he had a suspicion. And there were too many things now telling him that suspicion was true.
“No, it isn’t,” she said, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “Do you sense something?”
He nodded. “I’m not sure what, exactly. There’s something different about this. Something more…aware. It feels like it’s hiding how strong it actually is.”
Raelynn paled, then sighed. “I’ll be straight with you, Casek. If Idris is down there—I couldn’t care less if there was a bloody Archdaemon down there, I owe it to him to at least try.” Raelynn sighed, then looked at him. “Look, I can’t say that we’ve become any more than acquaintances in the short time we’ve been travelling, but you’ve proven yourself to be a man of honour. Decent. Good. I understand the gamble I’m making, and you’re not obligated to go down with me. If you want to stay, I’ll think nothing less of you for it. I’ll do what I can to clear the level below and make it safe for you to come and free Idris if I can find him. If I can’t? Well, you get yourself clear and get strong enough to come back and get me one day, eh? I’ve already risked you too much already.”
Casek opened his mouth to protest, but he recognised the stubborn set to her jaw, the steely resolution written in her dark eyes. She would not be persuaded to stay, even if she knew the danger for certain, which meant there was only really one option.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, moving to the ladder ahead of her and swinging his legs down onto the first rungs. “Let’s go get your friend.”
