Sancu's Game, Part 4

"Ql'yah!" L'Naan cursed through gritted teeth as she slid into the giant cauldron which was filled with a crimson liquid.

I grimaced, but said nothing as I focused on maintaining the temperature of the liquid within the cauldron to get the most out of the Iron Maw flower. The water was no longer boiling, but it was still hot enough to scald and leave first-degree burns. Worse than that pain, though, was the sensation of the medicinal properties burrowing their way into your body to enhance the strength of your bones and tissues. Still, that was L'Naan's only word of complaint during the rest of the hour-long session.

Seeing the clear water, I manipulated it and sent it into the large stone pit that I had created earlier. I helped her out of the cauldron, and she immediately hurried over to the shower setup, sitting down in the center as she turned on the water. No sooner had the cold water begun to flow did her body start releasing a foul-smelling black ooze. Of all the things from those cultivation stories I used to read, this was something that I had been hoping would not be real.

It had been over a year since we started this trial, eleven months since I woke up, so we had our routine down at this point. Every morning, L'Naan would get some sleep while Echo meditated on the top of the tower and Nyka hunted in the woods. I would rush down to the river and make a simple aqueduct, made easier by the fact that the tower was downhill from it, and then create two large pits. The cauldron and shower setup were the only things that we reused since they would remain if we stored them in the tower, along with food and herbs we learned. Only weapons and armor did not have to be stored, which was a luxury that I was not complaining about.

Once I got everything prepped for cooking and the medicinal bath, I would go searching through the forest for herbs. Echo would bring in a beast after two hours, and I would return to the tower at the third hour with Echo usually cooking. She would let it roast while I managed the water for her bath then shower and go wake up L'Naan. During L'Naan's bath, she would eat one of the elemental affinity herbs related to Ice, Illusions, or Yin and channel the mana through her body properly. After that, we would eat pretty much until the shift and then fight zombies and ghouls.

At this point, the horde of zombies would number well over four thousand, with over three hundred ghouls hiding amongst the mob. We changed our tactics after I recovered so that I created walls around the tower, making two narrow paths to the top every night. Echo and L'Naan would guard the paths while I stood on top of the tower, watching over both of them. L'Naan had taken up the bow shortly after the change and, while she was nowhere near Echo's skill level, she was quickly becoming proficient with it.

Unfortunately, this monotonous routine had eroded our social interaction as there was nothing new to talk about. So much of our time was spent doing the same thing that we were basically on autopilot. I rarely even had to assist them since the zombies could not surround them easily, so of course something was coming to shake that up.

Night fell as it always did, and we took our normal positions while we waited for the zombie horde to approach, as it always did. Echo had learned how to use my Dark Vision spell since she had a strong affinity with the element, but L'Naan's side of the open field was scattered with small bonfires and torches along the pathway upwards. There were a few stragglers that came up while I was setting everything up, but Echo and L'Naan dealt with them easily. 

Typically, the number of zombies breaking the tree line would increase evenly, but tonight, I noticed that things were different. There was a subtle circular pattern to the approaching zombies that I would have missed if it was not for the fact that the number of zombies seemed to decrease significantly from the night before. By the fourth hour, ten would be closing in on the ramp up to the top of the wall, but there were only four, which both L'Naan and Echo would be able to dispatch before they got close to the first step. Something was different, I did not know what, but signs were obvious. I scanned the distance, but I could see nothing past the forest line, even with my Dark Vision spell. At the tenth hour, no zombies appeared, highlighting the problem to Echo and L'Naan.

[Something's wrong.] Echo's voice echoed in my mind, through our connection.

[No shit, Sherlock. What was your first clue?!?] I retorted silently, constantly scanning the circular battlefield.

[You're the expert! What do you think is happening?!?]

[Yes, I can perfectly predict the game of a God of Chance, Luck, and Fate. I don't know what he has cooked up for us. Group up with L'Naan, and I'll join you when you get there.]

I sensed her agreement and saw her heading towards L'Naan. I kept watch on the side where Echo had been, but nothing appeared. I jumped off the top of the tower and conjured a gust of wind to slow my fall, allowing me to glide over to where Echo and L'Naan were.

"So, what's the plan?" L'Naan asked as I landed.

"I guess search around. I'll summon Ishu and send him in one direction while I go the other. You two wait here, together, since if anything pops up, Echo can alert me immediately; plus, I'm faster than both of you, even without my Dusa or Dragon forms," I said before Echo could argue with me.

"Fine," Echo sighed.

I smirked and pricked my thumb, and then drew the symbol on my left hand. Ishu appeared in his dramatic fashion and stood in place, waiting for my instructions.

"Search the forest that way. We've been seeing thousands of zombies each night, but we've only seen a few hundred so far. I'm not sure what's going on since this is the first time that we've seen something like this. If you find more than a hundred grouped together, unsummon yourself so that I can know the location," I ordered.

Ishu nodded his head and then dashed off in the direction that I motioned. With a huff, I activated my unique form of Superspeed using Lightning mana and jumped off the wall, then raced in the opposite direction of Ishu. At first, there was nothing to see, but as I moved to the south, I noticed a wall of solid blue deeper inside the forest. 

Before I could approach it, though, my instincts told me to stop moving forward. A bolt of Yin-Lightning struck the ground in front of me less than a second after I stopped. If that was not enough, the 'wall' of blue started rushing at me, making me realize that I had found both the horde and whatever collected the zombies. Instead of engaging the horde, I released a jet of flames from my mouth between me and them and retreated to the others, commanding Ishu telepathically to also return to them. Echo already knew that I had found the horde, so when I reached the wall, she and L'Naan were waiting for me.

"How many did you find?" Echo asked.

"No idea, but there was some kind of magic user who attacked me with a Yin-Lightning spell, which would have been dangerous if it had hit me," I replied as Ishu came jogging around, having used one of the pathways up to the top of the wall.

"That's new... what changed?" L'Naan asked.

"Who knows? It could be something related to Katye, though it's not like any of us have been in any real danger yet, so maybe he just decided to up the difficulty. Ishu, I want you to scout the zombie horde to the south and look for the magic user, then come back and tell me what they are."

Ishu did not reply as he simply jumped off the wall and raced into the dead forest. It did not take long before the leading members of the horde broke through the tree line... because they were running like they were straight out of World War Z. Both Echo and I frowned upon seeing them and exchanged a few thoughts. She took off running along the top of the wall with the intent of destroying the ramps, while I began conjuring blue fireballs and launching them into the horde in a scattered pattern. Although the fireballs would kill a few of them, my main goal was to light up the field so that L'Naan could see properly. What I had not been expecting, though, was the magic user to counter my attempts by destroying a few of them with a Yin-Water spell. 

Thankfully, I could create four fireballs for each one that the undead caster snuffed out, so I was able to weaken the horde, which it needed too, and I managed my goal of lighting up the field. The horde was over three thousand in size, and much stronger than what we had been dealing with. I was still confident that we could handle tonight, but if the number of magic users increased like the zombie numbers did, eventually, even I would get overwhelmed by the swarm of ants nipping at me.

L'Naan did not say anything, but I could sense her concern as she saw the danger closing in on us. Still, she suppressed those fears and drew her bow, then fired when they were close enough. Just like in World War Z, the zombies slammed into the wall, and then started climbing each other. I pulled out a silver staff from my storage ring and filled it with my mana as I manipulated it to become a razor-sharp whip.

I had never forgotten Indra's suggestion about my weapon of choice. Traditional weapons did not suit me, so I had made a point of practicing with numerous weapons in my coliseum. Although I had not developed the 'weapon' mana that Artem used yet, the versatility of my transforming weapons made it easy for me to adapt to different situations. With my enhanced strength and control of the metal, the whip became a razor wire that I slashed side to side, through the building mound of bodies, which slowed their progress despite not killing most of them directly. Whether it was my actions or the undead controlling the horde, the mound of zombies began to split into two new ones.

"Are you going to leave any for Echo and me?" L'Naan asked as I dashed between the two groups, cutting back the growing hills of undead.

"These walls aren't that tall, so they will get up here eventually. Once Echo gets back, I'm going to…"

Before I could finish what I was saying, I sensed a concentrated arrow of Yin mana shooting straight at L'Naan. Using my whip, I swung it at her, wrapping it around her waist without hurting her, and pulled her out of the way while firing a beam of Yang mana from my hand to intercept it. Echo had a similar spell, so I knew that dodging the arrow was not a simple matter. My pull had drawn L'Naan into my arms and caused me to be distracted from culling the horde long enough for one of the mounds to reach the top of the wall.

One simple change, one new element, and the wall had been breached for the first time. We had grown complacent, and I had been arrogant by not realizing it sooner. Sancu had been lulling us into letting down our guard, and we fell for it like fools. Things were not too bad, but having to take a step back at my level of strength was a slap in the face… though Sancu still had one more surprise for me.

"Fuck!" I cursed when I failed to shift into my Dusa form. "Fuck you, Sancu!"

"What?" L'Naan asked with concern.

"My Dusa form is sealed! God damnit! I'm done playing around!" I roared, sending a stream of violet fire towards the zombies racing towards us while simultaneously causing the section of wall behind us to fall on the second mound of undead that were nearly at the top.

In the next moment, I conjured my Chaos Storm and allowed it to consume the Yin mana at a rapid pace. Before it could get out of control, I converted it into bolts of crimson lightning and sent them into the horde of undead. Another arrow of Yin mana was launched at us, but I retained enough of my storm to eat away the black-blue energy before it could threaten us.

Echo and Nyka entered my storm from the broken side of the wall, but that was not a problem in my enraged state. Echo could sense my thoughts, as Nyka could sense hers, so they did not even break their stride as my storm manipulated the rock to form a bridge to us. She knew that there was no arguing against me about taking out this horde on my own, so her job tonight was to protect L'Naan in case I allowed something to pass me. My storm created a path for them down to the ground safely by changing the stone wall while I jumped down into the hole that I had created.

While they were still within my storm, I controlled it to only absorb the Yin mana in the air and convert it into Chaos Lightning to launch into the crowd whenever it approached the limits of my control. Nothing was near me, so I focused on Echo and L'Naan, waiting for them to leave my Domain. The moment that they exited it, a wicked grin covered my face as my Domain retreated; I did not want to lose control, so I limited myself on distance, but that was it. My Chaos began to corrupt and convert anything and everything, including the undead that touched the silver clouds, into lightning bolts which I would redirect into the horde. 

Within minutes, I decimated the mob and the zombies began retreating, something that had never happened before. Not that it mattered, I was not going to let any of them go. Some filthy undead attacked someone I loved and forced us to retreat? Fine, I would show it exactly what an angry dragon was capable of!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Echo and L'Naan watched from the top of the tower while Rebecca rampaged through the dead forest. The silver clouds that made up her storm shimmered in the darkness while flashes of crimson would crackle through them, and violet fires were slowly burning away the trees. Despite the distance they were from her, even L'Naan could sense the power and anger radiating off of her.

"That's her strength in her weakest form?" L'Naan could not help but ask.

"She's using a lot of Soul Power and will need to recover over the next day or two, but yes," Echo sighed.

Over the past year in the trial, Echo's strength had grown incredibly fast, so she thought that she had been closing the distance between her and Rebecca. All of those thoughts were shattered now. Rebecca had never used her full strength during any of their spars, even when Katye teamed up with her against Rebecca. 

Through their connection, Echo knew that Rebecca had lost most of her rationality. The only things on her mind was keeping her storm in check, and inflicting as much damage as she could on the cloaked skeletal figure in front of her. While she could have destroyed it long ago by breaking the heart-sized crystal in its chest, she intentionally kept from hitting it with any of her attacks, so that it would constantly repair itself just to be destroyed again. Not that she ever would, but Echo made a mental note to never betray Rebecca and smirked at the torment that she would unleash on whoever was stupid enough to touch her bottom line in the future.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Katye opened her eyes as the fourth seal unlocked. She had lost track of the amount of time that she had been locked in this empty cell, but she knew it was over twenty years. Twenty years of isolation. Twenty years of focusing solely on the mastery of the Arcana of Time. Twenty years, and she had only seen the images of her lovers three times.

Despite them being the reason why she was undergoing this trial, her feelings towards them were starting to dull. After all, she had been in this cell longer than she had been with any of them. She had noticed the change in her mentality, so she had every intention of unlocking her door once the fourth seal gone, but then, a single screen played a video of Rebecca's rampage against the undead horde with a few lines of text explaining what had caused her to reach that state.

"I had been waiting for them to get cocky and lower their guard against the horde before I added a single lich to lead the swarm. L'Naan was nearly killed and Rebecca was pushed into a corner when she realized that she could not use her Dusa form. This is Rebecca's true power when she doesn't hold anything back."

Not only could Katye see the one-sided destruction, she could feel Rebecca's aura. It was powerful, vengeful, and chaotic, unlike anything she had sensed from her before, but she still knew it was Rebecca's. Alkatyenia recognized it instantly, but it worried her. Her strength was much stronger than Katye's, so if Rebecca went on a true rampage, the only way that they would have a chance to stop her was if Alkatyenia broke the final seal on their True Soul which would wipe out Katye's ego, leaving only Alkatyenia.

Katye understood Alkatyenia's thoughts, and even shared them. There was no way that the current 'her' could stop Rebecca. The only reason why she did not go into a rage when they lost Raven to the Borg was that she had already talked with Raven in Unimatrix Zero, and had time to calm down. She glanced at the button to her cell for a moment, and then shut her eyes yet again.