Asdras Awakening (End)
A sudden lurch to the right. The ground where he had stood an instant before split open with a deafening crack. The creature's claw had missed—but only just. He did not think. Thought was a luxury afforded to men not staring death in the face.
Left. Again. Once. Twice. Thrice. The talon sliced the air just behind him, whistling with murderous precision. His breath caught. His muscles burned.
'Dodge it; don't attack; tire it out and use the trap.'
Second's voice, a whisper in his mind. Orders written in blood, not ink. But the animal in Asdras refused obedience. The body raged where the mind pleaded restraint. He wanted to kill.
And for his insubordination, he suffered. The crow-thing shrieked and struck — a flash of black, a whisper of steel. Pain. A chunk of flesh, gone. His shoulder screamed, but his mind refused to register it.
Again, he rolled, sword flashing in the dim light. He struck. Useless. His steel met the creature's ribs, and the impact shot through his bones.
His heart betrayed him. It pounded wildly, hammering like a caged beast. He was alive. And life, cursed though it was, clung to him.
The creature moved. A mechanical hunger drove it. Chains rattled. Its black eyes betrayed no thought, only rage, only need. It had been weakened, stripped of some vital essence, and that loss made it mad.
It lunged. A blur of shadow and malice. He barely moved in time. The gust of air from its charge was thick with the stench of rot.
Outside the campsite now. The dome's protection was behind him. His trap lay further ahead.
A final chance.
The sword cut through the air. The blade met bone, and Asdras felt the full weight of futility. The shock traveled up his arms, into his ribs, and into his very skull. A mockery of effort. The creature did not bleed.
And yet he stood, gasping, drenched in sweat and earth, listening to the beat of his own failing strength.
'Strategy number one: If it is near you and you need to attack, slash its exposed ribcage.'
The blade struck. A hollow sound, like steel against rotted wood. The creature staggered, not in pain, only in recognition. It knew that place was vulnerable. But it did not bleed. It did not recoil.
Asdras ran. No thought, only motion. Trees and jagged rocks wove a path before him. Instinct chose the route. Behind him, the earth groaned. A clawed limb struck a tree, the impact splitting bark, sending the trunk crashing into its brethren.
A crossroads. Thick woods to one side, an open clearing to the other. Reason dictated the trees. His body chose differently. He rolled, emerging into the open. A mistake.
The creature did not hesitate. Chains whistled through the air, wrapping its limb like the executioner's flail. The blow found him. A violent crack. Breath vanished from his lungs. The world tilted.
Falling.
Then stars — white-hot bursts behind his eyes. Knees buckled. The body begged to surrender. But adrenaline forced him upright.
His fingers scrambled at the pouch strapped to his leg. Sixth's rope. Inside — two spheres, small, cold against his trembling fingers.
'Strategy number two: If you need time to run, use a magnetic ball. It will attract the creature's chains and stall it briefly. Use it once, as you will need one for the trap.'
Asdras threw.
A dull thunk — chaos. The iron chains snapped toward the ball, coiling, twisting, binding the beast in its own weapons. It thrashed and screeched, but the moment was his.
He ran. His legs knew the way before his mind did. A path beaten into his body by need, by terror. The wound on his shoulder burned, his muscles shrieked, but he did not stop.
Half a minute. No more.
The beast returned. Eyes aflame, hunger sharpened to madness. It lunged. He feinted left and sprinted right. A beak struck the air where his head had been.
A tree. He passed it, then turned, rolling back to use it as cover. The sword swung low, meeting flesh. A glimmer of success — feathers torn, sinew split. But the cost came swift.
A flash. The beak snapped down. Agony. It raked his shoulder, tearing fabric, tearing skin. Blood soaked into the dirt. His vision wavered, the world turning dark at its edges.
No time.
A handful of earth, grabbed without thought, hurled into the beast's eyes.
A shriek. A second stolen. He kicked off its ribcage, rolling free, running again.
'Strategy number three: If you are close to it, throw dirt in the creature's eyes. It will give you a brief moment to dodge.'
The wheel loomed ahead. The final stretch.
And then — absence. The sound of pursuit vanished. He glanced back, searching.
Nothing.
A weight above. A shadow descending.
Too late.
A leg, black and monstrous, struck from above. It crashed into him, sending him careening into a tree. Wood cracked. His skull rang. Silence swallowed the world — hearing lost, sight blurred, darkness creeping in.
A dull, distant thud of his own heart. Fading. Fading.
No.
The hilt of his sword slammed against his chest. Once. Twice. Three times.
A jolt. Like fire in his veins. Breath returned in ragged gasps. The world sharpened. He moved. A claw swept through the space where his head had been.
'Strategy number four: Use the hilt of your sword against your heart for a burst of adrenaline.'
Blood flushing. Body moving. The wheel stood ahead, waiting. This was his chance.
The beast twisted in the air, contorting its monstrous frame, limbs coiling with unnatural precision. A snap of its talons and feathers — sharp as blades — whistled through the air.
Asdras moved. Left — one missed. Again — another grazed his shoulder. He raised his sword — parried two, the impact forcing him back, knees bending to absorb the force. The last sliced across his elbow. He lost his footing. The world tilted.
Rolling. Dirt in his mouth. His shoulder slumped as he pushed himself upright. The beast loomed above, its silhouette merging with the canopy of the trees. Chains spun in its grasp, a metallic howl splitting the air. They struck.
Ground shattered. The tip of his sword caught the brunt of the impact, metal against metal, and the force ripped it from his grip. The blade spun, a flash of silver against the night, before embedding itself near the wheel. His hands burned, numb from the shock.
No time. He sprinted. His body knew the path before his mind did. He reached the statue, plunged his sword into the water. The liquid clung to the steel, dark and rippling. The beast hesitated. Its talons curled inward. A pause — fear? Disgust? Whatever it was, it gave him seconds.
He took them.
Ahead, ruins of houses slumped into the earth, bones of the past tangled in roots and decay. At their heart — the trap.
Wood beams. Ropes threaded in a calculated chaos, an intricate web poised to snap shut. And at its center, the key: a solitary beam with a hollowed core.
The monster moved. Asdras struck.
He rolled, slashing two sacks suspended above the entrance. They ruptured, releasing a storm of dust and earth. The world turned to shadow and grit. A cloud swallowed them both.
The beast raged, its talons slicing blindly, desperate to cut through the murk. Asdras was already moving. His hands gripped the sword. The hilt pressed into the carved hole in the beam.
'Strategy number five: Bathe your sword in the wheel's water, then place it in the center beam of the trap.'
The moment the steel locked into place, he dove left. A searing cold scraped his arm — a chain, grazing skin. He exhaled slow, low, keeping his frame compact.
Then he rolled — directly between the beast's legs. One wrong move and the monster would carve through the wooden beams, ruining everything.
The ribs. He kicked. A sharp, calculated strike. The beast flinched. Its focus snapped to him.
Bait set.
He feigned left. The creature followed. Asdras planted his feet, gathered his strength, and launched himself back, flipping out of the trap.
The beast lunged. He threw.
The last magnetic ball arced through the air.
Time stretched.
The scattered chains shuddered, then snapped toward it, drawn like starving serpents to prey. The wooden beams in their path wrenched free, ropes twisting, tension breaking. The web collapsed.
A violent cascade — wood crushing inward, pressing the beast into the center. The sword — waiting, silent, patient — found its mark.
The creature's shriek cut through the night.
The steel drove deep, piercing its ribcage, burrowing past sinew and bone. The ropes, the chains, the pulsing force of magnetism — everything conspired against it, forcing it down, down, down. The sword cracked, then burst, splitting the beast from the inside.
A great, terrible stillness followed.
Its form — a heap of feathers and shattered bone. Its breath — a fading whisper.
Asdras stood, chest heaving, blood and sweat thick on his skin. His body begged to collapse. His lips parted.
'I did it. I killed it. I—'
Then it moved.
A shudder. A twitch. A thing that should not be.
The feathers— gone. The skin — flayed. Bone gleamed in the dying light, veins of crimson weeping from its exposed ribcage.
It rose. The sword still impaled it, but it did not falter.
Its beak — elongated, sharpened. Its eyes — glowing, weeping blood.
It lunged. A claw, a spear aimed for his chest.
Asdras did not move. Could not. His body betrayed him, strength drained before his mind could comprehend.
'I failed. I'm going to die. I made the vow, yet I lost—'
He panted, ragged and broken. The weight of exhaustion crushed his limbs, his veins burning, his bones hollow. The villagers. Himself. The moment swallowed everything.
Then—
"Use the flame, I say!"
A voice.
Not his own.
The crow.
His mind barely grasped it, but some part of him had known it would come. He had called it without meaning to.
'Flame?'
The claw loomed. The air turned foul, thick with the stench of decay. His vision blurred. The world—colors fading, light snuffed out, a void stretching open.
"Close your eyes and let it consume you, I say!"
Asdras closed his eyes. The world faded. The weight of exhaustion, the crushing inevitability of death — gone. In its place, silence. A silence so vast, so consuming, that it swallowed thought itself.
Then, a flicker. Small, fragile. A spark buried deep within the marrow of his being. It pulsed, once, then twice. It did not burn. Not yet. But it remembered — every wound, every loss, every silent scream buried beneath his ribs.
The claw was upon him. He should have felt its nearness, the whisper of death against his skin. But the fire — his fire — had already begun.
It did not rise. It erupted.
A white-hot blaze tore through him, not of flesh, but of something deeper — rage, defiance, the raw will to exist. It flooded his veins, roared through his bones, consumed him whole. His skin shimmered with an ethereal glow, his breath ignited in streaks of golden embers. His eyes burned with a light not of this world.
He screamed. The fire answered.
It lashed outward, a violent torrent of unbridled fury. The clearing became an inferno. Wood beams curled and blackened before shattering into weightless ash. Ropes snapped, their fibers devoured in tongues of flame. The trap collapsed, swallowed by the firestorm.
The trees — once silent sentinels — crackled and splintered, their twisted forms turning into pyres that stretched toward the darkened heavens. The remnants of houses, the bones of a lost past, crumbled beneath the fire's wrath, leaving only ghosts of smoke behind.
And the beast, once towering, once terrible — withered.
It howled, but the flames did not listen. They clung to its form, seeping into the marrow of its bones, reducing sinew to ember and shadow to nothingness. It did not die with a cry, but with a whisper — its final defiance smothered beneath the weight of something far greater.
And at the center of it all, Asdras stood.
His body, wreathed in flickering gold. His breath, raw with power. His scream echoed through the blaze, through the heavens, through the void itself—a cry not of terror, but of victory. Of promise. Of a vow fulfilled.
A whisper.
Not of fire. Not of wind. Something older, deeper, woven into the fabric of the world itself.
It smoothed over him like silk, cool against the raging heat, lulling the storm to stillness. The flames dimmed, their hunger sated, retreating until only embers remained — warm, steady, pulsing in time with his breath.
Then came the voice.
"Asdras Morie had awakened on the seventh day of the lunar cycle, in the shadowed depths of Ravenwood, by choosing the path of sacrifice and slaying the cursed beast. By finding his way to the Twilight Flame, cursed by its haunting whispers and his own crow, he was rewarded with my power, witnessed by my own eyes and the eyes of the void."
The words struck like thunder.
His name — spoken with the weight of something ancient, something that had always known him. And suddenly, he was elsewhere.
The fire flickered. The sky unraveled.
He was walking — through dim subterranean halls, the stone beneath his feet humming with secrets. He was sitting — cradling something cold in his hands. A stone. Not solid, not firm, but shifting, melting, seeping into his skin.
His blood burned. His vision fractured.
He was falling.
The ground rushed to meet him. His fingers grasped at nothing. Then — a snap. A shift. Something inside his pocket broke free, taking form, becoming something more.
His last memory — before the tent, before the beast, before the fire.
The world thinned, stretched, dissolved. Color bled away like ink on wet parchment. Sounds folded into silence. Nothing dared stir. Nothing dared exist.
Everything turned to void.
Everything — except the words.
They burned before him, dancing like flame upon the darkness.
[Asdras Morie, awakened by the Twilight Flame]
[Path: Devoted Sacrifice]
[Core: Tainted]
[Curse: Madden Crow]
[Key: Pathway to Ravenwood]
His eyes— deep wells of crimson light — flared. And the world shattered.
Like glass struck by an unseen hand, reality fragmented, each shard reflecting a different truth, a different self, a different fate. The pieces collapsed into nothing, and when the dust settled. He stood.
Not in flame. Not in void. But in the heart of the academy's main square.
His body — untouched, unbroken. His wounds — gone, as though they had never been. The light armor upon him, familiar yet foreign, rested against his skin as though it had been placed there only moments ago.
A voice, distant yet absolute, whispered through the remnants of his being.
"Now, awake!"