Chương 16: Another Well Climbed

Was it over? Alcyr tried to slow his breaths, to fight against encroaching numbness. He managed to stay on his feet for three more seconds before his legs gave out. His knees hit the bloodsoaked snow. The notifications he had been holding back flooded in.

[Sword Discipline has improved to 47] [Dagger Discipline has improved to 43] [Unarmed Discipline has improved to 41] [Throwing Discipline has improved to 33] [Mortal Defiance has improved to 32] [Paired Blade Mastery has improved to 30] [Perfect Parry has improved to 22] The colour of the screen changed. A vigorous amber hue overtook the usual blue. [Warning: You have drawn the attention of a higher entity.] [The Twelfth Saint acknowledges the purity of your violence.] [New Mystery: Blessed Blood of Violence] Alcyr chuckled painfully.

"How capriciously you switch from one champion to another, Lord Arcidas. Do you watch over the Hundred Worlds from your throne upon the Godless Heaven, still? Or has divinity tainted your once-virtuous violence?" If there was a reply from the Saint, Alcyr did not see it. His vision was gone. The soldier knelt in the gore-soaked snow. Everything felt distant. He could feel his heart slowing, his breath coming in weaker and weaker rasps. Slowly, everything began to fade. No. I can't die now. Not now…

He struggled to keep himself awake, but his heart refused to beat. Darkness closed in. Then he felt something shift in the snow — footsteps, too light to be normal.

"Now that … That was quite the show, my friend." For a brief moment, Alcyr's bafflement overrode his pain.

"Roland?" he croaked weakly, blood coating his lips.

"What are you doing here?" Alcyr's vision was gone, but that was definitely Roland's voice he had just heard.

"You didn't think I would run and miss your fight, did you?" Roland replied, his tone light and easygoing.

"Stories like yours don't grow on trees. I would hate to miss the forging of your legacy, especially when it's just getting started." His what? Alcyr tried to speak, but coughed blood instead. Roland hummed.

"You're in bad shape. I don't think you'll last long enough for that maiden rider to rescue you in time. Let's see, let's see… Where is that… There!" Alcyr heard the other man rummaging through Bjorn's corpse before pulling forth a flask of sloshing liquid. The warlord's healing potion, Alcyr realised. It was that potent regenerative brew Bjorn offered him once, countless cycles ago. But something was amiss. Alcyr forced himself to speak.

"How did you know that was—""I have my ways," Roland cut him off.

"Let a bard keep his secrets. Here, drink. I'd rather you not meet Death just yet." The potion was brought to his lips. Alcyr drank greedily. A burning agony flared across his entire being as his dying body was barely forced back from the brink. It was too much for his exhausted mind. The last thing Alcyr heard was Roland's voice, sounding distorted and inhuman.

"Sleep. We shall consider this act as your first debt to me." Alcyr remained kneeling, even as his consciousness finally faded to black.

He drifted for what felt like an eternity. Weightless. Cold. The sensation of wetness at his feet. Alcyr opened his eyes. He was lying down, but he was not in his barracks. A featureless void greeted him, the darkness near absolute.

"What is this?" he muttered. His voice sounded hollow. He looked down at himself. He was naked, but his body was see-through, glowing with a faintly ethereal light. It felt like he was floating. Is this… the space between life and death? In most resets, he would wake up in his bed after an unknown length of time. Sometimes, however, he vaguely remembered wandering a watery void in a trance-like state. The memory never held much substance — he recalled following a light in the dark, and little else. Not this time.

This time, he felt fully lucid. Far more than any other resets. His body — now some form of formless, translucent phantom — pushed itself up. There was an inch of freezing, shallow water that seemed to cover the void for as far as he could see. There was only one baffling source of light in the void: a small wooden rowboat sitting in the middle of the emptiness, its lamp shining over the small vessel, hung upon a golden staff. Sitting within the boat was the woman he saw in his dreams.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. The pure white robe she wore had a hood that shadowed her face entirely. Alcyr could not see what she looked like, but there was something vaguely familiar about her. More than that, there was an incalculable amount of power radiating from her — it was as if the weight of an entire ocean were held in her frame, ready to be unleashed at her command. He walked over to the boat.

The woman — he dubbed her the 'Stranger', for now — wordlessly gestured for him to sit with her. He hesitated for a moment. Then he sighed, stepping onto the rowboat. He sat opposite the Stranger, facing her. They remained in silence for a while. No matter how Alcyr tried to peer past the hood, he could never see anything except an all-encompassing shadow. Were it not for her hands peeking out from her sleeves — porcelain pale and utterly still — he would have thought there was no one beneath the robes at all.

Finally, when he grew tired of the silence, he attempted a guess.

"Mentor?" He didn't know that many people, much less those who radiate this much power. Moreover, despite being unable to see her face, there was… an unsettling echo to her that resonated with him. Regardless, his voice finally made the Stranger stir. She lifted her head. Though he still could not see her face, he could feel her piercing eyes on him. Their judgement paled in comparison to the words she spoke next.

"Even now, the first words that leave your mouth are of that woman," she said emotionlessly.

"Truly, you are a slave who enjoys his chains, unashamed and unrepentant." Cold. Unfeeling. He was certain he had never heard her voice before — at the very least, she definitely wasn't his mentor. And yet, something in him reacted. It was the way a wound responded to pressure: an immediate, involuntary flinch. There was a baffling recognition that had nothing to do with memory, heavy with a weight of contempt that affected him even before her words even registered. His fists clenched.

"I am no slave," he countered resolutely.

"Not anymore."

"You are." The Stranger's voice was unhurried.

"You would not be yourself if you did not have chains to struggle against." Alcyr shook his head.

"You do not know me." Even as he said those words, somehow, he immediately knew them to be false.

"One does not need to know fools to recognise them." The Stranger folded her hands on her lap.

"One hundred and fifty deaths, all to kill one lowly Follower of Violence. The worst part is that I know you aren't really a fool. You knew there were better ways, but you chose this method." She delivered her barbed words without anger or scorn. Alcyr found it difficult to feel insulted by her when she spoke with such muted emotions.

"I chose the method that made me stronger," he answered after a moment's pause.

"No. You chose the method that would harm you the most." The hooded woman tilted her head, almost imperceptibly.

"Or perhaps, in your mind, there simply isn't a difference between the two for you." He had only just met this woman, but for some inexplicable reason, there was a fervent, unnameable emotion rising within him — embers sparked to life, just from hearing her voice alone. That aloof, derisive, and callously ridiculing tone… There was a spiteful intimacy to it that he could not understand. Words were left wanting to describe it.

"You are not a personification of Death," Alcyr deduced.

"Nor are you a Corpse God or one of the Twelve Saints, I suspect." The Stranger hummed.

"It is arrogant of you to speak of such matters. What would a mere mortal like you know of divinity? How could a worm ever comprehend the mythos of dragons?"

"There are several ancient deities who held domains within the afterlife, before the world splintered and the gods fell from Heaven ten thousand years ago," Alcyr continued, ignoring her comments.

"Hades, Yama, Izanami, and countless others… All reduced to Corpse Gods, their celestial thrones stolen by the Fifth Saint — the Saint of Nihility, and the modern era's deity of Death."

"Then perhaps I am the Fifth Saint. Death itself, as so many now call it." Alcyr chuckled lightly.

"No. You are not Xun." For a brief moment, the void trembled lightly. It was as if something from beyond tried to break its way in, but failed. The Stranger tilted her head.

"You speak of things you should not. First the Twelfth's name earlier, and now the Fifth's. The True Names of Saints are not yours to invoke lightly." Arcidas. Xun. The forgotten True Names of the Twelfth and Fifth Saints. Words held power, and names even more so. To speak of such names was to draw the eyes of the twelve monsters that sat upon the Godless Heavens. Not even the most favoured priests and the most blessed heroes dared speak the True Names of their patron Saints, assuming they even know of them.

However…

"It is only proper to know the name of your prey, as my mentor once said," Alcyr said. The Strange shook her head. The gesture almost seemed fond.

"You are mad." He could hear a smile in her voice as she said that, and it made him smile in turn.

"You know me," he said, no longer able to deny it.

"I do," she nodded.

"Then do you know me?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"But you are the one responsible for the loops, aren't you? What are you?"

"I am your slaver." The word drove a spear into his soul. Pressure was building within him. Burning him.

"You are my property, corpse, and toy," she continued, relentless.

"You are mine to torment. And you will suffer for as long as you allow it." Alcyr fought to speak.

"As I allow it?"

"Yes. Until you finally decide to walk away from your chains, I will continue to be your master. Struggle for as long as it pleases you. Rage against your tribulations and climb your Wells. I assure you, only one of us will enjoy your suffering."

"You—""Begone from my sight." He fell. Freezing water engulfed him. The light from the boat faded away until all he could see was darkness. He was falling, drowning, dying. Alcyr struggled, but it was for nought. The last thing he heard was her voice. [Live on, Alcyr.] He heard the howls again — blightwolves in the distance. Resignation filled him even before he opened his eyes. Was he back to the start of 'Today' again? But… Something was different.

Beyond the howls, there was a deep, rhythmic beat, steady and strong. He heard the rushing of winds and felt it through a haze of pain and exhaustion. Alcyr's eyes fluttered open. For the first time in a hundred and fifty days, he was not greeted with the dim-lit wooden ceiling of his barracks.

The azure-blue skies of a new day shone down on him. His body felt as though it had been hollowed out and filled with lead, each breath a struggle. The ground beneath him was shaking. Only… it was no ground at all. Too warm, as if he rested above smouldering coals. He was not lying upon snow. The howling of blightwolves below was accompanied by the howling of mighty wingbeats. He was flying upon the back of a great drake.

"Do not move," a voice commanded him. His vision was still blurred, but he could see a woman leaning close.

"You are close to death. We are still a few minutes away from the 4th Regulars' camp. I have stemmed your bleeding as best I can, but your injuries are beyond even my capabilities to heal without equipment." The words were firm but steady. They placed him at ease. Perhaps more importantly, he knew this woman. It was the same drake rider he met after the Battle of the Red Rime.

"Do not speak," she continued.

"Rest now. If it's within my ability, I swear on my oath that I will not let you die." Unable to do anything else, Alcyr allowed his gaze to dip. Unconsciousness beckoned once more. But before his eyes closed, he saw golden rays break across the muted skies. The first rays of sunlight spilt over the horizon, brushing the edges of grey clouds with gold. A new day was breaking. Upon the drake's back, he saw the long-awaited dawn arrive.

"Tomorrow finally comes," he murmured. What would it be like to finally experience something new after so long? New struggles, new challenges, new skills… New Wells of power to climb. Alcyr closed his eyes, satisfied. When he woke, a new day would greet him. He could hardly wait.