Chương 16: [LD-1] 15. The Fang

XV The Fang The arrow sang forth in a beautiful arc.

'I cannot dodge this.' So I had to minimise the damage. I copied a page out of the orc's book, brought my arm up— And screamed my lungs out. Tears slipped down my cheeks, but I brought Cull into position.

'It's alright!' The arrow didn't pierce through the muscle. I could still swing! Tension built in my legs, which didn't buckle again. I soared toward the charging goblin. The beast jerked at my sudden movement and tried to reorient. Too late. Cull raked the space in front of me. Green blood painted the floor behind me. My sneakers kicked up a mound of dirt as I skirted to a halt.

'I'm faster.' I whipped an arm out. Bones snapped in place, and another arrow shattered.

'Beyond just the new stats.' Quickly, I dematerialised Cull, placed my hand on the arrow, and drew a sharp breath. Swallowing my scream, I threw the arrow to the side.

'My strength and dexterity haven't gone up that much.' Neither had my conditioning. Yet the orc's hit hadn't turned me into pulp, nor had the arrow punched through my arm. And my mind…I could keep up with my movement.

'Was this your goal, Kil?' The benefit of what he was having me do. I burst from behind the shield just as one of the goblins charged through it, spear-first. His weapon broke in the process, so I lunged past him at the backline. The foremost archer judged my speed right—I'd be on him before he could knock another arrow—and dropped his bow. But when he tried to draw a dagger from his hip, it got stuck on the way out. That made the remaining two archers panic; they were counting on him to block me.

They would never count on another again. A hastily lined shot sailed wide. I swerved the second, which only grazed my shoulder. One swipe had both archers joining their comrades on the way to the Black Well. I whirled with the motion and slashed through the goblin, still struggling to draw his dagger. Cull slipped down my grip and sagged to the ground. The influx of cool and warm energy helped me catch my breath. I glanced over my shoulder at the last remaining enemy… The beast had collapsed.

It crawled away from me, face stricken with horror. It waved its arms, screamed, and threw dirt at me when I closed the distance. To no avail. I fell to my knees once it, too, joined the dead.

'Get up,' I snarled.

'You need to help them.' The battle wasn't over. Alexa blurred and swiped at the orc brute's knee again. Three technos surrounded the beast. Their beams were not enough to kill it, but steam poured from more than two dozen holes in its back and chest. It had lost a lot of blood. But Douglas was down. Our tank was lying on the ground near the forest guardian, with Emily having both hands on his chest. She was sweating. As was Evans. His gaze was laser focused on one of Shota's drones.

A haze rose from his person, but it was dissipating. Whatever he was doing was about to end. I searched for Kiba and found him standing between the group and the brute. But he wasn't so much standing as he was crouching. He was cradling a right arm covered in blood. My gaze narrowed. White fur rapidly grew from the limb. His entire arm grew in size until it was three times as big, rivalling the orc's own. Kiba opened his mouth and roared. Then he shot forward, his claw held behind him like a too heavy mace.

He sailed way past the brute, who swung its spiked club like a baseball bat. Kiba blocked the blow on his transformed arm, but the spikes on the weapon carved through his fur and sent blood flying everywhere.

'Power but no control,' I grimaced. I had a solution for that, though. I gathered my breath, closed my eyes, and replayed Kil's gift in my mind. The concept of the spell wasn't alien. What I was supposed to summon spawned out of a portal similar to the one Kil formed from. The only difference was that I wasn't creating this gate between my fingers. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

'The key is imagining the details of the arm,' the memories conveyed. Width, length, the number of suckers on the tentacle. My spirit flared, and a vortex opened near the orc's feet. The brute's gaze snapped towards it. Its club rammed into the entrance…but nothing came out.

'Dammit.' Lips pulled into a line. Mana: 50/120 Twenty mana for a failed spell. I drew the miasma from one of the goblin corpses and tried again. Suckers… grey skin because of the decaying aspect… I balled a fist. Another gate. The orc whirled on it. Again, its club barrelled into nothing but air. Kiba flew at the beast in the opening that created and raked his claw across the orc's face. He would've gouged out the creature's throat if he'd had better aim. Despite being hurt, the orc retaliated.

A loud crack echoed through the cafeteria as the white fang hurled into the ground. Kiba cried, but landed on his feet. There was a bend in his arm, and the bone looked dangerously close to poking out of the skin. He popped the bone back into place, then whirled toward me. A haze clouded his eyes. One that was the red of the blood dripping from his arm. We'd have one more shot at this. I exhaled deep.

'Arm of Qurang…' A roar ruptured from the orc's chest, but it was background noise. The name was quite revealing, wasn't it? The tentacle wasn't a loose object. It was of something. Another being. An entity from the Black Well. What would an entity like that look like? That question pulled me into deep water.' Imagine it,' I heard myself telling the Prime Minister.

'The void… the vast nothingness. … My heart paused in the middle of a beat. The sounds in the back of my mind vanished. And then there was the cold. The darkness. That stiffness in the limbs which didn't allow me to move. But the hold the void had on me had lessened from that time back in the Initiation Chamber. With great difficulty, I forced myself to look up— Right into two orbs that hovered over me. Ones I could see only because they were a deeper black than the sea of darkness.

Hundreds of snakes moved around me. I didn't see them, but felt them. The same way I'd felt it in my own soul sea. And it was that thought that calmed my nerves before they could fire—didn't allow the fear to set in.

'This is my domain.' I repeated that thought like a mantra. Then raised my hand. The eyes didn't turn away from me. An eternity went by. Until finally they narrowed, and the darkness shifted again. One tentacle swam forth and fell on my palm. My heart continued and slammed in my chest. The sounds of battle rushed back." Arm of Quranq!" I balled my fist so hard my nails drew blood. The portal was bigger this time—a deeper shade of black. The orc glanced at the vortex and snorted. Did we think him stupid?

With a great heft, he swung his club at Kiba, who'd leapt before my spell finished. The beast grinned, the visage of the boy's smashed innards reflecting in his eyes. Then his swing suddenly angled towards the floor.

'Huh?' it thought, the sight of its club breaking the ground registering in its head. It turned—and only then noticed the weird, alien limb attached to its mace. What— Its head snapped to the side. Bones crunched, sinew stretched. With a flick, all tension and stress in the orc's body vanished. Dilated pupils ticked downwards. The massive body it'd been proud of fell to the ground. Headless. The question of what'd happened died before it could form. My breath thundered out of my throat.

"We…got him…" I folded like spaghetti before my sentence finished and was lying on my back in a blink. The ceiling was spinning. The expansion and retraction of my chest was killing me.

'Goddamn.' Multiple dings sounded in my head, but focusing on the lines took too much energy. Everything was blurry.

'At least get on your knees, Joy.' The battle may not be over. Other enemies could always— Someone shouted. A heartbeat later, an inhuman roar chased the scream. The adrenaline pumping through me kicked into second gear. With the absolute last of my strength, I forced myself onto my stomach and crawled onto my knees. I turned to my screen: Mana: 0/120 There was literally nothing more I could offer except my blade, and my muscles were spent beyond the point of adrenaline forcing them to work.

So I held my heart as I stared out across the room, hoping to any god that the threat was minimal. Beams of light hit the ground and tossed up sprays of earth and roots. I waited for my blurry and spinning sight to settle. What was Shota firing at? Nothing was— Blood seeped past Kiba's fangs. Red streaks pushed out from beneath the fur covering his arm where the brute had struck him. Shota's beams were not enough to force Kiba back, but Alexa's blade was. The white fang leapt through the room in my direction.

"What are you guys doing?!" I shouted. But my throat, like every other muscle in my body, was having trouble performing. The tremors of the weak yell fizzled before they reached anyone. Anyone except Kiba. His bob of white hair twirled as he whirled on me. A bolt slammed into my body and fried my nerves. Tingles went down my entire spine and kept a single muscle from moving. That was not the expression of a human being. That was— The distance between us disappeared.

A tornado swept me off my feet, and the back of my head slammed into the ground. Whatever breath remained inside my lungs took the first and closest route out. I blindly grasped and touched the thick arm pinning me down. Kiba was looming over me. The blood dripping down his fangs pattered my cheeks.

"Ki…ba…" I got out. Whatever I was going to say would not reach him. His pupils, which were normally a dull grey, had vanished beneath the red haze. His teeth had sharpened and ground on each other so hard I could feel them gnashing in my bones. He unlocked his jaw and brought my throat closer— Light hurled into the ground right beside our heads. The white fang's frenzied gaze shot back just as another bolt went slightly wide.

'Shota…' I could say everything about him, but not that he was a bad shot. It was Kiba being on top of me that kept him from doing anything. Still, this was good. As long as he kept Kiba busy, the others wooooullddd…! My thoughts hurled as I was swept off the floor for the second time. The movement didn't end in a hard stop like before. Wind broke on my skull. I peered to find Kiba carrying me like a chopstick in one hand while he dashed for the exit. A pit opened in my stomach.

"Kiba, wait, don't—" The smash of the revolving doors against the walls cut me off. Without any hesitation, the white fang carried us off into the dark hallways… And whatever was lying in wait beyond.