Divine Awakening - Chapter 45

Chapter 45

Ash’s feet sank into the soft dunes as he sprinted across the sand, his lungs burning from the scorching heat. Behind him, the rest of the group staggered through the shifting terrain, struggling to keep pace. The sound of heavy boots sinking into sand mixed with the dry rasp of their breathing.

The sand stretched endlessly in every direction, the dunes towering above them like great golden waves. Before them, half-buried in the desert, loomed the crumbling ruins of an ancient temple, its weathered stone glinting under the relentless sun.

Nomad and his soldiers flanked the civilians, weapons drawn, eyes following the approaching skeletons. Everest and Patch, like the soldiers, moved through the sand with an experienced gait. The rest of Ash’s team desperately tried to adjust their sinking feet. Without practice however, it would feel like wading through quicksand.

Ash had never spent time in the desert, but he’d spent his entire life keeping his center of gravity, and it only took him a few seconds to figure out how to move efficiently across the sand. His enhanced Strength and Nimbleness allowed him to outpace the entire group.

Around them, the dunes shifted.

Skeletons jerked out of the sand, their hollow eye sockets glowing with a faint reddish light.

Conserve your ammo, Nomad said over chat. Short bursts to the head if necessary but only at close range.

Ash understood the advice. The bullets would be ineffective against an enemy made from just bones. He pulled farther ahead of the group, now halfway to the temple.

The skeletons moved in jerky, unnatural motions when they first emerged, but it didn’t take long for their movements to smooth out. Their feet sank into the sand as well, keeping them from running, but they shambled relentlessly toward the group and their numbers only grew as each second passed.

Ash focused his Third Eye intently, and with such concentration the world slowed as his senses expanded. His Root chakra hummed with a warning as a skeletal camel emerged from a large dune with a skeletal warrior on its back.

The rest of the group was fifty feet behind Ash, and he angled himself at the camel, increasing his pace.

Nomad shouted with an authoritative voice, likely to encourage the civilians. “Keep moving! Get to that temple!”

Ash glanced back to confirm Nomad had things under control. The civilians stumbled, drastically slowing the pace, but the military team kept them moving. Unfortunately, a horde of skeletons poured over the outcropping they’d left like a bone waterfall and had made progress toward catching the team.

“Blast! Tripwire!” Nomad commanded.

Seconds later multiple explosions occurred in quick succession. Sand and skeletal remains filled the air, arcing over Ash, who had almost reached the skeletal camel.

Information about Ash’s targets appeared.

Name: Acolyte Rider

Type: Skeletal

Level: 5

Description: The skeletal remains of an Acolyte from the Temple of Pain. Death did not release them from their oaths.

Damage: 6-10 Piercing

Effect (Triggered): Bone Spear - Summon a bone spear to impale the temple’s enemies.

Name: Acolyte Mount

Type: Skeletal

Level: 7

Description: The skeletal remains of an Acolyte mount from the Temple of Pain. Death did not release them from their service.

Damage: 10-15 Blunt

Effect (Passive): Bone Stomp - oversized skeletal feet to crush the temple’s enemies.

The skeleton raised its arm, and a bone spear appeared. It threw the projectile at Ash in a surprisingly graceful motion.

Ash willed his pack into the Belt of Swans and leaned to the left, avoiding a spear to the head. He snatched the spear out of the air, thankful it consisted of an actual bone and not just magic.

Twirling the bone spear like a staff, Ash quickly familiarized himself with the weapon.

The camel gained speed quickly, running across the sand like it was packed dirt. Its four feet glowed with the same faint red light that filled the eye sockets of the skeletons.

More explosions occurred behind Ash as the camel reared upward to stomp him, but he didn’t slow. Instead, he jammed the end of the spear into the sand and pushed himself upward like a pole vaulter. He sped feet first toward the rider pulling the spear with him as he left the ground.

Ash passed the skeletal camel’s shoulder and slammed feet first into the skeleton rider’s chest, throwing it backward and off the mount.

Landing on top of the skeleton, Ash jammed the spear into the skeleton’s mouth and out the back of the skull. In a fluid movement he stood and turned.

The skeleton camel turned quickly and faced Ash. He lifted the spear, the skeleton still hanging from it like a flag. Rotating the spear rapidly in a tight circle, he spun the skeleton rider. Everything became far easier to lift and control when they had a lot of centrifugal force.

Using the skeleton rider like a morningstar, Ash slammed the spinning rider’s body into the camel’s head.

With Ash’s enhanced Strength, the two skeletal creatures collided with significant force. The rider exploded into pieces and the camel stumbled.

Ash’s spear had lost most of the rider’s body and only the skull and part of the spine remained. Before the camel could recover, he drove the spear through the skeletal neck of the beast and then jumped upward, pulling hard on the spear.

The spear snapped in half, but so did the camel’s neck, and the creature staggered.

Ash landed on the sand on the other side of the undead beast and immediately grabbed a rear leg, pulling up and twisting.

The leg snapped off and Ash used the creature’s femur as a club, smashing it into the rib cage and head with three quick swings.

Ash grabbed another thigh bone so he had one in each hand and continued his sprint toward the temple.

A group of five skeletons stumbled into Ash’s path.

Name: Acolyte Guard

Type: Skeletal

Level: 5

Description: The skeletal remains of an Acolyte guard from the Temple of Pain. Death did not release them from their oaths.

Damage: 5-8 Slashing

Effect (Triggered): Bone Scimitar - summon a bone scimitar to spill the blood of the unworthy.

Ash barely slowed as he swung the thigh bones at the guardians, dodging their wicked looking scimitars and smashing the skeletons with blunt trauma, creating a shower of bones around him.

Four more packs approached, and Ash slowed to handle them, making it easier for the group following behind.

Ash hadn’t mastered any weapons. The Bamboo Viper Step Clan frowned on them, preferring to hone the practitioner's body into a living weapon. That said, his training gave him incredible control over his body, and he could become passably competent with any weapon in short order.

Using two thigh bones as improvised clubs wasn't something Ash could have trained for anyway.

Ash neared the temple and smashed into the guardians that had reached the entrance first. Destroying the ten skeletons in just seconds.

Glancing back, Ash judged the group would arrive at the temple in about twenty seconds and the approaching skeletons wouldn’t reach them in time to interfere.

Since the group didn't need his help, Ash scanned the temple entrance with his chakras, and they didn't protest. He ran up the twenty-foot dune that blocked the entry and then descended the other side into the darkened interior of the temple.

Ash breathed normally, and his eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light. He extended Lesser Ripple farther to scout for any immediate dangers.

The temple looked old—older than any human structure Ash had ever seen. The only thing that remained somewhat intact was a large altar in its center, and viewing it felt like a cool breeze against his Third Eye.

Small creatures lurked in burrows around the perimeter, and with a last glance around, Ash bounded back up the sand dune at the entrance.

As the group approached, Ash spoke loudly so everyone could hear. “Twenty to thirty small animals, probably rats, are in burrows around the room’s perimeter. There’s an altar in the center and it’s the way out of here somehow.”

Nomad funneled everyone into the temple and glanced down at the large bones Ash carried.

Ash smiled and lifted them. “Blunt damage for the win.”

“I saw,” Nomad responded with an impressed expression. “I'll organize our escape. Are you good up here?”

Fletcher, Blast, Grizzly, and Tripwire had taken up positions at the top of the dune.

“Take Blast with you,” Ash responded. “We need to get under that altar, and if the mechanism isn’t obvious you might need to blow it.”

Nomad nodded and Blast followed without comment.

With a warning from Third Eye, Ash swung a camel femur over his head, smashing a skeleton that had dropped from the roof.

Nomad spoke to Ash over chat. Are you any good with puzzles?

Negative, Ash responded as he smashed the skeleton in front of him. My skills don’t work like that.

At least not yet, Ash thought. If he could ever make progress with his Crown chakra, things like puzzles would become easier.

What’s going on with the altar? Ash asked Nomad.

Checkmate and Cipher are studying the altar. Wiki and Oracle are translating what the glyphs mean. It’s ancient Sumerian evidently. A bunch of numbers.

Ash concentrated on the clattering skeletons swarming toward the entrance.

Instead of waiting for them to reach the top, he handed Fletcher and Tripwire the camel femurs. Grizzly had removed a portal shovel from his pack. “You guys take care of the ones that fall off the roof.”

With that, Ash leaped down the dune, his body a blur as he struck the first skeleton with a powerful roundhouse kick. His enhanced Strength sent the creature flying, its brittle bones shattering on impact with the sand. Summoned spears filled the air, but he gracefully dodged them all.

Still, more kept coming. Their skeletal hands reached out, clawing at him with sharp, bony fingers. Ash ducked and weaved through their attacks, his movements fluid and precise. He used the Bamboo Viper forms he’d spent his life learning, his strikes delivering crushing blows to the skeletons. Each punch and kick landed with deadly precision, breaking bones like he wielded hammers.

Chat burst into activity as the rats Ash had detected earlier swarmed out of their burrows. The soldiers inside made short work of them, however.

Progress? Ash asked Nomad as he watched hundreds of skeletons making their way toward him.

Wiki just shouted something about base sixty instead of ten. Whatever that means. That seems to have helped Cipher and Checkmate, though. Standby.

The skeletons pressed forward, their advance relentless. Ash’s fists snapped outward in a blur and he shattered skeleton after skeleton, their bones clattering down the surrounding dunes and collecting in piles.

Ash flipped over a group of three camel skeletons, landing behind them and striking their back legs with a vicious sweep executed with deadly care. Their bones splintered, collapsing into fragments.

It didn’t take much to kill the skeletons, but the longer Ash fought here, the more appeared. He wondered if the dungeon kept generating them or if some of the skeletons had started deeper in the sand and took longer to escape. Whatever the source, the desert now contained thousands of them.

Ash punched a skeleton in the head, pulverizing its skull into dust. He glanced over his shoulder at Grizzly, Tripwire, and Fletcher. Bones stacked up around them but they were still holding their own. It was only a matter of time, though, before the skeletons would become so numerous, swinging a weapon would be difficult.

They were running out of time.

Ash used a crescent kick to destroy a skeleton’s rib cage and yanked a spear from another, using it like a staff to decapitate five more.

The ground vibrated and sand spilled down all the dunes. A loud grinding sound came from inside the temple.

Fallback, Nomad said to everyone in chat. The passage is open. Then in a private chat to just Ash, Nomad continued. Shamrock double time it back here and scan this stairwell.

The skeletons became frantic when the ground vibrated, and they all rushed forward with a burst of energy.

Ash pulled on his Solar Plexus chakra and leaped twenty feet up the entrance dune. He then jumped again, easily crossing the last ten feet to land at the top. Grizzly, Fletcher, and Tripwire stared at him in disbelief. He didn’t pause to explain his superhuman movements and barreled past them and down the sand dune inside the temple

The altar had shifted, the floor beneath it open, revealing a dark, yawning tunnel containing a stairwell leading into darkness.

For the first time, both Third Eye and Root quieted.

“It’s safe,” Ash said loud enough for everyone to hear.

Nomad nodded. “Lead the way.”

Ash started down the stone stairs and the rest of the team converged on the altar. Grizzly and Nomad held off the skeletons at the temple entrance until everyone had passed and then dashed for the stairwell.

The skeletons swarmed into the temple, but they didn’t follow into the stairwell.

Instead, they smashed their bone spears into the floor, furious that their prey had escaped.

Ash moved quickly down the spiral staircase, paying close attention to his chakras and quickly leaving the team behind as he scouted the way forward.