Bent World: Chapter 41 Twenty-Nine (Part II)

Chapter 41

Twenty-Nine (Part II)

“CA-CAW!”

The cry of a mighty war bird spreading its magical releasing wings wide open, before it begins to charge forward.

As it moves, sparkling flakes, that remind me of bad noticeable dandruff fall out. Generally a sign of poor skin care, or lack of exfoliation, but this appears different, as I can see magical resonance within the falling flakes.

Blink.

I focus away from the obvious distraction and pull my dinged and chipped blade from its scabbard that is likely more useful now than the actual blade itself is. Still, the blade does do one thing for me. After so many years of holding it, I know its dimensions clearly. In my hand the blade is an extension of my body. This is important, for I can wield my one true power, the ability to create rifts at the edge of my body. Now wielding the blade, I create what I mentally refer to as my Filament Blade, a blade so sharp that it can cut through any substance.

Though cutting is not what it does, at least not in the traditional sense of the word.

Focusing my rift creation energy to reside at the edge of my blade, I pause. Then once the massive bounding bird hobble-jumps once, twice, it takes to the air. As it does, more and more flowing elementally infused flakes fall to the ground. Creating a mini trail of glitter. Seeing those sparkles, my mind instantly registers it as a threat, but I discard it as it is not an immediate threat. Not as big of a threat as the large and widespread jaws, or the massive size of the bird that threatens to tackle me and throw me from high up in this tree. I know that if it catches me, I will either be impaled by its massive beak and then thrown from the tree. Or at the very least if I try to dive out of the way, I will likely be clawed by its massive talons first and then fall. Even if I somehow avoided the talons and the beak, its sheer size all but guaranteed I would be knocked from this ledge, unless I moved with precision.

Focusing on my new battle technique, I pause waiting for the exact moment when the beast gets within my attack range. A range that is now increased by over two feet, thanks to the use of my sword.

As I swing, I can already see the minor trails of a rift in space appearing, as my black blade slices through the air, creating the narrowest of rifts in its wake.

The trick with a Filament Blade strike is to not focus on striking the target, but rather striking through the target. With this devastating strike, I don’t create a rift that is truly big enough for the charging beast to go through. Rather, I force a section of the beast through the rift, while bisected segments remain on each side.

Slink.

The only reason why this attack can work, the only reason I would dare attempt it now is that the veil between realms is lessened, a sign that I am close to a waystone and more easily able to pierce the veil between worlds.

As always, I can feel a minute rift appear, and a slight pull on my energy reserves as I force a nonexistent tear in reality to instantly appear. Tearing through both the space that I am moving through, and the space on the other end of where I am trying to get to.

In fact, it was only after witnessing my cutting ability through a dense rock outcropping that I appeared in, that I realized this odd feature. My power, if wielded without conscience, could have destroyed nations in my past life.

After my slice, a faint hairline blur of light appears in the beast, starting from just above the beast’s extended left wing. A wing that clearly has claws on it, allowing the wing to serve as an extra limb. The faint line then goes down at an angle cutting through just below the neck, through the chest, and out the other side, where it ends just clipping the feathers on the beast’s right wing.

Flutter.

There is a second where only the dissected feathers flutter for a moment, before falling away in the wind.

I pause, for a second wondering if the strike worked. Especially as there doesn’t seem to be any blood. Only to realize that if there was blood being sprayed, it would instantly be sent to the thin rift created. And then gravity seems to pick up as the lower part of the body, the part on my right, its left side buckles and begins to half fall half lunge forward at me.

Telekinetic push.

Seeing the effects of inertia still at work, my mind reacts on instinct pushing the bottom part away, while the top part seems to half fall, half cling to the top part of the diagonal rift.

I watch as gravity tries to take care of the top half of the beast, trying to get it to fall into the two-foot wide by ten-foot-long curved rift opening.

Chomp.

It’s clear that my attack isn’t immediately deadly, as the bird creature can still move. Wildly it flaps its right wing, desperately trying to use the one limb to climb over the open rift. As if it pulling itself out of the rift somehow will cause it to magically reattach to its lower body.

Thud.

The distant sound of the lower body hitting the ground ca finally be heard. Hearing the distinct sound of a once living body crashing into the ground causes the large carnivorous bird to pause, as its mind registers what the sound signifies, likely after having dropped hundreds of bodies of prey from similar heights, just as it tried to do for me a moment ago. I can almost see the moment recognition fills its eyes as to what that sound meant.

Angrily, its triangular eyes stare at me, but that is also the moment it gives up fighting. If birds could lay curses, then I have no doubt that this bird would be laying a generational curse upon me that would curse my distant children’s children. The bird just stares at me, as its face and body slowly begin to slide down into the rift, before inertia picks up, leaving behind only a wing, then nothing.

Seeing the enemy gone, I reverse the blade, and reverse the pull of energy. Then repeating the slash in the exact opposite way, I focus on removing the rift energy I just used. One slice to open, while three slices to fully ensure the rift I created is closed. That seems to be the way of things, but it is a cost of doing business.

With the rift gone, and the angry enemy taken care of, I pause to look at the aftermath.

Down below, I can already see tiny carnivores coming out of their shelters and picking at the meat of the massive aerial predator. I can even see the tiny creatures taking turns to look around for prey, showing that they are not the only monsters present on the ground. The fact that they don’t look up shows that they likely think the canopy of trees protects them.

After evaluating the ground below, I look forward trying to find my next path forward towards the 29th waystone. That’s when I see the true effect of the monstrous creature I just faced. Everywhere that the dandruff like elementally infused flakes fell now burnt and smoldered, not enough to truly damage the tree, but enough to leave behind a clear elemental outline.

Curious, I move forward to inspect the odd chemical component. Tentatively I do what you are never supposed to do as a true self-respecting scientist, I put my finger in it and test.

To my surprise, the moment my finger touches the drop spots, a transferable layer of elementally infused dust fuses to my hand. Seeing that, I pause and wonder. Then looking around at the trail of colorful splotches that line the area, I am convinced, the birds can see elemental energy.

Focusing on the energy, I thought about drawing it in, and within a second the slight glow at the end of my fingertip vanished.

I’m not exactly certain why they sparkle like that, but it is clear that this species of bird evolved to be able to both see elements imbued into dandruff and other skin particles, along with a high likelihood of being able to see elemental energy.

It wasn’t until I made my way through the mine field of energy fragments that I found a likely reason that these birds would evolve this way. For there, at the center of a far branch was a nest of sparklingly bedazzled eggs.

Seeing the eggs, and knowing of their transferrable properties, I understood a possible use for the coating. It was to identify any egg thieves from the air. Suddenly the overly aggressive nature of the bird made sense, as it was a mother protecting its territory from a would be intruder.

Oddly enough, I now found myself to be in a surprisingly good place, for out there was now a nest of unguarded eggs. Eggs that would likely die now that a mother wasn’t around to incubate them. Also, the major deterrent that most would be egg thieves might have in staying away from these eggs, the transferrable energy, was only an extra reason for me to go forward and try to have a meaningful breakfast of eggs.

While I was not stupid enough to start a fire warm enough to cook eggs in a tree. I was able to make full use of the clearly yoke filled eggs. First draining the elemental energy from the coating, then gently cracking the egg open and slowly pouring the contents into a just emptied water pouch. Once all eggs were drained in such a way, I twisted off the thick converted monster intestine, making sure to apply my stopper, before sloshing it over my shoulder.

Once my future breakfast was secured, I got up, discarded the egg shells below for the little guys. Then I began my trek inward once again.

However it seemed that my Pathfinder status made it so I stood out like a beacon to these birds, for no sooner had I left the one tree and moved two more in, did I hear the challenging screech of yet more of these aerial monsters. This time, though it seemed I had somehow alerted a whole pack to my presence.

“SKRRAAAK”

Pulling out my sword, I went to a relatively meaty section of a branch, and then waited.

Flaring up my blade, and letting its edge glow with that dark purple resonance, I stood motionless. My mind relaxing as all other thoughts went away, and only I and my opponents existed. In this state, I could almost feel the monsters coming. They were all swooping in, from all sides, judging my reactions.

While my mind was still, my body did shift and adjust on reflex. Moving and reacting to the murderous intent I could feel.

Then they made their move, as they did, I reacted on instinct. My Filament Blade slicing through the air before I even had time to truly process my reaction.

Glitching blue text.

In that moment, I saw the faintest burst of energy enriched blue light. A shot that the long dormant or destroyed system inside me had chosen that moment of all times to try to awaken. It’s appearance so sudden and unexpected that I felt my balance drop, as suddenly I felt my legs tremble slightly below me. Suddenly my mind went into overdrive, realizing just how high up I was, how many hundreds of feet down below the ground was, how there were nearly seven violent monsters all ready to swoop in and attack me at any time.

Wobble.

My concentration broken, I felt my feet slipping from the branch, seeing my weakness that was the exact moment the second giant pack predator swooped in, ready to take advantage of my momentary weakness, of my lack of concentration.

Then it happened…