HTG - Chapter 190

Kalon

Chapter One-Hundred-Ninety: Ulatar - Part Three

Planet: Etheria

The creature slams its head against hills as it moves forward, filling the skies with boulders and debris.

“Kotina!” I yell, grasping her arm tightly, if I let go, I will surely die.

She turns her head, eyes growing wider. Curses sling from her mouth as she tries to dig deeper, she looks at me, and I can see in her eyes that I am holding her back.

The steady pace of the creature’s enormous legs will close the gap on her before long. This much is clear.

My jaw tenses, waiting for her to shake me off like the burden I am. Yet she doesn’t leave me as she ought. She continues, as though leaving me is not an option.

I will not try to cling, she has saved me enough already, and my honor cannot handle the strain of owing her more. My hand releases its grasp on her arm, I will not be the reason she dies here, not after she helped me, not when she is like a mother to Luna. Her jaw tenses as she grips me firmer, not letting me go, turning her focus ahead of her.

“Leave me…” I begin, speaking loudly over the wind.

Why does she not leave me? My stomach twists into knots. Will I be the death of us both? Before I can wallow further the ground rains down the debris around us. Netheric Maka sings in the air as shards of Netherium slam into the ground around us. Kotina dodges boulders left and right, digging deeper, bounding from the ground to leap over them. As she leaps between them, she pushes off of them trying to gain momentum. Every time a rock comes towards me, she rolls her shoulder to take the brunt, denting her armor.

Where is the Netherium coming from? It doesn’t matter, I can’t let her die for me.

“I am slowing you down!” I yell over the wind.

“Shut up, runt!” she replies, another slew of curses falling into the wind.

My eyes strain to look behind us, the creature’s mouth is open, red light mixes with the deep pulsing blue Etheric teeth that it has. Does it store Netherium in its belly… to use as an attack? A massive hill-sized clump of rock and dirt hurtles towards us as it rolls down a mountainside that is being destroyed. My head turns forward, my eyes squinting against the wind, Kotina runs toward a cliff…

“Deep breath!” she yells as she leaps from the edge of it. With her free hand I see her turn the emergency beacon toward the sky. An array of colors paints the sky as its charge soars toward the heavens.

My lungs draw in as much air as they can, my eyes search below us and see the snaking river at the base of a thundering waterfall. Hundreds of paces below. As we move through the air, behind us the cliff gives way, the earth being shoved down towards gravity. Kotina pulls herself around me like a cocoon, tucking my head into her shoulder and wrapping her arms around my head.

Red light mixed with blue scatters around us, like a hailstorm I see Etherium and Netherium raining down upon us. Blood sprays from her armor as it shears from the shards. Spraying me in her blood. Her eyes bulge for a moment before her face grimaces. A large shard of Netherium sticks out from her chest, I feel the hum as it pierces my shoulder.

No…

We strike the surface of the water with so much force I almost lose consciousness. Kotina still clutches me, her eyes rolling into the back of her head as dark lines trace into her body. My eyes open in the depths as we are pressed down from the weight of the waterfall and debris. Streaks of air ripple through the water as objects fall all around us. Broken pieces of Netherium and Etherium glittering in the water, gliding through it like a knife.

Kotina’s grasp loosens, her body going slack, blood streaking the water with the debris. My hand feels her back, more shards of Netherium protrude from it. We are both going to die here pinned beneath the mountain of earth and water. My heart thrashes, my mind races.

No… I do not accept this… I carry the hopes and dreams of too many people to die before they are realized.

Images of the memories Amon showed me flash in my mind. The energy and the air in the memory were pushed away by the being using Ata. Maybe I can...

I pulse my will wildly around me… commanding all the shards of Netherium to condense on me.

Pure energy ripples into me as they strike my body. Healing the wounds of the debris and filling me with an immense feeling of power.

I have never felt Netherium this pure before…

Light traces my skin as runes are whispered into breathing life upon my body, runes that I have always known from the sleepless dreams of the darkness. Golden eyes flash in the darkness that envelops my vision. Deep red runic lines run along my arms, flowing with a pulsation of the raw power.

The six Netheric boundary becomes taunt for a fraction of a second before it ruptures and it is then that I feel it… like a part of me that has always been there.

Black flames erupt from my flesh engulfing me in their sweet melody. A sphere of energy engulfs Kotina and me as the flames guide matter away from us. My body raises from the ground as the gravity distorts around me as I feel the next bound withering under the sheer force that is rising within me.

Light blossoms in my eyes as though I can parse all the starlight in the universe. My vision is strange as I see the formations of Maka moving around the colossal Ethaki in the distance. Its core is like a sun, power ebbs to its extremities in strange patterns that are like wild and unrefined runes. Were a person to have this much power inside them, they would be akin to something just below Tavjac of the Mordow. It’s inefficient though, like it’s instinctually shaping it through will alone.

I feel its rhythm as I approach the Seventh Netheric bound, I feel the pulse that is its lifeforce. Fire moves and condenses on my palm… then the energy stops, instinctually, I know this is not enough Netherium to save us. Kotina is in the sixth, she is no match for it… even in the seventh I would not be enough, not as I am.

There is only one choice then… I must consume the Etherium too.

My hands splay outward, willing it all to come to me. Thousands of pure Etheric shards slam into my body. The black flames roar at the influx of Maka. Vibrations that could shatter a world torment my soul as I stand in defiance of that which is reason and move toward feeling alone.

I know I can balance it… I can do this.

Take everything in…

“Sha…” I whisper in the silence of the voided air. Condense it all.

The air cracks with spindles of raw lightning as gravity itself trembles at the chaos of Maka in the air.

Balance it all… make it blend. Combine it. Hold it… then release it all at once.

There it is….

Energy cascades from my chest into my veins and down towards my appendages. More… feel the flow. The being swathed in purple light’s words flowing into my mind, the thousands of thoughts condensed in between the syllables rising up, becoming meaning.

Ata

Push, Expand… feel the flow. Water torrents around us, the black flame enshrouds Kotina in a protective haze, guarding her from the stray energy that burns the rocks around us.  

Light swells in my Kuwathi eyes. Bioluminescence and Maka exploding as the force of my will is made manifest.

I feel it now. The rhythm. I can feel the source, endless, boundless… flashes of images, a being with glowing golden eyes standing in defiance of absolute darkness. The pressure of infinite darkness is not enough to make it kneel… if it does not kneel… nor will I.

My mind presses back to the present, the heat fills my body. I must push everything away… and release it all into that beast’s core.

With the last of my breath, I scream “Ata!”

The steady flow opens like a floodgate, energy rippling through my body, pouring from the void within, seeking meaning in my will. Purple light moves from my chest to my appendages. Water rushes around us, but I can’t control the flow, it is wild, combining in arcs of torrential energy, burning my body, filling me with pain.

Feel the flow… there is something in the cadence between the Netheric and Etheric… something which wishes to be heard.

Time slows as my pupils dilate. Light becomes overwhelmingly bright as I feel a spark of strange Maka flowing in the stream between my thoughts. The central point shudders and momentum becomes my ally as water presses away rapidly from us. Leaving us at the stone base of the waterfall. A sphere of energy ripples around us as my hands slowly move toward each other.

One rolling with blue energy… the other with red…

Purple swirls into existence and I feel the air itself go still as time slows to a crawl until it does not move at all.  

Horns greet my eyes as I see Zarae the goddess of destiny step into my vision. Everything is still, everything is calm as she examines the energy that my hands are creating. Her gaze traces the Maka, then it falls into my eyes. A curious expression draws on her face, her mouth moves to speak… but she doesn’t, she never has in my presence. It is strange to see her face, to see Luna’s reflection in it.

I want to speak, I want to ask her why she looks like her. I want to know her plans for Luna. I want to ask her for help, for guidance even. Yet the air does not move, I can only perceive in this state of time’s slowed crawl.

She turns from me, looking toward where we came from, above the cliff of the waterfall. Her finger points toward it, and the world begins to turn slowly forward as she disappears from my vision. Water rages in a swirling vortex. My eyes peel upward where she pointed and I see the reason she showed herself. The massive creature looms above, nearly upon us.

Vek… I became lost in the momentum, I forgot the task.  

My hands hold the black dust as I pour Etheric and Netheric Maka into it. Forcing it back into a singular crystalline structure that grows rapidly before my eyes in the shape of a spear… it is beautiful.

With all of my strength, I turn and I throw the sparkling purple shard towards the beast’s core. The force of the throw is so strong that the muscles of my arm tear and my shoulder dislocates. Stone rends like it were made of water as the shard travels through the ground and into the beast.

Its mouth is open as it strikes. Light fractures sound as all the air pays heed and escapes away from the impact. In a flash of movement, my body is thrown to the ground and I feel a person shielding me from the blast that comes next.

Land vaporizes around us, I feel a thick layer of Maka condensing around my body, whoever is shielding me is using so much power to do so. The air rushes back after a few more moments, the light fading. My head turns toward the sky as the figure who covered me falls off to the side. The clouds are gone.

Rivers of steaming black blood run where the water once did. Chunks of the beast’s head litter the landscape. From the neck down, nothing substantial remains. The base of its chest is bubbling like a volcano. I turn to reach for Kotina, but I see a large figure clad in the blackest of black armor sheltering her. From the frame, I can only guess that it is Arkon.

Then who shielded me? I turn slowly and see Dargo. Blood drips from his back as burns bubble and ooze. He is wheezing and his eyes are wide as he lays on his side. His eyes are bloodshot, and there are hundreds of runic shapes burned into his flesh as he closes his eyes and lets out a small shallow wheeze.  

Arkon moves to his feet, the ground around Kotina is completely free of blemishes, he must have shielded her with Maka like Dargo did for me. I did not expect the blast to be so significant. The landscape has completely changed, the river is gone, now hundreds of small ones. As far as I can see, the land is scarred from it.

Kotina groans as Arkon places a hand on her forehead, light blossoming from his gauntlet. His hand recoils after a moment.

“Is she alright?” I ask, trying to crawl toward her.

He takes a moment before he nods slowly. There is something wrong though, even though I can’t see his face past the mask. I know something is wrong. Why does he not speak?

“I suppose I owe you one,” Dargo says. There is a strange bitterness in his tone.

I turn to look at him, his gaze falls to the stone.

“Raka’s is an interesting choice for protective runes, one I should have thought to use, but I was not fast enough it would seem,” Dargo says, turning to his front. He slowly rises to a limp, one of his legs is badly burned.

Arkon does not reply… was he the one that saved us?

I turn and look around and I manage to rise to my feet. Outside of the runes that Dargo made are even more runes, still pulsing with power. Arkon closes his fist and they all disappear in a breath.

Dargo begins to shape runes on his body as his flesh spins back into shape. Then so do his clothes, slowly but surely. When he is finished and his pride returns to his brow, he manages to lift his gaze to look at me, then turns back to study the creature.

In a voice barely above a whisper he says, “A wild fire indeed.” He looks back at me once more, “Another bound and a legacy, my, you’ve been busy, boy.”