R-a - Volume 4 - Chapter 22

R-a - Volume 4 - Chapter 22 (in editing-v4) 

Micheal puked blood.

His lungs heaved as he coughed and wheezed, his aching body set to trembling as he went into shock. Dark, red liquid dripped from his face as he desperately scrambled alongside a rocky outcropping, trying not to lose his grip.

Micheal reached up with both of his arms, finding an opening in the edge of the rock. His left arm twinged, old tendon and ligament injuries from the Great War acting up, while his right hand secured a strong grip, aided by several long metal wires that were embedded in the stone, connected to a metallic glove he was wielding.

He breathed in and he exhaled several times, his hands shaking from exhaustion.

Slowly, he pulled out two High-Tier Healing Pills from his Mid-Tier Spatial Ring, swallowing them with a pained gasp.

He felt the warm energy swarm into his body, staunching the flow of blood and setting to work at healing his internal injuries. He couldn’t tell for sure, but felt like he had punctured one of his lungs and broken several of his ribs.

As he rested for a split second, giving his body a moment to recover, his gaze drifted off the stone ledge below him…

To a dark, endless Void.

The 3rd Layer that Micheal was on was a world composed entirely of hundreds of thousands of floating islands drifting above an endless maw of darkness that no one ever returned from.

‘Damn it. I need to move.’ Micheal pushed through his shock as he forced himself to climb up, ignoring his screaming muscles as he blocked out the pain.

After a few seconds, he managed to scale the side of the floating island he had nearly fallen from and pulled himself over a stone lip, a ragged wheeze of relief escaping him as he found himself on solid ground.

‘I can’t rest any more than this.’ Micheal pushed through his shock as he stumbled to his feet, wincing as he felt his right hand jerk to a stop.

The Iron Strings Gauntlet he wore, a powerful Artifact that let him send out metal wires that could conduct Sword Energy, had broken, becoming inoperable. Micheal tore the Artifact off without hesitation, withdrawing a White Flame Short Sword from his Spatial Ring.

The sword, made from Rhapzod Ore, contained traces of Elemental Fire within it, giving it a magical white glow. It only cost 12,800 Points in the Shop and wasn’t too durable, but Micheal didn’t exactly have many options in the immediate moment.

As soon as he pulled the sword out, its warm white light spread out, lighting up the area.

That light revealed a scene of devastation.

On the edge of a large, 1000 meters wide floating island lay the corpses of more than 30 other humans, some torn to bits while others mashed to a pulp. The bodies littered the rocky stone ground, the scene of a massacre.

“Shin. Shin! Is anyone alive?!” Micheal’s eyes pierced through his surroundings as he hobbled forward, holding the sword out above his head. His heart thudded in his ears, making every step he took feel like a mile.

Micheal scanned the nearby bodies, his mind racing ahead of him.

“Dmitri!” He spotted a familiar face. Any elation he felt from that, however, quickly drained as he realized the man was dead.

Dmitri had been the Captain of the Knights of the Bright Island, a mercenary squad that Micheal and Shin had joined after coming up to the 3rd Layer almost a year ago.

He had been the leader of their team, a strong Master that had earned the respect of even the haughty Void Nobles.

‘Think, Micheal. Adapt.’ Micheal slowed his breathing as he forced himself to calm down, blinking furiously to himself.

‘Status.’ After a split second, he pulled up his Status, checking his Point total.

.

— - Status — -

Name: Micheal Care

Points: 1,829

Race: Human

Age: 24

- Stats -

Strength - 997

Endurance - 582

Recovery - 281

Soul - 50

- Abilities - (5/7)

- Advanced Sword Mastery (5/5)

- Ironblood Body Type

- Ki Cultivator (Lord Tier - Early)

- Enhanced Strength

- Enhanced Recovery

.

‘Ugh, not even 2,000 Points. I can’t get anything useful with that.’ He closed off the status screen with a wave of his hand. The motion made him groan.

‘I knew I should have invested more into Recovery.’

Micheal focused back on the present as he looked from body to body, putting his emotions on hold.

Finally, after searching for 15 more seconds…

“SHIN!” Micheal found Shin’s muscular body slumped over face down.

He raced over to it and flipped Shin over, his heart dropping as he saw his friend’s pallid face.

Without wasting even a second, Micheal dived into his Spatial Ring pulled out his greatest life saving treasure, a Miracle Fruit from the Second Layer, a type of rare Helion Treasure that could boost one’s regeneration to insane amounts for a brief period.

He crammed the fruit into Shin’s mouth without ceremony, clenching his fists as he stared at his best friend and ally.

‘Come on, Shin. Don’t you dare die on me. We still hav-’

Abruptly, before he even finished thinking and could cognize why, simply moving on pure instinct and intuition, Micheal tilted his head to the right.

A tiny fraction of a second later…

A foot long, black spike ripped through the air where Micheal’s head had been. The projectile moved so quickly it transformed into a mere blur, rocketing off and out over the edge of the floating island, vanishing into the darkness of the Void.

In one smooth motion, Micheal turned to face the direction the attack came from, his body tensing up as he ignored the crippling pain, injuries, and emotions he was suffering from to enter a state of pure focus.

His eyes zeroed in on the attacker.

A horrifying monster that stood perched atop a luminous mushroom roughly 40 meters from Micheal…

A Void Predator.

‘It’s back.’ Micheal looked the creature up and down and took several steps forward, putting Shin out of the direct line of fire as he stared it down.

‘Damn it.’

It was a monstrosity that struck horror into any that saw it.

The native Void Nobles of the 3rd Layer called them the Ven’tori, but among humanity, the creatures were commonly known as Void Predators.

They were the dominant species of hunters on the 3rd Layer, terrifying, unstoppable killing machines that seemed designed to annihilate and kill anything that dared to stand in their path.

Standing at 3 meters tall (10 feet), the bipedal monsters reminded many humans of the Morenkai from the First Layer. The creatures were covered in pitch black hardened shells that encased their entire bodies like a layer of armor, making them impervious to most forms of attack, similar to the dense skin of the Morenkai. Beneath their hardened shells lay absurdly powerful muscles that not only let the creatures jump from island to island with ease but also let them tear apart their targets in a literal sense.

Unlike the Morenkai, however, the creatures possessed a long, sinuous tail that typically stretched for double their body length, covered in sharp metallic spikes. Void Predators used their tail not only as a melee weapon to rend apart their foes, but also at long range, shooting out the spikes within it to attack.

‘It’s injured.’ Micheal immediately noticed, his eyes catching the trail of red liquid seeping out of a long slash on its neck.

‘That must be why it fell back at first.’ Micheal thought to himself.

This was his first encounter with a Void Predator.

They had been ambushed by the creature less than 3 minutes ago, a chaotic attack that Micheal had barely managed to survive. Void Predators were capable of blending in with the omni-present darkness of the 3rd Layer as long as they avoided the many luminous plants, trees, and boulders that populated the area. None of them had saw it coming.

‘Dmitri didn’t go down without a fight.’ Micheal focused on the creature’s injury, grasping ahold of any thing he could in order to survive.

The Void Predator let out an eerie, keening growl as it began to lumber forward, its slitted eyes narrowing as it walked.

The monstrosity opened its mouth slightly, revealing hundreds of gleaming, sharp teeth as it began taunting Micheal.

‘It’s playing with me.’ Micheal realized instantly, shrugging off the anger that came with that realization.

‘Good.’ That meant it was being careless, despite its injury...

And that meant he had a chance.

Micheal took a deep breath as he concentrated, Advanced Tier Sword Energy fluttering onto his weapon. He took a ready stance, his entire being focused on the movements of the creature.

‘Survive. I must survive.’

The Predator crossed the distance between them almost casually as it walked. Soon it was only 30 meters from Micheal.

20 meters.

Micheal’s eyes gleamed as his Ironblood Body stirred, enhancing his Strength and Endurance as much as possible.

10 meters.

Micheal shifted his feet slightly, bending his knees as he adjusted his grip.

5 me-

Before Micheal could even finish tracking the distance between himself and the monster, his intuition flared up.

‘Where-?!’

Micheal jerked his body a step to the right, kicking the ground as fast as he could. The stone beneath him exploded in a network of cracks at the force of his abrupt leap, sending him off and away.

Less than 1/20th of a second later…

A long, black blur burst up through the ground and shot towards Micheal’s chest.

Micheal twisted his right arm and raised his sword to block, preparing a followup attack of his own in response…

The black blur slammed into Micheal’s sword, revealing itself to be the tail of the Void Predator. The creature had burrowed its tail silently through the rocky ground in a heartbeat, disguising its movement by shielding it from Micheal’s view with its body.

The sharp, edged tail collided with Micheal’s expertly positioned sword…

And obliterated it.

Micheal’s grip didn’t loosen even as his sword shattered. His thoughts, however, scattered as he felt an enormous impact punch into his chest and fling him back a meter, sending his body once more into shock.

‘W-what?!’ Micheal’s eyes widened as he looked down at his chest, at the long, metallic tail that had pierced clean through it and was holding him up in mid-air.

The tail abruptly twisted as it flung Micheal off of it, sending him flying a dozen meters until he collided with a large boulder.

Micheal didn’t even feel the impact as he slammed into the boulder, still shocked at what had just happened.

Out of habit, he pulled out two Healing Jelly Kits from his Spatial Ring and covered the gaping hole in his chest, preventing himself from bleeding out immediately.

Right after that…

Micheal puked blood for the second time as he realized he was about to die.

‘No… I can’t just stop now…’ His thoughts grew muddled as he fell over to one side, landing on his right knee. Faintly, Micheal made out the presence of the Void Predator as it began to walk towards him again, letting out another taunting screech.

Even as Micheal lay dying, he managed to analyze what went wrong, learning from his mistake.

Advanced Tier Sword Energy was ridiculously sharp, capable of cutting through most substances. In the moment that the Void Predator attacked him with its tail, Micheal felt its tail rapidly vibrating.

While his Sword Energy did manage to slice perhaps a centimeter into the Predator’s tail, as soon as the creature’s tail made contact with his sword, its rapid vibrations shattered the weapon, rendering his technique useless.

The creature had used those rapid vibrations to allow it to nigh-soundlessly shear through the ground below to prepare its ambush, catching him off guard in an attack he had never before experienced.

‘I can not stop here.’ Micheal’s vision began to grow blurry as he tried to force himself to his feet.

His body was a battered wreck, covered in more scars than he could count. His injuries were fatal. All of his allies were dead or as good as dead, at the mercy of the Void Predator.

No one was coming to save him.

This was it.

A wave of despair descended upon Micheal and tried to overwhelm him as he struggled, memories flooding him.

Memories of his arrival on the First Layer, of the panic and horrors he faced.

Memories of the desperate efforts he made to grow stronger, of the hope and joy he felt when he reunited with Shin on the Second Layer

Memories of the grief and pain he felt as the Great War Between Races broke out, and the years of battle he, and the rest of humanity, was forced into followed.

Memories of Isabelle, the only woman he had ever truly loved, dying to his own hand.

Rage. Loss. Anger. Hopelessness. Despair. Agony.

Micheal was no stranger to these feelings… they were a part of him that he might not ever overcome.

But…

‘I will not give up here.’ He refused to let that stop him.

Micheal didn’t have a genius level of talent when it came to Sword Mastery.

He wasn’t a prodigy when it came to Ki Cultivation.

In the 6 plus years he had spent in the 7 Layers, he had seen countless warriors that were more skilled, more talented, and more experienced than himself.

However… if there was one thing that stood out, in particular, about Micheal…

It was that he did not give up.

Ever.

Micheal managed to pull his dying body to its feet dragging his right hand up in a guard position. He held his shattered sword out in front of him, between himself and the taunting Void Predator.

A faint string of Advanced Tier Sword Energy, the last bit he could muster up, covered the shattered edges of his sword.

He looked up at the towering Void Predator as it stopped a mere 2 and a half meters in front of him.

A lone, mortally wounded human wielding a broken sword facing off against an enormous, 3 meters tall monstrosity.

Micheal’s body shuddered against his will as a spurt of blood escaped his lips, fatigue threatening to overwhelm him.

The Void Predator looked at Micheal for a brief second before losing interest.

It attacked.

In Micheal’s tired eyes, this moment seemed to last an eternity.

As he saw the clawed hand of the Predator moving towards his head, he knew there was no way he could react fast enough. At that very moment, his death was cemented in stone.

As this realization hit him, all of a sudden, Micheal felt the tension within him relax.

There was nothing he could do to stop it.

He was going to die.

This was it.

It might seem paradoxical, but even then, as Micheal accepted his death…

He still had not given up.

In that final moment, a loose smile appeared on his face.

If he was going to die, then he might as well go down fighting.

Micheal raised his broken blade upward.

It was a meaningless gesture of protest, a final strike that should have done nothing. His Sword Energy was flagging, his sword barely usable, and his body in ruins.

He was certainly going to die.

But then…

He didn’t.

For the first time in his life, in that moment after he accepted his death and let go of the worries that chained him, at the precise moment where he raised his sword for one last attack…

Micheal entered Enlightenment.

His Advanced Tier Sword Energy shuddered, the red glow coalescing for a brief moment... 

...and gradually began to turn golden. 

.