A Familiar Stranger

Kantan was about to step forward in an attempt to intercept the spider, but Lyra was ahead of him. With her bracer held high to shine toward the ceiling, she quickly crouched before she launched at the nearest pillar. Like a springboard she used that pillar to dash between them, reaching the ceiling with a feline grace. A pure white energy seemed to pulse throughout her legs and hips, allowing him to see the glow of chi being used.

He wanted to be surprised, but he had always known that she would awaken her core. Kantan could not think of a time where things did not go the way she wanted them to, as if destiny itself wanted her to succeed. That fact had actually been a wedge for them at one point when he had lost his parents. He had snapped at her for having a perfect life, even though he knew that wasn't true.

Now that he was seeing her move so naturally with her chi, he was tempted to see how she handled the spider. If she began to struggle, he would help her. His instincts told him that the spider was not simple, the sheer weight of the creatures chi was enough to tell him that it was nearing its second evolution. It wasn't on the brink of being a rank 2 demon, but it wasn't far off either. The difference between a rank 1 creature that was just average and one nearing rank 2 surprised Kantan slightly, as he hadn't thought the gap in strength had been that large.

Lyra had just gotten to the height needed to strike the charging spider, and with a preternatural grace she struck out with one of her blades. At the same time one of the spiders blade-like legs moved to intercept the strike. He could see confidence on both Lyra and the demon, both of them seeming to think the other easy prey. A loud clang of metal on metal echoed throughout the room as both the spider and Lyra were shot away from each other.

Lyra was shot back with significantly more force than she had expected though, as she was unable to orient herself in time. Her right leg clipped the pillar she had jumped off of last, causing her to flip violently to the ground. At the last second before she landed, Kantan saw her flash out one of her blades toward the ground. A strong surge of light accompanied her arm as a hefty pulse of chi empowered her attack. Kantan's eyes opened in shock as he recognized that she was attacking the ground to cancel out her fall. Unfortunately the short sword couldnt handle the force, and it snapped under the tension, leading her to collapse on the ground.

The spider on the other hand, had clung to the metallic threads of it's webbing leading it to fly away from their clash. Shortly after though, it quickly picked up speed as its webbing acted like a rubber band and shot it back down towards Lyra at high speed. Kantan could tell the she would not be able to right her self in time to defend against the attack. Even if she could have gotten her blade up to guard against it, the sheer force of the spider's weight at that speed would have crushed her. Knowing that the spider was much stronger than the average demon on this floor, he activated his chi and flooded his legs.

As soon as the flood of power reached his coiled muscles, he launched to intercept the spider. His speed was significantly better than normal rank 1 demons when his chi was active, putting him near the same level as the spider. They both had rank 1 bodies, and both were using chi. Knowing that even with his body being rank 1 he couldn't take the impact from the spider, he instead shot out a punch which aimed to knock it off course.

The spider had been monitoring him though, and once he began to move to intercept it, the spider shifted in the air and brought up its legs in a cross guard of its abdomen. Kantan landed his punch, causing the spider to fly toward the far wall of the room before impacting and chipping the stone wall slightly.

…

Lyra knew that she had messed up. Something in her leg was seriously not alright, but she couldn't be sure of just what yet. Adrenaline pulsed through her body like a tsunami, numbing the pain of the injury like the greatest of morphine. She was trying to right herself on the floor, and only barely managed to look up in time to see the spider slingshot back toward her. She could see the glint of the bracer's light off the creature's limbs as they highlighted her incoming death. Each of the various dungeon rooms had been significantly easier than she had thought they would be. Most of her rooms had been combat oriented, with the last one being a puzzle room. After encountering the first imp and awakening her chi, she had only encountered rooms with rank 0 demons that couldn't keep up with her empowered movement.

Since she had the essence exchange artifact, and her chi was still pure, it was able to produce much more for her to absorb than if she had a specific aspect. Her progress was smooth, and the last puzzle room had barely been a challenge at all. When she came into this room, she had assumed that it would continue to be as easy as it had been. She didn't recognize the spider demon, but since it was on the first floor, she simply thought it was a rank 1 creature at most like the imp.

As soon as she clashed with it though, she knew that things were dire. It was hard to tell, but after getting closer to it her instincts were giving her a warning unlike man of the other demons she had encountered thus far. The force of its strike against her blade had felt like a mountain was rushing into her, and she was unable to cope against the raw power it exerted. She had made a mental note on the way down to not attack demons on their own playing field again, a lesson she hoped that she would get to put to use later.

The speed of the incoming spider was too fast though, and her right leg wasn't responding correctly. Her chi reserves were around a quarter of her capacity after she burned most of it to cushion her fall. She tried to mobilize her chi in a last ditch effort to blast herself away from the line of the spider's charge, but she was interrupted before she could. From out of nowhere a humanoid figure blurred into her vision, a punch already traveling to intercept the spider.

Lyra was shocked and confused about what she was seeing. Another human was in her dungeon room? It wasn't unheard of, but typically it didn't happen during a person's trial run. The frame was taller, easily over 6 feet with broad shoulders and a tapered back. The figure looked distinctly male, and was clothed in hole ridden and stained Astaire clan clothes. Despite the man's quick speed, the spider reacted by closing its legs in a defensive posture before being launched to the wall to her left.

Relief flooded over her once the threat was gone, but something nagged at her despite being saved. She wasn't able to pinpoint why, but some primal part of her feared the presence of the man in front of her. Her instincts were telling her that he was significantly stronger than her, which shouldn't have been a problem as he had saved her. The man shifted his stance slightly, taking on a fighting style that sent a shiver down her spine.

Lyra had seen that stance countless times throughout her life, both from afar and up close. It was a stance that wasn't common in the Astaire clan because it was something only one family had brought from another clan. For the person in front of her to practice this martial arts could not be a coincidence, as only 2 people in the entire clan had trained in it to her knowledge. The first was a grand elder of the sect who had single handedly turned away a foreign sect's army after joining the clan. The second was her best friend Kantan, who had not shown up to take his trial today like the rest of the students.

Her heart seemed to contract uncomfortably as she moved her light bracer enough to bring detail to the shadowed figure clad in the darkness of the dungeon. As the light washed over the man, Lyra became dazed as she tried and failed to process the image in front of her.

Instead of the tan skinned, long black haired boy she had been friends with most of her life, she saw a slightly haggard man with ash gray skin. His hair was almost stark white while his forehead was adorned by two small black polished horns that reflected the golden light of the bracer. His expression was neutral, but a dark grayish power seemed to course over his body. She could tell that the amount of chi he exuded dwarfed her meager supply, and the lean corded muscle rippled as he moved.

She had never seen someone with the traits this man carried, leading her to believe that something was very wrong. Her body seemed to move without her active thought as chi raced to her arm. The man had suddenly reached out to grab her, the heavy power he radiated making her react instinctively in an attempt to flee.

The man was fast though, and before she could make a move he had grabbed her arm and yanked her toward him. Something sharp pierced the skin on her arm and it was then that she saw the charcoal colored claws that were digging into her. She couldn't prevent the scream of pain that jumped out of her throat, but suddenly a sharp sounding thud landed just behind her.

The man quickly grabbed her into a more traditional over the shoulder carry before turning around to quickly gain some distance. Just before the world blurred around her, she could see that the space she had been crumpled in was impaled by thin metallic strings that raced back to the web spinner of the spider. He had just saved her life for a second time. Then the world blurred into darkness as all of the blood raced to her head.