Chapter 167: Mountaintops

Toren Daen

I emerged from the portal into the next zone, blinking in surprise as a wave of biting, cold air enveloped my face. I grunted in annoyance, surveying my surroundings and raising my hand against the harsh wind. I instinctively covered myself in a layer of fire mana, immediately feeling a hint of relief.

It looked like I was on a snowy mountainside, mirrored stone mountain peaks jutting out in every other direction. I turned in a slow circle, observing my surroundings.

"Damn," I said sourly. "Couldn't be an easy zone, could it?" I thought, looking at the distant peaks. Far, far away, there was an utterly massive mountain that thrust through the clouds. "And that's probably the exit, too," I muttered with irritation.

"These zones are a trial, Toren," Aurora thought to me. "You cannot escape that truth so easily."

I shook my head, dismissing those thoughts. This close to the entrance, I had a job to do. I withdrew a single item from my dimension ring.

A long, black carapace spike glowed with purple runes along its edge as it settled in my hand. According to Sevren, this was the tail of a small aether beast that was able to leave it as a trap while its body retreated into a sort of pocket dimension. By using the feedback between the tail and the body, the Denoir heir had managed to create tethers through dimensions.

I walked through the snow for a little bit, spotting a rock outcropping further up in the white expanse. Once I reached that bit, I slammed the spike into the rock, anchoring it there.

"That's part one done," I said, feeling my lips go dry from the cold. "Anchor set. Now I just need to–"

I was forced to swivel on my heel as I heard a rabid howling. Looking up, my eyes widened as they spotted a pack of large, white-furred wolves as they barrelled down the mountain slopes.

I drew Inversion as one of the creatures leapt at me, a maw filled with icy teeth flashing for my neck. The horn tore out its throat as it passed, its snarl becoming a whimper as blood coated the snow. The body–easily twice my size–tumbled down the mountainside, leaving splotches of red as it went.

The other wolves slowed as they saw me so easily dispatch one of their numbers. They circled me, their haunches raised as they snarled and snapped. I slowly turned, trying and failing to keep all these predators in my sight. One of the first lessons I'd learned in the Clarwood Forest so many months ago? Predators would always attack if your back was turned.

Sure enough, one of the wolves darted for me. Its skin was coated in a strange sort of ice as it leapt, trying to tackle me with its bulk.

I simply went low, creating a pushing current of telekinetic force over my head as I moved back slightly. Predictably, the wolf was sent tumbling toward its companions.

Need to move, I thought, building fire up along the soles of my boots. Can't let them reorganize.

So before any of the wolves could even move in surprise, I darted after the tumbling aether beast. Coating the edge of my weapon in a layer of vibrating sound, I brought it down like an ice pick over the aether beast's chest. Inversion pierced the thing's heart in a blur, blood splattering and steaming as it entered the cold air.

I was already moving before it was dead, throwing the body–which must have weighed at least five hundred pounds–toward a cluster of the lupine predators.

One of them dodged haphazardly to the side, the air stinking of sudden fear. The other was hit square-on, both sent into a tumble down the slopes in a rabble of barks and yowls.

I turned, rolling my shoulders as I looked at the couple remaining wolves. They backed away slowly, snarling as their quick-thumping lifeforces broadcasted their fear. I snarled back, flexing my killing intent. The blood of their brethren dripped off my arms.

The wolves whimpered, turning tail and fleeing down the slope. I watched them go with hard eyes, my breath steaming.

In that state of utter focus, I heard something caress my ears. A slight, slight heartbeat. A bare pitter patter of lifeforce that was so, so close.

I stabbed Inversion into the snow where I heard the heartbeat. I could see nothing and sense no mana, but I was surprised when I felt the blade pierce flesh. When I withdrew it, it was red with blood.

A pure-white rabbit with a single horn fizzed into existence near my feet. What I had once thought was snow seemed to shift entirely, showing the animal's corpse. My weapon had pierced its heart.

"It uses aether to mask its presence," Aurora thought in wonder, the Unseen World appearing around me as the shade inspected the rabbit with curiosity. "What novel prey!"

I looked at the rabbit's body for a bare moment, then turned to the massive central mountain that pierced the cloud cover. It was easily a few hundred miles away, and though I was fast, it would take me a long, long time to weave through the mountains around us and maintain expert speed.

However, the fact I could see so far into the distance did confirm a long-held question. Relictombs zones did not, in fact, have a curvature to mimic gravity.

But that was beside the point. If I wanted to make it to that summit on time–pun intended–then I needed a better way to travel.

"Hey, Aurora?" I asked. "Do you want to fly again?"

The shade stopped her inspection of the dead rabbit, piercing me with her burning suns. She read my thoughts as I sent them over, a truly genuine smile stretching over her face.

"I would love to," she said, raw excitement threading our bond.

—

I held the bronze relic as I imbued it with a measure of heartfire. I watched as Aurora's threads wove into the structure, the brooch shifting to become a small songbird in a flare of light.

I'd only done this once before, and it had been on instinct and pure terror as I faced down Mardeth at the headwaters of the Redwater. Now though, when I finally had time to think and do it properly?

I gently grasped the orange-purple puppet strings from Aurora's hands, ignoring the biting chill in the air with the strength of my part-asuran physique. With a bare tug, they disconnected from her control. The clockwork songbird went limp.

I moved the source of the threads, remembering Sevren's words just after he'd lost his arm. Then I pressed them against my core, allowing the heartfire veins to enwrap my nexus of energy and caress the phoenix feather within.

Immediately, I felt the draw from my reserves of lifeforce, but it wasn't as taxing as the first time. The more I healed myself; the more I used this energy? The more it regenerated with greater stores than before. Like a muscle being worked, I only needed to push myself.

I felt sweat bead on my face as aetheric heartfire rushed along the expanding cord connecting Aurora's feather to the djinn relic.

Then the bronze-colored metal seemed to unfold from itself, growing as my bond's spirit possessed its structure. I withheld a gasp of awe as the transformation took place, feeling as if I beheld, if just for a moment, the true majesty of the phoenix.

Aurora's relic now towered above me, easily two stories tall. A warmth radiated from the large bronze feathers, like that of an old steam boiler. Purple-orange mist puffed from bare cracks in the plumage, a chugging whir resonating from deep within the structure. Eyes like burning stars radiated amusement and anticipation far above.

My bond lowered her large beak to me, nustling my forehead as I brushed a reverent hand against the metallic surface.

"The last time I donned this cloak, I was forced to revert far too early," Aurora said aloud, a deep melodic timber to her voice that warmed me from my core. "Now, my son, you shall see the true wonder of flight. Know the right that I have bestowed upon you; the dominion of the air."

"The dominion of the air," I breathed, running my hand along the intricate artifact.

I slowly plodded around toward the relic's back, feeling a surreal sense of disbelief as I hesitantly mounted the massive metal machine, settling myself near the wings. The metal was warm under my hands.

"So, do I just–" I started.

But then Aurora's wings flapped. The sound was like that of clashing steel as her feathers rustled, the snow blown all around us in an expansive ring. Then she flapped them again.

I clasped my bond's neck, sensing what was about to happen. With a triumphant screech, Lady Dawn pushed the relic she inhabited off the ground with a powerful sweep of her bladed wings. Cold wind rushed past my face, biting through my barrier of fire mana as we rocketed straight up. I clenched my teeth against the pressure, feeling my stomach do little twists and turns in my chest.

"Free!" Aurora cried jubilantly as we ascended, faster and faster. I engaged my telekinetic emblem, lashing myself further to my bond for fear I would fall off. She didn't seem to mind. "We are free in the sky, Toren! Unburdened by the ground! Far from our struggles!"

Her joy was infectious as it streamed over our bond. I laughed aloud as we went higher and higher, the cold air no barrier to my bond. The heat she radiated kept me warm as the clouds slowly approached.

"Brace yourself, Toren!" she exclaimed as we neared the cloud layer. "The water is cold and biting!"

Following the advice of the phoenix, I thrust my hand forward, enveloping myself in a wall of pushing telekinesis. Then we hit the mist.

Water streamed around me as my white barrier absorbed the splash of condensation. Aurora cut a streak through the clouds as we ascended further.

And then we broke through, emerging as a butterfly breaks through their chrysalis. I whooped aloud as we were finally greeted by the atmosphere above, a nigh-infinite expanse of fluffy white only broken by the far-off point of a mountain peak: our destination.

I laughed lightly as I looked around, feeling a bit of awe. We were truly flying. I'd never imagined something like this in either world I'd lived in. From so far above, my perspective was so vast. I felt I could absorb the entire world into my eye.

"Is this how it always was for you?" I asked headily, staring out into the white infinity.

"It was one of my greatest joys, my son," Aurora crooned, flapping her wings as she evened out into a horizontal line toward the far-off peak. "And once you reach the white core, you too shall experience this freedom."

I sighed wistfully, allowing myself to imagine what that would be like. Being able to fly, free of the constraints of gravity?

I was still a long way away from white core. I was solidly in mid-silver stage, but the streaming mana from Aurora's feather wasn't purifying my core as fast as it had initially. The jump from silver to white core was more substantial than any others before.

"Once upon a time, the Asclepius clan were the greatest hunters in Epheotus," Aurora said loftily. "With our command of the skies, no prey escaped our sight, be they beast of mana or an enemy of the clan. Thus is your right, too, when you have grown enough to claim it."

I felt myself smile as we settled into a steady soar. Eventually, not even the skies would bar my way.

—

Several hours later, I laid back on my bond's metallic feathers, my pen scratching away at a notebook. I scribbled what bare observations I'd made of the zone into a pad, noting its temperature, aether beasts, and suspected ecosystem.

Snow rabbits may have potential use in some sort of illusion artifact, I jotted down, the wind brushing past my body. Ice wolf pelts likely have extraordinary insulating properties.

I looked up from my work, noting the fast-approaching mountain peak, jutting through the clouds like the fist of a god.

"I will revert my form when we reach the peak," Aurora said solemnly, "So you may fight whatever enemy awaits your challenge at the top."

I frowned. "Actually, Seris' words about fighting amidst a team bore some truth," I said against the wind. With a bare application of sound magic, none of it was lost to the thick breeze. "We're a team, Aurora. We should be able to fight as one. While we can't always do so in Alacrya for fear of Agrona noticing something off, on Dicathen we will have more leeway."

My bond tilted her avian head, looking back at me with one grateful burning eye. "Your words ring true, Toren," she said. "One day, I may thank Seris Vritra for her tutelage of you. Even if her lessons are imperfect."

I snorted. "Sounds to me like someone is jealous," I retorted as we nearly reached the mountaintop. I could almost make out the structure at the top. "You don't get the honorable title of being my only teacher anymore."

Aurora scoffed, the sound like a thresher of knives. "It is unseemly to accuse me of such baseless–"

My eyes widened as I spotted something hurtle toward us from the mountaintop, a streak of whitish blue. I opened my mouth to warn my bond, but she was already moving.

Aurora did a barrel roll, barely avoiding the speeding hunk of ice. In the process of rotating, I nearly dropped my pen and pad. I hastily stored them in my dimension ring, fearful the upcoming fight would take them from me.

I gritted my teeth as I leaned forward in my perch, focusing mana into my eyes to try and hone in on whatever had thrown that projectile. My hands held tightly to my bond's neck, but we were still a mile or two from our destination. I couldn't properly see yet.

"See what I see," Aurora said hastily, shifting to avoid another projectile. "Use my senses!"

I obliged, brushing my hand against the tether between us. Apparently, Aurora's relic granted her far superior eyesight to anything I could currently manage. I was granted a vision of the fast-approaching peak.

A large monster compacted ice in two of its four massive hands, each appearing strong enough to crush boulders. The thing looked like a classical depiction of a yeti; all white fur and blue-tinted skin. The other two of its arms held a massive club and shield respectively, each gleaming a deep crystalline blue.

The monster–easily thirty feet tall–tossed one of the compacted spheres of ice into the air, then swung with its club. The ice shot toward us with the unerring speed of a cannonball, easily crossing the mile-wide distance as it sought my bond's construct.

I hurled a fireball out, the streaking orange ball of mana colliding with the ice in a shower of steam and cold shards. I felt them sting against my skin as we continued to approach.

As we proceeded to get closer, however, the beast shifted tactics. It scraped ice from the ground in front of it, compacting the frozen water into its palms once more. Then it crunched its hands, creating myriad chunks of crushed ice. It revved its arm back, a savage snarl on its abominable visage, before throwing the tenderized ice.

Except as the infinitesimal shrapnel flew toward us, each glimmering sharp shard glowed with a purple sheen that seemed to refract the sunlight. Gradually, they slowed midair, that purple highlight intensifying.

The yeti proceeded to repeat the process a second and third time, throwing shrapnel that seemed to freeze in time. A glittering blue-purple wall of ice shards awaited us as we approached.

My eyes widened, connecting the dots. "Aevum!" I hissed. "That thing is slowing the time down for the shrapnel it touches!" I said frantically.

But that wouldn't work as an attack, unless–

Time resumed for a third of the ice shards, a hundred biting stings seeking to obliterate us. I pulled my head low, throwing up a barrier of fiery telekinesis as Aurora screeched in defiance. Were she a living, breathing creature, perhaps the peppering barrage of razor-sharp ice would have drawn innumerable cuts, causing her to stream blood onto the ground. I imagined that most other flying beasts would have their wings shredded by such an attack.

Then the other attack had time resume. Then the other. We were covered in a veritable hailstorm of sharp shards in a split instant, peppering across Aurora's bronze hide with innumerable dings and scrapes. Those that neared me were incinerated by my barrier of pushing fire, and only one made it through to shatter across my telekinetic shroud.

Aurora's wings flared wide as she howled in fury, a rumbling whir intertwined as we burst from the cloud of frost. Her talons thrust outward as they were coated in red plasma, the burning-sharp edges poised to rip out the throat of the yeti monster just beyond.

The thing grunted in abject surprise as the relic emerged unscathed, but it was faster than I expected. The yeti brought its thick blue shield in front of its face just in time, Aurora's talons carving deep, steaming divots into the material as she soared past.

The thirty-foot tall colossus, covered head to toe in white fur, roared in defiance as it turned to follow Aurora's ascent.

That was a mistake. Having leapt from my bond's back right before her first attack, I jumped up from the side, swinging a shrouded plasma blade toward its exposed arm. My Acquire Phase burned hot along my veins, guiding my swing with inborn instinct.

My weapon cut through flesh with ease, severing tendons and cauterizing where it passed. The arm–as thick around as my torso–fell limp as the thing roared. The many-armed yeti whirled with impossible speed, its massive club breaking the air as it swung it in an underhand sweep toward me.

The purple-sheened club rent stone and ice from the mountaintop as it streaked toward me like the cudgel of a giant. I barely dodged to the side, the wind from its passing pushing me back.

The chips of gravel and frozen water that streaked from the cudgel's impact slowed in the air, that violet hue holding them tight like a wall. The giant charged after me, its footsteps like the rumble of a bass drum. I only had a split second to think.

Aurora! I thought to my bond. Don't let that thing hit you! Its touch gradually slows the time of whatever it hits!

"I understand!" she thought back.

I couldn't afford to make a single mistake in close quarters. Slamming a mindfire stamp into the ground beneath me, I rocketed backward, throwing a compressed grenade of fire and sound at the monster's face.

Its shield raised to smash through my spell, but I allowed it to detonate first. A wave of fire and ringing noise exploded like a flashbang, causing the creature to roar as it stumbled backward, its fur singed and smoking.

My bond didn't let the opening go. She hovered at the side, her beak wide and brimming with power. A beam of solid red plasma streaked from her maw, the light continuing in an unerring path for its target. The yeti wavered as it put its icy shield–still scraped through from Aurora's claws–in front of its torso.

The plasma impacted the icy shield with the force of a truck, but the yeti held strong even as its icy protection began to slowly melt. Through it all, Lady Dawn's construct continued to edge closer as she maintained her position, forcing the large yeti to hold ground. It roared in defiance, one arm drooping from where I'd cut it before.

"I can not hold this beam for long, Toren!" my bond cried across my mind. Her constructs mana reserves were fueled by the constant energy pouring from her feather. If her expenditure outpaced that buildup, she'd only have the metal on her claws. "Make it count!"

The yeti's other free hand scraped against the ground, picking up a large boulder and preparing to throw it at Aurora as she flapped in the sky, a solid plasma beam locking them both in place. But I wasn't about to let that happen.

I blurred forward from a mindfire stamp, my shrouded saber focused through Inversion. The humming red plasma blade held a singular purpose as I levered it, prepared to capitalize on the yeti's predicament.

It saw me coming first. It grunted as it tried to throw the boulder at me instead, hoping I'd be warded off. I smelt the fear in the yeti's blood as I pulled on the several tons of stone hurtling toward me, flipping over it and using its forward momentum to launch me even closer.

Evidently recognizing me as a threat, the yeti tried to disengage from Lady Dawn's attack. But as she had said earlier, the Asclepius clan were the greatest hunters in Epheotus. My phoenix bond knew when prey would try and move; attempt to avoid their own demise.

When the massive creature tried to shift its melting buckler out of the way and sidestep, Aurora adjusted slightly in the air. The red beam of plasma shifted, burning a hole the size of my torso into the giant's shoulder. It roared in pain, but clearly not enough.

It turned, swinging its purple-clad club at me. I hit the ground as I blurred forward, bending backward at an angle that would have put me in physical therapy for a month had I tried it on Earth. I skidded on my shins as it passed a hair's breadth from my nose. The ice carried me along smoothly as I sprung back up, narrowly avoiding the monster's massive foot as it tried to kick me.

I felt my heart in my ears as I peppered the creature with fireshot, but it only served to singe the creature's fur. It roared as it turned desperately, failing to swat me away like the biting fly I was. Lady Dawn, unable to act for fear of catching me in the blast, circled nervously on high, her magic prepared.

I swung my saber across the heel of the monster as I skated between its legs, hearing the grunt of pain and thunderous crash of its body hitting the ice once its balance gave out. Without the thing's mobility, it would be a rat in a cage as Aurora and I wore it down from the air and the ground. I skidded to a brief stop, rotating and using the time-frozen chunks of gravel and ice from earlier to keep my balance. Then I spun, ready to finish the fight.

And I watched as the world began to gradually speed up. As if I were watching a time-lapsed video, the yeti began to push itself to one knee, a triumphant smirk slowly, slowly splitting its savage maw.

I realized it almost the instant it happened. It caught me somehow, I thought, feeling panicked. My time is slowing down! I'll be like a frozen statue before long!

I heard a flash of Aurora's voice, but it came as if it were from a sped-up recording. I couldn't make sense of what she was trying to tell me.

By touching the frozen rubble behind me, the effect had somehow transferred to my body instead.

Before the yeti could turn me into a wet stain on the ground, however, Lady Dawn's relic smashed into it from above. Its leg crumpled as she tried to pin it down, her beak and talons ripping and tearing at its fur-laden flesh. Blood and gore spread as it tumbled to the ground from her bulk, the movements occurring faster and faster.

I started trying to run, slamming a mindfire stamp into the ground as I attempted to approach. But it was as if the world were moving on without me, leaving my panicked mind behind as it continued on its way.

Aurora pinned the arm holding the cudgel, fighting to stop it from swinging with the fury of a bound asura. But she was half the thing's size, and while I'd disabled one arm and she pinned another, it still had more than enough to work with.

The yeti covered its face with one massive arm, then slammed a purple-clad punch into Aurora's side with another. I expected her to slow down, too. And for a moment, our thoughts were almost in sync again.

Then the fire in her relic pulsed loudly, and she was back to struggling to keep the thing down, unburdened by the time-slowing spell as it shattered like glass.

My heartfire! I thought desperately, recognizing the effect. I can push away the effects with my aetheric lifeforce!

Realizing I didn't have much time, I stoked my heartbeat. I prodded at the central organ in my body, commanding it to beat faster. To beat harder. I felt an almost painful squeeze as the organ accepted, and then I pushed.

To my own ears, it was as if thunder rumbled. My heartfire flared with one massive beat as energy rushed along my veins, fighting against the effects of this monster's aetheric spell. I felt my orange-purple lifeforce thrum across my body,, a reinvigorating feeling of warmth following in its wake. For a moment, I was afraid it hadn't worked. That I'd be condemned to being a statue forever, watching the world around me move on at the top of a frozen mountain peak. I'd be a testament to human hubris, attempting to scale the rock and left standing at the top, yet never able to go down.

The aetheric spell holding me shattered into a million glittering purple particles, flashes of orange-magenta tearing it away as I roared. I felt a deep weariness threading through my muscles just from that single pulse of my heart, but I couldn't afford to stop now.

The yeti pushed Aurora's relic off of it at last, tearing out a large handful of bronze feathers as it did so. It tossed her away, struggling and trying to get up.

I snarled in fury as my shrouded saber cut off the hand holding the cudgel, searing through the limb like a hot knife through butter. I didn't relent, whirling as I threw Inversion at the creature. It embedded right over the creature's breast, blood splashing and steaming as it hit the ground.

It roared in agony, but Lady Dawn's plasma-laden talons deprived it of the other hand that tried to swat at me. I sent her a quiet thanks as she pinned the last arm. The yeti kicked and roared, spittle and blood flying as it sensed its doom approaching.

I hopped up onto its chest, then seized the handle of Inversion. My body felt sore and weak, my heartfire strained from that single pulse I'd used to escape the aetheric time stop. But as I slowly drew the heartfire from the struggling monster's body through the stake in my hands, that fatigue washed away somewhat.

The struggling of the beast slowed as I siphoned its lifeforce, the hateful snarl on its visage slackening as its soul was untethered from its vessel. When I was done, I felt like my body was fit to burst from the excess aetheric energy that was barely contained by my will.

The yeti's eyes stared hollowly up at the howling sky above us, the blood and scorch marks splattering the clearing around us the largest indicator of our struggle. I slumped as I withdrew Inversion from the corpse, sending a silent thought of acknowledgment to the fallen enemy.

Aurora wasn't so subtle. Her massive metal form–which looked mostly unbothered by the whole ordeal, save a few scorch marks and a handful of feathers missing–moved over to me with a visible tension vibrating through the brass fittings of her relic.

"Toren," she said quickly. "I could feel the effects of that spell over our bond. Are you well?"

I smiled, giving my bond's metal head a grateful hug as I cherished the warmth she emitted. "I'm good. I… I panicked there for a second, but the way your relic resisted the effect gave me the clue I needed."

She ruffled her metal feathers with the sound of sharpening knives, pulling her head back as she gazed down at the shriveled corpse beneath us. "It was a worthy foe," she said quietly. "Though no match for you."

"For us," I corrected, walking with heavy feet toward the creature's severed hand. In its grip was a bundle of the relic's bronze feathers, each as long as my arm.

Sevren can probably do something with these, I thought, noting how they retained a bit of the heartfire within. I'll see if he has any ideas.

I stashed them in my dimension ring, then turned back to the corpse, feeling a strange bit of reverence for the fallen monster. I wondered how long it had stood vigil at the top of this plateau, waiting for a challenger to approach like a sentinel. The djinn likely gave it that singular purpose. For how many millennia had it waited?

"Aurora," I said, feeling the biting chill of the wind on my back, "What rites did the Asclepius clan give to fallen prey?"