Chapter 14 - Cast a Shadow

"I'll make sure nothing interrupts you."

With those final words, Kiran disappeared from sight, leaving Osias alone in the clearing. The silence was deafening, the weight of his brother's absence heavy on his shoulders. But as he gripped his blade tighter, Osias felt a spark of resolve ignite within him. He would face the challenges ahead, and he would emerge stronger.

No elaborate tricks or schemes—this was a boar, driven by wild instincts and keen senses. At this distance, it could already smell Osias. 

And just as Osias thought of this, the boar suddenly lifted its head, its sharp ears and fat snout twitched. Osias froze, his breath catching.

'It's coming.'

He recalled the Band's teaching. To display intricate levels of essence control, to make full use of the essence you reave from the death of others. To precisely strengthen the proper parts of one's body at the right time in a beautiful blend of violence and skill. To not waste essence in case one finds himself amidst a battle without replenishment. 

However, this was the only premise of the War Art that Osias was aware of. He lacked the knowledge to use and control his essence in such a way, and much of his time within the Band was busy with Garm and the tattoos. He wasn't taught the methods of utilizing his essence in this way. 

So he will supplement this lack of knowledge with his endless amount of essence and rudimentary, yet wasteful control of essence. 

He was sure that Kiran would teach him as they traveled, though.

Bringing his attention to the rushing figure, Osias immediately thought to use the many trees that littered the space between them to avoid the charge. 

With a snort, the boar turned, its small, beady eyes locking onto Osias. For a heartbeat, time seemed to stretch thin. Then, the beast charged, a blur of muscle and fury. Osias stood his ground, waiting until the last moment before dashing to his side and slashing at the boar's flank. 

Blood sprayed, and the boar let out a pained squeal, but it wasn't done yet. It wheeled around, tusks slashing through the air.

The struggle was fierce, and the boar was relentless in its attacks.

Osias danced around it, landing blows where he could, his movements growing more confident with each passing moment. 

'Keep moving!'

He couldn't remain stagnant, it was his death if he let the hulking mass crash into him. Still, in this brief exchange, Osias came to know how agile this creature was. 

Yet, Osias continued to weave between obstacles and lashed his short blade to its sides and flank. 

Blood spilled from the boar's many wounds, it began to show its growing weakness. But fighting amidst the undergrowth was tedious. Stray roots, saplings, and wet earth scattered the ground. And the moment Osias moved in for a deeper blow the boar jerked awkwardly, against its usual course of movement — it began to turn away to run. 

This was all that was needed for Osias to lose his balance just slightly, and as he brought his foot forward to poise himself, his rear foot caught a stray root. 

An opportunist, the boar was — it almost immediately abandoned its daring escape as it dashed towards the bold, yet small human child. 

At once, Osias brought forth his blade, a pitiful attempt to deflect a charging mountain, something that outweighed him miserably. 

Yet he should've been able to inflict a wound at least…

And then the bristled and furious head of the boar came upon him.

The awkward angle knocked his blade away, his arms too weak against the force. 

A terrible impact resounded through his bones as the boar carried him off his feet and slammed him against a great trunk, curling Osias at his torso in a violent boom. 

The bark contorted and split, a shallow human-shaped impression was impossibly stamped into the rigid tree. 

His bones, stronger than many of the Ordinary, tempered and saturated by his ever-growing reservoir of essence held. 

But the dreadful blow takes the wind from his lungs. His mind froze from the impact, needing moments to register. 

Osias gritted his teeth and groaned, feeling his entire body being crushed against a mere boar against a tree. It wasn't even a Path Beast. And yet he felt as though he was being crushed to death, unable to draw in a breath despite the agony. 

Anger flowed along with hatred. Not at the boar, but at himself. He should be defeating Path Beasts, not Ordinary!

Something like this was for other Ordinaries, not him. 

The boar's snout was tightly pressed against his body. One of Osias's arms was pressed tightly against his own body, and the other was wedged between himself and the tree… but just barely he could wrestle it out. 

He just needed to free it.

He just needed to wait until its heavy head tipped more onto his left, easing the pressure on the other side just enough to free his arm. 

"Agh!"

Until then, the boar ruthlessly dug deeper into the ground as it sought to drive its entire head into him. And then it audaciously gnawed at Osias, with its tusk-like teeth. 

Osias's body was more resilient than other children of his age, and yet the suffocating pressure of the boar threatened to cave in his torso. 

But then it happened. 

The moment he needed. 

His right arm was wedged behind his back, bare against the splintering sharp bark of the tree. Bloodied and mangled, he heaved his arm back to its rightful place at his side and brought it the the lowered head of the boar.

He viciously stuck his thumb into the boar's eye. 

A tremoring squeal was sounded in response, but Osias paid no heed to it. All he knew was that it stopped trying to devour him. 

He wriggled his thumb within its socket as he hooked and pulled what was left of the disfigured eye. 

And yet the boar's pressure remained. It intended to crush him first and eat his lifeless corpse after.

Osias quickly moved to its ear and ignited his essence from the muscles and bones of his shoulder stretching to the very tips of his finger as he sought to rip apart its ear. 

A revolting sound of flesh being torn blared in unison with the heavy grunts of the boar as it began to almost reconsider its choices, eager to save its own life.

Osias had blood running down his lips, but he earnestly tore apart and separated its ears from its body. 

Dipping his hand into the open canal, he greedily absorbed the blood essence of the Ordinary boar. 

Delighting in the senseless thrill of the weakening beast, Osias managed to pull his other arm as the boar tried to pull back just slightly to batter him again. 

Clutching down on the ear within his palm, he made a fist as he hammered downwards against the skull of the boar, shaking its already waned will. His other, now free, hand wrapped against the head of the boar to continue to thrive its blood.

Each blow loosened the pressure that pushed Osias against the tree, and just then after an uncountable amount of hammering strikes, the boar valued its own life more than taking Osias's. 

It turned around the moment Osias dropped to his feet.

Yet like a beast himself, Osias frothed at the mouth as he lept forward on all fours to catch the hind leg of the boar. He wouldn't let the audacious boar escape. 

He pulled the weakened boar's leg with his battered hand to his mouth as he bit and ripped apart the bristled fur that covered its ankle. 

With both hands he absorbed more of its blood, draining it of its vitality until the leg felt weak and useless. 

It was then that Osias let go, and hobbled to where his short blade landed amidst the chaos as the boar tried to scamper and crawl away as it bled out. Yet its hollow leg betrayed it. 

As Osias bent over to grab the blade, he wondered what Kiran might have done if Osias died here instead of the damned boar. Would he just… accept it? 

He did not bear to think of it. Osias pushed those needless thoughts aside as the pain throbbed, deep in his fingers as he clutched his blade's hilt. Osias welcomed the pain to wash away his doubts. 

Having retrieved his blade, Osias came before the weak boar. It was desperate running through the lasting embers of its life as its hooves kicked and struggled against the earth. It's sickly tongue lolling from its mouth and heavy grunts sounded as if it was begging, begging for mercy. 

Looking down on the labored boar, Osias haughtily brought the blade above his shoulders between deep breaths, winding up a powerful strike, essence flowing and all.

Osias himself would not like to die like this. 

Osias feared death. Very much so that he clung to life direly… so he much preferably wouldn't like to die at all. All the time within Garm's chambers only tempered his will to live. He very well knew that the other kids died, but he didn't. He prided himself on this triumph, even when it felt as though he was dishonoring the others by surviving. 

But… if he must die one day, then Osias would like to perish peacefully, perhaps from age. Something like that was rare, yet Osias recalled that it meant you lived life to its fullest. 

And so seeing the boar wailing in pain and as rooted in place as though it was trussed and bounded… Osias could only steel himself in response to the execution. He fought through his weariness with his disdain as he sought to snuff the life out of the boar.

And then he swung.

The boar's head separated from its inordinately stout neck, through the bristled fur and its bones. 

It would've been a dirty cut had his blade been a touch shorter and not well within the First Ordeal.

But even then, it didn't matter, for why would a boar care for a dirty death if all its life it had lived dirty? 

As the boar died, Osias let out an exhausted heave. But it was only natural. Just how many of his age could fight and kill something that can maul multiple Ordinary men? 

He spat out the foul blood that rose to his mouth and he hobbled his way towards where he thought Kiran was headed, not before draining the boar of all its blood essence. 

Osias noted his brother's absence, true to his word, Kiran wasn't going to help him. Even if he died. 

But Kiran didn't say he needed to kill the boar. 

'I could've run away if I deemed it necessary.'

"Hehe." 

Osias morbidly laughed. He was bloodied, and hurting all over, yet he laughed. It was too funny to him. 

Despite the condition of his body, he felt… good. As if the rust was washed away despite the damage. 

Looking up to the sky, he found the sun was at its peak, shining down on Osias despite being canopied by overhanging trees. 

And as he looked at the fallen boar once more, his eyes slowly trailed to his own shadow. 

His shadow was his own, and not within Kiran's.

—

Kiran's eyes narrowed as he stood over the fallen beast, the metallic tang of blood ran thick in the air. He raised his spear, its blade head glistening with the crimson allure of battle. 

He swung in a swift, sweeping arc, and his spear sounded a sharp hiss as it sliced through the air. But he halted the spear abruptly, causing the blood to fling off the blade in a spray that arced wildly through the air before splattering onto the ground. 

Yet it couldn't wash the spear of its aged stains of blacked blood and chipped metal. 

He sighed deeply, it was time to leave it behind. It wouldn't last any longer…

And so he pointed it down and stabbed through the earth, wedging it deeply. 

He then dipped his hand into the perished beast at its side and he slowly pulled a ghastly spear, made in the same image as the one that was just in hand. 

Crimson, and solid, it was as though it was made from piles of ancient, dried blood all coagulated into the shape of his spear. 

It was an odd commemoration for an old tool. Corpses lay strewn across the rubble, and his spear was embedded in the center amidst its fallen foes. But it seemed fitting.

Just then, a piercing squeal sounded off in the distance, something that Kiran's senses as a Second Ordeal couldn't miss. 

"Good." 

And with a single word in acknowledgment, Kiran continued to clear this face of the mountain of its abominations, all adding to his crimson spear.

—

Osias returned to Kiran's side, following the stench of metal in the air, only to find trees and undergrowth splattered in a mess of blood. 

A pack, and from what Osias understood, it was a mixture of Ordinary beasts along with their ascended partners of the First Ordeal. 

Looking at the disfigured and drained corpses, Osias turned the thick-furred beast over to see more of its changes as it went through an Ordeal. 

They derived from a… small four-legged Ordinary beast, Osias didn't know of its name. Brown short fur lined its small lithe body, mottled with patches of dark black tones. It couldn't have been larger than Osias's forearm. 

But as a First Ordeal Path Beast, they grew as large as mutts. Skinny a hollow-like, and their bodies were contorted with a haunting grace, their once dainty limbs now elongated and twisted grotesquely.

Lifting his head, Osias found the pack to number in the dozens:

"Brother, why did they have the Ordinary follow them? Just one of them could slaughter the rest."

Kiran pointed to the Ordinary beast's corpse, his spearhead pushed right against its leg.

"Bait."

Tracing Kiran's spear, Osias found a small… cut right above their heel. On both hindlegs. 

'So they can't run away?' 

It was a little cruel, Osias thought. For the Path Beasts to reduce their Ordinary counterparts to mere bait. 

"They left these little ones to distract me as they ran away, eager for their survival," Kiran said as he extracted the last of the corpses and added:

"Let's go, I'll take the front. Your wounds are still within the limits of natural recovery so we'll rest atop this mountain before braving the mist."

"Mm."

Although Kiran said that he'd be taking care of the front, Osias was sure that some beasts' would come his way 'coincidentally'. 

They continued their march, following the tree line. 

It seemed that this mountain in particular was just… empty. As empty as a mountain within the Outer Valleys could be. 

Of course, the Heron's mountain was more than empty — desolate even. Omitting the 'pack' of those large dark abominations atop the summit and the Heron itself there was nothing,not even Ordinary creatures dwelled there. 

That was a one-off case. 

But this last mountain in the range was considerably weaker in both quality and quantity of Path Beasts. 

They have yet to encounter a single Second Ordeal, much less a Third Ordeal. 

'Then what about that loud roar that we heard earlie-'

A thunderous crash resounded through the air, and a guttural bellow followed it...