Sunscorch (Rise To Omniscience Book 8)

by Aaron Oster

  “Why did we come here?” Morgan asked, looking around the underground laboratory.

  “Because this was where you and I were first born,” the Beast King said. “It’s our earliest memory. Look, there we are.”

  Morgan turned, seeing a much younger-looking Samuel dressed in a long coat. Loquin, as stunningly beautiful as he remembered, was standing to his right, while he inserted a needle into a tube in the side of the tank.

  Floating within was a gross, lumpy mass of pulsating tissue, but in it, he could recognize himself. The only question was how he could remember this.

  “They’re my memories, actually,” the Beast King said. “But, seeing as we are technically one and the same, what’s mine is yours and vice versa.”

  Morgan didn’t really understand how until he saw what was happening to the yet-to-be-formed version of himself. Small black lines were appearing beneath the thin surface of the blob and slowly forming into small appendages. It was only then that Morgan realized what was happening.

  “This was the moment that I was injected with your DNA,” Morgan said, watching Samuel step back from the tank while Loquin took notes.

  “Give me a prize!” the Beast King said. “Yes, this is the moment the two of us became one.”

  “But where did you come from if we were going to be the first?” Morgan asked, looking around for another tank and not finding one.

  For once, the Beast King didn’t seem to have an answer, his face growing a bit more somber as the world seemed to blur around them. Figures flashed about, moving as though sped up in time, and suddenly, Morgan was staring at a much more complete version of himself, still floating in the liquid, but now noticeably more human. Still, there were some cosmetic differences that he knew for certain that he didn’t have.

  The small skin-colored tail drifting in the tank behind the small infant made him feel nauseous, and the small protrusions where wings were starting to grow definitely didn’t feel right.

  Morgan looked over to the Beast King, only to see confusion showing on his face as well. It seemed he didn’t know everything.

  “The experiment is failing. You know that, right?”

  Both Morgan and the Beast King turned to see Samuel striding toward the tank with Loquin right on his heels.

  “You don’t need to tell me the obvious, Locky,” Samuel replied. “We’re pulling the plug on this one. Do we have the sample we need for the next batch?”

  In response to his question, Loquin held up a small vial of dark red liquid, and Samuel nodded. Then, he walked over to the tank where the baby was floating and yanked the feeding and air tubes away, leaving the small infant to drown.

  Morgan clutched at his throat reflexively, the horror he felt reflected on the Beast King. The world sped up again then, and when it slowed this time, the lab looked just a little different. A new mass of tissue floated in the tank, and Samuel was injecting something into it. Loquin stood at his side and handed him the same vial they’d seen before.

  “Maybe this time it’ll stay in one piece long enough for us to study and see where we’ve been going wrong,” Samuel said.

  They stepped back after the injection and watched the baby for several moments, then small bumps began appearing on the child’s skin. It began to shake within the tank, and the world abruptly sped up once more. This happened dozens more times, and when it finally stopped for about the hundredth time, Morgan felt completely numb.

  “How many versions did they try before they finally succeeded?” he asked as he watched Samuel and Loquin inject another batch into their latest subject.

  “I…I thought it was only the one,” the Beast King said, watching yet another failed experiment. “I can understand seeing the first, but all of these?”

  Morgan thought he understood now, though. Every new child they tried to inject with the correct dosage all shared a bit of their DNA. So, technically, these were all versions of him. The only difference was that they never made it. It made him wonder if he might have had a brother, if not for all of this manipulation and callous discarding of one baby after the next.

  It made him wish he could drag Samuel back from the grave so that he could kill him all over again. Finally, after witnessing countless more versions perish, they reached a scene that Morgan knew he recognized.

  “Looks like we’ve finally arrived at the moment of my birth,” he said, watching the small humanoid version of himself floating in the tank.

  The story played out this time as he remembered. The core formed early, and they shut it down for good. This was when Samuel decided to create the Pinnacle Kings instead of trying to create a single monster he could control. But this was where the Author had intervened, assuring that Morgan lived to return another day.

  “Did you enjoy that trip down memory lane?” Morgan asked as the world went white, leaving them to stare at one another with nothing to distract them. “Still think this was a good idea?”

  “Maybe not the best I’ve ever come up with,” the Beast King admitted, seeming to come back to himself now that the lab was gone. “Still, if anything, this proves that we’re even closer than you think.

  “Thousands of failed experiments, and yet here we are, against all odds. This is proof that we are truly one and the same, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner we can get to the part where I absorb you for good.”

  It was hard to argue with his logic, especially after witnessing what he had. But Morgan couldn’t just allow himself to believe that this creature was a part of him. Not truly. They had been separate entities once, until they had been joined together, which meant that they weren’t the same, but two different people forced into the same body. They had been made to coexist, then were left to battle with on a near-constant basis.

  Just the thought of it all made his head hurt, which was impressive, seeing as he didn’t technically have a corporeal form in here.

  “We are the same, and we’re not,” he finally said. “We were two separate beings before…”

  “And now, we’re not,” the Beast King said. “We have been together for thousands of years. Originally, there was no human or Beast. Only one. But, as you grew a conscience, we started fragmenting, splitting apart, and becoming separate entities. Perhaps we should visit that point in time. The time when your mind split and one became two.”

  Before Morgan could argue, the two of them were standing outside the Ruined City, watching as a small boy stumbled toward a woman. He was watching the burning city with a mixture of horror and sorrow.

  Morgan could feel his heart become tighter in his chest as Gwendolyn reached down and tapped his head, removing the memory of the destroyed city. The two of them followed her then, watching as he turned into a happy and carefree child, the type that anyone his mental age should be.

  But then came the night at the inn, and unlike in his previous memories, when it had been blanked out, Morgan was now able to watch it in all its bloody glory.

  He and the Beast King stood at the center of the inn, watching as assassins closed in on Gwen from all sides. She moved with poise and grace, dodging between attacks and giving as good as she got, but she’d been taken off guard by the ambush and was beginning to lose ground. Then, they looked up as they heard a cry of pain, and Morgan saw himself get hauled up by the neck by the large brute.

  “Surrender now, or the kid gets it!” the burly man threatened.

  “Please don’t hurt him!” Gwen begged.

  One of the other men struck her, and Gwendolyn went down. In that moment, the Beast King was born.

  Morgan had never seen it happen, only remembering the aftermath, in which Gwen had tried to protect him from seeing what he’d done. But with the Beast King here with him, he got to witness what happened firsthand.

  Violet light burst from his small body, and the man who’d been holding him cried out in alarm, releasing him and staggering back against the railing. The younger Morgan dropped to his hands and knees as the power raged arou
nd him, lashing out at the walls, ceiling, and men around him. He clutched at his head and howled like a wounded animal, rolling on the ground to try and alleviate the pain.

  “What the hell is going on up there?” one of the men yelled.

  “The kid’s gone nuts!” the man on the balcony replied. “What do I do?”

  “Just kill it!” the man downstairs called up. “We don’t need any more trouble!”

  Shrugging to himself, the brute drew a dagger, then advanced on the small child. He got down on one knee, then raised the dagger high, preparing to plunge it into the writhing child’s neck.

  “Oh, this is my favorite part,” the Beast King said with a wide grin.

  Morgan understood why just a short moment later.

  The brute swung the dagger down, intending to plunge it into the younger Morgan’s neck, but the blow never landed.

  The younger Beast King’s hand shot up, catching the massive arm and halting the knife just inches from his skin.

  “What the hell?!” the man exclaimed, staring down at the impossibility before him.

  No child should have been strong enough to stop that blow, but as everyone in this room was about to find out, Morgan was no ordinary child.

  He grinned, his lips twisting into an almost inhuman smile, then he punched the man in the face. The man’s head rocked back with a crack, blood spraying from his broken nose. Then, Morgan slammed his hands into the man’s stomach and tore him in half. Blood and gore sprayed everywhere, coating the walls, ceiling, and showering down to the floor below.

  Shockingly enough, the man was still alive, screaming in horror at being ripped in two. Morgan tossed the man’s lower half to the ground below, then grabbed his head between his palms and began to squeeze.

  When the large man’s head finally popped, covering the small child in even more blood and gore, the other assassins had shaken off their surprise and were moving to attack. And even though Morgan already knew how this was going to end, he couldn’t help but keep watching as the Beast King went on his first rampage.

  53

  Choking dust filled the air, and Katherine groaned as she slowly pushed herself onto her elbows, looking around at the collapsed tunnel and wondering how they were still alive. Beatrice and Elyssa lay to her left, the elf still unconscious and the Queen of the South sporting dozens of cuts and bruises that she had previously not had. Elyssa, though, looked no worse than she already had before.

  “Are you all alright?”

  Katherine turned her head to see Hilda standing over them, both arms extended upward. Her entire body was straining, sweat pouring down her clenched face. Just six inches above her extended hands, the stone lay frozen, held back by one of the girl’s skills.

  “We definitely won’t be, if we can’t get out of here now,” Katherine said, getting painfully to her feet.

  Hilda wouldn’t be able to hold the mountain off of them for long, and the mere fact that she was able to hold it back at all meant that they had to be reaching the end.

  “Well, hurry then!” Hilda said, her entire body visibly trembling.

  Katherine didn’t bother summoning her Reality Blade this time, instead bringing forth a crackling ball of black energy. She thrust her arm into the wall before her, blasting the stone inward and causing the shaking to start over again.

  “Beatrice, I’m going to need your help with this!” Katherine yelled, summoning another ball and blasting the stone away.

  The Queen of the South groaned, slowly pushing herself to her knees, but judging by the instability in her movements, it was clear she’d suffered a head injury. It took a lot for someone at their ranks to be hurt, which showed just how precarious their situation was.

  “Hurry!” Hilda yelled again. “I can’t hold this much longer!”

  Cursing to herself, Katherine blasted the wall again and again. Then, she drove a closed fist into the stone, buckling it and threatening to bring what little stability remained to a sudden and crushing end. She punched again, blasting the crackling energy ball into the wall, and finally, something gave.

  With a massive explosion of dust and debris, over ten feet of solid stone was blasted away from her, leaving fresh air to come streaming in. Darting back, Katherine snagged Beatrice under her shoulder and dragged her out from under the outcropping of stone still standing above their heads. She turned back to see Hilda, still holding up the mountainside.

  She took a single step back, but Hilda just gave her a sad smile. Then, what had to be several dozen tons of stone, collapsed on top of her, completely burying the woman in a landslide of crushing debris.

  Katherine stared at the place where Hilda had just been, wondering if the girl was going to come climbing out from inside. After all, she was powerful, more so than most people in all of the Five Kingdoms. But she didn’t come. Katherine felt her throat tighten, and she took a single step toward the pile of rubble, then stopped.

  Hilda was gone. There was nothing she could do about that. But Beatrice and Elyssa were still alive. All of them were still alive, thanks to the brave sacrifice of a woman who could have just saved herself and left them for dead.

  Understandably, Le’vine would not be happy. The entire East would not be happy. Hilda was family, but more than that, she was the rightful heir to the throne!

  She’d never wanted it, but killing someone from a royal family never went over well. The East was going to want blood when this was all over, and Katherine would be more than happy to point a finger at the gnomes and the Cultists they were working with. Until they made it back home, though, they were still in danger, and she still couldn’t open a portal.

  She looked down to Beatrice, who was trying to get to her hands and knees, then down at herself. She was a mess. She was absolutely covered in dust and debris, blood clearly seeping through her clothes. Pain, her constant companion over the last few days, was now making itself known in a very loud way.

  Stifling a groan, she crouched to help Beatrice. If she could just get them all far enough, she could open a portal to safety. Then, there would be healers to help, and they’d all be okay.

  “Would you look at that! It looks like the new commander was right!”

  Katherine felt her heart leap in her chest as a group of Cultists rounded the side of the mountain and immediately saw them. It seemed that the noise of their exit had attracted attention – the exact opposite of what they’d hoped to do.

  A group of ten fighters appeared, all sporting the same tattoos of the coiling serpent on their shoulders, and all were armed. Katherine, on the other hand, was exhausted and injured. Most of her skills had been locked down by the forces that had kept them trapped here. Worse, she still had to protect the barely breathing Elyssa and Beatrice, who couldn’t even seem to get to her feet.

  “So, all I have to do is kill all of you. Then we’re home free,” Katherine said, summoning her Reality Blade.

  Even lifting her arm into the guard position hurt, but she knew that right now, pain could not exist. Not if she were hoping to make it out of here alive and keep their alliance intact.

  “Step aside, human,” one of the Cultists said. “We just want the elf. No one else has to die.”

  Clearly, they’d seen her fight before and wanted nothing less than to test their strength against hers. Katherine wasn’t going to give them a choice.

  Lunging forward, she swept her blade in a wide arc, attempting to cleave the nearest Cultists in half, but they were prepared for her sudden movement and all managed to leap back in time. Normally, she’d have been fast enough to get them even if they had, but injured as she was, she was starting at a major disadvantage.

  “Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” the Cultist snarled.

  Acidic green light flared around them all, and Katherine noticed an odd peculiarity when they did. It was something she hadn’t noticed before. Their tattoos all glowed along with them, small tendrils of green seeming to flow outward, then into their skin.


  Could the tattoos be the source of their power? she wondered.

  There wasn’t much time to ponder that thought as the Cultists rushed her in an attempt to get around her and to the unconscious Elyssa. Katherine took a single step back, then swung her blade out in another arc, summoning the black ball of power at the blade’s tip and detaching it mid-swing.

  The Cultist she’d been aiming for jumped back to avoid the sword slash, only for the one to his left to go down with a scream of pain as the black sphere took him in the gut, burning a hole straight through him, leaving him writhing on the ground.

  She threw up an arm, her skin burning from the contact of the glowing green body. She slapped downward, knocking the Cultist off balance, then turned in place and kicked out at another who was trying to get past her.

  Right now, Katherine had a single advantage. She had the side of the mountain to her back, and it was too unstable after the collapse for any of the Cultists to try and climb it. Their best bet right now was to try and drive her away from the mountain, so that they could encircle her. Doing so would free them up to attack the helpless Beatrice and Elyssa, while ensuring she couldn’t get away. Katherine most certainly wasn’t about to let that happen.

  A Cultist came charging straight at her, fists blazing with the acidic green power, and she thrust forward, spearing him through the neck. Two more came at her again, while the rest began to try flanking her, but she didn’t let up.

  Her blade streaked through the air, battering away a series of attacks, slicing them in two, and splitting them harmlessly to the sides. A hot pain flashed through her leg, but she ignored the burning lance of green, kicking out with the very same leg and shattering the ribs of the dwarf woman who’d thrown it.

  A spear took her in the side, and Katherine’s vision flashed white. But she twisted, snapping the haft of the weapon and cutting the beastman’s head from his shoulders. Three more came at her from the front, and she barely beat them back, the haft still stuck in her side, preventing free movement.