Hollow Core

by Gage Lee

“Get back!” Abi roared a split second later.

  He was a good man to keep her away from me. Every inch of my body was awash with power, and anyone with an undamaged core wouldn’t last a second in contact with me. My wounded soul let the excess power bleed out, and that was the only thing keeping me alive.

  As the jinsei roared through me, I began to understand why the other clans had been so afraid of the Eclipse Warriors. They—no, we—could stand in the heart of a storm of power and survive. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, and I’d pay for it the next day, but no other clan could survive this tempest.

  The longer I stayed in the center of the stream, the easier it got. My channels swelled to accept the excess, and my core shed dark aspects far faster than I’d ever imagined possible. The world had gone dark, but I knew it was only the clotted mess in my aura coloring my vision. After we won the final challenge, I’d spend a few weeks purging my aura of the shadows I’d gathered.

  The last of the tainted jinsei washed through my aura. The aspects crowded around me in a belligerent cloud, chattering and fighting, eager to break free and cause some real trouble.

  “Forget it,” I mumbled. Then, to my friends, “Follow me. Don’t touch me or the jinsei beams. It probably won’t kill you right away, now that it’s cleaned, but it’s got enough power to make you sorry if you get too close to it.”

  I peeled my bloody hand off the wall and extended it to intercept another ray of sacred energy. It poured through me and sloshed out of my hollow core in the same instant. The flaw inside me seemed larger now, as if I’d widened the wound by putting so much pressure on it.

  Great.

  Purified jinsei oozed from my pores and soaked my robes in a matter of seconds. It billowed out of my lungs in a cloud of pure white light and poured through my veins like a pure jolt of adrenaline. I’d never felt so terrified.

  Or so alive.

  The beams I’d blocked opened a narrow passage behind me. It was just long and wide enough to accommodate my friends if they walked single file and stayed very close together. As soon as they were all bunched up in my shadow, I moved my left hand in front of my right, then stretched my right hand out to block the next beam.

  “Move up.” The beams weren’t tearing my core apart anymore, but it still hurt to funnel such immense power through my body. It was like breathing in air that was too thick and rich for human lungs. I was ready for this challenge to be over.

  It went on like that for the next twenty minutes. Move, adjust, move, adjust. During that time the challenge lost another twenty contestants, and I’d fallen ever further behind. I’d need a hundred tokens just to reach next to last.

  “There’re enough tokens,” I muttered to myself. There had to be.

  “We made it!” Eric shouted.

  I staggered ahead and let my hands fall to my sides. I was drunk on the sacred energy that filled me. Blood rained from my palms, but I didn’t care. With all the power inside me, I’d start healing in seconds. In a few minutes, I’d be good as new.

  “Sleeves.” Eric gestured to Abi’s shoulder. “Let me cut them off. We can tie off one end and use them like sacks.”

  Abi grunted and let the Resplendent Sun do his thing. In a matter of moments, they’d tied knots into the shoulders of the severed sleeves and had a couple of serviceable containers.

  “If I’d known about this, I wouldn’t have worn a vest.” Eric laughed.

  “We could always use your pants.” Abi grinned and reached out as if to yank his friend’s waistband.

  I reached up to my shoulders and tore the sleeves of my robes away with a single tug. My muscles were so filled with jinsei I was lucky I didn’t dislocate my arms with that little trick.

  “Show-off,” Eric said.

  He held the sleeve of his makeshift sack open and scooped it through the pile of jinsei tokens stacked around the platform’s base. The shining coins tumbled into the sleeve in a jingling avalanche, and a wide grin split Eric’s face.

  “Two hundred and seven tokens,” the Resplendent Sun crowed.

  “What’s your rank?” I dropped to my knees next to Eric and started shoveling tokens into my knotted sleeve.

  “Sixty-two.” That wasn’t bad at all.

  Clem was on Eric’s far side, an actual leather sack in her hands.

  “What?” she said with a grin. “I’m the only one who brought a bag?”

  Abi chuckled and scooped up his share from the pile next to her.

  “You’re always prepared, Clem.” He shook his head. “I think we’ll be fine, though. Jace found us enough tokens to reach the top of the standings.”

  “And we’ll need it,” Eric grumbled. “After the stunt they pulled with the Core Contest, I’m taking every token I can carry. No point taking any chance.”

  “Oh,” Clem sighed at my confused look. “I forgot you wouldn’t know. They gave away huge numbers of rankings over the last couple of weeks. The highest slot is at rank five hundred, I think.”

  A spike of dread stabbed me through the chest. A white-hot blast of anger melted it away a half-second later. I filled the first sleeve and hefted it off the floor.

  “You currently have four hundred and twenty-seven tokens. Your current rank is fifty-seven. The next-closest competitor has four hundred and thirty-nine tokens.”

  “How are we doing?” I asked.

  The beams of jinsei still burned white behind us, a maze of sacred energy so powerful it could have lit up a city. Until the aspects of death and destruction came back, we were safe. I just didn’t know how long we had.

  And I didn’t know if I’d be able to open our path if it closed.

  “Two more minutes,” Clem called. “Just to be on the safe side.”

  “Agreed.” Abi had stuffed his sleeve almost full.

  “I’m loaded up.” Eric scrambled over next to me. “Let me help you with a second one. You need more than any of us with all that time you spent locked up.”

  Eric blushed when he said the words, embarrassed that he’d brought up my incarceration.

  “Thanks, man.” I tossed him my second sleeve, and he dove into the work of loading it up. “Let’s load up and head out.”

  Finally, all the sleeves were filled, and we lifted them off the floor to see where we’d ended up.

  “Your current token tally is one thousand, seven hundred and ninety-three. You are currently ranked number one in the final challenge. Your nearest competitor has nine hundred and sixty-four tokens.”

  For once, the chipper tone of the voice in my head lifted my spirits.

  “We’re good,” Clem said. “So good.”

  “Let me take those.” Abi lowered his sleeve to the floor and reached out to take mine. I realized he’d only filled his knotted sack with enough coins to keep him out of the bottom ten percent. “You need both hands free in case something goes wrong on our way out of this death trap.”

  For a moment, we looked at one another across a distance much greater than the space between us. The hard glint in Abi’s eye told me that he still didn’t trust me, but the fact that he’d come along made it clear that I could trust him. I didn’t know a more honorable man than Abi.

  I handed him the makeshift sacks and led the way back the way we’d come. The chipper voice in my head told me that I’d dropped to last place by a few hundred tokens, but I didn’t care. I had over a thousand slung over Abi’s shoulders. I was going to win this challenge and make Grayson eat his words.

  “Almost there.” I bent the last stream of jinsei away from the path, and my friends hustled past me toward the bottom of the ramp. All that remained to put this challenge behind us was a quick jog up to the tunnels, a few minutes to get to the main arena, and then a mad dash to get through the portal.

  “Greed leads to destruction.” A voice rasped around the perimeter of the room. The floor shook, and the ceiling rattled until dust rained down on our heads. Before any of us could react, a gate slammed down to block the end of the ramp.
Its bars glowed with jinsei and sizzled with lightning aspects. I skidded to a stop and turned to face the room we’d just fled.

  A spirit had appeared in the center of the platform. It was an enormous insect-like creature with far too many arms and legs, faceted eyes that glowed with an unearthly fury, and razor-sharp mandibles.

  My mind reeled when I recognized the creature from the Manual of the New Moon. This was one of the horrifying hungry spirits from the void, the greatest enemies that mankind had ever faced. This was one of the monstrosities that the Eclipse Warriors had been created to fight.

  What was it doing here?

  “You have stolen from the vaults of the Locust Court, mortals.” The spirit raised its chitinous hands and unleashed a torrent of jinsei colored with aspects I couldn’t recognize.

  Clem and Eric screamed as the blast slammed into them. They jerked up onto their tiptoes, and their screams spiraled up and up until I thought their throats would shatter.

  But as bad as it was for them, it was worse for Abi.

  His body was wreathed in a swarm of tiny spirits that bit into his flesh in a hundred different places at once. Cuts opened on his face and neck, and his bare arms were streaked with blood. He shouted, once, then clamped his mouth shut against the bugs before they could scramble inside.

  I was the only one who hadn’t been attacked.

  “Let them go,” I shouted at the spirit. “It was my idea to take the tokens.”

  “And yet, you did not attempt to carry even a single one of my treasures beyond my shrine.” The spirit shrugged its armored shoulders and clacked its mandibles together as if to signal the end of the conversation. “Those who stole from me will be punished to the measure of their crime.”

  Abi, who’d gathered fewer coins than any of us, would suffer the most because he’d taken my burden onto his own shoulders. His muffled groans were a dark reminder that his pain really should have been mine.

  I’d never be able to live with myself if I couldn’t get him free.

  “Let them go, or I’ll make you let them go.” My eyes burned and my stomach was tied into a knot so tight I didn’t think I’d ever eat again. I was terrified of this strange creature, but I would not allow Abi, Clem, and Eric to suffer because they’d tried to help me. The least I could do was die trying to free them from their pain.

  “You think that is an option, mortal?” The spirit unleashed a laugh like broken glass. “It has been a hundred years since a scion of the Locust Court has faced a mortal. Perhaps it is time to entertain myself with your destruction.”

  I connected to my little friends and cycled my breathing until my fusion sword appeared in my hands. I raised the blade across the front of my body, ready to slash or defend myself if the spirit charged. The crystalline weapon hummed in my grasp in a way I’d never heard before. It sounded eager. And hungry.

  “I’m not leaving without my friends.” I advanced toward the spirit. “Release them or be destroyed. The choice is yours.”

  The spirit chuckled again and stepped down from the platform. It stood at least ten feet at the armored shoulder, and its many legs and arms were all tipped with blades of chitin that gleamed with jinsei power along their edges.

  “They are thieves, and mine to do with as I please.” It flexed its arms, like it hadn’t moved them in far too long, and its razor-sharp claws whistled through the air. “I will not relinquish them, initiate.”

  “Then I hope you are at peace, honored spirit.” I advanced at a steady pace, blade at the ready, eyes locked on the foul spirit. “Because it is time for you to die.”

  The Eclipse

  THE LOCUST SPIRIT BOUNDED toward me with long, erratic strides. Its many legs blurred and shifted as it charged, and its arms snapped through a series of bewildering formations. By the time it had crossed the room, I was too confused by its strange motions to know what to expect from it.

  The spirit hurled itself into the air and tucked its limbs in close to its body. It spun like a top, accelerating with every revolution. Just before it crashed into me, the creature flung its arms and legs wide.

  A storm of razor-edged limbs spun straight at me. The spirit’s spindly arms were too wide to dodge around, and its legs were even wider. With nowhere to run, I stood my ground. The jinsei that still filled my channels to their limits gave me more strength, speed, and resilience than I’d ever had before. I’d never have a better chance to beat the locust spirit.

  In the split second before the creature’s hand could slice my face off my skull, I swept my fusion blade down. The weapon whistled through the air and sliced through the spirit’s arm and one of its legs in a single smooth cut. Jinsei spurted from the truncated limbs as they spun past me with inches to spare.

  I whirled to face the creature as it landed with the grace of a ballet dancer. The leg I’d severed leaked a sparkling stream of jinsei that didn’t seem to concern the spirit at all. Its other arms continued their baffling contortions even as the severed limb twitched and jerked in a vain attempt to mimic them.

  “Well done, initiate.” The spirit’s mandibles clattered together, and a grinding laugh forced itself up from the depths of its torso. “He was right about you.”

  Two of the creature’s arms flashed toward my face. They blurred and shifted as they stabbed at my eyes, making it impossible to tell their exact positions. There was no time to wonder who had told the spirit about me. There was only time to survive.

  I switched to Darting Minnow stance and sped back out of the spirit’s reach. Its twin claws slashed the air inches from my face, and the breeze from their passing made my eyes water.

  The jinsei I’d stolen from the trap made me fast, but this thing was far faster. I needed to end this, and soon. Maybe if I could keep it talking, I’d come up with a plan before it hacked my head off my shoulders.

  “Who was right about me?” I kept my fusion blade raised between us as the locust spirit stalked in a slow circle around me. Grayson was a jerk, but would he really have dealt with one of humanity’s most dangerous foes? I just didn’t know.

  Spectral arms appeared and disappeared around the locust spirit as it prepared for its next attack. There was no way for me to predict which of its many claws would come for me, or if it would create an entirely new one to hack my body to pieces.

  “Mortal names are so difficult to remember. It was one of your many enemies.” The locust spirit feinted at my head, then lashed out with a leg sweep I only just managed to jump over. “Or perhaps it was one of the Locust Court’s many allies. There are more of them than you would believe.”

  The spirit’s body shuddered and jerked into sudden motion. Two of its ghostly arms plunged toward my face, and two of its legs snapped kicks at my chest.

  My fusion blade got between my solar plexus and one kick, but even my jinsei-amplified reaction speed wasn’t enough to stop the other attacks.

  The first claw flayed my cheek away, exposing my teeth to air that felt painfully cold. The second claw opened an ugly gash across my forehead and covered my eyes in a veil of blood. Pain flashed through my torso when the kick landed, and the impact knocked me back onto my heels. The barrage blasted the jinsei out of the channels in my head and torso, leaving them unprotected.

  Blinded by my own blood, with no connections to the small creatures to guide me, I switched to my spirit sight.

  The locust spirit’s true shape was an ever-shifting mass of angular, armored limbs beneath a faceted eye that blazed with nauseating rainbow lights. Its aura was an angry smear of buzzing aspects that flared in unnerving, almost hypnotic patterns. It folded and unfolded, an unearthly origami machine built for one purpose: murder.

  “Gaze upon me and despair, mortal.” The locust advanced in fits and starts, its body jumping around like a film with missing frames. With every step it slashed at me, forcing me to back away and focus on defense rather than attack. “The Locust Court has nearly recovered from the betrayal of your people. Our return is imminen
t.”

  The insect spirit’s multiple limbs made it around my sword to open narrow slices in my chest, arms, and legs. Any of those painful strokes could have been a fatal injury. The beast was toying with me, enjoying my suffering. Its arrogance was a reminder of all the insults and injuries that I’d suffered during my life in the camps and, now, at the School of Swords and Serpents. The wounds the locust spirit inflicted hurt, but its attitude infuriated me.

  “Too bad you won’t be around to see that return,” I spat blood and jabbed at its body with my sword.

  The insect spirit blocked that attack, and I spun around its limb to slice at its midsection. That sweeping slash took off an arm instead of cutting the monstrosity in half. Undeterred, I stayed in close and reversed my grip to stab through a leg. I breathed in the jinsei that splashed from the creature’s wounds and forced it into the empty channels in my head and chest. A plan was taking form, but I couldn’t see its end. I needed more time.

  My opponent retreated, arms raised defensively, and I chased after it with a trio of furious slashes that opened weeping wounds in its limbs. Outraged, the insect spirit tried to slice my head off my shoulders with a pair of scissoring slashes from its clawed arms.

  This was my chance.

  Rather than try to deflect the deadly assault with my sword, I lunged beneath the arms. The tip of my fusion sword plunged deep into the insect spirit’s chest. Jinsei sprayed from the wound, and its keening cry mingled with the moans of my tortured friends. I shifted my grip and forced the fusion sword down to open a wide slit through the spirit’s abdomen.

  Before I could celebrate my victory, the locust spirit’s cry became a furious roar. Its razor-sharp claws slammed into my back. The twin blows on either side of my spine blasted the jinsei out of my torso and cracked my channels into dozens of brittle shards. My hands went numb, and I tasted fresh blood on my lips.

  “Enough. Your time has come to an end, mortal.” The locust spirit raised my chin with the back of its claw, forcing me to stare into its blazing eye. “You are not the threat I was warned about. Nothing will stop us.”