by Turtle Me
I swung and stabbed the large serrated dagger in areas where the aetheric essence had gathered the most, but was rewarded only with the occasional wail of pain or momentary spasm, and the chimeras continued devouring each other. “Come on. Just die already!”
Suddenly, another sharp chill ran down my spine as a pair of gleaming red eyes shot open.
A split second later, a blast of purple energy erupted from the mass of chimera bodies and hit me like a lead wall.
The concussive force spread, blasting both Regis and I into the air. I hit the ground like a sack of potatoes and tumbled across the floor. Barely holding onto my consciousness, I anchored myself to the ground, gripping one of the divots to keep myself from rolling further.
Regis tottered toward me. “Well that friggin’ hurt.”
“That hurt you too?”
That’s not good.
My mind whirled as I tried to think of a plan to kill that hunk of bone and flesh when an earthly roar tore through my mind like fangs through flesh. I looked up, afraid of what my eyes would see.
And what I saw was worse than what I had imagined.
Like one of the old retro arcade shooting games I had played with Nico and Cecilia in my past life, the creatures had merged into their final form.
The monstrosity, which was nearly a hundred feet away, towered over the second row of sconces. It had three heads and stood on six legs that jutted out from the bottom of its lanky torso.
“It’s gotta be twenty feet tall!” Regis said, his flames dimming meekly.
While it only had two arms, one of them was a combination of the shotgun and crossbows merged together, with long spines jutting from its forearms. The other arm was composed of the whip with a spiked sickle at the end that screeched against the ground as the creature skittered toward us.
The thought of luring it away from the door and escaping back to the sanctuary crossed my mind briefly, but what I feared more than facing this monster was doing this all over again.
Clearing my thoughts from unnecessary distractions—like Regis begging us to go back—I tightened my grip around the bone handle of the dagger and propelled myself forward.
The fused chimera responded by aiming the barrel of its gun at me. I could see two of the spiked vertebrae on its forearm load into the chamber and the aetheric essence coalescing until it was visible to even the naked eye.
Waiting until the last second, I pivoted, veering right just in time to see the two bolts fire, each surrounded by a concentrated blast of aether.
What I didn’t expect, however, was for the monster’s attack to carry the force of a missile.
I was thrown flat against the corridor wall and pelted with debris as a wave of purple energy blasted out from the point of impact. Several of my ribs cracked and my vision blurred. I could feel my brain threatening to shut off, but I knew if I passed out then I would die.
Regis hovered in front of me, his expression serious, but I couldn’t hear his voice over the sharp ringing in my ears.
My eyes trailed back on the fused chimera, afraid to leave it out of my sight for even a second longer. Somewhat clumsily, I picked up the dagger, which had fallen a few feet away, and stumbled forward, focusing entirely on the flow of aether around its body.
I knew it would take the monster a while to charge up enough aether to repeat that attack; its blaster arm dangled lifelessly by its side and the aetheric essence around it dissipated into purple smoke. I needed to make sure that it wouldn’t be able to fire off another aether missile.
But the blaster wasn’t its only weapon. The monster swung its chain sickle at a speed that created gales of wind and deep gouges in the marble floor; I shuddered to think what that weapon would do to me if the chimera landed a blow.
I was forced to perform at a speed that far surpassed what a normal human could ever achieve. Even I was surprised as I sidestepped, swiveled, and pivoted just enough to dodge the whirlwind weapon. My eyes constantly followed it, pinpointing the direction the sickle would come from based on the slightest twitch of movement made by the fused chimera.
The flow of aether around its whip arm and around its legs was familiar, allowing me to make use of my knowledge of reading mana flow. With my enhanced body, experience, and reflexes, I managed to dismember two of its six legs before the monster’s blaster had finished charging.
It’s now or never, I determined, ducking under another swipe from the sickled end of the whip.
I stepped forward, turning the serrated blade up and preparing to step inside the next hissing strike from the whip, expecting the creature to come overhead with the scythe. Thus I found myself caught out of position when it twisted and drew the whip upwards instead, forcing me to throw myself backwards, but not fast enough.
I watched as the serrated dagger, and the arm holding it, dropped to the ground in a spray of blood. It looked strange and unfamiliar lying on the floor at my feet, as if my mind couldn’t quite accept that it was my arm.
“Arthur!” Regis’s cry snapped me out of the momentary daze and I immediately lunged forward, grabbed the dagger from my own severed arm, and attacked.
The chimera thrust its blaster arm forward, preparing to unleash another explosive blast. The blade in my hand flashed, and the chimera shrieked in pain as aetheric essence splattered from its severed blaster arm along with part of its shoulder.
“Arm for an arm,” I muttered grimly as I reached down and consumed the aether leaking from the chimera’s detached appendage.
Power flowed through me, and despite its effects being momentary, there was enough aether in my body to test something that I had seen from the chimera itself.
“Regis, get in my hand,” I ordered.
My companion, although worried, flew into my hand, and this time, I could feel the aether coalescing in my fist.
I knew that aether wasn’t supposed to be manipulated—only beckoned, or ‘influenced’ as the Indrath Clan put it—but what if there was a way to force it into submission, to make it beckon to my will?
The chimera, disoriented and defensive, backed away, using its long whip to create space between us. This worked in my favor, however, as I was able to kneel down and draw the aether from one of the other chimera corpses lying on the ground, hoping it would be enough to regrow my missing limb.
I let the aether in my body gravitate to my fist, drawn there by Regis, focusing on the feeling—memorizing it.
As more and more aether condensed in my left hand, a thin layer of black coated my flesh like a smoky glove.
I felt my pace slowing as the aether powering my body flowed into my hand.
‘I feel like I’m going to burst here. What exactly did you have in mind?’ Regis said, his voice echoing in my mind.
“Just hold it in until I say so,” I said through gritted teeth. It felt like I was walking deeper and deeper into a pit of tar as my body became more difficult to control, but I was almost to the chimera.
However, before I could get close enough, the chimera’s three heads whirled to face me. Rather than attack me, though, it shuffled back warily, all six of its eyes concentrated on my hand.
Almost there!
My hand felt like it was being squeezed by two boulders as more and more aether coalesced inside it, but before I could get in range to unleash it, the entire hall quivered and the sconces flickered off.
I could feel the aether in the atmosphere tremble as a baleful aura spread from where the chimera stood, its six eyes now glowing purple.
It’s using aether to manifest some sort of debilitating aura.
Whether it was because of my asuran body or because of my mental strength from living two lives, the aetheric intent had little effect, however.
Gritting through the intensifying pain radiating from the stub of my cloven arm, I dashed forward.
The chimera let out a hysterical screech and began wildly swinging its whip.
Concen
trating on the flow of aether to determine the path of its attack, I stepped back, just out of reach, then lunged forward after the whip hissed through the air just in front of my nose.
“Now!” I roared, barely able to swing my arm.
My aether clad fist landed right underneath its three heads, and I released the pent-up aether. The pressure within me exploded outward with a sound like a hurricane wind as a blast of black and purple energy erupted directly into the chimera’s chest.
It felt like every ounce of strength had been sapped clean from my body as I lay sprawled on the ground just beside the remains of the fused chimera.
My eyelids grew heavy as I succumbed to the dark grasp of unconsciousness, but a loud cry suddenly snapped me awake.
“Hah! Screw you, I am a weapon!” Regis whooped in glee.
Despite the near-death experience and the fact that I was still missing an arm, I joined him, letting out a hoarse laugh.
Pulling myself painfully up to my feet, I inspected the fused chimera’s remains. I couldn’t tell whether I had used space or life aether, but I had managed to create a crater in its chest and disintegrate most of its heads.
“Good job,” I said to my companion. Behind us, there was a soft click from the door leading to the next stage.
“So, pretty boy, did you want to consume this hunk of bone and move onto the next room?” Regis asked with renewed confidence.
“Not quite,” I said, my voice sounding tired and distant as I hobbled toward the fused chimera corpse. “You know how you said that even asuras have mana cores that sustain and power their bodies?”
“Yeah?” Regis tilted his head. “But your mana core is broken.”
It had occurred to me when Regis was pulling the aether flowing inside of me to my hand, but the idea hadn’t fully coalesced until that moment, with such a massive store of aether lying in a heap in front of me.
“Yup.” I looked back at him, images of the purple clad chimeras ingrained in my head. “So what if I tried forming an aether core?”
261
The Core
“This is crazy. It’s not going to work.”
“It might if you stop your relentless badgering,” I said, flexing the fingers of my newly regenerated arm.
Regis zipped up to my face. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is my genuine concern that you might blow yourself up bothering you?”
I swatted him away. “Yes.”
My floating companion’s smoky black form sizzled in anger. “Why are you even attempting this anyway? You just demolished the hidden boss of this level with a punch! I think you’re strong enough.”
“I can’t rely on sustaining my body by constantly eating aetheric essence off of monsters.”
“So your plan is just to form your own power source? Geez, I wonder why the wise and powerful dragons of the Indrath Clan haven’t thought of something like that… oh wait, they have!”
“Yes, I remember the story. The elders of the Indrath Clan attempted to form a core out of pure aether within the body of an infant clan member that was born without a core. You literally just told me.”
“And what did we learn from that story?” Regis asked, as if he were speaking to an infant himself.
I sighed. “That the baby was met with a grisly death.”
“So why are you still trying to do this?” Regis seethed.
“Because I have no other choice if I want to get stronger. I don’t want to rely on temporary power boosts—that I can’t even control—from consuming another life form’s aetheric essence. You saw how fast it depletes from my body even when I’m not fighting.”
“That’s no reason to kill yourself over this!”
“Regis.” I stared coldly into the will-o-wisp’s shining eyes. “I’m sure you know this from being fed my memories, but I’ve barely been able to fight against Agrona’s retainers, and Scythes are in a whole other league. I’m not just looking to survive this hellish dungeon or ruin—whatever this place is. I may have the body of an asura, but unless I have some hope of growing as strong as the asuras, I might as well stay down here forever and consign my family to death at the hands of the Alacryans, because leaving here without the strength to fight back just means giving the enemy another chance at beating me back down.”
Regis remained silent as he studied me, his expression a mixture of frustration and concern.
Eventually, he let out a sigh. “Fine. Aside from the fact that you can physically eat aether, what makes you think that your attempt will be any different from what the asuras did?”
“You’re forgetting that I was responsible for forming my own mana core when I was three. I’ll figure something out.”
The first step of my plan was to spend some time closely studying the chimera.
I studied how the aetheric essence had become bound to the chimera corpse; despite the fact that the chimera couldn’t control or manipulate aether, there was no leakage of the essence.
Utilizing my unique perception of the aether around me, I also conducted a series of experiments on the corpse.
Because it had been killed, the aether didn’t actively try to regenerate the broken parts of the chimera corpse. Instead, it seemed to be keeping the bone and flesh in an almost suspended state.
Injuries that I inflicted on the corpse postmortem weren’t regenerated, and while there was some loss of aetheric essence from the wound, there was no leakage beyond that.
“Regis, try going inside the chimera and absorbing the aether directly,” I said, not taking my eyes off the corpse.
“Well, I wasn’t able to when it was alive, but I haven’t tried it on a dead chimera,” Regis replied, floating toward the giant body.
Rather than sink inside the surface of the corpse, however, he bounced off.
Regis let out a pained grunt from the impact before turning to me. “Happy?”
“Not particularly.”
Having failed to gain any useful insights from this, I moved on to the next step, hoping I’d learn more.
Closing my eyes, I sensed the aether flowing in my body just as I had done when I was first trying to form my mana core.
The entirety of my mental faculties was focused on observing how aether moved within me—how it interacted with my muscles, bones, and organs, and how it dissipated from the surface of my skin constantly.
Next, I focused on the shattered pieces of my mana core. I couldn’t gather or produce mana, and Sylvia’s dragon will was no longer there. That meant that I had no way of using Static Void or Realmheart Physique, but the fragmented shell of my mana core was still inside me.
Worse yet, the aether was slowly dissolving the broken pieces of my mana core, seeing them as imperfections in my body that needed to be discarded as they no longer served any purpose.
Realizing that all of the painstaking years of work refining and strengthening my mana core would soon disappear sent a sharp pain through my chest, and it took all my mental fortitude to keep from slipping into despair.
That’s when it struck me: The aether saw the broken shards of my mana core as an injury. Because they didn’t serve a function anymore, it was trying to remove them from my body.
But what if it thought that they did?
My eyes shot open, and I scrambled to my feet to study the fused chimera once more, this time from a different angle.
The act of fusing the chimera bodies together was neither regenerating nor healing, but the fact that the aether determined that this course of action was the best choice told me something.
With my plan slowly solidifying, I went back to meditating, a slight grin on my face. I already knew that I couldn’t actively manipulate the aether within me, just like how the chimeras couldn’t control the aether that powered their bodies. But I had a few theories.
First, I purposely injured myself to study how the aether behaved and interacted within my body while paying close attention to my thoughts. My actions wo
uld have been considered insane to any passing witnesses, but there was no one besides Regis to see, and I wouldn’t have cared anyway.
I had learned something pivotal when I launched the final attack against the fused chimera despite the stub of my arm bleeding profusely.
It took a few dozen times of injuring myself to actually confirm my hypothesis, but eventually, it was clear that intent influenced the movement of the aetheric essence within me.
It was nowhere near as potent or immediate as my ability to manipulate mana had been, but if I thought that regenerating a certain part of my body took precedence over another part, the aether responded to my desire. Still, the fact that aether could be influenced to do something as crazy as fusing multiple bodies together meant that the chimeras’ intent had a very real impact on it.
What if I can somehow trick the aetheric essence to fuse together the shattered remains of my mana core instead of getting rid of it, and then have it build a new core over my broken one?
There were two problems: First, the aetheric essence was too dispersed within my body to focus on just my core. Second, it might just slowly eat away at the broken remains of my mana core rather than try to fuse them together.
But still, it could work… no, it had to work.
Almost as soon as my thoughts solidified into an actual idea, I already knew what I had to do.
I just didn’t like the answer.
The only reason my plan had even a chance of working was because I could do something that not even dragons of the Indrath Clan could do.
Letting out a deep breath, I reached in my vest and pulled out the small, iridescent stone stored there.
I’ll definitely survive, Sylv. I’ll bring you back out here. Just hold on.
Resolving myself, I got to work immediately, rapidly consuming the aetheric essence from the fused chimera corpse.
Even after my body had been suffused with aetheric essence and a purple aura began exuding from my skin, I kept absorbing aether, making sure I was consuming it much faster than the aether could deplete from my body.
