279. Emerged

Ike laid on the ground. Bleeding out, burned to a crisp. His heart struggled, twitching more than beating. One lung simply wouldn’t move. The other screamed, nothing but pain. His whole chest was a mess of pain. His life waned, flickering like a candle on the verge of blowing out.

The figure advanced toward Wisp, Scar, and Rufus. Mag fluttered overhead, eyes big and round with fear. At that, Ike barely bit back a chuckle. What was he so afraid of? He could just fly away.

No. The trial kills us all if we die. If I… if I die.

At that, Ike jolted back to reality. He clenched his fist, pressing it into the still-hot floor beneath him. That pain barely registered. He was almost gone. Something that minor wasn’t going to tip the scales.

Overhead, Mag startled. He stared off, not at the figure, but behind it. His brows furrowed, then he flew off, beating his wings at top speed.

Fly away, little bird. Even though he knew Mag died with the rest of them, he still wanted to believe, somewhere in his charred heart, that Mag might survive. That someone might survive, any of them.

Ah, that’s right. Wasn’t Mag’s father a dragon? Or… was it his mother? It doesn’t matter. But maybe the dragon will save him. Ike chuckled. Not that he was sure he believed the bird’s story of his origin from the beginning. He did have scales and feathers, but this world had an infinite variety of skills. Ike could turn his limbs to steel, but he didn’t have a steel golem in his lineage. At least, not as far as he knew… though as far as he knew, steel golems couldn’t mate, so…

Focus. Ike blinked, forcing himself to stay awake. If he passed out now, that was really the end. His friends would die, and so would he. Not necessarily in that order. He pushed all his remaining mana into his healing skill, and still barely managed to cling to life. There was a heat in his chest, as if a fire burned there inside of him. As if the monster had left an ember in his heart.

It doesn’t matter. I need to heal. If I have to heal something inside me, so be it. He surged his healing higher, putting his all into it. His chest slowly closed.

The figure closed in on Wisp and the others. It raised its hand. “Who wants to die first?”

“None of us, loser,” Ike snarled. He staggered to his feet. Defiantly, he glared at the figure.

The charcoal figure turned. Its whole body was black and rugged, as if roughly carved from burned wood. Red glowed in its chest, where the charcoal splintered open to reveal a burning pit of heat. It stared at Ike, then laughed. Slowly, it clapped. “I applaud your diligence, but you are doomed. You were all doomed from the moment you awakened me. No—even before that, from the moment you stepped into this trial, you were doomed, because there was no way out except through me.”

“I don’t care. I…I’ll kill you,” Ike said. He didn’t know if he could, but at this point, this was the only way to win. To do anything. He needed time, and as long as the thing was talking, he was buying time.

“Do you even know why I’m here, boy? Do you know why they set this trial up to force you powerful young mages to try to kill me? Do you know what happened to this land, that this is all that remains?”

“I don’t,” Ike replied defiantly.

“Then let me tell you,” the figure said.

Ike glanced at the others. They nodded back, all of them understanding. They dropped back, sucking down potions or closing their eyes to meditate and recover. Ike kept healing his chest. The wounds slowly closed, even with whatever ember was stick in them.

“I used to be a mage, like you. Unlike you, I disagreed with the status quo. I dared to dream of more for our lands. More power. More territory. But the king, the blind, foolish king, he disagreed. He was happy with complacency. With nothing. Staying the same forever.

“Was it wrong for me to dream of something more? Was it wrong for me to dream of expansion and glory for our lands? That foolish king said yes. And not only that—but in the most horrible way possible. He sabotaged me. Sent me to gain a powerful skill, knowing that it would leave me unstable, no longer able to appear human. Trapped in this ruined, blackened body.”

The figure pointed at Ike. Its finger trembled. “Am I wrong for hating him? For wreaking vengeance upon his kingdom? Am I wrong?”

Ike said nothing, too busy focusing on breathing and healing. To be honest, the whole thing kind of sounded like the figure’s fault. He didn’t know the whole story, for sure, but it seemed like the figure was way too fixated on this kingdom. It could have left. Gone anywhere else. Founded its own kingdom, even. But because it fixated on this kingdom, this king, it held itself back and found itself the victim of the king’s retribution—according to it.

From another perspective, the king was merely trying to chase away a pest who refused to leave. It was like hearing someone dig around in your garbage and chasing off a raccoon, only for the raccoon to keep coming back night after night after night. Ike had to admit, he had killed that raccoon that wouldn’t leave his uncle’s garbage alone. The king was merely too weak to kill this metaphorical raccoon.

Of course, sending someone to obtain a skill to sabotage them was simply evil, but then, perhaps there were nuances to that story that Ike didn’t know and the figure wasn’t going to admit. Things like, perhaps the king hadn’t known the skill would sabotage the figure. Or perhaps the skill wasn’t meant as sabotage at all, but was simply too powerful for the figure to handle. He didn’t consider the figure a responsible person whose story he could trust, for reasons that mostly had to do with the rapidly-healing hole in his chest.

Even as he stood there, he wracked his brains, trying to come up with something, anything. There was nothing he oculd come up with that would let him beat the figure. But… maybe he didn’t need to beat it. He eyed the others. If he picked up Wisp, and Rufus and Scar flew away on their broom, he could probably sprint fast enough, even with his wounds, to buy them a little more time. If they split up, maybe they could vanish into the undercroft and live off the land there, gather mana and kill centipedes to level up, dodge the figure for long enough…

But how long does the trial last? Do we have time for that? He gritted his teeth. It was all he could think of. They’d have to try.

“Ike!” Mag swooped overhead. He held a woman in his claws.

No, not a woman. Vi. Vi, somehow still alive. Ike stared, confused. How? I killed her. I know I did!

“I concede!” Vi shouted.

Gold light thrummed from across the trial. It burst up from each of the four castles, then flew toward Ike, flowing into him. His whole body was anointed in gold light, and a skill orb materialized in his hands.

The figure laughed. “Ha! See how the king rewards you, o child of the trials. Half a skill. An imperfect orb. Just like me, if you absorb that, you will be—”

“Quit complaining and work harder, idiot,” Ike said, venting his feelings on the figure’s speech all at once. He drew out the other half of the orb and clenched them both in one hand. The two fused together in a blast of rainbow light. For a split second, a full, perfect skill orb appeared in his grasp.

The figure’s eyes widened. It lunged. Before it reached him, though, Ike tightened his grip.

Absorb!