Orion's Herald
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Chapter 36: Can You Save Yourself First?
🕑 Added 2024-12-19 13:00:12 +0000 UTC“Lincoln, activate the talisman!” Hector yelled, reaching a hand into his pocket, grabbing his own and willing it to activate. A balloon of energy formed from it, exploding into a thick membrane that coated his entire body. It wobbled before settling across his body.
“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Lincoln said, activating his own. Hector handed another talisman of the three or four he’d been given to Mirae. She took it and gripped it in her small, trembling hands.
“You activate it when I say, alright? Not a moment before,” Hector said, turning back to the creature bounding towards them. Its claws scratched at the cobblestone each time it moved. Mirae let out a sound—hopefully, she understood what she needed to do.
Hector didn’t know how long these talismans would last. And if it wasn’t long enough, he didn’t want hers running out when she needed it the most. He took a step forward, his sandaled feet crushing splintered wood. “Shouldn’t we just run? I mean, the guards are coming this way, and we don’t exactly have a good reason for the coin pouches we have on us,” Lincoln said.
“That is the least of my worries, Lincoln,” Hector said, getting into his fighting stance. “We need to keep that thing off, Mirae. If it’s running from the guards, it shouldn’t waste much time on us.” Hector, gulping, gestured behind them. “It’s that one I’m worried about—it could catch us off guard or team up with its friend. Then the guards won’t be much help at all.”
Lincoln frowned, lowering his stance and moving next to Hector, blocking Mirae. “You better not abandon me again. I don’t feel like being a snack all by myself this time, alright.”
“If we make it through this, I will make it up to you. I promise,” Hector said, licking his lips and tasting salt. The groans of the injured nearby came to his ear, but listening to that would do him no good—he wasn’t a healer or a hero; he just needed to keep his family safe.
The creature reached them and Hector barreled forward, Lincoln at his side. He needed to make sure it was as far away from Mirae as possible. With a grunt, narrowly avoiding a lashing tentacle, Hector barreled into it, slamming it.
It screeched, raising a paw and swiping for him. Lincoln was there, swivelling through the air and delivering a devastating heel kick. The paw was knocked back. Hector kicked off, raising a knee and whipping out, delivering an Orion Leaping Strike to its obsidian black, featureless face. It staggered.
While Hector sprinted to the creature’s back, Lincoln rushed forward with three quick blows. Little effect. Grunting, Hector exploded off the cobblestone, raising a knee, and slammed his foot into the beast’s hide. It staggered forward, stumbling. A tentacle shot from its back, thick and pulsing, crunching down into the cobblestone, steadying it. Hector stepped back over to Lincoln, lowering his stance and raising his fists. The creature growled, baring its teeth, its tentacles whipping through the air.
Heavy footsteps beat off the cobblestone. The two white-robed guards charged forward, not even paying them any attention, and thrust forward with their polearms. While the creature lunged forward, swinging a paw at the two, Hector and Lincoln, relaxing a little, shuffled back—he and Lincoln had done all they needed to; the guards could take over.
“Are you alright?” Hector asked Mirae, as he stepped over, keeping half his attention on the fight between the guards and the beast. Lincoln flanked him, kicking at broken fragments of wood, as his gaze traveled around the destroyed path.
She nodded, running over. “What way do we go now?”
“It’s probably best to go in the direction that they came from,” Hector said, watching the guards fight. The two had managed to push it back, but the beast was getting closer to its friend. If it joined in, Hector didn’t like the guards’ chances.
“Yeah, perhaps.” Lincoln crossed his arms, frowning as he watched a woman crawl across the cobblestone, her legs broken. He muttered something—he must not have wanted Hector to hear, as he was especially quiet.
“Let’s go then,” Hector said, grabbing Mirae’s hand, and moving in the direction the guards had come from. Lincoln trailed behind him, constantly looking over his shoulder. That was a good thing since Hector couldn’t watch both his front and back at the same time. You never knew when another creature could pop out.
Hector felt a tug on his hand as he hurried. He glanced back, raising a brow at Mirae. “What’s up?”
She didn’t speak, instead pointing off to the side. The wind buffeted a destroyed stall nearby. Hector turned—his heart dropped. Off in the distance, near the center of the festival, was another one of the creatures. But bigger. Much bigger. Thick black tentacles lashing through the air, it loomed over everything, easily five stories tall.
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///: Acquiring target stats…
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/// Creature Type: Void Ravager
Cultivation level: [Core Formation-1]
Talent: [None]
Talent Fragment: [5-Legendary]
///
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Hector’s mind whirled. There was no way that thing just appeared out of thin air. But yet here it was, right in front of him.
That can’t be real, right? It can’t be.
While Hector stood frozen, Lincoln bumped into his back, staggering. “What’s the holdup—by the Great Lake? What is that?”
“I think you might be right, Lincoln. I don’t know if that’s a mana beast.” Hector looked down the path where the guards were still fighting the smaller creatures. The men were now losing. At this rate, they would kill the guards and pick a new target.
Lincoln dropped to his knees, slamming his fist onto the cobblestone. “I don’t care what it is anymore. I hate this; we just came to do one simple thing, and now we are going to die for it. How is that fair?”
“Lincoln, we aren’t going to die.”
The boy looked up, eyes red, scowling. “Do you think we can outrun that thing? Are you serious? For all you know, there could be a whole army of those smaller ones nearby.”
Hector opened his mouth, but no words came out. Mirae’s warm hand squeezed his as she took a step closer, her shaking form reinforcing what he had to do. A cool breeze ruffled his hair, carrying with it the smell of sweet bread and urine. His heart, slowly settling, leapt as the stall a little ways down the street from them exploded into fragments of wood and cloth as another Void Hunger scurried out onto the cobblestone, claws clattering. It lowered its head, sniffing at the ground.
Just great, another one. But it’s funny. The only thing that scares me right now is losing Mirae. I wonder why? I know I’m scared, but it’s not paralyzing.
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///: “If the user cannot maintain a certain threshold of clear-headedness, he will not be able to use the system functions.”
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Well, damn. We’ll have to talk about that little revelation later.
Frowning, Hector released Mirae’s warm hand and stepped towards the beast. His heart sank as he looked back at Lincoln. His friend hadn’t moved, still kneeling and staring at the cobblestone with vacant eyes—he wouldn’t be much help right now, but hopefully, he could buy the boy some time to get himself together.
As Hector turned back to the beast, its featureless face looked up. Sunlight danced across its obsidian skin as Hector gritted his teeth, tightening his fist. It had found him. Sure, there were people nearby—but the beast seemed trained on him.
“Mirae, you stay with Lincoln, okay?” Hector said, forcing a tight smile. The water building on the edge of his sister’s eyes made him waver, but he had to do this; no one else would. “You will be alright.” His gaze drifted down the pathway to where the two guards still fought the two beasts. One guard’s arm hung at an odd angle, but he still fought on—Hector had to respect that kind of persistence.
Turning, Hector darted forward, crossing the distance to the beast in moments. The creature opened its razor-filled jaw and roared, snapping towards his chest, forcing him to leap to the side. He crunched onto his shoulder, rolled, and kicked off the cold cobblestone. He felt the air whip past his cheek as he twisted away from the beast’s tentacle and lashed forward with an Orion Leaping Strike straight to the beast’s side.
Hector’s kick sent the creature staggering, its screech echoing off the stones as it skittered backwards. He pulled on [Quickening Brace], feeling time slow to a crawl as he watched the beast, tracking and plotting the path its paw would take as it went to readjust itself—There, it was a misdirect; it would go with the tentacle first.
The world around him snapped back into motion. He flung his body backwards, his hands smacking and pushing off the cold cobblestone as the creature’s tentacle cracked down where he’d been moments before. He then kicked off the stone, twisting his body through the air and channelling his momentum into a devastating kick. His heel connected with the creature’s head, and he felt the impact shudder through his leg as it slammed into the ground with a sickening crack.
He pushed off the ugly thing’s head, twisting out of the way as a tentacle whipped by his face. Pain exploded in his side as a second tentacle he hadn’t seen slammed into him, cracking into the stone skin membrane. The impact sent him flying, slamming him into the cobblestone. Loose pieces of wood splintering against his back.
“Hector!” His sister’s voice cut through his mild daze as he pushed himself up into a seated position and coughed—it had definitely knocked the wind out of him. A careless mistake. Dangerous even. Hector let out a shaky breath, feeling the cool wind against his arms. If he made more mistakes like that, Mirae would be next—after the beast finished chewing on him.
Hector’s ear twitched as familiar footsteps echoed off the cobblestone behind him. “That looked like it actually hurt,” Lincoln said, his voice causing Hector’s shoulders to relax—it had taken that idiot more than long enough to get himself together. “Do you think you’ll need a hand?”
Chuckling, Hector placed a hand on his knee and clambered shakily to his feet. “You know, I think I’ve had enough fun with it alone. But this is probably a two-man job.”
“Oh really? Then I guess you won’t mind if I cut in.”
Hector fought back a smile as his friend stepped next to him and lowered his stance. Lincoln thumbed over his shoulder to the fight still going on behind. “By the way, we might want to hurry this up; I don’t think the guards can hold on much longer.”
“That’s the idea,” Hector said, his sandaled feet scraping across the cobblestone as he got into his fighting stance. He eyed the Void Hunger as it slowly stalked towards him and Lincoln—it seemed to welcome the extra challenge.
“You know it’s funny, Lincoln. I think we can actually beat it. It should actually be on its last legs.”
Lincoln grunted in response, but Hector knew that was enough—his friend would follow his lead—no words needed.
Tightening his fist, he got ready to charge. But his eyes went wide as something blurred into the side of the creature, taking it off its feet and slamming it into a destroyed stall. The impact sent a plume of torn cloth and wooden shrapnel into the air, and Hector found himself tracking pieces of debris as they tumbled through the destruction.
What the hell was that?
Comments
Casual Ham
Looking forward to it!
Leonardo Phipps
You will have your answer soon. But yeah, I've come to realise that in my fear of exposition dumping, I might have underexplained how the Talent fragments work at this point. But you will get your answer. That's all I'll say in case I spoil anything.
Casual Ham
Did we ever get an explanation on why Hector doesn't take talent fragments from afar? I don't think we ever saw anything saying he had to touch them (or subdue them) at all.
