Ashborn Primordial

Chapter 48: Some Dreams Do Come True

Rudvik stepped forward. I will not allow it.

The knight appraised Rudvik with a bemused expression. You!? Dont embarrass yourself, lumberjack. What combat training have you had? Have you ever taken the life of another man? Will you behead me with that ungainly tree ax of yours?

Ye damn well know Ill do whateer it takes! his father shouted.

The scene played out in front of Virs eyes, just as before. But unlike then, he was stronger now. This time, he could do something.

No! Vir shouted. Father, you cant take him on!

What kinda father cant een protect his own kid, huh?

Vir didnt bother arguing. He saw the knights poleax in slow motion, promising death and destruction as it approached Rudviks back.

But this time, Vir would not let him. He Leaped to the knight, crashing into him, sending his enemy tumbling to the ground.

Now, Maiya! he said, jumping away.

Twin columns of fire erupted from his friends hands, arcing out, enveloping the knight. The warrior screamed, writhing on the ground, desperately trying to get free of the flames that burned him.

He failed. The knights screams grew weaker and weaker, until there was silence in the forest once again.

Ye did good, boy! Rudvik said, patting Vir and Maiya on their heads. Couldnt be more proud o ya.

I just wanted to make you proud, father, Vir said, tears welling up in his eyes.

Aye, yeget down, boy! Rudvik said suddenly.

An enormous spider descended upon the man, crushing him under its immense weight.

Vir hadnt even had the chance to move. He watched helplessly as the light faded from his fathers eyes.

Run! Rudvik whispered.

Father no! Vir wailed, jerking awake, katar already in hand.

He looked around, only to find a peaceful forest that was just waking up for the day. Peaceful, apart from the strange voices that always plagued the Godshollow.

Sighing, he put down his blade.

Not that dream again. This was the second night in a row hed had that nightmare, though this time with the addition of a certain spider. And now he was shivering thanks to all the sweat that greased his back.

Great

At least nightmares rarely came true.

Vir sunk further under the thick blanket hed stolborrowed from Riyans place. Even if the man had ordered him to set out right away to go hunt some beast, he wasnt about to enter the Godshollow without adequate preparations. Warmth was key to survival.

The trip had taken six long hours on Bumpy from Riyans abode, but the forest was no place for an Ashva. Hed been forced to leave the animal to graze near the northern edge of the forest.

The Godshollowand specifically this task Riyan had set for himbrought with it a torrent of emotions. On the one hand, hed just gained some powerful new Talents he was itching to test out, but dangerous situations put him at risk of the Reaper taking over again. The two thoughts warred with each other in Virs head, leaving him little peace.

After several minutes of working up the courage to escape the warmth of his blanket, he eventually managed it.

Vir stepped past the makeshift camp to gaze down on the forest floor, over a hundred paces below. Hed been to the forest a thousand times, but had never witnessed it from this high before. The canopy was a world unto itself, magical and mysterious.

Hed never realized just how truly massive the boughs of the great Godhollows were until hed High Jumped and climbed his way up one to pitch camp up here.

Though Vir wasnt afflicted with a fear of heights, climbing a hundred paces without a rope would scare anyone. And considering he hadnt yet learned Light Step, a fall from that height would be his last.

So he made sure to never look down.

The bough he was on was over seven paces in width. He could comfortably lie down sideways and still had room to spare. As a platform, it was both sturdy and secure.

Riyan had been sparse on the details of this hunt, but he had mentioned three things. First, hed given Vir the beasts general location and said that, while dangerous, the prana beast wasnt beyond his capabilities.

Apparently, itd been wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem. Riyan seemed certain that if left unchecked, the capital would send out a scouting party. Any military presence near Brij was bad news for all of them.

Vir felt like that was all a lie, though. That the real reason was because Riyan wanted Vir to get some actual combat experience. It did feel like he was being thrown to the wolves on this one, but he was in no position to complain. If it helped him grow stronger, he was all for it.

Second, Riyan cautioned that there was safety to be found in altitude. The higher the better. That made sense to Vir on several levelsmost of the forests predators had no means to scale the enormously tall trees.

Finally, Riyan had said that hed benefit by observing and analyzing the enemy before making his move. Hed neglected to mention what exactly the enemy he was hunting was, or even what it looked like. Apparently, part of the value of this lesson was figuring out this information for himself.

Vir didnt mindhed never been one to shy away from a challenge.

After eating some nuts and dried berries, Vir retrieved his weapons and departed.

Hed soon discovered that several of the Godhollows barkless boughs nearly touched each other, and where they didnt, Leap and High Jump allowed him to bridge those gaps with ease. As such, he never needed to climb back down to the forest floor, and could travel far quicker than those restricted to the ground.

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He came to the end of a limb and waited several seconds as High Jump charged, before he sailed through the air onto another bough, dropping to his knees to absorb the impact of the fall.

The only issue with Talents up here was that they took far longer to charge than if he were in direct contact with the ground. A minor inconvenience in daily life, but a major drawback in the middle of a battle.

Hed spent two days in this forest now, and just yesterday, hed found a lead on the beast he was hunting.

When hed first laid eyes on the white monster, he had thanked Janak that Maiya wasnt here. The giant spider wouldve had her curling up in a ball and wishing to disappear.

The critter soon came into view. It was never one to stray from its usual patrol, making its actions easy to predict.

The white arachnid was about three paces wide, and a single pace tall. Frightening for a spider, but overall, not too much of a threat, given Virs recent advances.

Hed taken Riyans advice to heart and spent all of yesterday analyzing its behavior from afar. Hed learned that its eyesight was poor, allowing him to sneak up on the thing with relative ease. The spider preferred to go after small prey, mostlythe kinds of tiny rodents and critters that called the boughs of the great Godhollows their home. Occasionally, it went after baby birds caught in their nests. That made Vir sad.

Its tyranny would end today. Vir High Jumped to the next higher bough that ran parallel to the one hed been traveling on. From here, he had a perfect line of sight to the spider. Hed prepared the ambush site in advance, so all he had to do now was execute the plan.

Vir waited patiently for an hour, silent, as all good predators ought to be, before the spider finally came into view on the bough below him. Too far for an ordinary person to jump, but not too far for Vir.

He waited for the right timing to charge Leap, pulling blood higher up his legs to pull prana from the bough. Too soon, and hed be forced to activate the ability before the spider had entered his kill zone. Too late, and hed lose the window of opportunity.

His timing was perfect. Firing off the ability right as he kicked off of the limb, he shot forth. Not on an intercept course with the spider, but on a course that sent him above the arachnid.

Chakram in hand and with Prana Vision highlighting the spiders heart in white and gray, he aimed from midair, and threw.

The deadly disk sailed silently through the air. The spider had no chance. It saw neither Vir nor the disk before the chakram sliced open its chitin.

The exoskeleton may as well have been made of butter. The chakram penetrated deep into its shell, ending the critter in moments.

Vir somersaulted midair and landed on his toes, just a pace in front of the beast. A flawless kill.

He looked upon the corpse with pride. For the first time ever, everything had gone according to plan.

Maybe Ill even get home in time to use the grotto!

Eager to wrap up his time in the forest, Vir sliced off the arachnids head before recovering his chakram. Knowing Riyan, hed be wanting proof of the kill, so as disgusting as it was, Vir threw the beasts head into his rucksack and headed to his camp.

About halfway back, he stopped to take a quick water break.

That was when he heard the chittering. Faint, at first, but which grew progressively louder. They seemed to come

From where I killed the spider, he realized.

He saw nothing when he stared in the direction hed come, but he took no risks. Unwilling to linger any longer, he picked up his pace, arriving back at his bough camp in minutes.

Vir moved efficiently, stuffing his thick blanket into the rucksack, along with some food hed removed to keep the pack light during his hunt, carefully keeping the food isolated from the spider head at the bottom.

It was after hed cinched the last pack strap that he froze.

Something felt off. He couldnt quite place it, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up and goosebumps rippled across his body.

The chittering that had grown progressively louder had stopped.

Vir turned slowly around and came face to face with a dozen spiders. All identical to the one hed just killed.

He burst into motion before hed even processed the danger. Leap activated, blasting him into the air onto a parallel bough, some ten paces below. He turned back, only to find the spiders jumping one after another, effortlessly pursuing him.

Vir tore into a mad dash. Hed almost forgotten what it felt like to have his heart pump so fast. To be driven by primal, instinctive fear.

Yet despite his predicament, he forced his mind to remain calm, constantly eyeing new branches to High Jump or Leap to.

His pursuers were far more agile than hed guessed. They had no issues keeping up, and in fact, they were steadily gaining on him. Riyan mightve been able to outpace them with consecutive Leaps, but each Talent took Vir a good ten seconds to prime up here on these boughs.

Of course, the answer to his predicament was both obvious and temptingseek the ground. The only reason he hadnt was on account of Riyans warnings.

As he ran along his current bough to the trunk of a massive Godhollow, he knew he had to try something different. The spiders had chased him to a part of the forest that was unfamiliar to him, which concerned him greatly.

Vir paused, turned, and launched another chakram at the spiders. This time, he used a vertical grip, sending the chakram ripping through the air with deadly speed. The arachnids dodged, but being clustered so closely atop the bough, they had little room to escape. His disk cleaved through one, killing it instantly.

Unfortunately, the rest paid their fallen brother no heed. Without pausing, they relentlessly swarmed him.

Vir had seen what their pincers could do; he wasnt foolish enough to allow them to enter melee range.

He turned and dove for the Godhollows trunk. Luckily, these ancient trees had plenty of handholds, allowing him to creep down the trunk.

Unluckily, climbing down was even harder than climbing up, and the worst part was he was constantly looking down, a constant reminder of the incredible hazard he was taking. A fall from here was a death sentence.

His pace was glacial. The spidersif they could follow him on a vertical surfacewould be on top of him in no time.

Hed taken a gamble And it paid off.

The oversized white spiders all halted at the root of the bough, eyeing him with their black compound eyes.

Vir paused and heaved a great breath before continuing the long descent down to ground level at a slower pace.

He never imagined hed be so happy to see dirt again. Cathartic relief flooded his body, but then he remembered Riyans warning. The forest floor was not safe.

Vir walked cautiously, alert for any sign of predators, but he saw none.

Once hed put some distance between himself and those spiders, he planned to ascend another Godhollow. Hopefully, it would be enough to throw his pursuers off his trail.

He halted. Dread coursed through his veins as an epiphany dawned on him.

Riyan had mentioned a single beast. Not a dozen of them.

That meant

A large drop of goopy water splat upon the ground beside him.

Odd, he thought. The sky was clear just a moment ago. Here in the Godshollow, it took a real squall for any precipitation to penetrate the thick canopy.

Drip.

Another one fell, this time to his left. He looked at the liquid, only to realize it wasnt water. It was thick. Almost like syrup.

Virs blood ran cold. Slowly, hesitatingly, he looked up

And found a network of sturdy cobwebs that stretched from tree to tree. Camouflaged by a mat of leaves, which is why he never saw them from above.

Standing upon them, poised right above him, thirty paces in the sky, was an eight-legged arachnid, easily five times the size of the ones hed dispatched. Surrounding it were a dozen of its smaller brethren.

This mustve been the beast Riyan wanted him to hunt.

And hed walked right into its trap.

The Clutch Rachna hissed and fell upon him. Along with every one of its clutchlings. A coordinated attack.

All the color drained from Virs face.

Some dreams really did come true. Especially nightmares.

Next time: 49 - Clutch Rachna