XLI

  No Longer Human

  Stray embers from Saber’s fur slapped against my face as we ran. I glanced back but, of course, Red Fang was long out of sight.

  A column of fire ripped through the tunnel. I ducked underneath the roaring serpent, whose fangs buried into the ground, and vaulted onto the walkway on the opposite side.

  Glistening drops fell from the corner of my sight as I landed.

  “Up ahead!” Rin yelled.

  We burst out of the tunnel into a cavern whose ceiling I literally couldn’t see through the bright lights raining down. Walls encased us on both sides, and the stream widened to climb up a set of plateaus to another flat piece of land.

  Besides the plateaus, there was no way to scale the wall.

  “We fight them here!” Rin said. “I can hoist us over the waterfall if we need to escape.”

  The platforms were too high for the drakes to climb, so it would be just the elite chasing us.

  I whirled around and planted my feet, Saber and Skul beside me.

  The drake woman didn’t launch out of the exit on our heels like we expected her to.

  ‘She’s waiting for her drakes.’

  No matter. I took the offered time to control my breathing. There was a replacement blade in my storage but I didn’t reach for it. It wasn’t Red Fang, and an inferior weapon would only slow me down.

  My mind honed in on the shard’s energy floating towards Saber. Bright lights poured from the feline’s hide, which were nearly as blinding as the luminescence beaming down. Invisible lines crawled from his cloak, veered into the air, and pricked into a set of azure scales.

  Nothing visual about Skul had changed, but I could tell: Saber’s cloak was affecting him. Boosting his powers as it did that of the cat, albeit to a lesser degree.

  ‘He empowered his skill.’

  Fascinating as it was, I drew my attention from Saber’s title bonus to his other skill. One I had to imagine, whose fruits I’d tasted for mere moment before.

  ‘She tried to have the others betray you.’

  Then she threw away Mother’s heirloom…slowly, a red film bubbled over my eyes and clouded my view.

  Heat gathered in my abdomen, enough to make the contents of my stomach simmer.

  Humanoid and lesser drakes clawed themselves into the chamber.

  “Finally done running?” the elite said, her voice and visage enough to turn the simmer into a boil.

  The stream beside us bulged. Not a single drop of water crashed to the floor as it came to hover over Rin’s shoulder. “Running from you…” her head tilted. “What’s your name again?”

  “Senna, sister of Renna. You may remember it until your death.”

  The three drakes spread out from behind her like wings.

  Senna turned towards Skul. “That thing…is that what you turned my brethren into?”

  “What if I did?”

  Veins popped on her face.

  With a gesture, I changed Skul’s target from Senna to the weakest of the drakes. I wasn’t sure how his spirit leech worked, but it should be stronger against lower levels.

  And stronger it was. The thin wisps that’d siphoned out of Senna’s skin were almost the width of a finger as they shot out of the lesser drake. The beast cried out, its the signal for the room to burst into motion.

  Senna didn’t use a whip like Erri—perhaps she lacked the necessary control—but the blade forming in her hands may be deadlier. Saber’s nails met the shaping flames head-on, and the two traded blows. Senna’s blows were heavy. Each exchange saw Saber fly backwards only for the cat to whirl in mid-air, land on its feet, and rush her again.

  He was quickly sustaining wounds, however. He needed help.

  Rin’s trident swiped out in an arc. Razor thin blasts shot from the blob of water over her head as if launched from a catapult. She aimed not for Senna but the lesser drakes. Scales shattered on impact, but the jets didn’t penetrate deep into the flesh. Mostly, her attacks slowed down their advance.

  Still, the beasts wailed. I let the cries wash over me, as I did with the clanging of nails on metal, or the whistle water speeding by. Puffs of steam leaked from my stomach out my nostrils. Heat condensed and intensified. When it could build no longer, I reached for Saber’s connection.

  Scalding fires dug through our bond like I’d drilled a hole into the side of a volcano. My face scrunched up. Screams like those during Erri’s fight wanted to rupture from my throat. But I poured all of the pent up energy into my summon.

  Saber’s jaws were clamped around Senna’s forearm, his fangs trying their absolute best to puncture her scales but finding no purchase. Then his fur rippled, and an audible crack shuddered through the chamber.

  Senna’s eyes went wide before she abandoned a thrust of her blade and slung Saber back through the air. She cast a glance at her arm…and froze as blood oozed from the cracks in her armour.

  Her window of introspection ended after Saber landed and charged right back into the fray, his fangs gleaming with steaming blood, his hunger for more evident on his face.

  Senna jammed her blade into the ground and palmed her forearm. A flash of orange like that of the sun on a midsummer day. When she revealed her arm, no more blood escaped her flesh.

  ‘She cauterised the wound.’

  I almost wanted to dip my head, for it must’ve been painful.

  A torrent rose at Rin’s feet. She darted forwards in a burst of water to spear one of the drakes in the side. However deep her weapon bit, it was enough, this time, for the drake tumbled and collapsed.

  “You…!” Senna yelled at the cry of her brood member. Her tail whipped a pouncing Saber in the stomach. She leapt for Rin, who was still dislodging her weapon from the beast’s soon-to-be corpse.

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  But soon-to-be wasn’t now, and the lesser drake trashed with the remainder of its life force to buy more time for its superior.

  There was a cry on the wind. One that was all too familiar to me.

  I closed my eyes. Cool flames flushed my channels, dousing the bubbling heat in my stomach. My fists balled. Skul’s jaw opened wide. Calling what rippled forth a scream or roar wasn’t doing it service. It was like an earthquake but one of sound. Sound which coursed through the flesh to dig into the spirit.

  Senna’s muscles spasmed in the middle of her leap, causing her to fall. A moment later, Rin finally pried her trident’s prongs out of the lesser drake.

  Skul whirled on the two remaining drakes, which had just began biting through the pain of Rin’s art to build their flame breaths.

  The fires in their throats paused as wisps leeched from their skin at twice the volume of before.

  Smoke near Skul’s neck clumped together. A neckline formed, then a shoulder, then the beginnings of an arm which sprouted a set of fingers to which wickedly sharp nails were attached. His eyes blazed. He bounded through the air like a ghost straight out of a horror tale and slammed into one of the lesser creatures, swinging his one arm with abandon. His strikes ripped off scales and drew blood but were far from fatal.

  Yet I could tell he hadn’t reached his final form in this stage.

  “Saber,” I whispered. “Return.”

  He was about to throw himself at the other drake when he whipped around. Liquid fire dripped from his physique in droves.

  I didn’t repeat myself.

  Limping and grumbling, he returned to the garden. Ashwing took his place.

  My fingers brushed the pattern of red-orange feathers on her back. ‘Calm Mind.’

  I shivered at the wave of warmth passing through me. Skul did so too. His swipe carved a deep gash into the side of the lesser drake, who whirled around and snapped its jaw at my summon. The balekin easily swerved out of the way.

  Senna recovered from her fall. The veins on her forehead now ran through her eyes, twisted and broke so the red consumed all of the organ.

  Rin fired but the ground broke as Senna shot off towards me and the elite dodged the art completely.

  Great wings beat to carve a divide in the atmosphere. Senna slapped the flame cutter aside, then planted her knuckles square on Ashwing’s beak. My summon was hurled back, but not before slamming a flame cutter underneath Senna’s jaw like an uppercut.

  Both tumbled through the air and landed a little ways away.

  The close-up snapshot I’d caught of Senna’s face flicked through my mind. That was fury. Not mere anger, but hate. Pure, unadulterated hate.

  Hate for me.

  My gaze drifted towards Skul. The balekin roared again as a second arm srpouted from his neckline. He whirled on the drakes, and began to tear into the second like he’d done the first. Though both drakes had lost blood and scales, it wasn’t anything a restoration pill wouldn’t fix.

  Skul was strong, but he needed to advance to his next stage before he could kill one of those by himself. Even now that he’d reached the peak of his strength.

  Rin turned to help him. The blood dripping from her weapon was enough to remind me of the pit in my stomach growing wider by the second.

  ‘The corpse,’ it screamed.

  “You’re…a monster.” Senna pushed herself out of the dust she’d rolled through.

  Except from some scratches and cuts, she was fine. Just like Skul, I lacked the sheer strength needed to kill her.

  “I’m no more a monster than you,” I said. “Even the infants of your clan have killed more than me.”

  And was that not so? I’d heard mere tales of how the Dragonflight conquered their worlds, yet those were enough.

  A drawn out chuckle slipped past Senna’s lips. “Yes, we kill, too. We kill a lot.” Flames in the shape of nine tentacles ripped from between the gaps in her scales. “Such is the right of dragons! But we do not trap souls.”

  My shard blared and cramped up my stomach.

  Her claw swiped the air. “Every soul you and those Immortals take is barred from entering the cycle of reincarnation, not even allowing their loved ones the faintest hope of ever seeing them again! And all for your own selfish gains!”

  She was spitting the words by the end. But the anger drained from her physique and made way for something colder. Something ruthless.

  “You know the saddest thing I’ve learned about this world since awakening?” she said.

  I didn’t respond.

  “The saddest thing is that people like you are considered human.”

  Silence should’ve hung for a long moment. The wails didn’t let it. They swirled around me like the white stalkers did that day.

  “You may be right,” I whispered.

  Perhaps I’d lost the right to call myself that since then...

  Senna leapt towards me, nine tentacles spread around her like flower petals that lashed out.

  Ashwing had long returned to my side. Her shuddering warmth passed over me like a blanket. Cutting flames carved through half of the appendages. The other half broke on Ashwing’s feathers except one, which managed to find my face.

  I didn’t avoid it. The flames raked across my cheek like the hand of an angry mother. Before Senna landed and she could strike again, a bar of water struck her out of the air.

  To the side, two drakes with a multitude of leaking holes drug themselves over the floor. Skul’s wrath descended on them.

  “He can take care of the rest,” Rin called, joining my side. “That said, we should probably hurry up.”

  Without noticing, the pulse of the shard had gone.

  The dead drake had risen to its feet. It made no move to attack but rested on its haunches as blood dripped down the sides of its neck.

  [Scorn - lvl. 19]

  “What is it doing?” I asked. It seemed to just be…watching.

  “I don’t know,” Rin said. “I’m not keen on figuring out either.”

  She barrelled forwards at the end of her sentence. Senna rushed to her feet again and intercepted the wavecaller. That left her open for Ashwing. Now that I didn’t have to worry about the elite coming for my throat, I could take my time and pour more essence into Ashwing’s skills.

  The resulting flame cutter was many times brighter and sharped than any she’d fired before. It shaved off the scales on Senna’s thighs, revealing the bare flesh underneath.

  Behind us, the two drakes roared, one of them freeing themselves from Skul and dashing forwards.

  “No!” Senna yelled.

  The drake skirted to a halt.

  “Leave me!” Senna said, her flames whirling around her like a twister.

  Patterns in the drake’s gaze changed as it turned from Senna towards me, and in the reflection of its eyes I found a mirror of myself. The image didn’t vanish even as the drake stepped back and bounded for the exit we came from. Its brethren followed it.

  Skul wanted to give chase but I reeled him in and sent him after Senna. His wanton attacks trapped her movements. Rin’s jets shattered her scales, Ashwing’s fires exposed more naked flesh. Even with all of us working together, Senna managed to land blows of her own. One of her tentacles created an ugly laceration on Rin’s leg, forcing the girl to fall back and rely only on her ranged attacks. Skul took a hit which separated one of his arms. The limb didn’t grow back and had to be rebuilt from scratch. Ashwing herself even had the tentacles rip out part of the base of her wings.

  Still, we whittled her down—all while the undead drake watched—and Senna finally fell to her knees.

  My boots waded through the blood pooling around the panting elite. I drew the replacement sword from my storage.

  “If there…” she whispered, “is a hell.” She coughed and more blood added to the pool.

  I placed my boot on her chest and kicked her onto her back, so she stared up at me.

  “Then I’ll see you there,” I said.

  The tip entered her throat. She gurgled but kept our gazes locked. Slowly, the fires there faded. The flare of my shard was immediate.

  A lvl. 26 drake. How much experience would that give? Skul may shoot straight to middle tier.

  Yet my hands didn’t move. I loomed over the corpse. Skul loomed beside me, and together we watched the haze bubbling out of Senna’s corpse. It was a lot brighter than that of the herald. Than that of any creature I’d killed as of yet. It was no wonder, then, that the pulse of the shard was now a physical pain and the energy almost pulled onto my fingertip of its own accord.

  I remained stationary.

  “You should take her.” Rin limped up beside me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

  At my raised brow, she said: “I heard some of what she said…”

  …“And? Do you think I’m a monster, too?”

  Cries curled through the air. Impossibly so, for there were no more living beasts in the vicinity.

  Rin couldn’t hear them, given how her skin didn’t crawl.

  “No,” she said. “Even if I do, I’m glad you’re on my side.”

  That didn’t do much for my thoughts, and I remained hovering over the corpse.

  She sighed. “Look, this is an issue you’ll have to figure out on your own. But if you want to know what I think?” She turned towards the drake, who was still sitting quietly, watching our every move. “I think it’s best you take her instead of letting her become…that. At least then she won’t be scheming to kill us.”

  Then she limped towards the waterfall.

  “Whatever you choose,” she called back, “do it quick. I don’t want to be around when she rises.”

  As she left me to simmer with my thoughts, I flicked a glance towards my system. The messages for the kills were there, of course, but there was another addition.

  Class Skill recognised!

  Skill [Keeper's Bond (Common)] unlocked.

  Keeper's Bond (Common): The keeper tightens the connection between herself and one of her summons, allowing her to internalise one of their aspects. Internalised aspects enhance both the summoned creature and the keeper.

  ‘Tightening the connection...’

  Enhancing myself. The image of the woman on the mural sped through my head. Of the charred crimson scales covering her cheeks, the flaming wings protruding from between her shoulder blades.

  The shard forced my attention towards Senna’s corpse. Her scales gleamed in the flames that appeared beside my shoulder.

  “The saddest thing is that people like you are considered human.”

  But who ever said I was human in the first place?

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