Chapter 272

Wards of Eternity (III)

Emma stepped back, both of her feet feeling heavier than a condensed heart of a star, pulling her down. She withstood, though, like a bow of a ship against the raging storm. There was little besides exhaustion belting against her bones; they creaked and cried like newborn babes, each pull of the fingers a task beyond tasks.

Her weary eyes looked onward where, piling like fall’s leaves, thousands lay in the shape of a strange cliff, forming a figurative and a literal bridge. The stairs that once shone in silver were now nowhere to be seen-- filled with corpses from top to bottom. There was no end in sight as there was no measure of time since she begun.

Beside her, Ethan walked up, wretched and broken. Rather than relief, there was only apathy in his gaze. He was told it was over, but he didn’t believe it. How many other times had he thought it was over? It never was. Over and over and over and over and over. Wave after wave. It never ceased, like the constant waves rolling onto the sandy beaches.

The two remained standing on their feet despite only wanting to lay down and collapse, to close their eyes and drift off into the dreamland beyond scope. But they didn’t dare. No, perchance, they were too tired to even sleep. A woeful paradox, but a reality nonetheless.

“Is... is it really over?” Ethan quizzed through parched lips. He must have shaved off the tender motes a hundred times by his teeth, bleeding his lips dry by this point.

“Maybe...?” Emma replied, panting. Hundreds of strands of her hair lay glued to her skin, some through sweat though most through blood. There wasn’t an inch of her that wasn’t crimson-- the only question was the color’s shade, entirely dependent on how dry the blood was and which surface it latched itself onto.

A window appeared in front of Emma, drawing her eyes over onto it. She read haphazardly through it, finally reaching the last line and collapsing, sitting down. For the first time in days, or weeks, or even months-- since time was impossible to latch onto while constantly fighting for their lives-- she could relax. Wear and tear immediately brought her into the dreamland and, seeing her like this, Ethan followed suit.

The two slept for a while before waking up. Though refreshed, they were hardly like new; every fiber of their muscles ached as they struggled to sit up, quickly gorging down a meal.

“What’d you get for a reward?” Emma asked as Ethan shared a passive Skill he’d gotten.

//Shadewoven(SS-)

Passive: at the cost of 2% of max Mana, teleport to any shadow within your sight. The action’s stealth is based on your native Stealth stats.

Passive: increases Mana regeneration by 80%.//

“Oh, that’s pretty good,” she commented, chewing on some beef jerky.

“Pretty good?” Ethan scoffed. “It’s game-changing. This place is oddly stingy when it comes to movement skills, especially for agility-based classes. This pretty much nullifies the greatest weakness of my class-- lack of instant mobility. What about you? What’d you get?”

“A skill as well,” Emma commented, sharing the info.

//The Final Rhapsody(Quasi-Heroic)

Cooldown: 24 hours

Mana Cost: N/A

Health Cost: 40% of current HP

Passive: gain 1% to ALL stats for each opponent you are facing. Gain additional 15% life-steal, 25% Health Regeneration, 40% Physical and 30% Magical resistance if the number is at least 30.

Active: triple ALL your stats and quadruple raw damage and life-steal for 3 minutes. Become immune to ALL crowd control and gain a boost of 300% movement speed, decaying to 60% over 3 seconds. A fatal blow will instead preemptively end the skill and create a barrier around you that will block 25% of your max health, decaying rapidly over 4 seconds. //

“Okay, yeah,” Ethan mumbled. “My skill is shit. What the fuck is that?! I know you’re pretty much the reason we’re alive... but seriously, what the fuck is that?! That is broken!”

“Ha ha,” Emma laughed faintly. “Yea, it’s pretty good. Broken? Eh. Debatable.”

“... d-debatable? You’ve seen a more powerful skill?” he quizzed.

“Yup,” she nodded. “Fun fact: Cain had one of his skills literally retired by the Tower because it was too strong.”

“...”

“True story.”

“Yea, no wonder my first ‘adventure’ with you guys is... this,” he pointed at the mountain of corpses. “Got a Skill banned... that literally makes no sense.”

“Tell me about it,” Emma chuckled lightly. “Alright. We should leave. Others are likely waiting for us and wondering whether we’re dead or alive.”

“Hm,” Ethan nodded. “We’ve taken so goddamned long...”

The two got up in silence and walked the bridge of corpses, cringing at the sound of the bones cracking beneath their boots. They made their way over to the other side swiftly where the arched exit waited for them, transferring them back into the silver-capped heaven.

Their appearances clashed mightily with the surrounding splendor, so much so that they immediately stood out like sore thumbs even from miles away. They looked around and felt something strange-- the air. For the first time in god-knows-how-long... it didn’t reek of blood. It was fresh, as though someone shoved a mint into their mouths, cold and chilly air beating through their nostrils, cleansing them.

They didn’t stick around much longer, immediately heading over toward the spot they marked as the one for reunion. It wasn’t far off from their trial’s gate, but when they arrived, they became convinced they either completely misremembered where it was or just mistook it for some other place since... there was nobody else there.

It was a crossroad of sorts, a single, central path branching off into six others, rounding a featureless, humanoid, winged statue cast out of marble stone. The two stopped and looked around aimlessly for a while, but remained convinced that they were actually at the correct spot. Their doubts were proven correct when they saw Senna walking toward them. Unlike the two, she looked just about the same as when they last saw her: prim, blood-free, and as though she had merely gone out on a stroll.

“Shit, what happened to the two of you?! You guys okay?!” she immediately asked them when she barely managed to recognize them through their bloodied facades.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re fine,” Emma replied. “You look like you went on a vacation or something. What happened?”

“Aii, don’t ask,” Senna replied bitterly. “Got a trial that was basically made for dad.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah,” she shrugged. “I passed, but my reward was fairly bad and, again, made for dad. Where are the rest of them, anyway?”

“We just arrived too,” Emma replied. “I thought we’d be the last by far since it felt like it took us months to clear the trial.”

“Eh? Really?” Senna quizzed. “I’m fairly certain mine was, at most, a week long, but even that is stretching it.”

“Okay, yeah, that makes sense,” Emma nodded. “Relativity and all that jazz. Shouldn’t that mean, though, we all finished trials at the same time?”

“Well, there’s a horde,” Senna pointed at the approaching four figures from their left-- Yuki, Daniel, Sigmund, and Lek. “I guess not every trial’s individualistic like mine.”

“Na, we got admitted as a pair,” Emma said. “Hey guys!”

“Jesus, what happened to the two of you?!” everyone exclaimed immediately.

“Master, are you okay?!”

“Damn, Cain’s gonna get pissed when he finds out who hurt you...”

“We’re fine, we’re fine,” Emma quickly waved it off. “The blood ain’t ours.”

“Whose is it?”

“Eh, a few thousand folk, I think? Anyway, did y’all pass?”

“Yuki and I did,” Sigmund immediately replied, slapping the young man’s back as he laughed. “This kid’s a fuckin’ badass, I tells ya’! We got amazing rewards because of him! Saved my ass like a million times!”

“We did okay as well,” Daniel said, smiling at Lek. “Who’s still missing?”

“Kramer and Delilah aren’t here,” Senna replied. “Elypso and Taima are missing as well. So are Jamal and Cain. Nope, there’s Jamal.”

Walking from the front with a rather lackadaisical demeanour, Jamal whistled a low tune while he held his blade hung over his shoulder, the latter lapping about behind him.

“’elo, ‘elo! Looks like almost everyone’s here, eh?” he immediately greeted with laughter.

“You’re in a good mood.”

“The best! See this babe?” he immediately pointed at his sword that looked entirely new yet immensely old. “Prolly the strongest sword in the world! No, scratch probably-- it’s definitely as strong as at least next ten combined.”

“Oh? Share the info, share the info!” he immediately did, a look of absolute pride swelling on his face as everyone became appalled at the sight of the insane stats that shouldn’t be allowed. In the meantime, Elypso, Taima, Kramer, and Delilah joined up with them as well, combining everyone with the exception of one.

“Only Cain left, eh?” Jamal mumbled. “So, we were right.”

“Yup, pretty much.”

“Right? About what?” Ethan asked, puzzled.

“Usually, when we split like this,” Kramer explained. “He somehow winds up fighting something or someone well beyond what should be allowed for the floor. And usually returns fairly beaten yet about twice as strong as when we last saw him.”

“Now we wait, I guess.”

“Now we wait...”