Chapter 500: Long Held Tradition (2/2)
Naesia and her sisters led the cli the hunt—in this case, the Avignis, as the mountain was their territory—occupy the position of hter of Preah of the Inthirah clan, folloith three Indraths close around her Riven had brought along one of his sisters and his two closest friends Zelyna and the Eccleiahs cliroup
“Only four or five more hours at this pace!” Naesia called from her position at the front “We will make camp at the dell above!”
I tried to see where the folds and ridges of the cliff gave way to this dell she spoke of, by the gray stone seemed to climb forever
“Only…four more…hours…” Ellie said between focused breaths
Alroaned beneath us There was a sudden charge in the air, as if a bolt of lightning were about to strike froripped the asuras
“Move!” Zelyna shouted
The mountain roared in answer
A clawed fist of bare rock reached out of the h asuran flesh, sending drops of bright blood raining down froon was jerked froht her, swinging her back to the cliff and into the are exploded in a hail of rocks and dust that cascaded down on the rest of us
“Mountain goleht, a head, shoulders, and one long arolem had no eyes, nose, or rowl The ar at me like a club As I reached up to catch the blow on my forearm, the dark scales of my relic armor feathered over my skin
An aetheric blade condensed at h the stone liure ruptured, its disparate parts tu into thefros hit hard”
Gole from all around, so huures of stone that clutched at the asuras and tried to pull theole them free of their handholds They launched backwards, away froed like a meteor toward the valley ainst a stone fist that was clawing at her throat She wrapped her hand around the goleht erupted froes down both sides of her neck
The cliff ruptured as a waterfall burst from the fissures The water reached out and wrapped around the falling leviathan Several darts flew—I didn’t see froolem burst apart The waterfall slammed the leviathan back into the wall, and as one, the Eccleiah clan started to cli the Kothans
Beside me, Ellie’s eyes darkened as she activated her beast will “I can feel the aside as a clublike arm broke free of the rock wall and battered at her
Planting both feet on the curve of the golerabbed a better handhold higher up Two orbs of mana were left behind in her wake Their explosion tore divots in the stone but failed to destroy the attacking liainst thethe ar a rockfall tu, half-crushed stone body tore free of the cliff and fell on hi hat liht struck Chul, buffering the creature's attacks In the next instant, a vibrant purple blade swept the goleht
I glanced up to aze, but her focus had already turned toward the stone as she tracked the goleinning to outpace us
Recognizing thatis
He sped from my core to imbue himself into the relic armor As we’d done to contain Sylvie’s power in her first journey to the Relictois e the incorporeal armor—stuck in states between the raw atmospheric aether and the physical world—toward my sister
It took only seconds, but eachon my consciousness
Ellie let out a clipped screarip on the wall Sylvie was quick to reach out and offer a supporting hand on her back
My sister stared at herself in surprise The black scales of the arolden inlay or white protrusions of bone It was sleeker, raceful The hel only her face exposed Four dark horns swept back fro next ti her ascent As she clioleh the stone, and we fell into a rhythether as a team
I had little focus to spare on the asuras above as they continued to ic crashed and thundered across the rock face, and we clie of shattered rubble At least one was being dragged li by the others, but I couldn’t tell who
“I think we’re nearly through!” Naesia’s voice echoed down to us some time later
At Naesia’s words, I felt Ellie draw on another one of her pools of stored energy as she redoubled her effort to keep cli for her next handhold, when the mountain under her hands erupted outward
A fist large enough to crush her in it clawed out of the cru backwards as she avoided the worst of the attack Sylvie’s blast of pure mana met Chul’s hammer and my own aetheric blade as we all struck the fist si it cleanly in two
Aether flooded into God Step as I felt for the paths between my sister and me, but a dull explosion of pure ht herself on Chul, her arrins
I shot therins froan to split apart all around us
A streak of blue and green flashed into ourherself in the crater left by the fist I could already see the shape of an ar froht, a second ar into the clouds
“Theto the bucking rocks as easily as I ht climb a ladder “We need to break free or it will cast us all down!”
I met Sylvie and Chul’s eyes in turn Both nodded fiercely
“Hang on,” Chul booan to throw ourselves up the mountain even as it came alive around us
“Look out!” Ellie yelled in warning Froe hand bore down on us, the wind of its passage stirring up a gale that threatened to pull us off the cliff
‘Sylvie, now!’
Pressing athered aether in every iant hand obscured it Sylvie’s aetheric spell took hold, and the world faded to gray, ti nearly to a halt
Stone cracked beneath my feet as I Burst Stepped away from the cliff An aether blade foret as I followed up with a Burst Strike
The world dissolved into a stop-motion blur There was no sound, no heat or cold, only the perfect synchronicity of ray below, and then the rush of wind ca in the air, I looked back at the cliff face
The stu away in a shockwave of scree from where I’d struck it The wrist crumbled and fissures raced up the arm
I could see the other asura, well above us, leaping, crawling, and fighting around the giant gole it away bit by bit
My sister’s voice reached oleiant was cru Soon it would fall away from the mountain entirely, and it would take everyone with it
The aetheric pathways, lit up by God Step, folded me into their embrace I appeared back withas they scra at aze “This thing is about to fall”
She didn’t need telling twice The leviathan warrior set the pace, aloleive way under our hands and feet Soon ere ju for any solid hand or foothold we could find
We weren’t going toas Sylvie’s aether art clenched like a fist around ti profusely and her eyes had lost focus
Zelyna, caught in the spell with us, looked around in confusion and dis Sylvie’s ar her bodily up the cliff as I leapt from hold to hold, Chul on e that wasn’t oleht returned, as did the full volu and s The air was choked with dust
Sylvie was pale, her eyes darting, her thoughts struggling to come into line with our sudden relative safety
Even Chul’s grin had faded “Is this not the great beast we’ve come to hunt?” He had to shout to be heard over the colossal rockfall
Zelyna scoffed “Come, it seems the others have found a place to rest our hands This hunt is only just beginning”
We followed her and the others to a narrow shelf of rock just wide enough for all of us to sit or lie down The other asuras cheered as we clie Ellie flopped off Chul’s back and lay panting She had several shallow lacerations across her face, and according to Regis her fingertips were bleeding, but otherwise she seeood ti tradition,” I said to no one in particular “First, the whole ‘no flying’ rule while ascending the ainst the cliff wall, staring out at the endless sea of clouds and mist “Tradition informs e are, where we’ve coe is the purpose The rees with me It has tested us, and we have passed”
“And you’re prepared to die for this?” I asked, genuinely curious
It was one of Riven’s friends who answered “Death is always a tragedy, but never a thing to fear” He had his back pressed up against the wall, his face pale and teeth clenched One of Naesia’s sisters knelt before the basilisk, her hands gloith heat Only then did I realize the young basilisk warrior’s left ar the wound closed “How far would any of us ever get if we stayed at houards, terrified of death at every turn?”
“Surely your own path to strength wasn’t walked in safety?” Zelyna asked, leaning back against the cliff with one knee tucked up to her chest, her arlance at the wounded basilisk, but there was no pity in her gaze “You yourself have ascended an so low You did not do this without desperate challenge”
I stared down over the edge, reo nohen I had fallen “No My life has rarely been safe But the challenges I faced were just as rarely optional”
“So you tell yourself,” Zelyna said She tucked her legs beneath her and leaned forward “I h No fight coe in, just as we have chosen to follow the old phoenix ways and climb this mountain by hand Lives of ease and emptiness could be ours with the whisper of a word, but then hoould any of us be ready to lead our clans when the tirow soft and slow, and stupid, feasting on the hardshi+p of others while giving nothing in return,” Vireah said She pulled the tie fro the pink waves spill around her shoulders with a shake One of the Indraths tended her wounded ankle “In a tiht or colossal beasts to be slain, it is up to us to forge our own strength”
“Was…was that not a colossal beast?” Ellie asked
The asuras laughed, even the one-armed basilisk, and Riven handed her a skin full of some mana rich liquid She made a face when she drank froer drink
Riven laughed again “Not too much, or you’ll fall off theparty As one, we stared out into the infinite expanse, each lost in our own thoughts