[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 33: The Void Beckons

Refusing to let the fear take root, Sam struggled for a solution. What Raiko had just said sounded like the only option for him was to die.

And that wasn’t going to happen.

I can’t shut it down!

Sam watched as his MP drained down to the single digits. No wonder he felt so weak. But he had no idea if it would stop just because he ran out of mana.

The way Raiko talked about it… he didn’t feel particularly keen on waiting around to find out.

“If anyone can survive this, you can,” Raiko told him, staring into his eyes. “Incarnate of War.”

Can’t turn it off, can’t push it out, what can I do?

The only solution that Sam could think of was one of pure insanity. “Komachi, I don’t think it’s safe to be near me right now.”

The little cat looked up sadly but understood what he was asking of her and slinked out of his armor. He couldn’t move for fear of destroying the careful balance he had struck with the freed Void mana.

Now that Komachi was safely out of harm’s way—or so he hoped—he let down his guard. Rather than pushing against the Void mana as he realized he’d been doing all this time, he pulled on it.

Sam welcomed the Void.

He imagined a shining core of light in his chest where he pulled the Void mana into. Sam couldn’t be sure whether it was his imagination or if what he was seeing was some deeper representation of the struggle within himself, but the ball of light grew cold and dark as the Void touched it.

Like a cancer, it attached to the core and seeped into it. Changing the light to darkness.

Same shook his head as the wave of dizziness assaulted him.

No, not darkness. Emptiness. Complete nihility. No light, no dark, just Void.

Sam’s natural instincts were to fight. To struggle and subdue anything trying to harm him. It was the most difficult thing he’d ever done, guiding the Void mana inside of himself and giving it a place of its own.

He welcomed it, even as the cold burning pain spread across his entire body.

Raiko’s gasp made Sam open his eyes, and he saw what she did. His entire body was wreathed in Void mana. Silver-black flames formed a thin aura all over his body, like a man on fire.

Only… he didn’t hurt so badly anymore.

Something was happening. Sam shut his eyes and turned inwards once more.

Lines of light branched off and curled away from his core of light, now almost entirely consumed by the Void. Like an infection that had gone too far, Sam could hardly feel the corruption and damage being done to his body.

Not good.

Remembering now how he had faced that creature of Void, Sam pulled at the Void itself.

He used its own power to fashion a thin barrier between himself and it. The thin veneer shattered, lodging shards of Void throughout the lines of light branching off his core.

Sweat began to pour off Sam in buckets. He could feel his heart stuttering.

Come on!

He pulled the fractured pieces of Void mana together once more, welding them together with the remaining flickering light of his core. His soul’s very last dregs of mana.

While he forged a shell to contain the Void mana, he simultaneously pulled the motes of Void mana still drifting about his body into the shell.

It was like trying to juggle three balls while cracking a whip at a lion to get it back into its cage. A lion that wants nothing more than for you to drop your guard for a second so it could eat your face.

Slowly, by degrees, Sam encapsulated the Void mana. The roiling mass of nothingness boiled against its prison, but the barrier held.

Exhausted beyond all belief, Sam collapsed into a heap.

***

Raiko stared at Sam’s unconscious form, feeling helpless. So many thoughts, fears, and worries ran amok through her mind and spirit.

Suddenly, it was all the more difficult to hold on. That tether to the Chaos hollow body marooned on the settlement isle nearly pulled her in.

Concentrating, Raiko resisted the compulsion through sheer fury.

Komachi looked worriedly at him, then to Raiko. “What you gonna do about it?” she asked sharply, as if this were all somehow Raiko’s fault.

And truthfully, it was.

If Raiko never needed Sam’s help to save Islegard, if she somehow protected him from that cursed mana, or if she taught him how to control it before it destroyed him from the inside out.

What good was a Sage who didn’t know jack shit? Not that she was much of a Sage anymore. Chaos mana took that from her, too.

Her natural instinct kicked in. “What are you?” she snapped at the poor animal in challenge.

Komachi was taken aback, ears flattened to the sides of her reddish-gold head. Her mana was completely kaput. What could she do?

Well, she was still a cat, dammit.

So Komachi crawled atop Sam and curled up against him, purring for all she was worth.

I refuse to let you die, Sam, Raiko thought. I know you can go so much further than this Dark Vault.

“I’m going to do everything I can,” Raiko promised, softening her voice. If she had to drag Sam away from a Reaper’s greedy grasp, she would. “Is he wounded?”

“Yes,” Komachi said, glaring at her with one green eye. The moment his HP went south of 25%, she became aware of it due in part to her Insight and her Job as a healer.

“As a phantom, my Inventory is limited. But I still have what’s needed.” Raiko knelt by Komachi and gave her an uncorked [Mana Refresh Potion IV]. “And when that’s gone, take my mana. A human couldn’t, but you can. You’re just like Haman.”

Rather than ask where Haman was, Komachi took the potion and guzzled it down. As soon as she did, her mana completely filled. Komachi licked her muzzle. “Tastes like blue raspberries.”

“Good, right?” Raiko said.

Nodding, Komachi raised her wand and began casting [Regen] one after the other on Sam. For probably the first time ever, she stopped once she hit the maximum stacks.

They both waited in relative silence until the first of the spells wore off and Komachi reapplied it. She kept vigilant and, oddly enough, kept the stacks maxed out without wasting more of her MP like she usually would.

This potion had a slightly different effect than other mana restoring ones. After it filled Komachi’s mana, it continued to replenish it over time. Not as quick or as much as the first time, though. It was like the opposite of [Regen], in that it healed mana gradually instead of health.

“Keep healing. You’re going to save his life. Sam’s going to be fine,” Raiko said, trying to comfort Komachi.

Dark spirits coalesced at the edges of the platform, clawing half-formed hands, pulling themselves up. Foul things hungry for death and drawn to the scent of it.

Normally, you would never see those unless you were upon death’s door, well within the reach of a Reaper or Shinigami looking to scoop you up.

If anything, death spirits were a type of monster that served as heralds to such terrible enemies.

Tail frizzing and standing on end, Komachi stared at them. “Wassat! Wassat!”

“Don’t worry about them,” Raiko said reassuringly, giving the cat’s head a pat. “They’re just bullies spoiling for a fight.”

While the Cleric looked over Sam, Raiko fended off the death spirits. When Islegard Ascended, some of the barriers between realms broke down and reorganized.

With the new division of stats, physical and magical, it seemed the spirit realm grew much closer than before.

Though she was weakened in this ethereal form, Raiko was more attuned to spirits than the living, anyway. The [Phantomblade] left its mark upon her style of fighting as well.

Picking Nomad as her Job afforded Raiko a fair amount of customization early on. The downside was that it started with an austere selection to begin with, both in equipment and abilities.

Katana coated in blazing mana, she slashed through the death spirits with the ease of a high level felling a bunch of level ones.

None of them gave much Experience, but there were so many of them. And they kept coming.

It all reminded her terribly of the demons surging around the Sacred Tree, threatening to burn it to cinders and destroy one of her last remnants of home.

This would be a battle of endurance, not a series of decisive and calculated blows to finish the conflict swiftly.

***

Sam awoke to the sound of a V12 engine idling right next to his ear, or so he thought. It wasn’t until he blinked the sleep from his eyes that he realized Komachi was nestled right up against him and purring her heart out.

Feeling like he had been stretched out, then folded neatly back into place, Sam stifled a groan and sat upright. He was still far weaker than he felt comfortable with.

Especially considering that they were still in the Dark Vault.

Bringing his hands up, Sam couldn’t find any lingering effects of Void mana on them. Searching himself, the barrier he had made was… changed.

What he created had been a thing of human ingenuity. It wasn’t natural. And while he slept, apparently his body had decided to take it upon itself to rectify his mistakes.

His core, at least as he thought of it, was still whole and hale, but it had changed dramatically. And he had the keen sensation that it wasn’t done yet.

The Void mana was integrating itself into the core on a level far finer than he could fathom, let alone compete with. It was as if it was melding with his source of mana, becoming inseparable while at the same time stable.

Like turning nitro glycerin into TNT, Sam thought. It had certainly felt like he was going to burn up or explode for a moment there.

Turning his attention to the waking world, Sam reached out to stroke Komachi’s head and offer his thanks to the both of them. The fact that his HP was maxed out meant that Komachi must have been healing him.

And as for Raiko, she seemed to have kept herself busy, judging by the state of her.

Not that he had the faintest idea what she’d been up to. As far as he understood, she struggled to influence the material world around her without a great deal of effort or some sort of spell.

So how was it, precisely, that Sam had over a dozen kill notifications for [Death Spirit Swarms]?

Whatever they were, they were gone now. It seemed Sam’s group had defended him while he recovered.

“Thank you,” Sam said, though he wasn’t sure exactly who he directed it towards. He felt he owed them that much, at least.

Raiko gave him a wan smile. “That’s what Adventurers do.”

Along with the EXP notifications were quite a few older notifications that he had pushed to the side from his fight with the [Stellar Warden].

If that wasn’t enough to grab his attention, the two hexagonal ruby eyes of the Warden were resting right next to a silvery treasure chest.

Deciding that he’d go for the loot first, Sam scooped up Komachi and made his way over to the chest. After they were done looting, he could spend a little bit of time going through his overdue notifications.

Up close, the hexagonal eyes were even bigger than he imagined. It was like seeing traffic lights up close. From where you normally saw them hanging above the street, they seemed small enough you could hold in your hand.

But up close, they were surprisingly robust and large.

Sam gingerly knelt down in front of the [Silver Treasure Chest] and prayed that it wasn’t locked. He really didn’t want to go find a key out there, only to come back again.

As he pushed up on the lid, it resisted his touch just enough for him to worry before it creaked open. Light spilled out from within, and for a brief moment Sam swore he could hear the Zelda “opening a treasure chest” theme.

What was inside made him grin from ear to ear. Finally,he thought, some worthwhile loot.