XXI

  The Early Bird

  Sell watched her cousin dash after the girl from a crystal ball in her palm.

  She never bothered to check up on him anymore since he was always up to funny business whenever she did. However, others had alerted her to his imminent skirmish.

  The girl this time was definitely one of the better ones she’d seen her cousin chase, but she could tell from his countenance that he was going after her for different reasons.

  “Decim,” she whispered.

  The butler was at her side in a flash of ember. “Milady?”

  “Who is that?”

  His eyes glazed over slightly as he looked at a screen only he could see.

  “Ashe Sunstrider, Milady. Heiress of her clan—a vassal of one of our distant branches.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Dawnchasers. They’re overseeing an F-grade world known as 12-Terra.”

  Distant indeed. Sell couldn’t remember ever hearing their patriarch’s name. She leaned back in her chair. “I want a report on her by evening’s end.”

  Decim bowed and exited.

  A stamp appeared in Sell’s hands as she watched the two weave between the beasts.

  The girl was off.

  The class name didn’t sound familiar, but it was strong enough for a level six to hold her own against the bronze drakes, whose bodies were doused with natural treasures from the day they were born. No vassal of a minor branch on an F-grade world could produce someone like that.

  ‘That’s an inheritance.’

  One more powerful than most of what she’d seen come out of this realm. She recalled the meeting with the Custodian. How he’d surreptitiously queried her on the gains of her clan members.

  At the time, she thought he’d been asking after Raven. And though the boy had collected an interesting piece, she thought the Custodian’s interest strange.

  Sell rolled the stamp between her fingers.

  Maybe not so strange after all.

  The sounds of battle and screaming grew distant. Repeated strikes of lightning continued the cacophony. By now, the drizzle at the start of the day had turned into a rainstorm. Together with the blood that had mixed into my clothes, I reeked worse than a wet dog. So did Duke.

  Him following me still aggravated me, but I couldn’t exactly stop him short from ripping out his throat. There also was no room to argue.

  The two of us lied prone behind a boulder and allowed the contingent of cultists to pass.

  Duke signalled with his hands. ‘They’re on the way to the battle.’

  That’s what I thought too. They numbered the same as the original cultist group. Heavens knew their cultmates needed them now more than ever.

  The fog and thundering storm kept us well-hidden. The tiered structure of the western peak revealed itself through the fog. It was divided into basins—flatland shelves scattered across the mountain’s face. So Duke explained to me.

  “The herald will have its nest at the peak,” he said.

  We scaled the mountain. As we did, shadows flew overhead. White stalkers that returned with disciples or cultists in their talons, some of whom still moved and screamed. They returned to the basin directly above us.

  Heavy steps saw us crest the ridge and brought the flatland into view. We found shelter behind a boulder, then scanned the area. Three white stalkers pinned their meals to the ground. The sound of tearing flesh was muted in the storm, thank the heavens.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The cacophony didn’t stop me from seeing the victims scream and plead for their lives though.

  I slunk back behind the boulder to think. We could sneak past the stalkers and reach the peak. But that put us in danger if they rallied towards the herald’s cries during the fight. However, I also wanted them dead.

  Though rushing here was an impulsive decision, I did do so with a semblance of a plan. I just had to absorb enough white stalkers for it to work.

  ‘But three at once is too many.’

  [White stalker - lvl. 10]

  [White stalker - lvl 11]

  [White stalker - lvl 12]

  ‘I need to split them up.’

  But how? I glanced at Duke’s flute. The boy smiled at me. He could perhaps distract one of the creatures, but he wasn’t surviving a game of tag with more.

  A game of tag…

  I summoned a chick and sent her towards the two lowest level stalkers. The stalkers didn’t attack her. So I made made her pick at the corpses, dodge around tail swipes, and peck the much bigger birds of prey.

  Finally, the two stalkers had enough. They beat their wings and chased after the rat thinking to invade their space.

  The stalker I left alone remained seated. It even cawed after the trio in what might’ve been a snicker.

  Powering the chick’s agility to the max, I made her fly in circles to agitate the stalkers more before commanding it to race off in a line. I waited until her energy returned to my shard.

  Saber and another chick burst from our hiding place. Time in the garden had done the feral cat good, for the holes in his skin had healed. Internal flames quickened his steps. He lunged for the white stalker’s neck before the beast looked up from its meal.

  Duke played his notes. But he wasn’t needed.

  While the stalkers were twice the size of Ashwing, Saber had the muscle my bird summons lacked. His fangs sunk deep and snapped the stalker’s neck. It didn’t even get a chance to cry out.

  I dashed from cover, absorbed the body, then hid again. Just in time for the remaining stalkers to return. They touched down and scanned the flatland for their companion. When they didn’t find them, they went back to eating.

  “You know what they say,” Duke said and trailed off.

  Rain pattered the ground.

  I blinked. “There’s plenty of sayings that can apply in this situation.”

  “Like what?”

  “Even a donkey knows not to hit the same rock twice?”

  “Not the one I was going for.”

  “Missing the forest for the trees.”

  “Close but not quite,” he smirked.

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again. He was doing this on purpose, damn him. I turned back to the stalkers with a sigh.

  Another group of stalkers like the first landed on the plateau after we were done. I took care of them in the same manner. Before we ascended to the next basin.

  Six mounds rested around the cinderwing tree, whose leaves blazed. Embers drifted through the air, illuminating the garden like fireflies.

  Branches expanded, its trunk widened.

  ‘Almost.’

  Tingles bubbled up in my stomach. The harpy had been twice the size of the chick. Would that same logic apply? What ability would this new version gain?

  We stepped out onto the second basin. There was a cave nearby inside of which dozens of dark-feathered chicks huddled in bundles of sticks and dry leaves. They were twice the size of my own chicks, but chicks nonetheless. The parents were still out hunting—or perhaps I’d killed them moments before—for they were all alone.

  I crouched out of reach of a nest containing three chicks. They were fast asleep but one of them woke up when my shadow consumed its own. It didn’t attack. Only chirped.

  They were a far cry from the monster they’d become—defenceless. Harmless. Almost cute enough for me to try and pet them.

  I glanced at the cinderwing tree, which was nearly at the late stage. Red Fang cleared its sheathe and firelight illuminated Duke’s tall, watchful figure. Before my blade struck out, the branch exited and wrapped around the chick. Its squeals woke up its two brethren.

  They looked on as their sibling vanished into the gate with a bit of a tilt to their heads.

  ‘Huh. It can absorb living creatures?’

  It’d never tried to do so before. Maybe because the chick was much weaker than I was?

  I sighed. ‘Shame they can’t be used to push Saber to middle tier.’

  In the middle of absorbing the second of the defenceless chicks, I paused. I hadn’t been in this mystic realm for a week. So at what point did I begin to think of living beasts as nothing but fertiliser?

  “Can I ask you something?” Duke said.

  I turned around.

  “Why did you decide to chase the herald? For its title? The experience?”

  Thunder flashed outside. The light fell on my hands, and I rotated my palm. Flecks of blood the rain hadn’t gotten to were still stuck to my skin. I hadn’t bothered to wipe them off.

  “I don’t know.”

  I thought I knew. To discover my inheritance, to figure out where I came from. But that dream was the dream of a girl who lived a week ago. A girl who hadn’t yet bloodied her hands and fought in a skirmish without batting an eye, her mind only on chasing a wounded, more powerful beast instead of escaping with her friends.

  “You…what god do you serve?” Aedan had asked.

  “None,” I had said.

  The tone of voice I used reverberated in my head. There was confusion in that tone. Like the question itself didn’t make any sense. But at times, the pulse of the shard was more than an impulse—I’d go so far as to call it a command. The Eve of Communion, that cultivator woman on the mural, the horde of beasts she controlled and the cindertree—

  Reflecting in my pupils was the rough bark of the cindertree, which reached out and swallowed the remaining chick without me instructing it to do so.

  A deafening explosion warped through the sky, and the mountain shuddered.

  —what if it was all in service of some dark deity which demanded sacrifice? I recalled a memory I had expunged from my mind. The shard had pulsed after I killed the boy waiting on me outside the dungeon.

  For an instant, Uncle Gerald’s old yet firm arms surrounded me, the warmth seeping into my skin as if he was here. ‘We will always be there for you. No matter what happens, Ashe.’

  Uncle. If you saw me now, would you say the same thing?

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