Chapter 82: Kael Ardent
On the outskirts of the endless forest stretched the small Silent River, its surface flowing in countless ripples and waves from the waterfall. Yet it reflected everything within sight, a mirror of the sky above and the trees leaning close to its edge.
Yet a few meters away from its almost flat stone riverbank, upon the rough earth, there lay a young man, his body broken and trembling, his breath coming out in desperate coughs that spilled blood on the ground until it pooled around him in a small, scattered circle of crimson.
Across from him, only few meters distant, something far less human moved forward with a desolate grace, its steps measured yet unnatural, and it was none other than the Hollow-Tongue.
Only a few seconds had passed since the moment Kael's heart had nearly ceased altogether, when the sudden lurch of it brought him to the brink of silence and his mind seemed as though it had been emptied of thought, stripped bare of even the power to hold itself together.
Back then it had been impossible to think clearly, impossible even to breathe without that suffocating weight pressing down upon him. Now, however, that suffocating haze had begun to drift away, and though his body was in ruin and his veins burned with pain, his mind could at last begin to relax enough to form thoughts again. It had not gone easily, this strange recovery, for something like a warmth, an unfamiliar yet steady sensation, had wrapped around him in that moment as though deflecting the despair that threatened to tear him apart, and though he could not explain it, he knew it had kept him from breaking entirely.
With that veil of confusion cleared, Kael almost felt lighter, as though those choking thoughts had been the very chains that bound him, chains that had denied him even the will to move, and now in their absence he felt a bitter relief.
Still, the task of rising was far greater than he had imagined, and when at last he managed to push his body into a sitting position, it was only by an effort that left him nearly gasping from exhaustion. His left hand remained numb and without feeling, a dead weight that hung at his side no matter how hard he tried to move it, but his other hand still answered him, and it was by that single remaining strength that he had been able to rise even so much.
It was then, when his gaze turned back toward the creature, that he realized something was terribly wrong. The Hollow-Tongue should have already been upon him, its speed and hunger should not have allowed him so much as a single moment of rest, yet it had not struck, and the distance between them remained.
As his eyes followed its movements he noticed a faint glow flicker along its unnaturally long arms, the same arms that bore the dark spiderweb-like marks etched deep into its flesh, and upon one of those arms a crack appeared, thin but spreading, until at last a fragment of skin fell away and struck the ground with a brittle sound.
"Damn it," Kael thought, his eyes widening though his face was pale and half covered with blood, "is this thing undergoing its next evolution? Was that the reason it slowed with each passing second?"
However, he did not know into what form it would evolve, nor what kind of horror would emerge from that grotesque shedding, but the thought itself was enough to darken his expression even further. Yet at the same time he realized that perhaps this was the chance he had been waiting for, the moment in which even a wounded man might act. His plan had never been to win by strength, only to rise, only to set himself upright in the right moment, and now he had managed to do so.
But as though in cruel defiance of his hope, the Hollow-Tongue turned its cold, empty gaze upon him once more, its tongue twisting in the air, not merely twitching but swaying like a serpent in rhythm, as if tasting the scent of blood that clung to him, and the sight of it licking at the air made his skin crawl.
Kael had expected it to remain sluggish, bound in its strange transformation, but without warning it lunged forward with sudden desperation, running toward him with renewed vigor.
His heart lurched as his eyes widened again, for the speed of the creature was far greater than before, and the distance between them was collapsing with terrifying swiftness. He had no time left to hesitate. What else could he do?
His thoughts churned as he forced his working hand into his pocket, fumbling for the one object he had kept, the orb he had once used to test Arienne's magical element. Pulling it free was no easy task while his body screamed in protest, and all the while the monster's mad charge brought it ever closer, its strides lengthening and its speed doubling with each passing heartbeat.
At last the orb came into his grasp, and with a desperate effort he dragged his body toward the place where his own blood had spilled, smearing his hands in it as he pressed the orb down and rolled it across the crimson surface. The sharp ache in his hand flared, but it was nothing compared to the torment of his useless arm, and he forced himself to endure, rolling the orb again and again until its surface turned completely blood-red.
The Hollow-Tongue was already less than a meter away when Kael's lips twisted into a bloody smile. He clutched the orb tightly, holding it as though it were the last weapon left to him, and raised his gaze to meet the creature as it bore down upon him. Its long blade-like nails gleamed, already angled to cut his body into two, and Kael let out a groan, pouring the last of his strength into a single motion, and with that he hurled the orb upward.
Yet the throw had little force behind it, his body too broken to grant the strength he desired, and the orb fell almost immediately, striking the ground not far from the creature's legs. The Hollow-Tongue glanced down at it for the briefest instant, perhaps suspecting some trick, but its momentum carried it forward all the same, and in that breath Kael knew his life hung by the thinnest thread.
He closed his eyes for a moment, waiting for the blow, but then the strike never came. The monster stopped, its claws withdrawing, its head tilting as its gaze fixed upon the orb. For a heartbeat it only stared, as though weighing what it saw, and Kael, with blood still running down his chin, allowed a crooked smirk to return to his lips.
"You want to suck my blood, don't you?" he thought, a silent laugh making his ribs ache. "Then take it. That orb is filled with blood... so much of it, even... so go on, you wretched beast, take it and choke on it."
As though answering his provocation, the Hollow-Tongue reached down, seized the orb, and in an instant its long tongue coiled around it and drew it into its mouth, swallowing it whole without hesitation.
Kael's heart gave a single hard beat. The plan, reckless as it was, had worked at least in this first step.
It had always been a gamble, one born of desperation, for he had no certainty that the orb would serve as the weapon he imagined, yet he had nothing else to place his hope upon. The creature loved blood, that much was certain, and he had made the orb into the likeness of a perfect crimson feast. A mindless beast was still a mindless beast after all.
But this was not just any orb. A simple one would have done little, perhaps nothing at all. This orb, however, had been crafted from the remains of monsters within the dungeon, where slain creatures vanished into dust yet left behind magic stones, the very cores of their existence, which when refined became orbs capable of drawing in and holding magic.
That's why Arienne needed to push her magic into it, because it couldn't draw mana on its own due to a special barrier wrapped around it, of course. However, in the fight he only had this in his arsenal, so he wondered: if such an orb were somehow placed inside the body of a monster, would the small barrier break and the orb start to absorb its mana? Of course, it would fail.
But there was another thing: the monsters outside the dungeon actually didn't possess magic stones; instead, they had a core of their own, which was similar to the orb but different. So if Kael managed to make it eat the orb, the orb would try to connect with the core. The creature's mana flow could be disrupted, even shattered, and perhaps the result would be nothing less than an explosion from within.
And though he did not know for certain whether this would come to pass, nor whether the orb would act as he imagined, it mattered little now, for the Hollow-Tongue had already consumed it.
But the next moment what the monster did made Kael's eyes widen. He had expected it to stop, he had expected his plan to finally corner it, but it did not at all. In fact, the monster was already moving again, attacking as fast as it possibly could, and Kael's chest tightened as he gasped, uncertain of what to do, his body still burning with pain that refused to fade.
The monster's claws came forward once more, only a breath away from tearing into him, and before they could touch him he threw himself backward, yet he could not go far before his back slammed into the tree behind him. That single instant saved him from being pierced through, but not completely, because the claws still brushed against his chest and cut him open. Blood spilled down, though the wound was not as deep as it had first seemed, but still every drop falling reminded him of how close he had come to death.
In that moment, his eyes caught something strange. The monster's hands, covered in that web-like skin, were glowing once again, and thin cracks spread across its surface before fragments began to fall away.
Kael's heart pounded as his mind raced. Were his orbs finally working as he had hoped, or was the creature itself changing, evolving into something even worse? He did not know, and he had no time to dwell on it, because there was no space left to run, nowhere left to retreat, and the monster was already raising its other hand to strike.
Kael gasped and pushed himself back once more, but the tree pinned him and his movements were too slow. His eyes widened in horror as he saw the sharp nails coming straight for him, nearly grazing his face.
"No way… no way. I came this far. I planned this trap, I calculated everything, so how could it fail so easily? My luck… this cursed luck, why does it always turn against me, why does it have to be so bad… so endlessly bad."
And yet, even as he thought that, he knew that this very luck was also the reason he was still alive at all, still standing in this fight instead of lying cold on the forest floor. He groaned, pain rising from his chest, as the monster's claws pressed closer, mere inches from his eyes. But then, in that terrible instant, everything shifted. Something was wrong, completely wrong, because it was not supposed to happen like this. He had worked too hard, struggled too long, and this was not how it was meant to end.
Just as the nails were about to dig into his eyes, the monster's skin twisted and bulged unnaturally, the bright light along its arm growing stronger, its surface tearing as though the flesh itself could no longer contain what was within. With a shudder it drew back its hand, perhaps from pain, as its torso also cracked open, the skin splitting wider and wider as if the body was about to burst apart.
Before Kael could even process what he was seeing, the creature released a guttural, terrifying growl that made the ground tremble around him, and in the next heartbeat its body exploded.
There was no blinding light, no deafening sound, yet he saw it clearly with his own eyes, the monster's flesh blasting apart and spraying everything nearby. Black blood drenched him, even soaking into his clothes, and the head of the beast was gone entirely, blown away somewhere beyond his sight. Only its two legs remained standing for a moment, trembling, before they too cracked and fell to the ground.
Kael exhaled softly through his nose, his whole body trembling. He could not believe what his eyes had just seen. For a moment what had seemed utterly impossible had happened before him. His plan, his desperate gamble, had actually worked.
"Phew. That was too close… far too close. But it's over now. The monster is dead, completely dead."
It could no longer harm him. Relief washed over him... he had survived this terrible fight.
Slowly, his gaze shifted toward the Silent River's bank, where he noticed something rolling down the slope and falling to the ground. It was a round, pale object, gleaming faintly under the early afternoon light, and Kael realized at once that it was the monster's core.
"Amazing… so the core survived after all. It didn't explode with the body. Damn… an A-Rank monster's core. Just how much will I get for this? How much money… so much, far too much, actually. Ah… this really feels good."
But just as he allowed himself to feel that relief, his eyes widened again. The core was moving, sliding little by little toward the river.
"No… no, don't go, I need you, don't you dare fall in there, please don't."
As if his desperate words reached it, the core stopped right at the edge of the riverbank, glowing under the afternoon sun as though mocking his panic. He let out a shaky laugh, his lips curling weakly.
Today, he had won, though victory had demanded a heavy price, and he knew it well when he realized he couldn't feel his other hand.
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After a few minutes had passed, or perhaps a little longer than that though he could not be certain, Kael allowed himself to drift into a brief nap, not too deep of course, just enough for his body to rest and for his mana core to fill with mana again.
He had been leaning against the trunk of a tree and when his eyes half-opened his gaze wandered upward through the gaps between the branches, where he found the sky breaking through in fragments of light, an amazing and strangely calming scene that made him lose track of time. Afternoon had already arrived, and he wondered faintly if he had truly only taken a short nap, for his sense of time felt muddled and uncertain.
When he finally gathered himself, he turned his attention to his wounds and raised the very hand that had been injured, deciding to heal the shoulder first. It had been a while since he last used magic, so his core was full enough to begin the recovery, yet he remained hesitant about attempting to heal his broken hand.
As his shoulder began to knit itself back together he noticed that his palm too was slowly mending, as if the healing was spreading by its own rhythm, though it was a process that demanded patience. From there he guided the flow of energy toward the cut on his chest, the very wound that the monster had left open, and though the magic dulled the pain and closed the torn flesh, the memory of the attack still seemed carved into him. Soon, he also healed the marks on his face, which weren't very deep.
Finally, with a weary sigh, his gaze turned toward his other arm, the one whose bones had been broken, and with quiet determination he placed his hand over it and began to heal. Time slipped away as he worked, and though he did not think too deeply he could not help but wish over and over that the hand might return to its normal state. Yet before he could finish, his mana was already running dry, and though he had managed to restore the bones to some degree, the sharp agony was only replaced by another deeper kind of pain, different but still relentless.
At last he pushed himself up and stood, holding his broken hand with the other for support, and with unsteady steps he walked toward the Silent River. Each step carried him closer until after several meters he stood before it, the pale core lying nearby, and beyond that the river itself, calm and mysterious. He looked into its surface and saw himself reflected there, and the sight struck him. He appeared almost like a slave, with clothes in tatters, his face streaked and caked with blood, his entire figure reduced to something pitiful.
Yet as he leaned closer he noticed something he had not thought of before. The river reflected him as perfectly as a mirror, capturing every detail with unbroken clarity, yet at the same time its surface rippled with waves that should have broken the image. It should not have been possible to see both, the flawless reflection and the restless ripples together, for a river always shows one or the other. Even so, here the waves passed over the image without shattering it, as if the laws of water and light had no meaning. He could not shake the thought that it might be some form of illusion, some trick woven into the essence of the river itself.
That was not the only thing. Now that he was so close, he felt a strange warmth seeping into him, soft and tender, almost like being wrapped in cotton, as though something unseen wished to comfort him and draw him nearer. Along with it came a faint scent, delicate yet strange, arriving and disappearing in a rhythm, never staying for long, and perhaps it was for that reason he had not noticed it before when he had only looked from a distance.
He bent down slightly, reached out, and took the core into his hands. He held it close and studied it with sharp eyes, his lips curving into a bright smile despite everything. The core was pale, yet within its depths there seemed to be stars scattered like a night sky, and the sight filled him with a quiet happiness. For a moment he felt content, as though he had nothing else to do, nothing else to strive for.
Even now, he was sure the headache was the true cause of his memory missing. But how exactly was it stealing them? Was it eating away his memory bit by bit, or taking everything all at once? For the moment, he was certain of only one thing: the headache wasn't a curse, nor was it anything normal. That much, at least, was clear.
Still, he worried. Just how much of his memories had already been taken from him? His entire childhood? His very origin? Perhaps even more than that. A sad smile crept across his lips as a thought surfaced. He had to ask himself then: was Kael truly his name? More importantly, who was he?
What kind of nonsense was that? How could he allow himself to question this? Who else could he be? He was… he was Kael Ardent, the most shameless man alive. He was also the poorest freeloader, the unprestigious head of the seventh prestigious noble family, and Seraphina's sweet husband. There shouldn't have been any doubt about it. He simply didn't want to think otherwise. He couldn't.
And yet another question crawled into his head. Why was he thinking so hard today, pushing himself toward answers he had never reached before? Why hadn't he noticed the missing pieces of his memories earlier? Why had such thoughts never crossed his mind until now? What was the reason behind it?
A dark smile spread across his face. "Isn't it obvious? It's this damn river. It's making me think about everything. Before, those thoughts never even crossed my mind at all. The headache didn't just erase them... it took away the very power to think of them. I really underestimated it."
His fingers tightened suddenly around the orb. Now, he was certain. The reflection on the river wasn't a mere illusion. It was meddling with his mind. It was making him believe he could see both the waves and the reflection at once. Still, he wasn't fully sure.
Suddenly, his head felt like it had been struck by lightning. Memories he had forgotten began to surface. He remembered something that had happened in the dungeon. Back then, he had met a man wearing a strange coat or something like that. He still couldn't recall the man's face or any other details, but he could remember what he had said last:
"If you're interested in yourself, you'll find it in your diary."
How could he have forgotten something like that? This was it. If he wanted to learn more, he would have to read that diary. But who was that man? He didn't know. One thing, however, was now very clear, the river was somehow deflecting the effect of the headache, while the headache itself was trying to stop him from thinking. Strange as it seemed, it was true. That was why he had realized his memories were missing; otherwise, he never would have. If he had never encountered the Silent River, it would be fair to say he would never have realized some of his memories were gone.
But, more importantly, he was utterly exhausted. So, he pushed the thought aside, whispering to himself, almost too softly to hear, "I can think about it later."
Exhaling deeply, the faint smile still lingering on his lips, he slipped the orb into his pocket and was about to move away, but his steps halted. His eyes sharpened as he looked down, and he saw strange tendril-like things clinging to his legs, grayish-green in color, their texture unnatural. When he tried to press forward, they tightened and pulled him downward with sudden force.
Before he could even gasp or struggle further, his body was already being dragged into the Silent River. As he fell he caught sight of a figure in the water, staring back at him with wide gray eyes and a bloody face, and with a jolt of realization he saw that it was his own reflection.
Then the surface closed over him, and he sank into the depths of the most mysterious river in the most mysterious forest.
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(Chapter Ended)