Reincarnation of the magicless Pinoy
From Zero to Hero " No Magic?,No Problem!"
Encounter 33: Asher Hawks!
The cavern shook as if the mountain itself wanted them buried alive. Stones rattled down from above, dust choking the air until it stung the lungs. The Chainbreaker swung its massive arms, each shackle dragging across the ground with a sound that grated on bone. Its chains weren't dead weight—they were alive, writhing like serpents, lashing out to devour whatever touched them.
"Move!" Tessa's command rang sharp. She darted past Bragg, blades flashing as she slipped between two snapping chains. The steel kissed her shoulder, sparks dancing as the force nearly bowled her over, but she twisted with it, cut one chain's hinge joint, and rolled out clean.
The severed chain screamed like a living thing, thrashing, black mist bleeding out of the wound before it withered to nothing.
"Confirmed! They can be cut!" she shouted, her voice a flare of hope in the chaos.
Rowan's jaw clenched. Every part of his body still burned from the earlier hit—the ribs screamed, his side felt like it was tearing open every time he twisted—but the Hollowveilforge coursed through him now, patching the gaps with raw instinct and sharpened senses. It wasn't healing, just burning the pain into fuel.
"Ren, cover Tessa!" Rowan barked. His voice was ragged but carried iron.
"On it!" Ren loosed arrow after arrow, each shot aimed to stagger the chain-tips before they could coil around Tessa's legs. The archer's precision bought her the space she needed to weave in and out.
Solis knelt at the rear, hands braced to the earth, chanting low as symbols flared across the floor in a wide arc. His magic wasn't a weapon here—every flare of energy just got sucked into the Chainbreaker's chest—but he was an anchor. His glyphs hardened the ground, gave footing where the beast's chains shattered stone.
Bragg roared as one of the chains slammed against his shield. The force dented it, sent him sliding back across the pit floor, boots carving grooves into the rock. He dug in, muscles straining, sweat running down his face.
"Hit harder, you bastard!" Bragg spat, and shoved forward, giving Rowan the opening.
Rowan lunged. His katana thrummed in his grip, spirit energy crackling along the edge. He cut low, a clean horizontal slice. The blade sang through one chain, sparks flaring as it snapped in half.
The beast howled. Its head whipped toward him, the sound like iron dragged across a tombstone. Chains lashed wildly, too many to track, but Rowan's body moved like a ghost. Left pivot, blade flick. Right roll, the chain's shadow missing him by a breath. He wasn't unhurt—he could feel fresh bruises bloom across his ribs with every close miss—but pain had long since blurred into background noise.
Then one chain caught him.
He twisted too slow—his ribs screamed and slowed him. The shackle slammed into his shoulder and chest, the impact like a hammer dropped from a tower. Rowan was thrown off his feet, crashing against the pit wall. The world flashed white for a moment, his breath torn out of him.
"Rolien!" Tessa screamed.
Rowan tried to rise, but his body betrayed him. His arm trembled, ribs spasming. He spat blood, vision doubling. His consciousness slipped for half a second—
—and he wasn't in the cavern anymore.
The smell of sulfur faded into cordite and smoke. His boots thudded on marble again, his lungs filled with desert air.
Rowan blinked, and he was back in the city hall—back in his old world, the firefight still raging.
He was running with Marcus at his side, Jace covering the rear. The flashbang haze was clearing, but gunfire still cracked through every hall. Civilians screamed in corners, their voices choked out by ricochets. The world narrowed to one single task: secure the hostages, stop the last pockets of resistance.
They pushed into a corridor lit only by the broken daylight pouring through shattered windows. Rowan kicked open a door—and gunfire erupted. Bullets stitched the wall above him. Marcus dove in first, spraying cover fire. Rowan followed, instinct pulling him low.
Two insurgents inside. One at the far end with a rifle, another crouched behind a desk with a pistol. The one at the desk grabbed a hostage—a young girl, maybe twelve, pressed a gun to her temple. Her wide eyes locked with Rowan's.
And for a moment—his body froze.
He'd seen those eyes before. Not hers, but the same fear, the same silent plea. They were the eyes of the children he had sworn to protect.
"Sir!" Marcus barked, snapping him back.
Rowan's chest tightened. His ribs screamed. His vision wavered. He raised his pistol—
But his body betrayed him. The pain flared again, his consciousness slipping—like the world itself was pulling him back into the cavern.
His finger hesitated on the trigger. His sight tunneled on the girl's trembling face.
Then—
A roar shattered his ears, dragging him back to the present.
The Chainbreaker's maw was open before him in the pit, black mist boiling from its throat. Its chains coiled back like vipers ready to strike. The beast had marked him, saw him weak, wanted to finish him first.
"Bragg! Shield him!" Tessa shouted.
Rowan's vision snapped clear. He forced his legs under him, breath ragged, blade rising once more.
But inside, the echo of that girl's eyes in the flashback stayed with him. It wasn't just a memory—it was a wound, deeper than any blade could cut.
And Rowan knew then: the battlefield had never left him.
The Chainbreaker's chains screamed as they whipped the cavern air. Every clang echoed like a death knell. Rock dust rained down; the rune-glow on the walls guttered as if the dungeon itself was holding its breath.
Tessa's blade met a chain and skidded. She spat blood and grit, boots sliding on the fractured stone. "Damn it, Rolien — retreat. Now." Her voice was sharp enough to cut the roar of the beast.
Rolien's eyes flicked to the overlay that hovered at the corner of his vision, the mission HUD pulsing with cold facts:
[Rolien — Lv. 44]
[Tessa — Lv. 40]
[Bragg — Lv. 39]
[Ren — Lv. 38]
[Solis — Lv. 37]
[Pete — Lv. 37]
[Enemy — Chainbreaker — Lv. 62]
He felt the number like a chill between his ribs. Twelve levels. A gulf. Every strike they connected with vanished into the Chainbreaker's plated chest as if the thing drank the hits for breakfast.
Tessa's jaw tightened. "We can't even lower its life bar," she said, eyes burning. "Even with you, Rolien. We're not scratching it."
Rolien felt his spirit energy pulse at his arm — Hollowveilforge lighting faintly under his skin — but the knowledge that mana-based spells and most elemental rounds had been absorbed here flickered in his head like a warning flare. This thing fed on magic. The Asher Hawks' strengths were suddenly liabilities.
Tessa pushed through a shower of debris and met his gaze; there was no drama in her face, only a soldier's clarity. "Rolien — listen. I want you to escape. With the others. Bragg and I will buy time. Grand Duke Vermorth will understand if the mission fails but you die." Her words landed like stones.
Rolien's HUD flashed the mission window again — the reward for beating the Chainbreaker. The second ingredient for Lucien Vermorth's cure glowed like a fragile promise. He felt it like a tether to everything he'd come for.
"Please, young master," Tessa said, softer. "If you die here, we can't stand in front of Grand Duke Edric. Go. Take Pete. Ren, drag him out. We'll buy you time."
Bragg and Solis both nodded, and for a split second Rolien read acceptance in Bragg's face — something like a man stepping to block a falling gate.
"No," Rolien said, voice raw. "I'm not leaving—"
Tessa cut him off with a hard slap that left his cheek stinging. "Listen to me. If we all stay, none of us walk out. Live for us." Her eyes were wet at the edge, but her hand was steady.
Bragg reacted before Rolien could, seizing him with those mountain arms. "Keep him safe," Bragg barked at Ren. "That's your last order."
Ren hauled Rolien under one arm while Pete scrambled after them, fear and shame twisting his face. "Sorry, Rolien," Pete mumbled. "We can't win against that thing now. Not injured."
For a beat Rolien tried to wrench free — to run back — but Bragg's grip was iron. The Chainbreaker's head swung; its chained collar skittered along the stone and the whole cavern shuddered.
Tessa and Bragg were two pikes planted between life and the beast.
Tessa stepped forward, breath like a bellows. She met the Chainbreaker with a blade-spark so bright it lit the runes on the ceiling. She danced under a chain, slid behind the beast's flank, and slashed where the plates met: tendon, joint — anything that might move it. Bragg slammed a shield-shoulder into the creature's thigh like a battering ram, and the Chainbreaker howled in a sound that shredded stone.
Their assault wasn't to kill. It was to make the Chainbreaker react, to turn its focus, to give Ren just enough window to drag Rolien and Pete to the corridor and shove them through.
Ren didn't argue. He ran, half-carrying Rolien, half-pulling Pete, and shoved them into a tight chute. Dust choked them; distant bellowing was the cavern's heartbeat. Rolien's chest hammered; his spirit energy screamed — hungry, enraged — but his legs obeyed the dragged rhythm. He watched through the slit in the rock as Tessa and Bragg kept stepping into the monster's path.
From between the gap, Rolien threw one look back.
Tessa took another blow that slammed her into a jagged pillar. Bragg planted his greatshield and took a chain full on; the impact buckled his knees and he roared, rolling the weight of steel into the Chainbreaker's side with both hands. Solis threw up barriers of ward-ink and shattered his staff-on-rune open against the thing's flank, sparks and chalk spray marking where magic failed and brute force remained.
"Run!" Tessa snarled, blood streaking her face. Her voice was steel. "This is it — go!"
Ren didn't hesitate. He shoved Rolien harder. Pete's hands trembled on his staff, but he moved, eyes full of terror. The corridor swallowed them, the sound of the Chainbreaker's chains coming like thunder.
Rolien's spirit surged, a pull so fierce it might've dragged him backward if the world were kinder. He tested his katana in his hand; the blade tasted like promise and iron. Hollowveilforge crackled — a ghost of what it could do. He wanted to turn, to unleash everything and take the fight back. To take Tessa's place.
But Tessa had already been made of that choice. She'd put her life on the scale and weighed his future against her sword-arm.
They'd given him a chance.
Ren shoved them onward, breath ragged. The passage spat them into a shaft where the air was thinner and the light reached like a sick sun. Behind him, the cavern erupted — the Chainbreaker smashing, chains tearing, Tessa's battle-cry slicing the noise. The sound of Bragg's great blade met the beast's flank in a thunderous collision that made stone dust rain.
Rolien's HUD flashed, small, inexorable:
[System Notification]
[Objective Updated: Escape with party alive]
[Emergency Mission Status: Partial Failure if any party member dies]
[Time limit: 00:12:34]
His throat closed. The mission window's reward — the Emberroot — blinked like a distant star he might never reach if they were dead to the dungeon.
He clung to Ren's shoulder as they ran, lungs burning, the taste of metal thick on his tongue. Pete stumbled, nearly falling, and Rolien lunged before he thought — to steady the boy, to drag him free. No grand gesture. A hand, a grip; he pulled Pete back onto his feet.
From the corridor's mouth Rolien heard it — not the slam of chains, but something else: Tessa's voice, sharp and clear and smaller than it had any right to be. "Go. Live for us."
Rolien's spirit energy flared like a struck bell in his arm. He swallowed the bite of it, the hurt and the guilt, and let Ren shove him into the dark.
They ran. Behind them the cavern's whole throat collapsed into a hurricane of stone and fury.
Rolien could still smell Tessa's blood on the air and Bragg's iron sweat. He could not shake the image of Tessa standing against a column of flame and chain, of Bragg's shield riding the worst of it — images that allied themselves into one steady, terrible sentence in his skull:
They had bought him time.
As the passage narrowed, Ren finally let go and looked at him. "Young master," he panted, eyes sharp in the flicker-light, "we move now. We get the cure. We come back."
Rolien's hands curled on his katana hilt. His spirit energy hummed, eager and raw. "We'll come back," he said, quiet as a promise and twice as heavy.
Beyond the choke of the shaft, the dungeon let out a final, earth-splitting roar. Stone cracked. Somewhere amid the cacophony a metallic toll rang like a bell—the Chainbreaker's chains dragging its verdict through the dark.
Rolien didn't answer. He listened to the sound until it was only a memory. Then he swallowed and ran.
Rolien's breath came in sharp bursts as the system screen hovered in front of him. The golden gate to the Mother of All Flames pulsed faintly at the far end of the cavern, its light collapsing inward. Barely a minute remained before it shut for good—until ten years from now.
Ren's voice was frantic, his bow trembling in his grip. "Rolien, go! That's the Mother of All Flames—you said it was your goal, right? If you don't take it now, it won't come back for another ten years!"
Pete's voice cracked, desperation lacing every word. "Young master, you can't throw this away! Your whole mission—your chance—it's right there!"
Rolien looked at the fading light, the gate pulling tighter, shrinking smaller with every heartbeat. His chest tightened at the thought of waiting ten years… of wasting this chance. But then came the echo—the deep, rattling roar of the Chainbreaker, the clash of steel, and a strangled cry from deeper in the cavern.
Tessa. Brag. Solis.
They were still fighting. Still holding the line.
Rolien snapped the system window shut, his eyes cold and steady.
"The Mother of All Flames can wait ten years," he said, his voice iron. "But our people? They can't. We're going back."
Ren froze. "What…? Ten years?!"
"I'm not leaving them," Rolien growled, his Jawbreaker Arm flaring to life as spirit energy coursed through the conduits. "The cure for Vermorth's son—the reward for killing the Chainbreaker—that's here. And so are Tessa, Brag, and Solis. If I walk away now, I'll never forgive myself."
Pete's mouth opened in shock. "But—"
"No buts." Rolien lifted his katana, its edge glowing as Hollowveilforce bled down the blade. "I'll fight until my last breath if I have to."
Ren's bow creaked under his tightening grip. His jaw clenched, but instead of nodding, he stepped forward. "Then I'll fight with you. Don't think I'm letting you play the hero alone."
Pete raised his trembling staff, fear still in his eyes but his voice firm. "Same here. I'm not running. If we die, then we die together."
Rolien blinked at them, a flicker of surprise breaking through his hard resolve. Then he smirked faintly, shaking his head. "Idiots."
Ren smirked back. "Takes one to know one."
Pete gave a shaky grin. "We're the Asher Hawks, right? We stick together."
Rolien exhaled, spirit energy bursting around him in a ghostly white flare. "Fine then. Together."
The golden gate shuddered one last time and vanished in a burst of sparks, leaving only darkness behind. None of them looked back.
Katana in hand, Rolien charged into the depths of the cavern, Ren and Pete flanking him. The ground shook with the Chainbreaker's roar, and the faint glint of Tessa's dual blades could be seen still holding the line.
They weren't too late. Not yet.
The cavern trembled with every strike of the Chainbreaker's massive iron chains. Sparks rained as the monster swung its colossal limbs, chains whistling through the air like razors. Tessa's dual blades flashed in rapid arcs, deflecting blow after blow, while Brag's greatshield cracked under the force of each strike. Solis, sweat soaking his robes, poured mana into protective wards that shattered almost as quickly as he conjured them.
They were holding on—but just barely.
"Damn it," Tessa spat, her arms trembling under the weight of another parry. "We're not lasting another minute like this!"
As if in answer, the Chainbreaker roared, chains flaring with a sickly glow as it wound them around its bulk. With a monstrous heave, it slammed both down. The cavern floor erupted in stone and dust, and Brag staggered, blood spraying from his mouth as his shield arm gave way.
Tessa cried out. "Brag!"
Before the final blow could land, a white flare streaked across the battlefield. A flash of steel cut through the haze. The monster's chain was deflected just enough to send its strike crashing harmlessly into the stone wall.
Rolien stood there, katana in hand, spirit energy burning across his body like a phantom flame. His Jawbreaker Arm glowed faintly, gears locking tight from the surge of Hollowveilforce.
"Sorry for the wait," Rolien said, his voice low but sharp. "We're not done yet."
Behind him, Ren's arrows rained down, piercing through the Chainbreaker's hide at its joints. Pete, pale and trembling, cast support spells—weak compared to Solis, but enough to ease the pressure on Brag's battered body.
Tessa's eyes widened. "Rolien?! You—"
"—couldn't leave you behind." He cut her off, stepping forward, blade raised. His aura pulsed like the heartbeat of a dragon.
The Chainbreaker turned its eyeless face toward him, its body shuddering with rage. It swung both chains at once, faster than before, aiming to crush the boy who dared challenge it.
Rolien lowered his stance, spirit energy pouring into his legs. "Ren! Pin the joints!"
"Got it!" Ren's voice was steady, arrows already nocked and flying. They struck true, slowing the creature's swing.
"Solis! Bind its arms!"
The old wizard raised his staff with a pained grunt. Runes flared, wrapping around the Chainbreaker's massive frame like glowing chains of light. It resisted, roaring, but its movement faltered for a moment.
That moment was all Rolien needed.
He exhaled, katana humming with raw spirit energy. Hollowveilforce surged into his muscles, his body a blur.
"Spirit Art—" he whispered, every ounce of his will pouring into the blade.
He vanished from sight, reappearing directly in front of the beast's chest. The katana slashed once, twice, three times—each strike echoing like a dragon's roar in the cavern.
The Chainbreaker howled as cracks split across its armored hide, glowing faintly as if something inside was fighting to burst free.
Rolien landed lightly, sliding back, his blade still poised. His chest heaved, pain racking his ribs, but his eyes burned with fire.
Tessa and Brag stared, speechless. Solis's lips curled into a faint smile despite the blood on his chin.
Rolien tightened his grip. "We're not running. Not now, not ever."
The Chainbreaker reeled, its body twitching, but it wasn't done. Its chains snapped outward, rattling with fury as it gathered strength for another crushing strike.
This time, the Asher Hawks stood as one.
Tessa raised her blades. Brag lifted his shield again. Ren nocked another arrow. Solis braced with his staff. Pete steadied his trembling hands on his spellbook.
And Rolien stepped forward, katana glowing with spirit light.
"Together," he said.
The Chainbreaker roared, chains crashing down—
—and the Hawks charged into the storm.
To be continued..