Chapter 86 — Ashes of Rina
The forest was burning.
Black smoke rolled through the trees like a living thing, and the smell of char and blood clung to Blake's throat. His knives dripped with poison and sweat. The kobolds circled tighter now — a black tide, endless, snarling.
Ashley stood beside him, back to back, breath sharp. Arcs of lightning cracked along her sword, sparks dancing over the polished steel. Every exhale shimmered with static; every step left scorch marks in the dirt. When her aura met his, the air hissed—ozone and venom merging into something volatile and alive.
They didn't speak.
There was nothing left to say.
Jake was gone.
Jess. Stephan. Reggie. AJ. Roger.
Every name was a hole in his chest.
The dark sorcerer loomed in the distance, its staff pulsing red, the air around it warping with heat. The smaller kobolds scraped the ground with their claws, awaiting its command.
Blake flexed his fingers around the hilts of his blades. "You ready?" he asked softly.
Ashley's eyes flickered with lightning. "Till the end."
The sorcerer screeched — a sound like stone grinding against bone — and the kobolds charged.
The world narrowed to motion and breath.
Blake met the first wave head-on. His right blade swept low, slitting tendons; his left snapped up, punching through a throat. He spun, letting poison mist burst from the wound and melt the face of the next kobold before it could leap.
Ashley flashed past him, lightning bursting from her blade. Every strike left trails of light, carving through three kobolds in a single sweeping arc. Thunder rippled behind her steps, and the smell of burnt scales filled the clearing.
A spear thrust for Blake's ribs — he caught it, twisted, yanked the wielder forward, slammed his knee into its jaw, then drove both knives into its chest. Venom flared green along the steel, sizzling through flesh. His aura pulsed, savage and alive.
They fought as one rhythm — lightning and poison — but the tide was endless.
"Left!" Ashley shouted.
Blake turned just as claws slashed across his back. He grimaced through the pain, ducked, and rammed his knives upward, splitting the kobold's head in two. Acid blood hissed across his arm, burning through cloth, but he didn't feel it.
Ashley was a blur beside him, sword flashing, bolts leaping from the blade into the horde. The nearest kobolds convulsed, their bodies twitching before collapsing into smoke. But each one she felled, three more replaced.
The forest floor slicked with blood and rain. Their breaths came in gasps now — human sound against the monstrous growl of the dark.
Blake's poison aura flickered. He was burning everything he had left.
And still — the sorcerer watched, unmoving, laughing.
Another volley of shadow spears ripped from its staff. One grazed Blake's shoulder, searing flesh. Another struck beside Ashley, detonating in a spray of black fire. She stumbled but recovered, lightning snarling around her feet.
He caught another spear mid-arc, turned his wrist, and flung it back. It exploded in the mob, vaporizing a dozen kobolds — and still they came.
He could feel his heartbeat faltering under the roar. The edges of his vision bled red. One mistake was death.
A kobold lunged from the trees; Blake pivoted, cut its arm clean, then decapitated it in the same motion. Ashley spun beside him, blade glowing bright enough to turn night into day for a heartbeat — then plunged through a line of enemies, her aura blasting outward in a wave of thunder.
She was magnificent. Terrifying.
And mortal.
"Blake!" she cried. "There's too many!"
He didn't answer. His veins burned with venom and grief. He could taste blood and ash. His core screamed from overuse, but he forced more power out, his poison coiling like smoke.
The sorcerer's chant rose higher, feverish.
Then — silence.
The air imploded.
A wave of darkness erupted, ripping through the forest. Trees bent; dirt lifted; sound died. Blake threw himself in front of Ashley, blades crossed, poison flaring — but the blast hurled him backward like a toy. He slammed into the ground, lungs empty.
He blinked — and saw her.
Ashley on her knees, lightning flickering weakly across her sword. Her hair clung to her face, streaked with blood and sweat. She was breathing hard, her glow fading.
"No…" Blake rasped, pushing up. "No, no — "
She looked at him and smiled — a trembling, heartbreaking thing. "We tried, Blake."
Kobolds closed in from all sides. Hundreds. Thousands. The forest itself seemed to snarl.
He stumbled toward her. "Ashley, get up. We can still — "
Her eyes widened. "Blake!"
She lunged, knocking him down as a dark sphere ripped past, grazing her shoulder. It struck a tree, obliterating it to cinders.
They rolled, dust and lightning crackling around them. He ended up over her, blades raised. Her face filled his vision — fear, defiance, love.
He wanted to speak. To tell her everything.
But the sorcerer was already lifting its staff again.
Ashley shoved him back, standing. "No! You can't—"
"ASHLEY!"
The spell hit her square in the chest.
Light. Heat. Silence.
She flew backward, crashing through the mud. The blast tore the earth open, lightning from her sword spiraling upward before fading out like dying stars.
Blake's world collapsed.
He dropped his knives and ran to her.
She was broken, barely breathing. Sparks still danced faintly across her sword, fading with every second.
Her fingers reached for him — stopped halfway. The faintest whisper escaped her lips. "Blake…"
Then nothing.
The light in her eyes went out.
Something inside him shattered.
For a heartbeat, the world stood still. Even the kobolds stopped, their growls faltering. The sorcerer tilted its head, watching with cruel amusement.
Then — the air began to hum.
Green light seeped from Blake's skin. His veins bulged, aura twisting violently. The poison within him surged like a living storm.
The sorcerer flinched, its laughter fading.
Blake's head lifted slowly, eyes glowing sickly green. The tears on his cheeks sizzled away. His breath came ragged, but his voice was calm — too calm.
"You shouldn't have touched her."
The explosion that followed was soundless.
Poison erupted from his core like a detonation, a wave of virulent energy ripping outward in all directions. The ground melted. Trees turned to sludge. The kobolds nearest him dissolved where they stood, their bodies liquefying into black vapor.
The shockwave hit the rest of the horde like a storm of death. They screamed as their skin bubbled, bones turned to dust. The sorcerer raised its staff, trying to shield itself, but the aura chewed through it like acid.
Blake moved through the poison field like it was air. Each step left deep footprints sizzling into the earth.
The sorcerer staggered back, scales peeling away. It shrieked, thrusting its staff forward, but Blake caught it mid-swing, broke it over his knee, and drove his fist through the creature's chest. Black blood sprayed, burning holes in the ground.
He didn't stop.
He hit it again.
And again.
And again.
Every punch landed with wet cracks. Bone shattered. Flesh tore. The kobold's screams faded to gurgles, then to silence. He kept swinging long after it was dead, his fists coated in poison and gore, his body trembling with fury that wouldn't fade.
When he finally stopped, there was nothing left of it but pulp.
The forest was silent again — a graveyard of smoke and poison.
Blake stumbled back to Ashley's body. He dropped to his knees, hands shaking. Her sword lay beside her, lightning long gone, metal cracked.
He lifted her gently into his arms. Her hair still smelled faintly of ozone. Her face was peaceful, like she'd just fallen asleep.
He pressed his forehead to hers, his voice breaking apart.
"I'm sorry… I couldn't save you."
A sob tore through him — raw, broken, inhuman.
The poison aura flickered and died.
⸻
He didn't know how long he sat there.
Minutes. Hours. Days. Time didn't exist anymore.
When he blinked again, the forest was gone.
The smoke. The blood. Ashley. All gone.
He was kneeling in sand.
The air was cold, heavy with the smell of stone and age. Green runes pulsed along the walls, breathing faint light through the chamber.
He was back in the pyramid.
The tears were still wet on his face.
"Where…" His voice cracked.
Something shifted in front of him.
Blake was still lost in his emotions not caring about his surroundings. The spell he was under was slowly fading from his mind.
A shape uncoiled from the shadows — vast, serpentine, wrong. Scales shimmered black and emerald, light sliding off them like oil. Its eyes glowed a venomous gold, and spectral tendrils rippled from its head like a mane.
It leaned close, breath cold enough to bite.
"Mmm…" The voice was a hiss that vibrated through the floor. "What a tasty memory."
Blake didn't move. His body trembled. His hands still remembered the feeling of Ashley's hair, the warmth fading from her skin.
The serpent's smile widened. "So much pain," it purred. "You loved… and you lost. Such an exquisite flavor."
Its tongue flicked, tasting his grief.
Blake's vision swam. His soul felt hollow. He didn't even reach for his knives. There was nothing left worth saving. He already lost everything important to him.
The serpent's eyes narrowed, delighted.
"Hmm… little humans are you going to say something?"
And in that vast, echoing tomb of stone and shadow, Blake broke — utterly.