23. I’m Sick of This Card Game #4
I waited for the hound to drop back onto the field before saying, “Why? What are you going to–”
“I asked if you could finish it, not if I could explain myself. Answer now.”
“Yes. I believe I can.”
Sha nodded and jumped on a summoned wave. He soared off the edge of the field but did not fall into the abyss. He continued to the second field and began slaying the other competitors’ legends who still waited commands in their turn-based form of the game.
It was a slaughter.
CarNin ran for me on semi-healed legs. Her limp did not tame her fury. While she was injured and continually dying, I was not exempt from failure.
I gripped my staff with furious tenacity, filling it with a familiar black light. It bled from the prongs of the tale’s end like waterfalls of mist. Her gaping mouth tempted me to jump inside and wreak havoc from within, but I had not grown quite desperate enough.
I pounded the ground with the butt end of the staff right before she reached me, causing a tombstone covered in her worms to rise up.
She stopped just prior to impact, but I had already prepared my rake’s swing to destroy the tombstone, covering each piece of cursed rubble with black aura.
The Rocky chunks bombarded her like asteroids, piercing her decaying pelt like bullets.
She swung her paws in blind fury, knocking me down, but only taking a point of my health.
Heaven’s General Sha of the Journeymen: Thirteen.
Boarrior of the Journeymen: Seventeen.
Chucarrier the Nihilist: Eleven.
Her health would be down to ten in a moment, but I couldn’t count on that being my endgame. While I let the scoreboard distract me–and before I could focus on Sha’s massacre–CarNin pounded me into the floor so hard that it dented the metal below me.
Down four more health.
I swung my rake up to swipe at her. It did nothing but peel her already dead flesh, dealing no damage. I had spent my concentrated black light and needed more time to charge it.
She lost one health but took another three from me as she bit into my torso and lifted me up like a toy for her to chew.
Drop in.
She opened her mouth to bite down harder, likely with the intention to split me in two. In that blink of a moment I felt my outer body’s agility mod burn.
Was it fixed?
Before she could react, I flung the end of the rake into her mouth, landing its prongs in the flesh of her cheek, and pulled the rest of my body in.
She closed her mouth, trying to vomit us out with the glowing bile that built up in the back of her through. I felt it burn me as she wretched, but the prongs did not release their grip in her cheek.
For a second, the back of her throat was not full of bile.
I dove in, rake in hand, shredding her esophagus as light propelled me into her stomach.
I burned my agility mod, allowing me to shoot through her gastric walk like a bullet with light-propelled velocity.
Her innards had been shredded with the faint black light of my regenerating reserve.
I landed across from her collapsing corpse, covered in glowing bile as I stared at the hole in her abdomen from which I had burst.
She collapsed.
Heaven’s General Sha of the Journeymen: Ten.
Boarrior of the Journeymen: Two.
Chucarrier the Nihilist: Zero.
I should have died. I shouldn’t have had access to my outer body’s mod.
Zhu snorted, then laughed. I did along with him in our shared body, but I think we laughed for different reasons.
What?
“Your outer body has ascended. You have ascended.”
What kind of insane timing is that?
“I do not wait for coincidences.”
It was difficult to know if diving into CarNin’s mouth and destroying her from inside had been his doing or mine.
“It was ours. It always is.”
So you needed the mod?
“I did, which was why you ascended.
You can just… cause that to happen?
“No. I orchestrated the events. I cannot cause a flame to arise, but I can organize the kindling with flint and steel.”
What caused that? This game?
“No. Matters of greater importance are occurring in your outer body.”
Greater?
“Of significant worth. At this moment, your outer self is in more dire circumstances, but worry not, there is little you can do to change that.”
That’s not comforting.
“I did not mean it to be. Focus on the present.”
He turned our body to see Sha riding to our field on a wave. The Heavenly General was covered in lacerations, scratches in his armament, and various colors of blood. He stepped down to approach Chucarrier the Nihilist’s corpse. His wave dissipated into the ground.
Chucarrier the Nihilist’s rotting body dissolved into pixels before Sha could reach it.
The crowd cheered as the announcer spoke. “Congratulations competitors PetNeb and RalEsp! You have passed the Standardized Test!”
I should have celebrated with the digital audience, but I couldn’t overcome the weight in my chest.
We shouldn’t have passed. Having Zhu was not as great of an excuse as I wanted it to be. Everyone else failed except for the two people who wanted to see this fail. If the possessor of True Knowledge was running this, they knew who was pursuing them.