Chapter 37: Chapter 37 - The Discrepancy
I pressed on, leaping branch to branch, slowing as the trees began to thin.
Another crash shook the canopy ahead, the deep groan of colossal timber breaking reverberating through the area. Leaves fluttered like rain in the air. I crouched low on the branch, grip tightening around it as I crept forward bit by bit, until I had a vantage point.
A clearing.
But this was no natural clearing. It had been carved open---trees split at their bases, roots torn free, soil overturned in jagged trenches.
And in the middle, shadows writhed in the lands now lit by the midday sun.
Four Shadestalkers.
The three I’d seen earlier stood side by side, shoulders low, fur bristling with living shadow. Across from them, alone, the fourth crouched low, chest heaving, blood dripping thick from a torn flank.
The mother.
Recognition struck cold and immediate. The one who’d stolen the meat, who’d looked at me with those analytical golden eyes, now only filled with fury and pain.
Now she was here. Alone.
They clashed before I had a chance to think any further. The three surged forward, six limbs propelling them faster than my eyes could keep up. Her body blurred to meet them, claws flashing with shadow. The ground erupted under the impact, dust and splinters thrown skyward as their roars tore through the clearing.
I watched, locked in place, jaw agape, eyes tracking every twitch.
She fought like desperation incarnate. Each strike was meant to kill, every movement an effort to dodge their attacks, or move into position to counter one.
She ripped chunks of flesh from one’s shoulder, raked deep gouges across another’s chest—but the three never faltered. They pressed in, circling, cutting off her angles, forcing her step by step toward the center as they surrounded her on all sides.
A tail cracked like a whip, slamming into her ribs. The crunch of bone giving way rang across the clearing. She staggered but lunged in anyway, fangs sinking into her attacker’s throat. Blood sprayed dark.
For a heartbeat, it looked like she might drag one down with her.
But the other two piled on, weight slamming her to the dirt. The ground quaked under the impact. She thrashed, claws carving furrows into soil, into flesh, but the shadows pressed tighter, smothering her.
And then---
An eruption.
Dark red light tore from her veins, burning out of her flesh in branching lines. The glow pulsed through her body like fire racing along arteries, bursting outward in a wave that cracked the ground beneath her.
I froze.
Because I knew that light.
It was my light.
Exactly like the bursts that came when I forced mana through my body.
The two atop her reeled back under the eruption. One was flung aside, The second staggered, shadows scattering across its hide.
But the third, its throat still torn and bleeding, but absent from the impact of the wave of energy, lunged towards her from behind.
I moved before thought.
The axe slid into my hands as I leaped from the canopy, shooting through the air as my boots slammed into the lunging beast’s wounded neck.
The creature’s spine bowed in agony, and it was only up-close that I realized the beast’s true size.
It was so large that the neck I’d slammed into was wide enough to act as a platform to stand on.
So I used it.
Before it could recover, I tapped into my own Mana. The red energy surged through my veins and then into my weapon as I poured in all my strength, bringing the axe down in a single two-handed chop, honed just a little closer to perfection after the day’s training.
But the slash was still shallow, only reaching about a foot through its hide. If it had been any other place on its body, it would have been useless. But smack-across it’s spine? A foot was plenty.
Enough to slice through its spinal cord, paralysis locking its body stiff.
But my own body wasn’t much different.
Agony surged white-hot, my muscles locking solid as I collapsed along with the beast.
[Your Blood Vessels have been burned by Mana: x350]
[Host’s [Mana Strain Resistance] has increased greatly: x3]
My head pivoted as I fell, breath tearing fast, just in time to see the second Shadestalker whip around in a blur of black towards me.
Too fast.
Its claws slammed into me, a wild darkness surging through them and into my body as the sheer force ripped me backward harder than I’d ever been hit.
My body became a projectile.
Five Trees. Ten. Fifteen.
I kept going. Tree after tree. Trunk after trunk, each impact reducing me further until I crumpled in a heap of meat and blood against a knot of roots.
Every bone I could name was broken. My chest shredded open, every inch of flesh and organ was impaled, slashed or splintered by slabs of bark. I had never felt this much pain at any point before this.
This was the discrepancy I had been so wary of. The difference between Gold and Bronze, or Crisis and Squall. Without the equivalent resistances, I would be subject to the same level of damage as any other creature in my place.
My vision swam with System Prompts, limbs akin to scattered lumps waiting to be stitched back together.
[Host’s [Impact Resistance] has increased greatly: x15]
[Host’s [Pierce Resistance] has increased greatly: x15]
[Host’s [Slash Resistance] has increased greatly: x15]
[Host’s [Darkness Resistance] has increased greatly: x35]
[The Bronze Rank Skill [Darkness Resistance I] has been acquired.]
[The Skill [Darkness Resistance I] has been upgraded to [Darkness Resistance II]. ]
[The Skill [Darkness Resistance II] has been upgraded to [Darkness Resistance III]. ]
[The Skill [Darkness Resistance III] has been upgraded to [Darkness Resistance IV]. ]
But even as I acquired a new Resistance Skill, even as my shredded organs sloshed around inside me, my eyes couldn’t leave the fight.
The mother moved like a demon born of blood and shadow. Her every step thundered with the red glow burning from her veins, every strike carrying weight that tore the other Shadestalkers apart piece by piece. She didn’t dodge. She didn’t retreat. She met every charge head-on, her claws breaking bone, her jaws ripping flesh.
She was stronger now, overpowering two Shadestalkers that were bigger than her, alone. She didn’t waste a single millisecond. Every moment was directed to attack, and her assailants fell, one, its throat ripped apart, another, its chest.
When the last body hit the dirt, silence returned.
Her chest heaved. The glow faded. Steam rose from blackened fur, burned along the exact paths of her veins. She swayed once, then collapsed, sprawling in a pool of her own blood.
I lay still. Listening to her breaths grow shallow.
Each one weaker than the last.
Understanding came slow, but certain.
This was the truth of it. What I had been doing all this time---forcing mana through vessels not meant to carry it---wasn’t some hidden technique. It wasn’t an advancement. It was a death sentence. A last ditch effort to drag your enemies into the grave with you.
And she was living that end right in front of me.
I pushed myself up, bones groaning as they reset, muscle threading back together in pink stitches. Step by step, I closed the distance.
The shadows peeled away as I entered the ravaged clearing, and from within them padded a smaller shape.
The cub.