BA3 - Chapter 14

The shūspekta—a massive monster made of undulating fur who snorted munje—roared in anger. Purple light traveled on its screaming breath and the shield around its body blasted toward me. Mae was quick to send more enzo to my hands, and I flailed out a fast barrier of my own. I dug my toes in as the explosion of raw power whipped past my protection and tore at my arms.

Mae yelled through the speaker on my chest, “Run!”

I threw out my hand and bright ry munje flared down my arm in a blinding shimmer. The monster shrieked and closed its haunting eyes. I grabbed Ko-nah under the arm and dragged him up before turning tail for the direction of Yen.

“What is that thing?” I demanded as we sprinted through the tall grass.

“Shūspekta! A munje eating shapeshifting-demon_TK who casts at a fourth-band level!” Ko-nah yelled back. His muscles rippled with black zo and he passed me.

“Why weren’t we warned about them?” I screamed.

The crazed beast crashed after us, breaking through saplings and obliterating boulders.

“They’re extinct!” Ko-nah screamed back like a curse, as if saying the words would make the beast disappear.

“Obviously not!”

The creature roared and before Mae could finish her curse, I was blasted from my feet into a tree. My head hit with a loud crack and I fell to the ground. My heart hammered and I jumped up into a defensive stance.

The shūspekta was right on top of us. I pulled the butchering knife from my belt and made myself menacing with a roar of my own, amplified by ry. This didn’t deter the beast in the slightest.

It swiped a clawed paw at my head, and I let my battle instinct take over. I ducked, then spun and dragged my blade across the back of the creature’s arm. The monster howled and purple-blue mist burst from the wound I’d created, but no blood. The mist floated backwards on the wind and clung to the tip of my blade, then crept up to my hand.

“What the—”

The same injured paw delivered a backhand to my outstretched arm. I reinforced my muscles at the last second, dampening the blow and keeping my grip on the knife as I spun away from the inertia. I dove into a roll to get out of range, but not fast enough.

Pain ripped through my leg and I couldn’t help but yell out. I came up to a knee, knife hand already slicing through the air. I caught the beast’s paw again, this time deep. The blade tore through the callused pad of its paw and sprayed more violet mist. The purple stuck to the blade and wormed its way onto, then into my hand.

The shūspekta retreated for a beat and I caught my breath. The combat display flickered into view and Mae projected my munje totals.

“The creature’s munje is—I don’t know how to describe it. It’s converting to your mental signal. It’s becoming yours.”

A new bar appeared in my vision for double ry, double en. I didn’t even know what spells to cast with something like this. Or did I?

I sent the special munje to my arms and throat, then lifted up to my full height. I put my hands up, fingers splayed, and released the munje. The blue shimmer of the shield formed in front of me, and I sucked down a deep breath.

I roared, sending vision blurring waves of power surging toward the shūspekta. It reared up with a pained snarl as my spell ripped at its colorful fur. A blue barrier appeared in front of the monster and parted the blast. My lungs were running out of air, and the new munje bar was nearly empty. I couldn’t sustain this, and the creature wasn’t backing down.

My booming growl faded, and the spell stuttered, then died. The shūspekta eyes blazed with otherworldly violet and I knew there was no escape from the creature’s wrath. I cycled what energy I had left into double en, but with my heart pounding and my hands trembling I couldn’t conjure the spell in time.

The beast unleashed its anger, roaring with an intensity that rivaled the cheering crowd of the full arena on Heiko. I crossed my arms over my face and braced my body with zo. The spell tossed me into the air like a feather in a typhoon. I lost my grip on the knife and lost my sense of direction as I tumbled blindly.

My back snapped against a tree and I flopped onto a bush at the foot of it. The pain in my legs let me know I hadn’t broken my spine, but the pain in my legs! I gritted my teeth and pulled myself from the bush with a groan. Stickers poked through my clothes and scratched at my skin as I escaped the labyrinth of brambles.

“Run, Jiyong!” Mae begged, but the monster was already barreling toward me. I couldn’t outrun this thing. I dumped my remaining zo from my reservoir and let it rage through my muscles. The heat meter in my vision instantly spiked ten percent.

The beast opened its maw as it lunged for me. I leapt straight up, pulling my legs out of the way as the creature sailed into the thorny brambles at the base of the tree. I turned mid-air and came down on its back with a heavy punch of electrified enzo. My bones ached from the strike. It felt like punching a block of stone, and the shock backfired into my own wrist.

I pushed away and circled around the back of the monster, clenching my teeth from the pain. “Sangomnyon. It must have a weakness,” I whispered, hoping Mae had some insight.

“I don’t know. It’s like nothing I’ve seen.” She replied, fearful.

The monster kicked out a back leg and I jumped away, keeping out of range. It turned and glared as munje leaked from its face into the demolished bush. I wanted to survive much more than I wanted to know the answer, but why did this thing bleed munje? And why did that munje attach to whatever hurt it?

The shūspekta lunged at me again and I dropped into a left roll through the grass. Ripping agony scraped across my back and my eyes watered. I rolled to a stop on my ass and turned around to see the creature’s claws dripping with my zo munje. It breathed in the dark mist and its eyes went pitch black.

There wasn’t enough zo left in my body to defend myself. I panted, cycling the heat into a fast, single zo. I just needed enough for one good jump. The demon_TK bared down on me with a heavy pant. One more breath of zo.

The shūspekta pounced with unnatural speed, but I was still faster. I jumped, reaching out for the lowest branch above me. My hands wrapped around the sappy bark and I lifted myself, but the monster was quick. It batted my leg, raking its claws down my flesh until it caught at my ankle. I screamed as it dragged me back to the rocky ground.

I launched the last burst of ry munje in a spectacle of light, but the monster sucked it in through its slender nostrils. The light faded from my palm, pulled into the creature’s face. It opened wide and I cursed myself. This was how I would die? Not saving my family, or bringing Dokun to justice, but alone in the woods with a munje snorting bear?

As the jaws of death drew nearer, I felt my mind slow and take everything in. Mae was scared, and not for herself, but for me. For my family, Hana, Cho, and even Shin-soo. Every life we had touched, she thought of in this last moment. There were a lot of faces she said farewell to, but I thought of only one.

An arrow zipped through the eye of the shūspekta and a black cloud of munje fell onto me. The beast shrank back in pain and it scream, pawing at the wood piercing its eye. The black zo crept across the field where Yen stood, bow lined up for another shot.

Ko-nah charged forward, butchering knife in hand. He stabbed it deep into the monster’s throat, but not hard enough. The monster batted him away with a heavy backhand. Another arrow ripped into its chest, but in its good eye I saw rage.

The shūspekta turned to Ko-nah and shook the blade and arrow off its chest. Yen fired another arrow, but the projectile lodged in a blue shield instead of its nose. I scowled as I stared down the beast and its slender nostrils. That was it.

I snatched the blade from the ground and breathed the last of my heat energy into a burst of double ma munje. I directed the flow of fresh ma down my blade arm and lunged forward. The knife punctured its side and the monster howled, turning to snap at me. I deposited all my dispelling ma into the beast and watched as its skin dissolved around my blade.

Teeth ripped into my shoulder and the demon_TK tossed me aside. It padded forward, ready to kill, but then like a fire overtaking dry kindling, the shūspekta ripped apart from the inside. My ma crawled through its magic pathways, undoing the power of the munje it had absorbed from me and others. The munje in it surrendered to me and I pulled on the power to fuel my spell.

The beast groaned one last breath and collapsed. Purple, blue, green, black, and red swirled around me on an unnatural wind. The munje closed in as my body heat intensified, the meter in the corner reading critical levels.

“We can’t contain it!” Mae yelled in my head, but I didn’t know what that meant, or what I could do.

I dropped to my knees and opened my mouth in a silent scream. My eyes closed against my will and I turned inward to my core. Colors battered my foundations, pushing against the reservoir, the heat collectors, and my bands.

Build.

I gritted my teeth, focusing the ma in me to mobilize the chaotic blue munje first. I deconstructed the munje into its parts, ripping the quadruple en down to pieces and forced it through my bands. I aligned for double ma, and forced the recycled munje through. My body burned as ma poured through me, deconstructing the munje and converting it to more ma.

More. Build more.

I needed an outlet for the excess munje, or I had to let it go before it burst out of my body. I shaped the nanites like a sculptor, pushing them into the nooks of my third band. The nanites bonded and sealed, forging my third band while I converted ma munje with the other two. I lost track of the world, time, everything else but the destruction, conversion, and band building.

When only two invader munje colors—red and black—flowed through me, I felt my lungs again. They ached from panting, but still worked. I felt the weakness in my body next, a trembling in my muscles. I was drenched in sweat and jostling about.

My chest was pressed against something colder than me. I tried to speak, but my throat didn’t make a sound. I willed my eyes open. Trees flew past and someone ran beside me. I focused and saw the narrow face of Ko-nah.

“He’s awake,” he said, and the jostling slowed to a stop.

I was set on the ground and Yen held a flask to my lips. “Drink.”

I did as he said and relished the icy cold stream water. I reached up and grabbed the flask, squeezing the skin tighter to get more water, faster. I drank and drank until the flask ran dry.

“What happened?” I was able to croak through my raw throat.

Yen pulled me up onto his back once more. “You defeated a beast-god, the shapeshifting shūspekta, perhaps the only one left of its kind.”

“You’re a legend,” a familiar boy said with excitement.

“I would rather be alive,” I mumbled, and the others chuckled.

“You’re going to make it,” Ko-nah said, resting a hand on my shoulder.

“We must go,” Yen said, then took off again.

The jostling and the heat made me weary, and soon, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My mind drifted with the dance of black and red munje. My father appeared in my mind, red sparks flying from his fists as he struck Bo. What kind of blasphemy of magic had he created?