Chapter 116: Out of Luck [Pt 1]

Theo hated the pretense, the whole false act of weakness. No matter how badly he made himself move, Donzo’s eyes came back to him a beat too long every time, and the man’s instincts were sharper than a hired sword’s had any business being.

’I have to see this to the very end and see what exactly they want...’

They met more Dire Flamewolves on the way up, four of them at the burnt gully and two more where the track narrowed, and each time Theo had to remember to be slow. Let Raindrop sit low. Let the second one come closer than he wanted it. Stand afterwards with his hands on his knees and breathe like the fight had cost him something.

He never thought acting weak would become so difficult one day.

And eventually, they reached the boss chamber.

The boss chamber had been a clearing once.

It was a ring of ground four hundred feet across with the big trees standing round it in a wall, and in the middle of it the ash had been packed flat and hard by something walking the same circle for a very long time. Bones lay round the rim in a band. Not scattered. Swept, the way a man sweeps a floor to the edges.

Theo stopped twenty yards ahead of the party, at the lip of it, and did not go in.

’Somebody tidies in here.’

Behind him, Donzo’s voice came up warm and easy.

"Go on then."

Theo turned round.

All four of them were at the treeline. Yura had her spear low with her weight off the bad shoulder. Sivvy was studying the bark beside her head. Bethe was looking straight at him, and her mouth had gone flat, and her chin was moving side to side in an inch of motion she was not letting anybody else see.

’Right. This is it, then.’

Theo put a hand out toward the ring, palm up, and offered it to him.

"After you."

Donzo laughed and drew both swords, and the blades came out already burning, red fire running the length of them and lighting his face from underneath.

"That’s the thing you were supposed to do Theo. Go forward."

Then he came off the line faster than anything at Mundane Realm had any business seeing.

Theo got Raindrop up and caught the first sword and it nearly took his head off anyway. The second one came round under his guard and went through his thigh, in at the front and out at the back, and Donzo put a boot on his hip and pulled it free and kicked him backwards into the ring.

Theo landed on the packed floor on his back. Ash went up around him in a grey ring and came down again on his face and his open mouth.

The pain arrived a half second later and it was enormous.

’...He actually did it.’

Donzo strolled to the edge of the ring with his swords down, and he was speaking normally now, without any of the warmth in it, and it turned out that the warmth had been the tiring part.

"You seem strong, you should last four minutes and then I’ll come finish the job, while it is past enrage mode."

He crouched at the rim and set one blade point-down in the dirt.

"The core’s mine, the hide’s mine, and the girls carry it out. That’s eleven parties, Theo. That’s the business. You’re not even the first one this year to walk front on the third level and think he was special. You tried a bit though, I never thought you’d be a sensible fellow, who has wives and actually love them. Because of that, I have to get involved."

Behind him Yura started forward and Sivvy caught her arm with both hands.

Theo lay on the flat ash with a hole through his leg, feeling the blood run warm down the back of it and go cold before it reached the ground, and looked up at a burnt sky.

Then he let the Genesis Eyes open all the way.

He had only skimmed the man in the Hall, standing up, in a crowd, with four hundred people to read at once. He had nothing to do now but lie there, and it was the first time in three days he had been able to give Donzo the whole of it.

[STATUS]

IDENTITY

Name: Donzo Varrdia

Age: 31

Race: Human

REALM

Realm: Enhanced

Stage: Middle

ATTRIBUTES

Strength: 118 / 200

Stamina: 79 / 200

Agility: 134 / 200

Intelligence: 71 / 200

FOUNDATION

Constitution: [Emberforged Body] — 100%

Circulation: [Furnace Path] — 88.60%

SKILLS

[Twinflame Swordsmanship — B] 71.40%

[Cinder Step — C] 66.02%

[Kindle Grip — D] 58.71%

[Ashlung — D] 90.11%

[Sear Seal — D] 94.30%

AFFINITIES

Primary

[Fire — High]

Secondary

[Heat — Low]

[Note: Genesis Eyes has detected a records discrepancy]

[Note: This Climber has registered eleven parties in nineteen months]

’Agility one thirty-four. That’s why I never saw him move at the gully.’

Theo went down the rest of it while Donzo stood at the rim and talked at him about the business.

’He doesn’t have a class... everything on him is a skill he ground the mastery up on.’

The Constitution had a hundred next to it, which meant it had nothing left to give him. The Stamina had a seventy-nine.

’Seventy-nine, on an Enhanced Realm body. He doesn’t have a long fight in him and he’s never needed one, because he’s never once been the one in the fight.’

Theo inhaled, and the ash came in with it.

’In other words...’

"A coward."

Donzo frowned at the words.

"What?"

Theo shrugged, which cost him, flat on his back with a leg he could not use.

"What about it. I’ve been watching you and have come to the conclusion, that you simply are a coward."

He glanced at the girls.

"Look at the people you prey on. You devise lousy schemes like this just to sacrifice people to a beast you cannot kill on your own despite your dedicated mastery. Can we even trust the fact that your growth is owed to yourself? Or have you been using pills and taking from people to reach such level."

Theo slowly pushed himself up, one hand flat in the packed ash, the shadows pooling around his legs and drinking the light off the ground where they went.

"If so, it would be no surprise really. However, what do we do..."

He paused and dashed Donzo a goodwill smile.

"You’re out of luck today."