Arcanist In Another World-Chapter 52: Whispers

The Hollow came at him in a wriggling mess of tendrils, of shadows crossed into a hideous freak that hissed, and screeched, and stabbed with nails sharper than daggers. Its presence was little over the Resonance, like that of a passing cloud too thin to hamper the sunlight, a mere spectator glaring down upon the unknowing masses.

I hate myself for being right… Turns out that God’s men do have their expectations met exactly the way they wished!

A reek of burnt flesh splashed across his face as Valens kept the Inferno active. He stretched a tongue of flame up its wavering head, forked it round, and sent it drilling into its hollow eyes. The spell found purchase against the rotten flesh, corroded by foul acid that dripped down the edges of the creature’s billowing cape.

Its mouth opened with a soundless scream as it leaped at Valens. Didn’t care much for the pain. Dove straight into the flames. The frequencies of its existence shifted subtly as it tried to worm its way from between the holes across the burning net, but with a flick of his wrist, Valens tightened the seams.

‘Ding!’ You have managed to defeat [Hollow - lvl 127]! For killing a creature above your own level, you are granted bonus experience.

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[Your 1st Trial hasn’t been completed yet. The gained experience has been stored.]

“Stored?!” Valens gawked at the sudden notification before flinging himself backward as another Hollow tried to take a sweep at him. The narrow tunnel was swarming with these damned things, and for some reason, most of them tried to reach for Valens as though they had a bone to pick with him.

Damnit!

He managed a hasty Lifesurge over his right arm, flushing his burnt skin with a wave of lifemana to fix the wound. Apathy muted the pain, but he could still feel the foul mana trying to seep into his core. Like a wriggling worm, it squirmed across his veins, up his chest, aiming for the chest cavity until the Lifesurge plucked it off with its sharp tips.

Blinding lights exploded a few paces ahead of him, sprinkling in a shower of holy rain that hissed against the swarm of Hollows. Smoke wafted off from their half-material bodies, mouths stretched wide open in whispers only Valens could hear through the Resonance.

‘Mistress…’

‘Mistress…’

‘Save us…’

A giant sword crushed into a stray one clinging to the side wall, splashed it flat across the sturdy rocks, and made a mess out of it. Dain then hauled the weapon back and gave it another sweep, catching another Hollow reaching for Valens who stood at the back.

“Thanks,” Valens muttered with a nod of his head, and got a blank look in return. “Got it. You’re just doing your job.”

A mighty good job, I may add.

The Templars marched in a single line, side by side, shoulder plates clanking against each other, swords stabbing at the Hollows at the same time, showing a great discipline that made one thing clear to Valens: it wasn’t their first time dealing with this sort of situation.

That should’ve been a soothing fact. Relaxing, even, had it not for the limbs growing out of the ground. These Hollows could warp through the dimensions when cornered, at least in part since they couldn’t escape from the Templar’s swords. Something about those weapons could breach the gap between what was real or not, but the solid ground didn’t have that quality.

Therefore, Valens had to fight his own battle against the few who managed to escape from the golden storm and swirled the Inferno in wide waves to give himself some space.

His heart leaped to his throat when his skin prickled with an insidious presence. He turned with Apathy holding him tight to face the creature that appeared behind him, face illuminated by the fiery waves roaring above the din. It resembled an adult woman if withered like a rotten tree, mouth stretched too wide that it tore its cheeks open. There were no teeth remaining in that cave of a mouth, and the tip of her nose was cut sharply.

Its frequencies… Were coming in and out like scattered waves, materializing one second before being hurled into some plane of existence that Valens couldn’t reach. Good thing the Inferno wasn’t a singular-use spell, but a continuous one, so he could catch the creature in between that warping phase.

“How are you doing this?” Valens had to ask as the Hollow swiped its claws at him in a streak of blackish lights. Inferno’s flames caught her in mid-leap, burning a painful tear across its arm and into its chest. It started shedding its shadow in bits of ashes, sprinkling down into the ground and wafting off in a grayish cloud that got swept off by the wind.

‘Ding!’ You have managed to defeat [Hollow - level 135]! For killing a creature above your own level, you are granted bonus experience.

[Your 1st Trial hasn’t been completed yet. The gained experience has been stored.]

Ding! [Inferno(Adept) 8 > 9]

“Get close, Healer. We’ll be going inside the Rift soon.” Captain Edric growled just when Valens was done checking the notification.

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“Inside the Rift? I thought we were already inside the place?” Valens answered as he floundered his way back to the group, sneaking to their side as though they formed a giant umbrella that would help him weather the storm. Step by step, he followed them, keeping the Inferno active against the Hollows who were trying to be clever about their assault by sneaking underneath the ground.

“Oh, we’re not yet there,” Garran said as he gave a look at him over his shoulder. The helmet covered most of his face, but the glint in his eyes told Valens that the man got exactly what he wanted from this tunnel. “These are just the small fries. The real haul’s waiting for us in the Rift. You’re ready?”

You battle-crazed maniac! Why must I come across people like you all the time?

“Ready for what?” Valens asked as the ground underneath his feet began trembling. His immediate response was to reach for his sound vision, to check what was causing this sudden tremor, only to scowl when he caught the frequencies trickling from the cracks over the floor.

He shivered. The Void’s touch was like a sharp dagger, stabbing at his senses, taking his weight away, coiling around his feet just like when the Lightmaster activated the Keystone that transported them out of the Rift. It was coming a few steps ahead of the Templars’ line, protected by the Hollow swarm that resembled a billowing mass of dark smoke.

Is that the Cursed Rift?

He could barely make out a door shape there, completely lusterless save for the knob-like rock that gleamed with purple lights. Dangerous lights. Lights brimming with such mana that made his heart skip. Even now, as they were closing in on that door, the round rock was sucking mana from what few manastones left over the walls like a greedy beast.

“There’s a door,” Valens said as Garran and Dain’s swords brightened to a painful degree. It seemed they were preparing for some skill, forcing the Hollow to flinch back against the burning lights. Meanwhile, Captain Edric shifted a step back, letting the two take the lead.

“There’s always a door,” he said, one hand on his hip, the other holding the sword’s handle lazily. “The important thing is what’s behind it.”

“The Fiend?” Valens asked. The door was well within the range of his sound vision, but he couldn’t see further behind it, as something jammed into the Resonance whenever he tried. It was like a root metal block, made to hamper the attempts to gaze through it.

“Fiend is only a part of it,” Captain Edric said. “It’s a guard, placed there to protect something. Our job’s to find that something and get rid of it.”

“Something as in—“

“Can be anything,” the captain waved a hand at him. “A Cursed Artifact, a ritual tool, something worth the trouble of signing a deal with the Tainted Father’s court.”

“There is a deal?” Valens scowled at the thought. “What are these Cursed Rifts, really? What purpose do they serve?”

“You can burn a Hollow like it’s nothing, but you have no idea what a Cursed Rift is, eh?” Captain Edric shook his head. “I’m not sure what to make of you, Healer. But I guess it’s true for any special classes. Never met with one with a normal head over their shoulders.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Indeed,” Captain Edric nodded. “A Cursed Rift is a man-made abomination, a forceful tear into our Haven’s boundary. It takes a generous amount of work, and a mean bargain with the dwellers, but more importantly, it takes trust between the parties to open one.”

“You mean these things are the product of a deal between the humans and those filthy creatures?” Valens frowned as he considered the implications of such a deal. He didn’t know much about the evil classes, or why they would feel a need to bring chaos to this so-called haven where most humans lived, but even then, he couldn’t understand what sort of common ground could be found between those two parties.

How can you sign a deal with the Shadow? Do you just… pray into the nothingness?

“As I’ve said, it could be a deal, or it could be a part of someone’s Trial. You never know what those twisted fools are planning with their little tricks,” Captain Edric shrugged. He seemed, all things considered, not too bothered by the purpose behind this sudden find. He was more interested in dealing with the trouble and putting an end to it.

I suppose being practical comes with their line of work. A handy trait, I must confess.

“Do it,” Captain Edric then said, jerking a finger up to the Templar pair waiting ahead.

They bolted right away at the command, swords coated with golden lights, slamming into the Hollow swarm like a pair of burning meteors. They cleaved, they stabbed, and they carved their rotten flesh wide open, splattering foul acid that hissed against the ground. The Hollows squirmed back against their heated momentum, pressed tight and tighter still over the door-shaped entrance, some of them clawing mindlessly away at the Templars.

They might as well have been swinging at the mountain itself by how the Templars didn’t even flinch against their assault.

They are strong. And there’s something strange about those lights…

The frequencies of the gleaming lights felt ethereal, almost holy to Valens’s senses. It wasn’t mana that burned over the swords, or if it was mana, then it was a different kind that Valens had never seen before. Odd that he couldn’t pry under their frequencies with his sound vision. The only thing he could see when he tried was a golden hue too bright for him to pick through.

I wouldn’t want that skill trained on a Magus like me. It isn’t Light Magic or any magic that I know.

It took them moments to clear the entrance, and what few Hollows were left got scattered by a last lazy effort from Garran’s sword. The job done, both of them gave way as Captain Edric walked over to the door-shaped entrance, Valens keeping him company.

Valens leaned over the entrance and peered into the knob-shaped rock still bright with purple lights. It was set deep inside the door, brimming with more mana that nearly rivaled the Riftshard they’d been tasked to deliver to the capital. He could almost hear the frequencies there, wavering in a giant sea made of pure mana.

An endless source…

Unlike the ambient mana, Valens knew the moment he laid his eyes upon the rock that taking a sip out of that rich sea would be as easy as taking a breath. The allure of it was hard to resist, so he called for Apathy to keep his mind in check.

“Before we go in,” Captain Edric said, pulling Valens’s mind away from the beautiful gem. He gave him a hard look through his visor. “I’ll give you one last chance. We don’t know what’s waiting for us down there, and I can’t promise you—“

“There’s no need for any of that, Captain,” Valens said simply. He smiled as Apathy held him close, the whispers of the Hollows still fresh in his mind. “I’m coming with you.”

“Good,” Captain Edric said as though he expected the answer before giving a signal to Dain and Garran. They raised their swords, the sharp tips facing the ground, golden lights wavering across their surfaces. Gleaming with runes that seemed to be humming within the narrow cave.

Whispers, indeed.

Valens clenched his fists tightly. If the Trial demanded that he was to silence the whispers before they became a scream, then he had no other choice but to go on. His gut told him this Cursed Rift could lead to something.

Who knows? Perhaps this time my expectations prove true.

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