Chapter 50:

Chapter 50:

Step forward, overhead slash.

Bend knees, thrust.

Left.

Right.

Deep breath, release and swing.

My hands dropped to my side, sword still clutched tight in my fingers.

[You need to eat.] Ddraig's, word breaking me from my fugue.

"How long was it this time?" I dropped down, getting comfortable on the ground and allowed my breathing to settle as I closed my eyes. I felt the cold air scrape across my face, it was hard to stay focused in such situation, but I had much practice at this point.

[About two days if my estimation is correct.]

This place, it make you lose track of time. No, maybe it was even more than that. It makes you lose your sense of 'self'. N0v3lRealm was the platform where this chapter was initially revealed on N0v3l.B1n.

How many days have I stayed back here, and just continued my practice? I think we were almost up to two months now. The day-night cycle was not the same outside, it almost seemed random, perhaps there was a 'order' that would reveal itself if I continued to pay attention for several more months, but at the moment it just seemed to change based on its own mood.

Not just that either, it seems as though the longer I spend in this realm, the more I change along to match its properties. My need to consume food had decreased exponentially, to the fact that I had to be reminded to eat after a couple days. That isn't even mentioning water, I havn't felt the need to drink anything.

What a strange place.

I swept my gaze around the area, hundreds of skeletal bodies littered my little haven. They hadn't stopped coming for me in these past weeks, though they only came from below. It seemed like besides that one weird guard, no other undead were above me.

"I think it's about time I moved on." I wasn't talking to anyone in particular, even Ddraig was silent. There wasn't much to pack up, I kept my food safe and secure, my blade had stayed with me this entire time and I only grab scraps from the things I've fought before.

Lets see if these past days have been good to me.

It didn't take long to meet my familiar friend once again. I had probed him a couple of times since our first meeting, just seeing what exactly he was.

Dropping my sack to the ground I took a step towards his position.

"RETURN" It bellowed, standing up.

Maybe the magics holding it together force it to say such a thing instead of being the only word it can actually speak?

I was much less nervous this time, my hands extremely steady as I continued to walk forward, matching its lumbering steps.

It swung its sword in the same way, a haphazard swing horizontally to cleave me in half, I merely took a step back, watching it miss. I think my previous thinking process was flawed, I continued to think of it in a manner of just brute forcing me way through this thing.

It recovered its swing, ready to cleave me in twain yet again, I stepped to the side, waiting.

The inevitable edge of the blade came towards me, I ducked down, allow it to pass safely over my head and impale itself onto the cliff-side.

I looked up, seeing the thing trying to pull free its massive blade to no avail.

"Well, that's one way to do it." I muttered, lifting my own weapon.

The undead's free hand tried to swing at me, but I deflected it much better this time, and I followed up with a swift stab through into the eye socket of its helmet.

The magics dispersed with a visible effect, the animated corpse falling to the ground.

"That was...much easier than I had built it up to be."

[You aren't exactly a beginner. Your issue was having a shallow foundation yet possess exceptionally powerful abilities.]

Yeah, that's true. If I had to describe it, I was perhaps an up-side-down pyramid. These past months have been me slowly added more bricks on the bottom to even it out, even just a little bit.

Well, lets keep going then.

I hesitantly put a foot on the brittle looking rock 'bridge' that allowed one to cross from one cliff side to another. Natural in formation, but it appeared as though it would break at any moment.

I guess it would be comical to die in such a mundane way instead of all the other nonsense going on here.

There was a cave up ahead, dark and eerie. Now, in a normal circumstance, I would have explored this, but the me right now was overly cautious. If that undead was guarding something it was most likely in here.

Not only that, I had a very bad feeling crawl up my spine even looking down that black hole.

Staying the hell away.

I just continued on a bit longer, only to visibly shudder when my clear path came to an end. The inlays that I hoped would take me to the top, stopped here. All that was facing me was the rocky side of the snowy cliff.

Well, fuck.

I resolved myself, finding a good spot, and I began truly climbing.

No turning back now.

The sharp stones were quick to tear into my hands, only a few dozen feet up and my skin had already been punctured. My blood seeping out made the stones all the more difficult to grab onto.

I could only wrap them in cloth to continue my ascent. The air was getting noticeably thinner with every few dozen feet I continued up and more strange phenomena started occurring.

The cold didn't even have to be mentioned, my vision was significantly lowered in this blizzard weather, I maybe had a four or five meters I could see in any direction, the only exception was something strange off to the side.

"FUCK" The words escaped my lips as my foothold crumbled and my hand slipped. I tumbled down, hitting several rocks before landing on a small, protruded edge that allowed me to regain my hold.

Blood ran down the corner of my lips, I felt my throat full of the stuff.

I hit that ledge hard, and the fall wasn't exactly soft. Sucking in a cold breath of air, I steadied my legs and grabbed onto another jagged edge to pull myself up again.

How many feet did I reclimb? Everything looked the same and my vision was heavily impaired. I think the only valid measurement of distance was the fact that I was getting noticeably colder the higher I went. Which, you may expect, climbing a mountain, but this was 'noticeably' colder, as in every few feet it dropped a couple degrees.

I don't think I even got far, practically impossible to measure actual distance, when I heard a sound above me, things were falling down, smacking against the cliff and coming right towards me.

As quickly as I could, I stabbed my sword into the mountain as hard as I could and grabbed onto it, ducking my head under my arms.

Rocks fell down on me, some merely hurt, intent to leave bruises, others sliced open my skin on their descent. Luckily, none managed to hit my head, less my skull take a beating.

Huh, if I stick around long enough, will it try to do this looking like Meridia? It would be a lie to say that I didn't enjoy it when her image showed up....it had been quite a while since I've seen her.

Truly, this thing is a formidable opponent.

This little distraction did help relieve a small amount of mental fatigue, but my body was reaching its limit.

I was exhausted, I don't know how much longer I could keep going, the only thing that kept me moving was the fact that I could see the top of the peek from here.

Roughly 400 meters, if I eyed that correctly. The snow storms seemed almost completely gone here.

I could do it, I could do this.

Was it getting harder as I got closer or was, I just imagining it? It was almost like a dream, each foot up I took, I don't even remember doing it, but I saw the top coming closer and closer into view.

"Will, come with me?" Meridia looked at me coquettishly, her familiar dress drooping slightly past her shoulder.

"You better pray I don't find you later." I growled, throwing a rock through the illusion. As much as I would like to see that scene.....for some reason I'm actually pissed off that Meridia was being used like that.

300 meters.

"Wil, stay with me or I'll jump off." Meridia once again appeared at the edge of the cliff.

I just blinked, looking at 'it'. "Seriously? You really don't have any idea who that is then? Just borrowing the image from my subconscious? If she were truly here, this entire realm would tremble with each of her steps." I don't know why I wasted the breath saying this, but the look the 'illusion' gave me was satisfying.

A hint of annoyance on her face before dispersing.

"A little more." I spoke even at the cost of my dwindling energy.

200 meters.

The stones I gripped were pulled out, maybe I would have been fine, but I saw the illusion of Meridia killing Artoria making me tumble a way back down in my very brief distraction. My arms got cut up from the jagged protrusions, but I was able to stop myself from falling further.

Maybe my anger was now fueling me, I think I climbed back up faster than the first time.

100 meters.

I no longer had any feeling in my arms. I looked around, but I saw nothing, so I kept going.

50 meters.

Coming to the final cliff, I almost fell down again as my footing crumbled, grabbing tight I hefted myself up, pushing over the edge and rolling onto the top.

There was something there, I could almost roll my eyes, but my energy was lacking right now. I pulled myself up not recognizing the lower half of the figure, only to pause when I saw its face.

"You." I said quietly, my body trembling.

A man with a familiar shade of hair, I almost ran a hand through my own out of instinct. My shaking hands forcibly curled into fists.

My father.

Sirzechs Lucifer.

"Why don't you come back with me?" He gave a disarming smile. "We can be a family."

"No." I said calming down., much to the Thing's annoyance. An audible frown on its face due to my lack of reaction. "Do you expect me to lash out? Or maybe jump with joy at your words? Even if you were real, I'm not that little child living by himself anymore."

Was I still angry at him? Sure, I think anyone in my situation would hold onto some anger. But I'm not going to dictate any more than that towards this person, to actively hate someone requires effort, he is not worth it.

I took a step forward. "Neither you nor the person you imitate has any control over me." I flicked the illusion, watching it disappear for the last time. "You are irrelevant."

Good riddance.

There was a small path up to the actual peak, the 'climbing' was more so heaving my tired body up some stone cliffsides.

"I did it." I said quietly, falling to the ground, barely sitting up and taking in the view from the top.

"You did." Another voice answered.

I looked over to see Scathach standing next to me. "You've been watching me the entire time."

"Mmm, you did good." She nodded. "I didn't think you would realize your own faults early on, I was planning on having you fight your way up a large portion of the mountain. Perhaps set some stronger variants at certain locations to provide walls you had to work to break down. But it wasn't needed in the end." She shook her head with a small smile.

"You set the undead there?" I tilted my head. That made an alarming amount of sense.

"Of course." She said plainly.

"What about those illusions?"

"Remnants of something that I sealed here long ago, something that is neither living nor dead, yet still clings onto a chance at life by consuming the essence of anything it can get its hands on."

"What was the point of this?" I tried to wave my arms around, but I just collapsed onto the ground.

"You needed to suffer." She replied without a hint of remorse.

"Ah, so you're a sadist."

She walked up to my, lightly tapping the butt of her spear on my forehead. "If I wasn't pleased with your progress, I would have smacked you for that." She frowned slightly. "The dragon spoke of me at length of your issues, I agreed with him after some deliberation. You have never 'suffered' before, nor have you ever needed to. Some battles may have pushed you to your limits, but it is not the same."

"I never swung my sword until my arms hurt, I never cast my spells until my voice was hoarse. I never truly trained in any capacity."

"You understand." She looked pleased. "You were arrogant because of what you inherited, thinking never to push beyond your own limits. You had never truly suffered before. I have never had a student with your particular situation, I needed to devise a new strategy."

"Does that mean you'll unseal my power?" I asked.

"Mmm, it would be pointless to keep you from utilizing your strengths any longer. We shall begin your true training tomorrow, for now though." She placed her hand on my forehead. "Rest, you have earned a small reprieve."

My eyes closed, involuntarily and I welcomed the darkness.

***

Here's chapter 49, and if you want to read 5 chapters ahead or just support me, visit my Pat /AstoryForone