Reborn: Demon Core (10 page)

“Don’t worry master, we can hold them off,”
Shina said twirling the daggers in her hands.

“Be careful,” Lillanis added with a slightly
worried look on her face.

Ash gave a tight smile then planted his feet
firmly in the ground and used Cone of Frost on the incoming
enemies. Even though they were not his main concern, Ash took down
every monster that crossed his path on his way to the old growth
that was located at the far end of the room. As he moved past the
large group of monsters, Ash was tempted to look back to see how
the others were doing but he resisted and pushed forward.

When Ash was less that fifty yards from the
old growth, it started to shake again and Ash came to a stop and
readied himself. Instead of a green cloud this time, a light red
colored fog fell from its branches and sunk into the ground. Just
as before the ground shook but instead of shaking the whole room,
the ground beneath Ash’s feet only slightly shook as three large
green humanoid monsters rose from the ground.

The monsters stood eight feet and had long
thin arms and legs. As soon as they pulled themselves to stand
fully erect, all three of the creatures turned in Ash’s direction
and shambled toward him. Due to their large size, the monsters
moved slowly, but it was easy to see the strength behind their
attacks as the ground shook each time the monster’s fist struck the
ground. Thankfully with their lumbering movements, it was not hard
for Ash to dodge the attacks.

Sliding to the side, Ash chopped down hard on
one of the monster’s legs, cutting clean through its mossy flesh.
Ash quickly jumped back, expecting the brute to topple to the
ground but as it leaned back, vines shot from its severed leg
reattaching itself.

Jumping in, Ash attacked again, this time
severing one of the creature’s arms. Unlike last time as he struck
Ash watched closely and noticed that though he severed the arm, no
numbers appeared to show that he had done any damage to the
creature. When he noticed this, Ash took a step back and let his
eyes shift to the large tree that was still about sixty yards
away.

Without knowing a quick way to deal with the
moss golems, Ash moved past them and decided instead to attack the
old growth head on. Easily slipping past the moss golems, Ash
struck the old growth hard, but his thin bladed sword seemed to do
little damage.

Slipping his sword in its sheath, Ash pulled
the axe he had been using the day before out of his inventory.
Using the axe, Ash hit the tree again and this time small flecks of
bark peppered his face. After two more strikes a small wedge of
wood fell from the tree followed by a thick blood red sap. Even
though his axe was doing much more damage than his sword, the moss
golems were not going to wait around while he cut through the
massive tree and Ash was forced to circle around its large truck as
he dodged the monster’s attacks.

As he moved to the back of the tree, Ash took
a quick look in the corner where he had left his friends to find it
empty. Instead what he saw was a large number of green creatures
headed in his direction. A sense of worry hit him until he saw
Shina jump into the air landing on one of the creature’s back
skewering it with her twin daggers. After Shina came, Halon who was
cutting down anything that got in his way. It looked like as soon
as Ash struck the old growth that the monsters turned their
attention away from the four and moved to attack Ash instead.
Knowing that his time was limited, Ash continued to chop away as he
moved around.

Soon Ash was not only dodging the attacks of
the moss golems, but those of the clone monsters as well. The only
saving grace was that their numbers had been greatly reduced and
the old growth had yet to release another batch of green spores
into the air.

Ash struck the trunk of the tree again as a
green spear flashed past his side from a dragon kin clone. Before
he could turn around and kill it, Jacob appeared cutting its head
off. Unlike normal monsters, when the clones died they simply burst
into green dust.

Ash kept his attention on the old growth,
leaving the other monsters to his companions. His strikes didn’t do
a lot of damage, but with his single-mindedness it only seemed like
moments before he had cut far enough into the old growth that it
started to pop and sway. With a large cracking sound, the top of
the tree crashed to the ground.

As soon as the old growth died, the moss
clones burst into dust. Coughing and gaging on the green dust, Ash
absorbed the old growth and then picked up a small red vial of
liquid that lay on the ground and handed it to Lillanis.

“That was a lot harder than I thought it
would be,” Halon said rubbing a small bruise on his upper arm.

“Don’t tell me you are ready to head back
already,” Lillanis said with a furrowed brow. “We haven’t even been
in here an hour yet.”

Ash handed out recovery potions for stamina
and MP while drinking a few himself. “Halon might be right, it
isn’t good to push ourselves too hard. We should test out the next
floor and see if we can make it to the boss room then warp out
sometime around noon. No reason to force ourselves yet.”

Hearing this, Halon and Jacob smiled while
Lillanis narrowed her eyes at Ash. A shiver ran down Ash’s back at
the coldness of her look, but he tried to brush it aside.

After a small rest the five continued through
the door to the twenty-fifth floor. The floor looked like an old
abandoned fort with crumbling and moss covered walls. The air in
the halls were musty and carried the stench of death. Just as when
Ash fought alone, the group stuck to the right most paths as they
tried to make their way to the end of the level. After they had
made their second turn, they came across a large man standing a
little over six foot tall wearing ebony armor.

“Death Knight,” Halon said with a sneer.

“No…not a Death Knight,” Lillanis said,
looking over the enemy in front of them. “It is only a Dark
Knight…It doesn’t have the barbed armor of a Death Knight.”

The Dark Knight seemed intimidating to Ash,
but he was slightly interested in the difference between it and a
Death Knight. Sadly though before he could voice his questions the
Dark Knight charged, swinging its massive two handed sword at
Halon.

The strength of the Dark Knight’s strike
forced Halon to his knees. Before Halon could regain his footing,
the Dark Knight brought his sword back up and began to strike
again. A flash of fear flashed through Halon’s eyes, but the second
before the Death Knights sword struck him, Ash hit the tang of the
larger blade with his sword diverting it just enough so that it
struck Halon in the shoulder instead of the head.

As soon as the sword glanced off Halon’s
shoulder and hit the ground, Ash followed through, hitting the Dark
Knight with multiple hits but the knight’s heavy armor blocked each
of his strikes. As Lillanis and Shina pulled Halon back, Ash jumped
back and used Shadow Whip.

As the black whip hit the knight, it was
thrown to the side and hit the far wall heavily. The only noise
that was made as the knight was thrown was the sound of its armor
as it struck the wall. As a large -155 appeared above the knight’s
head it turned its large purple burning eyes to stare at Ash. As
soon as Ash looked at its eyes, a flash of pain erupted through his
head and his vision blurred.

As pain wracked his body, Ash dropped down to
his knees. When the ringing in his ears subsided, Ash looked up to
find that the Dark Knight’s heavy sword descending toward his head.
As the sword descended, Ash could hear people screaming his name,
but he didn’t even have time to blink. The blade stopped a
millimeter from Ash’s nose as a blue light flashed absorbing the
sword’s strike.

Surprised, Ash could do nothing but stare at
the knight as it raised its sword for another strike. Ash had had
plenty of close calls before, but this was the first time his death
had seemed so clear to him. Ash couldn’t help but look down at the
hand that held his sword and noticed that his hand was trembling
slightly.

Ash was pulled from his own thoughts by
another scream as Shina launched herself into the Death Knight. As
Shina impacted with the creature, sparks flew as her daggers
searched for any opening. As if tossing off a bug, the knight threw
Shina off his and to the ground and quickly advanced on her. Seeing
Shina in danger, Ash tightened his grip on his sword and activated
Shadow Whip, once again throwing the creature into the far wall.
Lining his sword up with his elbow, Ash charged, shoving the blade
through the dark knight’s visor.

“That was bad,” Ash said holding out his hand
to help Shina to her feet.

Shina didn’t even seem as if she noticed
Ash’s offered hand instead she jumped to her feet, as tears freely
flowed from her eyes and clung to Ash. “Master…Master…Master,”
Shina said over and over as she clung to his waist.

After Shina had calmed down, the five sat
recovering from the battle. While they rested they talked about the
best way to fight against Dark Knights. Unlike most monsters Dark
and Death Knights fell under both undead and specter categories
much like a Lich. This meant that while they had a physical body,
they could also use spiritual and mind attacks. While this made
them dangerous, it also came with drawbacks. Because they fell
under dual undead types, they were also very vulnerable to any form
of white magic or blessed weapons. Everything had happened so fast
that neither Ash nor Lillanis had time to prepare and thus they
were forced to fight without the aid of either.

Lillanis only had two spells that would work;
Scour Soul and Release. Release was the weaker of the two and was
used to purify weaker undead. Against a Dark Knight it would only
confuse it for a few seconds. Scour Soul on the other hand took a
great deal of mana but could kill a single Dark Knight. The real
problem beside the mana cost was that if either Ash or Jacob got
hit by the spell, they would receive a great deal of damage as
well. If not for the drawbacks it would be the prefect weapon
against the Dark Knight but instead it was decided that it would be
saved unless needed.

While they rested, Ash applied his blessing
to everyone’s weapons so that they would cut more into the Dark
Knight’s armor which was created by its soul force. Lillanis could
bless weapons as well, but since Ash’s ability was god granted and
hers was a skill that just wrapped weapons in white magical energy,
his was more effective and lasted longer.

“Ready?” Ash asked as he tried to shake Shina
from his arm. Ever since the end of the battle, Shina hadn’t moved
more than half a foot away from Ash. Lillanis had moved close to
his as well, but she wasn’t near as clingy as Shina.

With everyone rested, the five once again
made their way through the hallways of the labyrinth. It wasn’t
long until they ran into another Dark Knight, this time though they
were ready. This time Ash focused on blocking the knight’s attacks
while the others dealt damage to it. Ash found it slightly hard to
keep from looking in the creatures eyes while he fought, but after
the previous experience, he wasn’t keen on suffering through
another mental attack.

Thanks to the blessed weapons and the new
attack patterns, the knight fell within a few moments. As the
knight died, Ash picked up a piece of dark cloth that was left
behind.

[Dark Cloth: cloth made from the essence of
death. Used most often to make robes for necromancers and dark
mages.]

Ash handed the cloth to Lillanis since it was
the first monster drop. After the first encounter with a Dark
Knight the second one seemed almost disappointingly easy. Once Ash
absorbed the knight, the group moved forward to continue their
fighting.

It was slightly after midday by the time Ash
and the others fought their way to the boss room and exited the
labyrinth. Once they were outside, Ash and Shina headed toward the
west exit while the others headed back toward the Adventure’s Guild
to sell their goods.

Almost as soon as Ash and Shina arrived at
the area being cleared for the fort, Huck found them. Without a
word, the old man started helping as Ash and Shina began to cut
down trees.

Ash wanted to hurry and fight gnomes so that
he could hopefully get a skill that would be more useful in the
construction of the fort, but he knew forcing it would only invite
disaster. He also knew that the main work of the earth mages
wouldn’t start until a large portion of the woods had been cleared,
so he didn’t feel a need to rush either.

After two hours of work and eight trees, they
took a small break. Huck wanted to take a break after the first
hour, but Ash refused his request.

As they sat once again they ate food that
Shina had prepared. Ash wanted to ask Shina how she knew that they
would need them, but from the look in her eye he knew that the
answer would be something surprisingly simply so he pushed the
thought aside.

As they ate, Huck once again began telling a
story in hopes of making the break slightly longer. Ash didn’t care
much for another story, but when he looked at Shina he left it
alone. No matter how he thought about it, Shina in no way acted her
age.

“Have you ever heard about the king of rags?”
Huck asked Shina as he slowly ate his food. When Shina shook her
head, Huck let out a thin smile.

“Long ago in a kingdom now forgotten to time
there was a young king. He had wealth, power, and women, but still
he felt empty, so each day he would go out amongst the people
searching. One day the king was approached by a young merchant who
showed him a small multicolored egg. He told the king that it was
the egg of a phoenix. The king quickly bought the egg at an
extravagant price and took it home.”