Ever since he had been given his abilities, David had never truly pushed his limits.
Sure, he had strained himself physically, even to complete exhaustion and even passing out in one case, but that had always been a soft limit, a limit of attrition. His body giving out after many hours of boosted physical activity, just as anyone would grow weary after a full day of back-breaking work.
He had never butted against a hard wall. Never felt his power push back. He had only ever drawn on them until the very limit of what he felt was safe. He had never needed to; no task had ever required more than safely using his powers. He wasn't even sure he had a limit. His mana reserves had certainly never been left wanting, no matter how much he drained from them.
Now, now it felt different. It felt as if he couldn't draw upon his abilities enough.
He'd reached the north gate in under a minute, shouting his name at the guard on station and elbowing straight through the reinforced door, ejecting it from its hinges.
He'd ask the guard why he let anyone through even though he had been instructed not to later, when he had retrieved...
He willed his mana, made it surge through his enchanted bones, flesh and organs like a rampaging blaze churning through a store of hay.
His legs pumped in a blur, each of his powerful kicks sending clods of earth flying. His vision tightened, night became dawn, time passed like molasses.
And yet, he felt on a razor-thin edge. Each of his movement requiring perfection, a micro-spasm away from unfurling his entire being, like a room full of wounded mouse traps waiting for the first one to snap and trigger a chain reaction.
He hadn't reached his power's limits, but he certainly had went past his body's. The enchantment propelling him onward like a puppet animated by lightning.
And still he pushed further.
He wasn't even sure why. All he knew was that the instant the idea of a world without Niala had entered his brain, he felt a deep and excruciating wrongness wrack his entire being. Like a wild animal startled by an explosion, he was simply running away from that world with everything he had.
So he ran.
Toward the world were Niala was still alive.
The bear woke up.
He would have preferred to keep sleeping, but the annoying pull made itself felt.
He grumbled and strode out of his den.
The annoying pull became more annoying, pulling him to the south.
He didn't really understand how or why. All he knew was that the annoying pull wouldn't go away until he went to find out whatever was pulling at him and killed it.
He roared in annoyance. He really wanted to go back to sleep. The pull wouldn't let him. This made him cranky and angry.
He started running toward the pull's direction.
Whatever had attracted the pull's attention was going to learn exactly how angry he was at not being allowed to go back to sleep.
Brutally learn.
David was afraid he'd miss Niala at the speed he was going. His sight was clear and bright, and the increased speed at which he processed his vision allowed him to scan a lot of the forest as he charged through.
It was still a forest. With lots of trees and bushes and other vision-blocking things.
He was also rapidly approaching what he judged the grumble bear's territory to be. If his previous guess was right, the bear would try to intercept Niala. He had to find her before that.
Nothing else was acceptable.
But how...
She wasn't a corpse, he couldn't use the finger.
He hadn't thought to ask for a drop of blood, so none of his blood-related tracking tools would work.
He didn't have her mana signature to use the everlasting flock with.
...
Her mana signature!
He did! He'd added it to one of his cargo-cloth!
David slid to a halt, digging a furrow in the ground. He threw his pouch open and flipped through his cargo-cloths, quickly finding the one he'd loaned Niala previously.
He quickly tapped the sequence required to remove his own signature from it, leaving only Niala's. He yanked the everlasting flock statuette from his pouch and slapped it on the cloth. Its eyes began to glow a soft green, slowly shifting ahead of him as the statuette set its sight on its target.
David victoriously grinned, stuffing the cloth back into his pouch and launching himself back at a run.
The correct world, the only acceptable one, felt within his grasp.
The bear was close. The pull was very precise now. He could even smell something.
He burst through a thicket of bushes, blocking off a short catkin woman that had been headed north.
The pull was clear. This was the hook.
The bear snarled, approached the hook which attempted to walk around him.
He reared up and swung his paw at the hook's head and then he was sprawled on the ground with a fallen tree on top of him and his head propped against a cracked boulder.
That was wrong. There was no blood on his claws, and he hurt. That's not what's supposed to happen when he takes a swing at hook.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
He let everyone in the general area know how angry he was at things not making sense.
David scrambled back up from his flying drop-kick on the bear. He barely reached Niala before he heard the bear roar for bloody murder a dozen meters ahead.
Niala had simply continued walking north as if nothing had happened.
He reached out to her.
She slapped his hand away.
He tried again, with more force.
She out-powered him and slapped his hand away again. Only then did she look at him.
“Don't stop me David. I need to go to the chapel. It's for everyone's sake.” She calmly told him.
“Niala! Wake up! The bear's going to get out from under that tree in a second! We don't have time!” He yelled at her.
She kept walking and slowly shook her head. “It doesn't matter. I need to go north to the chapel.” She replied.
He heard a tree crash to the ground, followed by an angry growl. He spotted it rolling to its paws and getting back up.
He jumped at Niala, using as much force as he dared to in fear of gravely hurting her.
She raised her palm at him. A grey haze solidified between him and her. He collided with the grey energy and was catapulted backward. She kept walking.
“Bleed this!” He cursed, pushing himself back up.
“Listen! If you're not going to run, let me carry you north. If the bear mauls you, you won't be getting anywhere.” He shouted.
Only then did she stop, observing him for an instant. At the corner of his eyes David could see the bear advancing on them, snarling.
“Carry me then, but only to the chapel. If you deviate I'll make my own way.” She stated.
“Yeah yeah sure the chapel. Come on!” He said as he stepped over to her, picking her up in a princess carry.
Just as the bear reached them and raised a paw to swipe at then, David kicked to the side, launching him and Niala sideways and away from the bear, before planting both his feet and shooting forward, the blue light within his limbs returning with renewed intensity.
He should have been happy that he'd saved her from the bear.
But the only thing he could think of was that he was bringing her to something much worse.
David ran as slow as he could while still keeping ahead of the very angry bear chasing after them.
He used the few minutes he had until they reached the menhir circle to think, to try and find a solution. He really wished he had more than just suppositions to go along with. In truth he had no idea what exactly was going on.
His best guess was that it was a curse or an incarnation. A curse he might have something to temporarily lift it, or at least weaken it. An incarnation...
He only knew one way with what he had at his disposal and he really didn't want to use it, on the basis that it could cripple or even outright kill Niala if he did it even remotely imperfectly.
Too soon they reached the menhir barrier. Maybe it was because it was night time, but he could now see a very faint shimmer where he thought the barrier would be, something that hadn't been there during the day.
Or maybe just too faint to see in the sunlight. He mused.
He carefully stepped through and let down Niala right at the limit of the barrier.
She stared at him, expressionless.
“What?” He eventually asked.
“Will you not carry me all the way to the chapel as you said?” She monotonously asked.
He looked to the north, back to her. “Not unless you tell me what's going to happen there.”
He flinched as the bear rammed itself into the barrier a few paces from him.
I'd... forgotten about it. Thank the founding gods the barrier is working. He thought, calming his heart.
Niala showed no reaction. “I need to go to the chapel to keep everyone safe.” She repeated again.
“Safe from what? Safe how!?” He demanded, through the bear's growls and roars.
“Safe from the beast.” She explained before starting to walk northward.
“What beast? And how will you protect us from it?” David insisted as he kept pace.
She placidly looked at him, returning her gaze ahead. “I'm doing this for everyone. I must get to the chapel.” She kept repeating.
David stepped in front of her, trying to block her path. When she tried to walk around him he shifted. This went on for a few times before Niala raised her hand and backhanded him.
He was launched from his feet and several meters away, rolling to a stop against a tree. His breath pushed out of him, he fought for air a few times.
Niala kept walking northward.
He gritted his teeth and pushed himself back to his feet, reaching after Niala once more.
She wordlessly kept repulsing him, with limbs or energy release, as he kept trying to physically stop her.
Too soon, they arrived at the chapel. The blanket of bones like a red carpet for Niala's arrival.
She walked up the few stairs to the dais, shuffling the bones away with her feet as she walked forward.
All the while, whenever David approached, she raised a hand and released a pulse of grey energy that pushed him back.
Soon, she was at the altar. Gazing upon it, she lifted a hand to its centre. As she did so, greyish filaments of light rose up from the Tikitoan text engraved in the altar, twisting and twinning together, coalescing into an elongated oval just below Niala's hand, quickly gaining definition, resolving into a straight-bladed dagger made of wispy shimmering strands of moonlight.
David stood a few paces away, grim realization mooring him in place.
As Niala grasped the dagger, she turned her head towards David and smiled.
“It'll be ok. This is for everyone. It's what I want.” She gently reassured him.
She slowly brought the dagger toward herself, tip pointed at her heart. Her other hand joined the first, firmly grasping the handle. She looked up to the night sky, elation apparent on her face.
She staggeringly turned her head to face David one last time.
A tear rolled down her left cheek.
Her arms tensed.
“I'm sorry.” Niala whispered softly.
The dagger plunged...
Into David's blue glowing hand, grasping the dagger's blade like a handle, blood seeping through his curled fingers.
Niala's eyes widened in shock. She tried moving the dagger. It didn't move an inch, as if it had been stuck in a rock. She looked at him.
“I need to do this, for everyone.” She pleaded.
He scowled. “Whatever you are, get out of her head!” He screamed as he pushed his mana outward, bursting from him like a popped bubble.
It washed over Niala, expunging a grey haze out of her as it did.
Her eyes rolled in their orbit. She fell, limp, like a string-less puppet.
He grabbed her with his other arm, gently depositing her on the ground as he pulled the dagger away from her.
He observed her features, felt for a pulse, for her breathing.
She seemed... unarmed. Or at least still alive.
“What are you doing!?” A glass-breaking wind screamed at him.
His head snapped up.
A being made of shifting grey winds, limbs too long, body too thin, tall as two men, stood a few paces from him, eyes of pale moonlight glaring at him.
“I need a sacrifice to keep the beast slumbering! It is waking up! Why did you expel me from the woman!?” It screamed at him again, the crystalline voice breaking and creaking like an old house in a storm.
David took one last glance at the unconscious Niala before standing up.
“You're not doing anything to her.” He declared.
His blue glow intensified. He stepped over Niala, drawing his sword, pushing his mana into it, its blade taking on the same blue glow as him. A blue aura started to emanate from him, like ethereal flames outlining his silhouette, his body sliding into a combat stance.
“Start explaining. Make it quick. I'm not feeling overly amiable."
almost ended this on a much worse cliffhanger. But then I remembered I'm not that cruel.
Are they going to fight?
