Chapter 171: Chapter 178: The 8th Rank

I was restless. The light from the lake was so bright that it was hard to sleep. Even though my body was too tired to move.

I covered my face with the blanket to try and block it out… But that only allowed for all the memories of the day to come rushing back. The zombies. The wraith-like undead… The freezing lake. And of course, the ghoul, which I was going to have to fight again… However it ended I knew that we were only going to face off one more time.

Wrestling with my thoughts, I tossed and turned until my brain finally shut off like a fading candle.

When I finally did fall asleep, I was summoned to the abyss and found myself standing in front of Raffi, “The little one,” as I liked to think of her.

I let out a groan, rubbing my eyes. “Hello again…” I was tired, but from my experience in the past, it seemed like for all intents and purposes my body was still getting the effects of sleep, so I tried not to let it bother me.

Instead of a cathedral or ruin, we were in the void of nothingness, the pitch-black hollow abyss that felt ever so close to swallowing me whole. I gulped, fixing my eyes purely on her so as not to lose my bearings. She was moving around so sporadically though that it only helped so much. Swishing her cape and making one dramatic pose after another as if putting on a performance.

"Ah, mortal one, You are seeking the forbidden knowledge of the shadows. Tis a path draped in obsidian mysteries. The very echoes of my voice tremble with the weight of its secrets. Yet, thou art persistent, and my heart wavers like the wings of a raven in a storm. Behold, tis the Savage Strike…”

She waved her hands around almost like a dance, upping the scale of her dramatic antics until a sword of dark fog appeared from the air around her, shaping itself in her hand as if she was bending the very abyss to her will.

“A dance of shadows that devours the very essence of life. Heed my words, for those who tread this path seldom find solace after claiming the victory they desperately desire. The echoes of my past students whisper like ghastly winds, still lingering in the abyss. Thou treadest upon the precipice of the dark nature of the soul."

She stretched out her fingers, covering her face with her other hand.

"You have been knighted and blessed by the dark moon's imperial grace. A noble path indeed. But, mark my words, this moment is the last flicker of light before the abyss will swallow you whole. Once you embrace this magic, darkness shall weave itself into the very fabric of your being. This will be your final chance to turn away, to retreat from the precipice, for beyond this incantation, the shadows shall claim thee as their own. Do you possess the resolve to face the abyss, or are you yet swayed by the feeble light that offers little in the way of hope?"

She froze still like an actor holding the final pose before the curtain fell.

I was following along as best I could, but it almost seemed like she was just talking in circles. “So… You’re asking if I want to keep learning from you, and saying that this will be my last chance to turn away from dark magic, that about sums it up right?”

She rolled her eyes, letting out a heavy groan. “Right… That about sums it up, yeah…”

“I mean… Screw it, we came this far together, let's see it to the end.”

The little girl's face lit up like a firework, but before I saw her explode she vanished, replaced by the giant one.

“Think more carefully about this decision. Very few riftwalkers have ever been slayed by a demon… In the end, I am the one that must lay them to rest… This is the curse of the abyss… It is within your best interest to forget you ever met me. With time, let your powers fade as you were purified, and you will no longer be tied to me like the others…”

The whispers grew around her and the echoes of ghostly voices intensified, each one crying out for help, in one way or another. “Let this be your final warning!”

They grew louder as if she was forcing them to rush me, trying to scare me off, but I didn’t run. I closed my eyes, listening closely. I could hear each distinct voice… Out of the many crying out for help there were four that stood out, each one using their words a bit differently.

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One sang a somber, almost haunting melody as her voice drifted on the wind.

One echoed with reassurance. “Whatever choice you make Rafi, I will be your sword.”

Another had such a powerful presence I almost didn’t even need to hear him speak. “I made my choice, now I die with it. No regrets.”

The last one, with lungs thickened by blood, coughed out his final words with the laugh of a man whose heart had been literally split in two. “I loved you, I fought for you, and now I die for you… Not a bad way to live…”

I slowly opened my eyes, my mind having been made up. “You see cries of help as a warning? That’s funny, I always thought they just meant that you had a chance to help someone.”

“I will not kill another one of my knights!” She yelled.

“Then make me a queen.”

She shrank down to the size of Mara, pulling out the greatsword of moonlight from before and posturing as if to cut me down. Just like that, we were having a face-off. It became clear that she wasn’t trying to warn me, but rather scare me away. “You’ll die like a pawn! Just like the rest of them!” She shouted.

“I ALREADY MADE IT TO THE END OF THE BOARD!” The black marks swirled down my skin as my body felt stronger than ever before. Every breath I took felt deeper than the last as if my lungs were growing. The black fog surrounded me, but the heaviness didn’t bother me, instead, it felt like my armor.

In a flash, the moon that was half swallowed by a black hole emerged from the nothingness, and I felt as though not even her sword could touch me. My voice calmed down again as she froze shocked just as much as I was at the power my words seemed to cary. “Don’t you know anything… Once a pawn makes it to the end you have to promote them. First I fought the ghoul, that’s one. Then I learned to control my magic, that’s 2. I fought the wolves, and then my sister, and now I’ve made it past a hoard of undead. That’s five moves. THAT’S ALL IT TAKES TO MAKE IT TO THE 8TH STAGE. Now… I don’t care what kind of piece you turn me into… But I won’t die a pawn… It’s too late for that… Once a pawn makes it to the 8th stage… It’s illegal to keep them as a pawn…”

She vanished again, being replaced just like before. This time it was the country girl with the beautiful dress and the freckles.

She looked down at the black void under foot and her eyes grew sad. “I think that… You should do what you think is best…” She turned her eyes towards mine as if she was afraid to say goodbye. “If you do learn true dark magic though, I want you to make me a promise… As… My only friend…”

”S-sure…”

“I want you to save my sister. Free her from the curse of the abyss, and from all the killing, if you turn into a demon I don’t think she would be able to handle it, and the whole world may very well fall apart.”

I looked down at my open hands, imagining the feel of a blade between them. ‘It’s starting to feel like my sword isn’t the heaviest thing that I’m carrying anymore…’ Turning my eyes back up to her. I saw her mouth begin to move, but all sound was cut out by a blinding snowstorm that covered the black air in a white mist, coming and going in an instant as the giant reappeared, still in her smaller form. “What did she say to you!” She yelled out angrily.

I grinned. “You’ve been outvoted.”

“You cause problems beyond your understanding child!” She walked up to me, but without her sword, there was nothing she could do to threaten me. After all, Mara was the one who taught me how to fight… That meant that with every move I ever learned I practiced more than a thousand times on her. So… When someone with her build tried to come at me… Her hands never even made it to my collar.

A quick turn with a grab to the wrist and a shift of my weight and I had thrown her over my shoulder and onto her back, knocking the wind clean out of her. “And you fight like a girl.”

I took a deep breath and turned around to gaze at the dark moon. ‘When someone’s crying out for help… It’s a chance to help them… I guess I’m stealing your lines again sis.’ I turned back around to see nothing but a black fog quickly taking shape with an angry growl as it wrapped around my neck, pulling my head down into a knee.

Of course, I knew how to handle that move as well as any other… I didn’t even have to stop time. I lunged forward, shoving my head into her gut to knock the wind out of her again before grabbing her and using the exact same move. My knee connected to her face like a shotgun hitting a pheasant from forty yards.

She recoiled but before she fell down I grabbed her collar and pulled her down to my eye level. “I’m already friends with two gods, a herald, and pledged to becoming a queen and changing the course of history… I might as well fix this moon of yours while I’m at it… That’s why it chose me in the first place, isn’t it? So sit back and let me do my job… I’m done taking beatings.”

A mix of black and red blood drained from her lip down her perfect skin as she let out a soft snort. “Friends huh…” She closed her eyes and sighed. “So you’ll do it then…”

I closed my eyes for a moment as well, nearly biting my own tongue as I got caught up in the heat of the moment. ‘No going back? When has there ever been going back… Even if I can slow time I can’t reload an old save…’

As I opened my eyes again the little one was staring up at me with puppy dog eyes, looking as though she was about to cry. “Y-you’ll actually do it? Like all of it, not just what I said… But what you said too?”

“I can talk big, but it doesn’t actually mean anything if I can’t even kill one lousy ghoule…”

She wiped her glistening white tear before suddenly wrapping her arms around me, nearly poking out my eyes with her big pointy hat. Somehow it felt even more awkward than hugging Mara. Of course, the fact I was expecting another prank didn’t help…

In the blink of an eye, she turned to mist and reappeared a few feet away again. “Sorry about her by the way, if you couldn’t tell she’s the negative one, not a happy chick.”

“Ahuh… And your other sister?”

“Oh, she’s the innocent one, never knows what’s going on, and hasn’t been hurt by the world yet.”

I pushed my eyebrows together. “And… You?”

She swung around her ridiculous glowing blade like it was nothing, three times her height, and twice her size, she flipped it up onto her shoulder. Then it instantly vanished and she started stepping up an invisible staircase. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m the cool one. And the cute one… The smart one, the funny one. Basically, I’m just everything the other two aren’t. She sat down, dangling upside down and staring at me. “And more. I’m also the weird one. That’s why I was talking like that earlier… Sometimes I do that when I’m nervous or feel awkward.” She flipped off the top and twisted, landing back on ground level and grabbing my hands. “You ready to go kill stuff?”