Unchosen Champion-Chapter 384: Martyrdom

Tzultacaj heaved himself across a bottomless rocky ravine, scrabbling in the dirt for a moment before securing a grip. He swung his leg up and hauled himself over the opposite side as soon as his fingers stopped sliding. In one motion he snatched his axe from the ground and took off running. He picked up speed, like a stone rolling downhill before driving into the thinning coastal forest ahead. He held his ancient weapon near the broadhead blade with just one hand, focused on fleeing instead of fighting for once in his life.

Retreat was hardly in his nomenclature, but even he recognized that single-minded action-oriented combat would lead to his inevitable demise against the unending forces of mana. He had no destination planned, he was just trying to get as far away from his allies as possible. The hope of giving them a chance to regroup and escape to Lighthouse territory was his only goal.

The thick mountainous rainforest had given way after he crossed elevated plateaus and cold mountain peaks. Eventually, he found himself traversing a diluted rocky woodland that was covered in thickets, demonstrating the extreme distance he had already covered when compared to the environment where he had started. He could sense the coast was near, though their expedition into the interior had brought him all the way to the Black River in the Amazon. If he had made it this far, then his much faster allies had to have found safety in allied outposts.

Unfortunately, if he wanted to shake his pursuers, he would have needed to develop a different set of skills during the assimilation. He wasn’t built for escape, but completely leaving the monsters behind would have ruined his plan anyway. Instead, his durability was key.

The core forces of mana on the continent needed to follow him and not Mateo, Juliana, or Sierra. If he could run circles with the primary alien threat at his heels, that’s what he would do, but at some point he was sure he would need to stop and fight. They were still acting with the hope that the Eradication Protocol was time limited, but that they were enacting such desperate schemes so soon was obviously a warning of what was to come.

He winced as the consequences of their emergency plan made themselves felt. Blood dripped from his wounds, stinging each time debris brushed against his skin and brittle branches reached out to ensnare him. He clenched his jaw, wiping away the expression as he locked the pain away. A death on behalf of the Jaguar Sun and for the Lighthouse was acceptable so long as he extracted a sufficient price from his killers.

He lowered his shoulder and plowed through a tangle of dry branches, not wasting any time with dodging and weaving, but also making a racket and establishing a clear trail for his enemies, whether he liked it or not. The minor scrapes he endured were nothing compared to the injuries he already carried.

As long as he bought enough time for the others it was a worthy endeavor. The wave, pushed by a monster that crawled into their minds with whispers of annihilation, would have swept the continent and bled into Central America if he had not diluted its focus.

But now, he was alone, isolated in a land that had been unfamiliar to him, and was utterly packed with unprecedented enemies. He was covered in blood that was entirely his own, drawn from hundreds of scrapes and scratches, missing an ear and two fingers from his left hand, all taken by the assaults of whipping enemies. He tried to staunch the flow from a wound that exposed his ribs on the right side while he ran, but the crimson blood filled his palm and still drained between his remaining fingers, splashing down to his hip. Streaks of sanguine blood stained the muddy dirt and leafy vegetation, highlighted by the color of the atmosphere. It wouldn’t take a genius tracker to sniff him out.

Behind him, a mass of parasites proved that they were sufficiently capable of following his obvious trail, giving chase by noisily crashing through the same woods. The air was thick with the sticky scent of damp alien flesh that pierced the metallic tang of his own blood. The unseen swarm rustled through leaves, clicking at each other from the dense undergrowth, a relentless current that he could feel in vibrations of the earth and in the chilling whispers that nipped at the depths of his mind.

One demand tickled his brain, at first sounding like babbled nonsense from a grotesquerie before carefully getting a simple message across.

“You will Perish.” The deep voice threatened.

The words rumbled as if summoned within his memory, the echoes gurgling like no voice that belonged in reality, and in a language unfit for human ears. It barely rose above the steady drum of his own heartbeat, but it spoke as if it expected obedience. It would find none from the rebellious Jaguars.

Tzultacaj didn’t even flinch with the pronouncement of his death. He was solid, refusing the natural shivers that threatened to crawl down his spine as his instincts screamed of whipping limbs. His fears were exaggerating the threat, making it seem like the enemies were closer than they were in reality. The sounds of their approach chased him through the forest, gently passing between leaves as he plowed forward, but the monsters were not within reach. Not yet.

He’d been pursued for what felt like an eternity, establishing a crude masquerade of excitement, punctuated by scrambling sprints and leaps across grand ravines. He was a rogue character in the play, refusing to perform for the Eradication. It didn’t matter what was demanded of him, he would march to his own drum until he could no longer march.

When he glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the advancing parasites, he could tell that they were gaining on him, the leap across the ravine cost him dearly. They shuffled across the mud, scurrying through the vegetation and into the trees while larger individuals lagged behind like lurching bulldozers. They all moved in bursts, realigned themselves, then propelled themselves forward again, triggering deep-seated fears with every possible characteristic.

The evolved forms of the parasites had little in common with their basic worm-like appearance, transforming them into monstrous house centipedes or artificial harvestman spiders mixed with underworld nightmares and dipped in synthetic material. Their skin was like black latex, stretched to catch reflections through the fog along the forest floor, making them all seem like creatures from an alien abyss.

While they appeared to be parasites at their most basic form, they didn’t actually require a host. Instead, they grew into long-limbed monsters, sprouting joints and spikes, with elongated heads and rows of conveyor belt-like teeth hidden within snapping jaws. They quickly grew far larger than any potential victims in the first place, turning them into pure predators instead. When they did catch something, they hauled their victims like banners on the ends of spiked tails, siphoning energy from them as if they were sipping from an unpleasant beverage and waving their husks the way a rattle-snake might shake its tail.

While they moved like massive insects, when it came to combat, each limb was almost independent of the others. An individual opponent was not to be underestimated, especially as they grew more powerful. When they evolved, they mostly just added more legs, stretching themselves into monstrous forms that individually challenged his Strength while exceeding his Agility and easily overwhelmed his defenses. freewёbnoνel-com

In his efforts to evaluate South America, he had discovered foes that were too strong, even for him. They couldn’t staunch the tide as the monsters conquered the continent and flowed toward Central America, but at least the evacuations had been successful. As it stood, the continent only had a handful of remaining strongholds along the Atlantic coast, all holding out with their ocean-borne retreats secured.

Tzultacaj kept running, blasting straight through dry trees, right up to the point that the ground abruptly vanished before him. He skidded to a halt on the precipice of a cliff, just beyond the final treeline. The wind whipped at his sweat and blood soaked skin, carrying the distant chorus of endless waves as they collided with the coastline somewhere below. Stubby vegetation clung to jagged rocks that led into the red haze abyss, the bottom too distant to be seen.

He had reached the end, cornering himself on a narrow peninsula, somewhere in what must have been Venezuela. A leap would be a gamble with death, and plenty of the parasites had already proven to be strong swimmers. He turned to face the barely glimpsed terrors, refusing to jump when he could still fight.

He deliberately slowed his breath, refusing to let exhaustion become a factor in the upcoming battle. His grip on the ancient axe changed, adding both hands to the worn leather that wrapped the handle and had molded to his preference. The dark metal head, etched with inscrutable Mayan symbols, gleamed faintly in the limited light. The smooth surface fogged up as he exhaled on the obsidian spiked edge.

The axe was an heirloom that carried his inherited strength, a long bloodline that he had willingly embraced to give his ancient cousins some minor solace when threatened by cults and aliens. It would be tested against the parasites.

He planted his feet in a wide stance, the rough stone of the weather-worn cliff biting into the soles of his feet. His knuckles were white as he tightened his grip, compensating for the lost fingers and wetness of his dripping blood.

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The clicking intensified as the monsters approached, revealing the source of the sounds to be the tapping of their limbs against bodies and the snapping of chelicerae against salivated teeth. The monsters finally slowed down as they cornered their prey, hiding inside the haze as they also appeared to prepare for a direct confrontation. Tzultacaj couldn’t distinguish one pursuer from another, but running through the jungle for weeks hadn’t diminished them one bit. An entire swarm was there just for him.

“Good.” He grunted with a raspy voice. He wouldn’t have had it any other way.

He watched as a single limb was silhouetted by the fog, becoming more corporeal as it inched closer. A second limb appeared, dragging an individual monster forward just enough to make its jaws visible while another set of limbs appeared at the side. In a few seconds, hundreds of the long pointed legs appeared, carrying the parasites slightly forward, just barely revealing their horrible countenances.

Tzultacaj shifted his axe, hearing the thunder in his blood as it built upon itself, escalating until he couldn’t hold it back. He roared, raising his axe high, just as purple lightning smashed into the blade from far in the sky, drowning his vocalization with its own power. It was the starting pistol he needed to get going.

He ran forward before leaping into the army, completely undaunted while strikes of raw purple electricity were landing all around him. He crushed the first parasite with the fury of a millennia of apex hunters incensed at the idea of being challenged by such unworthy creatures. Only their expiration would be suitable atonement.

The monster exploded into black blood, showering its neighbors as Tzultacaj embraced the primal rage that had fueled his entire post-mana existence. Primordial lightning crashed in cascades around each of his following footsteps, ripping through his enemies even as they drifted and danced all around him. The blade cleaved through their flesh, detaching limbs that clattered into the adjacent enemies, dark goo spraying through the air.

The monsters retaliated, stabbing at his body with needle-like limbs even as he collapsed their waxy plastic carapaces. They demonstrated that, like him, they had no fear of death.

For Tzultacaj, this was not a fight for victory. It was a final desperate assertion of his will in the face of the inevitable. He would extract his pound of flesh, right there, on the edge of the world. If he should fall, he intended to drag the entire army along with him.

The air sparked with primal energy as Tzultacaj’s lightning formed rings of blasts, repeatedly striking as his axe carved through masses of parasites. The monsters rolled through the forest, growing thicker and thicker as he fought, their numbers completely incalculable, despite his conquest. They lashed at him with their extendable limbs, ripping his skin and enraging him further, but for every blow, he claimed two more scalps.

Hundreds of the larger parasites were torn apart, but as he fought, even more evolved enemies arrived, demonstrating an advantage in reach that forced him to rush further into the fray. A dusty battlefield formed, trees and stone annihilated by the efforts of the combatants. The dirt was painted by his blood and sweat, while the air was highlighted by sprays of black ooze and primordial blasts of lightning. He may have killed two for every wound, but they pushed five more forward with every death.

In the distance, trees collapsed as the most massive of enemies sought his island of resistance, where thousands of its kin were being crushed. His axe moved swiftly and he stood tall, a lone figure in a vast landscape that was indifferent to his individual struggle.

Every time he pulled his axe down, a bolt of searing energy slammed into the blade, and the thunder roared, empowering the weapon. It was as if Tzultacaj was merely the face of a much deeper power. It didn’t matter. No matter how much determination he embodied, and how much strength he summoned, his body was not invulnerable. He started to slow down even as the boss of them all approached.

Tzultacaj laughed in the face of death, realizing that an Icon of Mana had dedicated itself and its army to hunt down one man. That it was forced to confront him directly was already a massive loss for the supremacy of its forces. Tzultacaj kept one eye on the approaching calamity, grimly engaging with its lesser swarms, fighting against the loss of focus that tightened his vision while his blood was drained from his body.

The masses thinned out, their reinforcements slowing until he was alone in the center of the clearing, standing with a bit of a wobble, as if he had become a drunken axeman. The haze only partially revealed thousands of spiked limbs, and he barked at them to come on. The parasites acted like barely behaved attack dogs, waiting for their master, but he was ready to keep going.

“You will crave unreality.” The mysterious voice whispered in his brain with a particularly careful enunciation of every syllable, causing him to nearly collapse as he coughed up far too much blood.

Tzultacaj bore down, flexing his core so hard he could visualize his heartbeat as stars exploded in his vision, but he maintained control of his mana, physically rejecting the threat with a defiant resistance that came to him naturally. No parasites would spawn from his flesh and carry his body like a banner.

His response to the whispered threat was an inarticulate bellowing shout. He stood his ground as the boss appeared, dwarfing him with dozens of needle-point legs that held a pitch black carapace 50 feet above the ground. They pierced the air, shooting toward his position in an effort to skewer his body and transform him into its own effigy if not for another.

At the same time, the smaller enemies gave way, at first simply ceding position to their superior, but other disturbances grew in the distance, as if they were fighting among themselves to be closer to their master. Tzultacaj had no attention to spare. The Icon of Mana known as the Irrevocable Condemnation had arrived, specifically for him, leaving the rest to fight for the scraps.

Tzultacaj flailed with his axe, deflecting three of the massive stakes with ringing clangs, but the limbs retracted before he could counterattack. He had already lost too much blood and was noticeably slowing down. Only the thunder kept him going.

He didn’t even think, just kept swinging, drawing black blood when he did finally connect, but receiving twice as many wounds for his effort. His eyes glowed with purple energy as he was completely drenched in his own crimson blood, his axe refusing to cease its movement. He was barely human himself, transformed by combat into a monster of blood and thunder, and he fought like it.

Then, as he renewed his efforts, dodging beneath an errant attack and drifting forward, the Icon jerked to the side. Tzultacaj stumbled as he tried to keep up with the dance, but it was no use. He was already too far gone.

However, in spite of his weakening effort, one of the Icon’s arms was ripped off as an inhuman roar erupted from the back, presenting the reason the Icon had been jerked to the side. It was another beast, one that clearly hated the parasites more than life itself.

Tzultacaj blinked through the blood, unable to understand if he was really witnessing some kind of Huay Chivo attack in the haze or if he was losing his grip on his consciousness.

As he watched, the Icon pierced the creature through the abdomen, but it kept fighting as it was lifted high into the air, completely undaunted by what was clearly a mortal wound before it eventually ripped clear through the limb and crashed into the trees. A second of the creatures leapt from the forest on the opposite side, already covered in the black blood of the forces of mana, latching onto another of the Icon’s legs and causing it to stumble backwards while a third raked its abdomen.

The Icon wobbled back into the hazy forest, accosted by what seemed like half a dozen fantasy creatures, and Tzultacaj was confronted with a choice. It would have been an easy one if he wasn’t leaking so much blood. Obviously, he would keep fighting, but he also had a chance to run, following the coast toward where his allies expected him.

He stepped forward, wielding his axe as he pursued the weakened monster, unable to pass up the chance to terminate an Icon of Mana. He rushed through the forest, barely catching up in time to cleave through one of the weakened limbs. One of the monstrous shapeshifters lost its arm while leaping through the air before sinking its teeth directly into the latex flesh of the Icon to tear a chunk out, and another was ragdolled into the haze before bounding back into the fight only moments later, one leg bent completely backwards but somehow not hindering it in the slightest.

Tzultacaj did his best to keep fighting, but he was hampered by so many wounds, even keeping his consciousness was a struggle. In the end, the Icon stumbled away from him, through the forest, ceding ground to the assault. He followed, walking the boss down, watching as it slipped into the open ravine.

As the Icon’s body collapsed, it struggled to stay on the surface with its many forelegs, but Tzultacaj caught up and landed a devastating smash directly into its face while it was down, piercing deep into its strangely flexible skull. Half of its legs were already dangling in the air with beast-like monsters chewing through meat, and with his strike it slipped the rest of the way over the edge. As it fell, the new monsters went with it, leaping into the gap with reckless abandon or still connected by stabbing wounds that skewered them to the boss while they fought with tooth and claw.

Tzultacaj tried to breath, once again having to decide whether to pursue or flee, but before he made his choice again, one of the Huay Chivo appeared from the haze, rushing from behind him. It stopped in front of him for a second, staring down at him like he was a lost child, with eyes that contained no intelligence whatsoever.

As they watched each other, the monster’s broken teeth were actively growing back from bloodied gums and a gaping hole in its neck sealed itself, turning into a scar that overlapped others in the same place. The fresh scar matched thousands more all across its skin. The monster had been battling for longer than Tzultacaj had been running, and it hadn’t slowed down in the slightest.

It moved past him, leaping down the ravine with no concern for the jagged rocks surely hidden in the haze of crimson. It disappeared, completely consumed in the pursuit. Tzultacaj gazed into the chasm, calculating his chances of his own survival just from the fall and shook his head. It hadn’t been his hunt in the first place.

He stumbled away, identifying a lone parasite and crushing it with his axe. He would follow the coast back to his allies and warn them of what he had seen. If he wanted to claim an Icon for himself, he needed to regroup, and his companions would need to be prepared. The respawning bosses would surely give him the opportunity as long as he lived to fight another day.

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