[Memory Name: Steel Memento]
[Memory Rank: Awakened.]
[Tier: I]
[Memory Type: Weapon.]
[Memory Description: The Slayer preferred to work alone, but she had many admirers regardless. They followed her path in life, just as they did in death.]
{Enchantments: Slaying Blow]
[Slaying Blow Description: The closer a target is to death, the stronger the blows from this weapon.]
It wasn't too bad an Enchantment, and it meant your attacks would only grow stronger over time during a battle, but for someone with limited DPS like me, it just wasn't very valuable. Sasrir was a much better fighter, so I gave three of them to him and kept the short sword for myself since it was the lightest and simplest to use.
***********************************************
The third day dawned not with light, but with the sound of scraping bone and guttural snarls. We'd been cornered in a dead-end canyon by a horde of nightmares I mentally dubbed 'Bone-Breakers'. They were massive, hairless things, all bunched muscle packed onto a canine frame, but with no eyes—just smooth, scarred skin where eyes should be. Their heads were crowned with a single, hammer-like plate of thick, bony armor, and they used it like a battering ram, charging in a blind, terrifying frenzy.
"Left flank!" Sasrir's voice was a sharp crack over the noise. He was a blur of shadow, his form dissolving to avoid a charge that would have pulverized stone, then solidifying to drive a shadowy dagger into a creature's leg. It screeched, more in fury than pain, the dagger doing little more than annoying it.
"They're too armored!" I shouted, parrying a lunge with the Azure Blade. The impact jarred my arm to the shoulder. The Wishing Star enchantment had turned of, instead the blade glowed with the power of the Milky Blade, boosted by the Artificial Sun in the sky directly above us. We had tried to escape, but this horde was blocking the only exit. "We can't fight them all!"
"Then we don't!" Sasrir snarled. He pointed a shadowy tendril upward. "The wall! It's our only way!"
The canyon wall was jagged and steep, but climbable. It was also swarming with more of the shark-dogs, scrambling up with a terrifying, blind agility. Despite their heavy and brutish appearance, they climbed with the skill and agility of mountain goats.
It was a desperate, vertical race. We climbed faster than I thought possible, fueled by pure adrenaline. Claws scraped just inches below our boots. The creatures would launch themselves from the wall, their hammer-heads smashing into the coral where our hands had been a second before, sending shards of razor-sharp debris raining down. I had cut myslf easily a dozen times, and each sting was accompanied by a muted grunt from Sasrir as he suffered my mistakes as well.
"Go, go, go!" I yelled, hauling myself over a ledge. Sasrir flowed over the edge a second later, and we didn't stop. We ran, the enraged snarls and the sound of crumbling coral echoing behind us. We didn't stop until the sounds faded into the general hum of the Labyrinth, our lungs burning, our muscles screaming.
I collapsed against a coral pillar, sucking in great, ragged gulps of air. Sasrir leaned beside me, his form flickering slightly with the effort of maintaining solidity.
"By the Spell…" I panted, wiping sweat and grime from my face. "What the hell were those things?"
"Evolution's mistake," Sasrir rasped, his voice strained. "Perfectly designed to be a pain in the ass."
I let out a weak, breathless laugh. It was either that or scream. We were battered, drained, and from what I could see, no closer to our goal.
It was then that Sasrir, ever the vigilant one, straightened up. He was facing in the opposite direction to me, back to back and so he saw what I didn't.
"Adam," he said, his voice low and steady. "Look."
I pushed myself up, following his gaze. And there it was.
Rising above the jagged, crimson skyline of the labyrinth was a colossal statue. It was a woman, her features worn smooth by time and the elements, but her posture was one of serene grace, one hand extended as if in blessing or offering. Even from this distance, the sheer scale of it was humbling.
"The Saintess," I breathed, the words barely a whisper.
Sasrir nodded, a sharp, satisfied gesture. "The novels described her statue standing as a silent guardian near the city's edge. We're here."
The two-day nightmare of a journey, the constant fights, the close calls—it all condensed into that single moment. The Wishing Star had delivered. The tension of the frantic flight melted away, replaced by a new, colder kind of pressure. The weight of what came next.
"The Dark City," I said, the name feeling heavy on my tongue.
"And more importantly," Sasrir added, his dark eyes fixed on the distant, serene stone face, "what sleeps beneath it. The Lord of the Dead is close. I can almost taste the decay on the air."
We stood there for a long moment, side-by-side, catching our breath not just from the run, but from the sheer magnitude of our arrival. We'd made it.
The colossal statue of the Saintess loomed in the distance, a silent sentinel marking the edge of our goal. The adrenaline from our narrow escape was fading, leaving behind the grim reality of our next move.
"We're here," I stated, the words hanging in the air between us. "The question is, what now? Do we try to enter the City first, or do we go straight for the Lord of the Dead and the Starlight Shard?"
I looked at Sasrir. In most things, especially tactical decisions, I deferred to him. Despite the Visionary Pathway being orientated around the mind, Sasrir's tougher and more gritty mental view helped him think further ahead based on risk and reward. And this time, he desired the Starlight Shard.
"Arriving early doesn't get you an award, and our foundation is still lacking a bit. You need some proper armour to survive here, and we don't have the dexterity to make anything proper from the carcasses of the monsters we've slain. So getting that Cloak will be the priority for now. Rest up a bit, then we'll go kill ourselves a Fallen Tyrant."
....
"Please sub me on P@treon for fast release and more good novels. 🫡🫡 And so many good translation in future.
Checkout more novel on P@teron : [email protected]/Innercircle03