"Why? Why does it always have to be like this?"
I was staring death in the face—again. I didn't even know the first thing about how to trigger this stolen magic, and now I was expected to use it to save my miserable hide. "Haha... wouldn't it be easier to just let them kill me?" I muttered, my voice cracking under the weight of the encroaching shadows.
That old witch Jessica had it easy. She was barking orders like a drill sergeant, but she wasn't the one with a foreign, solar parasite eating her organs from the inside out. As I was busy cursing her in my head, a massive Ork—a mountain of scarred green flesh—decided to end my internal monologue. His iron-studded club swung in a wide, brutal arc, slamming into my right shoulder.
The sound of my bone splintering was sickeningly loud in the narrow confines of the abyss. Shit! I need to get out of here!
The impact sent me sprawling, and in my desperation to escape the giant's reach, I scrambled toward Jessica. It was a pathetic sight: a broken demon and a crippled angel, huddled together in the dirt. It was simple math now: either we survived together, or we fed the maggots in this pit as a pair. Honestly? Neither option felt particularly inviting.
But I'd rather endure a thousand years with this silver-haired shrew than die in the dark.
Jessica grabbed me by the collar of my tunic, her breath hot against my ear as she screamed over the guttural roars of the horde. "Hurry up, you rat! Do it now!"
"I don't know how, you royal lapdog!" I screamed back, my vision blurring from the pain in my shoulder.
She didn't hesitate. She delivered a stinging slap across my face that made my ears ring. "Are you mocking me?! You absorbed my ultimate technique, and you didn't even bother to learn the mechanics? If I could move, I'd kill you myself!"
"Well, maybe if you weren't so busy trying to execute me earlier, I could have asked for a tutorial!" I spat back.
Jessica growled, her fingers digging into my arm. "Listen! Focus! You have to visualize the four colored suns as fragments of your own soul. The fifth, the Great Sun, is your unified self. It is the convergence of everything you are. Do you understand, you idiot?"
I had exactly one shot. One chance to light up this abyss or become a permanent resident. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the sound of the Orks' heavy breathing as they closed the gap. Jessica was surprisingly useful—she wasn't like Darren, that coward from my past. Even with her shattered leg, she was chanting minor incantations, sending bursts of white flame to incinerate any Ork that got within five feet of us. She was buying me seconds, and I couldn't afford to waste them.
Four parts of me... okay.
I reached deep into the void of my mind.
The Violet Sun. That was easy. It was my burning, jagged hatred for this world—for the Gods who toyed with us, for the Kings who used us as pawns, and for the very ground I walked on.
The Blue Sun. That was my cold, hollow indifference. The numbness I felt when I saw blood, the apathy that allowed me to keep walking when everyone else stayed down.
The White Sun. This one was difficult. It flickered like a dying candle. It was my hope—the tiny, pathetic spark that told me Ilea was still alive and that maybe, just maybe, I could find a place where I didn't have to fight. It was small, almost invisible, but it was there.
The Black Sun. This was the monster. It was my raw, primal will to survive. The cockroach instinct. It was the largest of the four, a swirling vortex of darkness that refused to let go of life.
Hate. Indifference. Hope. Survival.
I tried to weave them together. Nothing. The darkness remained cold. I tried again, my brow sweating as the giant Ork raised his club for a final, crushing blow. Still nothing.
The Ork was a foot away. I could smell the rot on his breath. In that micro-second of pure terror, everything aligned. I felt a surge of absolute Hate for the creature above me. I became completely Indifferent to the agony in my broken shoulder. I clung to the Hope that Jessica's words weren't just the ramblings of a dying woman. And more than anything, I felt the Black Will to live.
At the exact moment the club began its descent, they appeared.
Four colored orbs ignited in the air around me, swirling in a violent, beautiful dance. As they merged into my right hand, the Fifth Sun erupted. It wasn't just light; it was a physical force, a scream of solar energy that turned the abyss into a furnace.
The world turned white. For two minutes, the darkness was banished. I heard the Orks screaming, but the sound was quickly cut short as their flesh was vaporized, leaving nothing but blackened bones.
The recoil was catastrophic. I was hurled backward, slamming into the obsidian wall with a force that made my lungs collapse.
When the light finally faded and the abyss returned to its damp, silent gloom, I opened my eyes. "Haha... I won," I wheezed, tasting copper in my mouth.
But then I saw him. The giant Ork. He was charred, his skin bubbling and his eyes melted, but the monster was still breathing. He was leaning on his club, a nightmare of burnt meat, and he was staring right at me.
"Jessica! Catch!" I screamed with the last of my breath.
I reached for the Sword of Qelo at my hip and hurled it across the floor. Jessica caught the hilt mid-air, her eyes wide with desperation. She began to crawl, dragging her broken leg through the ash of the fallen Orks, preparing for a final strike.
I knew I had to be the bait. One last time.
"Hey, you oversized green pile of shit!" I roared, waving my good arm. "Over here!"
The Ork turned. With a guttural sound that was half-growl, half-sob, he charged. He didn't use his club; he simply ran me over. I felt both of my shins snap like dry twigs as his massive weight crushed my legs into the dirt. I was pinned. I was done.
But as he raised his massive fist to finish me, Jessica arrived. She had crawled through the carnage, silent as a ghost. With a cry of effort, she drove the Sword of Qelo deep into the back of the Ork's knee.
The giant howled, his balance shattering. As he began to topple, I didn't stay idle. Using my one working hand, I grabbed a discarded Ork dagger from the dirt and drove it into his other knee with everything I had left.
The monster sank to his knees, his head level with ours.
Jessica didn't hesitate. She gripped the Sword of Qelo with both hands and drove it upward, straight through the Ork's throat and into his brain.
The giant shuddered. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed forward, his massive body missing us by an inch. He was dead. Truly dead this time.
Silence returned to the abyss. I lay there, my legs useless, my shoulder shattered, and my organs feeling like they'd been through a blender. I looked over at Jessica, who was slumped against the Ork's corpse, her silver hair stained with black blood.
"We... we actually lived," I croaked, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in my chest.
"Shut up, you rat," she whispered, but for the first time, there was no poison in her voice.
Until next time.