Chapter Eight: Primal Hunter
"So....which are you picking...or you could just take all you know..."
Ashnight ignored the shadow as he stared composed at the huge shelf before him. He was having a time deciding. Surely he could use a sword, a one-sided perhaps, but for a cramped twenty feet space, there would be flexibility constraints.
A dagger. He placed his hands on his chin. All his life he'd always swung a wooden bat, so guess he was the long-range guy. And those monsters, should they appear to be more huge than him, melee attacks would put him in great danger.
His eyes swept past a dark bow. Nope, he had never used one in his life. Damn it. A spear was less fluid, was too one-sided. What if the opponents were two? He could only pierce, not slice.
He slicked his hair back in frustration. Not to mention the hot wind scorching his eyes and the dust drifting into his nostrils. He coughed. At least the air was fresh.
"Hey, you only have about a minute left. Just pick everything. You'd expend them after all."
"Shut up. That's gonna cause mobility constraints." Then his eyes glimmered. "Actually, you're right... but not fully." He slid the glass.
He was just gonna take one of each weapon range.
"You're welcome."
The Shadow drawled sarcastically, but Ashnight paid no heed. He grabbed the sheathed black katana for standard range. Good. Then a pair of serrated sickles. This was gonna be his short range.
Now for long range. He glanced at the spear and a hanging quiver of arrows. A spear, well it wasn't expendable, but the distance for maximum safety wasn't as much as that of a bow and arrow, which was also quite expendable.
But... He grabbed the silver bow and the bag of quiver, then he hung it over his shoulder diagonally. He'd always choose safety over expendability any day. Still got versatility and fluidity as an extra perk also.
"30 seconds left..." The shadow called, flaring him with adrenaline.
Fuck. Fuck. His eyes scanned rapidly. He located a gas mask, grabbed it. Then... then... he scanned more. He grabbed a spiky whip and...
"5 seconds..."
Now he was starting to wonder how this fella knew the exact timing. He could be bluffing. Even while his mind ranted this, his eyes still scanned in frenzy, and at the end he grabbed a little iron mallet.
"Bam..."
And true to the shadow's words, the ground split, devouring the magnanimous weapon shelf. Slightly thrown off, he staggered backwards, then he let out a sigh before glancing at the gas mask in his hands.
"It's not for staring, you know. You put it on your face."
His mouth twitched. Ashnight waved it a little internal fuck off before the gas mask found his face. The interior was cool, and more, the air was no longer laced with sound. Hell, it was if he wasn't in the desert anymore.
The tinted visors shielded him from the torturous rays of the sun. This was a thousand times better than those he'd wore at the Downside.
Then a blue panel appeared before his eyes.
[The Maze Trial has Commenced. All Participants are to Enter the Maze within the time frame of ten seconds lest Disqualified.]
He tucked his baggage. It wasn't that weighty, quite enough to keep him moving around without tiring his instinct. Then quickly as he could, he walked into the red sanctuary beyond the huge stone entrance.
On both sides of him were the continuous form of the maze walls, though not too far ahead it terminated at an adjoined flat wall. A fuckin dead end, but birthed two routes sideways, each shrouded in darkness due to their position in respect to the sun far behind them.
"Nether. Stick to the plan." He whispered.
"Aye..aye."
His shadowless feet birthed a distinct blackness stretched on the red sanded ground. Slowly, this darkness coalesced into the silhouette of a man, then drifted to the walls.
Then slowly exhaling, Ashnight shut his eyes before opening them again. When he did, one of his eyes had a fully blackened sclera with a silver ring within, while the other remained perfectly normal.
"Done. You can move now. Scout the left one." He whispered to the shadow. As this sinister blackness glided on the walls, Ashnight could not help but feel the coldness of the stone wall as if he was being immersed in it, and in the same vein felt the scorching heat of the sun on his shoulders.
He'd work. By successfully partitioning his consciousness with the shadow, he could gain dual peripheral vision. He glanced at his own self which was slowly getting farther as his vision moved.
He looked like a stuffed dummy. So hilarious he almost laughed.
Then slowly, focusing his consciousness back on his very self more, he walked on. He'd tuck the two sickles into the quiver along with the silver arrows, while the whip he'd rolled it over then dangled it on his utility belt.
What he only held were the short mallet and the sheathed katana. As he walked on, the only thing he felt was the sound of the parting sand, no other echoes on the wall which the shadow was now gliding.
A panel drifted before him again. This one contained far more words than the earlier one.
[Identity: Nether Ashnight...
Kills:
Green Tier Abominations: 0
Red Tier Abominations: 0
Black Tier Abominations: 0
Weapons:
Grade: Flawless Treasures
Type: Petal of Sorrow (Katana), Silver Streaker (Bow and Arrow), Thorn of Truth (Whip), Steelsong (Mallet), Wisp of Paradise (Mask)
Harm: 0%
Time: 00:10:43]
He swiped it off. The only thing he could be grateful for was the percentage harm. At the very least he could track his damage, which would mean a solid goodbye to some rash decisions.
Slowly, he was drawing near to the intersection. With his shadowed vision, he'd far drifted close through the left path. It went truly perpendicular in relation to where he now stood.
It had some more intersections, three to forward while one backward as if returning back to the starting point of the maze, though it had a dead end. But...
"Hey Nether, the tunnel... do you see it?"
"Yeah. I'm gonna go check it out."
There were multiple flashes of light emerging from the dark termination, irregular patches of light that slowly flickered to red then white.
But as his vision drifted towards it, the light disappeared abruptly.
"Whadda..." His heart pounded. He was kinda feeling this was some suspense type shit. He held the katana tightly.
From the depth of this blankness, a stump of flesh tore from the darkness. Not one but countless stumps of flesh belonging to creatures who seemed to possess multiple limbs all around their ball-like shape ringed with rows of teeth.
"Fuck." His eyes widened. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Pull back. Pull back. He ranted internally as this insidious creatures crawled out of the intersection into the perpendicular left tunnel which would lead them directly to where he stood.
His breath hitched, then it quickened, almost clouding his visor with the fog of it. But he could care less.
[Green Tier Abomination: Cute Little Teddy
Amount: 12]
Cute Little Teddy. Now he knew that freak was not only a sadistic but a socio. A damn socio.
The shadow retreated back to the tunnels.
"Hey..Ash, what you gonna do?"
He felt the deep vibration on his feet. Those damn bastards were actually coming here. They could've just fuckin go the other way. He glanced at the right tunnel which was still shrouded in darkness.
"Want me to scout that out?"
"No. You don't need to." He slid into the sandy confines of the shadowed tunnel, then he gestured at Nether. "Watch my back."
"Wait. You ain't running in? Now I'm confused. What's your plan?"
The darkness would be a perfect vantage spot. He would be perfectly shrouded from their vision. He tossed the mallet, then unsheathed the katana with lightning-fast movement.
"What's your plan? Don't keep me in the dark."
Ashnight's eyes scanned around again frenziedly. Then finally he stepped out of the darkness and placed the katana right on the far side of the wall he came in through.
Perfectly so. The silver surface of the katana now reflected the light towards the opposite wall. The shadow just watched on with a confused demeanor, a little bit hard to notice.
As he glid back towards the others' dark passageway, he couldn't help but notice the huge rounded silhouette of the Little Ted...No,Fuck it..Scary-as-fuck monsters. They were almost his fuckin size.
He grabbed as many arrows as he could from the quiver, then he impaled them on the ground beside him. Then slowly he steadied the bow. Then he gave a deep exhale. His narrowed eyes followed those limbed monstrosities which rolled on their bodies towards the lighted entrance tunnel.
"Look, I don't get it. Like why you placed your weapon out there, and why you are actually planning on fighting instead of running."
He sighed again. "If I were to run, dummy, I would be agitated. Which means I would pay less attention to stuffs around me and might end up in the lair of another of their fucked up kind." He stared back at the shadow. "It's a Maze. Satisfied?now Watch my back."
"But... how then will I watch how your plan's gonna play out?"
The horrendous form of the first limbed monstrosity tore from the darkness, right as he carefully placed one of those silver arrows on the tenuous black bowstring.
"You can watch it all play out through my eyes."
---