Heretical Fishing

Book 2: Chapter 89: Unveiled

Barry’s breath caught as he took in the royal library. Shelves stretched three meters up to the roof, running in long lines he couldn’t see the end of. The purple light of Borks’s portal was the only thing that lit the room, and as he closed it, darkness descended.

A flame came to life, battling the gloom for dominion.

Ellis carefully closed the lamp’s hinged glass door and glanced up, his eyes severe. “If anyone causes me to set fire to the library, I will curse you and every one of your descendants in perpetuity.”

“Yes, dad,” Theo replied, giving Ellis a soft pat on the shoulder that made the former archivist glare at him. “It’s in a lantern. Not like the flame will reach the books even if we do bump you.”

“I still can’t take you seriously while you’re wearing that, Ellis,” Peter added, stifling a laugh. “You look extra preposterous in the lamplight.”

Ellis looked down at the armor he had worked so hard on. “What? I look remarkable. Especially considering the age of the material…”

“You look like a wayward god got freaky with an iguana,” Theo muttered, causing Peter and Danny to chortle.

Barry let the banter continue, tuning it out as he set his backpack down and turned toward Fischer’s creatures. “Okay, everyone.” He opened the bag’s drawstrings. “Let’s get the costumes on. It’d be a shame to waste Steven and Ruby’s hard work.”

Borks was first. The dark-brown material was covered in old foliage, pondweeds, and patches of moss and dried mud. Ruby had somehow made the mud appear wet despite them being hardened and cracked.

Snips was next, and Barry draped the patchwork armor over her carapace. The armor—of Steven’s design—was arranged in a hexagonal pattern, and the talented tailor somehow concealed Snips’s orange carapace with layers of ingeniously woven material underneath the metal plates. He tied the straps in place, ensuring it was secure.

Barry would never admit it to the disgruntled crab, but Rocky’s costume was his favorite. Barry slipped elastic loops over Rocky’s body; the animal pelt fit perfectly. As a final touch, Barry reached into a bag and removed what Fischer had called a pirate hat. Barry set it down atop Rocky’s head, then tied it in place with a thin leather strap.

“Okay, Pistachio. You’re up.”

The lobster’s costume was perhaps the most complicated. They hadn’t found a pelt for the animal he was supposed to be, but Ruby had still done a wonderful job. Barry layered the fake fur on top of the leviathan crustacean’s sizable body, then attached the four legs. Lastly, the two eyes were strapped to his head.

As Barry stepped back, he had to stifle his laugh. Rocky was prone to violent outbursts; the last thing Barry wanted to do was set him off and have him start unleashing explosions.

Snips, however, had no such compunctions. She hissed with laughter, her carapace dropping to the floor and legs kicking out.

Rocky froze, slowly spinning to glare at Snips. Given the costume, it had the opposite of his desired effect. Pointing at the hat, Snips’s legs spasmed, her hissed laughter sounding more like a choke as she writhed on the floor.

Her antics drew everyone else’s attention, and when they spied the now vibrating-with-fury Rocky, their conversation died. Under the attention, Rocky started hissing like a boiling-over teapot, so Barry sprang into action.

“Focus,” he reminded them, stepping forward. “Take us to the royal library when you’re ready, Ellis.”

The former archivist marched them down a confusing series of corridors, finally arriving at a stone door. Just as Ellis had informed, there were four different locks necessary to open it. Everyone stepped back as Pistachio scuttled forward. He cocked his claws back, then unleashed a single blast at an upward angle that obliterated each lock.

Barry pushed the door open on silent hinges.

“Wh-what are you doing?” A man asked from within. “What manner of—oh...” He fell to his knees, his eyes darting between the spirit beasts and Ellis. “Monsters—”

Snips flew forward on water jets, parts of her costume trailing behind her as she smacked the man on the back of the neck. He fell limp and she caught him, slowly lowering him to the ground.

“Wonderfully done,” Barry said, striding forward.

Pistachio nodded. Rocky made a noise akin to, ‘yeah, so?’ And Snips let out a series of happy bubbles, her lone eye twisting to take in the room they were in.

The walls were shelves, and books filled every gap.

“Okay, gang,” Barry said, a smile forming as Borks reopened his dimensional space. “Let the pillaging begin.”

***

With his mouth feeling like it was filled with rocks, Augustus Reginald Gormona woke from a fitful sleep.

He rolled over, letting out a groan. To his surprise, his mouth was filled with rocks, and he spat them out, coughing and sputtering. Where was he? His vision swam, the stone bricks of the castle spire slowly coming into view. A shattered doorway let in the night sky, and all at once, he remembered.

The enemy cultivators were here, and he’d run right through a wall in his haste to raise the alarm, knocking himself out cold.

“The birds!” he yelled, scrambling to his feet. “Gods above! Deklan, where are you?” He gazed around the room, finding the guard sitting on a chunk of fallen wall. “What are you doing? Help your king up! We must defend the castle!”

The eccentric yet reliable guard chewed his lip, staring down at his hands. “You’re a cultivator?” he asked, not looking up.

Augustus spat, clearing more grit from his tongue. He saw no reason to deny it right this second. “Yes. I am. But that’s of little import right now! We have to—”

“My brother was a cultivator.” Deklan wrung his hands, his gauntlets creaking. “Is a cultivator.”

“Enough prattle, fool! We—”

“Leave me be,” Deklan said, his voice lacking any inflection. “I need to think.”

Seeing such a reaction from someone he considered a friend, Augustus felt the need to explain himself, to voice and justify the way of things. But then the pulse of chi struck his core. Something so powerful that it had to be the efforts of multiple enemy cultivators drove into him, setting his entire body to vibrating. It made his heart skip a beat.

Augustus clenched his jaw, recalling that he was a ruler. His kingdom was in danger, and he had no need to explain himself to a mere peasant.

“I don’t have time for your hysteria, guard.” Augustus spat the last word, approaching the spire’s stairwell and not bothering to hide his ire. “Report to the garrison for punishment. I don’t need dull tools.”

Without waiting for a response, Augustus began descending, removing stone-encrusted rings as he went. With each finger he freed, power coursed through him. The pulse of power that had struck felt like it came from the grove, but that was of no matter. Lord Tom Osnan was there, as were most of the kingdom’s cultivators; anyone stupid enough to attack it was as good as dead.

Removing the last ring, Augustus unleashed his full power for the first time in decades.

Chi flowed from his back, ripping through his robe and propelling him down the spiraling staircase at blistering speed. With the unshackling of his power, a familiar madness crept forward, like an old friend come to visit. The rings were a necessity, of course. The more power one released, the harder it was to contain when violence was no longer required. Still, it had been too long since the king had let his true nature show, and a vicious grin graced his lips as he let more chi flow from his considerable reserves.

Woe was any spirit beast that got in his way.

***

Endless bliss roiled through me with each drop of chi I surrendered, my very soul delighting to serve. It was a frozen moment, each passing microsecond making me give thanks for the boundless euphoria. The bubble surrounding me condensed and built upon itself, containing indescribable levels of chi that only grew as I let the universe take hold of my power. It dragged it out, ravenous for the essence I held.

The bubble was so dense it was hard to see out of, so I sharpened my awareness, sending chi toward my eyes. My vision pierced the veil. The cultivator was there—the lord that had launched himself toward me with water chi wreathing his hands. He was at an odd angle in the air, something—probably me and my chi—having struck him a physical blow. Though his face was upturned, his eyes were locked on mine.

No longer did he look down his nose at me.

Even the condescending smile was gone, replaced by a visage of sheer, unadulterated pants-pissing terror. And all at once, I realized my folly. This bloke and the rest of the cultivator slaves attempting to ambush me didn’t have the same power I did. If I was to unleash any more chi, they might have a seriously bad time. Sending my awareness inward, I slammed the floodgates closed—well, I tried to.

My core resisted, wanting to keep spewing chi out into the world like some homicidal dam.

Oi, I thought inwardly. I. Said. Close!

I hammered my will into it; my core listened immediately, cutting off my chi and sealing itself to the world. Though my power was no longer pouring out, there was still entirely too much in the world to be good for my attackers’ health. Shooting the lord a quick wink—I really hoped his cognition was enhanced enough to see it—I shot off through the bubble, rupturing its force in that direction. Just as I exited the light, I experienced a moment of hesitation.

For this to work, I’d need to release more chi.

Memories of ecstasy still lingered in my body, my nerves not yet forgetting just how good it felt to let it all flow out, to let the universe take hold and pull essence directly from my core.

Is it really safe for me to use my power so soon…?

But then I saw the faces of the cultivators surrounding the incoming blast. Just like their ‘lord’, they were terrified. Unlike the tyrant lord, however, they were here through no fault of their own. They were collared cultivators. They did what their handler commanded, lest they be put down like rabid dogs. They were worthy of empathy. Pity.

More importantly, they were worthy of saving.

Without an ounce of hesitation remaining, I saturated my lower muscles with chi. I flew for the first row of cultivators. Those that had leaped toward my previous position. Some shielded their eyes, others stared at the bright light in frozen shock. One and all, they reeked of terror. I flicked each of them on the back of the neck to knock them out, then set them down against the wall in the spot I’d ruptured the bubble’s force.

Next, I collected the outer row. As many as there were, I had to do four trips, each time carrying a stack of limp bodies back to the only safe place in the courtyard. It all happened in less than a second, and following the exertion of chi, I felt like I’d just done leg day, my lower half sluggish and slightly unresponsive. The job was done, though. No innocent cultivators would lose their lives to the blast I’d unleashed.

The lord, however…

From a perch atop the battlements, I watched the blast strike him. I’d shattered the force to his left, somewhat disrupting the bubble’s power. But that didn’t stop it from hitting him like a freight train. His body shot backward, slamming beside the doorway he’d entered the grove from. To my surprise, the wall held. It cracked and cratered, but the structure was reinforced by the same lines that spider-webbed around the courtyard and carried chi to the plants.

Lord Tom Onsan, keeper of the grove or whatever he had called himself, slumped to the ground. The crater behind him leeched chi, the strands so potent that I could physically see them. My core called to them of its own accord.

The strands obeyed.

Floating through the air, they came to me, soaking into my abdomen like fresh rain into parched earth. I could taste the chi. It was as if an ancient forest entered me, the trees as old as time itself, its soil holding the nourishment of a million decayed leaves. Though it was now within me, the foreign chi hadn’t melded with my own. It sat to the side, occupying its own space in a previously unused pocket of my core. The strands continued flowing until there was none left, the very grove robbed of its life force.

Before I could properly investigate the chi I’d somehow stolen, Lord Tom Osnan took a wheezing gasp.

“Who…” he groaned. “Who are you?”

“I didn’t introduce myself? Where are my manners?” I crouched down before him. “I’m Fischer. Nice to meet you, mate.”

I held a hand out to shake, but Tom’s body seemed to be unresponsive. I lifted one of his hands, guiding it to shake mine.

“The—” He cut himself off with a wracking cough. “The chi manipulator?”

“Oh! You guys were tracking our advancements? Barry’s gonna be chuffed.”

Though his body was limp, his eyes held the rage of ten-thousand Rockys. “You win, Fischer,” he wheezed. “You can tell your followers you won.”

I cocked my head. “Huh?”

“Don’t toy with me. You—” Another cough took him. “That power you wield. You’re clearly the leader.”

“Oh!” I made a dismissive gesture. “Yeah, nah. I’m not the leader of this little mission.”

His eyes narrowed in suspicion, then widened as he seemed to realize I was telling the truth. He licked his lips, the slight movement taking all his effort. “What are you, then…?”

I grinned. “I’m the distraction, mate!”

“You… you can’t be.”

“Afraid so, my man,” I replied. “Gotta let the boss know I’m done here, too. Sorry about this.”

Once more opening the floodgate to my power, I unleashed an uppercut into the air above me.

A beam of white light shot from my fist. It climbed into the heavens in an instant, and a fraction of a second later, it detonated.

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