XXXVII

  Eye of the Tiger

  ‘Shrine of Valour…’

  A pang shot through my chest. The totem had worked! But more importantly, I was certain now of what I needed to do. However, there may be one problem…I pulled out my token. The text on it had changed to: ‘Tier 1’.

  “Can you complete a shrine twice?” I asked the others.

  “You can,” Raven said.

  I breathed out as the weight on my shoulders vanished. My gaze went to the statues.

  ‘They’re still gathering essence.’

  I’d need to wait.

  Kiran caught my eye from the other end of the room. “Are you sure you want to? Our guardians were around level sixteen. Those three will be higher.”

  “We don’t know if they’ll activate,” Rin said. A pinch of curiosity had entered her otherwise bored expression.

  “Don’t worry.” I patted Saber, who walked up beside me. “We’ll be alright.”

  Raised brows at the statement but no rejection, so the others settled in to wait. About an hour passed, which I used to recover, before the essence drawing into the statues slowed down to a trickle.

  Air shifted. Overhead, a near-transparent layer of essence reached towards the ground like the bars of a birdcage.

  “I do hope you know failure means death!” Rin called from outside, a smile on her face.

  “Thanks,” I said with a shake of the head.

  Two statues to the side lit up. Rays of light shot out of their skin and coalesced into a shape above their heads. Moments later, the beasts with stone for skin circled and chirruped, the sound a far cry from the song of a true sparrow.

  [Guardian of Valour - lvl. 15]

  [Guardian of Valour - lvl. 15]

  ‘Not sixteen…but that’s higher than the White Stalkers.’

  These sparrows were half their size though. I could also match them beast for beast.

  But I didn’t reach for a harpy. Neither did I call for Ashwing.

  Saber’s claws raked against the floor. Sparks flew and fell on his fur, which ignited like a bonfire.

  My senses roved through his insides. Fire Shroud. A technique that boosted his durability and flame-based abilities. The art didn’t rotate his essence uniformly but generated clumps of energy at corner locations in his body like his shoulders. How exactly that allowed for the fire shroud to function wasn’t clear to me.

  A low growl brought me back into the here and now. The sparrows circled overhead. Saber’s gaze followed them, his teeth dripping with flames.

  My hand went to my hip but stilled on top of Red Fang’s hilt. Failing this shrine could ruin my chances of finding my heritage. And yet…

  I turned to Saber. The energy bubbling within him arched through his pupils like lightning bolts across a clear sky.

  Eyes locked with his, I whispered: “You’ve been trying to tell me something, haven’t you?”

  His grew wider and revealed the length of his fangs.

  “Show me,” I said.

  Flames combusted a second time. So bright flared Saber’s shroud that the waves of heat seared the scabs of my face wound.

  Some thirty feet above us, the sparrows lazily watched us loiter on the ground. ‘The sky is our domain,’ their emotionless expression said. No land creature could ever hurt them while up there.

  Faint was the breeze shooting between my legs in Saber’s wake. My head snapped after him, but I barely caught sight of his tail. A shock shot through the barrier near the ceiling and a cloud of dust wafted over the area, cloaking the creatures within.

  Saber’s blazing eyes pierced out of the fog.

  He cut through the cloud like a missile. Fire traced behind his claws as he slammed to the ground again. Pieces of stone flew in all directions and more clouds cloaked the view. The dust settled, revealing a skull and lower body stuck on his claws like skewered meat. The remaining pieces of the guardian clattered to the ground a moment later.

  Guardians Slain: 2/5

  A deep exhaled exited my lungs. I knew he’d be stronger than a cinderwing of a similar tier, but to think it would be to this extent…

  The guardians crumbled and their essence returned to the statues.

  Before their signature had faded completely, cracks and tears snapped to life on the carvings of the wolves. Lanky limbs jerked away from the base of the pillars and touched the ground. Standing on their hind legs, their backs hunched, the beasts were about my height. Their cores were also twice as dense as that of the previous guardians.

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  ‘They didn’t activate like the other two.’

  [Guardian of Valour - lvl. 17]

  [Guardian of Valour - lvl. 17]

  …my gaze travelled towards Saber. “Can you handle it?”

  His answering roar made me reinforce my eardrums.

  A crackling blue line rippled over the guardian’s hides, making their fur bristle. They launched forwards…and managed barely three steps before Saber slammed into one of them.

  The guardian flew back into the statue of the lizard. The creature, whom I’d no doubt need to face after this, loomed over the battlefield, its frozen expression of disinterest one Rin could learn from.

  Saber’s opening strike had cleaved through the wolves’s eye but failed to kill it, so he leapt to finish the job. The flurry of strikes was too quick for me to follow. What I did manage to catch was the sickening crunch sounding from the wolf’s skull.

  Though the second guardian arrived too late to help its friend, it was just in time to jam its claw into Saber’s side before he could leap away.

  The spurt of blood I’d expected never shot into the air. I peered. Though Saber was bleeding, the guardian’s attack hadn’t managed to get through his coat.

  ‘That’s some crazy durability.’

  His essence had dwindled, though.

  ‘So it’s not a passive bonus but a barrier that can be depleted with enough force.’

  The guardian rushed after the leaping cat, caught the tip of his tail, and wrestled Saber to the ground. An ugly brawl ensued, the two creatures digging their fangs and claws into each other with abandon. Whatever current ran across the guardian’s body, it strengthened its attacks, for blue light flashed with every strike. But for every two strikes it offered, Saber returned three. And the particles which scattered with every inflicted wound were blood, not stone.

  Saber’s fangs burying deep into the guardian’s neck ended the scuffle.

  My summon got to his feet. His shroud had been reduced to a mere ember. Blood dripped down his legs, back and face. His gaze shot past the corpses and locked onto the last guardian.

  Head to tail, it must’ve been thirteen feet, and when its stone skin crumbled away, red scales the colour of magma revealed themselves. Twin jets of heated air gushed from its nostrils. Its head swivelled. Then the beast closed its eyes and basked in the glorious workmanship of the art like a connoisseur would.

  Seconds passed like this without the salamander acknowledging Saber.

  My summon roared and burst into motion. Though, with his cloak mostly gone, Saber was no longer a blur. The guardian didn’t move out of the way, and the clash of claw on scale rung so shrill over the battlefield I cringed.

  Saber shot past the beast and whirled around to see his handiwork. Deep grooves trudged through the floor where his claws had passed. But the guardian’s scales gleamed. Spotless.

  [Guardian of Valour - lvl. 18]

  Haughty gouts of flame exited the salamander’s nostrils.

  Saber growled low and glanced my way. My hand didn’t reach for my blade. Neither did I move to aid him.

  I only inclined my head by the barest fraction.

  Saber blasted forth. Sparks flew and metal clashed. The guardian swiped its tail in disgust to swat the fly buzzing around him but Saber leapt over it with ease.

  The guardian was strong, but did it have the speed to keep up?

  ‘Like I would need it against the likes of you,’ it hissed.

  It reared. An intense light built inside its mouth, and the beast released a swathe of flame that swallowed every inch of the floor, Saber’s figure included.

  My arm shielded my face so I was forced to peer from underneath my sleeves. Pieces of yellow fire flicked at the edge of the blast and mixed with the orange flames. Despite my searing wound, the beauty made me appreciate the cone of melting heat.

  Saber’s essence didn’t reenter the shard.

  ‘I really must thank Erri.’

  Now that the adrenaline coursing through my veins was gone, I could say with certainty that the drake princess had done me a great service.

  An arrow darted out of the fires. The birdcage encompassed most of the room, so a few unused guardian statues remained within. Saber’s feet planted on one and use it as a footstool. His takeoff broke the statue underneath him.

  Instead of turning him into a molten mess, the fires had cauterised his wounds. Some brightness had also returned to his shroud. But more than anything, the salamander’s attack had ignited the world of fire hiding behind his eyes.

  As the first skill I’d learned, agility was simple. Essence rotated within you. The faster the rotation, the faster you became. Fury was different. The increase in strength had nothing to do with rotating your essence faster.

  The thrum of my heartbeat deepened. For a moment, the heat coursing through Saber was more than a mere sensation.

  Claws found the salamander’s face and slammed shut its jaw. Saber struck again before the guardian recovered. His fury ramped up. His claws didn’t carve through the salamander’s armour but each strike made the guardian take a step back.

  There was a reason blunt tools were preferred against heavy armour, and after more than a dozen hits, the guardian grew sluggish.

  Smoke curled up from Saber’s paws. Air distorted in the wake of his limb. The entirety of his weight and more whirled behind his strikes and lifted the salamander off its feet.

  The beast slammed to the ground and fell on its side.

  ‘The skill has no limit…’ I realised with abated breath.

  The guardian flipped back onto its feet only to fall once more as Saber’s fangs yanked its foot out from under it. His jaw muscles stayed locked around the meaty part of the thigh and rippled. His whiskers and the hair on his body ignited to unseen degrees as his fangs pressed against the scales. Nothing happened.

  Until a crack sounded. Followed by another. Then splinters scattered and the guardian cried out.

  I studied my summon as he tore into the guardian. There were many fantastic beasts in the world. The tiger was seen as the king of those belonging to the natural order. Ferocity, the lust for blood, the desire to fight strong opponents, those were all in Saber’s nature. They were things I could conceptually understand as a human being—and even mimic—but never fully appreciate like he would.

  And that’s why my Keeper's Prerogative only allowed me to use inferior versions of my summon’s skills.

  ‘No wonder you attacked the cinderwings.’

  I’d relied on Ashwing to end the fight with the herald. Immediately afterwards, I’d completely bypassed Saber and chosen her to fight the drake near the Tomb entrance.

  He must’ve felt like a king would when being compared to a peasant.

  Claws smashed in the guardian’s skull with such force that spiderweb cracks burst across the floor. The fight ended when Saber blinded the salamander and ripped out a chunk of its throat.

  The cool chill of experience rushed into my body.

  Guardian lvl. 15 x 2 slain! Extra experience awarded for slaying a higher level enemy. 225 RP earned.

  Guardian lvl. 17 x 2 slain! Extra experience awarded for slaying a higher level enemy. 289 RP earned.

  Guardian lvl. 18 x 1 slain! Extra experience awarded for slaying a higher level enemy. 324 RP earned.

  Saber stalked towards me, his body wreathed in flames so thin and snappy that they looked like red lightning.

  I turned to the remaining notifications.

  Hidden Family Quest [Fang of the Garden I] Completed.

  [Fang of the Garden I: Hunt five enemies of a higher level than yourself within ten minutes using only an Ashenblood summon.

  Reward: Ashenblood Trait Fang of the Garden I

  Fang of the Garden I: When the Ashenblood is the strongest summon on the field, it gains the Fang of the Garden trait and is wreathed in red sprites. The Fang of the Garden has increased stats and can empower one skill during combat.

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