Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story, Kirill Klevanski [great reads .TXT] 📗

I t thundered. Ash waved the memory away and yanked the doors open. They didn’t budge. Cursing, he pushed them instead of pulling and entered the dark hall. Somewhere in the back of it was a woman, her face obscured by shadows. Not even the occasional flash of lightning revealed anything more than the helm of her lush dress.

“You’ve found me.”

“So, I have.”Ash nodded.

“Any questions?”

“Not really. I’ve figured it out.”

“Really now?”

Chuckling, she rose from her chair and took a step forward. Heels clicking on the marble floor, she emerged from the darkness. Another flash of lightning revealed the face of the marquis’s younger sister.

“You realized it when you slept with me, didn’t you?”

“You poor thing...” He smirked. “You don’t know, do you? You, just like everyone else, are nothing but a doll in this little play.”

The young woman snarled, baring her fangs. Ash’s face immediately lost its childlike innocence and became an emotionless mask. The poor woman didn’t know that before her stood one of the most notorious mages on the entire Continent. Then again, trapped in this cursed place, how could she have known?

“I asked you a question, boy,” she growled.

“A moment,” Ash said and took a look at the note he had written on his hand. “Yes.”

“Bastard!” she screamed; her voice devoid of anything human. “You’re all the same! Men! My brother, the traitor, he was the same! But he... Thank the Gods that he came! He showed me the truth! He gave me strength! He gave me power!”

Her features changed as she spoke. Her skin cracked, flooding the floor with blood. Her dress burst at the seams, her spine twisted, and her face, stretching and morphing, turned into a snarling snout full of sharp teeth.

Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance. Lightning flashed, and rain drummed against the windows, beating to some unknown melody.

A monster stood in front of Ash. Tul was wrong, it looked nothing like a bear, more like a cross between a human and a beast. Eight feet tall, with powerful paws adorned with claws the size of a saber, and foam dripping from its snarling maw. Red eyes shone with madness and bloodlust.

Howling, the werewolf lunged at the mage, covering the distance of twenty feet in one fell swoop. Ash took the blow with his staff, but the beast didn’t so much as growl when its fur caught flame. Just licked its paws, putting the fire out. There was too much rage in it. Too much sorcery.

Ash twisted and shoved the beast aside. It fell on all fours, claws glittering with gold.

“It must be getting ready to use some spell,” Ash thought as he raised his staff. “First Form: Incarnation!”

Seven fiery petals burst out of the wood and hid underneath the werewolf’s fur. The smell of burnt flesh and hair filled the air, but the beast didn’t seem to feel pain. The spell was too weak to wound it but had Ash used anything stronger he would’ve probably made the castle collapse, burying everyone who was in it.

The werewolf leaped at him with a howl and scratched his left arm, turning the sleeve red. Whatever skill it had used, it managed to only scratch him as he got away.

Ash realized that if he continued to play cat and mouse, he might get killed. He had no other choice but to kill the werewolf before he became its next meal.

As if it heard his thoughts, the beast turned to him and leaped once again. However, this time, Ash counter attacked. The strike was so strong that it threw the werewolf away with a broken jaw and a couple of teeth missing. It crashed into the wall, breaking the masonry, and disappeared under the debris.

Ash stood still with his staff raised. His eyes and skin were red, and veins the color of magma. The Third Form was Unity, one that only skilled mages could use. In this form, fire filled every cell of the cultivator’s body with its power. With it, one could pierce a steel shield with the slightest of hits.

But Ash, a Master, was capable of far more than that.

Kicking off and leaving a dent in the floor, Ash jumped so high that he reached the domed ceiling of the hall.

“First Form: Incarnation!” he yelled as he plummeted down like a stone.

The beast stuck out its golden claws. It could cut stone like it was paper with them, the mage and his stick stood no chance against its strength.

Crimson collided with gold.

“Impossible!” the beast’s eyes said as flames turned its claws into molten ash, burning through the marble beneath.

The fight was over.

It was brief and simple, but that was how it should’ve been. A foolish girl using borrowed power couldn’t compete with a talented mage.

Ash let go of the fire. His eyes were azure again and skin sun-kissed. The fire also faded away, leaving behind the sound of bells ringing somewhere in the distance. The curse had been broken. It, like the stained-glass window in the shards of which the morphing girl lay, shattered into million pieces. Only mages could hear its cries as it was exiled to the depths from which it had come.

“Two... Forms... Impossible...” The girl coughed as she assumed her human form. “Who... are you?”

“Your murderer.”

He sat next to her and, lifting her head, placed it in his lap. Tears rolled down the young girl’s face, staining his pants. With trembling hands, she tried to cover her wound and stop the bleeding despite knowing that her attempts were in vain. “He tricked me,” she sobbed. “I’m going to die... All because of him...”

“No,” Ash said. “You will die because you were a fool and because there’s evil in your heart. You’ll die because