The Sixth School Ch. 020

With a wave of his staff, the severed arm was flung to the far side of the clearing. It's only with the dagger out of the way that Zarek was willing to step forward and approach the downed boy. Given the serious injuries that Roka had suffered, Zarek knew that he would have to carry out the ritual quickly before the boy bled out. Crouching down, the man reached out and flipped the boy over. A bad feeling immediately filled Zarek in that moment as the scream that had been coming from the boy immediately died out and the deranged smile was once again plastered on the boy's disfigured face. Without understanding how or why, Zarek knew that the boy had him exactly where he'd wanted him to be. The next few moments felt like an eternity to Zarek as his plans were overturned in the span of a few seconds.

Zarek noticed that the tunic the boy had on was torn. Dragging himself across the ground must have been the cause of the tear. The torn clothes, however, weren't what caught the man's attention but what they revealed. Beneath the torn tunic the boy's midriff was heavily bandaged. Zarek didn't know what injury the boy had suffered before coming here, but clearly, his fall had aggravated the wound given how quickly the bandages were turning red. The man could barely believe his eyes when the boy used his remaining hand to push the bandages aside and drove his hand deep into his own guts through a nasty gash on the side of his midriff. With barely even a groan of pain, the boy pulled out a yellow globe that was glowing ominously. It was only now, that it clicked in Zarek's brain that the blood that had been on Roka's hands wasn't Nolruk's but his very own. The boy had come here resolved to kill him, even if he lost his life in the process.

In the split second before the orb exploded, a whole slew of solutions fleeted through Zarek's mind. Get up and run, knock the orb out of the boy's hand, and send it flying as far away as possible, try to conjure some form of magical protection. Futile as it was, he just couldn't resign himself to death. Not after all that he'd done to gain power. In the end, however, it was the same dark crawler that had bitten off the boy's legs that once again came to his rescue. Before he knew what was going on, Zarek felt something slam into his body and send him flying away. Barely half a second after his body was in midair, the force of a powerful explosion slammed into him and added to the first force causing him to fly away even faster. While in midair, Zarek watched as the body of the dark crawler that had wrapped itself around the glowing yellow orb was torn apart and sent flying in all directions in bits and pieces.

At some point, one of the two dark crawlers that he'd had on standby under the boy, appeared behind Zarek. Unlike the tough shell that covered the back of the dark crawlers, the underbelly of the beast was nowhere near as tough. This action by the dark crawler saved the man's life. Zarek was certain that, at the speed with which he was moving, had he slammed into one of the trees at the edge of the clearing, he would have shattered his spine and the back of his head would have caved in. As things stood, while slamming into the worm wasn't exactly a comfortable experience, it was nowhere near as damaging as the tree would have been. Dropping down to the ground on his hands and knees, Zarek could feel his mouth fill with the iron taste of blood. Despite avoiding death by the skin of his teeth, he'd still suffered substantial internal injuries as a result of being body slammed by the worm along with the explosion that had followed.

A look of rage and hatred filled the man's eyes as he looked at the crater left behind by his brother's son, Roka. Not only had he killed one of the dark crawlers and injured him, but worst of all, he'd also made it so that he had no way of accomplishing the last ritual that he needed in order to truly gain the power the eminent being behind the staff had promised to bestow to him. Part of him understood that it was irrational to have expected the boy not to fight for his life or try to kill him for what he'd done to his brother, the boy's father. Still, this understanding did nothing to quell the boiling rage he could feel coursing through him. Zarek's thoughts couldn't help but turn to his brother's wife and daughter. "I was willing to leave them out of this, but you've left me no choice," The man ground out through gritted teeth.

"That's one down,"

Zarek's thoughts of revenge, however, were cut short when a voice reached his ears. The man's head shot up so fast that it's a wonder it didn't fly off his neck. His brain just simply couldn't process or believe what his eyes were reporting to him. Standing at the edge of the clearing, completely unharmed, was Roka. Zarek couldn't keep himself from looking at the crater where one of his dark crawlers had died. His eyes even moved to the pair of legs his dark crawler had bitten off that had now been flung to the edge of the clearing by the explosion. Seeing them on the ground only confirmed what he was certain of. He hadn't been hallucinating, he had watched the boy blow himself up. How then was it that Roka was once again standing before him, looking at him with the predatory gleam of a hunter that had their prey in their sights? The scene only grew more ridiculous as another voice reached his ears.

"Three more to go,"

Zarek was certain that he was losing his mind when he turned to his right and saw another Roka emerge from behind a tree on the right side of the clearing.

"Wrong," The same voice emerged from the left side of the clearing. Despite not wanting to believe it, Zarek turned to find another Roka leaning against a tree on the left side of the clearing. "He sent one worm to hide under my house in the town, remember?" The Roka that had just emerged corrected the Roka on the right side of the clearing.

"Oh yeah, you're right," The corrected Roka spoke up smacking his forehead as if he'd made a dumb mistake.

"That means that after two of us take care of the two remaining worms, the last one can take their sweet time with him," The first Roka spoke up.

Zarek wanted to rage and protest against the irrationality of what he was seeing. After becoming a mage his definition of what was possible and what was impossible had been stretched beyond what he'd ever thought before. Still, to watch the boy he'd been planning to kill in his ritual not only defy death but come back in duplicates of himself, was just a step beyond what he was willing to accept. Before he could say anything, however, Zarek could feel his scalp go numb with fear when the three Rokas each reached into their pockets and pulled out a yellow orb that began to glow.

Without another word, the man ignored the pain he was in, turned around, and jumped on the back of the dark crawler that had kept him from crashing into a tree. Years of living as a hunter had given him a keen sense of when it was time to just escape a situation. And this was most certainly one of those instances. If he had the time to pause and consider he would have wondered how it was possible his brother's son had managed to come in contact with magic that was seemingly more potent than his own. He would have ground his teeth at the unfairness of it all and then would have conspired to take the boy's power for himself. Unfortunately for him, he was not afforded that chance. The boy had set his sights on him and marked him for death.

Zarek hadn't forgotten the speed that the boy had displayed with his first copy's attack. There was no doubt in the man that if he tried to escape by passing in between any two of them, they would very easily catch up to him and it would be game over. So, instead, he turned the dark crawler around and had it charge in the one direction where there was no Roka. He noted the way the forms of the three Rokas turned into blurs as they shot forward in his direction. Luckily for him, the dark crawler was faster than the three and was at the edge of the clearing by the time they got to the center. Zarek was about to smile and congratulate himself for being decisive when it was needed. He had lost one dark crawler, but all in all, if he made it out alive, it would be an acceptable sacrifice in exchange for his life. The man's elation, however, was short-lived.

Just as the dark crawler he was clinging to was about to dive into the tree line, a fourth Roka appeared from behind the closest tree with a brightly glowing orb in his hands. The first instinct of the dark crawler he was on was to use its pincers to split the new Roka in half. Zarek, however, knew that they were already too close to the boy. If the dark crawler brought its head even closer in a misguided attempt to kill the boy, they'd all be reduced to bits by the explosion. Exercising his control as the dark crawler's master, he forced it to rear its head as far back as it could. The man knew that he was essentially killing the dark crawler by forcing it to expose its soft underside to the imminent explosion. But so long as he managed to survive, what did he care about the death of a dark crawler?

Once again, his decisiveness saved him as, barely a second after the dark crawler had reared up, he was hit with the full force of an explosion for the second time in one day. Given the fact that the force was still strong enough to fling him through the air even after going through the sturdy body of the dark crawler, Zarek knew that he'd made the right choice to sacrifice the second dark crawler. Had he hesitated even for a second, then the number of remaining dark crawlers would have been irrelevant as he would have been dead. As things stood, he was only flung back and forced to skid across the ground for a distance on his back.

His whole body was aching, his back felt like it was on fire, his internal injuries were serious, blood was leaking from every orifice on his head and his ears were ringing. Zarek knew he was in a bad condition and needed to perform a healing ritual as soon as possible. He, however, knew that he was still in danger and needed to get away first. As such, despite his protesting body, he forced his eyes open, grimacing as he readied himself to push up off the ground. The man, however, froze when he found one of the Rokas squatting down next to him, with a smile on his face and a brightly glowing yellow orb in his hands...

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