Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story by Kirill Klevanski (essential reading .txt) 📗

“Good...”

“Don’t speak!” Alice cried, her cheeks glistening with tears. “You’ll bleed to death...”

Mary smiled, nodded, and held back a cough.

Ash bit his lip harder as he reached into his shirt and found the pouch that Oberon, the King of the Flower Fairies, had given him. In it were ten pellets capable of restoring his energy. Without a moment of hesitation, he pulled out the pouch, untied it, and popped a handful of them into his mouth. Almost immediately, he felt like a powder keg exploded in his stomach. His heart began to beat so fast that one beat became indistinguishable from the others. Bloody tears trickled from his eyes, and a choked sob escaped his throat.

“For every magic, there’s a limit beyond which you cannot go,” he recalled his words, spoken not so long ago.

“What are you doing?!” Alice cried.

Ash, filled with enough power to call himself equal to the Gods, raised his hand over Mary’s body.

“Stop!” Blackbeard shouted.

He would’ve pushed the mage’s hand away, but he couldn’t. Neither could the others, with their fingers firmly pressed to their friend’s wound.

“Stop...” Mary pleaded.

“We don’t need two corpses!” Lari said.

“I have to,” Ash rasped. “This is all my fault.”

“Yes, you have to answer for what you’ve done!” Lari exclaimed. “So don’t be a coward and run away to the next world!”

There was a moment of silence.

“Don’t,” Mary whispered softly, almost inaudibly. “We don’t... need two... deaths... Don’t...”

“The value of a life can only be calculated after death. How many you have helped, how many you have saved — that is your price.” This was the commandment of the Heavenly Sage that Ash had struggled to understand for a long time.

“Mok-Pu Art...”

A glow surrounded his palm for a moment, but then it went out and Ash felt a terrible pain. A mage couldn’t use a monk’s technique. His magic wasn’t meant for it.

“Mok-Pu...”

Pain again, followed by blood spurting from his mouth.

“Mok...”

Unable to stand it, he fell on his side. His mind began to blur, and all he could do was pray to the Gods that hated him.

“I was cursed for my sins. I deserve it. The king also deserved it. But they... Mary... Alice... Lari... Blackbeard... Tul... Elanor... What did they do? Leave them alone... Leave them, or I swear that I’ll continue to break your laws even after I’ve died. I’ll continue to do so until I get to meet the Jasper Emperor and punch him in the face!”

The Heavens responded with thunder and lightning. Aware that he couldn’t count on divine help after such a “prayer,” Ash struggled to a sitting position. He put his hand on the wound, and closed his eyes as his mind drifted to the temple and the cliff on which he and his first friend were smoking fine tobacco.

“Mok-Pu Art: Healing Hand!”

Something was yanked out of him. All the borrowed power was gone, as if swallowed by an abyss. The stone that had pierced Mary split, the edges of the wound tightened, and the blood that had spilled all over her clothes and the floor returned into her body. Mary sat up abruptly and gasped like a drowned man cast ashore by the current.

“You idiot!” she snapped, but immediately fell silent.

Ash’s body convulsed in occasional spasms. Blood trickled from his eyes, mouth, ears, and nose, but he still smiled his stupid smile and handed Mary the White Dragon Essence.

“For the trouble,” he said.

His hand went limp, and the Essence rolled to the feet of the dumbfounded adventurers. Alice sobbed aloud, and the rest gritted their teeth as Ash’s eyes glazed over and the last gasp escaped his throat.

Chapter 60

I n the nameless world, there were laws that no one could break, one of which was that every mage has a limit beyond which they couldn’t go. However, it is often the case that such rules only made people want to break them. Was it the will of the stars that one of the supporting pillars of the universe were to crack and begin to crumble? Was there anyone who knew the answer to that question? Probably not. But there was something that we do know.

The sinners must be punished, and the righteous awarded. So dictates the Celestial Mandate. But what is the man who breaks that law? A righteous man or a sinner? Whatever the sages might think, the creature that descended from the Seventh Heaven had its own opinion on the matter.

A giant phoenix made of iridescent flames landed on Ash’s chest and he began to breathe again. The Stumps, despite having seen things that couldn’t be real become reality, froze. The phoenix, the father of Irmaril and all earthly fire, was considered a mythical creature. More mythical than the Gods themselves.

The bird looked at the Essence and a thin thread emerged from its wing, which then took the shape of a white feather.

Slowly coming to his senses, Ash stared in awe at the legend resting on his chest. To his surprise, the bird seemed in no hurry to leave.

“A wish,” Alice said, wiping away her tears. “A phoenix will grant one wish.”

According to legend, the phoenix paid for a gift in kind. It accepted the Essence of Fire as a gift, but in order to pay Ash back, it had to pull him from the boney clutches of death.

So, what was the mage to wish for? Judging by the faces of the Stumps, they all had their own ideas. If the phoenix had flown to one of them, new legends about some mystical armor, wand, or weapon would begin to circulate.

“A ribbon...” Ash whispered. “A blue, silk ribbon...”

The phoenix sang, spread its iridescent wings, and disappeared in a flash of bright but not scorching flame. A ten-inch-long silk