Restart Again: Volume 2 by Adam Scott (best adventure books to read .TXT) 📗

The only thing I’m sure of is that we’re running out of time.” With my good hand, I reached down into the pouch on my belt and retrieved the blue and silver orbs. “If we go out and fight our way through to the statehouse, they’ll have the building locked down by the time we make it there, and the Strategist will escape. You two need to make it inside before that happens.”

There was sadness in Val’s eyes as she nodded to me. Lia looked between the two of us, her brow furrowed. “What do you mean, the two of us? You’re staying here?” The desperation grew in her eyes as she stared me down. “You can’t go out there alone! That’s suicide!”

“No,” I countered, “it’s our best chance to succeed. It’ll be easier for you to find the Strategist if their attention is focused on me.” I looked back to my right arm and found my bracer wreathed in black flame up to my elbow. “I can’t come with you. Not like this.”

“Whatever’s happening to you, we can get through it together! You don’t have to give in to the darkness!” Lia’s voice rose from a furtive whisper to a weakly suppressed cry. “I won’t let you leave us!”

I smiled at her, one last time, then crushed the silver orb against the ground in front of me. A violent hiss filled the room as thick grey smoke billowed up from beneath my hand, quickly obscuring our surroundings and rushing out the window. “You promised me, remember? You have to finish this, no matter the cost.” Her body was completely hidden by the cloud of smoke, but I saw her mana burning in anguish before me. “You have to go, now. Both of you.”

Val stood, taking her own silver orb in hand. “We will not fail you, Lux.”

“You’d better not,” I chuckled grimly back to her. There was a commotion outside as the nearby guards noticed the plume of smoke escaping the window. I reached out and grabbed Lia’s hand with my own. “This isn’t the end, Lia. You are the most important thing in this world to me. No matter what happens to me here, I swear I’ll find you again.”

I heard a muffled cry through the smoke. “You aren’t a monster, Lux. Don’t let them convince you that you are.”

My conscious mind was fading fast against the dark presence, but I found a momentary reprieve in her words. “You’ll always bring me back.” With a final squeeze, I dropped her hand and stood as energy pulsed through me like lightning. “Now go, before they find you.”

Val led Lia to the window closest to the statehouse and weighed the small silver globe in her hand. As she prepared to toss it, I took the last remaining orb I had left for myself and threw it against the back wall of our building. The resulting explosion and flash of blue light masked the sudden expansion of the cloud of smoke as Val threw her own orb out into the plaza. After a final moment of hesitation, the pair mantled out through the open window and crept through the swirling smoke, successfully crossing the distance from our hiding place to the corner of the statehouse.

BRING. DEATH.

The thought crashed through my head so loudly that I staggered sideways, catching myself at the windowsill. Flames rushed up the length of my arm to my shoulder, where I was barely able to contain its spread. Three guards approached the building while the rest of the large group watched with interest from the center of the plaza. “Just a few more seconds,” I encouraged myself with a strained whisper as I watched Val and Lia run along the length of the statehouse.

When their mana finally vanished from the edge of my Detection, I breathed a sigh of relief and slid out through the window into the plaza. My sword flashed into existence in my right hand, and the pent-up energy in my arm rushed through it hungrily. The scars on my fingers wound their way out along the length of the blade, staining the sky-blue metal with a malicious black web that burned with stark black flames against the cloud of smoke around me.

“The building’s on fire!” one of the guards shouted from the edge of the smoke.

“The building can’t be on fire, you idiot, it’s made of stone,” a second voice mocked.

“Well, how do you explain the smoke?”

“I don’t know, go find out!”

After a brief hesitation, the first guard took a cautious step into the cloud. We were less than ten feet apart, but the thick smoke completely blocked his line of sight. Mine, on the other hand, was entirely unimpeded; I saw the trepidation on his face clearly through the neon red outline of my enhanced vision. He held a shortsword out before him with both hands, waving it back and forth like a divining rod as he shuffled closer to the building.

The energy driving up my arm grew too powerful to resist, and I took one last moment to think clearly before it overwhelmed me. I’ll come back. I promised. The flames rippled across my shoulders and moved down my torso, growing in intensity as they spread. My chest began to heave as my vision narrowed, and I was consumed with the burning rage of the presence that had grown to take over my consciousness. I felt my foot take a step forward unbidden, and my sword arm raised to point at the approaching guard as the world finally went black.

Not so fast, Elden. You promised, remember? Amaya’s voice echoed through the darkness, cold and cruel. Eyes open.

I felt every cell in my body burst into overdrive as the foreign energy fully activated. The black fire amplified in intensity, burning so fiercely across the surface of my skin and armor that my physical form disappeared somewhere within its shimmering depths. It was as if I was a passenger inside my own body