Kingdom Rivalry

Chapter 25

My gosh, I'm addicted to the song above!! The music video is amazing, and the voices are incredible!! <3

Black Mist woke up when someone shook him awake. He looked up and saw the somewhat damaged face of Astral, who was looking very tired. Black Mist got up quickly upon seeing the state of the one he liked.

"Astral, are you okay?" he quickly asked. "Are you hurt too badly?"

"I'm...I'm fine," Astral managed to say throw his drowsiness. "I just...used a lot...of..." He slumped against Black Mist, who caught him in his arms.

The Number laid Astral down and inspected him for wounds. The wounds he did have were somewhat healed, but very poorly. He then inspected himself, but he found that he was well rested and had no wounds on him even though he was attacked by the little crawlers too many times. Astral clearly spent more time trying to heal Black Mist than himself. He shook his head and wrapped the wounds in his black ooze to make sure they didn't open up again. The ooze was completely harmless. Then, he clipped the cloak on Astral's body, picked him up, and continued onward.

Finally, Black Mist approached a door with many bodies on the ground. They were more shamblers from the army that was going to attack. They were clearly dead, most likely by the large burst of Chaos released. Well, the dark ones wouldn't be bothering them now, so it was pretty safe. Black Mist opened the door slowly. The room was completely bare save for a single table with some kind of glass dome sitting over it. He approached it and noticed a small key. What was it for? Black Mist shrugged and took it; perhaps it was important.

Black Mist left the room and walked back to the fork, this time taking the right path instead of the left. He heart a sort of pumping sound, like a really big heartbeat that seemed to drown out any sound. He could hardly hear himself breathe, and since the pumping was so loud, he nearly missed the pit of black snakes until his foot nearly went over the edge. He caught himself before his whole body tipped forward and looked down into the pit.

It was pitch black down there. All Black Mist could really see was the highlights of the writhing mass of snakes, which were no doubt hissing as much as the little crawlers they barely survived. He growled; there was no way to tell out huge the pit was! Astral could probably levitate them both, but at the moment, he was out cold from draining too much mana. The only reason Black Mist was still fighting after running out of his was the adrenaline rush, and when he passed out from the Chaos, he replenished his mana. Astral, however, wasn't running on adrenaline, and he needed time to rest.

It's up to me, then, the Number prince sighed to himself.

Black Mist sent out a bridge of his black goo out into the pit and felt out with his foot. He walked on, and when the tip of his foot hit open air, he formed an extension of the bridge. Astral stirred on his back some, causing Black Mist to nearly lose balance a couple of times, but he didn't fall. It took a long time, but he eventually made it to the end. 

He stood in the darkness, listening for anything out of place that could pose a danger to them, but all he could hear was the constant thump, thump, thump that drowned out all noises, so he couldn't tell if there was something that was going to rush at them and push them down into the pit. Suddenly, moving forward seemed like a better idea than before, so he pressed on.

Black Mist could only navigate by feeling against the wall with one hand, using the other to keep Astral on his back while he slept. He shuffled his feet to keep from running into anything that could trip him. So far, nothing alarming was approaching as far as he knew. The long walk was tense and unnerving, but nothing seemed to be lurking in the darkness. No, instead, they arrived at another door, this one locked, without any incident. He took out the key he kept hidden, felt around for the keyhole, inserted the key, and turned the lock. The door, if he was able to hear it, groaned as it slowly opened.

Inside were various torches lined up to light the room brilliantly. Illuminated at the center of the giant cavern was a huge, pitch black crystal that reflected nothing, not even the torches. It was just a black void in the shape of a diamond.

"Is this it?" Black Mist whispered to himself when he felt Astral slide off his back. He turned to see Astral regaining his balance. He looked like he awoke from a deep sleep, like he was never hurt in the first place.

"Did we make it?" he asked bluntly.

"Yes," Black Mist replied. "It's here."

Astral looked up at the crystal, but he felt something off. That was when the both of them noticed the door closing and slamming shut. In front of the door was a corpse-like body with tattered robed on its body. The eyes were nonexistent, the mouth was like the teeth of a skull, and the hands, which were beginning to weave spells, were body with skin stretched tightly over them.

"Keep it busy!" Astral commanded as he ran to the crystal. "Buy me some time so I can destroy this!"

"Got it!" Black Mist replied, making a shield separating the room so that he and the sorcerer were alone on one side.

The dark sorcerer hissed and shrieked as it released its magic attack, a sort of flaming projectile. Black Mist dodged and rushed at the thing with outstretched claws radiating a mix of Chaos and necromancy. Just as he was about to attack, the sorcerer swept out of the way with a fluent and liquid movement, but he moved just as fast, raking the sorcerer with his claws. Astonishingly, though, it didn't die. Instead, it hissed violently and lashed out at Black Mist with a large blast at point blank range.

Black Mist was thrown back against the wall with a grunt. He looked over to the crystal, where Astral was standing in front of it. His arms, which were glowing with power along with his entire body, were slightly extended towards the big black thing. The glow emitting from him shone through the black cloak and even reflected off of the crystal. His eyes were closed, and he was swaying while he seemed to be singing the spell. He couldn't exactly hear it because the wall he put up insulated sound. Black Mist briefly wondered why before getting back to the battle. He had to keep the sorcerer's attention off of Astral for as long as possible.

On the other side of the wall, Astral sang a soft spell that sounded beautiful, but in fact, it was very dangerous. Zeon taught it to him even though he knew how dangerous it was. He was never to use it unless he needed to, and this was one of those times. The spell extracted the deepest of darkness of a chosen object and slammed it all to the caster. Should the caster be sensitive to the darkness, he would most likely parish, but Astral concluded that it would be worth the risk. Besides, there was always a small chance he would survive.

Still, it was a small chance...