Symbiotic Ascension : A Progression Fantasy Adventure

Sahro coughed, chasing the dust away with the back of his hand. Pebble was growling beside him, his wings stretched out. He had never noticed it before, but they looked like they were made of jade, shining softly in the moonlight.

The Black Heir coughed and gritted his teeth. "Glenn, I swear it, next time I find you...!"

He cleared the dust with a blast of Aura as he straightened his clothes. The disturbing lack of weight on his left side made him scowl. 'I'm becoming too dependent on a prosthesis. This isn't good.'

Raijin yelped softly from his shadow, wary. Sahro creased his eyebrows and held his katana up, the tip of the blade covered in a Primal, crimson Aura. He and Pebble had landed in a large storage room, filled with daunting quantities of cured meat. Now that he was taking the time to look, he noticed the temperature was strangely freezing.

'A cold storage? How many Orcs do they have in their inverted pyramid to need so much food?' Sahro prepared himself, his muscles tensing up and his lips pursed. His canines became slightly longer, a shadow of a large, threatening red fox looming behind him. The shelves storing the meat were so high they touched the ceiling, taller than most houses.

He caught a movement from the corner of his eye. His sense flared up as he hastily raised his blade. If something was capable of escaping his detection, then it meant it was stronger than he was! Without giving it another thought, he charged like a red lightning bolt, his sword ready to cut through his enemy.

The Black Heir stopped abruptly, confused. The 'enemy' he had missed was some sort of minor Orc, a subrace maybe. It was tiny, wimpy, and its skin stuck to its bones. Said skin was light green, sickly, and dirty. The creature wore a rag around its waist, its wide eyes squinting at Sahro.

Sahro squinted back, his blade mere inches away from the creature's neck. The thing stared at him for a few seconds before walking away, unconcerned. Sahro sheathed his blade, scoffing.

"That thing is so weak I could barely realize it was here," he muttered. "Hmm, I might need to train this. I can't allow anything to bypass my detection..."

The sound of something crashing down echoed behind him, with a few grunts of pain. He glanced back, finding Pebble gorging himself on the absurd quantity of meat, a shelf pushed over on top of a dozen wimpy creatures.

'The damned flying lizard isn't my responsibility,' he thought. The imp, as he decided to call it, piled a surprisingly large amount of meat on its frail arms and carried it all away. Outside, he could hear the sound of magical explosions and spells unleashed.

"Damn it!" Sahro grabbed his katana and almost jumped out of the hole Pebble had created, but a strange feeling tugging at his guts stopped him. A bizarre sensation running up his fingers, coming from his weapon, the mystical katana wielded by the undying corpse...

Sahro hesitated for a long second before deciding. He followed the imp, noticing there were many clones of that same creature, all carrying meat in or out of the storage room. A small army of wimpy servants, carrying meat.

'This is strange.'

The imp and its kin all went through the same door in an orderly fashion, like trained soldiers. They went three by three, side by side, more methodical and careful than most humans. Sahro followed them, the strange feeling from his katana reinforced with each step he took.

The hallway carried a distinct musk of perfume and sweat, and another which he couldn't really recognize. It smelled horrible, sticking to the nose like sap from a tree. Sahro martialed himself and carried on, his fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of his katana.

A minute later, they arrived in a room as large as the earlier storage. The disturbing scent had grown even stronger. A sign hanging at the exit of the hallway read Breeding Room.

Sahro felt his blood boil as he realized what the source of the scent was.

Laid in rows like furnaces in a smithery were humongous masses of flesh. Pale of skin, with skin hanging loosely and no visible limbs. They had one disgusting maw on one side, filled with hundreds of sharp teeth that could rip through meat like it was paper. On the other side, another hole was constantly spitting out small creatures, some he could recognize as the imps of the storage room, and the rest as the more dangerous Orcs, only in smaller, younger versions.

The imp took the newborns and fed them the second they landed on the floor with a squishy sound. The whole process was done without a grunt, without a cry; it felt like watching life itself being defiled for some horrible, efficient method of producing soldiers and servants.

Sahro's hands trembled in rage. A small sign near the large blob of flesh and skin read 'Matriarch n°87'. He cast his gaze down the room, the words stuck in his throat as he peered down on dozens- no, hundreds of Matriarchs.

Diamanes' words echoed in his mind.

"An Orc factory..." Sahro clenched his teeth, his Aura flaring up tall above him. "So that is what he meant."

With one swift movement, he cut down the Matriarch n°87. The creature didn't make a sound, not a grunt of pain, simply deflating as torrents of blood flowed out of it. Sahro spat on the creature, disgusted. The nearby imps, confused by the death of the Matriarch, began to look at each other for directions.

Sahro looked at the imps, his disgust and rage growing like a wildfire.

"I'm certain Glenn would have found a smart way to use you," he began, "to turn you against those that created you."

His eyes shone with a dark glint, turning into a fox's eyes for a moment.

"But then, I am not Glenn."

***

Sahro could only feel disgust as he finished executing all of the Matriarchs and imps. Countless bodies were drowning in their blood in his wake, the ground sticky with the crimson liquid. It had taken barely a couple of minutes to destroy the Celestial Gods' vicious factory. And now, he was arriving at the last Matriarch, N°735, if he remembered correctly. There was still a lot of space left in the breeding room, hinting at the owner's intention of getting even more Matriarchs.

The thought itself was enough to make Sahro's blood boil ten times over. He almost cut in half the last Matriarch without looking, his sight a little muddied by all the blood he had spilled, until he realized this one was different.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

It wasn't a deformed pile of flesh like the rest, no. It was a naked woman covered in wounds and bruises, held on the ground by Blumar chains. Her face was burned as was her hair, and he wouldn't have been able to guess she was a woman had she not been naked. A human.

Sahro paused, his thoughts racing as he slowly turned back to the devastation he had caused. All of the Matriarchs are lying in their blood.

He looked back at the woman, his guts churning.

"You...You won't..." muttered the woman with a broken, exhausted voice. Sahro reined in his emotions and swung his sword against the Blumar. He had almost expected it to be useless, but the katana sliced through the chains like they were butter, freeing the poor lady.

"Here, here." He carefully grabbed her off the ground, pulling a blanket from his dimensional pouch and using it to cover her. The lady shivered at the touch, her mouth opening and closing. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she had many small, tiny holes in her skin. He wouldn't have noticed them if it weren't for his Saint-enhanced eyesight.

"What...? S- Sahro?"

The Black Heir's boiling blood turned to ice.

Even bloodshot, it was hard not to recognize these vibrant blue eyes that were previously permanently filled with amusement or sadistic pleasure at training him and Glenn.

"Mary?"

***

Decimius grunted, taking one step after the other. He looked back, finding the ones who saved him fighting alongside a man with a purple hand and purple eyes. The Orc pondered for an instant before shaking his head and resuming his way into the pyramid. He jumped down the hole the dragon had created, finding the latter stuffing itself with all the meat of the storage room.

The dragon glanced at him with its one, single jade eye, considering whether to eat him or not. Decimius held his gaze, his Aura resting deep within his heart. After a moment of deliberation, the dragon decided to continue destroying the food supply of the Orc factory.

"Res insolita..." he muttered.

Indeed, it was strange. He had been observing sharply, not joining the battle against the Owl-Mask, and he hadn't found a single one of his kin to support the Newborn Ruler. He had to admit, it was worrying. He knew the Celestial Gods. He knew what sort of monsters they were.

At first, he had obeyed them because they gave him the strength he needed to conquer, like his blood asked of him. But now, Decimius was done. Done fighting for others, done throwing his life around for the sole purpose of a masked human in the sky.

The inverted pyramid was the starting point of every "new generation" of Orcs. He wasn't part of them, just a trace of the old generation, a proof of a time before the Celestial Gods.

When Orcs fought not because they needed to, but because they wanted to, just like how their ancestors did. Defeating monsters and men, growing stronger than all of them, and showing the world the might of the Orcs.

That time was over, too.

In truth, Decimius wasn't too sure of what he wanted to do after he was done with the Celestial Gods. He had lost both arms fighting one, and will probably lose a lot more to the rest. And yet, he still walked forward, ignoring the hallway to the breeding room to go instead to the control room.

The inverted pyramid was fairly simple in its design. The largest area at the top had been separated into the cold storage and the breeding room. Below, there were rooms for the strongest Orcs and necromancers with all the accommodations they could ask for, be it special food, special training, or special breeding partners. Decimius had never looked too fondly on the practice, but it was fairly common for the new generation Orcs to ask for human girls to satisfy their needs.

Two golden Aura arms sprouted from the stumps on his shoulders, his eyes shining with determination. The rooms were empty, save for the ballistas hidden in the walls. They were manned by a skeleton crew of Orcs, whom he all killed emotionlessly.

"Pro honore meo," he muttered to himself as he stared at the corpse of the young Orcs. He had chosen his side, made his choice.

There was no going back.

He eventually found his way to the control room, all while ignoring his warrior instincts screaming at him to go join the fight outside against the Owl Mask. He pushed the door open carefully, stopping at the entryway.

"...lost too much time. It's unfortunate, but we made the right choice." Decimius froze, listening intently. He hid his Aura the best he could, withdrawing it within himself. He took a careful peek, finding a man with a rabbit mask and a woman dressed seductively with a snake mask.

"Pushing for the transfer was the correct choice!" Insisted Rabbit-Mask. "It is better to lose the inverted pyramid and try our best instead of just fighting to the death until a Munirp bastard shows up!"

Snake-Mask was biting down on her nails, tense yet silent.

They were talking to a large, blurry image of another masked human. This one had a wolf mask, with more details than the others Decimius had seen so far. Someone with a higher position in the hierarchy, maybe?

"It is too late for regret. Go through with the breaching process if you haven't done so yet. With a bit of luck, this will gain us enough time away from the Gods' eyes to do our bidding. I'll tell the others." Wolf-Mask sighed. "I'll be busy occupying Alaric Magnus. This is going to be a pain."

Snake-Mask finally snapped. "What about us? The Devil's Hand is beating on our door with all of his stupidly powerful friends! He killed Laurence! Marcus and Lukas have also died!"

Decimius could almost feel the frown beneath Wolf's mask. "Lukas is an acceptable loss, but Marcus? He could control Corruption pretty well. How did he die?" Wolf-Mask shook his head. "No matter. Go through with the breach. You're both stronger than Marcus and Lukas, and Third Seat Jean is with you. He's on the brink of breaking through. I'm sure he'll be able to capture the Devil's Hand."

Rabbit-Mask cleared his throat and joined his hands together. "See, I was curious. Why can't we just kill the brat already?"

Wolf-Mask shook his head again. "Just obey the orders. If we can get the Devil's Mask in chains, we'll be able to do a lot more than just a breach. Now, get on it before Glenn and his crew destroy the pyramid entirely."

The transmission cut off abruptly, the image of Wolf-Mask fading away. Rabbit-Mask stared at the empty air for a moment while Snake-Mask kicked a chair away, disintegrating it.

"Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck! He's basically telling us to die!" She screamed hysterically. "Damn it, Daniel, I can't die here! I still- I still have to find a way back! My kids-"

Rabbit-Mask raised his hand. "We're all in the same boat, Lola. Listen, the Second Seat knows what he's talking about. And you've seen what the First Seat could do, right?"

Snake-Mask sniffled, breathing heavily. She suddenly turned to the door, staring straight at Decimius. "You damned Orc, spying on us! Why aren't you with the others helping defend the pyramid?"

Decimius was momentarily without words. Rabbit-Mask shook his head dejectedly. "Are you stupid? He's an Orc, he can't understand Common Tongue."

He turned to Decimius, and a powerful Aura surged out, pushing the weight of a mountain on the Orc's back. He winced, his knees almost giving in.

"Stulti. Ite, pugnate contra homines. Pro gloria dominorum vestrorum, adstricti estis!"

Decimius felt the anger rise in his heart. They could see he was missing two arms, that he was probably a spy, yet their pride was so high they couldn't see the traitor before them. Decimius' golden Aura exploded out, barely managing to push back against Rabbit-Mask's.

A golden glaive appeared in his golden hand, shining with the will to destroy all that would get in his path. Filled with pride and hatred, Decimius raised his blade. He pried his lips open and spoke a single word, worth a thousand more.

"No."