Valkyrie's Lament

Chapter 26

Red Light Green Light III

Silver spat out snow from her mouth, while she pushed herself off the ground. The air was humid and musty. It was difficult to take in a deep breathe without feeling like her lungs were on fire. She had to calm her lungs to get use to the stinging burn, until finally her lungs relaxed. Looking around, she saw a giant monolith stone in the center of the room under a brightly lit sunlight as it streaked downwards. Nothing else was present, but the stone itself and the rest were empty floor filled with snow.

Curious, Silver walked over towards the monolith stone, wondering why such a thing exist in such a place. Silver guessed that they were possibly underneath the final building, but she was not quite sure.

Silver stood in place, gazing off at the giant stone, it glowed softly with power. Faded memories were suddenly brought up into her mind. Memories of past, present, and future converged together, swirling into many colors. Sweet memories of love, the loss of her family, and the death of many friends shook her heart as the she watched.

“Squawk!” A beautiful white bird flew over head, catching her attention. She watched in daze as she suddenly saw it slammed into the giant stone wall, paving it with red blood. Alarmed at the strange sight, Silver was shocked that something so beautiful commited suicide. It made her realize that staring at the giant monolith rock might have some kind of strange power that could sway her mind into doing something crazy.

From the blood, red crystals started to form around the stone rock, creating a massive crystal field formed around her. Every time she moved, the crystal formed underneath her footsteps. Eventually, the crystals converged around the monolith rock, turning into giant crystallized flowers. It didn’t just end there, what she saw before each crystal were human skeletons from encased in the red crystals.

Silver was amazed to the see so many skeleton corpses inside the crystals, creeping her out. She wondered if she would end up like them if she wasn’t careful.

She glanced up at the hole where she had came out from. Nobody else followed behind her, and she noticed the wall slowly closing.

They were people from different time zones inside the crystal, while Silver walked, she even saw noticed the evolution of human history in each crystal. From the Renaissance era, the ancient Chinese soldiers, samurais, knights, and many more that she had never seen before were left frozen in place.

Silver was curious on how these people even got inside the crystal in the first place. She could feel a densely packed magical energy, radiating from the core of each crystal. It was subtle at first, barely unnoticeable until she focused. When she did, she could feel the surge of energy that spilled out, amplifying around the room upwards into a spiral.

Her head glanced up and noticed a large red crystal dangling from the ceiling, siphoning off the energy. Blood red liquid slowly formed around its tip, and a single tear fell downwards, splashing onto the giant monolithic stone. A powerful surge of energy reverberated outward, making her shudder.

The red liquid slithered down the rock, leaving behind a trail of glowing runes, until it stopped in the middle. A small ruby crystal formed into a teardrop.

Silver realized at that moment what it was, the Blood Tear. The item that she personally came here for, this item worth more than the Ancient tablet itself.

“It’s here.” Silver walked over with outstretched hands. She reached over and felt a powerful force of energy from the Blood Tear, but stopped shortly before touching it. A malicious energy pervaded outwards, covering the whole Blood Tear itself. Her hands sweated, and she fought with her inner instinct to run. It was a complete battle of will, and she knew that she had to win.

Bringing out all her magical energy that she had in reserved, she fought against the oppressive energy before her. She struggled, fought, and grimaced, but she held on. It didn’t take long until the barrier around the Blood Tear broke, and just as quickly as the overpowering evil energy was present, for it to disappear.

Silver eyes became wide, startled that the barrier protecting the Blood Tear would break so quickly. She had thought that it would’ve drained all her energy just to break through. What she then realized was that the oppressive energy was all directed towards her mind, making it an illusion.

The barrier that was protecting the Blood Tear was weak in itself. Even someone like Rose could easily break through, but because of the illusion magic that used the negative energy harbored inside one heart, without the courage and the will to combat against the evil energy, she wouldn’t have been able to fight through. Any longer, she could've possibly given up for the fear that she would get a magical backlash.

With a satisfied smile, Silver picked the Blood Tear off the stone wall. The Blood Tear was a special jeweled item that help her better control magic inside her body. Right now it has the ability to use 10% less magic consumption when using magic, but it had an ability to continually get stronger. The highest that she heard was about 30% less magic consumption when using magic. This was a huge benefit that she needed, especially because magic was something that was going to be constantly used in the game.

The moment the Blood tear came into contact with her skin, it turned into a liquid and traveled up to the back of her right hand. Bold red and black sigil started to burn through her skin, making a nasty hissing-like sound. A pair of wing tattoo formed around the Blood Tear that embedded itself on the back of her hand around the small round ruby gem.

“Ugh!” Silver fell forward, catching herself against the monolith rock. Her mind became dizzy and her sight became temporarily blurry. Her senses were out of whack and it took a couple seconds to get her bearings. She was finally able to once again pull herself together again.

Rumble. Crack. Crack. Rumble.

The giant monolith stone started to break apart, until it finally fell onto the ground. One after another, the smaller red crystals with skeletons started to break apart. Silver felt a sudden chill as a fierce howling wind blew through the room, bringing with it a putrid smell of decay and death.

Silver felt an ominous feeling in the pits of her stomach. The dead skeletal humans stuck inside the every single crystal awoke. Punching through the crystals walls, they stepped out with glowing green eyes. Every single one of the skeleton’s sight were set on Silver, their bones creaked and groaned as weapons were drawn. They stumbled forward to fight.

It didn’t take long for everything to register in Silver’s mind, the Blood Tear itself was keeping these monsters in check. All she could do was quickly search for a way out.

Off in the distance not to far away from where she fell from, she saw a door. She bolted, swerving around them as best as she could.

The walls shook, and more crystals broke apart. Hundreds upon Hundreds of different sizes of skeletons from different era sprung forth from the crystal cages. Multi-color banners of flags from different countries flew tattered in the air, issuing skeletons of the same group to form into a small battalion. Some had swords, others bayonets, bows and guns were even in the mix of skeletons that ran after her. They were even skeleton on horses that sprung forth with a rider on its back, horse drawn chariots of the ancient Egyptian times, and even disfigured skeletons that look more like monsters than humans came forth.

Silver didn’t stop running, she knew if she stay behind she would die on the spot. Ducking through the breaking crystals, Silver brought out her gun and ammos. She clicked the first cartridge in place, pulled back the slide, and  fired at the oncoming swarm of skeleton that fell in front of her.

At first her bullets pierced through the bones, breaking through joints making them crumpled onto the ground. They were only ordinary bullets, but she didn’t care. Her aim was to see how effective the gun that she had bought was against monsters. So far, she had found out that they didn’t have any destructive punch to them at all.

She pulled out her empty clip, and this time she put in the magic bullets that she herself injected magic into. They were special types of magic bullets that allowed anyone to insert any types of magic into the small bullets. So far, she was only able to gain low grade material bullets at the inn, but even still these magic bullets were powerful than a normal bullet.

Whenever she had time, she filled the magic bullets with her three types of magic into each one. Not only that she had gotten quite a bit of extra elemental magical bullets from Rose, Tyler, and Jasper.

Silver raised her arms and aimed fire. The first bullet hit a skeleton squarely in the head. A piercing bright light exploded inside, causing the skeleton to shake and shatter. Even the proximity of the light hit the other surrounding couple of skeletons, causing them to break apart. She was amazed how strong Jasper’s light magic has gotten in a short amount of time, even though she knew that the light magic was also a natural enemy of undead skeletons.

Her hands quickly moving on to her next target, continuing to clear out her path. Crackle of bone breaking sound could be heard from the impact of the light energy purifying the skeletons. She was glad that these skeletons were low grade monsters and could be easily dispatched by low level magical bullets.

Slipping through the final skeletons, she ran through the winding pathway. She slide to the right, taking a sharp turn. The ground was unusually slippery and wet. Above her head, she saw embedded in traffic lights merged together with the stone wall. Every few minutes the lights turn from red to green and to yellow over and over again. Silver couldn’t help but hope that the skeletons behind her would react to the lights above her the same way they did outside.

She didn’t stop to adhere to the traffic lights, but this was a fatal mistake. Above her when the lights turned red, Silver didn’t stop running. The ground beneath her opened up and large deadly spikes appeared. At the last second, Silver drew out her sword, her body slammed into the wall as she dangled by a hair’s breath from falling down to her death.

“Are you kidding me?” Silver groaned.

Pulling herself up, she sat on the ground confused. In front of her a couple feet away, the skeleton that were chasing her froze in place. She knew then that the laws of the traffic lights were still working against the monsters.

“Am I supposed to stop as well?” She pulled back her silver hair that was in front of her face. A strand of hair fell back down, and she spat it out of her mouth.

“Guess I won’t know until I try.” Silver got up and brushed herself.

Seconds later, the wall once again morphed and changed. She could feel the ground shifting and moving even her back to the entrance where she had ran away from. In complete shock, Silver stare in disbelief.

“What? Why?”

Silver spoke flabbergasted as she was transported back to the beginning. She noticed that now she had hundreds of skeleton monsters before her that she needed to get past in front of her. Then it dawned on her, the case might be similar to her as well. She needed to play the game just like how the skeleton were adhering to the rules. The underground had an extra set of rules that she needed to follow.

When the light turned green, she ran and the skeletons moved. They turned around and went after Silver. Silver fired her bullets clearing the way for her to move forward, her fingers didn’t stop pulling the trigger, allowing herself to move bit-by-bit. It wasn’t until a skeleton came over and swung its blade did she made a mistake. The light turned red, freezing all monsters in the vicinity into a stand still, but because she was not paying attention, she faltered. Before she could fire and stop, the ground beneath her opened up showcasing a pit full spikes.

She had to once again twist her body and use her word in her other hand to stop her fall. Her arm muscle bulked with strength, and she grabbed ahold of the side to pull herself up. Silver once again came back to the beginning of where she first started. She realized that the task at hand was taking quite a lot from her.

With resolve, she moved forward when the light changed. She didn’t wanted to stay any longer, so she fired continuously with the gun in hand, stopping any skeleton from approaching her. If the skeleton got to close, she would kick them, punch them, or even swing her sword to make space for herself when the lights turned red. She had to keep track of the time precisely so she didn’t start from the beginning again.

Eventually, she was able to progress excruciatingly slowly, the skeletons were finally thinning out, allowing her to take a momentary relief. Her body was battered with cuts and bruises, she could feel her muscles screaming to take a break.

Not to far away from her she noticed a large rock that was glowing brightly with three different colors like the streetlight. Every time, the lights changed, the stone changed as well.  Silver could only think of one thing, the stone in front of her was the key to stopping this stupid game.

“Last one.” Silver called out with a strained voice Her arms were shaking from the continuous usage. Even her eyes were becoming extremely tired.

Bang!

The last bullet that she had in the clip fired. A dazzling hot streak of fire shot forth and blew up in a fire crackle like fashion. Loud popping sound could be heard from the exploding skeleton, pieces of its bones went outwards knocking down its surrounding skeletons,

With haggard breath, Silver gave one last spurt of energy towards the glowing stone. The moment she stepped into the room, she saw hundreds of street lights of different sizes and shapes lined up on strings, embedded in walls, and even on metal poles. It was a stunning multi-color lights that would make anyone dizzy just from looking at the chaotic scene before them.

Covering her eyes, she went forward. Her hands reached out and touched the stone. She felt the stone shuddering and turning dim. When she looked up, she saw the other traffic lights chaotically started to blink, and when the stone lightly completely went out, all the others ceased to function.

Silver sighed with exhaustion, she had over went her physical limitation of how much her body could take. She was glad that she bought the magical bullets and filled it up with magic energy, it had saved her in using majority of her magical energy. If she imbued her sword with magic it would had taken double the amount. She slide down with her back against the large stone and took a rest.

“Oh? Lookey here. Someone had actually broken through the crystal graveyard and were able to win by turning off the first game. I’m impressed. Usually people won’t make it here, but upstairs…” A husky voice spoke with a hint of mischief.

A devious laughter broke out with a chilling voice. Silver searched around for the voice and when she set her eyes upon the culprit, she felt shivers running up and down her spine.

“Either way, this is something new and exciting. Why don’t we finish up this game shall we?”