Chapter 241: Grave Robber

Cyrus Solaris

I ran out of the shed, and the orange sky began to fade, allowing a dark sky to take hold of the rift.

I needed to find a tomb with a winged idol carved on top.

This was my chance to save my mom, bring back my family, solve the behemoth problem, get my license, and eventually take out Theron.

That was easier said than done. When I looked out into the dimly lit graveyard, I saw plenty of idols resting atop the tombs.

There were many rows of obsidian tombstones, so I did the best I could. I went down each row, getting close and personal with each one.

The task was tedious and quickly becoming annoying as the area became darker and darker.

I pulled out my astroglobe tablet and used its small light as a flashlight. My eyes strained a little, but I made it work.

It took around thirty minutes to get through the first two rows, but then I finally came across something that matched the description the Atë member had given me.

Nothing was engraved on the slab of obsidian, but there was an idol resting on top of it. It had long, extended wings connected to the body of a beast that stood on two legs. Small, thin arms hung at its sides, while a hairy abdomen protruded from its torso. The creature had a pig-like nose and a pair of fangs.

It looked like a bat.

A deformed one, but a bat nonetheless.

The idol drew me in, and I didn’t know why. If all these were supposedly filled with bodies, what made this one so special that the Atë member wanted it specifically?

A line from the chant resurfaced in my head: blood of the mad ones.

Whatmade the mad ones’ blood so special?

I was going to find out at the end of this little quest anyway, so I pushed the thought aside and began digging through the sand with my hands. There weren’t any other tools lying around the graveyard.

Removing the sand was harder than I'd realized. Each scoop resulted in sand ending up back in the same spot I had just taken it from.

I slammed my fists into my excavation site, my cosmic energy surging, making the sand shift around me.

A cool breeze brushed past, tickling my skin and raising goosebumps. There was also a faint ripple in space.

I scanned the area around me, flashing my astroglobe tablet everywhere, but nothing presented itself. So I just chalked it up to some small desert rodent or insect moving about.

My eyes returned to the area I needed to dig out.

I need to be faster. At this rate, it could take me a whole day to dig deep enough to find whatever remains, and I don’t have that much time.

A sigh left my lips, and I decided to try something crazy.

I used Gravity Well Minor on the spot where I wanted to remove the sand. The process was difficult, not because of the sand’s weight, but because I had to perceive every individual grain resting before me.

I poured a bit of cosmic energy into my brain, hoping it would give me the edge I needed to perform the task.

At first, there was only a dull ache pressing against my skull when I tried to move a large mound of sand. But I couldn’t handle the countless grains at once. I had to make sure each one was no longer making an indentation in space.

The process was also eating away at my reserves of cosmic energy, and in a space with no behemoths to provide cores, I couldn’t be wasteful.

So dropped the mound.

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Maybe I should try less at a time and just be quicker with it?

I took a breath and got right back to it.

The process was still difficult, but there was less strain on my brain this way.

I was starting to make good headway, slowly turning this into a small telekinetic construction project.

It took about an hour before I made any real progress. Sweat was running profusely down my forehead, the nonstop precise control of Gravity Well Minor starting to get to me.

But it was all worth it when I found an intact hand buried in the sand.

My heart nearly burst from my chest as I quickly jumped back from the hole I had dug.

I didn’t know what I was expecting.

I swallowed my surprise and got back to work, excited that I was so close to getting what I needed, so that I could escape this place.

As I removed more sand, I uncovered someone with pale, nearly gray skin and a few strands of hair. I couldn’t make out the exact color in the darkness, but there were parts of the body that truly repulsed me.

The skin around the mouth had decomposed, revealing a set of fangs. A hole in its abdomen also held maggots crawling inside.

The body was humanoid, but the long, razor-sharp fangs had me questioning a lot.

I had never heard of or learned about anyone having these features in history. But this was also Elyria, a place filled with ancient myths that were never proven true.

Whatever, Cy, just get this thing out of here, so we can get back over towards the west side of the rift before another meteor shower starts.

I used Gravity Well Minor and lifted the larger body out of the sand, but as I finished, I felt multiple close distortions in space.

Then I heard a faint noise, almost like something was flapping in the wind.

My hands started to shake.

I took another glance at the idol on the tombstone and looked back down at the dead body.

Then the sounds grew louder, and the distortions intensified.

I didn’t even bother setting the body down; I kept it in the air and began running.

A screech pierced the air and assaulted my ears, while something landed before me, creating a dust cloud of sand.

I covered my eyes and sprinted right, trying to evade whatever just landed before me. But then something clasped my shoulders and lifted me off the ground.

My stomach dropped.

I looked up and saw that I was being carried by exactly what was carved on the tombstone.

Is this the creature that attacked me?

I immediately grabbed the legs and activated Gravity Well, plummeting us both into the ground.

The impact knocked the air out of me, and my body began to sink in the loose sand.

The large bat tried to get away, but I kept it pinned with my ability and used my moon to crush its skull.

The sand cloud settled, and I quickly scanned for the dead body I dug up. I found it, but five more of these gigantic bats surrounded it.

Things just couldn’t be easy for me.

The bats seemed more concerned with protecting that dead body than attacking me. It was strange.

But I didn’t have the time to worry about why. I activated tidal pull and dragged the dead body towards me.

The bats lunged after the body, but I sent my moon out to fend them off as the dead body drew closer to me.

“You have no shame, do you?” A haunting voice said, coming from behind me.

My chest pounded. I didn’t sense anything approaching me.

I dashed to my left and turned to see who it was.

Standing before me was an eight-foot-tall man with pale, almost grey skin, red eyes, and long, flowing crimson hair.

I felt a cold, ominous cosmic energy signature.

The man looked vaguely familiar.

I looked towards the bats, and they were kneeling, their wings folded at their sides.

This had to be an echo, but I knew for a fact that I had never met this person in my life. So this had to be its original form.

“W-Who are you?” I asked, on guard, my moon quickening its orbit.

“Who am I? I am a member of the Atë, Lugat Strigoi.”

Lugat…? Then my blood ran cold.

Lugat, or Lord Lugat, was the man who donated that painting in the Founders Hall, which illustrated a scene from the book Vlad of the Night, and that image of Vlad is identical to this man standing in front of me.

Strigoi was the last name of the person who went missing at Xhatal Academy and had vampiric abilities.

The revelation froze me, but I had no idea what to do with this information. All I knew was that fiction had become reality, and I had to handle this quickly, because I needed to conserve as much cosmic energy as possible so I could safely travel through the meteor shower.

A swell of cosmic energy erupted from Lugat, his fangs bared, as he stepped towards me.

“Boy, you have just disrespected the grave of my late younger brother. Return him now or die”