Wraithwood Botanist

Chapter 44 - Souls and Evolutions

Agh... what was... I tried to push myself up after getting hit, but my body pulsed with intense dysphoria, buzzing and crackling like I was lying in a bath of low-voltage electricity. What’s... going... on...?

I rolled over and saw the canopies doubling, multiplying even, moving back and forth like some hallucinogenic sway. Then, an orange blur flashed across my vision, and I felt something get knocked off my stomach.

The momentum forced me to roll, and I saw Kline biting through a lignan bug, putting his paw on it and ripping its head off. It was a powerful attack—but Kline didn’t look powerful. His stomach was punctured, and the white spots of fur were crimson—the orange the color of historic rust. He could barely stand.

Kline... I turned, trying to move. Get up... I told myself, but my body didn’t move. It wouldn’t respond. I put my hands on the ground, but everything felt wrong. Disjointed. Get up...!

Kline collapsed to the ground, and tears welled in my eyes. It felt so cruel. I had healing balm in my backpack, a miracle river twenty feet away, and superhuman strength—but I couldn’t save him. What type of joke was that? My parents would pity me so much right now—pity me because their fears had come true.

I know you want him, but... you won’t be able to care for him, Mira, my mom had said when a friend offered us Kline,

I’m not ten anymore, I said at seventeen. Who walks Gatsby? Who feeds him? I get that it’s a chore, but it’s still made me responsible.

It’s not a matter of responsibility, honey. You just can’t afford him.

He’s free!

No, he’s not. There’s costs for caring for a cat.

The younger, more idealistic, and naive version of me laughed. Money... it always comes down to money with you two...

Mira... My mom turned to my father, who was reading on his recliner, pretending that he couldn’t hear us. He was the "cool dad"—especially to his daughter. He refused to be the Grim Reaper.

My mom folded her arms. Doug!

I, um... He sighed, putting down his book and looking at me. You’ve researched male calicos, right?

Of course, I have.

Then you know they’re sick at birth.

Klinefelter Syndrome. Yeah.

He grimaced and looked away. So... uh... did you also look up the cost of surgery?

Have you looked at the cost of surgery for Gatsby? I shot back.

He nodded a few times solemnly. Yeah.

This is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Do you know what’ll happen to him if someone doesn’t adopt him? They’re gonna euthanize him.

That’s also what’s gonna happen if you can’t afford the bills. He looked away when he saw my aghast expression. You know we’ll support you—

My mom’s eyes widened in shock. Doug!

But! He said loudly. If you do this... we’ll only help you once you sell everything we’ve paid for. Your car. Your growing equipment. Everything but your college fund. If you want this responsibility, you’ll have to face the consequences.

I will! I said back then—but now I truly meant it. Seeing Kline broken and bloodied and breathing shallowly, I wanted to give it all. I’d sell that fucking car and the bike and the garden.... I’d.... Anger and passion and rage overtook me. Mental shielding.

I activated the mental shielding, fighting past the dysphoria, trying to remember Yakana taking over me, feeling my soul, and keeping it together. Then I crawled to Kline, barely reaching him and putting my hands on his broken ribs.

Seal.

A magic spell meant for closing preservation stopped the blood gushing onto my hands. Crude, yet better than nothing. The river was gurgling and popping twenty feet away, creating a flowing, steady sound that kept blending with the symphony bugs.

Hold in there...

"’Cause the thing’s evolving—obviously," Kori said, swigging the elixir. "That girl’s not gonna save herself, is she?"

Elana’s eyes snapped onto the screen as if she was seeing it for the first time. Kline had already clambered up the embankment and collapsed, taking deep breaths as he accepted the Guide’s chant. His body was radiating with a powerful aura as Diktyo River’s water acted as a catalyst within him.

Wind whipped around his body, pushing back the souls and ground like a small tornado, and the ground was denting and cratering under his body.

"This’s wild," Kori said, leaning back. "His core’s so pure that it’s inflatin’ like a balloon. Plus, he must’ve learned something crazy from that awakening whatever, too. ’Cause he’s makin’ this look easy."

Elana between Kline and Mira, feeling hope welling within. Kline would soon obtain an ethereal body, and he could definitely save Mira. It was just a matter of when. Normally, it would take a nobody a day, but Mira and Kline weren’t normal people. They learned mana circulation from Yakana, cleansed themselves of impurities, and feasted upon intense soul mana reserves. Kline’s core would be far smaller because he hadn’t done much threading, but his night with the awakening elixir alone would put him vastly ahead of even the richest of unevolved mortals. There was raw power in his hands.

Evolving was no different than what he had already done. He received a chant to expand the core in a certain pattern—now he just had to do that. Along the way he had to clear out blockages and impurities, but he drank the Diktyo River’s water—one of the most powerful raw catalyst ingredients in the Multiverse.

It wouldn’t be surprising if he expanded it in minutes—

—but that was wishful thinking.

Ten minutes passed, and he was still evolving, and Mira was still unconscious. It was lucky that neither of them was hit by a stray lignan bug or carried away by some beast. That luck only improved when twenty minutes passed. Then thirty. Forty minutes passed before Kline opened his eyes again—

—and by that point, he feared for her life.

He jumped to his feet and pressed down. A paw print far larger than his own indented the ground. Then the other paw—and his right legs. He pressed into the dirt with an ethereal form—a body of manifested mana built over his to match his soul force—and bent down.

Kline blinked out of existence, reappearing beside a tree a hundred feet again. Then another and another and another. In five seconds, he had covered a quarter mile, only stopping once he saw Mira. He panicked and ran as fast as he could, skidding in the sand before her.

He put his head on her chest, and his shoulders slumped in relief before grabbing her by the shoulder with his teeth and dragging her to the water.

"Don’t do it, cat," Kori said.

Kline took a step backward, hitting the soul fog, and howled, clamoring forward, pawing at his chest.

"Told you," Kori said. Kline had undergone a soul expansion, which would allow him to accept vastly more soul force—but it also meant that he could absorb souls directly now without a soul core. That’s why spirit beasts couldn’t drink from the Diktyo River—the souls from the river could invade their bodies and feed on their souls like parasites.

"He can’t hear you, you brute," Elana said.

"Yeah, yeah..." Kori paused when Kline hopped over Mira and started pushing her feet and legs and thighs and hips and anything he could find purchase with. "Why does he seem so certain? That river doesn’t repair souls. Does it?"

"It will if you have a soul core," Elana said.

"Well, she’s fucked then," Kori said. "Cat’s practically sending her off to drown, and he can’t pull ’er out."

Elana smiled bitterly. "If she dies because of this..." She paused. Kline had proven himself so she wouldn’t condemn him. Still, she viewed his attempts as suicidally foolish.

Yet what neither she nor Koir knew was that Mira tuned into Yakana’s frequency in the river, and Kline—after speaking with Yakana—could hear him as well. So, while it all looked like an act of desperation—Kline knew that Yakana could help her. He believed. So he pushed Mira into the water, then followed her alongside the river as she floated away.

3.

I awoke underwater, disoriented, panicked, and horrified. I couldn’t move, and the only thing saving me was the mammalian diving reflex, which forced me to hold my breath. I figured something pushed me into the water, praying that it was Kline, wishing he was okay—

—because I still couldn’t move.

But right then, deep within the flowing river that sent me crashing into rocks and rolling on the sandy bank, I heard Yakana’s voice.

Hurry, he said. Chant with me.

I couldn’t move, and I was desperate to survive, so I used Moxle Dilation to slow time. It didn’t affect Yakana’s voice, which still reverberated in my head.

Okay... I said.

Then let’s begin. I zória arkhízoun na milán, dídoun epístoles...