O.C. Saar
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Omega Release | Chapter 28: The Hunt for the Ash Stag
🕑 Added 2025-06-27 18:00:06 +0000 UTC“Ready?” Reina asked me, and I reluctantly nodded.
“Yeah. But for the record, this plan sucks.” I said, grumbling.
Reina smirked at me. “For you, maybe. Can you think of a better plan?”
I opened my mouth and hesitated. “No…” I said eventually, unable to come up with anything.
Reina’s smile got a touch broader and more smug with my admission. “There you go then. Now get ready. As soon as I disable the butterflies, we run.” I nodded and watched as her eyes unfocused for a moment. The cloud of green mist dissipated, and the forcefield disappeared. “Butterflies are disabled, let's move.”
I hesitated as she started walking briskly. “Are you not going to pick up your umbrella or the little bot?”
“I’ll return for them after we’re done with the Stag.” She said over her shoulder. “Now, come along, let me worry about my belongings.”
I shrugged, conceding the point, and followed her. “If we’re alive,” I said under my breath.
“Hm? What was that?” She asked, glancing back at me.
“Nothing, just telling myself encouraging words,” I replied, catching up to her and scanning around us. “Are there any other dangers we should worry about?”
Reina tapped her chin as we walked down the path and reached the corridor the Ash Stag carved out of the [Flexigrass] on its way out. She looked down and let out a grunt of displeasure. The ground of the path the blasted thing carved out was covered in shards of glass. Some of the glass had been melted into puddles on the metal floor, and shards of razor-sharp, unmelted glass stuck out here and there from the floor, nearby [Flexigrass] blades, and the solidified puddles.
The entire thing looked like a mix between the fanged throat of a particularly vicious beast and a torture device.
“Huh, that might be a bit of an issue,” I muttered as a breeze blew toward us, kicking up dust in the corridor.
“Rebreather on! Press the yellow button on its side!” Reina barked, slamming the rebreather to her face. I followed her example and pressed the button, the rebreather growing to form a seal around my ears and goggles around my eyes. I looked around, expecting to see the butterflies and the protective green mist, but nothing happened besides the dust getting closer.
I turned to Reina, who unlatched the container from her belt and shakily held it out, her trembling finger hovering over the air-blast button.
“What’s going on?” I asked, feeling a pang of fear.
“This is going to hurt. A lot. Brace yourself.” She grunted through gritted teeth.
“What’s going to hurt?” I asked, my voice getting a touch louder.
“The dust is sharp! Make yourself small!” she screamed. I watched her drop to her knees and curl into a tight ball, arms wrapped over her head, while my mind tried to parse her words.
The dust is sharp? What? I glanced around and noticed that every single shard of glass, regardless of size, looked incredibly sharp. Oh. Oh shit. I dove to the ground, covering my head, as the dust hit us.
A grunt of pain was dragged out of my throat as tens of thousands of microscopic sharp blades flayed my arms. My HP started steadily dropping as I gritted my teeth against the pain. After only a few seconds, I was down to 70 HP. If this kept on for much longer, my new healing system would be overwhelmed by trying to keep my arms from disintegrating. Then, I heard a click and felt a blast of air. The pain of being flayed alive suddenly and blessedly cut out. I looked around, shivering from the pain of my raw flesh exposed to the air. I shakily stood up and looked around.
“What the fuck was that” I muttered at Reina, who was also standing up, her flesh looking unmarred, despite her entire left shoulder, arm, and side being exposed.
“Here, use this first.” She said and handed me a [Full Restore Injector]. I nodded gratefully and placed it against a blood-covered patch of skin on my left forearm. I pressed the button as Reina started saying something, but I cut her off with an involuntary grunt of relief as my HP shot to full, and the pain instantly disappeared.
“Sorry, what was that?” I asked, turning to her with a grateful smile, only to see her scowling at me. “What? I’m sorry I interrupted you. I was in a lot of pain.” I said, feeling a little defensive.
She shook her head, her frown growing deeper. “It’s not that. I…” She sighed and shook her head again, her expression smoothing out. “It’s nothing. Let’s keep moving. We don’t want to be caught in another gust of air. The air blast could disperse the dust here, but in that corridor, it would probably create a vortex and cause the [Flexigrass] to crush us.”
“Uh… Okay.” I said reluctantly, following her as she started jogging through the grass blades. Neither of us bothered to remove the masks at this point, but I did summon my [Firepath Hood]’s mask for added protection. “How did you make it through that infernal dust unharmed?”
“My armor might not look like much defensively, but it's equipped with small holohaptic shields that I can deploy, move, and shape around my body. I gave myself the smallest possible surface area and deployed as many as possible to redirect the dust away from me.” Reina explained, illustrating her point by making small blue hexagonal pieces of holohaptic light appear around her.
I sighed, feeling a little regretful over my choice of chest gear, but I knew that Reina’s holohaptic shields sounded better than they actually were. The time and practice I’d need to be able to use them effectively meant that even if I could afford something like that, it would not be a tool I would be using anytime soon. Besides, Holohaptic constructs had a particular weakness to heat, so Reina’s fancy equipment wouldn’t be of much help against whatever fire attacks the Ash Stag had.
“Reina,” I said, feeling tired. “Even the dust in this place wants to kill us. Why the hell do you have this deathtrap of a facility, and who the hell wants to work here?”
She looked back at me and winced. “From what I understand, the glass used has to have a specific molecular structure to be transparent, flexible, slightly permeable, and carry signals into the liquid. It just so happens that the best solution scientists have found is glass that shatters into smaller and smaller pieces that remain incredibly sharp.” We turned a corner and found ourselves out of the first of grass and onto a path clearly labeled with an arrow and the words ‘Maintenance Station.’. Reina pointed at a couple of droplets of molten glass in the direction of the Maintenance Station, and we started down the path. “As for who would want to work here, not many, to tell you the truth, but those who do are more than enough. This whole system was meant to be largely self-sustaining and maintaining.”
I scoffed at that. “Clearly, it's doing a great job.”
Reina glanced at me and hesitated before seeming to come to a decision. She turned to me, her expression fierce. “But that is the thing, Raziel. These facilities are known for being self-sustaining and maintaining, even in the face of external threats. This whole affair is highly unusual. Suspect, even.”
I looked sharply at her. “Sabotage?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I do mean to investigate once we are done, though.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.”
The conversation died down for a few minutes as we approached the Maintenance Facility. Right before we turned the corner, Reina held her hand up, making me freeze in place. Reina turned slowly to me and pointed at her ears. I closed my eyes and concentrated. Something big, huffing. Glass shattering under an enormous weight. Something sizzling. The crackle of fire. Hooves.
The Ash Stag.
I opened my eyes and nodded at Reina. She nodded back and used her right hand to point twice toward the noise and then to the right, her left hand holding four fingers up. I nodded again, understanding her signals.
She held three fingers in the air and counted down. I unholstered my [Rail-Revolver] and held it at the ready. When her final finger lowered, I sprinted past the corner towards the small, half-demolished building that must have been the Maintenance Facility. In front of that building, slowly turning in my direction, stood a behemoth.
It was three meters tall at the shoulder. Its hide was wizened, black, and cracked, red flames seeping between the cracks. It looked like a cross between an animal and a tree burning from within. That was precisely what I expected from Reina’s sitrep package. What I hadn’t expected was that the creature was covered from head to hoof in what looked almost like armor made from molten glass and covered in the green fluid inside the blades of grass. The way the glass shimmered on the Ash Stag betrayed the fact that the surface of that glass was covered in hundreds of razor-sharp glass shards.
Without thinking, I used [Examine] on it.
[Shardplate Ash Stag - Alpha 2.5.3]
Level: 19
A creature created to patrol, maintain, and protect a quasi-organic Heat Control Facility. It has fused [Flexiglass] on its hide, giving it greater resilience.
“Ashes to ashes”
Note: Complete. See Report 43CA8F-2.5.3.
I dismissed the window with a thought, putting my questions aside for the moment, as the three burning embers in its skull, one in each eye socket and one in its forehead, locked onto me. Its mouth dripped with the green fluid it had been drinking from a giant vat it had smashed open. The creature swayed slightly as if drunk, shook its head, and snorted. The baleful light of its eyes intensified as the most dangerous-looking part of the creature, its massive, crystalline, sharp-looking antlers, started glowing from within, the light intensifying with every passing moment and every step I took towards it.
I skidded to a halt and raised my gun towards the stag. “Happy hour is over, pal. I’m cutting you off.” I yelled and pulled the trigger.
The bullet flew true, right at the monster’s head. For a moment, I hoped that this would be a quick battle, but the blasted thing turned its head at the last moment, and the bullet skidded against the glass armor on its head and was deflected. Still, it wasn’t for nothing; the bullet buried itself in the stag’s shoulder, and the massive creature let out a bellow of pain, rearing up.
As it stood on two legs, a line appeared from the brightest antler to my chest. I paused, trying to understand what that meant.
“Dodge!” Hob screamed in my head.
I dove to the right a moment before a line of searing heat hit the spot where I was standing, instantly turning the metal floor white hot.
“[Flame’s Foresight]! Right! Thank you, buddy!” I sent to Hob as I transitioned from my roll into a dead sprint, heading towards the path Reina indicated I should follow. I glanced behind me and saw her crouching behind a wide blade of grass. She gave me a thumbs up, and I rolled my eyes, focusing back on my target.
I heard the sound of hooves behind me as the beast gave chase. I entered the path and passed a bend as a blade of glass behind me exploded in a shower of molten glass and sharp dust. I huddled as much as I could while sprinting, and my armor got the worst of the damage as I felt droplets fall down my back.
A small yellow bar appeared above my MP bar. Above the bar, the text [Flameturn Ray] and 6/50 appeared, explaining the purpose of this new element in my vision. I came upon a straight part of the path, but thankfully, the turn I had to take was in sight. All I had to do was avoid the-.
A line of energy passed right above my right shoulder and hit a group of blades of grass ahead of me. The glass contraptions exploded outwards, molten glass, sharp shards, and lacerating dust heading straight for me. I raised my arms to protect my neck and bent down, taking the glass in all its forms head-on.
Glass shards ripped through my clothes and stabbed into my legs, the dust settling into those cuts and causing the pain to multiply. But that was the least of my worries. Several dozen drops of molten glass landed on my head and shoulders, and I stumbled, the weight and searing pain causing me to lose my footing for a moment.
I watched as the [Flameturn Ray] meter slowly filled by nine points in a few seconds, my equipment absorbing the heat with enough speed that I could feel the glass on me would be solid within a few seconds. But I couldn’t rely on the subroutine at my level. My HP was depleting faster than the bar was filling up. For me to be able to use the subroutine’s active effect, I would have to take a total of 167 points of damage. With my current HP max being 95, the 117 points of direct damage I would take would probably be enough to either kill me or maim me badly enough that I would wish for death. Unless I used my [Full Restore Injector], that is.
I dismissed those stray thoughts as I came upon my turn, using the opportunity and momentum to shake most of the semi-hardened glass droplets off of me.
Ahead of me, I could see the path leading to a big open area and a massive semi-circular hole in the wall covered by a blue forcefield. Before I could feel a shred of hope, another line of fire passed me, only an inch away from my head. The line of fire hit the forcefield that absorbed it without even rippling.
I dove to the left, trying to cut the line of sight between me and the Stag, and I rolled back into my sprint, heading toward the forcefield. I turned back as the monster exited the path, running after me, and aimed at the stag’s head again, noticing a curious detail. One of the stag’s crystalline antlers was bleeding light near the base, where a shard of glass was sticking into it.
I turned around fully, stopping in place and taking better aim. If this didn’t work, I would be in a lot of trouble. I gritted my teeth, activated [Magma Bullet] for nearly half of my MP, and fired the [Rail-Pistol] at the stag. With a feeling of satisfaction, I felt my [Lucky Shot] passive activate as the bullet slightly curved to hit the antler right where the glass had pierced it.
The Ash Stag let out a loud bellow as one of its antlers was blown off its head with an explosion of blood, fire, and glass. The beast thrashed around in agony as I turned to run. The last thing I saw before I booked it was the stag staring at me, madness in its burning eyes. Where it was running before, now, it charged.
I was about to start panicking when I heard a voice echo through the chamber.
“[Ashibumi],” Reina said, standing right outside the path, having followed us. She stomped the ground, and a visible wave of force exploded out of her foot.
The Stag didn’t take notice. It only had eyes for me, letting out another loud bellow of rage.
“[Dōzukuri], [Yugamae],” Reina continued, standing tall and softly glowing golden from within, a slender wooden bow as tall as her appearing in her left hand and a thin, obsidian, red-fletched arrow appearing in her right. She grabbed the bowstring with her right hand and turned to stare at the Stag that was so eager to gore me.
On the one hand, at least it wasn’t shooting beams of hot death at me anymore. On the other hand, it was catching up to me fast.
I could practically feel its breath on my neck by the time I reached my target. As soon as I reached the forcefield, I kicked off the ground, changing directions. Right on time, too, as the Stag scrambled and crashed into the forcefield a couple of seconds later.
Reina continued whatever in Terra she was doing as the beast recovered from its faceplant. “[Uchiokoshi], [Hikiwake].” She raised her bow up in the air and then started lowering it, drawing the string as she moved. The bowstring let out a palpable hum of power, audible to me even at this distance. Whatever Reina was doing fascinated me as much as it terrified me.
“[Kai]!” she shouted, and all the light and all the sound that had been building up around her disappeared.
In the deafening silence, I knew what I had to do. I unclipped a small device Reina had given me to keep safe in my jacket, clicked the button on it, and threw it at the control panel. The EMP device went off, and the forcefield flickered out, temporarily disabled. At the same time, I heard the stag let out another maddened bellow and turned to see it run and leap at me. The sound of the creature’s rage felt like a thunderclap in the silence, but even that was but a breeze to the hurricane that was Reina’s next word.
“[Hanare],” she whispered, yet that whisper was loud enough to drown my own thoughts out as she let go of the string. I could only stand and stare mutely at the Stag’s enormous mass descending upon me, seeking to turn me into a paste. “[Zanshin],” she hissed.
Then, the Stag’s body disappeared, and its decapitated head landed at my feet with a wet squelch.
