Chapter 14: Chapter 14 – Life and Death

Rather than responding, Grayson just lifted his arms, readying himself for the fight. His two opponents brought up their own arms and closed in.

Grayson lunged at Darren, trying to take the initiative, but the man jumped back, leaving Grayson overextended, and Grant was quick to take advantage of the opening.

He tackled Grayson, driving him into the rock, and Grayson’s breath whooshed out of him, leaving him gasping for breath. He still tried to knee the man repeatedly, but it wasn’t long before he realized it was no use. There was no space between them, and as a result, there was no force or momentum behind the blows. That was when Darren appeared, swinging a fist right at his face.

An explosion of pain rocked Grayson when the blow landed, and it was followed by another blow moments later, leaving Grayson stunned, and hardly able to struggle. Grant had wrapped him up in something of a bear-hug, which looked awkward, but it was an effective enough restraint. Through all of this, Grayson’s mind latched onto one thing. The rock behind him had started moving much more. The jolt it had received when Grayson was tackled into it must have done something, because it was shifting significantly. He didn’t dwell on it long before a cruel laugh rang out.

“Aren’t you Valintians supposed to be warriors?” Darren asked. “You’re pathetic.”

“I told you,” Grayson said with a wheeze. “I’m not a Valintian.” He tasted blood in his mouth as he spoke, but his head was mostly cleared from the shock it had received.

Darren’s face darkened, before he smiled maliciously and spoke. “I don’t think breaking your arms and legs is enough. You’re going to suffer before you die. I think I'll break every bone in your body. Let’s start with one of your fingers, shall we?”

The scarred man reached out, securing one of Grayson’s arms immediately, despite his attempts to struggle. Grayson made a fist to try and prevent Darren from getting a hold of his fingers, but it was useless. The man used both of his hands and his superior strength to pry Grayson’s fist open before latching onto his index finger.

The scarred man then looked Grayson in the eyes, with a feral grin on his face. Grayson braced himself for pain when he saw the man begin to tense in preparation to break the finger, but Darren suddenly stopped, looking at something to the side.

Grayson looked over to see that a strange appendage was reaching out in a questing manner toward them. It was quite close, but none of them had noticed before now due to the intensity of the fight. The appendage was just inches away from Grant, and the man still seemed oblivious to the danger.

“Watch out Grant!” Darren screamed, but it was too late

Grant looked around just in time to see the appendage reach the side of his chest. There was a blur of movement, and suddenly something that looked like a harpoon was sticking out of the other side of the man’s body, having pierced through his entire torso. Grant’s grip fell away from Grayson’s body as his limbs lost power, and he looked like he was trying to speak, but no words were coming out. Grant stood there, wide-eyed until the harpoon began to retract, dragging him toward whatever creature had done this. Darren looked stunned, and Grayson took the moment of distraction to escape.

Now that Grant wasn’t holding him, he had a lot more freedom of movement, but he still had a problem. Darren was still holding on to his arm, and he needed to do something to make the man let go. In desperation, Grayson did the first thing that came to his mind. He jumped up, and in the air he used is legs to shove off the rock behind him, launching himself straight toward Darren.

The crown of Grayson’s head crunched into Darren’s face, and the scarred man screamed out in pain, his grip on Grayson coming loose. Grayson fell to the ground, but quickly made his way back to his feet.

Meanwhile, Darren was clutching his face, trying to staunch the blood flowing freely from his clearly broken nose. When he saw Grayson, he lowered his hands and grinned, his teeth stained crimson.

“It’s just you and me now, Valintian. Darren said as he started stalking toward Grayson with murder in his eyes. I’m going to enjoy this.”

Grayson looked around for anything that could help. He looked first at the creature that had attacked Grant to see if it could save him. He noticed that what he had thought was a large rock was actually a massive shell, and the creature inside of it looked to be some kind of giant snail. The strange appendage Grayson had seen, appeared to be a proboscis with a harpoon inside that was used to latch onto prey, then drag it in to be enveloped and digested. Grant had already fully disappeared, and it didn’t look like the snail would be ready to feed again any time soon.

Nothing else appeared, so Grayson simply raised his fists toward Darren and beckoned him forward. “Let’s do this then.” He said, with grim determination.

Darren screamed out and ran at Grayson, swinging his fist in a wild haymaker. Dodging to the side of the obvious strike, Grayson turned and drove a fist of his own into his opponent's gut as hard as he could.

Darren grunted, but lashed out with one arm, catching him across the face with the blow. Grayson reeled back after being hit, but managed to stay on his feet, the training with Trest paying off. He managed to fend off some follow-up strikes as well before Darren got impatient.

The scarred man simply charged at Grayson in an attempt to tackle him. Grayson tried to dodge the attack, but one of Darren’s arms manage to catch him, and they were both sent to the ground in a tangled heap. What followed was a desperate, sweaty struggle as both of them worked to get on top to gain an advantage. Grayson did surprisingly well for himself, considering the other man probably had a good fifty pound weight advantage, but eventually Darren found his way on top. They were both panting in exhaustion at that point, but the scarred man still had the same bloody grin on his face that he had at the start.

Without further ado, he started punching down at Grayson’s face. Pulling his arms in to protect himself, Grayson weathered the attacks, but he was still left dazed after the man rained blow after blow onto him. Panic seeped into Grayson’s addled mind. He knew he had to do something, or he would die.

He took one arm away from protecting himself, and reached out blindly, grabbing a handful of sand and tossed it into Darren’s face. The scarred man reeled back when some of the sand landed in his eyes, and Grayson took the short reprieve to look around. And there, next to his head, he saw a fist sized stone. Grayson grabbed the stone and smashed it as hard as he could into the side of Darren’s head.

You are reading story Wavelord at novel35.com

The hit hadn’t been too hard because of the awkward angle it had come from, but it was enough to force Darren off him. The man fell to the side, and now they were both left dazed from blows to their head. Grayson tried to stand, but his balance was off, and he fell over near Darren’s feet.

The scarred man was lying down, but he shook his head, and afterward, he didn’t seem all that worse for wear from the experience. The man leveled his murderous eyes, now clear of sand, on Grayson. Seeing that Darren was in a better condition than himself, Grayson took the opportunity to attack. Grayson took the stone in both hands, and brought it down as hard as he could on one of Darren’s ankles.

There was a sickening crack, and Darren screamed in agony. Grayson crawled away, and caught his breath for a moment. When he looked up, he was shocked to see that Darren was dragging himself toward Grayson, death in his eyes, and his broken ankle trailed behind him limply.

Fear rose up in Grayson’s chest at the sight. Somehow, the man was pushing through what must have been an insane amount of pain, just so he could kill Grayson. Seeing Darren’s determination, he decided it would be best to run away now that he had the opportunity. Trying to kill the man now might just give him the opportunity to turn the tables and kill Grayson instead.

Now, Grayson could simply abandon the man, and let the aquadome finish him off. Rising to his feet, Grayson stumbled away before Darren could reach him. As he moved off from the other man, setting his course for the aquadome’s exit, he could hear screams of absolute rage following behind him. Grayson looked back at Darren and shook his head in disgust.

“You should have left me alone!” He called back to the scarred man. “You brought this on yourself.”

Darren screamed back something unintelligible, and Grayson walked away, not sure how to feel. He had killed three men today, and a fourth would join them soon. The screams still sounding out behind him were a constant reminder of that. He was pleased in a way, now that one danger to his life had been dealt with, but it didn’t seem like he should feel pleased after doing something so terrible.

Before thinking on it much more, he decided he would parse through it all later, once he had made it out of the Proving Grounds. The thoughts would only be a distraction for now, and he needed to remain focused on surviving. Getting rid of the four men would be for nothing if he died in the aquadome because he was distracted.

Once again, Grayson’s strategy was to find a fairly open area with some kelp nearby. That way he could learn more about the aquadome and its threats, but have a nice escape route if something dangerous came his way. He didn’t see anything too interesting as he waited, the only thing of note that he hadn’t seen before was a sting ray the size of a trampoline. Occasionally, he would see other prisoners in the distance, searching through the aquadome, but they avoided him, for which he was grateful.

As time passed by, he grew more nervous. He kept on expecting to hear the horns, but no sound came. He was sure that hours had passed, and the sun had risen well over the horizon. Brother Capso had said snakes came out after the sun rises, and he wasn’t eager to see what they were like. Sure enough, he started to see the sinuous shapes of snakes in the distance, and he was forced to enter the kelp when one of them strayed too close, only exiting once the snake was far off in the distance.

Eventually, he heard the horns, and he sighed in relief before starting to walk toward the exit, doing his best to avoid the threats that appeared in his path. Eventually, he made his way to the exit, and sighed with relief as he passed through the barrier, the weight of the aquadome falling off him.

He did the same thing he had done two days before, by sitting with his back to a tree, closing his eyes, and trying to wind down from his experiences. He simply tried to clear his mind and not think about anything, but he was quickly distracted by the sound of footsteps nearing him.

Opening his eyes, he expected to see Brother Capso, as the man had spoken to him the last time he had exited the aquadome, but in front of him stood the solid form of General Trest.

“So,” The man said, as he looked down on Grayson. “you managed to survive.”

“Yeah, but it was a close thing.” Grayson said, gesturing to his face, still felt tender from the beating it had taken. “They got me pretty good before the end.”

The general nodded before sitting down next to Grayson.

“Did you learn anything from the experience?” Trest asked, fixing Grayson with an intense expression.

“I... I’m not sure if I want to get into it yet.” Grayson said honestly. “It was not a pleasant experience for me.”

General Trest sighed, and he looked more tired than ever. He sat there in silence for several minutes before finally speaking. “Do you truly wish to live?” He finally asked as he stared off into the distance.

“Yes.”

“Then take this to heart. You have been placed in a situation where you need to be resilient, especially mentally resilient. You can’t afford to doubt yourself, or you will never succeed. It is likely you will need to do things far worse to live, which isn’t fair, but it is necessary.”

Grayson simply let out a deep breath at that, but declined to speak further, but he knew the general was right.

You can find story with these keywords: Wavelord, Read Wavelord, Wavelord novel, Wavelord book, Wavelord story, Wavelord full, Wavelord Latest Chapter