Nightmare Realm Summoner

By the time Alex’s full weight was on the floating shard of glass, he was already moving. He couldn’t afford to let himself lose any momentum or time. Only the System knew what was lurking within the crackling storm of Riftwarped Qi that boiled and swirled all around him.

He leapt off the first glass panel and landed on the second with enough force to cause it to dip slightly beneath his weight. His stomach shot up into his throat and he jumped off once more, continuing his loping run across the floating platforms.

Buzzing energy licked off his arms and swirled around his body as if to restrain him. It didn’t actually provide any resistance to his movements, but the intense tingling that arose wherever it touched him was definitely doing its best to distract him.

Every single part of his body felt like it had been dipped into a field of stinging nettles. That, unfortunately, included his eyes and lungs. His vision burned as involuntary teardrops forced their way free. Every breath he took felt like choking on tacks.

The very air was trying to kill him.

And it’s going to have to try harder if it wants to stop me here.

Alex leapt from one shard of fragmented mirror to the other. Only a single foot touched each one, and only for long enough for him to leap off of it and to the next. Wind whipped through his hair as he charged through the crackling storm, a determined grin on his face.

He’d gone through a whole lot more pain than a little discomfort to get here. Ever since he’d seen Zeal unleash his Soul Manifestation in full force, Alex had been determined to get a domain and unlock his own Soul Manifestation’s full power. There was no way he’d be stopping right at the finish line.

Still, it was farther to the throne than he had initially thought. The floating mirror shards were growing thinner and farther in between — and many were at an angle where he’d have no way to land upon them without carving himself open.

Shit. If I keep charging forward like this, I’m eventually going to slip and either plummet to my death or cut my own neck open like an idiot. Why is the throne so much farther than it looked? I should have reached it by now!

There wasn’t anyone to take his grievances up with. Alex’s eyes darted around the burning realm and he squinted through the burning tears in search of a place he could assess the situation. That was remarkably difficult to do while actively sprinting through the storm, but he really didn’t have much choice.

A large mirror skewed at a slight angle in the near distance caught his attention. It wasn’t his first choice given the slant, but he really didn’t have time to spend looking for anything else. There was absolutely no room for any doubt or hesitation. The moment he faltered for even a second, he’d miss a step or lose the momentum he needed to make it to the next platform.

And so Alex charged on with the hastily made plan. He bounded across the platforms, eyes squinted into thin slits in his best attempt to preserve his vision. His limbs pumped, burned. His teeth gritted.

The large platform grew closer. It was, like everything else seemed to be, farther than he’d thought. The distance between it and the nearest mirror was far larger than any of the other steps he’d taken.

Shit. This is going to be close.

Alex’s stomach clenched. Adrenaline and anxiety swirled in his stomach in an odd potion that fought to cloud his thoughts. Fortunately for him, there wasn’t anything to cloud.

There was only one thing on his mind.

He reached the final platform before the large one. Then, with a yell of defiance and confidence borne of sheer desperation, he jumped.

Buzzing Riftwarped Qi swarmed down his throat and into his lungs as he sailed through the air. For one brief moment, he flew. The world hurtled past him in a blur. There was no ground. No gravity. There was only the freedom of flight.

And then the laws of the universe exerted themselves once more. He fell down toward the endless abyss of storming energy far below. His arms windmilled as he desperately willed his body toward the approaching platform.

It was so close.

But he was falling now. Clouds whipped past his face. Alex found himself pulled downward, sucked toward the empty churning storm far below. His stomach flew up into his throat and fought to leap out and save itself—

A hand slammed against the glass. Sharp pain tore into his palm, but Alex ignored it as he focused all the will he had into his fingertips, tightening his grip on the glass until he was pinching it like a vice.

Hot blood gushed down his palm from where the sharp edge had sliced into his hand. Alex ignored it. With a grunt, he reached up and grabbed onto the platform above with his other hand. He heaved himself upward, swinging a leg up onto the mirror before rolling fully onto it.

His heartbeat drummed in his ears. Blood rushed and adrenaline threatened to send him into a cackling fit of laughter.

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He was alive.

Alex pressed his bleeding hand to his chest to stem the blood flow as he gathered himself. For a moment there, he’d been convinced that his hand had missed the platform. Alex swallowed, then blinked hard to bring his thoughts back in line. His hands were still shaking a bit.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow flit through the storming energy beneath him. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as a sense of dread built somewhere deep within him.

It was an effective yank back into the present moment. There was no time to sit around and rejoice. That could happen once he had his domain locked in. Until then, he had to keep moving.

Alex pushed himself back to his feet. The blood dripping from his palm showed no signs of stopping, so he kept the hand pressed to his chest. It didn’t seem like he was healing as fast as he should have been, but there was nothing to be done.

He had to get to the throne.

The throne in question was about fifty feet away from him by his best guess. There were a number of floating mirrors between himself and his target, though only about half of them were in a position that he could actually use them.

Alex clenched his jaw. The jumps weren’t going to be easy. They’d be even harder now that he’d lost his momentum and was standing still — but it wasn’t like he had much of a choice.

This is a mental barrier more than anything. I’m pretty sure my body can easily make many of these. I’m nothing like a normal human anymore. I can jump as far as an Olympic athlete. Farther. This is doable, but it won’t be if I let my own mind strangle me out of it.

There was a chance he was just trying to bluff himself. Some of the jumps were longer than anything he’d ever tried. Longer than anything he was anywhere near comfortable doing. Alex wiped his forehead with the back of a hand, then backed up until his left heel was jutting out over the edge of the platform.

He sized up the distance between himself and the next platform. They weren’t close. The jump wouldn’t be an easy one, but the mirror he was aiming for was fairly large. It was doable. His own mind would be a bigger obstacle than anything else.

Alex let himself take a few breaths to gather his focus. Then he backed up once more, only stopping when his heel hung over the edge of the platform. Crackling reddish purple mist twisted beneath him, a cloudy maw waiting for him to lose his footing and plunge into it.

His heart pressed up against his throat in a failed bid to escape. He never would have said that he was scared of heights. They didn’t bother him any more than anything else did. But, as the stormy wind whistled past his ears and cut against his eyes bearing sharp static energy upon it, his position was a little hard to ignore.

There was a difference between pointless fear and having a modicum of intelligence. Only an idiot would completely ignore the fact that one misstep could send him plunging to his death. Awareness was the manner through which a threat could be dealt with. Paying the stormy world no heed was a great way to find himself plunging into its depths.

But awareness could only go so far.

Knowledge did nothing without action, and it was time for him to get moving.

Alex charged. He took two quick steps across the platform he stood on, then launched himself off the ball of his foot at the last moment. Alex kept his gaze locked on his target as the wind cut past him.

His jump took him slightly farther than he’d intended. He landed hard on the far edge of the mirror and skidded, nearly sliding right off the edge. Alex managed to twist his body at the last moment to plaster himself across the mirror, his fingers pressing into its smooth surface with loud squeaks as he skidded to a stop.

Alex rolled over and staggered to his feet. The platform bobbed beneath him, almost to the beat of his thundering heart, and he swallowed while fighting to catch his breath. His entire body felt like it was in overdrive. If someone had been standing next to him, they probably would have been able to hear his heartbeat pounding down their doors like a SWAT team.

This is more intense than half the fights I’ve had since the apocalypse started.

There were still five or six platforms between Alex and the throne suspended in the middle of the Riftwarped Qi storm. Many of them were even closer to each other than the jumps he’d already made.

A grin pulled across his lips.

Almost there. I just have to—

A shadow flashed across the corners of his vision. It hurtled past Alex, moving faster than his eyes could track. He caught a glimpse of a pitch black claw tightening around one of the glass platforms.

A ringing crack echoed through the storm. Then the shadow was gone, vanishing into a cloud of churning energy. Fragments of glass rained down and vanished into the swirling energy far beneath Alex.

The platform was gone.

There was another crash from behind him. Alex spun just in time to see another shadow slipping from view — and the platform he’d stood on moments before crumbling away.

No sooner than it had vanished did Alex catch another shadow lurking at the other corner of his vision… and it was moving right in the direction of the platform he needed to use to keep advancing.

If this mirror broke, there wasn’t going to be another one close enough for him to jump to. There was no backtracking his steps either. The shadows had already destroyed his way back.

Shit. Looks like they decided I was having too easy of a time with this. I’m going to have to take the others in a full sprint if I want to make it before the shadows destroy everything.

Alex took a step back and gathered his strength. He was going to need all the momentum he could get. Making it across five of the platforms without stopping was a hell of a lot harder than taking them one at a time.

The shadow exploded into motion, blurring toward the platform before him.

Alex charged.

He leapt into the air, a cry on his lips.

The world sailed past him as he closed the distance between himself and the platform in a blur of motion that would have put any crowd back on pre-apocalypse Earth into stunned silence. The power that he had clawed away from the System and for himself was superhuman. It was beyond incredible.

And it was not enough.

A shadowy form coiled around the floating mirror. It hissed almost as if in laughter as its claw tightened around the only solid ground in Alex’s path.

No! Come on! I just need one step!

Fractures appeared in the glass. It fought back against the shadow for a moment, bending and flexing with a groan as it fought to keep its shape.

Then it shattered, and Alex plunged down toward the waiting storm below amidst a hail of raining glass.