A Waste of Time-Chapter 22: Distant Thunder

“Hey… Wake… Up! Dae… Mon! Open… Your… Eyes!”
A voice—fractured, distant—dragged him up from the edge. His eyes, dull as cloudy glass, flickered weakly in their sockets. His lips, blue as river ice, trembled as his head leaned—just a breath away from tipping forward into that abyss of thorns and fire.
The voice clawed at him from inside his bones.
Who…?
Recognition trickled sluggishly through his frozen mind.
I know that voice… Ippo? What the hell are you doing here? This place—this isn’t for you. Dangerous… Dangerous!
A cold jolt of primal terror stabbed him awake—Daemon’s eyes darted down and saw just how close he was to falling forward, plunging face-first into that hell. With a strangled grunt, he jerked back, wrenching himself away from the brink.
And then—light. Pure, honeyed light from the other side, seeping into him like warmth through frostbitten skin. The sweet choir rose again, notes gentle as a mother’s hum. The crushing fear, the suffocating dread coiled in his chest—
melted
.
Daemon exhaled. A laugh barked out of him, wild and sharp as a knife.
“Ha!
I live!
” He threw his arms wide at the weeping angels above the palace. “Who else can say they went sightseeing in hell and came back with their soul still intact?
Hahaha!
Never doing that again, though. Fuck
that.
”
He gave the angels a quick, clumsy bow—half gratitude, half apology. Then he turned his focus back to the dice in his palm. It pulsed faintly, as if waiting for his nerve to steady.
“Roll,” he muttered. The die shimmered, then dissolved.
Ding.
He forced himself to look—neck stiff as stone—and the instant his eyes caught the result, the world folded. He was yanked out of that fever dream—slammed back down onto the Iron Throne like a king thrown onto his seat by the hand of fate itself.
Tak. Tak. Tak.
Below him, Grunt worked without pause. The big orc’s new axe—carved from the shell of a slain Spider General—bit deep into logs, shaving them clean with every swing. The bones of the first house were rising fast—sturdy, square, precise.
Daemon leaned forward on the throne’s cold armrest, a crooked grin crawling across his face.
Resourceful brute… smarter than he lets on.
He slipped down from the throne’s iron steps and stalked to the Summoning Circle, bare feet echoing in the silence of night. The glyphs around the Summoning Circle burned bright—a wheel ready to spin his next miracle into flesh and blood.
[Summoning Circle: Indestructible]
[Number of Summons Available: 1]
[Type of Summon: Hero Summon]
[Nature of Summon: Two-Way Summon]
“Summon.”
Omm.
Light roared from the circle—brighter, wilder than when he’d first dragged Grunt into being. A swirl of colors, a storm in miniature, spinning so fast it warped the floor around it. Daemon squinted, leaned forward trying to glimpse the shape forming inside—anything, a face, a blade, a sign—
“Whoa—”
Too late. The circle didn’t spit something
out.
It
dragged him in.
The swirling vortex devoured him in a heartbeat. Then the circle flickered once—calm, innocent—and the light faded like a secret.
Grunt, watching from the half-built frame of the house, snorted and shook his head.
“Work, work…” he rumbled, and slammed his new axe into another log.
Inside the tent, three pairs of eyes pinned Daemon like knives the moment he jolted awake—his body jerking as if he’d been drowned and kicked back onto land.
“Uh—what? Are we under attack?!” His eyes darted to Ru, to Jia, to Ippo—brows furrowed, mind still half-lost in swirling colors and hellish screams. The Summoning Circle’s betrayal knotted behind his ribs like a stone.
Ru dragged a hand down his face—long-suffering, resigned.
Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.
Jia’s fury trembled up her throat, bright veins pulsing in her neck. When she spoke, her words cracked like thunder:
“No, we’re not under attack.
What happened to you?!
”
Ippo stayed suspiciously quiet—his calm grin a mask over the secrets Daemon’s brush with the abyss had just spilled into him. The clone’s bright eyes flicked from Jia’s trembling fists to Ru’s glowering silence—then back to Daemon, who seemed only vaguely aware he’d just brushed against oblivion.
Daemon stretched, bones popping. “Let’s talk outside. I want to test something first.”
They followed him out—Ru stalking close behind, hand resting on his Sword hilt out of habit more than threat. Jia hovered at his other side, torn between throttling him and wrapping him in blankets.
Daemon stopped at Ippo’s makeshift training circle—the scorched earth flattened from hours of relentless drills. He breathed deep, eyes distant as he murmured something just loud enough for their Cultivator hearing to catch:
“
Summon Asura.
”
The air snapped—like a silk veil shredded in an instant. The world buckled around him. Ru’s pulse spiked. Jia’s eyes widened, lips parting on a breathless gasp. The
boy
who’d terrified them once with a flicker of Killing Intent now stood on a peak so high it made their own hard-won steps on the Cultivation Path feel fragile by comparison.
[Da Niu: Tier-0]
[Race: Human (Adolescent)]
[Faction: None]
[Lumberjack/Scavenger]
[Strength: 2.5 (15.7)]
[Agility: 2.2 (28.2)]
[Vitality: 2.4 (18.3)]
[Endurance: 3.3 (20.4)]
[Intelligence: 2.7 (23.5)]
[Magic: 3.4 (21.8)]
[Due to Summoning (Asura), all Stats plus Skills are combined]
Hero’s Summon: ON
[Special Skill: Asura]
1st Form:
+2 heads, +4 arms; time cost x2
2nd Form:
grow to 3 meters; time cost x3
3rd Form:
(Locked)
4th Form:
(Locked)
……
Daemon grinned—a crooked, feral thing. Drool escaped the corner of his mouth as his shoulders trembled with giddy laughter. He ripped his shirt off, tossing it aside like a wild animal shrugging off its skin.
“
Gear first!
” he barked at the sky—nothing happened. He coughed, face flushing pink under Ippo’s mocking stare. “Er—
1st Form!
”
Squelch. Squelch. Squelch.
Two new heads erupted from his spine in an instant—blank eyes blinking into life. Four new arms bloomed from his sides like monstrous petals. His shoulders doubled, then tripled—muscle rippling, skin stretching, a grotesque miracle of raw flesh.
“
Fuck yeah!
” he crowed, voice echoing triple from three throats. But even this didn’t scratch his itch. He bent his knees, bellowed to the sky—
“
2nd Form!
”
The ground shook as he slammed back down. What stood there now was no boy—no fragile vessel of cracked bones and starving belly. This was a monster—three meters of coiled muscle, six arms flexing, three heads glaring at the world with the promise of
devouring it whole.
Ippo squinted through the dust cloud, shielding his eyes with one hand. “
Hulk? That you, buddy?
”
Daemon’s middle head snapped forward, voice dripping with glee: “
Ha ha—eat my fist!
” He lunged—one bowl-sized fist cocked back, swinging for Ippo’s smirking face.
“
Whoa! WHOA! It was a joke!
” Ippo yelped, rolling away just as the ground cratered under the punch. He ducked behind Ru, using the Swordsman’s broad back as a shield.
Ru flinched—three pairs of cold eyes pinned him where he stood. His throat bobbed. Yesterday’s humiliation returned in vivid, sweat-slicked flashes.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it—
But Jia was thinking about nothing else. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Her mouth went dry as she took in every ridge of Daemon’s monstrous form—raw, terrifying, yet so perfectly
alive.
Her cheeks flushed red. Her mind supplied traitorous images.
Just as quickly as he’d changed, Daemon let the form drop—muscle and bone shrinking, extra limbs dissolving like mist. Jia caught herself pouting.
Not enough.
Definitely not enough.
Ippo peeked out from behind Ru’s shoulder. “So—how much did you hold back when you threw that punch, huh?” His grin was crooked, but his eyes glittered with sharp interest.
Daemon shrugged, picking through the shredded remains of his clothes. “I used maybe… twenty percent more speed than yours. If I’d wanted to, I could’ve killed you three times over before you realized what hit you. Them—” He tilted his chin at Ru and Jia. “If I wanted to, I’d cripple them in the first exchange. Even if they survived, I’d break them apart piece by piece. My body’s too stubborn to die. I heal too fast. Sooner or later, they’d run dry before I did.”
His voice was calm. Matter-of-fact. A cold dissection of exactly how he’d
win.
The air felt heavier just hearing it.
Ru grimaced, rolling his shoulders as if to shrug off a phantom blade. “Disgusting,” he spat, but the respect in his eyes said more than his words. “Exactly why Cultivators hate fighting mad Body-Refiners. If you can’t kill them outright, you just
don’t.
”
Jia forced her eyes off Daemon’s bare chest—hands already working to drape a clean robe around his shoulders. She didn’t trust her voice enough to speak.
Daemon tied the cloth around his waist, then shot Ippo a wicked grin. “Bath. Then I’ll tell you all about hell. Try not to die of boredom while I’m gone.”
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