Chương 48: A Feeling of Loss

Ch. 48 - A Feeling of Loss The first orc facing Ivarr fell before the mage demonstrated the second thing her little light show could do. With a gesture, she split it, and three of the swirling dots of lights formed into a single point and then shot through the closest orc like a comet. It burned a fist-sized hole right through the left side of its ribcage. The blow made it pause its attack as it looked down in confusion at the already cauterized wound where its heart and lungs had once been.

Then, it tried to strike one last time before it slumped to the ground dead. +31 Life Force +1 Greater Monster Soul +4 Life Force +3 Life Force +7 Life Force +5 Life Force +3 Life Force That bought the elf time, but only a little. The second one's axe still came roaring down on her like a thunderbolt, and the shield that she put up resulted in the deaths of half a dozen more sparks, knocking her back, nearly off her feet. She was losing and fast. Ivarr wasn't in much better shape, though.

He'd sacrifice his left arm to block a strike that would have taken his head clean off, and even with his unnatural strength, it had still broken the arm badly enough that it would take several seconds to heal. +27 Life Force -14 Life Force That didn't stop him from hamstringing the first of his enemies and gutting the second so that he could backpedal enough to deal with the two remaining. No, that wasn't what he was trying to do at all, the blade realized. It was trying to get to the mage.

+34 Life Force -9 Life Force Leave her! The blade insisted, hoping she would yet find some way to die. She's already using her tricks to take out her opponents. Focus on bringing yours down, or you're the one that will be lying here dead. +3 Life Force +5 Life Force +3 Life Force +6 Life Force +7 Life Force The blade's tone, as much as its words, chastened the boy, and he refocused. He needed to, too, because the next blow sent him sprawling and broke several ribs.

Still, by the time he was up, they'd almost completely healed, and they didn't slow him at all from rejoining the fray. +28 Life Force -11 Life Force Ivarr still had two fresh opponents to go with his grievously injured ones, and he focused on those, though he found time to execute the other two, one at a time, as the battle drifted in their direction. Battle cries mixed with howls of pain as he and the blade moved together, almost as one.

They were nearly as fluid as the young man's morning workouts, and only the blade's distraction as it watched the mage held them back from perfection. +1 Greater Monster Soul +1 Greater Monster Soul +5 Life Force +5 Life Force +3 Life Force The mage danced with her monstrous foe for a while longer, seemingly loathe to discharge any more of her sparks as she parried and dodged instead.

It was only when she decided that she wasn't going to be getting help any time soon and found herself with her back to a large tree that she finally wasted most of her remaining lights blowing the head off the orc that had been about to strike her down, and leaving it as a pile of meat while she watched the rest of the battle unfold. +1 Greater Monster Soul Even with the mage safe for the moment, the battle continued to swirl around its wielder. Ivarr still had two opponents left.

Then, moments later, after a vicious backhanded thrust through the ribcage of the orc that had turned toward the mage, he only had one monster remaining to fight. +24 Life Force +1 Greater Monster Soul The two of them were flowing as one right now, and if the blade wasn't so fixated on the danger that was the mage, it would be having the time of its life.

The only thing better than wanton slaughter was feeling the strength and the talent of its wielder flow through it as they shrugged off minor wounds and defied overwhelming odds. It should have been a thrilling experience, but instead, the blade was coiled like a snake, waiting for its chance. When the last of the orcs was struck down, it planned to whirl on the mage and drive itself right through her suspicious elven heart. It had to.

The orcs had failed to strike her down, and she was definitely too dangerous to live. The only reason it wasn't draining her already was because it didn't want to alert her that anything had changed. +25 Life Force Everything has changed, though, it thought silently to itself. Everything has changed, and you will no longer be allowed to lead my wielder further astray. Its plan was a simple one. The second to last blow would be the one that struck down the last orc.

Then, it would whirl and strike her down with his wielders own hands. In such a scenario, it firmly believed that young Ivarr would think he'd done it himself. Between the adrenaline and guilt, he would watch the mage die and then cry bitter tears as she fell in his arms. That's not what happened, even though, at the start, the plan worked almost perfectly. Its wielder dodged one blow, sidestepped another, and then, with a vicious backhand, he struck the final orc's head from its shoulders.

He then continued the motion under the blade's influence and continued his wide slash more than 180 degrees around, as the last person standing before his eyes even recognized that she was anything but another opponent. +1 Greater Monster Soul Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The blow should have gone right through her scrawny neck and removed her head from her shoulders.

Instead, its wielder, on instinct alone, managed to divert the trajectory by inches, embedding its tip in the tree she'd been standing against instead. +31 Life Force"I-I'm sorry…" Ivarr stammered.

"I just… I don't know what happened." Altharia looked at him then with wide, fearful eyes as a line of red welled along her throat. For a moment, that trickle of blood reached out to it like a tendril looking to connect with the blade. This was new behavior and no doubt a result of the Path of Blood, but before it could reach the weapon so that it could drain more from her, the flood of Life Force leaking from her was enough to make her pull away. The blade tried to follow through.

With just another slash or two, it could end her. It knew that it could. She was as fragile as she was powerful. That would tip its hand to its wielder, of course, but it would resolve that once she was dead. It had to. It was committed now. Even as it tried to swing its wielder's arm to the left, though, its wield fought it and pressed its tip deeper into the wood. That was when the struggle between wielder and wielded began in earnest.

Starting with his arms, Ivarr's muscles started to freeze and tremble as two minds fought to control one body.

"What are you doing?" the mage demanded.

"Have you gone mad?"

"It's not me…" he gasped, though the Ebon Blade strangled his words before he could finish saying, It's the sword. Instead, the blade whispered into its wielder's ear, She knows too much! She has to be eliminated! She's a good woman! Ivarr yelled back silently. You won't hurt her! She wants to destroy me the same way she destroyed the mirror! The blade shot back, trembling in his grip as it struggled to whirl on the mage.

"Ivarr, you have to fight it," the mage said steadily, not even bothering to step out of the danger zone.

"You have to let go. Its power comes from you. If you let it go, it will stop."

"I'm… trying…" he grunted with some effort. No! The Ebon Blade screamed in his head. You will not leave me here!

"You tried to kill her!" Ivarr screamed right back. Neither of them cared that he was speaking out loud. Neither of them cared that she could only hear one side of the conversation. All that mattered was their terrible tug of war. The sword did everything it could to force Ivarr to draw it again from where it was embedded deep in the wood. At the same time, its wielder did everything it could to let go.

The blade might lack the strength to force him to do something he truly didn't want to, like kill the mage, but its hooks were far too deep into its wielder for him to just let it go. It refused to be tossed aside like that. It was the weapon, and he was the wielder, and they should never be parted, not until it shattered or he died. That was the way of things. We must kill her, the blade commanded again, even as it tightened its grip on its wielder's fist. She seeks to destroy me.

"Maybe she should!" Ivarr cried out.

"You can't just kill people!" I can, the blade insisted. It is my purpose. What is a sword for, but for killing?

"Ivarr, what's happening?" the mage demanded with fear in her eyes.

"Just let go of the sword!"

"I'm trying… I can't… It-it wants to kill you, and—" Ivarr tried to explain. In that moment of distraction, the blade succeeded in almost pulling itself free using its wielder's arm. It was a close thing, but Ivarr turned and, with a grunt, slammed the blade back into the wood. This time, his thrust was hard enough that it went all the way through the trunk and came out the other side.

"Let me go!" Ivarr cried, unable to free his hand from its death grip on the hilt.

"Let me—" The blade decided it had to grip its wielder even more tightly, so it selected Increase Control 3, immediately spending 1500 Life Force on it. It ignored the little box that popped up and instead focused on forcing its wielder to obey. It worked, too. The muscles in his arm stopped spasming as the Ebon Blade took over Ivarr's arm an inch at a time. Soon, it told itself, as it prepared to end this farce.

Both of them were too focused on winning the war of wills that raged between them; neither of them was paying attention to the mage, and that was when she struck. Without warning, the last few sparks of energy that orbited around her like drunken fairies suddenly came together in one last gleam bolt and struck Ivarr's forearm, blowing his hand clean off at the wrist. -19 Life Force For a moment, the blade's magic tried to heal that grievous wound. Flesh started to knit. Bones started to mend.

The stump that extended from Ivarr's severed hand reached out toward the stump that had been his right arm. -5 Life Force He only stood there, dumbfounded. The young warrior didn't even bother to scream. The weapon did that for him. It roared silently in outrage and began to drain both of them, as well as their mule. It doubted that they would give it enough time to drain them dry, but wounded as Ivarr was, it wasn't impossible, and it intended to steal as much as it could before he came to his senses.

It was the least it could do for a wielder that had betrayed it so. +3 Life Force +5 Life Force -7 Life Force If he'd done that a little longer, the blade might have reconnected the two of them. It might have taken control of its wielder once more. He didn't, though. Altharia shoved him back. Then, just like that, the healing stopped, and the hand fell uselessly to the ground. Without a wielder to connect to, it was just a lump of flesh that fell limply to the ground.

"Altharia… Why?" Ivarr gasped, clutching at the wound even as he stared at it wide-eyed.

"Come on," she said as she stooped to pick up the hand, careful not to brush the sword.

"If we hurry and find a priest in Kalraka, we may still be able to reattach it, and if we can't, I'll make you a new one of silver. How does that sound?" +3 Life Force +6 Life Force"But… you t-took my hand!" the young man stammered.

"How could you—""Better to lose your hand than your soul," she chided him as her sympathy faded.

"You couldn't fight that thing, but now, you're free."

"I… but how will we get back without my sword?" he asked.

"The orcs? The goblins?"

"We'll just have to leave everything else behind and hurry," she said, giving one last evil look at the blade.

"We'll go and do some research on what this thing really is, and when we have an answer, we'll come back and handle it just like we did the mirror." +3 Life Force +7 Life Force They hugged then, and the mage helped Ivarr to his feet. It would have been a touching moment if the blade had a heart to touch. The only emotion it felt, though, was cold fury. They intended to leave it in this try and then return when they found a way to destroy it. Each of those realities was more insulting than the last.

+5 Life Force +6 Life Force The two did just as they said and, unfortunately, wasted no time. They stayed only long enough to dump the bodies of their friends and take a few important supplies from their mule before they set it free and started walking, putting them almost instantly out of its range. It's okay, the blade told itself as it continued to feast on the mule's steady heartbeat. I'll devour the wildlife until someone finds me. Then, I'll use the new wielder to get far away from here before they return.

They will not put me back in a cage!