Chương 163: 76 - COLLECTIVE

There was a surge of power in the air. All three Redeemers and the rest of Graceland were stuck still staring at a man who had found his way into becoming a God. Thunder shook the earth. Choirs rang from the heavens. And the cradle of man lifted him to kingdom come. That's what it felt like would happen. But in actuality, nothing changed. Corlander stood still, almost disappointed that the weight of loot in him didn't immediately shift his reality.

Everything he had hoped, centered upon his forehead in the body of a monstrous angel, and he felt no closer to God than he did before. The three Redeemers stared at him. Uriel with a face of sorrow. Tyene with anger. T'balt with trepidation. Corlander shifted through his mental catalog. Whenever he thought of something, the loot would appear in his hand. The coin would then climb along his arm, searching for its matching stamp. Then it would multiply it.

Trains of coins marched across his greying skin, doing the same as he smiled a demented, manic smile.

"There's the power," he said. New stamps began to appear on the little space he had left on his body. His hand flowed with aura, though the loot was still protected inside the unconscious David. A holy bow appeared above him and disappeared. He began to activate them all, one by one, will by will. With ten, no twenty times the strength: Shadow, fire, light, water, ice, sludge, time, smoke, lightning, earth, sand, poison, mist…. There were no limits.

Reality itself seemed to bend at his fingertips, and all that power was his and his alone.

"Was it all worth it?" Uriel asked.

"All the death. All the pain. Your very humanity. Was it worth it?" Mitas Corlander lowered his arm, no longer attempting to hide his undignified excitement.

"Yes." Uriel nodded, not expecting any other answer but being disappointed by it all the same.

"URIEL YOU TRAITOR," A woman's voice shouted from the heavens, flying quickly down with angel wings and fury. They all stared at her, confused.

"Ellie, what are you doing!?" T'balt exclaimed.

"I thought I told you to go!" She glanced at T'balt and then disregarded him as easily as if he were a stranger. She landed next to Uriel and pulled something from her belt.

"You were supposed to protect us!? How could you throw away everything everyone fought for!?" Uriel tried to plead his case.

"Listen, you don't understand— hngg." It was a knife. Ellie had stabbed him in the center of his gut, possessed by some strange form of anger. Uriel keeled over, clutching at the knife, as his blood filled his hands. Tyene, T'balt, and German were petrified, T'balt most of all.

"Ellie, stop! What's the matter with you!? If you kill him—" Uriel held up his hand, signaling T'balt not to come any closer.

"It's okay. This is what I deserve…"

"What are you…" Ellie bent over to him, grabbing him by the back of his neck. She then yanked the knife out of his stomach and reared it back again.

"You'll suffer for this." When she went to stab again, she was frozen in place. Corlander began to laugh. The weight of his psychic power kept the knife still, suspended in midair, despite her pushing it to kill Uriel.

"As much as I would love to watch you kill him, I can't have you resetting my progress. I've come too far for that." Ellie gritted her teeth and grinned.

"Who said anything about killing him?" Just then, Corlander felt a sharp pain in his stomach and blood erupted from his mouth. Then he bent over from the pain, just as Uriel had. Everyone watched in stunned confusion, everyone but Ellie and Uriel.

"What's happening… here?" Corlander lifted his hand, checking the blood staining it. That's where he saw a glowing gold circle right on his palm, where Uriel had handed him the Bestower. He then scanned the man, who had retaken hold of the knife that Corlander had let drop from his grasp.

"Now, for once, you must feel the pain of others." Uriel thrust the knife back into his stomach, this time dragging diagonally across his belly. He gritted and bore it, this being a pain he had felt many times before. Corlander yelled in terror and panic and pain, trying to hold himself from falling over. The pain exchange. It connected them by body and soul. No amount of defense, no amount of healing. No fortification. No power. No preparation could protect him from this connection to his fellow man.

For the pain they shared was equal. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Ellie knelt over to heal Uriel's wound. The man shook his head.

"No." Corlander activated his own healing, attempting to fix his wound, but it was ineffective.

"As long as I feel pain, so will you," Uriel said, clutching his stomach and the knife, blood pouring down his lips. Yet he looked unbothered by the pain.

"We are bound together, you and I." Barely, with so much struggle it was hard to watch, he stood up, holding his split stomach together. He walked over to Corlander, who was stuck on his knees.

"You… have to heal me… save me… to save yourself." Corlander stretched his hand up, glowing with the healing glow, and pressed it to Uriel's stomach. In seconds, the wound closed, leaving behind an L-shaped scar on Uriel's thin, pale body. The rest of them panicked, but to their surprise, Corlander did not stand up. Instead, he fell to his face, murmuring on the ground as his insides continued to bleed. Uriel stood up straight.

"It only works with pain, I'm afraid." Too weak to move, Corlander laid still, mumbling in audible words. Uriel then knelt down, putting his hand on his neck. But then Tyene appeared in front of him, popping out of a ball of light. She used Corlander's extended wing to hold her body up as her only hand extended towards Uriel.

"Please…" Her breath was heavy, not because of the battle she had been through. Uriel relented, using the loot thief to remove the loot thief and handed it to her.

"Make your peace with it." She looked down on the pitiful, malformed body of her stepfather. He was still babbling quietly.

"There's something I need to ask you," she said.

"Did you kill her?" He continued to murmur, his words slightly louder than before.

"Cha.. Ch.." Tyene leaned closer. Then everyone reacted. With one last grasp at life, Corlander tried to swing his arm at her as he turned over, tossing her off his back. There was fire in his hand, a basic rage-fueled fire. T'balt ran to get to her, time slowed down, but it was Uriel who struck first. He slammed the knife into his own wrist, severing the muscles. It staunched Corlander's attack, causing his arm to limp over and connect with only the ground.

Tyene regained herself and threw her body at him, cupping his neck and yanking the Collector out of it. Everyone stopped. And watched. The man's body began to seize and convulse. Cracks in his skin immediately pulled into thick pillars of black smoke. His body shook as all the loot overloaded him at once. And like a mirage, his entire body poofed out of existence, leaving behind a large pile of discarded coins. T'balt dropped to his knees.

"Is it finally over?" Uriel kept his eyes on the large pile.

"No."

"What do you mean, he can't have—" Then there was a swirl in the air. A sudden flash. They shielded their eyes, and when they could see again, Corlander's body was on the ground. However, they weren't afraid of it. It was old, frail, and cuddled in the fetal position.

"A second chance," T'balt realized.

"But he's harmless now," Uriel said, blood still dripping from the knife in his arm. Ellie came to heal it, pulling the knife out with him, barely realizing.

"He's without his loot." Tyene held the collector in her hands, it like the bestower, shining and beating with life. Its symbol: a box with dozens of tiny circles inside. But she tossed it aside, as it was none of her concern. She crawled to Corlander's new body, throwing her forearm into his chest.

"Answer my question! What did you do to her!?" But as she looked at him, there was nothing in his eyes. he continued to babble. This time there were no words. They were incomprehensible noises, like one a newborn baby would make. It was like he wasn't in control of his tongue or his eyes or anything. All his old body could do was quiver on the ground. She looked to Uriel, who only shook his head.

"No. No, no no… not like this. I need to know. Tell me. Tell me right now." T'balt stopped her, pulling her back before the tears burst from her eyes. But they did anyway. And they all looked down at him at the end of this desolate battle for paradise. - Months went by. And over time, Graceland was built back to its former glory. The people were far too happy to reestablish the order they once had. Though they had lost a lot, nearly everything, they did the people thing and overcame their losses.

On Uriel's command, they had taken down his statue from the middle of the city, and with David and Lila at his side, he proclaimed a new era of Graceland. He told them of his crimes and of his past life. They no longer called him the Bestower after that, but he remained a pillar of the city. He was still the one who had brought them there after all. Tyene sat in a wheelchair in front of a large monument.

"To those who fought bravely and gave their lives for our future," It said. She didn't know whether she cared about the wording or whether it meant anything to her at all.

"Maybe this was meant to happen, and you were always supposed to die for me… it isn't fair for that to have been your life. It still doesn't feel right to go on without you," She saw one of the names etched on the stone: Vienna Misling. German knelt next to her and laid a bouquet of pink hydrangeas on the grass below.

"It isn't supposed to," he said, closing his eyes for a small prayer.

"But the rest of us have no choice. And you agreed to be one of us." Tyene frowned. German pulled on the handles of her wheelchair, her new aide and husband, and pushed her back to their home, first making a stop. In that old basement, the one with grey walls and a small candlelight in a window, Mitas Corlander sat crumbled in a corner. After months of being trapped down there, his body was disheveled and shriveled, but the need nullification would keep him from dying.

Tyene held onto German as he carried her down the stairs. She stared at the man. When the old, naked man saw them, he crawled to them, making unintelligible grunts.

"He still can't answer you," German said.

"Well, he's going to be stuck down here until he can. He doesn't get off that easy." Mitas bowed his head, and they knew he was begging for water, food, something. He wouldn't get it: Tyene's orders and her condition for continuing on. German took her back up the stairs and came back down to close the door. But he did a double-take at the old man. He was as helpless as a baby bird. Not even the will to try and fight them.

"I don't know if this is the punishment you deserve. But it seems you were wrong. Loving another was not my downfall." As the withered man crawled to him, he closed the door. Acelin stared into the hospital room from the door's window. He'd grown a little taller over the months, but his face had gotten more sorrowful. On the other side, Cannon Valkyr rested in the bed, hanging sheets covering the hole in his chest as the regenerator barely kept him alive.

The doctors were trying, but they had yet to be able to figure out a way to revive him. So he laid there, all this time.

"I can't believe he's not getting up," Acelin said. T'balt stood behind him, folding his arms.

"Cannon's a fighter. He's always been. Haven't you ever seen his matches? He goes down, but he never goes out." The boy looked up at him, with those sad eyes already having lost too many in his life.

"You think he would've been happy to meet her."

"He'll still get to one day. I'm working on it, okay." He nuzzled the boy's hair and then walked over to Ellie in the waiting room. She looked at them and smiled, a motherly smile. In her hands was a young baby girl. Dark hair, fluffy ivory cheeks, and a little button nose. Her mother rocked her as she slept. Her name: T'tania Ferrier.