Chương 90: Peacock

The Fire Knight stood in the clearing, which was now scarred all over with sword marks, burns, and fallen, charred trees. Smoke still rose from the ground around him, thin gray wisps drifting up from smoldering trunks, the air thick with the smell of char and superheated metal.

He watched as the last traces of moisture in the area were drawn upward, tearing away from grass, bark, scorched leaves, gathering into an enormous sphere of water hovering high above the treetops, its murky surface reflecting a warped, inverted image of the clearing below.

The Knight himself was covered in cuts oozing a yellow-orange glow, and in places something far closer to real, viscous lava, trickling down the cracks in his black armor in thin, glowing threads that hardened into tiny raised ridges against the metal. Every movement he made was still accompanied by a heavy, grinding sound, as though colossal gears continued turning somewhere deep within his armor, and his fiery hair, now somewhat dimmer, crackled faintly, shedding the occasional spark onto the scorched grass.

After watching the sky for another few minutes, observing the hovering sphere of water, he calmly sheathed his sword — the motion unhurried, almost lazy, as though the entire spectacle had long since stopped holding any interest for him — and set off at a slow, measured pace into the depths of the forest, leaving behind a trail of scorched, smoldering earth, each footstep searing a smoking, melted print into the ground, the grass on either side of that path slowly blackening and curling.

Behind him, against the backdrop of the smoking clearing, lay a body. Cut apart, almost entirely blackened by fire, the skin blistering in places, the clothing reduced to brittle black rags that crumbled at the faintest touch of wind. Only by the long, miraculously intact ears could one still recognize, even from a distance, that this had once been an Elf — a once-graceful, vibrant being now reduced to a shapeless, charred silhouette among the ashes, frozen motionless in an unnatural, twisted pose.

Lloyd watched as the gigantic droplet drew closer and closer, blotting out the sky like some colossal, looming ceiling, casting a rapidly spreading shadow over the entire clearing, plunging everything into a premature, ominous twilight. Even the smoke from the fires seemed to freeze in place, as though the very air were holding its breath in anticipation of the inevitable impact, and the few surviving birds somewhere in the distance fell silent all at once.

Even though he knew he couldn't actually die here, the fear of death hadn't gone anywhere, and neither had the pain radiating through his entire body — dull, throbbing, aching in every bone, every bruise and gash left behind by this endless string of battles.

After everything he'd been through these past few days, he had absolutely no desire to find out firsthand what it felt like to suffocate under tons of water, though more likely he'd be flattened against the ground in a fraction of a second, like some pathetic insect, without even a chance to feel the lack of air, without even a chance to properly be afraid.

Lloyd lay on the ground, watching the droplet weighing several thousand tons come hurtling toward him, having resigned himself to his fate and already anticipating the scenario of his own fake death, feeling every muscle in his body instinctively tense, bracing for an impact he couldn't avoid no matter how desperately he wanted to roll aside. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Am I actually about to die, even if it's just pretend?" He slowly closed his eyes, waiting for the impact, his heart pounding so hard it drowned out even the rising roar of the falling water, a low, vibrating rumble filling his ears.

But not a second passed, not a few seconds, not even a full minute, and he felt nothing resembling death at all — only a strange, oppressive silence hanging over the clearing, a silence that somehow felt even more unsettling than the impact he'd been expecting, a silence so dense that all he could clearly hear was his own ragged breathing. Lloyd slowly opened his eyes, his eyelids trembling with strain, afterimages still dancing before his vision from having squeezed them shut for so long.

"What the..." His eyebrows shot up in astonishment, his mouth falling open on its own, unable to form a single sound. Up above, in place of the giant droplet of water, now hung a large blue cube, perfectly smooth, as though carved from glass, its edges glinting with a cold, unnatural light, reflecting the surviving rays of sunlight in dozens of tiny, refracted glimmers.

A second later, Lloyd heard a distinct click — short, dry, almost mechanical, as though someone had flipped a switch somewhere within the very fabric of reality itself — and the entire cube vanished, as though it had never existed at all, as though the thousands of tons of water hurtling straight at him had simply evaporated without a trace, disappearing as instantly as they'd appeared, leaving behind not even a hint of moisture on the ground, not a single drop on the crushed grass.

Lloyd turned his head toward the source of the click, every movement of his neck sending a fresh wave of dull pain shooting from the back of his skull down through his shoulders.

Standing there was a man — standing as though nothing at all had happened, as though this entire deadly commotion had absolutely nothing to do with him, as though he were simply out for a stroll through a park on a pleasant day rather than standing in the middle of a scorched, blood-soaked battlefield, surrounded by bodies and smoldering ruins. He was dressed in a bright red robe embroidered with gold thread, the fabric shimmering with every movement, catching the light.

His entire body was coated in a layer of white powder, smooth and flawless, as though applied with surgical precision, and his face bore more makeup than Lloyd had ever seen on a single person in his entire life — bright red, almost garish lips, eyes rimmed with thick purple shadow that lent his gaze something theatrical, exaggerated, almost doll-like.

His hair was snow white, cut short, with three long strands sticking out from beneath his bangs, each dyed its own loud, vibrant color — pink, turquoise, and toxic green, swaying with the slightest tilt of his head. The man looked like some cross between a peacock and a parrot, though he did distantly resemble a man — though Lloyd had serious doubts about that assumption, watching his mannered, flamboyant posture, the way he theatrically rested one hand on his hip, tilted slightly forward.

The man snapped open his fan, decorated with the same gold patterns as his robe, covering the lower half of his face so that only his purple-lined eyes remained visible, and, sweeping the clearing with an attentive, appraising gaze that slid over the charred trees, over Lorian's body, over the barely-alive Casper, finally settled it on Lloyd — a serious look, almost accusatory, as though Lloyd himself were somehow responsible for all this chaos, all this devastation spread across what had once been a peaceful clearing.

— Looks like you've all been having quite the fun time here.