Chương 22: Priest

I removed her hand from myself and dropped it. The grin was still plastered on her face. A pool of black sludge had formed below us. I focused on Shadowstride to move as close to Lania as possible. Still, I was 100 metres away. I hopped once again and emerged from her shadow. Lania lay on the floor, her face kissing the ground. She was bleeding from her eyes, ears, and nose.

"Lania!" I shouted, dropping to my knees. I pulled her head onto my lap and gently slapped her cheeks.

"Hey, hey." She didn't respond. I checked her pulse, finding it slower than it should be. Using my torn shirt, I wiped her face, too exhausted to worry about infections. Thankfully, the bleeding had slowed. She had just passed out from the blood loss. I turned my head to look for Pyiari. She lay on her side, still unconscious.

"Arrgh," Lania made a noise.

"Hey, Lania, are you alright?"

"Do I look alright, you shithead?"

"That's no way to talk to your elders." Lania didn't move from my lap.

"Sorry… is she dead?"

"Yes." Once again, I was not strong enough to defeat our opponent. This was the third time Lania had to kill someone. At least, the number of times that I knew of.

"Pyiari?"

"Still unconscious."

"How am I up, but she isn't?"

"The slap was solid."

"Yeah, how she got slapped on her temple, then fell on her side… it was funny."

"You shouldn't talk about her like that." There was silence for a short time, then we both burst out laughing.

"Why are you laughing, Mr. Alien?"

"I don't know. Why are you?"

"Fuck, don't make me laugh. My head hurts."

"Don't make me laugh either, my whole body hurts. Also, you shouldn't curse."

"Hypocrite."

"What? I don't curse."

"You curse on the inside."

"Wait, how do you know? Do you have mindreading too?"

"Caught you."

"Ah." We laughed again, even when it hurt. We had survived. The opponent wasn't something any of us could have defeated on our own, but by working together, we were able to. And now there was nothing stopping us from our escape except for our battered bodies. Clap, clap, clap. I looked down. It wasn't Lania who was clapping, but I saw the expression on her face. Horror, fear, and dread. She didn't have it even when she faced Kach. What was it that utterly devastated her?

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. I looked up and saw a figure in a bluish robe, the robe of a priest. He floated in the air and clapped.

"F-father Aran," Lania stuttered. Father Aran was the main antagonist in the story, and even after almost eighty years (which i had guessed from Filki's age), he looked the same as he was described in the book. His face was a bit square, with a light beard and mustache. Wrinkles on the corners of his eyes. Blond hair. Brown eyes. He looked like any typical middle-aged man, and exactly how he was described in the book. But there was one massive difference. His left pupil was made of black sludge.

He gently landed on the ground. He had been clapping all this time and was smiling.

"Wonderful, wonderful." His voice was thick but carried authority, making it hard to speak when he was.

"I thank you with all my heart. You did a wonderful job."

"Father Aran, I am sorry." Lania leapt from my lap and kneeled deeply before him, her forehead touching the ground.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was filled with fear. Just what had this man done for her to fear him this much? I glared at him with ferocity. He answered my glare by stopping his claps and smiling with amusement.

"Don't be sorry, my child." He looked at Lania, standing just ahead of her. Close enough that she could see his shoes.

"You have done nothing wrong. Instead, I am delighted by what you and this man here have accomplished."

"Us killing Kach, you are delighted by that?" My speech was filled with venom. From what I read in the book, and if everything was true without being exaggerated, this man was no priest or human; he was a devil. Aran turned his head towards the now-severed body of Kach.

"That?" he chuckled.

"No, no, not for that, though I should thank her too, as she also had a big role in accomplishing this."

"What are you talking about?"

"Lania's awakening."

"What do you mean?"

"Her superpower. You upgraded it. At first, she could only repair her toys. We worked tirelessly on her, upgraded her, and made her able to make new toys." He was talking about Lania as if she were an instrument.

"We then upgraded her again, and she was able to give partial sentience to her toy. She was the best we had made till now, and she was the closest thing to our goal. Just one more step, one more, and we would have reached it. But she just wouldn't take it. She was stuck. We did whatever we could: giving her extra hormones, shock therapy, rewiring her nerves. It didn't work. So, we decided to go after her daily-life. We made the other kids bully her, made her life miserable. Still, she wouldn't.

I was so disappointed. But she finally did it. The last breakthrough. Active healing. She has achieved it. And now we can achieve what we want to, too. We can finally get rid of the curse and regain our immortality." He spread his arms wide open in joy. This fucker.

"What are you gonna do to her?" I stood up.

"She is our hope. We are gonna research her and finally find the cure for our curse." I turned my eyes to Lania. She was trembling. Just remembering that what had happened to her before could happen again made her tremble. No way in hell I was letting her go with a man like that.

"And because you were so nice as to give us this, I won't punish you. I will let you go, and you can also take that other girl with you."

"I will take Lania too." Aran's happy expression changed. It was now serious.

"Don't be ridiculous, boy. Right now, you should be groveling on the ground, thanking me. I am letting you live even when you intruded on our facility, and I am also letting you take one of your steals."

"Pyiari isn't my steal. I am saving them from your disdainful hands, then I will come back and free everyone else."

"You scoundrel, that was my last offer, and you rejected it. If you want to die so bad, then so be it." The black sludge in his eye swirled as the pressure all around increased.

"Father!" Lania shouted. Her abruptness made him stop whatever he was doing. She still hadn't moved her head up.

"I will go with you."

"Lania, what are you saying?"

"I will go with you, just let Pyiari and Mr. Clark go."

"I am giving him the offer, but he refuses."

"I will convince him."

"I won't be leaving you behind."

"Try. You have five minutes." Aran said ignoring me.

"Thank you, Father." She slowly rose and turned to look at me. Her face was void of any emotion. The joy with which she had laughed was gone. Gone was the fear I saw.

"Mister, leave and take Pyiari with you."

"Come with me."

"I won't."

"Don't be afraid of him. We can defeat him together." Aran chuckled but didn't interrupt.

"Defeat? Defeat Father Aran? You want to defeat him when you can't even defeat me?"

"Defeat you?" Instinctively, I channeled my magika and focused on Shadowstride, and sure enough, a shadow was rapidly approaching. Strange Toy crashed right where I was. I hopped to a shadow a few metres away.

"What are you doing?"

"Either you leave on your own accord, or I will make you leave." Strange Toy used its new blades like wheels to turn and came straight at me. I hopped again.

"Stop this!" It was at me again. I tried going far; still, it was at me in a second. I was finally out of magika, and Strange Toy was at me, swinging its arm.

"Goodbye, Mister. It was fun with you and Pyiari." That was the last thing I heard before Strange Toy slammed its hand into me, sending me unconscious.