Chương 38: Chapter 37 - Life and Death

On the second floor of the abandoned building, white motes swirled around the homunculus' hands as a Soul Attunement formed. The grey-skinned figure grasped the hilt of the newly formed weapon—a longsword not unlike Ren's own—and lunged, placing itself in front of the preacher just in time to deflect Ren's incoming strike in one smooth motion. The weight behind the parry was monstrous and Ren's arms were thrown high above his head.

His balance was instantly broken, and he didn't even get a chance to recover before the armoured thing slammed its entire shoulder into him. Pain exploded throughout his chest and the air was knocked from his lungs in a pained gasp as he was thrown backward onto the dusty floor.

"Are you so eager to return to the Abyss, speedy boy?" the preacher asked with a wry smile, folding his hands behind his back with complete confidence in his protector.

"No matter, of course. This homunculus of ours will make short work of both you and your little friend soon enough." He began to laugh maniacally as the armoured monster stepped toward Ren with a heavy boot.

"How do two children intend to beat the former Flameguard captain of The Crossroads," he asked, "especially after the Abyss has blessed him so?" Alice rushed forward, performing Night's Opening Bar and intercepting the beast before it could reach Ren, the clangour of steel ringing out through the cramped room as the two of them clashed. It bought Ren just enough time to force himself back onto his feet and retreat a couple of metres, coming to a stop beside one of the small flames hovering near the wall.' Focus!

Help Alice like you helped Varrin,' he steadied the shadow sword in his hands and prepared to do just that, waiting for an opportunity to jump in, when the preacher started chuckling again.

"You didn't think this creation became a Flameguard captain of the Crossroads because he could simply light up a room, did you?" Ren frowned, but didn't let down his guard.' What does he mean by that—' The small flame hovering beside him suddenly swelled and detonated. The entire side of the building burst apart in a storm of fire and splintered wood, throwing Ren off the second floor and out into the wet street below.

"Gahk!" He hit the ground hard and rolled a couple of metres before finally coming to a stop. His ears rang violently, and the entire right side of his body had been left charred and burnt. Ren groaned and pushed himself upright, the cold rain instantly soaking through to his skin and bringing a sharp sting to his wounds.

His cloak had been shredded in the blast, hanging from his shoulders in blackened tatters, and his tunic beneath fared little better, leaving nothing at all to stop the water from drenching him to the bone. He gritted his teeth.' Damn you, Mr. Jester…'

"Ren!" Alice's voice cut through the rain as she leapt down through the ragged hole in the wall and rushed to his side, her face tight with worry.

"I'm ok," he said quickly as rain pelted his face. But he wasn't. Not even close. Even so, Ren wasn't going to run away. The preacher and his homunculus appeared in the broken gap above.

"Just give it up already," the gangly man called down from above, just as the former Flameguard captain dropped into the street below. Its weighted armour struck the ground with a violent crash, sending water from the puddles spraying outward in a wide ring around it. It raised one gauntleted hand and tiny flames appeared above its palm once more. But Ren wasn't going to let it set that trap again, "Alice we need to stop it!"

He sprinted forward, doing his best to ignore the searing pain along his torso as Alice sped in beside him to support her shepherd. The two of them were just about to reach the homunculus when the preacher suddenly shouted from above, his voice ringing clear through the heavy rain.

"Slow down!" An invisible force dragged at Ren, making his body feel as though it were made of lead, and no matter how hard he pushed, he couldn't force himself to speed back up. Alice, however, remained unaffected, reaching the homunculus in time. Though, the creature simply blocked her blade, buying itself just enough time to send out another wave of those exploding flames. This time, the bombs of light were packed together much closer than before.

"Dammit!" Ren gritted his teeth as the rain streamed down his body. [Accelerated Regeneration] was already at work, slowly knitting the burn wounds along his side back together and gradually easing the pain, though the adrenaline pumping through his veins was doing most of the heavy lifting for now. The preacher's compelling words finally wore off, and the instant Ren could move freely once more, he rushed in to help Alice, who was locked in a whirlwind of water and steel with the homunculus.

He watched the doll-like girl move, recognising the Weapon Forms she'd shown him only yesterday. Seeing them put to use in actual combat was almost mesmerising, the way she danced circles around the stiff grey-skinned creature, throwing countless attacks and strikes that seamlessly flowed into the next.

Ren had thought he'd done fairly well when he'd attempted Night's Opening Bar at the start of the fight, but he saw now just how untrue that was, his own clumsy effort amounting to nothing beside the way Alice danced.' Look for an opening!' Ren told himself as he circled the two clashing swordsman, being extra careful not to get close to the floating wisps of flame. At that moment, the preacher—who was still overlooking the battle—pointed his finger at Alice and opened his mouth to speak once more.

"Twist!" Alice's sword arm was suddenly wrenched and pulled to the point of complete disfigurement, the limb twisting in on itself over and over again, shattering and crushing every last bone inside.

"Ahh!" the doll-like girl shrieked, her shadow blade falling uselessly to the wet cobblestones. The homunculus wasted no time in capitalising on its opponent's injury, stepping into a stiff overhead swing meant to finish her off.

"No!" Ren yelled, rushing forward to save Alice, but she wasn't going to give up so easily. Alice quickly condensed a fresh sword of shadows in her uninjured arm, the previous blade unravelling back into the rain-soaked streets as her control over it was released.

She managed to raise the new sword in time to block the heavy blow, though the difference in strength between an Awakened and an Ascended Blessed proved far too great for her nondominant arm, and Alice was forced down onto one knee beneath the weight of it. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. A rectangle of shadows suddenly erupted from the wet ground and smashed into the homunculus' chin, snapping its sickly grey head backward...

just in time for Ren to duck beneath its arm and drive his blade straight into an exposed portion of the creature's neck. The sword sank deep, spraying black, fetid blood out into the rain, and for one brief second, Ren felt a surge of hope in his chest. But the homunculus didn't seem to care at all about the blade lodged in its neck, hurling a devastating backhand at Ren with one gauntleted fist. [Survival Instincts] warned him of the blow, but he was far to slow to do anything about it.

He felt a couple of his ribs crack under the force of it as he was sent flying through the rain, slamming into the ground once more in a spray of cold water. The distraction gave Alice enough time to recover from her kneeling position and spring backwards away from the grey-skinned creature, her mangled arm hanging uselessly at her side. The preacher cackled from above.

"Hahaha! This creation has been touched by the Abyss, foolish child! How can such a menial wound stop him?!" Ren looked up from the ground just in time to see the homunculus wrench the shadow sword free from its own neck and hurl it far aside, where it clattered and slid across the wet stone. Then the wound in its neck began to steam, closing itself over at an alarming pace.

Wiping the blood from his nose, Ren pushed himself back onto his feet and gathered essence into his legs once more, crouching low as he prepared to dash forward. Beside him, Alice condensed a fresh sword of shadow and threw it to him, which Ren swiftly caught. At the same time, the grey-skinned creature began gathering those tiny flames into its hand yet again.

Knowing they couldn't afford to let the battlefield grow any more crowded with another wave of those mines, Ren and Alice darted back into the fray, Ren lagging a little behind in order to support Alice as best he could. His body screamed in pain with every movement, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through it regardless. The doll-like girl parried one strike and blocked another, buying Ren just enough space to slip in and swing desperately for the homunculus' arm.

Essence still coursed through his legs, lending him the speed to keep pace, but at the last moment he pulled it back up and out, spreading it throughout his entire body to bolster his strength, his reserves draining at an incredible rate as soon as he did. But instead of letting the flames gathered in his palm loose, the grey-skinned creature drew its flaming palm back toward Alice and Ren instantly understood what it was trying to do. The water beneath his boots sprayed backward as he tried to stop it.

"Don't move!" The preacher's command rang out, causing Ren's body to seize up for a single, sickening moment as he was forced to watch on helplessly.

"Watch out!!" he screamed at the top of his lungs as Alice raised her blade to block the incoming hand...... but the instant her sword met its palm, the flames detonated. Alice was swallowed whole by the blast and hurled backward into the abandoned building, smashing into the decrepit remains of the wall and leaving a small crater in the broken stone. Ren's eyes widened in shock at the sight of her lying there, slumped and unmoving, but he had no time to despair.

The grey-skinned creature had already sidestepped and swung its sword in a deadly horizontal arc, aimed straight for his neck. [Survival Instincts] flared again, and this time Ren's sharpened reflexes were just enough to let him duck beneath the strike, the blade missing him by a hair's breadth.

Then, for the third and final time, he forced essence into his legs and launched himself directly into the armoured beast chest, using his body weight to send the two of them crashing to the slick ground in a spray of rainwater. Even with an entire person on top of it, the grey-skinned creature reacted with alarming speed, gathering those tiny flames in its gauntleted palm once more. Acting purely on instinct based on what he'd just seen happen, Ren desperately fought to force the deadly limb away from himself.

Rain dripped down his face and soaked through his hair as he threw his entire weight onto the thing's arm, seizing hold of the wrist that cradled the flames and forcing it downward with every last ounce of his bruised, tired, and burnt body. Hard enough that the homunculus' own flaming hand was driven straight into the one place its grey skin lay fully exposed. Its face. The tiny flames swelled and detonated violently, shattering its head apart in a hideous burst of fire, black blood, and splintered bone.

"NOOO!" the preacher screamed, causing Ren to look up and see the man's face had twisted into pure hatred.

"You insolent child! How dare y—" He was cut off as something pierced clean through his stomach from behind, and with a pained yelp, the preacher was sent falling through the broken gap in the wall, tumbling down to the street below. Now standing where the preacher had been only moments ago was Alice, barely upright, her mangled arm hanging limply at her side. She grimaced through the pain as rain and blood ran together down it. Relief surged through Ren at the sight of the doll-like girl.

But he had no time to revel in it, not as the preacher, arguably the more dangerous of his two opponents, was already staggering back to his feet. Fuelled by nothing but adrenaline and raw willpower, Ren shoved himself up off the homunculus' corpse and sprinted as fast as his heavy battered body could carry him.

"Curse you Flaming wretches!" the preacher screamed, pointing a furious finger the quickly approaching Ren.

"Fall! Drop it!" A force ripped Ren's feet clean out from under him, sending him crashing down heavily with a splash against the wet cobblestone road. At the same time, the shadow sword was wrenched from his grip and hurled an unrecoverable distance away.' Damn!' he cursed inwardly, glancing up just in time to see the preacher point a finger toward Alice, who was preparing to leap down from the gap to engage him.

"You! Kill your companion!" Now, the way the preacher's Soul Power worked was simple in principle and horrifying in practice: He could reinforce his already silvered words with Soul Essence and force the target of those words to act, or be acted upon, by his command. The drawback of this frightening ability lay in the volatility of its backlash, as well as the sheer amount of essence certain commands could demand.

Any order that threatened the livelihood of a target, or went against their will, including any that ran vastly against their nature as a person, came at an enormous price. Therefore, the man usually only stuck with simple commands. Based on what the preacher believed he knew at that moment, commanding Alice to kill Ren should have been a perfectly viable option.

It didn't directly endanger her own soul, and since he was certain he recognised Alice as someone who had recently been working alongside the Cult of the Abyss, such an order should have cost him only a reasonable amount of essence. If not for two things. Alice's Soul Attribute [Oscillation], and the fact she was now a shepherded soul. And so this command didn't merely go against her will, it also threatened the very foundation of her existence.

Every last drop of the preacher's essence was drained away in an instant, immediately sending him into a state of essence overexpenditure, and yet even that still wasn't anywhere near enough to enforce the command. And so, right after speaking the command, Ren watched as the man suddenly keeled over and vomited a huge amount of blood onto the wet street. Blood began to seep from his eyes and ears as well, running down his cheeks and staining the collar of his thin robes.

Unsure of what exactly was happening, but not willing to let the opportunity slip past him, Ren scrambled back to his feet and, ignoring the pain wracking his body, approached the preacher. The gangly man's threadbare robes were now soaked through with blood and rain, clinging to his frail frame as he glared up at Ren with naked hatred.

"You don't know what you've made an enemy of, boy," he said, attempting to push himself up before Alice landed beside him and slammed him back into the ground.

"The Abyss won't forgive this transgression!" Ren looked down at the man who had almost just killed him.' Ending his life will bring me closer to saving Yumè.' Purposefully not putting much thought beyond how this would further his one and only goal, Ren raised the sword above his head before bringing it down just as he had thousands of times before.

The shadow blade bit deep into the preacher's neck, though it didn't quite sever the head from the neck, and the man's body crumpled onto the cobblestone with a wet splatter, his eyes still carrying the lingering echo of his hatred. His neck was cut, and his spine was severed. He was dead. Thunder rumbled overhead, and a quiet psychological barrier that was held together by innocence, naivety, and ignorance, snapped clean as Ren stared down at the dead human lying at his feet.'

It had to be done,'he justified to himself.' It was either me or him.' Alice eyed Ren curiously. She was in a terrible state, deadly burns covering much of her body and face, Marionette's Attire hanging off her in tatters. Blood dripped from her head and traced its way down across her doll-like features, and her arm still hung mangled and twisted, wrung out like a wet towel would be.

"Is Ren alright?" she asked softly.

"I—" he swallowed hard and took a deep breath, as the adrenaline began to wear off.

"I'm fine." Then he met her deep purple eyes and said, "Alice, come back." Her figure dissolved into countless white motes that flowed into his chest, pulled to rest and heal within his Soul Plane. With her gone, the sword in his hand scattered back into shadow as well. By then the preacher's Soul Core had formed as well, so Ren knelt down and retrieved it before staggering off, away from the ruined building and the bloody scene left in his wake. Back toward The Bumbling Magician.