Chương 124: CHAPTER 121 - Convulsing Swamp

Wrapped in the storm of slashes, the warrior and the deformed knight danced, missing each other's bodies by mere moments. Where the sword was hurled, so the void formed, once occupied by the adversary. The earth became witness to their steps, fixed among the ruins and intent on multiplying with every gush. A golden light moved through the greenish filaments, stirring as it reaped them one by one. The two separated, finding themselves a couple of meters apart from each other.

Hoku cleaned the blade completely, splattering the warm liquid among the rubble.

"Move aside, foreigner. I have no wrong to make amends for against you." Roman spoke without opening his mouth, now submerged by the thick layer of tendrils composing his helm.

"I see you can understand. Why don't we stop for an instant?" Roman stamped his armored foot against the rock, making the ruins behind him sink.

"By what impulse of madness should I listen to you?" Hoku nodded, kneeling with his shoulder pressed into the ground. His half-closed gaze rested on the man before him, with a faint smile.

"I don't intend to cut what I don't know. This duel of ours will inevitably end with the defeat of one of the two, but I find no joy or honor in unsheathing a blade without a soul to uphold it." Roman raised his arm, knotting the filaments as if he wanted to form a whip. He stopped only when he saw a massive shadow behind him, so heavy that he almost instinctively felt himself collapse. He did as requested, raising an armchair of concrete and iron, amalgamated and bound by the same substance that now composed him.

"Hypocritical words, for one who emanates such a massive homicidal instinct." He took his seat without taking the locks of his helm off the young Sai.

"You're the second member of Changeant I've faced. Laure De La Croix was the first." He smiled, crossing his legs.

"Yet, I perceive in you a very specific and directed hatred. Would you gratify this curiosity of mine?" Roman rested his chin on his fist, now looking toward the horizon where Lautre had vanished.

"I must avenge a companion of mine. I cannot allow her death to remain without meaning." Sai nodded, this time pointing his finger at him.

"I must rebut, because your hatred doesn't arise from such a recent death. At most, it has expanded." Roman gripped the armrests of the concrete armchair, leaning forward.

"Moreover, you too have torn away lives dear to us. Neither faction can justify its own wickedness by leveraging the lives torn away. If we came to that, we would have to count, reducing lives to mere statistics." He mirrored himself in the reflection of the gleaming blade, as if it repelled any trace of filth trying to besiege it.

"Boy, your words are authentic, but this is a truth that everyone recognizes, yet no one can put into practice. The suffering of others builds conscience, and our conscience leads us to suffer. This entire system is concocted to keep the dominance of this archipelago's predators firm. Those who do not see and do not feel will never see their beliefs stained." The air grew tense as the tendrils stirred beneath the iron bars.

"Surely that's true. This world is rich in corruption, planned by the same system that sees life as mere numbers inked on documents. As long as this violence in thought exists, hatred will continue to overflow into our reality." Roman nodded, returning upright.

"Are you perhaps asking me to forgive and accept death? I would have wanted to, but there is nothing that irritates me more than listening to a decent man speak with such elation about himself." The two remained in silence, staring at each other while the wind swept the dust.

"My name, Hoku Sai, is a false one I gave myself when I fled my land. In truth, my father was called Masahide Bashō, and I should have inherited his name." Roman seemed to stare at him while the young man silently fixed his gaze on the ruins behind him.

"He too was a NOIR agent, from what I know, one of the few permitted to operate abroad. He tried to improve the situation of Sol, by then ostracized because of a phantom plague." A weak laugh escaped his lips as he returned to looking at his adversary.

"The truth is that Sol was a territory abandoned after the war because they knew the Lambdite there was too pure and almost unusable at the time. They abandoned the citizens to Hel and pollution after years of trade routes. Ironic, no?" Hoku gave another caress to the sword, almost reflexively.

"My father met Lucas, who helped him understand his abilities, and the relic born from one of the massive Lambdite monoliths that tear through the horizon of my land. I'm truly grateful to him, yet I can't help but think about how different our life would have been." Roman rested his fist on his cheek, relaxing his legs.

"Is it perhaps resentment that you feel?" Hoku sighed, raising his shoulders.

"I have neither interest nor time to reflect on it. Besides, even if I hated Lucas, on what basis could I admit that my life would have been better?" Roman nodded.

"In the end, my father died, killed by a man chosen by a relic. He should have died. After all, it's almost impossible for a human being to wield a pure relic without being devoured by Hel, yet he succeeded. Perhaps he was already a demon when he grasped that scarlet hilt." The sword on his shoulders, massive with its guard decorated by various intertwined flowers, seemed almost to vibrate.

"I was hidden. I saw the clash. A matter of a few moments." Hoku closed his eyes for an instant, immersing himself in that landscape where the grass was no longer green, and the venous contents had poured into the stream. The depth of the cut that grew as his father's torso slid away, severed from the spine.

"Only summer grass remains in that place now." Finally, he rose, unsheathing the weapon again. For a single instant, his fingers started to tremble.

"In the end, my father was like all of us. A man who died in the trade after taking who knows how many lives."

"Hoku Sai… What value does this story have in this conversation?" The armchair vanished, and Roman's voice rasped the air.

"I too am the victim of a tragedy, just like you. That elevates neither you nor me, and it grants us no particular right." The golden blade cut the air just by moving. A vein just above Hoku's eyebrows twitched.

"It's like watching waves. Sometimes they will stir sadness because they are slaves to the wind. Other times their ferocity will amaze you, and still other times you will want to become thunderous like them. Tragedy doesn't improve people. It changes them, and every tragedy is but a drop ready to slide from the branch under which you seek shelter." Roman burst out laughing, applauding him weakly.

"Then every man must be made to murder and be murdered! To supply the furnaces of injustice, one must be just." Hoku looked him straight in the dark visor, cut clean through the helm with his gaze, and smiled.

"I only want to avenge Maica."

"And I desire that my friends see another day." Having said this, the two nodded and shouldered their weapons. The very space they occupied seemed to annul itself as a violent wave tore the air at the clash of blades. The golden glow and the oily darkness of Dush's filaments collided, filling the region with an unbearable screech. Dozens of sharp tentacles opened the earth, each ending in a spectral figure armed with various tools." Dush, Pokhod."

All those shadows hurled themselves at Hoku, carrying him along with them like a flood. His skin burned, and the more he cut, the more they multiplied and clung to him. Soon that mass transformed into a gigantic march of bodies and slime, ferociously crossing the ruins.

"Must I already use it?" Hoku freed his hand from the pulp, making it fall edge-first with violence. The black tide was sliced as if separated by an invisible thread. Instantly, he sheathed the blade in the hole." Kezuru, Shingon (真言宗)!" The blade emerged with such rapidity and force from its nest that it almost seemed to displace the surrounding air, though to Roman's eyes, this was exactly what happened.

Like two storm clouds, both claiming their place in the sky, brawling in the gray and mixing, so too happened to the ground, which became almost fluid as it followed the slash. The tide was annihilated, leaving in its place a wide furrow greased with steaming slime. Hoku now stared at him, intent on filing the blade that was his arm. On his shoulders, appendages sprouted. Not wings, but multiple arms armed with various farming tools.

From each of those spectral limbs poured streams of dense putridity, releasing greenish vapors on contact with the ashen ground. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Laure told me you were strong, but by her standards, that only meant you entertained her." Roman's voice now appeared muffled, distorted by the fluid slowly corroding his veins.

"The woman who targeted Lance Klint at Arden Ring? She was decidedly strong, though she was holding back." He cleaned the blade, splattering the liquid away. Roman moved to the side as the ground at his feet was minced.

"I believe you were holding back too, then. Am I wrong?" Hoku nodded, also shifting his torso slightly backward to avoid the lance of black bones that had manifested just above him.

"What sense was there in overexerting myself when I had companions and the risk of exhausting all my strength before the end?" The two advanced toward each other, dodging each other's blows. They found themselves face to face, with Roman staring at him from the height of his new form. Behind him, the ground had been torn into hundreds of small cubes, accumulated in a crater. Hoku, on the other hand, stared at him with his fingers pressed against the tsuba of the sword.

Behind him, a sea of various weapons composed of bones decorated the horizon.

"To our convictions!" Roman mimed a chalice of wine while Hoku nodded. In an instant, the air broke, roaring with inanimate vigor as weapons and slime multiplied across the suspended islet. It took less than a blink for every floating slab to be reduced to shreds, projecting geometric patches of shadow. Their sinuous figures moved through the air and among the ruins, devastating the landscape. One of them was catapulted inside the remains of a large building, perhaps offices.

Almost immediately, enormous globules of slime fell from the sky like meteors, transforming into a colossus of bone. The beasts began stabbing the earth with their tools, trying to tear it apart and disembowel it deep down. A single golden glow crossed the dust, and then silence. The figures were torn apart as a storm of white cuts dismembered anything around them." Kezuru, Tendai (天台宗)."

Immediately, Roman and Hoku clashed again in the air, pushing against each other's blades as the surrounding space seemed almost to boil. A pure white glow extended from the edge of his sword, opposed to the dark shadows projected by the old man's axe.

"So you have more tricks!" Roman kicked him violently, making him crash against a swarm of shredded rocks. Hoku immediately raised his gaze, launching himself again. Beyond the limits of sound, the two exchanged slashes. His blade dangerously approached the neck, stretched to the maximum from the shoulder, while Roman's axe approached to impact his forehead. The appendages on his back and the scabbard clashed in unison against the respective attacks.

The ground collapsed under the weight, sending both toward the boundary of the singularity. The two plummeted toward the distant sea, feeling the chill of the atmosphere caress their skin. They stood upright like candles, directly facing each other. Around them, an ellipse of debris swarmed, chasing them in the fall.

"What do you feel at this moment?" Hoku swung the slash, tearing the air and rocks. Roman stopped it with his sharp hand, wrapped in bones and lianas.

"Hatred, pain, regrets…" He quickly countered the blade, clashing with it.

"... But in this moment I have a certain, vulgar elation." Roman violently kicked him away. The filaments bound to Hoku, forming a viscous, toxic grip. The light prevented his skin from being corroded, but this gave Roman enough time to draw him toward himself." Dush, Molotok!" The tentacles and the viscous matter took less than an instant to synthesize into a gigantic skeletal hand, with knuckles swollen and squared as if they were hammer heads.

"How the hell does he still have intact cores?!" Hoku raised the blade, bringing it to his chest an instant before the blow struck him. A white halo crossed that bony wrist, followed by the violent cry of torn air. His body crossed the rock, with the sword still pressed to his chest as his lungs crushed and regenerated simultaneously. He shattered the ground of the region, now split in two. Roman rested below, now supported by the wings of two shadows sprung from his back.

For an instant, as he stared at the sun peeking through the gigantic rift, his grayish eye regained color.

"You're strong, boy, but our salon must end here." The two shadows began to split, constantly dividing until they formed a lattice of bones, figures, vestments, slime, and various jumbles of tools. It became so massive as to gird the entire region of Icarus, slowly bending upon itself. The furious tides invaded every crevice of the scorched earth, carrying away iron and ruins. Soon everything became one with the incandescent mass of grim green. Roman smiled, slowly closing his fingers." Dush… Korona."

The entire region was ground, destroyed, and crushed by the screaming mass of shadows with a terrible lament. Soon the sky cleared, freeing the sun, which was now accompanied by a few scattered islets covered in greenish filaments.

"Dear… When do you think you'll manage to come home?" A memory lacerated his already fragmented head as soon as he set foot on the damp rock. Roman's face, wrapped in the darkness of the dark helm, revealed a smile.

"Is this what Ascan meant when he told me it wouldn't be a pleasant death?" A weak laugh escaped from the perforations of the helm as his thoughts wandered over that voice.

"I give you my greatest compliments, boy…" Far from him, submerged by the slime and rocks, a golden glow crossed the air, illuminated by the pale sun. Hoku Sai held the blade, embedded in the earth and without even the shadow of a trace of filth. His arm was martyred, crossed by dozens of white, luminous gashes reaching the fat. He bent over the hilt, vomiting grainy blood. It covered the blade but seemed not to stain. He raised his luminous pupils, vanishing from Roman's sight.

"I could have destroyed the archipelago with that Frequency, you know? It surprises me that you're still capable of wielding a relic." His arm had mutated into a colossal axe, with a ruined and irregular edge. Fragments of golden and greenish energy died at their feet. Hoku ground his teeth, gripping the weapon firmly.

"You're strong…" He vanished along with his own Frequency. Roman scythed the air, tearing the clouds above. The young man was already behind him, with the tip of the blade aimed where the shoulder blades once were. The creature before him inverted itself, transferring its arms to its back. Again the weapons clashed, but he vanished again. Roman could no longer track him as his figure appeared for a single instant. One of the slashes opened his flank, letting violet blood gush.

"But by now the man known as Roman is dead." He panted as the white, irregular scars began to expand along the flesh of his forearm, shattering it.

"It's true. By now my consciousness is no longer fragmented, but I don't feel it belongs to me either. I'm simply talking to myself, to an imaginary audience in a grim office." The flesh regenerated, sealing itself until that thick armor covered it again.

"Now only death awaits me… In this glimmer of lucidity." Hoku nodded, bringing the blade to his mouth. A weak, fleeting condensation escaped his lips as he raised the iron above his head, edge turned to the sky. In his eyes flashed for a brief moment a bolt of pure white light, like the reflection of a snowflake.

"Finally, you're honest with your intentions… See that you don't die quickly." From Roman's arm erupted axes, picks, pitchforks, and sickles, oscillating through the air in concentric motions to tear anything apart. The boy simply rotated his flank, cutting the air and everything separating him from his target. For kilometers behind Roman, the rocks became crumbs. In the air hovered fragments of tendrils, contorted into a new form resembling phalanges.

A snap of fingers echoed through the ghostly land, followed by a brutal rain of dark, oily bones. Hoku found himself in the middle, swinging the sword so fast as to leave only glimpses of golden light. Faster and faster the shards fell, and the faster he cut them, simultaneously avoiding the shadows trying to pierce him from behind.

"It ends here…" As he swung a slash, he felt himself brutally grabbed by the neck. The sky cleared, and the bombardment ceased; his vision stained with his own blood and the air left his lungs. His back impacted the rock, immediately being impaled by what remained of the fallen bones. Roman, from above him, held high a mallet grown like a pustule on his hand." Dush …" From the hand gripping his trachea, a humerus extended like a piston, hurling Hoku again toward the abyss of the singularity.

"What? Another accumulation of that magnitude?" From Roman's mallet, a gigantic greenish mass formed higher than the sky, glimpsed by every single combatant engaged at Icarus. A beast with slimy bodies serving as scales and a gigantic mouth, divided into four like a flower and decorated with thousands of rows of black teeth and pervaded by a dense halo of greenish smoke." Krokodil!"

The beast vanished, then erupted downward, closing its jaws with such vigor as to make it seem Icarus had just been struck by a colossal ordnance. The islands cracked, and that force swept away the buildings; even the smoke and shadows on the horizon seemed to dissipate. Just as it had been created, so it vanished. Roman brought both arms back to his sides, hearing in his memory a laugh and the squalid sound of snot being drawn up from a nose.

His mouth was now clamped by the threads, like the rest of his organs, after all.

"Anna…" That sigh was accompanied by the tense air, as if death had caressed it. He turned, noticing that now his arm dangled from his shoulder, tied by a stubborn tendril. Before him, a single golden glimmer." Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra …" A halo composed of flakes and white shards hovered above Hoku's head. The skin on his chest seemed to have stretched unnaturally beyond the limits of elasticity. Roman noticed the small hole where his chest was.

His gaze returned to the severed arm, deciding to tear it off and throw it at the boy's feet.

"Is this your ultimate technique?" Roman moved to raise his hand when it too fell to the ground. Hoku was now behind him, in the same position as before.

"It's not faster… Space itself has been shortened." He vanished again, and this time their weapons clashed again while a strange sizzling occupied the earlier silence.

"In the end, we all carry a piece of someone else… Isn't that right, warrior?" Hoku didn't respond, continuing to press slashes without uttering a reply.

"And we all get pierced by that fragment..." Their faces grew nearer and nearer to each other, while the air and the ground kept on being minced. The two blades, embraced by the still air of Icarus, continued to dance, awaiting the moment when the grip on one of them would grow faint.