Chương 40: The Raven and The Paintress

The snow ceased falling across the battlefield, reduced to a field of debris and mud. The group of agents fixed their gaze on their target: Malcolm Van Jir.

"How did you find me?" Lance murmured, leaning against the column Maliard had raised. He turned toward Lance and showed him the watch.

"Lucas tracked your position and passed it to Goghette. All your traces had vanished the moment you entered Grayson's apartment." Lance remained briefly stunned, but quickly recovered his composure.

"He protected me even in such a way… I will have to thank him." He thought, pulling the remains of his suit close, reduced now to a dirty mass of rags.

"Lance… Would you mind telling me what happened to you?" Maliard asked, setting himself on guard against the soldier. Jeanne shot him a pained glance before levelling her blade at the military man. Lance coughed, leaning back again against the column of packed earth.

"A very unfortunate encounter… Maliard, the answer is standing right in front of you." Maliard gave a brief nod, sizing up his opponent. The man's white skin was marked with scratches, yet no significant wound was visible beyond the one on his flank, similar to a violet mass.

"Information on the target? It could considerably improve our chances." He turned, waiting for a response from the boy.

"His power allows him to manipulate the end of things, whatever that means... And that includes Frequency. You cannot touch him, and if he touches you, it is over." This was his answer, delivered in a tremendously weary tone.

"How did you manage to wound him?" He asked, tightening the fastenings of his gauntlet. Jeanne nodded, raising the scythe above her flank.

"I don't think that you can do it." He murmured, pointing to the countless bloodstains across his body and face. The overload had stopped, slowing the spread of the cicatrices exponentially.

"Telling me how you made him bleed would be a considerably more useful answer." He growled, but understood quickly enough when he saw Lance gesturing at the black bracelet on his right wrist. Maliard cursed under his breath, biting his lip.

"You are saying the only way to wound him is through Lachesi?" Lance nodded, letting his arm rest against his legs. Maliard shook his head, tilting his neck slightly from side to side.

"Goghette… Do you think you can hold for some minutes?" He asked, and she simply nodded, keeping Malcolm in her sights. The man was waiting with a quiet, patient air.

"You could talk to me, you know. I did apologise." Maliard whispered, turning the other way. Lance grabbed him from behind, forcing him to bend.

"It is not that she does not wish to speak to you… She is very shy." An expression of realisation settled across the man's face, and he promptly decided to return to attention. He worked at his watch, pressing a rapid sequence of keys. The device trembled and went dark.

"Monica will arrive in around ten minutes. Under no circumstances are you to use the relic. That is an order." Maliard took a step forward toward Malcolm, the fabric at his back shifting in the wind.

"I imagine you are Maliard Turner? A pleasure to meet the Raven." He smiled, offering a mock bow. The dark gleam in his eyes made even Maliard's expression sour.

"And you are that disgusting terrorist called Malcolm Van Jir? Introductions are superfluous for someone like you." He pressed the ground hard beneath his feet, raising a thin trail of dust.

"You speak precisely as I expected. What a pity." He turned his attention now toward Jeanne, studying her from the ground up, more than once.

"You must be Jeanne Goghette? I would have given you a more similar appearance to my own… You do not strike me as a zealot." The expression did not change on her face, while the girl suddenly shifted her stance, sliding behind Lance and Maliard.

"Maliard… Lance… This man disgusts me quite enough…" She whispered, keeping the scythe firmly in position. Maliard nodded, taking another step.

"I imagine it would be foolish to ask why you possess this information, so I will ask you something else instead." The gems on Compulsion began to vibrate, following the rhythm of his breathing.

"What do you gain from all this?" He pointed to the destruction and ruin around them. Malcolm stopped, looked about, before returning to his smile.

"Ruin, destruction, suffering, and pain, simply that. There exist pleasures in this world for which it is worth longing, and the End is one of them." His empty, extinguished expression, contorted into an indubitably false smile, made his discourse all the more unsettling"Is destruction truly your only objective?" Maliard asked, clenching his fingers hard enough to make them tremble. The soldier now took a step forward, closing the distance. The entire atmosphere grew heavier.

"The term objective is merely another of the casualties of catastrophe. No objectives exist without an end, except the end itself. I prefer to regard the End as the greatest joy granted to this world since the dawn of creation." The gazes of both Maliard and Jeanne went dark. Silence fell between them.

"Now I understand why Lance hates you so much…" His left arm became luminous, wrapped in a clear light. Jeanne cut her palm, letting her paint run along the blade.

"You are fucked in the head!" He launched himself toward him, driving his fist into his face. Maliard's eyes widened as he felt all the energy and sensation in his fingers vanish.

"Is this the nature of his ability?" He launched a kick, tracing a mark through the air. A violent blade of wind struck Malcolm's shoulder, drawing blood. The soldier regarded his own blood flowing with a perplexed expression, then smiled.

"I see… You are a Hybride." Malcolm appeared behind him, pulling his arm back with an open palm. Maliard had no time to turn, watching the blow fire toward him." Does he have any information on me, or is he simply that good?" A moment before impact, the fist met a metallic surface. Malcolm smiled, pushing both the girl and Maliard away. Jeanne reset her scythe, repositioning herself behind her companion.

"You are strong… How fortunate to have you here this evening." He vanished from their sight again, reappearing above them. Between his hands, a black gleam, almost liquid" Schafft: Luft." All the air around them channelled itself into a thick invisible wall. Others appeared around him, imprisoning him completely. Malcolm smiled, resting his hand against one of the walls and studying the two. The black light grew more intense between his fingers, rippling, distorted by the wall of air." Val…"

The entire cage collapsed, opening a path for Malcolm. He launched himself at Maliard, seizing him by the throat and dragging him at full speed against the wall.

"What is this strength?" He tried to break free from his grip, but was simply hurled against one of the landslide's remains. Blood sprayed from his mouth upon impact.

"Do you understand the value of the end, now?" He appeared above him, holding the same viscous gleam in his hand. Maliard rose to his feet, a light decorating his body.

"I understand that you are simply a madman." He replied with a sharp smile, placing his arm before him, enveloped in a white radiance. Malcolm smiled, raising his finger along with the mire. The disc of mire began to rotate furiously.

"I doubt you will survive this…" He said, raising the vortex above his head. Without warning, a metallic gleam sliced through the air and struck him directly in the face." Azuur." The metal began spraying electrical discharges from its blade, exploding violently across Malcolm's face in a cloud of sparks.

"Excellent, Goghette!" Maliard exclaimed, concentrating the light onto the palm of his arm. All the earth around them became a mass of dark and tremendously sharp spires. His smile vanished quickly when he heard applause above him. Malcolm was perched along the precipice, clinging to the rock. He pointed a finger at Jeanne, smiling.

"Jeanne Goghette… Now I understand why the others consider you a problem." His smile shifted rapidly into a hollow, extinguished sneer.

"Would you mind if we had a little closer conversation?" His entire hand was enveloped in that dark miasma, one which the other two had by now learned to fear.

"GET BACK!" Lance cried, coughing blood in vain." Vonnis." Jeanne suddenly felt her body launched into the air, toward Malcolm, as though escaping from something. In barely an instant, the soldier drove his knuckles into her abdomen. The girl coughed, feeling her entire self go dark.

"This is the condemnation of the End, the inability to flee." He smiled, closing his hand around her throat. His fingers pressed steadily deeper into the pallid flesh"You do not scream? I expected you to be more fragile." Maliard remarked with something like admiration, his expression shifting the moment Jeanne wrapped her hands around his face. A sticky sensation slid along his flesh." Blank…" She launched herself from the wall using her scythe as a lever.

The paint at Malcolm's neck tightened, pulling him away with her. Jeanne gripped the cord, rotating with such force that she sent him hurtling downward at full speed, fracturing the ground. She glanced at Maliard and nodded, and he immediately smiled.

"Thank you, Jeanne…" A violent eruption struck the crater along with Malcolm. A dome of black rocks and snow enveloped the entire zone, followed by a sudden red gleam." Rood." A violent burst of flame ignited the cord around Jeanne's fingers, detonating ferociously inside the prison of rock. The temperature rose to the point of beginning to liquefy the material.

"We should gain a few minutes." He thought before feeling his chest burn terribly. Maliard looked down and noticed Malcolm's fingers driven through his flesh all the way to the base.

"I believe I made it clear to you that you cannot win." He whispered, sliding his bloodied fingers free. Five reddish holes remained on Maliard's skin. He shook the blood from his hand, preparing once more to condense the disc.

"Caught you." Maliard smiled, rising sharply. Compulsion trembled with a bluish light, almost black, almost granular. The blow struck Malcolm's face squarely, making him stagger. A rivulet of blood slid from his nose. Maliard wiped his gauntlet, gasping. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"Has he disrupted the flow? Interesting." Malcolm thought, preparing to raise the barrier again. A new cut appeared on his leg, followed by a sticky sensation. The white cord bound itself around him, tightening his arms against his body." That girl again…" He murmured as he was pulled with force toward her. The last thing he saw was Jeanne's leg striking his neck with violent force.

"Her strength is on par with Alpha… No, it surpasses it!" His body flew back into the forest. The barrier restored itself once more, and this time Malcolm began to feel the consequences of the overload.

"Keeping the barrier constantly raised demands all my concentration. Every time it falls, it feels as though my skull is splitting." He arrested his flight, sliding across the ground using the mire.

"What a delight… All their efforts converging toward my end." He smiled, accumulating a thin black filament on his index finger.

"All of it is futile, however. My death is not their conclusion, only a necessary passage. This is why they will not win." All the energy shot away, cleaving apart everything in its path.

"I would say we have done good work. Thank you, Goghette." Maliard moved toward Lance, but the expression on his companion's face froze him to the spot. Lance's face was screaming something at him, but in that moment, the only thing he managed to register was the black halo that severed his arm." Malcolm is..." His mind could not form a coherent thought. Everything behind him had been completely severed.

"MALIARD!" Jeanne screamed, rushing to him. A rush of blood stained her feet, mixing with the mire that was slowly devouring his shoulder.

"I did not sense that coming at all…" A sense of despair wrapped his body. He crouched, taking hold of his arm. The skin was beginning to dissolve, then the muscles, then the bone.

"What a disgusting ability." Jeanne ran close to both of them. Maliard stared at her for a moment. On that young face was painted an expression of pure terror.

"Please make some light. My ability is limited in the darkness." Jeanne bit her thumb, letting a thread of blood run. All the liquid quickly became a pale paint that took on a blinding yellow tone. It was almost as though she had lit a torch in her hand.

"So this is her ability? I had never seen it up close." Lance lingered on that light between the girl's slender fingers. Maliard nodded, thanking her.

"Hey, d-don't look so intensely... It's embarrassing." Jeanne murmured, glancing at him. The boy shook his head, fixing his gaze on the ominous aura coming from the woods." Hebt." A light cleansed Malcolm's mire completely, quickly forming a film roughly resembling a human limb in shape. Within a few seconds, Maliard's arm returned to its place, without any visible difference.

"How did you regenerate so quickly?!" Jeanne and Lance asked in unison, not even noticing they had spoken together. Maliard looked at them, momentarily shaken, then recovered his composure." Farbern modifies the sequence of Frequencies at the base of an object or phenomenon. I either create it, destroy it, or modify it slightly." He answered, running his hand along the newly formed arm.

"So it is not regeneration but more like… Reconstruction?" Maliard nodded at Lance's question and turned toward the forest. From it now emerged a figure far from human in appearance: a silhouette wrapped in black mire. Jeanne seemed almost to whimper at the sight.

"What are you talking about?" The man seized both Jeanne and Maliard from behind, lifting them into the air in front of Lance. Turner extended his arm toward Malcolm's face, trembling. He had simply vanished from their sights, like a phantom." Stornie…" Maliard was slammed to the ground and kicked away before he could even use his ability. He rolled across the earth, coughing blood and spittle. Jeanne remained gripped in his hold, a thin trickle of saliva beginning to slide from her lips.

She tightened her fingers around Malcolm's wrist, trembling with effort.

"Now I understand why Maica and Laure hate you… Your frequency is revolting. Are you even human?" He smiled, releasing his grip. The girl's body was launched upward by the soldier's rapid kick. It lasted only a moment, but for an instant, it felt as though her heart had stopped." Am I going to die?" Her mind raced as the ground got smaller and smaller in her eyes.

"Your end will benefit many." He smiled, seizing her by the shoulders. One of his hands grazed her neck, dripping with white liquid. A black halo enveloped her skin." Slachting." A black spark struck her face, enveloping it completely. Malcolm released his grip, losing his expression. Then the girl's legs coiled around his neck.

"That substance is considered organic? I must truly be unlucky today." A burst of flames struck his face, followed by a violent impact against the ground. With her full weight, Jeanne had sent him crashing into the earth below." Lichtblauw!" All the drops that had gathered on Malcolm's blade and body became heavy shards of ice. The avalanche struck the earth with force, sweeping away what remained of the trees. A faint icy mist spread on the mountain, freezing the grass.

Jeanne extended her hands, weaving a net from her own paint. Her body arrested its fall a few steps from the ground, descending gently onto the snow. She smiled before coughing and spitting. Lance let out a sigh of relief, smiling with exhaustion. Maliard, meanwhile, lay stretched on the ground, breathing in laboured gasps.

"Monica is on her way… Let us move toward the summit while he is incapacitated." Lance helped Maliard stagger to his feet, supporting him beneath the shoulder. Jeanne nodded, gathering what remained of her paint to form a long cord.

"I am glad you are both all right…" Lance murmured, coughing again. His eyes had grown duller, stripped of that yellowish gleam.

"Lance… Please do not speak…" Jeanne tried to reach a hand toward him but withdrew it immediately. Something left her feeling entirely repulsed by her own wish to stay close to him.

"Goghette... The cord." Maliard asked, extending his open palm toward her. She tried to pass it, but a violent blast behind them pulled their attention back. A glacial fog expanded across the sky, followed by a rain of dirty ice.

"You are strong…" Several black globes emerged around Malcolm's figure, reborn from the prison of frost. Everything around him began to crumble, fracture, and rot.

"But the end lies beyond strength… In this world, there is nothing worth living for." The spheres began to swirl, elongating into genuine oblong columns. Slowly, they sank into the ground, staining the air around Malcolm with a dark swamp.

"This is a farewell gift… The proliferation of the end, the final constant of this reality." All the emotions of the trio were washed away by a form of primordial terror, followed by an inexplicable resignation. Jeanne came close to releasing her frame, not realising she was weeping alongside the rest of her companions." Verstoring… Plague." The darkness at his feet resounded, shooting out like a wave. It stopped before reaching them, under Malcolm's confused gaze.

A pain struck Malcolm's eyes, which lost their vision immediately. In his blurred sight, he managed to make out the blood on his hands and across his chest.

"My flow is distorted to this degree?" In that kaleidoscope of lights and movement, he recognised Lance's silhouette. He smiled, understanding what had happened.

"So this is the true potential of your ability. I had not noticed it until that blow." He smiled, feeling the violet mark on his flank. He sighed, maintaining that sneer. With a snap of his fingers, he moved to their side.

"I have taken enough time…This night reaches its end." He pointed toward the summit of the precipice. It was only then that they noticed the mass of lightning in the sky and the encroaching black cloud.

"Lance… What is that?" Maliard asked, lingering on the incessant, frenzied gleams churning in the atmosphere. A dread greater than his physical torment overrode everything in Lance, who answered in a hollow, flat voice.

"The Demiurge … Is active." A flash struck the zone, scattering white flames with a greyish halo. Malcolm stood beyond the edge of the fire, smiling. His reflection, warped by the blaze, gave him an even more spectral aspect.

"Until next time… NOIR." He vanished from their sight the moment a second bolt of lightning severed the mountainside.

"JEANNE, PLEASE GET US UP THERE!" He implored in desperation, bowing his head. The girl nodded, binding the cord around Maliard with remarkable speed.

"What are you doing?" He asked before being lifted by the legs and hurled along the rock face. His cry was swallowed by the thunder of the sky, followed by a distant thud. Jeanne fixed Lance, smiling and raising her thumb. Lance looked from her to the climb ahead, stunned.

"I have never felt this weak in my entire life…" He murmured sorrowfully, gripping the rock and pulling himself up the mountain. That brief flash of surprise and disappointment was washed away by the thought of the Demiurge.

"Goghette, do that again and I will—" Jeanne ducked behind Lance, but the boy bolted away, running desperately toward the shaft of white light emanating from the great dome in the distance. Branches shattered at his step, followed by the thuds on the snow. Every muscle in his body was suffering desperately, and yet his body continued to move forward.

"Lance, what in the maiden is that?" Maliard barely managed to catch up with him, calling from behind his shoulders. They broke out of the forest, rushing up the incline. Then, without warning, a melody struck Lance's ears, and he fell to the ground.

"What is this… It hurts… My head is splitting." He groaned, pressing his hands hard against his temples. From a distance, the sound of a choir was slowly devouring the tissue of his mind. The words were incomprehensible, and yet Lance felt an absurd sense of familiarity within them. Maliard seized him by the arm, dragging him toward the dome. Jeanne followed behind, trembling faintly." I do not like this light…" She murmured, pulling her arms around herself like an embrace. The three reached the white-lit entrance.

Lance broke free from Maliard's grip and ran toward the great bulb of light at the base of the crater. A laugh rose from the lightning, growing more intense with each step. The boy's eyes filled with despair at the sight of the figure at the centre of the debris-strewn square.

"You came back… Lance." The scientist smiled, his face scored with blood. His coat was dirty with black dust, full of cuts and burns. Lance took a step forward, and behind him, Jeanne and Maliard, bewildered to the point of growing pallid.

"Grayson… I'm sorry." The boy murmured with a thread of voice, trying to reach his hand toward him. The scientist simply smiled, his lips pale and bloodied at once.

"For what? The time has finally come to sit at the banquet table of crimes… The sea's song has chosen me." The gleam in his eyes was far from the lucid brightness Lance had glimpsed the first time he saw him.

"I will reshape this reality… For her, and for you, my friend." A white flash severed the earth at his feet, followed by a wave of violet light. Lance tried to draw closer, but it seemed as though all the Frequency had concentrated around the scientist, forming a dancing abyss of numbers. Grayson fixed the enormous, churning morass inside the glass cylinder, smiling. A single tear ran down his face.

"I am the heir of the primordial force… I am… The Architect." He turned, his face covered in the violet cicatrices of the overload. Beneath that scored flesh, something resembling a white gleam was slowly beginning to force its way through. The pair at the edge stared at the figure with horror, but Lance Klint, in that moment, knew only the most complete despair.