Chương 54: CHAPTER 53 - Countdown

With every second, the arena of their confrontation decorated itself with new fractures and burns, as swarms of light and flame flew through the air.

"Strike him, Lance!" Maliard shouted, trapped in a cage of rock and mire, drawn tight around him by invisible forces. Before him, Grayson Dirac and Lance Klint stood only a few paces apart. A beam of light blocked his view, but the boy's shadow kept moving. A gust of air swept all three of them away, sending the scientist and Lance flying high into the sky. The veins on the boy's arm burst from the force of the blow, staining his face with black liquid. The golden gleam in his eyes began to mix with the blood.

"One more blow…" He seized his opponent's neck, driving his leg with force into his stomach. A jet of red shot from Grayson's mouth. He crashed to the ground, struggling to remain on his feet. He raised his head, catching sight of Lance's bloodshot eyes." Einbrand!" His entire body trembled as he hurled his fist forward, wrapped in a thin whitish film. Grayson had no time to react. Every option available to him became limited and futile.

"Finally…" His knuckles were about to make contact with his opponent when everything went dark again, vanishing entirely from his sight.

"Boy…" Before him appeared the same figure he had seen in the desert, this time dressed in black rags stained with several patches. Her face was sad, her lips contracted with grief. The voice did not come from her, but from behind Lance's shoulders.

"You must do more to feed us." It whispered in his ear. The tone of that voice carried something viscous and grim. His face tried to pull back, almost by reflex.

"For now this will suffice…" Both vanished, restoring the clearing and his opponent before him. The wind resumed flowing, and the scientist's pupils began to move again. The film of Frequency on his arm dissolved entirely as everything was enveloped in a haze as black as the night. Lance's arm vanished, and Lachesi returned as a bracelet under his shoulder. The wound sealed itself almost automatically, sending a river of dark, dense liquid spilling to the ground.

"Not now…" His vision grew clouded and dark, unable to distinguish the movements of the figure before him. His body began to move, drawn toward Grayson's palm. In an instant, a thin bluish light appeared on the arm. Lance could not react, taking the full impact directly to his side. Their forces collided and shattered, sending him flying across the clearing until he collided with the landslide between the mountains. In the mud and the remains of trees, he felt his breath weaken, and his throat begin to burn."

Lachesi has run dry?!" Maliard accelerated toward Grayson, seizing a pole that had emerged from the ground. Before he could even modify it, Grayson vanished.

"It does seem like it…" He had no time to turn before being crushed into the ground by the force of the blow. The earth collapsed, dragging all the debris scattered around them into the chasm. Grayson drew a breath, lingering on his ever-deepening cuts. His attention shifted immediately to the crater between the mountains, where Lance lay resting.

"I cannot breathe… It hurts terribly." A rivulet of blood escaped Lance's mouth, mixed with sweat and black ichor that had erupted from the veins on his face. A gust of wind raised the dust, and immediately the scientist appeared.

"Has your luck run out?" Grayson asked, drawing slowly toward him. Between his hands appeared a bluish point, surrounded by smoke of the same colour.

"I still need to…" Lance pressed his palms hard against the ground, lifting himself with what little energy remained to him. With a faint smile, he positioned himself before him, pointing his finger at his forehead.

"... Put a functioning brain back into your head!" At that provocation, the light in Grayson's eyes went dark, while Lance's smile grew steadily brighter. Grayson took a step forward, raising the blade composed of triangles and various shapes." Lachesi, I…" Grayson's hand fell rapidly, but stopped just short of touching Lance. Strange strands of whitish adhesive had formed around his body. He tried to force them away, but nothing could pull it free from his skin." Rood…"

The substance began to heat rapidly, exploding into a garment of deep flames. A cloud of sparks surrounded the scientist's figure, writhing within the fire. From deep in the undergrowth flew a heavy block of golden iron. The burning body was sent flying, driven by the force of the impact.

"I detest extending my calculations…" The flames vanished as Grayson and the figure that had emerged from the undergrowth exchanged a look. The girl bore down on him, cleaving the debris between them with lightning speed. Her scythe and his shapes collided, releasing a bluish mist.

"You are the girl who was with those two?" With an almost instantaneous gesture, Grayson lifted Jeanne's arms, exposing her stomach. The girl planted her feet on the ground, only to discover she was trapped.

"You arrived too late…" Grayson's hand vanished, such was its speed. Jeanne felt her organs nearly swell from the blow, restraining the instinct to vomit. Her scythe fell to the ground.

"My acceleration is limited, but in a space like this it is more than sufficient for a fatal blow." He pulled his arm from her flesh, letting her whitish blood flow free. Curious, he brought the substance close to his face to examine it.

"This is not blood... It looks like paint…" He murmured, bewildered, directly before Jeanne's body, which remained standing and still trembling." Grijs." Grayson's hand grew heavy, as though a block of iron had settled upon it. His entire centre of gravity was shaken, and he fell to the ground. Jeanne hurled herself toward him, her arm now also covered in a ferrous mass.

"Still alive?!" He tried to raise his guard, but Jeanne's blow passed directly through it, fracturing his wrist and the bones of his forearm. The impact was so powerful that Grayson could feel his own brain bouncing repeatedly inside his skull. Before he could still his tremors, a second blow struck his stomach, lifting him nearly off the ground. In that moment he was too shaken to use any of his abilities." Grijs!" All the blood gathered between her iron knuckles shot forward, as though it were a claw.

The liquid iron passed through Grayson's abdomen, tracing a reddish line from his side to his navel. His face was stained with sweat and astonishment. Jeanne seized him by the neck, lifting her weapon from the ground with the tip of her foot. In an instant, the iron of the scythe hovered above their heads. The air was cut. A myriad of iron fragments fell at their feet. Jeanne stared in bewilderment at the small disc that had just destroyed her weapon." Kneel…"

Jeanne fell to the ground, feeling her legs collapse in pain. She had no time to understand why it had become so heavy before Grayson struck her in the face. She fell into the dust, mixing blood and greyish sweat. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Had you arrived sooner…" He kicked her directly in the side, turning her gaze back toward the sky. With force, he seized her by the throat, lifting her until she was level with his face. Around his hand, still covered in blood from his own abdomen, a faint light began to appear.

"You would have been way worse than those two." He extended his palm toward her face when suddenly the blow flew off into the sky. A figure had appeared between the two, dripping with black liquid and blood.

"Still alive?!" Grayson released his grip on Jeanne, focusing on striking Lance. In a single exchange, three blows struck the scientist's body. The world seemed to dance and move chaotically before him, unable to process the constant, rapid shocks afflicting his body." LACHESI!" The veins expanded terribly, reaching all the way to carve into the flesh of his face and stain his eye with a black mark. This time the form of the gauntlet was smaller and thinner, as though it were a metallic film anchored to his arm.

"YOU REALLY DO NOT KNOW WHEN TO LET GO, DO YOU!?" Grayson seized his shoulder with force, slamming them both into the earth. Lance gritted his teeth, biting his own lips." Ein…" The scientist's hand flew off his wrist, falling among the cracks. The force returned to normal as a mass of energy began expanding before him. He tried to leap away, but something prevented him. He looked down, noticing his legs had become bound by strange blackish tentacles.

The moment he raised his gaze, he found Lance only a few fingers from his face." … brand!" The mass of Frequency shrank for an instant, detonating at full power immediately after. The blow made contact for a single moment." I can't stop it!" His body was swept away, along with all the debris around them. Lachesi fell to the ground, in a myriad of fragments. Between groans, Lance managed to look at his own arm. The bones had completely fractured, piercing through the skin.

The colour of his flesh had taken on a sickly, unnatural violet hue. The nails on the few fingers that remained intact had broken, releasing more black mire. A wave of nausea forced him to throw himself to the ground, pulling clumps of black mire from his lips by force. His eye began to weep, staining his palms with blood and violet ichor.

"Was this the price I had to pay?" He wiped his chin, raising himself against the tremors of his own flesh. Every centimetre of height he regained brought with it ever more copious sprays of blood from his arm.

"Lance!" A voice, broken between groans, called to him, carried along with the sound of the wind. Something seized his shoulders, turning him toward the source of that cry. Lance immediately recognised those bluish eyes, streaked with tears and dust. Her trembling lips, far from their typical red. The boy tried not to lower his gaze, yet it was impossible not to notice the gashes in her garments and the wounds still open.

"She must be exhausted too…" He thought sorrowfully, trying to look away from her. Suddenly the grip tightened further, bringing him back to face Jeanne.

"Your arm…" She slid her fingers across the grim violet film along his skin, pulling back immediately the moment she saw Lance's face crease with pain. Her face fell, perhaps from disgust, toward the ground.

"I would like to tell you it is nothing… But it hurts like hell!" Lance smiled, resting his hand on one of her fingers. The girl immediately raised her head, pressing her mouth shut faintly.

"We can postpone the apologies…" He rose to his feet, never letting go for a single second. With gentleness, he brought her back upright before him. Lance was still stained from head to toe with blood and mire, and yet he managed to keep his smile.

"For now I am just glad you are well." He announced, lowering his head immediately after. Jeanne looked at him for a moment before quickly seizing something from the ground. A shard of iron gleamed in her hand before she slid it across her own skin.

"What are you doing, Jeanne?!" Lance seized her hand, feeling the warmth of her blood dripping along his fingers. Jeanne remained impassive, slowly passing her damp fingers along Lance's distorted arm.

"What? Is the pain fading?" The white substance began flowing into his cuts, expanding beneath his skin with delicacy." Blank." Jeanne released her grip, tearing the whitish filaments still clinging to her nails. The blood on her skin stopped flowing, becoming a whitish paste.

"It is a remedy of Lucas's. I learned to make it for e-e-everyone." She answered, shaking her head in every direction. Lance smiled with joy, moving his arm faintly.

"Thank you so much, then…" He separated from Jeanne, turning toward the smoking rubble. Grayson re-emerged from the rock, his abdomen decorated with a violet mass. A small crack began forming across his right horn, highlighted by the gleams released with every breath.

"Dawn is coming…" Those words, carried by the wind, resounded across the plain. The scientist pointed behind himself, at something buried in the sand and the rubble. A blue flash lit the earth, forcing its way violently toward the sky.

"The Demiurge?!" Lance ground his teeth again, trying to get fully back to his feet.

"Throughout this entire confrontation, part of me has been focused on charging it. Now, at last, that energy can flow back into my body." At his feet flashed a series of lights of varying shapes. The gleams began flowing around him like small discs, illuminating his hollow, worn face.

"Is dawn truly so close?" Grayson turned sharply, finding himself engulfed in a wall of burning flames. Before Jeanne and Lance, a wave of sparks and fire developed, devouring the earth.

"That seems like more than enough time to finish this mission!" A figure emerged from one of the numerous craters across the surface, wrapped in a thin, clear mist. His face was covered in scratches and burns, yet the gleam of his greenish irises remained as bright as ever.

"Are you truly so incapable of dying, Maliard Turner?" Grayson cut the wall of flames, stamping firmly on the fire around his feet.

"Do you not think perhaps it is you who is incapable of doing a decent job? Besides being a liar, are you also a layabout?" With ease he gripped his own chin, working to release the tension in his neck. Grayson fixed him sternly, holding back the tremors afflicting his hands.

"MALIARD!" Jeanne exclaimed, meeting the man's smile to her own surprise.

"You must have worked hard too... I am glad. I will give out the compliments once you two are finished, however…" He seized a rock from the ground, gripping it firmly in his hand.

"Do you think adding another nonentity will change anything? You should have killed me before reducing yourselves to this state." The globes of light orbited around him, almost constructing a gleaming ring.

"The reactor will be fully active the moment the sun appears." Grayson took a step forward, extending his arms before him as though inviting the agent to face him. Maliard nodded, letting a faint sigh escape him.

"I could not say. Perhaps you are simply convincing yourself that it is so." Maliard gave a nod to Jeanne and Lance, who readied themselves to move.

"Unlike us…" He raised his hand above his head, smiling through the clear gleams of the sky. Grayson noticed that the stone between his fingers had vanished.

"YOU HAVE NO ONE TO DEVISE A PLAN WITH!" The stone he had gathered had been transformed into a cloud, now expanding across the entire island. Grayson's vision dissolved into nothing within that white mist. The only thing he could hear clearly were footsteps resounding around him. The night began to fade, yielding its place to the light that would illuminate the final act of the confrontation for the nation's fate.