CHAPTER 503

  ETERNITY IN A BLADE

  Ion charged madly, his roar akin to one of a thousand beasts, his spear dancing in the sunlight . He looked to have no care how many people were around him —— be it a hundred or a thousand —— as he charged well past the line of the skirmish, and jostled his way into the heart of the enemy’s vanguard .

  He was followed there by only nine others who surrounded his flanks, barely hanging on while he commenced the carnage of a lifetime . Like a spitfire, he began throwing spears that reappeared back in his hand a mere moment later, all around him, boring holes through countless bodies in the process . His Will manifested into a gold-maned winged-lion behind him that swatted at the sides with massive claws, cracking the souls of anyone who met them directly .

  Coated in a thick sheen of putrid green, he danced and hollered about like a firefly, swinging, thrusting, and slicing without a break . His armor, well beyond the point of simply staining, had over a hundred cracks but was yet to break wholly, somehow held together through its will alone .

  The grandness of his manner imposed terror on those who faced him, so much so that he was managing to hold the steady line this deep in and prevent reinforcements from going to the line of the skirmish, instead relayed over toward him . He fought with all the fervor he had in his blood, ignoring his injuries, the draught of Qi in his veins and meridians, the sheer tiredness that his mind was enveloped in .

  He flashed to the side, thrusting the spear that elongated right after into a straight fireline, boring a tunnel through the spacetime, warping it around itself and causing over two hundred soldiers to get sucked into the current, disintegrated in the storm . Stepping into his pivot foot, he spun and heaved the spear back over his head, sticking it into the earth and using it as a propeller to bolt himself over to the other side, stirring along the winds of death .

  Just as he was about to cleave open another set of skulls, a dark-jetted blade met his spear and stopped him . His mind finally jolted back into consciousness as he warily backed away, eyeing the newcomer for a moment before realizing who it was —— Erebus, Bearer of the Dark . The man was clad entirely in black, a cloak and a tightly-wound mask covering his face save for the pair of abyss-drawing eyes .

  It took Ion a moment to register another figure homing in onto him —— he couldn’t see it, as it didn’t exist, set somewhere in the limbo between the life and death . He drew his spear back and got into a half-bent stance, holding the shaft with both his hands, putting his strength onto his left leg which was drawn a few paces back, ready to pivot to any angle an attack might come from .

  "You’re a long way from home," Erebus said, flickering the sword as he took a step forward toward Ion . "Young General . "

  "You’re even further," Ion grinned, standing his ground . "Though, I suppose, anyone with half a brain would prefer this scenery to be their resting place . I commend you for it, and we certainly welcome you . "

  "Look around . " Erebus said, taking another step forward . "Do you really think you’re winning?"

  "Always," Ion replied simply, the gleam in his eyes sharpening . "In the end, we’ll sing in the Evermore . Reborn into infinity . I’d say that’s well worth it . "

  "You bear the legacies of desolation and destruction," Erebus said, lifting his sword over the black-belted shoulder pad adorned with concentric spikes, seven in total . "Neither Evermore nor the Rebirth awaits you . Just the depressing Nothingness of the void . "

  " . . . well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out, no?" Ion cracked a smile taking a deep breath . "Come, traitors of your Maker . I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long, long time . "

  **

  A shadow made up entirely of liquid-like jolts slithered along the bed of the earth like a snake, melding into it, before bursting out in a swift, violent motion and striking with a dagger in-between the binds of the plate leggings . Shouts around abound as it blazed back, digging into the earth and splintering into blurred clones that backed away in a cone .

  Arts of the light and dark landed right after, forming a cracking web of lines as Eyrine shuffled her aim from the ground to her left, across a splintered set of rocks, unleashing a massive arrow of light .

  Lucky gritted her teeth as she bent backward unnaturally, so much so that she could feel her spine crack slightly, while she swatted her daggers above her chest, barely managing to deflect the arrow . Even still, the sheer remnant energy belted against her chest, caving her lungs in and causing her to spit out a mouthful of blood while being cannoned into the earth, rolling through the thick trees and forming a boulder-shaped road by her body .

  Bloodied, dirtied and muddied, she immediately heaved onto her feet, ignoring the pain, her disheveled hair plastered by blood against her angered face . Channeling Qi as quickly as she could, she molded back into the shadows, darting around the razed trees and boulders and through the rising storm of dust . Her figure vanished from the sights of those who stood opposite of her, each and every person nimbly pulling back into a tight circle with Eyrine and Huruk safely tucked in at the center .

  A shift in space to her left alarmed Eyrine as she pulled her arm over Huruk and flung him behind her; just a breath later, a set of over a thousand fingernail-thin needles burst out, coated in an acidic liquid, toward them . She flung her bow to the floor and crossed her arms across her chest, channeling Qi into a makeshift screen of protection . Before it was broken through, the two were dragged sideways, over a dozen men faced with a rain of poison that felled each and every one of them by the end .

  Lucky appeared on the outside, behind a small shrubbery to their left; because she was tying them up, the fight was beginning to stabilize . However, both knew it was just temporary; she was growing tired, low on reserves, and the entanglement would cease soon enough .

  "An admirable effort," Eyrine spoke, meeting Lucky’s thorny gaze . "Yet, just short of a success . "

  " . . . if there’s one thing you lot are good at, it’s surviving like fuckin’ cockroaches . Unless we shove your heads onto spikes, you always seem to find a way, some fuckin’ hole to escape . "

  "Are you saying you won’t try and escape?" Eyrine asked, smiling faintly .

  "Why would I want to escape?" Lucky smiled back, bringing up her daggers, flinging them over her fingers casually . "You’ve had a decade to spy on us, to set up a group of usurpers that had us so fucked we nearly lost before the actual battle even began . . . yet you seem to have been rather indignant over not learning a single goddamn thing about us . "

  "Oh, we know enough . You’re all quite the suckers for noble deaths," Huruk joined the conversation, at last, pulling Lucky’s eyes from Eyrine . "Unsurprising, considering who you obey . "

  " . . . oh, fuck off," Lucky rolled her eyes at him . "What balls do you have to speak to me, you fuckin’ worm? Stop hiding like a bitch that you are and step out for a second here, and see whether I’d enjoy a noble death or carving your eyes out and shoving them so far up your ass you’ll be seeing your shit ’till the end of eternity . "

  " . . . funny, your tongue is even sharper than your blades," Huruk chuckled, seemingly unbothered . "Though, I suppose, it runs in the family . Let’s finish this up; we have to proceed to the next course . "

  "Very well . " Eyrine nodded, picking up her bow off the ground . "You should have accepted my offer, little swan . Now . . . now you’ll have to die . "

  "Eh," Lucky shrugged, beginning to mold back into the shadows . "We all die one day . At the very least, I’ll ensure both of you accompany me so I have someone to make fun of in the dull, boring eternity . "

  The battle resumed, with Lucky darting around as quickly as she could, occasionally trying to strike at the weakest link in the full-circle defense, occasionally throwing daggers from afar, and, most often, simply dodging the relentless onslaught of arrows Eyrine was firing .

  The woman seemed to have inexhaustible reserves of Qi, Lucky mused as she barely managed to dodge another one; yet, before the arrow’s hit even registered with the earth, another one followed right after, bolting straight through Lucky’s left arm, shaving it cleanly off her body . She stumbled with a cry and rolled to the side, hitting a tree, as blood began to gush out of her massive wound .

  She instinctively dropped the dagger from her right hand and pooled it over her wound, yet the bleeding hardly ceased . She was tired . So tired . Every bone in her body wept and creaked, unwilling to move . Her muscles sloped over them like kids having just thrown a tantrum, lying there motionless . She barely kept her eyes open, watching Eyrine walk out of the circle and toward her, stopping good ten meters in front of Lucky . Ah, the latter chuckled bitterly inward . She’s not an idiot, I guess .

  " . . . the end of line . " Eyrine said . "Is it as noble as you imagined it’d be?"

  " . . . ain’t no nobility in death," Lucky said, coughing out some blood, feeling somewhat better afterward . "I failed, and thus I die . If he could, I imagine he’d drag me out of my grave just to give me a lecture . Ha ha ha . . . "

  " . . . don’t worry too much," Eyrine said . "He’ll join you soon enough . Then, he can give you as many lectures as he wants . "

  " . . . ha ha ha," Lucky laughed once more, meeting Eyrine’s eyes squarely . "You can’t kill ’im, lass . Not you, not those you know, not those yet to be known . Short of him for some reason deciding to shove a blade through his heart, he can’t be killed . I do, however, invite you to try . I sure hope the afterlife is real, just so I can witness that blunder . Oh boy, I might piss myself laughing . "

  " . . . we’ll see about that . " Eyrine said, lifting her bow up, aiming it at Lucky . The latter closed her eyes, lowering her head, her heart at peace . She was the last remnant of his first failure; perhaps, with her gone, something inside him might finally push him over the line, absolving him of the darkest memories . Almost sixty years, she thought . Not bad for a Yondur brat everyone thought would never make it in life . . .

  "DON’T YOU DARE!!!!" Lucky’s eyes jolted open, her heart stirred, as the melodic voice, one full of anger and fury she had never heard in it before, tricked into her ears .

  Just as she opened her eyes, a blinding flash of light drowned out the world, burning through the membrane of reality, of spacetime, crashing directly in front of Lucky, turning the entire landscape around, for nearly two miles across, save for that small patch beneath a tree, into absolute inferno of death . Nothing —— absolutely nothing but the burning carnage of blood and gore remained after the fact, the singular blade the size of a massive building stuck at the center, alight in resplendent gold .

  Ally, clad in brilliant armor of gold and silver, her sun-beamed hair fluttering madly in the violent winds, stood with her back to the carnage, the pair of teary eyes staring into Lucky’s . Her thin lips quivered as she bit the lower one, crouching down in front of Lucky and tenderly placing her hand on the cheek, caressing it as though she was touching glass .

  Something inside Lucky broke down as the corners of her eyes grew wet, her entire body shuddering for a moment; she’d forgotten, so haplessly, that her fight was no longer just for him . She’d forgotten the light that had breathed life back into her, re-anewed her when only empty desolation loomed overhead . She’d made peace with death too quickly, too easily, causing her heart to burn and churn in shame .

  " . . . I’m in time . . . thank the gods I’ve arrived in time . . . " Alison muttered in a cracking tone, leaning closer, hugging Lucky and bathing her in a brilliant glow, causing the latter’s wounds to close up one after another at speeds that even the rarest pills couldn’t match; within a matter of seconds, her missing arm regrew as though it was never cleaved cleanly off . "You’re fine . . . you’re fine . . . " she mumbled repeatedly into Lucky’s ears as the latter pulled the few strings of strength she had remaining in her to wrap her arms back around the woman that had just saved her life .

  In the aftermath of bloodbath within which over eight thousand souls were felled in a single flash of light that no one could reconcile or explain, the two sat underneath a tree surrounded by a landscape so torn it was unrecognizable . They sat, embraced, oblivious to the world around them, bathed in a warm, golden glow of the inward sun . The eternity was brushed alive at that moment, sketched into reality; why am I fighting? Lucky thought as she felt Alison’s body shivering . Why was she fighting? For glory? Riches? Renown? For Lino? For Hannah? For the Empire? No, she realized . Her motives, in her heart of hearts, were far more selfish . She was fighting for this moment —— so that it may spill over like ink onto the canvas, far off into eternity .