Chapter 19: Dream against Calamity

  Lin's hands had stopped shaking, just slightly. Not because she was calm. But because they had gone numb due to extraction from the ritual. The coldness spread more in her hand as she tried to keep the door hidden.

  Lin's eyes looked at Mo Fei blind, bleeding, his back pressed against the wall. Han had covered Mo Fei’s eyes with a cloth used with medicines to stop the bleeding, but a few drops of blood still fell. Elara puts the bitter paste of the roots in the hand of Han to keep the blood in check.

  With a groan, Lin whispered, “I can't hold this forever,” Her voice was barely audible, but it was heard by Mo Fei. Or to say, it had been felt by Mo Fei his ‘Apprentice's eyes’ connected the threads. His eyes closed, yet he saw the outlines of the thread with very odd lines like a sickness. Then the scar on her hand spread further.

  Mo Fei didn't turn, he said while leaning, his eyes closed.

  “Then don't hold it. Let it fall if you can't.”

  “If I let it fall, then the Overseer-”

  “It doesn't matter, we can't keep hiding. Just wait for others, then let it fall.” Mo Fei's voice was quiet, hollow. “So stop hiding that.” That's something Mo Fei couldn't figure out, but there was something awkward about the scar.

  Lin stared at him. The blind kid, trying to teach her how to see.

  Outside the cold waiting, Jian Yue couldn't feel his body anymore. Maybe that was kind of a sight too where the more the fight was going on the more he was losing himself.

  The numbness kept spreading from his thigh to his spine, and spine to thoughts. But giving up meant getting devoured. He had to fight with his blade that was still moving, still cutting arrows from shadow, but the difference was he couldn't feel himself doing it. It was an instinct, not a consciousness.

  He was a puppet. Who was controlled by the cruel fate of survival. He couldn't count anymore… Thirty-seven? He had tried to count, but now the numbers were no longer a straight image, instead a blurry mess. How many arrows had he cut? No, how many had hit was the concern.

  The Xul-Thal watched, counted, and it waited.

  “Thirty-seven,” it murmured. “You missed three that time. What's wrong? Why slow now? Can't you feel the pain.”

  Jian Yue looked down. Three arrows in his chest that he hadn't noticed. He couldn't feel them. Couldn't feel anything. He pulled them out with a dull response.

  Xul-Thal spoke through the world again.

  “What's the point? These wounds, once I'm gone, will become real.”

  “That kid…” ‘It’ murmured. “He is asking for help from a stranger, such a waste and hopeful.”

  Jian Yue's blade wavered; he must have realized who the stranger could be.

  “You-”

  “I know everything, so I told you.”

  Its one eye reached Jian Yue.

  “Oh, how I love eating strong spirits.” Jian Yue slashed it down and then lunged at it again. Jian Yue's blade found the Xul-Thal's core. He felt nothing, not the impact, not even the resistance, or even the wet give of flesh.

  But Xul-Thal screamed even though it felt nothing, almost as if it was to motivate just for a while to let him lose more. And in that scream, Jian Yue heard something: Zhuo's name, spoken by a monster that had never known mercy.

  His instinct turned his head toward the Cathedral. At this moment, the numbness didn't matter anymore. It was taking too long.

  Deeper in the snow outside the Cathedral of Flesh, snowfall started slowly. With the fall of snowflakes, the pressure of the perfume weighed. Zhuo looked at the soft melodic voice and from deep within the cave a man came out.

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  “What a sorrowful sight.” A grin settled up on the figure’s face. Xue Lan, Zhuo had never met him before. Enemy or ally, he had no clue.

  The scent of the perfume reached Kholkis's nose. Insufferable scent for its bloodthirsty sense.

  The Kholkis show hesitation under the influence of the perfume, the perfume burned its senses. Not because it was influenced by ‘Authority’ but because the scent didn't belong in its world. Didn't belong where a beast would hunt.

  “I had suspected it… Today is the night of the 4th stage blood moon.” His face held the grin longer as his eyes first stared at Zhuo and then at Kholkis's leg. “Interesting day… The ‘Original eye’ of an ‘Omniscient Xul-Thal’.” He chuckled softly in amusement and squinted his eyes as if trying to see through Zhuo.

  “You, child. You have been hunting for it, haven't you? Tell me, where is this ‘Eye’.” Xue Lan ignored the calamity entirely. “You had been looking for it for perhaps a week, so was I for a year.” He steps closer slowly, his boots making no sound.

  The Kholkis paused to observe the situation. Zhuo’s voice came out with a groan. “Argh, who are you? An… Ally?”

  “Ally? Haha, you'll be disappointed if I say no… Well practically for this situation.” Suddenly, a few moths flew by Zhuo’s side near the feet of Kholkis like a dream, its talons scattered into thousands of moths. The Kholkis stumbled back, leaving Zhuo buried in the ice.

  The talon was talon again.

  Xue Lan kept walking slowly and stopped just above the face of Zhuo, and he knelt beside him, not to help him stand but for questioning. “I'll ask again where is the ‘Eye’.”

  Zhuo coughed, he thought Xue Lan was an ally sent by Jian Yue for help. And he revealed it.

  “I-in its left leg.” It was everything Xue Lan wanted to hear. Zhuo’s eyes dropped a tear in pain but he still lifted his good hand, grabbing the sleeve of Xue Lan.

  “Save… Save others.” Xue Lan looked down at Zhuo’s hand with a mild curiosity then his eyes moved at Zhuo’s face. For a moment his face flickered recognition.

  “Hah, how naive.” He walked toward Kholkis, leaving Zhuo.

  “Ah. You don't know what you are holding yet. This isn't just any Xul-Thal's eye. This is the eye of an omniscient. One of the few who had seen gods and lived, in the age of ‘Sundering’ they called such things as ‘Remembrance’ the ‘Dead God's Echo’… For three loops I was waiting for this night.”

  Xue Lan walked towards Kholkis, and he kept talking loudly enough. “The fourth stage of the blood moon in World 4. With the eye of an omniscient Xul-Thal. Three loops I've waited for these conditions to align.” He smiled, not at Zhuo, not at the Kholkis, but at his own achievement. “And then, with another soft inaudible chuckle, he whispered in the air.

  “Earlier… Way earlier than expected that this condition was fully filled for the ritual of the past demigod.”

  The Kholkis stared down at Xue Lan with eyes filled with disgust. It flew high and then descended, the sound was late before the wings bypassed it. Its talon tried to catch him but he caught nothing as it transpierced through him and Xue Lan caught its talon as his grin increased further.

  “Aw, a cute little bird, but I don't need a pet now.” He caught the talon, the massive Kholkis weighed no more than a feather in his grip as Xue Lan slammed it into the snow.

  “Don't fight back now, I don't want to waste my precious time on you.” With a strong pull, Xue Lan pulled its left leg, breaking the bone. The Kholkis loudly screamed and charged with its beak, then before it could close the distance, the beak was no longer there. It tried to scream but had no voice. It had no mouth that could scream.

  Moths flew around the blade of Zhuo but it didn't move.

  “Hm, interesting, the motion is stolen.” Luna moths flew at the dagger of Zhuo and took the dagger toward Xue Lan. His hand grabbed it. Once again, the beak was there but not the opportunity to attack. With a blur of motion, Xue Lan was upon the beak. The dagger stabbed it, breaking it.

  Then without any moment, he slashed down its chest, one then a cross slash, and then he jumped down the movement, becoming a blur with the dagger, another stab at its wing. It couldn't even react before it happened and then, lastly, with a squish sound, he chopped off the left leg completely and the black blood came out that spilled on his face.

  His gaze laid inside the chopped talon, an eye with a gorgeous blue colour and white eyelashes falling on the ground covered in the black blood of Kholkis. His feet moved towards it now once again he ignored the entity, screaming in agony. As he slowly picked it up, his nails traced the lashes.

  “Impure… the eye is matured but impure.” His eyes met the gaze of the ‘Original Eye’, something odd, something… Unexplainable. He raised his hand closer to his face, examining it with curiosity. His nail traced it before finally his nails softly slashed the lens of the eye.

  “Impure, yet so impure. It must have been really weakened, the host had gone weakened, it needed a new one.” He put the cut eye in a pouch before putting it in his pocket.

  He looked at Zhuo, who now stood up, barely standing, as Xue Lan threw the dagger back at him before a soft smile crossed his lips.

  “You can handle a weakened Kholkis, can't you?” as he walked towards the cave again and before Zhuo could say anything. His figure disappeared in silence. Zhuo gulped and breathed heavily.

  His gaze met Kholkis, both of them broken but alive enough to fight. If it was just pain, then they wouldn't stop. He picked up the dagger and saw that it was at the point of breaking. Xue Lan used it with such an intense force on the leg of Kholkis that the dagger had been scarred.

  His hand gripped it, he felt nothing. The frostbite was taking over slowly. He switched his hand, trembling slightly, and the dagger fell, and he picked it up again with greater ambition.

  The Kholkis screamed, a wet, broken sound and charged at Zhuo with everything it had.

  “One hit… One hit is all the dagger can handle… Neck, I have to go for it.” His eye locked on its neck, and he lunged forward with a whimper. Just enough, just the final lung he reassured himself. The Kholkis stumbled without their one talon. Zhuo’s leg was bursting with pain, he couldn't endure it, but he was determined… Determined to see everyone smile again.

  The world snapped as Zhuo’s dagger found its neck in midair; he held his wrist tightly before precisely slashing down the throat of Kholkis. It fell. Zhuo fell with it. Above him the blood moon hung heavier.

  Zhuo crawled, trying to stand again, but he had no energy left. He remembered Jian Yue's last nod again and his eyes started to close. He heard a snap of fingers before the sound vanished.

  While in the void of shadows. The Xul-Thal stared at Jian Yue, the world spoke flatly this time.

  “As expected. An uninvited interference. Long live warden, your future is quite amusing.” The words hung before Jian Yue showed the shadow around Xul-Thal got devoured in its own shadow, the eyes exploded, scattering blood everywhere.

  A corpse appeared beneath the black blood covering it and then, with a cracking sound, the head of the corpse fell on the ground. Jian Yue's hand met his own body covered in blood, the hollow marks gone, replaced with real flesh and blood. Slowly he started feeling it, the pain took over.

  But even at that moment, he only thought about the situation of Zhuo.

  “You… did it?” His eyes started to get blurry, but he kept himself in pieces. He stumbled as he walked. He shouted to call out.

  “Mo Fei! MO FEI! Can you hear me send out Han, it's over, we need his help to see Zhuo?” His voice was not hiding any concern, he himself knew Zhuo was just a kid leaving him to look for ‘Original Eye’ alone was worst but letting Zhuo fight Xul-Thal instead was worse.

  Elara heard the shout of help. She whispered in urgency.

  “Jian Yue needs help. We have to go… But Mo Fei.”

  “You take care of him, I'll go, we are no longer slaves that hide, right?” Han stood up, his footsteps heavy.

  Mo Fei’s eyes closed, but he couldn't do anything, his hand clenched Glaive tightly and his knuckles turned white from it. He never accused himself and never felt guilty. But right now he did, he did felt guilty of everything.

  “Only if I knew it, Only if I had never been marked.” He could see that the thread of Zhuo was barely connected; it felt like it could snap at any moment.