Except, she wasn't. Against the screams of every fiber of her being, she compelled her hands and legs to move, struggling to gradually sit up. As she did, an excruciating sensation tore through her. Up until this point, everything had felt somewhat muffled, dull, and muted, akin to being submerged underwater or under the heavy influence of potent drugs, rendering her unable to fully process her surroundings.

But now, pain exploded within her. Even the gentle caress of the faint breeze against her exposed skin, or rather what remained of it, sent agonizing shivers coursing through her.

Hot bubbles of bodily fluid burst forth in a repulsive shower with each movement, threatening to overwhelm her senses. The urge to vomit was nearly overwhelming.

She mustered her strength and crunched down on a small yet undoubtedly expensive pill tucked in the pocket of her mouth, swiftly breaking it.

As the pill dissolved on her tongue, a revitalizing surge of energy shot through her veins. She absorbed it greedily, channeling the healing properties of her rapidly replenishing spiritual energy towards her most severe wounds.

Though it mended her injuries, it did so at a pace far too sluggish for her liking, gradually stemming the bleeding and initiating the renewal of her damaged skin.

Groaning, she cast her eyes, burning with hatred, upon the cause of her misery. The man lay on the ground, warm blood flowing from a wide gash across his chest down to his right waist.

She could sense scarce spiritual energy within him, a mere whisper of its original strength, as he directed it toward the wound, desperately attempting to close it and preserve his life.

Though his spell might have held more potential power than hers in terms of overall energy output, its scope had been broad and covered a wide area, resulting in its weakening.

The piercing nature of her crescent wave had managed to breach its torrents and reach the man, dealing him a potentially mortal injury, she believed.

With a low grunt, she raised her hand to conjure a blade of water in the air, hurling it into his heart. Spiritual energy surged, and she gasped as the spell faltered, the backlash hitting her.

She had overextended herself far more than she'd initially thought. Nearly falling to the ground once again, she only managed to stay upright through sheer willpower.

"The old-fashioned way, then," she chuckled darkly to herself, followed by a fit of coughing. She spat blood onto the pavement as she advanced.

Where in the world were her fucking reinforcements? This should have been damn easy, not more perilous than snatching candy from a defenseless child.

They were supposed to be the first squad to engage the attackers, slowing them down and weakening them. Then, she would give the signal, and her men would descend upon the remaining LUV members as if by divine judgment, mercilessly slaughtering them like cattle.

But the seemingly harmless sheep had transformed into wolves, or rather, the brutish madman in front of her had proven to be quite the formidable opponent. He'd single-handedly dispatched around a dozen of her companions, all while wearing a twisted grin.

He turned each kill into a spectacle,a show, a performance, savoring every moment he ended a life. He alone had shifted the tide of their battle, even as his comrades fell around him like flies.

Why hadn't the reinforcements arrived? Were they delayed? Had they forsaken them?

Her mind raced along the fragments of the plan she knew, and as realization dawned, she cursed. She'd been nothing but bait, a lure to keep LUV in the dark and compel them to venture further into enemy territory.

Her superiors had sacrificed her, offered her up to the wolves so that they could feast on her flesh and get drunk on her blood. All to drive LUV into a frenzy of recklessness and forget reason, pushing them to wage war in the lion's den itself, oblivious to the clear field advantage her organization held in that scenario.

However, it seemed that LUV hadn't been the impulsive, hot-blooded men they had portrayed them to be. They had apparently caught wind of the plan, sending only the absolute minimum number of troops in their direction.

Why on Earth they had also hidden a Conduit of the Second Sphere, a peak one at that, within this group, she'd no damn clue. She hoped they would reduce Cargil to ashes for abandoning her. And when they did, she would relish in their destruction. Those fuckers.

Had she not concealed the full extent of her strength, a secret she'd guarded with great care, she would've ended up as nothing but a lifeless corpse discarded in the gutters of the streets, forgotten. After all she'd endured in her life, all the sacrifices she'd made to survive up to this very moment, she would've lost it like she had started and lived it. In some nameless street, an unknown casualty in some forgotten alley.

The thought of dying without even realizing the betrayal she'd suffered filled her with fury.

How close she'd come to death, the idea of perishing due to backstabbing, fueled her fury, causing it to swell within her. Fury that gave her a newfound strength, propelling her forward with new determination.

She loomed over the wretched man on the ground. While she held no love for her superiors and no particular hatred for LUV, she couldn't bring herself to forget the man before her, the one responsible for the deaths of her comrades and her current sorry state.

Killing him would offer her only slight relief, she knew, but solace nonetheless.

With the whereabouts of her prized short sword unknown, likely burned beyond recognition, she had no choice but to raise her bare foot.

Disgusted, she gathered what little saliva she could and spat on the man.

"Fuck you," she hissed and kicked downward. Her blow was barely stronger than that of a mortal, as she didn't trust herself to actively use spiritual energy to augment her strength.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Since she hadn't gone Bodily Ascension just yet and advanced to the Third Sphere, her body was still an ordinary one.

But it would suffice against a defenseless man barely clinging onto life.

Anthemion knew this well and acted on it. Charging from the safety of his hiding place, his lips dry and his skin and hair singed from the stray heat of their confrontation, he'd managed to keep himself low enough to sustain minimal damage.

Stolen sword in hand, he let out a roar that, in all honesty, made him feel like an idiot. But he saw it as the best way to get her attention.

Lucian was a monster, yes. Anthemion was, at times—okay, most of the time—afraid of him, yes. Lucian was violent and brutal, yes. But in a twisted, strangely weird way, he was also somewhat of a friend.

Not the kind of friend you'd openly admit to having, at least not if you cared even a little about your social image. However, among all the members of LUV, he had talked to Lucian the most and spent most of his time with him.

And there was a bond, a budding friendship, between them. He couldn't simply stand by and watch as he was trampled to death by a naked woman. That wasn't the way he wanted a friend to leave this world, though he could imagine worse fates.

He'd seen enough death and decay today, observed as men and women fell and succumbed to their injuries, heard their last dying breaths, and felt their sticky blood under his boots.

In an impulsive moment, much like those that usually landed him in the director's office or earned him his mother's wrath, he sprinted forward, sword raised high, and shouted.

The woman stopped abruptly, her brows twisted in plain confusion. Well, brows was false, considering her entire body was devoid of hair.

Her appearance struck Anthemion like a roaring train. It was gruesome, with patches of skin barely connected to her body, glistening red tissue writhing like snakes as new growth slowly covered them, and blood seeping from every pore, shimmering like a second crimson skin. Not that there was even a first.

How could she still be alive? How could she still move?

Her hand raised in his direction, and Anthemion cursed himself for his recklessness. He should've left and never looked back.

As if Lucian would ever risk his life for him. How could he have been so stupidly naive? But the invisible impact of spiritual energy never came.

Instead, the woman stiffened, her body freezing, and she stumbled backward before collapsing shakily to the ground. Was it some sort of tactic, a ruse to lull him into a false sense of safety?

He shook his head, trying to banish any troublesome thoughts from his mind as he focused on the woman. The veins protruding from her pale skin and the twisted expression on her face left little room for doubt.

He turned to Lucian, noticing that the sharpness that had once glittered in the man's eyes was fading, gradually giving way to a sleepy haziness. Lucian was drifting further and further away from life like a ship slowly disappearing over the horizon, Anthemion realized.

Each new beat of his heart sent a small pulse of blood onto the ground, and the skin around the wound withered, shrunk back and forth as if trying to connect, to heal, but in vain. The injury was just too severe.

Anthemion couldn't help but be irritated by the sight of the exposed fingerbones and knuckles on both of Lucian's hands.

Kneeling beside him, Anthemion felt his hands tremble. "Lucian? How can I help you?" he whispered, his voice pleading. Lucian twitched as if recognizing his presence but was unable to utter any words. His eyes spiraled in their sockets.

"Lucian?" Anthemion asked, louder this time and more desperate. Lucian's eyes briefly focused, locking onto Anthemion's right leg.

There was a clear message hidden within that gaze, and Anthemion understood. With shaking hands, he searched Lucian's pocket and found a small, polished pill.

For a moment, he admired the pill's rich aroma and calming presence, the smooth finish of its surface. Then, he carefully opened Lucian's mouth, only to be met with a small cough of blood that spilled over his chin and onto his hands.

Unbothered, Anthemion placed the pill on the man's bloody tongue and waited. Seconds turned into minutes as he watched the man fight with the strength of a bear and the conviction of a holy priest.

He clung onto life and pulses of spiritual energy, intense enough for even Anthemion as a mortal to sense, rumaged through his body.

They focused around his chest, the bleeding slowly stopping as a fiery red glow spilled from the wound instead, knitting it close.

At some point, the man regained his wits and composure. There were countless emotions in his eyes as they locked onto Anthemion's.

And in that moment, Anthemion came to a realization: While the man surely was crazy, his persona of a violent brute who enjoyed killing and butchering was just that: a persona. A mask to show the world, a shield to keep others at bay.

"Thank you," Lucian whispered and added with a chuckle that turned into a painful cough, "Ant." Anthemion burst into laughter, more from relief than anything else.

Supporting Lucian, they stood upright and made their way to the woman just a few meters away, crawling on the ground like an injured insect.

Shock crossed Anthemion's eyes as he recognized her, even without the poor excuse of a haircut on her head. It seemed the green spikes had burned right off her skin.

Lucky her, he mused, grinning.

Only now did he notice that she was actually quite pretty, if a little older. Not that he had any problem with that. He felt the adrenaline coursing through his veins and blamed it entirely for his foolish thoughts. He owed her his life, Anthemion knew.

He was deeply uncertain how the night would've played out, had she not decided to spare and knock him out, instead of ending his life. All because of his decision to not take her life, pulling his sword blow at the last moment.

Though, he now understood that it hadn't matter anyway as she had only played with him, after all.

He just hadn't been able to do it. Ironically, his decision had saved him rather than dooming him.

She watched them through squinted eyes, defiance written on her very face.

Anthemion thought over his options and decided that there had been enough killing this night, enough bloodshed.

She had spared him, so it was only fair he returned the favor.

"We're even," he simply said and pulled Lucian, whose eyes were set ablaze with the desire to end this woman's life, who had very nearly been his demise, away.

But the man was stronger, even in his sorry state, and he resisted. His desire inflamed his bony hands and a torrent of crackling inferno burnt through the naked and defenseless woman, leaving nothing but dark stains on the bristling pavement.

"But we weren't even," Lucian whispered to himself as if in a trance and shook his hand in the air as the flames vanished.

"What have you done?" Anthemion stammered, his gaze locked upon the ashen remains, struggling to grasp the gravity of what the fuck had happened.

In response, Lucian slowly turned to face him, his eyes burning with a calculated ruthlessness forged through enduring countless betrayals and bearing the scars of conditioned caution.

"Always sever the ties," he uttered coldly.

Dragging Anthemion behind them, they left this street turned bloody battlefield, never to look back.