Chapter 112: Your Will
Lloyd tried to take a deep and calm breath in, then out, but eventually he devolved into desperate heaving for air.
Moments of reprieve during battle were short, few, and far between. They absolutely had to be taken with presentness and gratitude.
With that said, the swordsman did not do either, as he had absolutely no recollection of how he ended up so far away from the monstrosity’s fall, and quite honestly he felt like puking from nausea.
Everywhere his blood flowed he felt immense strain and exhaustion. Along with that, he was feeling a devastating, mind-wracking headache.
Now that he thought about it, his symptoms felt quite similar to the textbook after-effects of having forcibly used a power beyond himself. One that had to be much, much higher than his level.
…Whatever the case, his battle was not over.
Lloyd fastened his gaze to the monster as soon as his confusion passed.
Even while taking a breather, his eyes strived to glue themselves to the colossal worm.
Although the beast was motionless now, there was no doubt in Lloyd’s mind that it would start moving again.
It laid there in the shattered open earth. The devastation left by its fall was exactly as he had imagined.
Massive slabs the size of mansions and neighborhoods flew out from all directions, raining down from the sky like a meteor shower.
There was one massive piece of stone that flew towards his direction, and it was as gigantic as a marquis’s castle. Lloyd would know, for his family owned castles.
Lloyd gave it a very short glance to determine if he had to move away from being crushed by it instead of the worm.
Luckily it landed just far enough, where Lloyd only had to deal with smaller stones and debris.
Lloyd took note of just how high and far such a heavy thing was launched into the air…before his eyes once again snapped back to the colossal beast.
A new ravine was carved under the shape of the monstrosity’s magnitudes, and then suddenly, it bellowed. The ground and sky shook in response to its deep guttural roar.
It was furious. At the last second its prey literally disappeared from its jaws, and it was forced to eat dirt and stone. Obviously, the monstrosity did not take that too well.
However, in response to the beast’s low rumbling, the sword in Lloyd’s hand uttered a high-pitch cry.
And somehow, Lloyd understood its voice, its intentions.
“Use me.”
“Wield me.”
“I am a part of you.”
The shattered blade stood ready, willing, and yet patient. In front of the mountain-sized monstrosity it was smaller than a toothpick, yet it did not fear. It gave off the feeling that it would never abandon him, instead it would steadfastly accompany Lloyd through any obstacle, trial and ordeal.
But in response to its almost heroic offer, Lloyd felt a clear pang of discomfort and reluctance.
He felt shame and embarrassment just looking at the blade.
Even when shattered, the metal held a gleaming sheen. And whenever he looked at the sword, his reflection would be thrown back at him from a thousand different pieces.
The same startling thought would always boomerang back to him: That all this time spent broken, and he was still exactly that.
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The swordsman was ashamed of the five years he had wasted, and ashamed of who he had become.
Using the sword felt like dishonoring his lover’s last wish, and dishonoring himself by immersing him back into toxic cycles and bad habits.
Yet, Lloyd took his eyes off the monster for a second, to look at his sword.
In this battle it was evident his earlier powers weren’t adequate to fight the monster. If he did not want to die, he would not only have to use the broken blade, but he had to draw upon the same powers he swore not to.
It was either that, or his life.
The mellow swordsman sighed, before closing his eyes.
Like most noble sons and daughters of Everrain, they were taught from a young age to visualize the unending rain. And within his mind’s eye that was what he saw.
Clouds manifested, and beads of water fell endlessly down towards the unknown reaches of his mind.
Generally, advanced martial warriors and spellcasters wielded supernatural power by coming into contact with a source.
Sources were powerful influences, that lended their mysterious power to all who could connect with them.
The Empire of Agni, usually connected with flame, while the Kingdom of Everrain usually connected to water. At least, generally speaking.
Like most elements however, water was both simple, yet held infinite deeper meaning.
And so was that the case for the element of Rain, even as a subcategory of water.
As a physical thing, it seemed quite simple. Lots of people saw it as just literal falling water.
But as an idea— as a concept— it had an infinite number of insights to be derived from.
One person could see beauty, and vitality in the rain. They could argue that people celebrated whenever water fell from the heavens, for it could nourish crops, and give people who did not have a convenient source of water, something to drink and cleanse their bodies.
While another could envision the rain’s disastrous and flooding power. Where it could previously give life and nourishment, it drowned and smothered all the life of those beneath it.
To conclude, there were multiple sources found in the element of rain. Both good and bad could be found within, and there was no wrong meaning to find within the phenomena.
In this case, what Lloyd personally saw within the rain, what he felt and connected to, were the sources of raining sorrow, heartbreak, grief, and destruction.
The neutral and peaceful rain that he saw in his mind’s eye, had now transformed into flooding storms of melancholic desolation, and despair-filled devastation.
In response, his sword listened to his will. The blade did not lie when it said it was a part of him, and if sorrowful destruction was what Lloyd choosed to create, then it would piously follow his will.
Whilst he closed his eyes, the shattered sword turned into a thousand floating sword fragments that swirled around him. The blade was mimicking the storm within his mind, and mimicking the storm that Lloyd did not know he had within his spirit.
Lloyd then forced his eyes open. Within the violent storm that still raged within his being, he uttered the same word over and over like a protection mantra.
‘Forward, forward, forward.’
‘Move…forward.’
As if resolving himself, the swordsman swung the bladeless hilt in an arc. A wave of wind swept through the path forward, clearing the remaining dust that lingered in the air from the massive debris that landed near him.
His thousand sword fragments orbiting him like planets around the sun, suddenly revolved faster in a short burst of speed. Sure it could hum, and sing, but action was its most fluent language. This was its way of saying that it was ready for battle— born for it.
The mountain sized worm seemed to recognize this, and issued another guttural roar.
Lloyd took a deep breath. In fact, he was struggling to breathe under the heavy influence of grief, but nonetheless every step he took towards the monster was made with determined courage and powerful resolve.
The tension was at its peak.
The mountain-sized worm began to wriggle and writhe, its movements getting more violent as it rose from the new ravines and canyons it smashed out of the earth.
Lloyd went from a fast walk, to a run, then a stampeding sprint.
The five hundred meters that separated them started to dwindle and dwindle. The swordsman looked more like a battlemage, as the bladeless hilt he raised high above looked like a wand, and the elements of the earth that normally shifted around a mage, shifted around Lloyd in the form of fragmented metal.
The worm, having moved most of its body out from the ravine, started to coil its massive and terrible frame to lunge at Lloyd.
Their collision would come soon. Three hundred meters, two hundred meters, and then…
The sky suddenly was lit aflame with bright pale light.
Lloyd looked up, and had to question why Aanya, the moon who glowed pure white, was so massively close to the earth.
And why was it no longer spherical…?
The realization then hit him that the thing he saw in the sky was no moon, but the other colossal worm.
First, he fled the surrounding area as soon as possible. Lloyd had learned his lesson about avoiding mountain sized falling objects.
And as he did so, he watched as the creature moved through the sky as naturally as the worm could burrow through the earth.
The bioluminescent light that came from its body lit up the surrounding area, revealing a fleeing insect in the sky.
That insect was Zan, and the monster that suddenly started moving as fast as a leaping fish out of water, opened its wide maws to swallow him whole.
And it succeeded.
But Lloyd had no time to think about his new friend who had just been eaten.
The colossal worm that he was personally confronting did not pay any heed to the occurrence above, and had also started to glow white, albeit it was much much less bright.
If the one in the sky glowed as bright as the moon, the one on the ground was only a tenth as luminous.
Yet…its lethargic speed increased by threefold anyway.
Lloyd glanced behind him, then above, before suddenly shifting his trajectory.
He was at first running in a straight line, but that straight line turned into a diagonal.
Because of his change in direction the worm on the ground was now catching up to him at an alarming pace, but he paid no heed.
He ran and ran, before skidding on the ground at a certain spot.
Bladeless hilt in hand he looked behind him only to see that most of his vision was being consumed by a rapidly approaching mountain of flesh and teeth.
He had fought gargantuan creatures before, but truly not to the scale of a goddamn mountain range.
The glowing worm had fully opened its cone-like mouth for Lloyd to see, and lunging forward it looked as if it could consume the whole world.
At the very least though, it would definitely consume all of Lloyd’s world.
And before it could do just that…something just as a colossal in the corner of his eyes started to fall.
A mountain of pale flesh descended onto another, Lloyd witnessed as the lunging worm’s enormous mouth crumpled under the weight of its mate.
BOOM!
The planet of Eok was shattered twice over, and the mellow swordsman jumped into the skies to avoid the apocalyptic impact.