Emil

Emil tossed his head back. Tendrils slashed the air where his neck had been just a second earlier—flying past with a dangerous hiss before slamming into the nearby wall. A deep incision was engraved in the stone structures. He winced. The side of his face suddenly flared with pain. The warmth of viscous blood drenched his neck. A nasty cut above his jaws, likely from getting grazed by the vines.

Similar injuries were littered all over his body.

I can’t break through.

The vines were absurdly dangerous—taking a swipe head-on guaranteed dismemberment or losing a chunk of his body. His proficiency with Bulwark was still too lacking to keep up with his opponent’s speed and control.

I don’t think I can hold back anymore.

Despite the witch’s rules, he didn’t have a choice but to resort to Blaze. Anna might realize that he has two Gifts, but he’ll just have to come with a convincing lie later. There was no point holding onto a secret in the afterlife.

A terrible roar engulfed the air.

The sound was so harrowing and unhuman that Emil was forced to turn around.

Anna was on the floor. A deformed version of the ogre towered above her. Her opponent managed to transform again—this time, however, the result looked more like a grotesque abomination of flesh than an actual creature. Any semblance of a living being was gone, except for the pulsating, lumps of meat jotting out of its main body that Emil assumed were limbs.

Emil’s mind blanked at the hellish sight. Suddenly, his heart throbbed with a frenetic pace. His hands unsteady as he clenched his chest. He was terrified. But why? He didn’t understand his own reaction, until he noticed patches of bluish skin spreading along with the monstrosity’s body.

He’s being consumed by his Gift.

The irreversible stage of Overclock. It occurred when an Exalted no longer had control over their Gifts and becomes a mindless beast. The last time Emil encountered this phenomenon was when his home in the Lower Dannan slums was destroyed. Once again, he revisited the disturbing scene of his friends being devoured by flames.

The same thing was going to happen again.

No!

He ran towards Anna. Tried to. Vines engulfed his vicinity. One tendril grappled onto his ankles. Another bound his arm. A pair dug into his shoulders, seizing the opening granted by his desperation.

Anna wasn’t moving. The abomination leaned in.

“Let me go!”

His chest blazed red—the only visible warning before his entire body burst into flames. The heat immediately burned off the tendril shackles restricting his limbs. Emil wailed like a wounded beast. The agony of being burned alive was unbearable, but the pain only furthered the voracity of his flames. The temperature around him soared, climbing above even the surrounding flames from the burning naphtha.

With a swipe of his hands, he directed a portion of blaze towards the abomination.

The monstrosity squealed. Its harrowing bellow shook the air. The lumps of meat that were its limbs flailed helplessly as Emil’s flames feasted with delight. The nauseating stench of oil and fat suffused the area. With one last squeal, the abomination collapsed.

But the battle wasn’t over.

Emil’s back itched with danger. He dove to the ground. Vines thrashed at his position. More and more of them erupted from the ground. Within a few seconds, his entire surroundings were swarmed by vines. The remaining researcher was clearly desperate—no longer holding back his attacks after his partner fell.

“Burn!”

The flames engulfing his body cackled as if it possessed a mind of its own, seemingly ecstatic that it had a new prey to devour. The inferno lunged at the oncoming vines, expanding voraciously, intent to swallowed every inch of the tendrils in a single gulp. The vines withered immediately upon contact with the flames—shrinking until dried into shrivelled crisps before crumbling to ash.

Emil commanded the flames to storm past the disintegrated the vines. Soon, they latched onto the panicked researcher. In a flash, the flames blossomed, engulfing his body. The vines reacted immediately, flailing, desperately trying to bat the flames away. The conflagrations, however, would not relent. Like a frenzied hound, they burned ever more ravenously, gouging themselves on the flesh and panic of their dying foe.

In a few seconds, the researcher dropped into a pile of char.

“Ngh!”

Emil fell to his knees. Pain rampaged through every inch of his body. His enemies were dead. But his self-immolation continued. The flames cackled with glee, refusing to end their feast.

It’s over!

He grabbed his chest, trying to quell the incessant beating of his frenzied heart.

It’s done, dammit! They’re all dead!

Still, his panic-stricken body refused to believe his rational mind.

Are you trying to die?!

The thunderous thought immediately snuffed out the flames. Gone. As if they had never existed. The suddenness was startling—almost enough to make Emil believe that he had been hallucinating.

No. I was really about to lose control.

He took in a deep breath. The gulp of air was scorching hot from his Gift and the burning naphtha, but even the discomfort brought a semblance of relief. Anything was better than being burned alive.

Fucking hell!

He shook off the agony and struggled onto his feet. Anna. Dread crept up his back as he rushed to his friend’s side. She was slumped against the ruins of the temple floor. Her eyes were blank. The lump of meat that used to be the abomination was off to the side, still burning.

“Anna! Are you alright?”

She inexplicably screamed. It was a shriek of visceral terror. Her eyes grew wild, quivering with madness as she batted away his hands. Then she cowered, hugging her head, squirming like a child hiding in fear.

There was a bluish tint glowing around her fingertips. Overclock. One of the common symptoms was mania and delusions.

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The blue patch is still faint. Her symptoms aren’t severe yet.

Emil grabbed one of the throwing knives strapped on his leg. Silently, he approached her, trying not to trigger another panic episode. Carefully, he reached for the glowing accessory around her neck. With a gentle snip, he cut away the string and removed the Azurite hanging off the end. Severed from her supply of mana, the bluish discoloration around her skin rapidly faded.

“Anna?” Emil gave her a gentle push on the shoulder.

She whimpered. Her body gradually stopped trembling. Finally, she raised her head. Her eyes scanned the surroundings in confusion as if she had been stirred awake from a deep slumber. She blinked—life seemed to snap back into her eyes before she groaned in pain.

Emil offered her hand. She immediately slapped it away.

“I-I’m fine,” she said, grimacing. She covered her mouth upon seeing the burning remnants of the abomination. Tears began to pool from her eyes.

“…I’m sorry, Emil,” she whispered. Anna squeezed her face close, contorting her expression, desperate to not let the waterworks fall. “I…hesitated. And it nearly killed us both. I’m so pathetic. I’m so sorry.”

Emil let out a soft sigh, relieved that she seemed to be okay. At least she’s self-aware. Conflagration from the naphtha continued to burn. Cracks in the integrity of the temple wall echoed around him. In the distance, the familiar blare of Azure City’s clocktower rumbled. It was now midnight.

As Emil glanced around, he found Anna’s satchel that he had discarded by a pile of rubble right before the fight. He went to retrieve it. The documents detailing the research conducted inside this laboratory were still inside, unscathed. It was evidence to prove that abhorred things were happening within this wretched city.

He turned towards Anna and offered her a hand once more. Third time was the charm as she reluctantly accepted it.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

Anna narrowed her eyes, flabbergasted. “I should be the one asking,” she replied, her eyes trembling while she took in his mess of a body, “Hells, how are you still standing? We need to treat you immediately. I should still have medical supplies in the satchel.”

“Out of this disgusting place and back to the Second Sector first,” Emil said as one of the pillars holding the temples up was beginning to collapse.

They didn’t need anymore prodding to leave. Immediately, they climbed out of the opening in the temple walls created by the ogre. The entrance of the temple was still littered in the mutilated corpses of the monsters they had slayed the previous night. Emil briefly considered tossing them into the burning temple to remove all samples of this heinous experiment.

He quickly dismissed the idea after seeing the intense plumes of smoke rising in the night sky. They had overstayed their welcome. Although the sacred grove was far from the Second Sector, the umbral smoke was striking under the bright pale moon. Undoubtedly, the Sentinels would have taken notice by now.

The two of them ran across the ruins of the sacred grove. Their footsteps pattered against the stone grounds as the cackling flames from the temple continued to rage behind. As they neared the headless statues, Emil screeched to a halt.

“What?” Anna asked, perplexed.

“Don’t move,” he whispered harshly. His instincts screamed, warning him not to take another step. Emil narrowed his eyes. He felt it. A familiar itch slithered along his arms and neck. It was faint, but unmistakable.

Bloodlust.

“Oh? You noticed? What a surprise,” a voice echoed somewhere in front of him. Malice dripped from every word like drops of venom dangling from a snake’s fangs. Emil scanned the statues, trying to discern the interloper’s whereabouts.

Nothing.

The person was expertly concealed, hidden somewhere beneath the shadows of the moonlight. The tone and sound of the voice also scratched Emil’s conscious. It was irritatingly familiar.

I have a bad feeling about this.

The bloodlust suddenly vanished. Alarmed, Emil narrowed his eyes. Then something stirred in his periphery.

He grabbed Anna by the arm and dragged her to the right. She let out a panicked yip. Any accompanying protests were immediately silenced by the explosion of stone at their previous position. A small crater the size of a cannonball was left its wake. Emil noted the trajectory of the rock fragments.

It came from above?

He glanced up. A glob of mana was hovering in empty space about ten feet in the air. He saw the mana flicker before the air in the vicinity rapidly condensed into a spherical missile.

“Get back!”

He was already in motion when the missile came down. There was a sharp whizz followed by the immediate crunch of stones being blasted apart.

I can’t defend against this.

Bulwark was too slow to even consider against the lightning speed of the air missiles. He only managed to evade so far thanks to his instincts and his vision acuity for mana. The same couldn’t be said for Anna.

“I’ll buy you time,” he said while dumping the satchel and her Azurite necklace into Anna’s hands.

“Huh?! What do you mean?!”

“Run! You’re a burden right now!” he spat out. Anna stared at him, aghast. The pained expression on her face ate at his heart. But there was no time to apologize. More and more of the clumps of mana began to appear. The airspace was soon crowded with them.

“Go already!” He shoved her away. The balls of mana condensed the air into missiles. Emil stared up at the storm of phenomena about to descend upon him. The hair on his skin rose. Tension quivered at his fingertips.

He waited.

Mana compressed behind the missiles. Emil watched for the split second before the explosive energy would release. He gathered mana at the soles of his feet.

Boom!

The earth beneath Emil’s feet caved as he launched himself ahead. The missiles rained down. Emil weaved and turned, tracking their trajectories in his periphery. The grounds of the sacred grove exploded around him as the bombardment ravaged the ruins. Rock shrapnel dug into his legs and torso, drawing blood.

No matter.

If it wasn’t a lethal injury, then it wasn’t worth acknowledging. The missiles continued to unleash in staggered bursts, tracking his position as he rushed towards the array of statues.

There! He finally spotted mana radiating from behind one of the headless sculptures.

Emil dove to the ground, hands outstretched as he skidded across the ground. The silhouette of the interloper soon came into view.

He burst ablaze. Every nerve in his body screeched, protesting the incessant abuse. The second consecutive activation of Blaze in a single day was always the worse.

I’ll end this quick!

His flames surged with glee, rushing at the interloper. To Emil’s surprise, his foe remained still under the shadows of the statues, seemingly uninterested in dodging.

Instead, mana erupted from the interloper’s hands. At the instant before the flames were about to reach him, a wall of air snapped into existence. The makeshift barrier flickered underneath the moonlight, just as the ravenous flames smashed into the barricade. Emil watched in horror as his flames dissipated at the touch of the translucent wall. Something unusual was happening. The moment it made contact, the fires were repelled and then snuffed out.

His most potent weapon had been tamed.

If Blaze doesn’t work, then—

He was already on his feet, giving himself no time to doubt. He rushed in, barreling towards the interloper, desperate to close the distance. The last bits of his flames soon reached the air barrier. Emil hid behind the clash of phenomenon.

Right as the remnants of his flames fizzled out, he lunged. The interloper was within range. Azure specks danced as stone gauntlets emerged around his hands. This was no need to conceal his unique nature. The interloper had to die.

Emil didn’t miss the second of hesitation in his foe’s reaction. He tossed out a fast punch. His foe was slow—throwing themselves onto the ground. Emil’s fist smashed into the base of the headless statue.

Before he could pursue further, balls of mana suddenly filled the airspace. The missiles were smaller this time; the speed of their formation absurdly fast.

Like the snap of a bowstring, the missiles fired, soaring directly at Emil. This was no time to dodge. Emil raised his arms over his chest and jumped backwards—a last ditch effort to buy time.

“Ngh!”

The missiles torn through his body. Each blow had the force of a heavy punch accompanied by the sharpness of a throwing knife. His arms suffered the brunt of the attacks, but the rest of his body did not come out unfazed.

Emil landed on his feet. His legs buckled. His arms dangled uselessly by his side. He heaved—struggling for air after his torso was peppered by the missiles. Stone fragments flaked off his body, remnants of the hastily constructed armor using Bulwark.

I can still fight! None of his vital areas were struck. No lethal injuries—as far as he could tell.

The interloper was in front of him. The shadows of the moonlight shrouded their face, but Emil could spot the nasty wide smile bared by their teeth.

He blinked. Blood in his hair dripped over his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, the interloper was gone.

Huh?!

His foe suddenly reappeared in his left blind spot. Emil ducked instinctively. A vicious jab grazed the side of his cheeks. He was about to counter when his periphery caught another punch soaring from the right.

Pain erupted from his jaws. Ferric taste smeared his lips. Emil saw stars. Panic gnawed at his subconscious.

He wanted to run.

The interloper suddenly drove their knee into his stomach. Emil slumped over. Agony seared his guts. The blow was so excruciating that he couldn’t move. Tears drenched his blood-soaked face.

His hair was suddenly pulled up. Pain exploded from his scalp. The interloper dragged his head up, forcing him at eye level.

Emil’s eyes grew wide, speechless. It was a face he never expected to see within this wretched grove.