Chapter 63
By Beauty Compelled
The divinely holy lightning surged with her as the fulcrum--tendrils cracked out like whips, thousands of them adjoining in the burst of colors, though not so for long. The holy colors dimmed and ashened until their divine hue became gray like the world around with thick, black, embossed edges devouring them whole almost.
Within the crackling storm, two arms reached out and drew out the pair of blades--just like her armor, the weapons were withered and aged, chunks of the blade missing, other parts cracked like a pane of glass is cracked when hit with a hammer. And yet, they oscillated with energy that seemed to match the brewing storm around her.
Tufts of energy seeped out in the shape of some strange, smoky liquid that seemed to defy gravity, orbiting the steely blade rather than falling down to the ground. She roared and thus flew forth like a charged cannonball.
Asher deftly lifted the blade, an action driven by something primordial within rather than his own will, and parried the attack directly--two blades, in parallel, crashed into his raised one, embers of fire and shadow flickering off. The pulse of energy exploded outward, ripples churning through the decayed stone behind, leveling it.
The woman fell backward, somersaulting through the air while, at the same time, flaring out with both swords, cleaving them through the air repeatedly. Arrays of darkly surging light flew toward him as he took a deep breath; Evium flashed with a brilliant ripple of color, fumes of red flashing out as Asher swung upward.
Colors clashed in radiant brilliance, conjuring up yet another explosion--but both of them ignored it. Asher ran forward while the woman shot off toward him as soon as she landed; both swung the blades in a direct fashion, mangling the fabric of spacetime around the edges.
The reverberation was thickening--Asher felt all his organs churn and displace for a moment upon the clash, the blood in his veins seemingly stopping for a moment in abject shock. He was pushed back some ten feet, just as was the woman, and suddenly felt a metallic taste between his teeth. Spitting out, red flew forth, though evaporated before it hit the ground.
The woman raged once again, dark tentacles of lightning around her thickening abruptly before they lashed out in a violent cascade. Asher responded, cleaving madly from left to right and otherwise, cutting through them as though they were made of flesh. The cleaved portions flickered out of existence in a cacophony of wails, as though alive, while the woman used the vapors conjured up in death as a cover to spearhead a direct attack.
She managed to sneak past his defense and strike at his throat directly; he quickly shifted sideways, his legs coated in the sheen of thoughtless, dodging just enough to only be nicked over his shoulder blade. Though it hurt, he ignored the pain--he’d felt worse. Rather, while she was directly in front of him, he struck overhead in a deliberate feint, prompting her to try and dodge to the side where he suddenly kicked out.
The open side of his foot squared directly against her ribs--thunderous crack echoed out as she flew sideways, almost like a ragdoll. She recovered mid-flight, however, digging two blades into the dirt to slow down her recoil. Blood spewed from between her ghastly lips, and the look in her eye darkened. She did not shriek in pain--rather, she grew even more silent.
Standing up, both of them gasped for a deep breath before resuming the battle. It was unordinary, and Asher recognized one simple truth: there was something hidden in this quest. The woman, clearly, was drawing her last breaths; she was waned, aged, beaten by the echoes of time. She was barely hanging on, and though he would suffer to defeat her... he already knew, he’d be able to do it.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Was that really all there was to the quest?
While distracted, the woman snuck to his rear and stabbed forth; shocked, he barely recoiled forward to dodge a deadly strike, feeling the aged blade burn through the right side of his back, just barely missing his lungs. Blood sprayed out and he felt faintly dizzy for a moment, though had no time to adjust to the pain as she attacked relentlessly once again.
Angered, he gnashed his teeth and violently slammed out, meeting her strike directly; Evium wept loudly, the piercing shrike rupturing the clouds above for a moment. Light shone down in a strange cacophony and the outburst of violent energy pulverized the woman and slammed her some forty feet back into the dirt. She rolled over and over, unable to stabilize, until she crashed into a large boulder.
Asher wanted to pursue but found the pain overwhelming, crashing to his knees temporarily; he could feel the blood wet his back, and sense its flow precisely. Taking a deep breath, he waited for a moment and observed through his mind the wound close up. He still couldn’t quite get used to it--to the sensation of the body repairing itself in moments rather than days and weeks and months.
He stood up and looked over. The woman was on her knees, supporting herself against the sword, blood spraying out further between her lips, pooling into a small pond below her. The sight soured his heart, all of a sudden; he did not know why he was beating down someone who was already dancing with the coils of death, why he was given a Divine weapon of all things to do that.
Her figure, juxtaposed against the vast world around, seemed and felt so tiny, so inconsequential. The tarnished armor, the aged, gray hair, the scarrings of time that were visible even in darkness... these were not the makings of a boss or some ultimate challenge. These were the realities of someone felled, reaching for the last light.
However... she stood up.
Though her entire body looked limp, she stood up.
And she lifted her head.
The singular eye was void of fear or terror or pride or even joy--there wasn't an ounce of emotion within it, as though time had taken it from her just like everything else. There were no more tendrils of lightning dancing around her--rather, they coalesced within her. He could see them pulsating just beneath her sickly pale skin, wiggling like soaring worms.
“O Evium,” she spoke as though to a lover rather than a blade. “O how I missed you. Did you miss me? Ah--don’t, don’t be silent, my love. Please... please talk to me. You, worthless rat, what did you do to him?! What did you do to my Evium?!”
“...” Asher remained silent.
It suddenly began to rain--but it was not an ordinary rain. Rather, it was sticky, black, almost like oil. However, it bounced off of him without ever touching him directly. She, however, was not as blessed--every time it touched her open skin, it would sizzle like fried, and yet she seemed ignorant of the pain. As her armor and clothes began to burn and be eaten up, Asher gagged and recoiled; maggot-infested holes, infected scars, decayed and rotted flesh... there wasn't a patch of skin larger than the palm of a hand that was untouched.
“Be silent, thus,” she cackled strangely. “Be the silent judge... just like all of them. My Light... o my Light--shine forth one last time. Let me breathe.”
Asher watched aghast as the time seemed to unravel before his eyes--modulations of constrictions he could not fathom unfolded like higher dimensions, swallowing and spitting out everything and nothing all at once. He watched her body dissolve and coalesce, and he watched her figure bend and disappear, almost like gravitational lensing.
All throughout, however, he caught glimpses of time itself being retrogressed--her aged and broken figure was reshaped anew, pulled back through the weathering of time. The broken-down armor regained its majestic luster, gilded lines of gold shining brilliantly. The chipped weapons emerged into two brilliant, identical blades gemmed with a burning ruby at the guard.
The scarred, broken, beaten, and decaying flesh was grown anew, smooth like a babe’s, young and without wrinkles. The hair, though, remained white as snow, though it fell back, uncovering her face whole. He only caught a glimpse before a steely, lavishly embellished helmet covered it, though that glimpse was enough to startle his heart; it was the kind of beauty that transcended physical. No, that was wrong--he felt as though it was a projection directly from the depths of his mind, what he, at his rawest, found to be the most beautiful. The ultimate expression of the vision unique to him, of the beauty he found most radiant and dear, projected into her.
The hunched back was no more and she stood straight as an arrow, brilliant cape fluttering in the raging storm, a radiant contrast of its crimson hue to the pale, snow-white of her hair.
“O thee,” her voice was a choir, a song, a beautiful sound that almost compelled him to his knees. There it was again, once more, that same feeling--just looking at her made him feel as though it would be a sin to disobey, and a mortal sin to defend. “One so bereft of Divine. Hast thou the will to contend? Or art thou cowardly, by Beauty compelled?"