Chapter 118: Morra!
The pressure vanished all at once, like a held breath that was finally released, and Kurt staggered one step before his boots found the floor again.
Across the cage, Morra placed both palms flat against the bars, and they dissolved, simply coming apart in threads of light that unravelled from the bottom up.
And with them went the metaphysical shackles that were always on her wrists, peeling away and scattering into nothing.
"You know, it was only a matter of time before I broke out of that cage." She stepped forward slowly. "But this feels sooo much different... feels good."
She stood free in the open air of the room and looked at her hands. After a while, she turned them over once, taking a moment to acknowledge her freedom.
Then her eyes came up to Kurt and her scythe, which took the form of a short sickle materialized in her grip.
"Nothing personal, Kurt." Her voice was pleasant and that was the alarming part. "You’re too much of an anomaly to leave running around unchecked."
She stretched out her arm to stare at her black nails as she spoke. "I’ll put you down now, and take you back with me. You’ll live out your unending days in confinement. Comfortable enough."
The ground beneath Zaza turned black and surged upward like tar, wrapping around her up to her neck and locking her in place mid-breath.
"Can’t have you interfering," Morra told her, then turned back to Kurt like that had been a minor task she just had to perform real quick.
Kurt took one step back. Then another. His hands came up slowly. "I thought we had something there. A moment. A connection." He kept his voice easy. "I know you’re not going to kill me."
Morra’s grin sharpened. "You’re charming, I’ll give you that." She raised one hand and a black aura coiled outward, wrapped around him and dragged him forward into her grip. Then the sickle came up, angled for the clean finish.
Just as she was about to help Kurt finish with his living, the mark on her chest began to burn with authority.
Morra’s arm stopped mid-motion. Not because she chose to, but because something deeper had just told her she didn’t get to.
The aura dissolved as Kurt peeled away from her grip one slow inch at a time, landed on both feet, and dusted off the front of his coat with two unhurried brushes of his palms.
"See, you didn’t let me finish." He cleared his throat. "I know you’re not going to kill me because—" he pointed at her chest, "—that won’t let you."
Morra’s eyes dropped. She followed the line of his finger to the mark sitting just below her collarbone. Slowly, the sickle lowered, and her grin crept back onto her face.
"...You clever little—" she began, but then stopped abruptly, turning toward Zaza, who remained rooted to the ground, her expression perfectly blank yet her eyes calmly tracking the unfolding scene with quiet interest.
"Did you have something to do with this?" Morra asked, narrowing her gaze.
Zaza blinked once, then glanced at Kurt before returning her steady gaze to Morra. "No?" she replied, the single word hanging in the air.
Zaza realized the ground holding her in place could be broken if she put in the effort. And suddenly, it dawned on her. "You rewrote the contract," she murmured softly, more to herself than to either of them.
Kurt flexed his marked hand once, still adjusting to its weight and unfamiliar sensation. "You could say that," he admitted. And a few seconds after, the system confirmed with a notification.
[New Quest Completed: Successfully Bind a Reaper]
[Rewards: +25 points]
[Available Points: 85]
Morra’s grip tightened for a moment when she saw heard the chime and saw the glowing text of the system, and the air around her warped as the sickle trembled.
It was as though she was testing the boundary, trying to force it through anyway.
Seeing how inevitable it was, she stopped, and her arms lowered. "...Interesting," she said quietly.
Morra studied him for a long moment, then let out a quiet laugh. "You know," she said, her voice low and amused, "part of me wants to tear you limb from limb right now... but fuck it."
Kurt looked at Morra, then at Zaza. "Release her... pretty please."
Morra’s jaw tightened for a fraction of a second. Then, with visible reluctance, she waved one hand dismissively and the black tar holding Zaza dissolved, releasing her.
Zaza stepped forward, adjusting her glasses without comment, and Kurt flexed his marked hand once.
His wrist had already stopped bleeding and the sigil on his chest had cooled to a dull warmth beneath his shirt. He just confirmed direct commands worked, and that was god to know.
***
Downstairs, the guild had not recovered.
The tremor had knocked Emma off her feet and deposited Lizzie directly underneath her, which neither of them had chosen.
Emma pushed herself upright, boots pressing off Lizzie’s chest for leverage as she asked. "What the fuck was that?"
Lizzie shoved her legs aside and stood with one hand on the wall for balance. "How am I supposed to know!"
Eli had already pulled out his phone, moving through it as someone who’d learned to check the broader picture first, and Rook did the same beside him, jaw set, eyes scanning.
"This wasn’t just here," Eli said.
"It was everywhere," Rook finished.
The room was still crackling with residual tension as chairs were displaced and ceiling lights swung on their fixtures with hunters scattered across the floor or gripping whatever was nearest.
Cassandra stood with one hand braced on the counter, the other flat at her side, already still again, while watching the elevator which was descending from the countdown on the panel.
Then it opened, and Kurt stepped out first, followed closely by Zaza. And then the third figure walked through, and the room seemed to stop.
Without hesitation, Rook’s hand shot sideways, closing around the nearest solid surface, which was the section of a wall bracket, and steel flowed up his arm and across his knuckles before his mind could even catch up.
Before anyone could speak, Lizzie was airborne, clearing two meters of floor in a single backward leap, both hands already glowing green in the same motion.
Emma’s grin was gone. Storm King materialized in her grip with a sound like a thunderclap, and she dropped into a fighting stance that said she wasn’t calculating yet, just preparing.
As for Cassandra, her blade cleared its sheath in an instant as the point came up between her and the reaper in a straight line.
Around the room, every hunter still present felt it simultaneously, the same cold signal that ran up the back of the neck and made the chest tight.
Essence was built and channelled into multiple random techniques as dozens of people responded to something their bodies understood before their eyes finished processing it.
Morra stepped into the room with her hands at her sides and her expression completely unbothered.
Eli went still with his phone halfway to his pocket. His eyes moved from the chalk-skinned lady to Kurt, to the room’s reaction, and back to the lady again, reading the evidence without the context.
He didn’t know what she was. But he knew what a room full of capable people looked like when they encountered something genuinely above their weight class. He’d seen it before.
Though, he’d never been on the opposite side of things before. Now he was in the room with the thing causing it.
Riley had planted her feet, essence heating up in response to everyone’s reaction as she watched every face around her for information.
She didn’t know who this woman was, but the way the entire guild had gone from rowdy to ready-to-die in half a second told her everything she needed. "Friend of yours?" She asked, stepping slightly behind Cassandra.
However, Cassandra didn’t answer. Her blade remained perfectly level.
Morra swept the room once with those dark, soulless eyes. Then she smiled. "Jeez, what’s with all the long faces," she said pleasantly. "Looks like someone died or something."