Chapter 59: Getting Away From Scene
"Arggh!!!"
Azael groaned in pain.
Thump
Thump
Thump
His heart started beat faster.
As if it would burst out of his chest. It was too painful even for him to.
The old man in the smoke was ready to attack when it subsided.
But just then, the sound of heavy footsteps came.
"What? Did they come?"
He tried to run, but it was useless.
Someone dashed in his direction with lightning speed.
Before he could move—
Slash!
Thud
"Arrghhhhhh!"
His right leg was cleanly cut from below the knee.
He fell forward with a thud.
Blood gushed out from the cut like a fountain.
He screamed in pain.
He saw leather boots standing close to him, not armored boots made of metal like knights.
He raised his head to see the person who had just attacked him.
There stood a figure around 180 cm tall.
Slowly, the smoke subsided.
There stood a breathtakingly beautiful woman.
She was wearing black trousers and a beige shirt, with light armor over it.
Her golden-blonde hair was tied in a neat bun. Two bangs rested on both sides of her cheeks. Her skin was fair and smooth.
Her red eyes looked at him with cold indifference.
A sword was held in her hand.
"Du-duchess..." the old man muttered.
She was Aeliana.
"So you were the one behind all this... where are your teammates?" Her cold voice was like frost.
Meanwhile, Azael, who was away from them, saw the figure.
’Is... is that mother... shit...’
Stomp
Stomp
He could hear the sound of footsteps coming.
Most likely from other knights.
Azael pushed himself up and started to run in the opposite direction.
His body was burning from the inside, but he needed to get away from there.
Aeliana, who was standing there, turned back.
But saw no one.
"He ran away..."
She looked at the man and asked another question. "Who was the person that was fighting against you?"
---
Azael came into an alleyway.
Azael pressed his back harder against the cold stone wall.
His legs refused to hold him anymore. He slid down completely, sitting on the dirty alley ground. His clothes were soaked, half with sweat and half with blood from the cuts on his arms and side.
His breathing was ragged.
"This is crazy," he muttered through clenched teeth.
The pain was unlike anything he had felt before. It was not just the physical injuries. Those he could handle. He had handled wounds before. Scrapes. Bruises. Even deep cuts.
But this was different.
The purple flames were still inside him.
Even though no fire was visible on his skin anymore, he could feel them. Crawling and burning. Moving through him like hot coal dragged slowly through his veins. It was a dull but constant agony. Like being cooked from the inside without any smoke or ash to show for it.
They were not burning anything, but the pain they gave was no different from scorching heat.
His fingers curled against the ground.
"What even are these flames..." he whispered to himself.
He had felt destruction in them. When he had used them against those three, they had not just burned. They had consumed. There was hunger in them. A wild and mindless hunger that had no interest in being controlled. They were meant for destruction.
And now that hunger was turning inward.
Azael closed his eyes.
His breath came out unsteady.
He could feel the purple flames drifting through him slowly, like embers floating in still water. Each one left a trail of burning pain wherever it moved. His chest. His stomach. Behind his eyes.
Then a thought surfaced. Like something remembered from a half-forgotten moment during battle.
The phoenix fire.
He had almost forgotten about it. In all the chaos and fighting, in all the wild surge of power that had come from the purple flames, the other fire inside him had gone completely quiet. Like it had stepped aside. Retreated deep into whatever corner of him it called home.
But it was still there.
He could sense it. Barely. Like a single candle flame at the end of a very long and very dark hallway.
It was as if it was waiting for his command.
"Yeah..." Azael exhaled slowly. "Let me try it."
He did not know if it would work. He did not even know exactly what he was doing. He had no training. No teacher. No one who had ever sat across from him and explained how to do this.
But he had nothing else.
He shifted his position. Slowly and painfully, he folded his legs beneath him, sitting cross-legged on the cold alley ground, his back still against the wall, his hands resting open on his knees.
He tried to breathe evenly.
It was hard. His body kept wanting to seize up from the pain. Every few seconds, a fresh wave of burning would roll through him, and his jaw would clench and his hands would curl into fists without permission.
But he forced them open again.
Breathe.
He closed his eyes.
The darkness behind his eyelids was not peaceful. He could still see faint traces of purple light flickering at the edges. The flames inside him cast their own strange glow even when no one else could see it.
He ignored them.
He pushed past the pain. Past the flickering purple. Past the sound of his own heartbeat hammering loud and uneven in his ears.
He went deeper.
It was a strange feeling. Like sinking. Like letting himself fall slowly through layer after layer of himself. The noise of the outside world faded.
And then.
Deep inside his chest, somewhere that had no exact location but felt like the very center of him.
A warmth was hidden.
Not the savage and mindless heat of the purple flames. This was something entirely different. This warmth was gentle. It was the warmth of sunlight coming through a window on a cold morning. The warmth of something that had no interest in destroying anything.
The phoenix fire.
It was curled up quietly, like an ember buried under soft ash.
Azael reached for it.
A pull from the core of himself toward that small, quiet warmth.
’Come on.’
The flame stirred.
Just barely. Like a sleeping thing shifting slightly at the sound of a familiar voice.
’Come on. I need you.’
It felt harder to pull now.
Another stir. Slightly stronger this time.
The gold-red glow deepened a little. He could feel it more clearly now. It had a quality that the purple flames completely lacked.
Where they were chaotic and sharp and always pushing outward, this fire felt patient.
Azael kept his focus locked on it.
It was harder than it sounded. The purple flames kept interrupting. Every few seconds, they would flare up with a spike of sharp pain that tried to drag his attention back to them.
Demanding and insistent. Like a fire alarm going off while he was trying to listen to a quiet piece of music.
He clenched his teeth and held on.
’Not you. Not right now.’
He poured everything he had into that small, warm glow at his center.
And slowly, very slowly.
It responded.