Chapter 60: Finally Safe
The phoenix fire woke up again.
It rose from the deep place where it had been resting and it moved through him like a slow tide coming in.
Gold and red. Warm and full. It moved with a kind of deliberate steadiness that felt almost alive. Almost thoughtful and familiar.
Where the purple flames had erupted all at once in a violent surge, this was the opposite. The phoenix fire moved carefully. Like it understood what was happening. Like it knew exactly where to go.
And where it went, it pushed.
The first contact between the two fires was immediate.
The purple flames reacted violently. They surged up in response to the intruder moving through his veins. Azael gasped sharply. His hands slammed flat against the ground at his sides. His whole body shuddered.
Inside him it was like two storms crashing into each other.
The purple flames lashed out. Wild and vicious. They hammered against the advancing warmth of the phoenix fire and for a moment it felt like they would simply overwhelm it. Snuff it out. Consume it the way they consumed everything else.
But the phoenix fire did not retreat.
It held, as Azale will for it, they held.
Azael gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached. He could feel both fires simultaneously and it was an almost indescribable sensation.
On one side, raw destruction. Pure and cold and ravenous. On the other, stubborn and quiet life.
’Push’ he thought. ’Push them back.’
He threw his focus entirely behind the gold-red flame.
The phoenix fire surged forward again.
It moved through his chest like a warm hand spreading open against his ribs. The purple flames hissed and writhed against it. He could feel them fighting back.
But the phoenix fire kept going.
Down through his stomach where the destruction had settled heaviest. Up through his shoulders where it had been crawling beneath the skin.
The gold and red warmth flooded through those places one by one and wherever it touched the purple flames were shoved back.
But pushed.
The two fires raged against each other inside him for what felt like a very long time. In reality it was perhaps only a few minutes. But every second stretched out long and painful and total.
Azael sat motionless in the alley. To anyone walking past he might have looked like a wounded young man sitting very still against a wall with his eyes closed.
But inside him a war was being fought.
The purple flames were powerful. There was no question about that. They had a ferocity to them that made them nearly impossible to overcome through brute force alone.
Every time the phoenix fire pushed them into a corner they would surge back somewhere else, flooding through a different path like water finding cracks.
So the gold-red fire changed its approach.
Instead of pushing them harder, it spread wider.
It expanded slowly through Azael’s whole body at once. Filling the spaces. Flooding the channels through which the purple flames moved.
Not attacking them directly anymore but simply taking up space. Claiming ground. Breathing warmth into every corner until there was less and less room for the destruction to roam freely.
The purple flames began to slow.
Their surges became less violent. Less frequent.
The sharp stabbing pain that had been moving randomly through Azael’s body started to dull down into something steadier and more manageable.
The two fires stopped crashing against each other and instead began to settle. Side by side. Still wary. Still pushing against each other with a constant low pressure. But no longer warring.
They were balancing.
Azael felt the exact moment it happened.
The pain dropped down to a low ache. His breathing came easier. The shaking in his hands subsided. The burning that had been eating through him from the inside smoothed out into a gentle and steady warmth.
The purple flames grew still.
The tattoo on his chest, the dark jagged mark that had been pulsing and glowing with cold violet light, slowly dimmed. The lines faded.
The glow retreated. Until the mark was just a faint shape on his skin. Dark and quiet. No longer radiating anything.
And then the flames themselves faded too.
Both of them. The gold-red warmth retreated back down into his center. Deep into that quiet resting place.
The purple flames followed. Both of them settling down together into an uneasy but stable stillness.
Azael opened his eyes.
The alley was dim. The sky above the narrow strip between the buildings had darkened further while he had been sitting there. Somewhere distant he could hear the sound of the city. Voices.
The movement of people. The ordinary noise of a world that had no idea what had just happened in a back alley three streets over.
He looked down at his hands.
They were not glowing. Just his hands. Scraped and bloodied and trembling slightly from exhaustion.
He reached up slowly and touched his chest where the tattoo had been pulsing.
Just skin now. The mark was still there if he looked closely. But it was only a mark. Not a living thing anymore.
He let his head fall back against the wall.
His eyes were violet again. Not glowing purple anymore. Just his own eyes staring up at the narrow rectangle of darkening sky above him.
He was safe.
He was still injured. His body ached deeply all over. The cuts on his arms stung. His side felt bruised all the way to the bone.
His energy was completely gone. He was fairly certain that if he tried to stand up right now his legs would simply refuse.
But the fire was quiet. And he was still alive.
"That," he said to no one in particular, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper, "was the worst thing I have ever felt in my entire life. "
He sat there for a long moment.
Just breathing.
But his body was still injured.
’I cannot go home like this...’ He was still wearing mask.
It was late evening. Soon it will be dark.
He got up, suddenly he remembered a place which might help him.
"I think...it’s closer...fuck..."
Azael started to walked towards the same direction.
His body was too tired but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t walk. He was used to this kind of things.
After walking around more than twenty minutes.
He reached the place.
His body had many cuts and bloodied.
But not life threatening.
He opened the door an entered.
"Oh~ customer-"
A woman sat at the counter. Her hair beautiful violet color. Silver color eyes.
Weaing a black rob that couldn’t hide her curve. Her attractive figure.
The robe she wore was heavy silk embroidered with faint silver runes that shimmered when she breathed.
The fabric parted and clung in all the right places, sliding over the slow, generous rise of her massive breasts. Full, impossibly round, straining against the delicate ties as if the cloth itself were reluctant to cage them.
"H-hello Liona...can I get some help from you?" Azael asked with smile behind his mask.
He came to the alchemy shop name Elixirs & Solvents.
The same place where he had bought those aphrodisiac sticks.