Chapter 147 147: Void Is Salvation
"Kill him. And don't die until you do."
Silence followed.
Killian felt something cold crawl down his spine. Disgust and dread.
The injured rider remained afloat with his blood-stained aerial rings.
His shoulders drooped and his body begged for gravity to take it. Blood poured from the hole the tendrils made through his chest.
Yet the rider remained standing because he had to.
Killian swallowed hard, stepping away from them.
'Within the realm, the Crafter was God.'
Those words had never terrified him as much as it did at that moment.
The Crafter pointed at Killian and the other injured riders lowered themselves from the tendrils.
Neither their injuries nor fear mattered. They moved as though they received the same order.
Killian clicked his tongue, and his grip loosened around the dagger. Before helpless puppets wearing human skin, his resolve slightly faltered.
The leader of the outcasts chuckled, gaining his attention. She watched his expression and smiled.
"Still waiting for your backup?"
Killian said nothing.
She continued anyway. "This realm releases a sleeping agent. Small amounts. Just enough that nobody notices." She folded her arms. "The effect only finishes after leaving the realm."
Killian's jaw tightened, as he understood. He looked away from her.
The leader nodded. "That is right. In the improbable chance that we lose, you would simply fall asleep outside. Waiting for our backup. Just like your friend is lying somewhere on the ground already."
Killian returned his gaze to her, then at the riders stumbling towards him.
One had half his chest missing. Another could barely stand. Yet they kept moving. The realm forced them forward. The Crafter forced them forward.
Killian exhaled slowly through his nose. His shoulders rose, and then fell. He would take no responsibility.
"Fine. You forced my hand."
The half-dead riders continued approaching.
Killian lowered his dagger. "I'm hungry," his eyelids drooped as he added. "And now I'm sleepy."
The leader frowned.
Killian's hand slipped into his pocket. "I'll just use it and see where it goes."
For a brief moment, nothing happened.
SCREAMMMM!
The sound echoed across the realm. A scream of excitement, and not of pain or fear. Undiluted excitement that made the ground tremble.
Every rider froze. Even the half-dead ones.
The leader gained more distance and even the Crafter slowly drifted away from his puppets.
They understood that something had heard Killian. And it was waking up with fervour.
Within his thoughts, Killian called.
<Dawn of Death>
The space inside the tendrils bent like it was being pressed from the other side and a vortex grew out of it.
A shape rose from the dark ground where Killian stood, tall enough to loom over him and wide enough to block the battlefield from view.
Its hair spread like ink in water, wrapping around Killian without touching him like it knew its place.
The Crafter's eyes widened for the first time since the fight began. He barked an order and the half dead riders moved at once, blades shaking as they forced their bodies forward.
<Umbral Override>
The tendrils answered and pierced upward through the rider's bodies like spears. They had risen from the marked area when the riders were impaled.
The riders' movements stopped mid-step and their weapons fell as their life was taken away.
Their faces settled, almost in relief. As the Void finally offered them salvation.
But the tendrils did not stop moving, as they turned and chased the Crafter like hungry animals that already knew what he tasted like.
The Crafter twisted his body mid-air, breaking away from the ground as the tendrils snapped at his heels.
He shouted into the air and the realm itself seemed to react, pulling him higher as if it refused to let him be caught.
Killian's eyes followed him calmly, as if he was counting the seconds left to his capture. While the realm belonged to him, everything else was his to control.
"Get her." Killian said quietly, and the entity moved before the words even finished.
One hand shot forward and the leader was caught mid-air, her body crushed inside a grip of darkness that did not fully close.
The leader struggled and screamed to stop as panic finally cracked her voice.
Killian glanced at the entity. "You have another hand, no?"
A low sound of agreement came from it as the other hand moved towards the Crafter.
"No!" The leader bared her teeth at Killian, cursing. "You, Void-Born! Everything they said was right! You are a curse to the world! A curse-"
Her words were cut short from the shout of the Crafter. Killian turned towards him, taking all his attention away from the captured leader.
The Crafter spat blood. The entity had him in its grasp and the tendrils had drilled a hole through his legs, making the aerial rings he moved with useless.
He forced his skill again, trying to erase the entity's hold, but the space flickered like a broken image.
He stood at the top, close to the ceiling that didn't go beyond. Killian knew that was the ending point and the place to escape from.
"Do you want to hear what I have to say?"
The Crafter spat out more blood, while being held loosely by the entity's hand. His glowing eyes were faint as he looked up at Killian.
A thought crossed Killian's mind, as he locked eyes with him. He remembered his Shadow Barrage and the ridiculousness of walking into a trap, the Realmcraft, while looking for food.
"Yes," he sighed. "I did want to blind those eyes."
The Crafter's expression paled, and once again he struggled within the hold of the entity.
Killian relaxed, looking around the realm. It was a pretty realistic one, and he could easily give it an A.
But if he did blind the Crafter, there was a chance the realm wouldn't dissolve. Only if he was dead.
'Do people survive being gouged out?'
"A very… interesting question, Killian." The Void sounded absolutely humored by his question.
"Why don't you find out?"