Chapter 67: The Great Escape
They were racing against death... and death was winning. The invisible force carved through the earth behind them with relentless determination, gaining ground with each passing second. Arthur was barely able to stay conscious, caught between two impossible torments—the fear of the impending doom chasing him and the unimaginable pain of lightning coursing through his rain-covered body.
The metallic taste of blood filled his senses as he bit the inside of his cheek, a minor pain lost in the symphony of agony that had become his existence.
Aziel glanced backward for one second, his lightning-filled eyes widening at what he saw. He immediately spun his head back forward, not wanting to waste even a millisecond of concentration on anything but escape.
"Oh shit oh shit oh shit!" Aziel’s voice sounded nervous, higher-pitched than usual, betraying a fear that Arthur had rarely heard from his normally confident companion. But Arthur couldn’t concentrate on his words, too busy channeling every ounce of his remaining strength into simply not dying.
The split ground was only feet from them now, a gaping wound in the earth that raced forward like a predator closing in for the kill. Arthur could feel the disturbance in the air behind them, a wrongness that made his dark sense scream warnings he had no way to heed. It looked like at any moment they would be cleanly cleaved in two by this invisible force sent out by the reaper, their bodies falling into separate halves on either side of the newly formed chasm.
Arthur closed his eyes, preparing for impact, for the end that seemed inevitable. ’So close...’ The thought drifted through his mind, a mixture of regret and resignation. They had almost made it, had almost escaped, but "almost" counted for nothing in the face of death.
But just as Arthur expected to feel his body being split apart, instead, he felt a completely different pain—the same agony he was already enduring but... way more intense, as if someone had dialed his suffering up to impossible levels.
Arthur’s eyes shot open as he desperately screamed in pain, a raw, primal sound torn from the depths of his being. Veins bulged out along his neck, arms, and forehead, standing in stark relief against his pale skin. Blood leaked from his nose, warm and metallic, tracing crimson paths down his face before being whipped away by the wind of their passage.
But they were going faster. Much faster.