Book 5: Chapter 46 — Severence - IV
Severence was hovering high above the valley, watching the chaos below in case his seer friend Eileth survived, when a dragon claw slithered its way out of his storage belt and dug deep into his side.
He swatted the irritating thing, which dispersed it into raw mana, but another appeared a moment later. Sev flew higher, which did little to help. But it at least helped him feel more in control of himself.
He still needed to decide what he wanted to do with the Vessel, whether he should keep him a few years for his own experiments or hand him over to the Lunar Council right away. At the moment, he was leaning heavily toward keeping the kid, at least until he could figure out how he’d stolen Sev’s strongest path, perhaps until he found a way to steal it back.
He knew better than most, nothing could truly be destroyed. Negation, Regression, they imposed a prior state, but they were not unbreakable. Whatever the monster had done to Sev, it should be possible to reverse it.
Should be.
Sev tapped into his storage belt to pull out his prisoner. This far up, anyone below A-rank would freeze solid within moments, and if he dropped someone from this high, he’d shatter on impact. Sure, the kid could regrow his whole body, but it would at least slow him down.
His prisoner didn’t appear.
Again, Sev tapped his storage belt to drag out his prisoner, and again, his prisoner didn’t appear. A dragon claw sliced out instead and stabbed Sev in the hand, as if in retaliation for the attempt.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. His brow furrowed faintly as his efforts continued to be met only with failure.