After Zac blasted Saturio away with his final attack, he walked all the way to the place where the barbarian landed, finding the man lying on his back and looking up into the dark sky with a satisfied expression.
Saturio had a hole in his chest, half of his face had been burnt, and he was missing his entire left arm.
"Are you satisfied now?" Zac asked.
"I am… I couldn't have asked for a more fitting ending," Saturio replied, his voice weakened and devoid of the excitent from before.
"I only wish this was my last death…" Saturio continued.
Zac glanced at the man with a bit of confusion, making Saturio chuckle and choke on his own blood.
"As long as Netherius lives, he will keep bringing back…" The barbarian clarified.
"But I'm done with my search," he continued.
Zac understood that Saturio didn't want to keep living as a Death Knight under Netherius, but he was still confused about his motives.
"Why go this far just to look for a fight?" Zac asked.
"Hah… Who knows? When I was a child, I was captivated by the stories of the redheaded hero, so I suppose my desire to et him drove all the way here…" Saturio replied with a weakened voice.
"Was it worth it?" Zac pondered.
"That's right… I don't regret any of my decisions. Besides, I did get to et the redheaded hero in the end," Saturio comnted, glancing at Zac.
Even though Zac knew that Saturio had committed a lot of atrocities against the people of Limsa, he still felt a strange void inside of him when he spoke to the barbarian during his last breaths.
He didn't condone any of his awful cris, but the redhead still admired his drive to follow his desire, even if it ant turning into a Death Knight for soone such as Netherius.
"I'll honor your wish, Saturio…" Zac comnted, slowly standing up from the ground.
"Hmm?" Saturio humd.
"This will be your last death. I promise you won't be coming back to life," Zac said with a serious tone.
"Hah… AHAHAHA!" *cough, cough* The barbarian laughed out loud.
"How fortunate of …" Saturio muttered, raising his bloody right arm and covering part of the overcast sky with his palm.
"This is a good death… I, Saturio the Barbarian King, fought until my last breath and died honorably in battle!" he continued, giving one last look at Zac.
"I'll be rooting for you, Zac the Hero…" *thud* Saturio said as his arm plumted back down.
The mont that Saturio's life ended, Zac felt a strange surge of energy surrounding him that disappeared in less than three seconds. However, the redhead didn't pay much attention to it, as he felt like he was grieving.
"Zac!" Curtis beckoned his friend when he arrived at the scene.
"Are you alive, man?" Curtis asked, noticing that both of them were full of blood and bruises.
"Yeah… I'm fine-" Zac replied, getting interrupted by his own body giving out and making him fall to his knees.
"Here, grab onto my shoulder…" Curtis comnted, helping his friend up from the ground.
"Let's return to the checkpoint for now-" the blond continued but was instantly cut off by Zac.
"No… I need to help defeat Netherius," the redhead replied, gritting his teeth.
"Yeah, you are only going to be a nuisance if you show up like this. We can't keep fighting, Zac," Curtis said, his tone severe.
"I know, but I promised!" Zac exclaid.
"I heard. This doesn't an you are not fulfilling your promise. I'm telling you to trust your team," Curtis calmly replied.
"Dante, Asphodel, and my grandma are still around here sowhere… Give them a chance before you beco a liability in their fight," the blond continued.
"Are you listening, Zac?" Curtis asked, noticing that he had been dragging the redhead for a few ters as he had lost consciousness.
After letting out a sigh of both relief and exhaustion, Curtis carried Zac on his back and began walking back to the checkpoint outside the city of Limsa, where they could heal up and rest their injuries in the anti.
____________________
In a different corrupted district, at the sa ti that Zac and Curtis were fighting with Saturio, gan and her team walked along an empty street.
gan had grouped up with Lindsey, one of the leaders of the GTS, and Irina, the vampire sentinel.
The trio had found a few small packs of ghouls and zombies that they easily dispatched, and Irina could sense a surge of necrotic energy coming from the top of a building.
Instead of going through the stairs, Irina extruded her bat wings from her back and carried gan to the top. Lindsey, on the other hand, used wind magic to gently levitate and fly upwards.
When they reached the rooftop, they noticed a necrotic core surrounded by a large group of zombies, who seed to simply stand around the core without a clear objective.
To save themselves so ti, Lindsey clapped her hands and produced a strong gust of wind that blew the zombies away from their positions, making them plumt down to the streets.
After the trio safely landed on the now-empty roof, they scrutinized the necrotic core for a few seconds.
"Hmm, this thing is powering the death's ichor…" Irina comnted, placing a hand on her chin.
"This core?" gan pondered, believing that it was too easy to get to it for sothing so important.
"Well, part of it. To corrupt this much of the city, there are probably dozens of these all over…" Irina replied.
"In other words, we destroy all of these spheres that we find," gan said.
"Right. That should also help with the thick necrotic air…" the vampire continued.
Lindsey pointed her palm at the orb and bent the cent of the building into a large spike, throwing it against the core and shattering it.
Just as the trio believed that their task was too easy, they felt a sudden presence that made them freeze in their spots.
"I suppose it wouldn't be that easy…" Irina comnted, clenching her fists with apprehension.
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