The Beginning After The End Chapter 155

Chapter 155

Chapter 155: Why I’m Here

My heartbeat quickened and my palms grew slick with sweat as Sylvie’s emotions leaked onto , but I had no ti to rest; with their conjurers and archers nearby sustaining serious injuries, the enemy augnters and soldiers were quick to approach us.

“We got so headed our way. Don’t get cold feet on now,” my forr professor chuckled. Her lighthearted tone didn’t suit the screaming and clashing of weapons resounding in the background.

“Cold feet? I’ve been taking the brunt of attacks from their conjurers and archers, trying to establish a pattern in their attacks,” I answered, drawing Dawn’s Ballad and burying its sharp blade in through the breastplate of an enemy soldier in one swift motion.

“Is that how you were able to set off those explosions just now?” Vanesy asked as she parried a large warhamr. It was compelling watching my forr professor fight up close without holding back. Her fighting style, combined with her utilization of both earth and fire in a unique way to conjure glass, produced an array of glimring attacks. She was able to create a layer of sharpened glass around her swords to extend her reach, cleaving down enemies several yards away.

“No, that was sothing else.” I pulled my sword out from a different enemy. “Vanesy. We should end this battle soon, or at least take it away from here.”

“You say that as if we”—Vanesy ducked, narrowly avoiding the head of an axe—“were purposefully prolonging this battle.”

I swung Dawn’s Ballad, sending a sharp crescent of wind at my forr professor’s attacker. With a sharp hiss, blood splurted out from the barrel-chested Alacryan’s unprotected neck. He was only able to let out a soft gurgle before collapsing to the ground, his eyes wide and frantic while his hands pressed down on his fatal injury.

My tone grew stern as I replied. “I’ll admit my priorities may have been a bit different until now, but there’s no ti now. Take the battle elsewhere—anywhere away from here.”

Her forehead creased. “What’s going on?”

“There’s going to be soone coming, soone as strong—if not stronger—than . Get everyone away from here so they don’t get caught in our crossfire.”

Vanesy’s furrowed brow deepened. “Our? You can’t an—”

I nodded gravely. “This is why I’m here—in case sothing like this happened. Get everyone away from here.”

“I know you’re strong—actually, I can’t fathom how strong you actually are—but damn it, that doesn’t an you can’t use any help!”

My eyes loosened as I gave my forr professor a look of concern, but remained silent.

“Shit,” my forr professor cursed, surveying the battlefield. She looked back at with a resolute gaze. “Fine, but you better co back alive or I’ll pull you out of hell myself just to send you back.”

I couldn’t help but let out a chortle from her ridiculous threat. “I promise.”

Vanesy took a step back and saluted before Torch swooped down from the sky. The captain jumped onto the flare hawk and bellowed out, “Dicathens! Retreat!”

Like that, the tide of battle shifted. Vanesy flew overhead, rallying her n that might not have heard, but already our soldiers had begun edging back while defending themselves from our enemies.

I watched as our soldiers withdrew, holding back any enemies that tried to chase after them, but there were simply too many.

It’s okay, I told myself. The Alacryan soldiers weren’t the problem. Vanesy and Captain Auddyr’s divisions were going to have to manage.

I put away Dawn’s Ballad and made my way toward the edge of the clearing. Jumping up onto a tree, I conjured a cushion of wind underneath my feet and made my way southward, hopping from one branch to another.

Just beyond the clearing, the ta trees, evenly spaced and maintained by woodcutters from the nearby town, beca more wild and dense. There were large trees strewn below, fallen in storms. The harsh winter had stripped away much of the bark but by the thin layer of frost on the untouched ground, it seed like the Alacryan Army hadn’t passed by here when they made their way up.

The only sound around was the rustling of leaves and the occasional snaps of branches from the wildlife.

Sylvie. Are you there? How close are you?

I was t with only silence from my repeated attempts at establishing contact with my bond. She was either too far away, which shouldn’t be the case, or intentionally ignoring .

‘Aren’t you a cute boy. Could it be that you’re lost?’

I flinched from the unfamiliar voice that rang in my head, nearly falling off the branch I was perched on. Whipping my head left and right, I tried to locate the source of the sound.

I wanted to move but my body froze—not from the cold, but from a tangible fear. A deep sense of dread creeped up like a rising tide, slowly but surely, as I surveyed the area.

Even with augnted vision and hearing, I couldn’t find her. Yet, I knew she was there, her high, grating voice still scratching the insides of my ears.

‘Are you, perhaps, looking for little ol’ ?’ her shrill voice screeched inside my head like a coarse blade being dragged against ice. I gnashed my teeth, trying to keep calm. My mind knew she was intentionally intimidating but my body couldn’t help but fall victim to her tactic.

Her voice seed to co from all around and at the sa ti, inside . My limbs grew stiff as my heart beat hard enough to break out of my ribcage.

Without a second thought, I bit down on my lower lip. As the pain and tallic taste of blood washed over my tongue, freeing from the holds of her killing intent, I imdiately activated Realmheart.

The once lush green and brown scenery washed down into shades of gray with only speckles of color radiating from the mana around .

Unable to see any sources of mana fluctuation, I began to doubt what I heard—no, I wanted to doubt what I heard. Suddenly a flicker of light whizzed past the corner of my eye like a green shadow. It was almost impossible to follow the shadow’s movent but if I kept my eyes unfocused, I could catch glimpses of her movent.

The green shadow stopped. From her location, it looked like she was inside the trunk of a tree about thirty feet away.

‘Sharp eyes, little boy. Sharp eyes.’ She moved once more, travelling from inside one tree to another, using branches as if they were tunnels, leaving behind traces of sickly green mana. My eyes darted, trying to follow her movent as she let out a cackle of laughter that echoed in the thick forest.

“Your eyes look like they’re spinning, dear,” she teased, her shrill voice just as earsplitting out loud as it was in my head.

“Am I here?” she asked, farther away this ti.

“How about here?” Her grating voice sounded to my left.

She let out a childish giggle. “Maybe I’m here!”

Her voice seed to grow more distant than before. Was she trying to avoid ?

“I could be over there...” she taunted once more, her voice suddenly coming several yards away to my right.

“Or I could be right here!” Suddenly, an arm shot out from inside the tree I was perched on.

I had no ti to react as her hand gripped around my neck, spreading a searing pain across my throat and collar. I was lifted into the air, held by my neck, as the source of the shrill voice ca out of the tree.

I gripped at her bony pale arm, splotched with discolored marks as I tried to break free from her hold. She was wearing a sparkling black dress that accentuated her body’s tall and sickly thin fra. I could practically see her ribs through the thin piece of fabric that would’ve looked elegant had it been worn by any other woman.

I struggled to lift my gaze high enough to see her face, but what stared back at was a ceramic mask with a doll-like face masterfully drawn. Long, scraggly black hair was tied into two ponytails behind her head with a bow tied at each end.

“My, what a handso young boy you are,” she whispered from behind her mask, the drawn eyes looking straight at .

Like a bolt of electricity, a shiver shot down my spin at her words, making struggle harder. My neck felt like it was being constantly branded as the burning pain beca almost unbearable. Struggling with the last of my consciousness, I willed mana into my palms.

With Realmheart still active, I could physically see the specs of blue mana gathering around my hands, turning into a shimring white as I ford a spell. Tightening my grip around her wrist, I released my spell.

[Absolute Zero]

She imdiately let go of my neck and pulled her arm away from my grasp. Upon release, I fell from the tree, crashing through a hollow log on the ground.

“The little puppy has a bit of a bite,” she reprimanded from atop the tree.

I hurriedly got back up onto my feet, ignoring the burning pain still radiating from my neck, but the woman was already in front of , looking down through the small eyeholes of her mask. Her right arm was discolored and swollen from where I was able to briefly touch her with the spell.

She shook her head. “No matter. I’ll just have to be a bit more strict in your training.”

My body involuntarily took a step back. She had no intention of killing ; she just wanted as so sort of pet.

“What’s your na, my dear?” she whispered, looking away as she buried her right arm inside the tree behind her.

“My mother told not to talk to strangers, especially ones as... strange as yourself,” I answered, wincing from the pain as I gingerly touched the wound on my neck. Usually, thanks to assimilating with Sylvia’s will, I’d feel my body already healing, but the injury she inflicted was different.

“Not to worry. We’ll get acquainted soon enough,” she replied, pulling her arm back out of the tree, the wound marked by my spell nowhere on her arm. The tree she’d pulled her arm out from now had a gaping hole in it, like soone had branded it with acid.

She took long strides, her scar-marked legs sinking into the ground as if she were wading through water. “Unfortunately, we don’t have much ti as I have tasks to finish. Any chance that you’d willingly be this beautiful lady’s slave?”

I drew Dawn’s Ballad out of my dinsion ring. “Sorry, I’ll have to refuse.”

“They always do.” The bony woman let out a sigh as she shook her head. “It’s okay, half the fun is breaking the will of a disobedient slave.”

As she finished talking, mana the color of rotted seaweed began gathering beneath my feet. Imdiately, I jumped back, just in ti to avoid a cluster of murky hands that shot out from the ground. The humanoid arms or mana clawed the air before sinking back into the corroded ground.

The woman tilted her head but I couldn’t see her expression through her disturbing mask. Through Realmheart, the spells seed to have a similar attribute to wood, like Tessia, but with every spell she conjured, it left a mark of corrosion.

I slid my fingers down my burning neck, afraid of what I’d see in my reflection. More of the murky green mana gathered around the mysterious enemy, but before she had the chance to finish her spell, I shot out a stone spike from the ground beside her. I watched as the earthen spear dissolved instantly the mont it made contact with her.

“You’re just prolonging the inevitable, my dear,” she cooed in her high, grating voice that made want to claw my ears off.

She raised both arms, conjuring more pools of mana on the ground and on trees around , only visible because of my unique vision.

My first thought was how I should save mana during this battle when I realized for the first ti in a long while that I had no reason to hold back. Most likely, she was either a retainer or scythe, one of the key enemies that I had spent years training to fight against in the land of asuras.

Breaking open the taphoric wall I had built to control my mana, I felt a rush of mana pour out of my core. The once dim runes that ran down my arms and back glowed brightly, blatantly apparent even through the thick mantle I wore over my undershirt.

Particles of mana in blue, red, green and yellow rushed out of my body while the mana in my vicinity swirled and gathered, drawn to my body like moths to a fire.

“Looks like I found soone special,” the woman effused as she crossed her raised arms, invoking her spell. Dozens of vine-like arms appendages erupted from the ground and shot out from the trunks and branches of nearby trees.

My expression remained calm, her imposing intent no longer affecting , as the disfigured hands of mana reached for with their spindly fingers. A small crater ford in the ground below my feet as I dashed toward the slender witch of a woman, ignoring her spell.

I ducked and swayed, dodging the vine-like hands that followed my movent, never breaking my stride as I reached the witch. I was just inches away from reach, yet the woman didn’t even flinch, confident in the aura that had dissolved my earlier spell.

“Absolute Zero,” I whispered, coalescing the spell completely around my body.

The murky green hands that froze inches before contact beca a disturbing statue that only philosophers could put aning to.

My first instinct was to swing Dawn’s Ballad but I was afraid that my sword would end up like the stone spear, so I took one last step, just before her feet, and willed the aura of ice to form into a claw-like gauntlet around my left hand like the augnter had done back at the start of my earlier battle. As my spell collided with her aura, a cloud of steam hissed out, blocking my vision.

It only took one gulp of breath to realize that the steam was toxic. My body imdiately reacted, sending to my knees in a fit of coughs as both my innards and skin began burning. The toxic gas surrounding had already lted a lot of my clothes, exposing the runes on my arms. It was the fading of the golden runes that snapped out of my daze.

The runes, imparted onto by Sylvia and the very symbol of how this all started pulled out from the cold grip of darkness.

I promptly created a small vacuum to suck the toxins out of my searing lungs. It helped, but with no air to breathe and the oxygen from my lungs sucked out, I was left with just a matter of seconds until I blacked out.

The fog, as toxic as it was, covered from the witch’s eyes. She’d assud I’d have fainted by now, or worse, so I used that opportunity. Locating her mana signature with the help of Realmheart, I waited for the right opportunity to strike while fighting my body’s unwillingness to stay conscious.

Seconds seed like hours, reminding of my ti spent with my consciousness in the aether orb, when she finally drew close enough. While she shouldn’t be able to sense the mana fluctuation around from the effects of Mirage Walk, I could only pray that she wouldn’t be able to see the dim glow of my sword.

With the last bit of energy, I triggered Static Void, stopping ti around as I exploded to my feet and struck her with Dawn’s Ballad. My sword crackled as it seed to tear through space, imbued with a gleaming white lightning that seed almost holy as I released ti just before my blade made contact with her face.

The force of my swing spread the cloud of acid covering both of us, but even without seeing, I knew I’d sohow missed my target. I shuddered as my gaze fell to the blade in my hand, or rather, what was left of it. The tip of Dawn’s Ballad, forged by an asura, had been corroded flat with an inch of the teal blade gone. However, spotting the faint trace of blood on my blade, I shifted my glance to the witch.

I could only see the point of her sharp chin as her head was reeled back, a thin trail of blood rolling down the side of her neck. The entire forest seed to have quieted in fear as the only sound I heard was the shattering of her mask on the dirt floor.