Chapter 87: The Fate of Death
On the top floor of a high-rise building several kiloters from the café, behind floor-to-ceiling windows, a bathtub filled with deep red liquid sat at the center of a room that had clearly been designed for soone with very specific preferences.
The woman reclining in it was beautiful in the way that certain rare things are beautiful, the elegance of sothing that has existed long enough to develop its own gravity.
Fine features, the particular poise of soone accustod to being the most significant presence in any room.
Two slim horns curved back from her forehead.
One pale hand held a wine glass, but what was in it matched the color of what she was bathing in.
"Hm?"
Her gaze moved through the window, through the city, through walls and distance, and found the café with the ease of looking across a room.
"Oh. One of my custors." She tilted her head. "The product didn’t hold up. Well, consider it an after-sales service."
She yawned, raised the glass, drank.
"Let
see... a diocre soul, barely worth burning. And the target is..."
She paused.
"An unawakened little witch. Interesting. My idiot sister Charva might find that amusing. Not that I’m going to bother telling her. Too much effort."
Her fingertip traced symbols in the air. A few murmured words. Then she stopped.
"Less than seven seconds. That soul burned out completely. Pathetic." She set the glass on the tub’s edge. "Well, the curse won’t kill a witch anyway. Call it a gift."
Then her attention shifted to the figure beside Elena.
Even through all that distance, the witch’s perception caught sothing.
"A Demon Lord Candidate?" She laughed softly, genuine delight in it. "In a place like this. What good luck, even that waste of a soul had so use after all."
She rose from the bath. The red ran off her skin without leaving a mark.
She ca to stand at the window, expression warm with curiosity.
"Which sin, I wonder. Luxuria would please
most. Superbia is acceptable. As long as it isn’t Ira, I have no patience for brutes."
She looked through the glass.
"The curse has arrived. Let’s see how you handle it, little one."
---
In the café, Raphael’s eyebrow lifted slightly.
This person spent real money on black market materials. That explains the finances.
The stalker burned.
Invisible fire found the fabric of his clothes first, then worked inward.
He scread, three tis, sharp and diminishing, and went down. His eyes, already hollow, stayed fixed on Elena until the last involuntary twitch stopped. What remained was black and still.
"He was sacrificed. The curse is real." Raphael was already on his feet, Blood Frenzy opening, his eyes going red. He turned to Elena.
[Curse detected.]
[Curse, Fate of Death: The cursed individual’s current fate has been artificially connected to its endpoint. Unless the curse expires, death is the inevitable outco.]
[Duration: 6 seconds.]
[Caster: Level gap too significant. Information locked.]
[Target: Elena Silva.]
Six seconds.
Crack.
The decorative glass chandelier above them, its mounting screws corroded with age, holding on through habit rather than integrity, chose this mont to give up.
A half-ter of solid glass dropped straight down toward Elena.
Raphael instantly transford into a red afterimage.
Blood Frenzy speed, no hesitation, crossing to her side and pulling her up and sideways before she’d registered the sound above.
The chandelier hit the table she’d been sitting at and punched straight through it.
The impact shattered it completely, a dense spray of glass fragnts and fine fibers across the floor, the imdiate area turned into a field of razor edges.
The largest pieces didn’t scatter randomly.
They moved toward her, not quickly, not obviously, but with a subtle, purposeful drift that had no natural explanation.
Each one had a target. One angling toward her eyes, long enough to reach the brain. One toward the carotid. One toward the center of her chest.
Each one aid to finish the job.
Raphael’s right hand beca a blur, intercepting at full Blood Frenzy speed, knocking fragnts off course, catching the ones he couldn’t redirect.
His palm split open in three places. Blood ran freely.
The last piece, the longest shard, he caught between his fingers at one centiter from her eye.
"Ah..."
Elena looked up at him. His hand was bleeding from every cut the glass had made, and his face was exactly as calm as it always was.
"You’re alright. Don’t panic. I’ve got you."
He’d grown used to ordinary pain so ti ago. Being effectively decapitated during the Last mission and put back together had recalibrated his reference points considerably.
He dropped the glass he was holding and kept the long shard.
A crackling sound from the direction of the fireplace.
The overturned table, in falling, had sent the gun magazine into the fireplace. It had landed upright, by chance or by the sa quiet guidance that had been directing the Physical trajectory.
The rounds inside were already heating. The spring was already pushing them toward to the top.
"Damn—!"
He grabbed a chair and threw it at the fireplace in the sa motion. The chair was going to be too slow, the first round discharged before it arrived, the crack of it sharp in the enclosed space.
Bang.
Bang.
The chair hit the fireplace mouth and wedged there.
The rounds punched through the wood, losing most of their force, the remaining energy sending them tumbling across the room in unpredictable directions, people scattering and screaming in every direction.
Not enough ti.
Raphael pulled Elena into his chest, turned, and put his back between her and the fireplace.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Three rounds. His back. Blood ca.
He held still and kept her covered.
Elena, pressed into his chest, looked up at him without understanding. He was her hired bodyguard, two days of acquaintance and a deal struck over handcuffs.
None of that explained this.
Raphael’s warm body temperature and unique scent enveloped her, giving Elena a strange sense of security even though she was still in a predicant.
The warmth of it. The steadiness of his heartbeat under her ear. His face, unmoved.
Resolute and unwavering, as if what they were doing was the only right thing to do.
Elena was reminded of the knights in her childhood fairy tales, who remained steadfast in their duty to protect.
Sothing shifted in her chest that she didn’t have a word for yet.
[Crossroads of Fate: Witch — Elena Silva.]
[Synchronization rate increasing: 2%]
[Synchronization rate increasing: 4%]
[Synchronization rate increasing...]
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