Chapter 45
“Someone’s here.” The warning has barely left my mouth when the barricade detonates inward.
The slab Moe wedged against the doorway erupts into splinters of stone and twisted metal, blasted across the room with enormous force.
I seize her by the waist and drag her under me as fragments scythe through the air overhead, smashing into the opposite wall in a deafening spray.
Dust bursts outward in choking clouds, filling the room with grit and pulverized stone.
A figure steps through the settling haze—an unfamiliar male.
He is tall enough that the doorway seems small around him, broad-shouldered and thick through the chest. His body is sheathed in dark segmented armor assembled from mismatched plates of metal so scarred and repolished they gleam dully beneath the crimson light.
Weapons cover him in layers—daggers sheathed at his hips, throwing knives strapped to each thigh, two short swords crossing over his back.
But the moment my gaze lands on him, I know with absolute certainty those weapons are not merely carried for show. Because they begin to move.
A low metallic rattle fills the room. Every scrap of metal around us trembles.
The bent nails half-buried in broken beams shudder loose. Rusted buckles twitch where they lie amid the rubble. My own knife jerks violently in my hand, nearly wrenching my wrist from its socket before it tears free entirely.
The blade flies from my grip hard enough to slice open my palm on the way out and embed itself in the wall beside the stranger’s head with a vicious metallic crack.
Cold dread coils in my stomach.
Possession Domain.
The man glances at the knife quivering beside his face and smiles faintly.
“Well,” he drawls, his voice rough with lazy confidence, “looks like someone found a very creative way to spend his Culling.”
His gaze sweeps over the room, taking in the collapsed barricade and the blood streaked across the floor from my now-healed injuries.
Then his eyes rove over my tattered, blood-stained shirt despite my lack of injuries. Eventually, his attention lands on Moe’s tattooed wrist.
His smile sharpens.
“How interesting. Last I heard, you were barely in one piece.”
Moe shifts behind me, and I instinctively step in front of her, shielding her from his view.
He notices my movement. He lets out a low hum, as if he’s laughing at me.
“Your wounds might have healed, but you’re still in terrible shape,” he says conversationally. “How much longer do you think you can last?”
I resume my stance, already scanning the area for all available shadows.
“You still have some fight in you, huh?” He chuckles. “That’s fine. I guess I’ll beat it out of you. It’s nothing personal. If not me, then it would be someone else. One hundred and fifty points are quite attractive after all.”
He lifts one hand with casual indifference. At once, every loose fragment of metal in the room rips free.
Bent nails burst from splintered timber.
Rusting scraps of abandoned armor scrape across stone.
Discarded knives, shattered spearheads, twisted hooks, buckles, clasps—every piece of sharpened or jagged metal tears itself from the rubble and rises into the air around him, forming a slow, circling orbit that gleams like a halo of steel.
Moe inhales sharply behind me.
The male’s grin widens.
“Too bad she’s bound to you,” he muses. “You don’t find them this comely around here.” He lets out a dramatic sigh. “One hundred and fifty points are more important than a fine piece of ass.”
I grit my teeth at the way he’s talking about her.
Suddenly, his eyes sharpen. He flicks his fingers and a knife shoots for my throat.
I wrench Moe downward and twist at the same time, the blade hissing past so close I feel its wind against my skin before it buries itself in the wall behind us.
Another follows instantly. Then another. It’s a continuous torrent.
Steel fills the air in flashing silver arcs, coming too quickly to track and too densely to evade cleanly. I drag shadows upward in frantic bursts, forcing darkness between us and the barrage.
But it’s too many, and with each use of my shadows, my energy drains a little. They become less and less opaque—less able to shield us from the incoming attacks.
Each strike sends violent tremors up my arms, through my shoulders, into my spine, threatening to shatter my concentration. My shadow buckles and ripples under the assault, flickering as if it might collapse entirely.
He advances through the storm of his own weapons with slow, measured steps. His expression never changes. It’s calm and serene, as if this display of power is nothing for him. He can control so many weapons without strain, his energy seemingly boundless.
What level is this male at?
I’ve never seen such a combination of precision and control until now. Based on what I know, this could put him upwards of level seven or eight. Maybe more.
By the Seven! I’m barely a level one. I’m no match for the likes of him.
Another dozen shards of metal peel free from the rubble behind him and rise into formation, their sharpened edges turning toward us in perfect unison.
I won’t be able to defeat him with my current strength. So my only option is to outsmart him—if that’s even possible.
Moe’s hand is on my shoulder, giving me silent comfort.
She realizes how precarious our situation is, too, but she’s trusting me to make the right decision. She’s trusting me with her life.
I stare at the myriad of weapons pointed at us, ready to strike at any moment. If we wait, we’re targets. If we move… maybe there’s a chance.
“Hold onto me,” I whisper to her.
She wraps her arms and legs around me, and I lunge forward.
The instant I move, every blade orbiting him tears through the air.
Metal shrieks as it comes for me from all directions, so fast it blurs.
I throw myself sideways and drag shadows toward me with urgency, black tendrils rising around my body like shattered shields.
Steel whistles past my face, my throat, my chest. One knife grazes my shoulder and opens flesh to the bone. Another slices across my calf deep enough to buckle my step. I take hit after hit, but with Moe on my back, the only other option is for her to be hurt, which is out of the question.
The male stands there, relaxed and amused as he watches me struggle toward him with detached interest.
Then he lifts one hand and something snaps tight around my ankle.
A discarded chain buried in the rubble lashes upward and coils around my leg before yanking viciously.
I pry Moe off my back and push her aside before I hit the stone.
“Agh,” I groan as I crash so hard my ribs flare white-hot with pain.
Before I can recover, more metal surges toward me.
Three blades slam into the floor around me in brutal succession—one beside each hand, one between my knees—pinning my torn shirt and trapping me against the stone for one fatal second.
“Nyk!” Moe cries out from a short distance away. She’s on her knees, her arms covered in scrapes. Tears gather in her eyes as she looks at me, but the only thing I can think of is that she’s wide open. She’s too far from me to cover her. Too far—
The male laughs.
“How touching.”
Moe’s mouth sets in a grim line as she glares at the male. She snatches up a broken chunk of masonry and hurls it at the back of his head with all her strength.
A thin stream of blood emerges from the impact site.
His lips twitch, and in the next moment, a dagger shoots toward her, stopping only a breath from her throat.
“No!” I cry out.
Everything inside me goes cold.
Moe is frozen in place, her eyes moving from me to the male.
“Stop. Don’t do anything else,” I grit out.
The male smiles faintly at her. “Move again,” he says, almost pleasantly, “and I’ll remove your head before it touches the floor.”
Her fingers grab onto the gravel by her side, her gaze defiant as she stares him down.
“Moe, don’t—”
The male twitches two fingers and the dagger presses forward.
A bead of blood wells at her throat.
The sight of it… the smell of it as it wafts to my nose.
Something in me snaps. I see red.
I rip myself free with a roar, cloth tearing, skin splitting where the pinned fabric drags against my wounds. I barely feel it. Rage drives me forward in a blind surge of violence as I charge him with everything I have left.
He merely laughs at me and beckons me with a lazy movement of two fingers.
Two swords whip sideways through the air and slam hilt-first into my chest from opposite directions. The impact steals the breath from my lungs.
My body flies backward and smashes into the far wall hard enough to crack stone around me before I crumble to the ground. Pain erupts through my spine and my vision whites out. For one terrible second I know nothing but ringing silence.
As I blink slowly back into awareness, he is standing over me.
Half his weapons circle lazily around him, gleaming in the dim red light. The others hover before my face, their sharpened tips aligned with my eyes, my throat, my heart.
“Well,” he says, crouching slightly. “That was disappointing.”
Blood fills my mouth. With the last of my strength, I spit a mouthful at his feet.
He tilts his head, studying me with detached disappointment.
“Pity, I thought you’d have more fight in you.”
One blade lowers.
Its tip settles against the hollow of my throat.
“Thanks for the points,” he murmurs.
He draws his hand back, preparing for the killing strike.
Moe is crying out in the background, her wailing voice killing something within me.
A disappointment… I was a disappointment again.
There are so many things I still want to tell her, to do with her—a lifetime to spend alongside her. But now I won’t get to do anything else but wait for my impending death.
Why the fuck is the universe so unfair?
But just as I think I’ve drawn my last breath, the world goes black—literally, not figuratively.