Chapter Fifty Sunny
Chapter Fifty
Sunny
I don’t remember getting up from Ethan’s lap, but I’m already running out to the street. The screams grow impossibly loud as a swarm of terrified shinbiins form a dam in front of me.
We have to get to our friends.
“This way.” Ethan snatches my hand and runs into a narrow alleyway.
“Where are we going?” I ask, keeping pace with him. “We need to find them.”
“There.” He points at the sky with his free hand.
An incomprehensible wall of black hovers in the distance, but vibrant beams of red, blue, green, and silver light up the sky. It’s not enough to drive back the Amheuk, but the magic of the four life sources is slowing the darkness down.
“They’re okay,” I breathe. I know our friends are okay. I know they’re the ones giving the Amheuk a run for its money.
“We have to hurry, though.” Ethan picks up his pace.
As I run next to him, something niggles at the back of my mind. In our rush to reach our friends, I forgot that I’m a fucking goddess. With an irritated click of my tongue, I tighten my grip on Ethan’s hand.
“Hang on,” I warn, then teleport us to our friends.
Unfortunately, we materialize in front of a black tentacle mid-swing. Ethan shoves me behind him—he really has to stop doing that—and takes the hit in his stomach. We are flung back, but I stop our fall midair and float us down to the ground.
“Ethan.” I catch him when his knees buckle.
“I’m okay.” He groans as he regains his balance and waves me away.
“We can’t hold them off for much longer,” Jihun rasps, limping over, and points toward the Queen of Sky, Bora, and Taeyoung, pushing back a monstrous arm of darkness at the other end of the field.
“Right,” I say grimly.
Absorbing two divine gi at once should have flattened me, but strangely enough, everything is quiet within me. The four life forces flow through my Yeoiju without hesitation—as though they’ve been a part of me all along—braiding together into one force.
“Now that I’ve absorbed all four divine life forces,” I tell my friends, “let’s see if all the fuss was worth it.”
I teleport to where the monarchs fight. To their credit, none of them so much as yelp when I appear out of nowhere.
“Imo,” I shout in alarm as the Queen of Sky staggers back, her lightning flickering weakly from her fingers.
Bora and Taeyoung aren’t in much better shape.
“Step aside,” I yell.
I form a ball of white light between my cupped hands as easily as taking a breath, and I fling the light at the dark monstrosity. With a keening screech, the tentacle disintegrates into dust.
Before I can even register the small victory, four more tentacles attack from all directions. I push out streams of white light with both hands, drawing a wide arc in the sky, and black dust rains down around us.
I glance behind at the three monarchs, and they gasp in unison. I guess my eyes are lit with white fire.
“Get to the Sentinels,” I order. “I got this.”
“We’re not going anywhere.” Taeyoung juts his jaw. “Besides, the Sentinels are coming to us.”
“They’re what?” I groan when I see the cluster of shinbiins sprinting toward us, dodging the Amheuk’s tentacles drilling down at them.
Ethan reaches my side in the next second, and my heart can’t decide whether to jump or fall. “Sunny.”
While I’m distracted, a tentacle sneaks up on us, and I barely have time to shove Ethan out of the way before I blast it with a pulse of light. He spins around to stand with his back against mine and jets silver and green gi at the next one that lashes toward us.
“Shit.” I pissed off the Amheuk, burning off its arms, and now we have its full attention.
The Sentinels and the monarchs join us, and we form a tight circle, magic flaring in our eyes. A dozen black arms attack at once, whipping and slashing past the bursts of our collective powers. Cheyun grunts next to me, taking a hit to her side. She growls and renews her attack.
I will not lose another friend.
“Stand back.” My voice rings through the chaos. “Stand back.”
The Yeoiju churns inside me like a tornado gaining momentum. I fist my hands to hold on to the magic impatient to burst from my chest. I am finally powerful enough to fuel the Yeoiju on my own without depleting my life force—without borrowing gi from any other source.
“Everyone, go!” Ethan yells.
They try to retreat, but they have to stop every two steps to fight off the tentacles slashing down on us.
This won’t do.
I shape a strand of my power into a long white whip and strike at the swirling darkness to corral it toward me.
“Shield them, Ethan,” I shout, my entire body vibrating with the need to unleash my power.
I don’t check to see if he got the protective dome over them. I trust him. Plus, I can’t hang on another second. With a guttural cry, I let it rip.
My back arches as power, pure and brilliant, bursts through my chest, my eyes, and my mouth. The Cheon’gwang. My arms and legs spread wide as white light floods out of me.
I’m breathless with fear and exhilaration, but my power doesn’t falter. I burn on and on, and I don’t relent.
The Amheuk shudders as the light scorches through its coiled tentacles. Try and run, motherfucker. I growl and push out another pulse of light.
The darkness tugs desperately at its bound arms and rips them free from my whip in ragged stumps. Vicious satisfaction sizzles through me. With a thundering cry, the Amheuk retreats into the sky.
But I am not done.
I ignore the faint tremors running through my body and burn through the tentacles remaining in my grasp. Black dust rains down from the sky, atmospheric in the white light.
It’s so beautiful.
“Sunny,” Ethan shouts hoarsely. “They’re gone.”
I come to with a jolt. He’s right. The sky brightens as the eternal darkness recedes beyond the boundaries of the Kingdom of Sky. But shutting off my power proves more challenging than unleashing it.
I wrap my arms around my midriff and listen for my Yeoiju. It whirs sharply in my ears, rather than singing its usual gentle hum.
Hush now. I clench every muscle in my body. We did it.
The Yeoiju pauses at my words, and I curl myself tightly around my heart’s center. It is done. Hush now. I don’t know how long I stand like that, but the frantic whirring slowly quiets.
When at last the song of the Yeoiju becomes a gentle hum again, I fall to one knee and swipe my arm across my forehead. I’m surprised Ethan didn’t rush up to catch me before I fell. After a heaving breath, I push up to a stand. There is no time to rest.
“Ethan,” Jihun shouts in alarm, and I whip around to face them.
“I got you.” Taeyoung wraps an arm around Ethan’s shoulders before his knees buckle.
Oh gods.
“Thank you,” Ethan murmurs, leaning heavily against the King of Underworld.
I run to him and take one of his hands in mine. He’s shaking. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” He smiles wanly. “For saving us all?”
“I should have stemmed my power sooner.” I can’t return his smile as guilt rams into me. “I made you hold the shield up for too long.”
“I’m fine.” His eyes search my face. “How are you? Did that deplete you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “It was actually a . . . relief.”
“You guys?” Hailey croaks. “Something’s wrong.”
I look over my shoulder, and blood drains from my face.
Fuck.
I slowly pivot on my feet and confront what I hope isn’t our doom.
The leviathan tentacles are gone, but the bodies of the shinbiin strewn across the field twitch and jerk as they rise up from the ground. Then fist-sized black holes appear in the air by each reanimated corpse.
With the unnerving sound of bones snapping, the shadowy portals suck in the bodies like powerful vacuums.
“What in the worlds . . .” Minju whispers. If she doesn’t know what’s going on, then we are definitely in trouble.
Darkness spreads across the Kingdom of Sky once more. Not as slashing black arms, but as torn, twisted bodies with misshapen limbs hanging off at wrong angles. I recognize the white of their pupilless eyes and the red slash of their screaming mouths.
The Amheuk is consuming the dead and regurgitating them as nightmare monsters.