A Jaded Life

Chapter 1352

For a second, I was uncertain just what was going on. Joshua’s body was drenched in blood to the point that a part of me idly wondered just where the guy got that much blood; it seemed almost excessive. His entire front was drenched, mostly by blood leaking from his mouth, nose and eyes, while his shoulders had been splattered by some that dripped out of his ears. His lower body was similarly coated, the majority leaking from his behind and the rest dripping out of his, well, formerly favourite appendage. It was incredibly messy, but that wasn’t the biggest problem; I could clean it up.

No, the problem was that I was certain I had seen Joshua die just moments earlier, and yet, he was twitching, his arms flopping around a little and splattering some of the blood he had lost around. Despite the exhaustion I was feeling from the magical exertion just now, I pushed myself to my feet, just as Joshua’s body was doing the same.

Knowing that I needed information, and Joshua would hate me beyond all reason anyway, so I wouldn’t make anything worse, I used Observe. It didn’t cost any Astral Power, so it wouldn’t add to my depletion, but it would exhaust me a little further. When the blue window informed me I was dealing with a Revenant, I was briefly confused as I hadn’t seen that one before. It was obviously an Undead, given that it was a dead body rising again, but beyond that, I had no idea. Nor did I know why in all the hells, heavens and various other dimensions, the thing was level one hundred and two, over double Joshua’s level when he had been alive. That made no sense, unless the amount of Astral Power I had infused into the body at the time of its death was somehow turned into power to fuel its revenge.

For a moment, the thought made me stumble, or maybe it was exhaustion, but that idea made far too much sense for comfort, not that I could help it at the moment. I barely had any Astral Power left, I had no weapons at hand, and I was already stumbling around from the earlier exertion, making this a seriously bad situation.

Only made worse by the fact that the revenant was lunging at me, forcing me to dodge aside with much less grace than I would have liked, but experience and a bit of luck were enough to keep me out of the creature’s grasping hands. Hands that, somehow, had turned into black, crystalline claws, looking sharp enough to tear me to pieces.

Luckily, while the Revenant was monsterously strong, as demonstrated by the fact that it was able to tear deep gouges into the stone walls around us, it wasn’t as agile, nor did it seem to be particularly smart.

Twice more, I managed to avoid its lunging attacks, stepping to the side or ducking below its strikes, but I had no illusion that I’d be able to outlast the thing. It was an undead, who were famed for their tireless endurance, and I had started the fight exhausted, making the result obvious. If I had enough Astral Power, I would have tried to escape into the shadows, but in my current state, I doubted I’d get into them, or if I did, I wouldn’t get back out.

Escaping the room we were in was sadly impossible, as I had been a little too smart. I had decided that the best way to make myself secure while working on Joshua’s soul was to seal the room, making it impossible to walk in or out. The only way to access it was through the shadows, and I was just too exhausted for that. Though even if the room had a door, the way the Revenant was clawing through the wall’s stone implied that a door, even one made of stone, would barely slow it down.

As I was thinking furiously, my eyes landed on the throne I had conjured earlier, the comfortable seat I had created for myself. Conjured using my Astral Power, still connected to me thanks to my numerous traits, meaning I could manipulate the Ice it was made of with little strain. It would take some power, but only a tiny amount, far less than anything else I could do.

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Once more, I ducked under the swiping claws of the revenant, but it demonstrated that it wasn’t completely mindless, just fairly stupid, and adjusted its swipe at the last moment, ripping a chunk of flesh out of my shoulder. I had to grit my teeth to keep the yelp of pain in, especially when the wound started to burn furiously, my arm feeling limp and useless as a result. Still, I had managed to get past the creature, lunging forward to avoid a follow-up attack, and reach my throne.

Placing both hands against the throne and ignoring the pounding in my head, I flexed what little Astral Power I still had remaining, taking full control of the throne’s Ice. Part of it was rapidly flowing up my injured left arm, forming a make-shift bandage to keep myself from bleeding out and hopefully keeping the damage done by the Revenant’s claws somewhat contained. Another part was enclosing my right hand and arm, allowing me to keep moving and dodging while I worked. Otherwise, I would have had to lug around the relatively heavy throne, which would be a death sentence in my current situation.

Even the relatively small amount of Ice I wrapped around me slowed me down a little, but luckily not enough to let the Revenant get in another hit. It tried, oh, how it tried, but I managed to avoid its attacks again, despite turning the Ice around my right hand into something useful.

Back before the Change, Mrs Wu had mainly trained me on short, relatively wide blades, wielding two at a time in a choreographed, almost dance-like fashion, generally using one blade to attack while the other was kept back to defend. Or one was feinting, allowing the other to come in moments later to strike the actual blow. But weapons like that wouldn’t be useful against a creature like the Revenant. Well, they could hurt the thing, but I doubted I could score enough cuts to kill it by accumulated damage, and trying to get close enough to chop off something important would get me gored by the thing’s claws. So, that was out.

Instead, I let the Ice grow as much as possible, trying to compact it a little as I did, even trying to get some additional Ice from the throne, though I didn’t get as much as I would have preferred. Still, it was enough to turn the cumbersome cover of Ice I had originally grabbed into a long shaft, widening it into a tri-pronged spear at the top.

The entire thing was somewhere between a trident and an old boar-spear. Certainly not pretty, or nice to look at, but when the Revenant lunged forward the next time, I managed to get the spear between it and me, with the tips being on point. Its own momentum was enough to drive the spear through its chest, though it pushed me back, too.

Still, this meant I was outside the range of its swiping claws, though I felt the air rush by as they ripped through the air in front of me, making it obvious just how much power those attacks had. Only to then realise that I had underestimated the Revenant, when it tried to shatter the spear stuck in its body, forcing me to rip it out, enabling it to move freely once again.

With that, the fight entered a brief stalemate. The creature was trying to gore me while I was using the spear and my innate agility to avoid its attacks. As I was moving, I realised that I was on a timer. The wound the Revenant had caused was still burning, and the connection to my body granted to me by my Blood Magic told me that the burning was caused by a poison tainting my system. On the other hand, I also felt my Astral Power regenerate. Slowly, but surely, my traits were enough to replenish some of it, despite the earlier depletion.

It felt as if seconds had turned into hours, and my breathing was quickly growing a little laboured as my body was forced to keep up with the Revenant's undying endurance, its attacks as ferocious and fierce as they always had been. The spear helped; without it, I would almost certainly be dead already, but it could only delay things.

Then, with a burst of desperation, I opened my own hand, letting some blood pour out and soak the spear as I used Blood Magic to turn some of my own vital essence into power. It was a desperate attempt, but the power unleashed by my Blood Magic, alongside what little Astral Power I had managed to regenerate, had to be enough.

After pushing the Revenant back one more time, I slipped into the Shadows, barely making it back out of their gloomy embrace when I stumbled onto the throne I had set up in my shelter, my mind, body and soul aching and spent.