novelraw Chapter 108: Infinite Eyes
Chapter 108: Infinite Eyes
"Piss off!" The scream ripped out of my throat. I wanted nothing more than to end him with a single, precise strike, to carve him open before he could enjoy another second of this.
Yet the twin axes in Sir Magnus’s hands radiated a crushing pressure that forced my body backward no matter how hard I tried to advance. I could feel his overwhelming aura weighing down my every movement, as if the air itself had decided I was not allowed to step forward.
"Let’s dance, vampire," he growled, his eyes burning with a violent, eager fire.
That look made my skin crawl. He was not trying to kill me. Not yet. He wanted to play, to push me into desperation, to watch me unravel piece by piece until I made the fatal mistake myself. Fighters like him were the most dangerous, because they were patient. They waited for fear to do the work for them.
The air vibrated as his axes slammed into the ground.
The impact detonated beneath my feet. Soil and stone exploded upward as if a buried bomb had been triggered, the shockwave ripping through my legs and surging straight up my spine. Pain flared white-hot, sharp enough to steal my breath and blur my vision. For a heartbeat, my body forgot how to move.
Instinct took over before panic could.
My wings snapped open with a violent pull, muscles screaming as they dragged me skyward just before the fractured ground collapsed inward. Debris tore past me, shards grazing my skin, but I barely registered it. Below, the crater hissed and cracked, dust still swirling as Magnus looked up at me with a grin that widened instead of fading.
I was in the air, but there was no relief in it. If anything, it only made me realize how little room I had left to escape.
Swooosh!
A vicious chill crawled up my spine. Wind pressure tore past my senses, warning me that something was coming from my side. It was too quick, like lightning striking from the sky.
I had no time to register what happened before something pierced my neck.
My body froze mid-air, wings stuttering as if they had forgotten how to move. A strange heaviness settled beneath my skin, as though a foreign lump had been lodged deep inside my throat. Instinctively, my hand flew up. I pressed my fingers there, frantic, expecting blood, expecting resistance.
What remained was just an empty, hollow sensation where something should not have passed through so cleanly. My breath hitched. Slowly, my gaze lifted.
High above, half-hidden among the branches, Sir Aldren sat calmly against the trunk of a massive tree. His bow rested lazily across his thighs, his posture relaxed. The wind around him curled obediently, whispering through the leaves like a loyal accomplice.
Our eyes met. He looked at me as if he was examining a deer he had hunted down for dinner. Only when I finally registered that cold stare did I understand that I had been careless.
And in a battlefield like this, carelessness was a death sentence.
"Burn for me!"
Gold spilled across my face. I felt my body convulsing uncontrollably as Lady Vivienne’s lightning crashed into me. My brain felt as if it was being cooked alive. Her specialty, I guess.
A vampire dish.
Even in the chaos, with the taste of death dancing on the tip of my tongue, I didn’t lose my sense of humor.
It was hard to explain, but I felt more free now, feeling my body slowly being torn apart, every single attack licking my wounds deeper and deeper. It felt... good. Almost intoxicating. Was I crazy for that? Maybe I was slightly sick in the head...
Ahhhh... this... This is how dying feels... I can taste it again.
I wanted to scream out, yet my throat was beyond repair. In that moment, I felt something in me crack.
I was losing it now.
Blood flooded my eye sockets, turning the bright world into a crimson paradise.
My body felt light. So light that the wind pushed me gently, making me fall face down toward the ground. I could taste the grass and dirt mixed with my own blood on my tongue.
Once more, just like when I died for the first time, I felt my eyes grow heavy, closing against my will.
Am I really going to end my journey here? I thought to myself in the moment a pair of feet stepped before my face.
Somebody was looking down on me.
A sudden heavy thud made me turn my eyes slightly to the side. There, the pair of eyes I knew so well stared at me with the same shock I stared back at them with.
Hera was staring at me with a sword stuck in her head.
Today, the two transmigrators were punished for their cockiness, for their reckless decisions, and for feeling like the story belonged to them. And yet, we finally understood that we were just actors playing out a role, and by refusing to follow its correct path, we ended up as corpses instead of champions.
I could see the terrifying fear deep in her pupils. She was staring at me as if asking how it happened. We were so strong. We should have won.
Yes. If only I had grown faster. If only I didn’t hold back and was not afraid of my own powers, maybe I could have been the one to end them today.
Maybe I could have saved Hera...
Her eyes shut first, leaving me alone in my pool of blood.
In that moment, I wondered if Elira would be okay all alone. Would Beelzebub be fine? Would he disappear?
My cute hamster...
Shit...
I’m sorry... I’m sorry, both of you... If I only had one more chance, I would never allow either of you to suffer again.
My vision darkened, the light vanishing from my grasp.
Silence engulfed me.
I don’t know how much time passed. Perhaps an eternity. But I could still think all this time. Strangely, I had been trapped there, as if I could not move on, like a vengeful ghost.
After what felt like forever, something flashed crimson.
Terrifying, eerie beeping sounds filled every part of me. I felt fear grip me raw. In this darkness, something was manifesting. Something evil. Something that did not belong to this world.
A pair of eyes lit up in the darkness. They were massive, like the eyes of something giant hidden inside the void. But that was not what made my soul shiver. They began to multiply, again and again, until there were an infinite number of eyes stacked on top of each other. They surrounded me from every single direction, staring at me intently and quivering in the darkness.
"Restart..."
A single word echoed out, like millions of people had spoken at the same time.
In that moment, a flash of light tugged at me, pulling me hard...