novelraw Chapter 144 - 140: Keep Going
Chapter 144 - 140: Keep Going
The blades continued to fall.
Hundreds of them at first.
Then thousands.
They dropped from the storm like divine rain, streaking downward with enough force to crater the entire battlefield.
But when they reached the battlefield—
They stopped.
Every single blade halted midair as if striking something invisible.
One after another.
The weapons hung suspended at strange angles across the battlefield, each one pressed against a point that could not be seen.
Then—
Lines appeared.
Thin.
Black.
Perfectly straight.
They stretched between the blades like threads pulled across the world itself.
More blades struck invisible anchors.
More lines formed.
Soon the entire battlefield was covered in a massive web of black lines stretching through the ruins, stretching across streets, buildings, airspace, and broken earth.
From above it looked like a shattered grid drawn across reality itself.
The weapon storm continued to churn overhead.
The portals continued to open.
But now the battlefield had been divided into silent pieces.
The web did not quite reach the distant clashes.
Far away, North, Cawren, and the Herald were still fighting within the cratered wasteland.
And further still, Ria and Eirian's battle flickered like distant lightning across the skyline.
But the web was close enough for them to notice.
Close enough for the storm to cast its shadow over everything.
Below the sky of weapons—
The civilians still hiding across Veltrisse had begun to emerge.
In the basement of a shattered apartment building, a group of families huddled together around a flickering emergency lantern.
A woman knelt beside two children, holding them close as the distant battle shook the ground.
"It's going to be okay," she whispered softly.
"They'll protect us."
"Who?" one of the children asked.
She smiled, though fear trembled in her voice.
"The Calmbrand."
"The Blade of the Dawn."
"They protected us before. They'll do it again."
Across the street, another group of survivors crouched behind barricaded doors.
An older man placed a reassuring hand on a younger soldier's shoulder.
"Don't worry," he said.
"Those two have been saving this city since the tournament started."
"They'll handle it."
"They always do."
Even among the soldiers who had survived the earlier chaos, the same quiet reassurance spread.
Caelus.
Eirian.
The two champions who had defended them since the very beginning.
The golden child and the star knight.
People clung to those names like lifelines.
Children listened to their parents.
Parents listened to their leaders.
And even the leaders themselves leaned on that comfort.
For a brief moment—
Hope existed.
Then the lines moved.
They did not glow.
They did not flash.
They simply activated.
Invisible black edges slid through the battlefield like quiet whispers of annihilation.
The families in the basements didn't even realize what happened.
One moment the woman was speaking—
The next moment her body separated cleanly in half.
The lantern split apart.
The children collapsed in pieces beside her.
Across the city the same thing happened.
Barricaded soldiers were cut apart where they stood.
Civilians trying to flee were divided into fragments before they could take a second step.
Entire buildings were sliced apart in perfect cubed segments that slid quietly away from each other before collapsing.
The armies fighting across the battlefield met the same fate.
The summoned soldiers.
The faction troops.
Everyone inside the battlefield.
Thousands of warriors were suddenly carved apart by lines that didn't exist within the normal perception of reality.
Invisible blades existing just outside the layer of reality the battlefield occupied.
And when they moved—
Everything inside the zone was minced.
Bodies.
Armor.
Stone.
Steel.
Even the air itself seemed to shudder as the black geometry passed through it.
The battlefield became a slaughterhouse in the span of a single breath.
Jack had not been exaggerating.
When he said he would wipe the page clean—
He meant it.
Only a handful of fighters reacted fast enough.
Jamal's eyes widened as instinct screamed.
Ozzy moved first.
Tabia's coral erupted upward in a defensive wall.
Crisper dove for cover behind her summoned tank.
Caelus's phantom echoes flickered violently as he attempted to counter the impossible geometry.
Across the battlefield—
Those few who could see the lines—
Those few who could feel the attack before it happened—
Moved.
Because everyone else—
Was already dead.
————
The Battle of Veltrisse had lasted thirty-seven minutes so far.
That was all.
From the moment the Lands Herald had descended from the sky and shattered the first line of the city's defenses… to the moment every faction, every fighter, every power converged into a single chaotic battlefield.
Thirty-seven minutes.
In that short span of time…
Tens of thousands of soldiers had marched into the battle.
Guild armies.
Faction warriors.
Independent Outlanders.
Mercenaries and summoned forces.
Now—
Most of them were gone.
Jack's attack had not been a spectacle meant to intimidate.
It had been a calculation.
The invisible black lines had swept across the battlefield like edits made to reality itself, carving through soldiers and structures with merciless precision. Entire formations vanished before they even realized what had happened.
Everything within the web had been diced into fragments that slid quietly apart across the ruined streets.
When the attack finally ended, the battlefield fell into a stunned silence broken only by the groan of collapsing buildings and the distant roar of ongoing fights beyond the zone.
The armies that had once filled Veltrisse were gone.
Reduced from tens of thousands…
to a few hundred.
The survivors were not truly part of the battle anymore.
They were clustered far to the left side of the ruined city, outside the primary grid where Jack's reality-cutting lines had descended. Most of them were injured soldiers and desperate civilians protected by the last remnants of defensive formations.
Barrier users.
Healers.
The few warriors who had thrown themselves in front of families when the attack began.
They clung together behind shattered barricades and tunnels, forming a desperate shield for those who could no longer fight.
Jack barely glanced in their direction.
They were irrelevant.
His attack had never been meant for them.
It had been aimed at the heart of the battlefield.
At the fighters who actually mattered.
The Blood Prince.
The Herald.
The Calmbrand.
The Blade of the Dawn.
The Vari Jujisn—Destiny
The strange woman fighting Eirian.
Ozzy who had nearly killed him.
Those were the pieces that needed to be pressured.
The rest were simply background noise.
Jack floated within the eye of the weapon storm, the swirling galaxy of blades still orbiting him like a divine armory waiting for its next command.
Portals continued to flicker open behind him, releasing more weapons into the endless spiral.
His blue-yellow aura pulsed calmly as he observed the aftermath.
Thirty-seven minutes.
That was all it had taken to reduce Veltrisse to a graveyard.
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And now—
The real battle could begin.
———
Tabia coughed as dust filled her lungs.
The air tasted like metal.
She pushed herself up slowly from where the coral platform had collapsed beneath her feet. Her armor creaked as she moved, cracked plates scraping against one another as Ryun struggled to circulate through the damage.
For a moment she just stood there.
Looking.
Veltrisse was gone.
What remained looked less like a city and more like the remains of something that had been fed through a shredder.
Her eyes drifted across the wasteland until they found the skeletal remains of AAA-Ka-Nier.
The massive stitched robes were torn apart, bone fragments scattered across the broken stone like discarded ivory.
She exhaled slowly.
"A bit anticlimactic."
But she knew why.
She had forced him to take the brunt of the attack.
When the black lines had moved, she had pushed the coral defenses forward—placing the skeletal monster directly between herself and the cuts sweeping across the battlefield. She used his death to see the lines clearly and dodge.
The result was obvious.
AAA-Ka-Nier had been shredded.
Her own body hadn't escaped unscathed.
Tabia looked down at her armor.
Deep black lines scarred across the plates, the cuts so clean they almost looked drawn instead of carved. Some of the strikes had slipped past the armor entirely, slicing into the flesh beneath.
Those wounds were different.
They didn't close immediately.
They didn't respond to her healing instincts the way normal injuries did.
She touched one of them lightly.
The lines hadn't simply cut matter. They were conceptual.
Luckily for her, that wasn't a permanent problem.
But healing that kind of damage required far more Ryun than usual. She would have to use her aura to get a full recovery.
And that was the real issue.
She could feel the drain already.
Tabia inhaled slowly and let her aura extend outward.
Scanning.
The battlefield was quiet now, but the echoes of surviving powers still lingered like distant stars.
She found one immediately.
Ozzy.
His aura was weak.
But stable.
Alive.
Her heart fluttered in her chest before she could stop it.
"…good."
She expanded her senses further.
Another signal burst into her perception.
Jamal.
His aura was still burning brightly, descending rapidly from the sky where he had been launched earlier.
She almost smiled.
"Of course he survived."
Then she searched again.
Sšurtinaui.
Nothing.
Her brows furrowed slightly.
"…strange."
She pushed her senses farther outward.
Then she found another faint signal.
Crisper.
Weak.
But alive.
Tabia turned her head toward the floating ocean sphere still suspended in the sky.
The massive water dome churned violently above the ruins, its currents still sealed tightly around whatever was happening inside.
Civen's barrier held.
Destiny's aura pulsed faintly within it.
The barrier had completely sealed now.
Tabia watched it for a moment.
Then she nodded to herself.
Destiny would have to prove her worth on her own.
If she couldn't win that fight—
Then that was her fate.
Tabia rolled her shoulders, ignoring the dull ache in her body as she began walking across the ruins.
First.
Jamal.
Then Crisper.
Then—
Her gaze drifted upward toward the storm of weapons still hanging in the sky.
Toward the man floating at its center.
Her eyes hardened.
"…he has to die."
———
Jamal hit the ground with a heavy thud, rolling across broken stone before finally skidding to a stop in the dust.
He lay there for a second, staring up at the sky.
The weapon storm still churned above Veltrisse, blades and portals swirling like a mechanical hurricane around the man floating at its center.
"Man…" Jamal wheezed.
"…that bitch really on some bullshit."
He pushed himself up slowly.
His legs were shaking. Not from fear—just exhaustion. The fight with Caelus, the sprinting, the jump that had sent him halfway into space, and then trying to stay airborne when those black lines started moving had drained him more than he wanted to admit.
He wiped dust and blood from his mouth.
When the black lines appeared earlier, instinct had screamed at him to stay off the ground. He wasn't entirely sure how he had seen them—thin threads of something darker than space sliding across the battlefield—but he had.
And he had stayed in the air just long enough for them to pass beneath him.
"Appreciate that instinct thing Ozzy be talking about," he muttered.
He slowly stood and looked around.
Veltrisse wasn't Veltrisse anymore.
It was quiet now.
Too quiet.
Jamal closed his eyes for a second and reached out with his Ryun.
Scanning.
He felt a faint aura nearby.
"Ah."
Crisper.
Weak.
But alive.
He followed the feeling through the rubble, stepping carefully across fractured stone and sliced debris.
It didn't take long to find her.
She was lying beside one of the tanks she had summoned earlier.
Or what was left of it.
The armored vehicle looked like someone had tried to peel it open with a giant can opener. Massive curved cuts ran across its hull where the conceptual lines had passed through it, tearing the machine open like a crushed soda can.
Crisper lay against the wreckage, half-slumped against the shredded armor.
Her rainbow hair was matted with dust and sweat, and her combat gear was torn to hell.
Jamal jogged over.
"Yo!"
He crouched beside her.
"You alive or you just doing dramatic shit?"
She groaned.
"…I swear to god Jamal if you don't shut up…"
He grinned.
"Ah good. You still annoying."
He leaned back slightly and looked around again.
"Well."
He gestured toward the ruined battlefield.
"Block definitely blown up now."
"Yeah," Crisper said, wincing as she tried to push herself upright.
She barely made it halfway before her body seized.
Blood suddenly spilled from her mouth.
She doubled over and coughed violently, red splattering across the broken metal of the ruined tank beside her.
Her UI flickered violently in front of her eyes.
[WARNING — STRUCTURAL DAMAGE DETECTED]
[WARNING — TEMPORAL INSTABILITY]
[WARNING — HEALTH DECLINING]
Thin cuts began appearing across her arms.
Then her shoulder.
Then her side.
Each one opened slowly like invisible knives were peeling her apart.
"What the fuck?" she muttered hoarsely.
Jamal's eyes widened.
"Yo Skittles you good? Shit that look bad."
"Thanks, Captain Obvious," she rasped between coughs, more blood spilling down her chin.
"Very helpful."
Jamal panicked immediately.
"Shit shit shit—"
He crouched beside her, looking her over helplessly.
They had tried to teach him healing techniques before.
Ryun circulation.
Body reinforcement.
Energy stitching.
But none of it ever stuck.
He couldn't figure out how to make Ryun sit still long enough to mend anything.
And now he was watching Crisper's body slowly fall apart.
New lines appeared across her torso.
Invisible cuts opening one by one.
Her health bar ticked downward in slow, steady increments.
He swallowed hard.
"What's happening to you?!"
Crisper stared down at her body for a moment.
Then she chuckled weakly.
"Ah."
"Yeah that would do it."
Jamal frowned.
"What?"
She leaned back against the shredded tank armor.
"I used Checkpoint."
Jamal blinked.
"You used what?"
"Checkpoint! Rewind!" she said, mimicking the voice of her UI announcer with weak sarcasm.
"It's a high-level ability. Reality warping."
She coughed again.
"It snaps time back a few seconds."
Jamal stared.
"You mean like… redo button?"
"Exactly."
She wiped blood from her lip.
"I used it to dodge that big attack."
"If I hadn't… it would've turned me into chunky salsa." She paused. "Well… I guess it didn't make a difference."
Jamal frowned.
"Okay that sound useful though."
"Yeah."
She sighed.
"I used it three times in a row. I burned through my Ryun."
He blinked.
"Oh."
Her health dropped another small amount.
More invisible cuts opened slowly across her skin.
"I thought I could outlast the damage."
She looked down at her hands as faint temporal distortions flickered around them.
"Turns out reality isn't like the anime fights on tv…"
Jamal sighed heavily.
He dropped down beside her, sitting on the broken rubble.
"Fuck man."
Crisper shrugged slightly.
"Shit happens."
They sat there quietly for a moment.
The battlefield around them was eerily silent now.
Then—
A distant laugh echoed across the ruins.
Jack.
Jamal looked up.
A blinding white flash erupted across the battlefield.
Crisper squinted toward the light.
"…damn."
Jamal clenched his jaw.
"Ozzy still fighting?"
Crisper nodded weakly.
"Yeah."
She shook her head slightly.
"That man's a monster."
"Fuck, bro… there's nothing we can do."
Crisper's balance slipped again.
Her body sagged sideways and she leaned against Jamal, her weight suddenly heavier than before. Jamal caught her instinctively, pulling her closer so she didn't collapse completely into the rubble. Her blood started to flow into his ripped clothes.
"Come on, Skittles," he muttered, his voice tight. "Say something. Maybe something helpful."
Her breathing was uneven now.
Shallow.
Jamal looked up just as he saw Tabia sprinting across the shattered street toward them, coral Ryun blasting from beneath her feet to launch her forward faster.
"Yo!" Jamal shouted.
"Hurry the fuck up! Crisper critical right now!"
He held her tighter as her UI flickered weakly in front of her face. More thin black cuts started forming along her cheek and jaw, invisible lines peeling open across her skin.
Tabia landed beside them in a burst of dust.
Her eyes widened for half a second as she saw Crisper's condition.
Then she moved.
Her aura flared outward instantly, green-red Ryun flowing around her hands as she pressed them against Crisper's chest.
"Hold still."
Coral sprouted around them in a protective shell as Tabia forced Ryun into the wounds, trying to knit the damage back together.
The energy pulsed.
Healed flesh closed—
Then immediately reopened.
Tabia frowned.
"No."
She shifted techniques.
More Ryun surged.
This time she tried forcing the damage outward through coral channels, redirecting the injury into the constructs.
The coral cracked.
Shattered.
The wounds on Crisper's body continued opening slowly like quiet whispers of time correcting itself.
Tabia's expression hardened.
She tried again.
And again.
Nothing worked.
Crisper chuckled weakly.
"Told you."
Jamal pulled her closer instinctively as if that would somehow keep her from falling apart.
"Don't laugh right now," he muttered.
Tabia finally stopped.
Her aura dimmed slowly.
For the first time since she arrived, there was hesitation in her eyes.
Jamal understood immediately.
He looked up at her.
"You gotta go help Ozzy."
Tabia didn't respond right away.
Jamal shook his head.
"I'll stay with Skittles. Ain't much I can do anyway."
Tabia studied him for a moment.
Then she nodded once.
She didn't argue.
Instead she turned to Crisper.
The faint smile Crisper still wore hadn't faded despite the blood on her lips.
Tabia knelt slightly beside her.
"I respect you."
Crisper blinked.
Tabia's voice was calm but sincere.
"You fought well."
"You protected us."
"And you helped turn the tide of this battle."
She placed a hand lightly on Crisper's shoulder.
"That matters."
Crisper laughed weakly again.
"Damn."
"Getting a speech from you… that's kinda cool."
Tabia stood.
Her eyes lifted toward the distant flashes where Ozzy and Jack were clashing.
"Rest. May peace be your final moments."
Then she launched forward again, coral erupting beneath her feet as she rushed back toward the battlefield.
Jamal sat there for a while after Tabia left.
The battlefield around them had gone strangely quiet. The massive storm of weapons still churned high above the ruined city, and flashes of distant power occasionally lit the sky where other fights continued, but here—among the broken rubble and the peeled-open tank—there was only the sound of Crisper's uneven breathing.
Jamal leaned back slightly against the wreckage.
Crisper rested against him, her head tilted back just enough that she could see the sky through the drifting dust and weapons.
"So," Jamal muttered after a moment, trying to keep his voice casual, "this war kinda went crazy huh."
Crisper chuckled faintly, which quickly turned into another cough.
"You think?" she said, wiping blood from her lip. "We showed up… fought a world boss… got caught in like four different faction wars… and then a guy turned the battlefield into shredded cheese."
"Yeah," Jamal nodded slowly. "That sound about right."
They sat in silence for a moment.
Then Crisper tilted her head slightly toward him.
"You remember how we met?"
Jamal snorted.
"Yeah I remember."
She smiled weakly.
"I tried to shoot you out of the sky."
Jamal laughed lazily.
"You tried. I almost popped ya head off."
She rolled her eyes.
"I was impressed you dodged."
"I'm buhl. Course I dodged..."
"You panic-flipped and head dived into a cliff side."
"That was a tactical maneuver," Jamal said with complete confidence. "If you stayed still I woulda wacked ya."
Crisper laughed again.
"Uh huh."
She shifted slightly, wincing as another invisible cut opened across her stomach.
"…still though," she said quietly. "I'm glad I missed."
Jamal didn't answer right away.
He just looked out across the ruined city.
Then he shrugged.
"Yeah."
After a moment she spoke again.
"You're pretty good at this."
"At what?"
"Talking to a dying friend."
Jamal went quiet.
His expression didn't change much, but something behind his eyes did.
"…yeah," he said eventually.
"Ain't the first time I held a dying friend."
Crisper turned her head slightly, studying his face.
He didn't elaborate.
He just sat there, looking out across the wrecked battlefield as the sky flickered with distant explosions.
After a moment she nudged him weakly with her elbow.
"What?"
"That's depressing."
Jamal smirked slightly.
"You the one dying right now."
"Fair."
She leaned her head back again and stared at the sky.
"Still though," she murmured.
"I'm glad I missed that shot."
"You said that already…"
Crisper blinked slowly.
"Did I?"
"Yeah."
"Damn."
She coughed again, wincing slightly as another faint line opened along her arm. Jamal instinctively shifted his grip to keep her upright, steadying her against the shredded metal of the tank.
They sat quietly for a moment.
Then she snorted softly.
"Man… we been through some stupid stuff."
Jamal chuckled under his breath.
"That's one way to put it."
She tilted her head slightly toward him.
"You remember the first Herald fight?"
Jamal groaned.
"Oh you mean the one where we almost got turned into paste?"
"Yeah that one."
Crisper smiled faintly.
"I was sniping like crazy while Destiny was down there getting folded."
"And dropping killstreaks," Jamal added. "Napalm, choppers, all that."
"Hey," she shrugged weakly. "Someone had to buy time."
"Yeah," Jamal nodded. "You did good there."
"Of course I did."
"Still almost died though. Till a brotha like me came."
"Shut up."
They both laughed a little.
The sound faded quickly in the empty ruins.
After a moment Crisper spoke again.
"Remember that basement?"
Jamal grimaced.
"Oh hell yeah."
"That was bad."
They had been captured by Calmbrand's forces then—half-dead, chained up in a damp basement while Caelus debated what to do with them.
Crisper had been bleeding.
Destiny was knocked out.
Jamal had been completely tapped out.
"And then you popped that bitch," Jamal said, shaking his head.
"Danyel I think her name was," she replied.
"Yeah."
"You had that little pistol hidden the whole time."
She shrugged.
"Always keep a backup."
"Man I thought we were cooked."
"Yeah well," she smirked weakly. "You weren't doing anything. I had to save the squad."
Jamal chuckled.
"I was steppin…fuck outtta here! Appreciate that save though. Shit we even now…"
He paused for a moment before adding quietly,
"Seriously."
Crisper noticed the tone.
"Don't get all sentimental now."
"I ain't sentimental."
"Uh huh."
They sat there again as the wind pushed dust through the ruined land.
Then Crisper laughed suddenly.
"Oh man… the rap battle."
Jamal covered his face.
"Don't bring that up."
"Nah nah nah," she grinned. "That was peak."
"Freestyling against some divine elf dude while the universe tried to erase me? That was peak?!"
"Exactly. Besides, I was ya main supporter."
"You were yelling like a hype man the whole time."
"Because you were cooking!"
Jamal shook his head.
"That was the dumbest fight I ever been in."
"But you won."
"Barely."
"Still counts."
She shifted slightly again.
Jamal looked at her. "…and that Command Unit thing. That was wild."
Crisper nodded slowly.
"Yeah."
To tip the scales when the Story itself was trying to erase Jamal, she had worked with Ria to unlock that high-level killstreak.
Thirty spectral soldiers had appeared.
Chanting his name.
Overriding the narrative pulse itself.
The Story had bent.
Jamal had survived.
He scratched the back of his head.
"Yeah… that helped."
Crisper smiled faintly.
"See."
"Teamwork."
Jamal looked down at her for a moment.
Then nodded.
"Yeah."
"Teamwork."
Crisper shifted slightly in Jamal's arms, wincing as another invisible line slowly opened across her shoulder. Her breathing had grown uneven now, shallow and strained, and her UI flickered weakly in front of her vision.
Without warning she lifted her hand and summoned her inventory interface. A faint window shimmered into existence. With a tired flick of her fingers she pulled three small injectors and a compact Glock with a switch from the air.
Jamal leaned forward immediately.
"Relax on the movement," he said quickly. "You makin' it worse."
Crisper smirked faintly.
"My health's already at twenty percent," she said, glancing at the UI hovering in front of her eyes. "Ain't much worse it can get."
She pressed the items into Jamal's chest. Three health stims and the gun clinked lightly into his palm.
"Take these."
Jamal frowned.
"What you giving me this for?"
"They won't disappear," she explained. "They're physical summons. Not UI tied. So when I'm gone… they stay."
Jamal didn't answer right away. He just closed his fingers slowly around them.
Crisper leaned back slightly against him and breathed out slowly.
"I had fun though," she said quietly. "Tell Destiny I had to leave the party early."
The wind moved softly through the wasteland. For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Crisper laughed softly to herself.
"You know… I never turned my livestream back on."
Jamal blinked.
"You… huh?"
She shrugged weakly.
"Back home I streamed everything. Mostly because it made the loneliness easier."
Her eyes drifted across the destroyed area.
"But once I met you and Destiny… I didn't need it. For the first time in a long time I got to just… be me."
Jamal looked down at her.
"Eight years," she murmured. "Eight years in Requiem. Being an Outlander here can suck."
She shoved the items harder into Jamal's hands.
"Don't waste those."
He nodded quietly.
As he shifted slightly, Jamal noticed Keryna Vel Dross' body lying a few meters away. It had been sliced into several clean pieces. The armor was still recognizable.
"Who's that?" Jamal asked.
Crisper glanced over lazily.
"Oh. That one."
She laughed softly.
"I never got her name."
Jamal shook his head slightly.
Then he asked, "Where's Destiny?"
Crisper raised a weak finger and pointed upward.
Jamal followed her gesture. High above the ruined battlefield the massive blue water sphere still floated in the sky. Whatever was happening inside it remained hidden.
Crisper's UI flickered again.
Health: 8%
Jamal sighed.
He pulled her into a firm hug. She didn't resist.
"Thanks for everything, gang," he said quietly. "I know how it feel to be alone when stuck in this world. Yeah you sis for life. I loved the time we spent together, G. Real shit..."
He squeezed her shoulder.
"Thanks for everything you done, Crisper. You blood for real."
She smiled softly.
"Xavion."
Jamal blinked.
"What?"
"My real name," she said quietly. "My real name is Xavion."
Her eyes looked up at the sky one last time.
"Figured someone should know it before…"
Her UI flickered once.
[Health: 0%]
And then her body went still in his arms.