Second Genesis

Chapter 569: Idiot

The Immovable’s jaw clenched as she stared at Grey, the darkness in her eyes deepening by the second.

"You should not possess this level of strength," she said. "What heretical methods did you use?"

Grey had blood caked across most of his face, some of it his own and plenty of it belonging to other people, but that didn’t stop him from sticking a pinky into his ear and twisting it around. When he pulled it free, a small flake of dried blood had stuck to the tip, and he blew it away before finally looking back toward her.

"If you can believe it, I’m actually pretty weakened right now," Grey said. "You fucks are just even weaker."

He shifted The Virtueless in his hand and pointed the bronze rod directly toward The Immovable’s head, his grin fading into something colder. "I’ll give you a chance. I’m responsible for sending The Relentless away on his little trip, so what exactly are you going to do about it?"

The Immovable’s gaze hardened immediately. "The Pope and Sister Teresa are not true combatants, they are supports. Their strength lies in restraint, blessings, and the reinforcement of others. The Guardians are the true backbone of the Melix Territory, and there are entire armies beneath us. If you believe that killing those two means you can stand alone against all of Melix, you are sorely mistaken."

Grey yawned. "Okay, true combatant. Whatever helps you sleep at night." He was pretty sure the Pope was stronger than the other Guardians, at least other than the Immovable, but whatever.

His crimson eyes settled on her again, amusement slowly crawling back across his face. "You were standing right there, though, so why exactly didn’t you stop me from killing him?"

BANG.

Grey disappeared, the stone beneath him cracking as white-gold light twisted around his movement. The Immovable reacted almost instantly, her ink-black spear flashing into her hands as she raised it across her body, but almost instantly still wasn’t fast enough.

The Virtueless crashed against the shaft and drove it sideways into the side of her face, white-gold power warping the air around the impact before The Immovable was sent pinwheeling across the Church.

Grey touched down for barely a moment before accelerating again. The Immovable had already flipped onto her feet by the time he reached her, her silver hair whipping around her face as a violent upswell of darkness flooded the surroundings.

Grey immediately felt the pull on his Resonant Frame, that familiar devouring pressure reaching toward his senses, intent, and energy as though it wanted to swallow the very concept of his presence.

It lasted less than a second.

Thin threads of white-gold burst from Grey’s body and tore through the darkness, ripping it apart so violently that for a moment it looked as though the space around them had shattered into hundreds of sharp, jagged cracks. Grey stepped through those fractures of light and appeared directly in front of The Immovable again, The Virtueless already descending toward her head.

She lifted her spear to block.

Grey’s knee drove into her stomach instead.

BOOM.

The Immovable folded around the strike and blasted backward, skidding through broken stone as Grey landed where she had stood. Around them, the disciples who had returned from the Culling remained completely rooted in place.

The Pope’s death had been heavy enough, and Sister Teresa having both hands crushed had only made things worse, but watching this was different.

It finally gave them something real to measure Grey against.

The Immovable was supposed to be the strongest of the Guardians. Grey was exhausted, bloodied, his body worn down from everything that had happened inside the Culling, and whatever strange transformation had empowered him earlier had already faded.

Yet he was still toying with her.

"Didn’t you say you’re supposed to be pretty strong?" Grey asked as The Immovable rolled across the ground. Shadows burst beneath his feet and he vanished again, appearing above her before she could fully recover. "What’s wrong?"

Grey raised The Virtueless overhead. It was about time he ended this before someone else managed to make his day more annoying, so he drove the bronze rod downward with enough force to distort the space around its path.

BOOM.

Grey’s eyes narrowed.

The resistance he felt wasn’t coming from The Immovable. An ink-black spear had appeared beneath The Virtueless.

Xerchen stood between Grey and his master.

His arms rattled violently beneath the impact and his feet slid backward over the shattered floor, but his body remained surprisingly intact despite the difference in power. Grey stared at him for a second before sighing heavily, annoyance immediately overcoming any surprise.

Of course. The Mechanical Jaw Lineage couldn’t just leave him alone.

Apparently exposing Xerchen’s gnome bloodline and showing him exactly how quickly everyone around him would treat him differently hadn’t been enough to convince the idiot to sit down and let events play themselves out.

Then again, Grey probably should have expected that already. Xerchen had spent his entire life following this woman, and people didn’t erase that kind of loyalty because of one ugly revelation.

"Idiot," Grey muttered.

Xerchen’s eyes hardened, and his mouth had only just begun to open when his entire body jerked.

Something had pierced through his back.

His expression froze.

Grey’s did too.

Xerchen slowly looked downward, and there, protruding through his chest, was an arm. His master’s arm.

Blood poured down The Immovable’s wrist, but instead of falling naturally, much of it seemed to curl backward, spiraling into her flesh alongside something far less physical. Grey felt Xerchen’s strength collapsing, his bloodline, energy, and Resonant power all being pulled toward The Immovable at once.

Then Xerchen’s Resonant Sense disappeared.

The very devouring power he had spent his life learning from her turned inward, consuming him beneath the hand of the woman he had respected more than anyone else.

The Immovable inhaled, and her aura skyrocketed.

What was left intact of the ground burst outward, shattering in waves as darkness rolled across the catacombs. The pressure around her multiplied so violently that even the broken floor began crumbling to dust around her.

Grey landed several meters away, rested The Virtueless against one shoulder, and placed his free hand on his hip.

He watched Xerchen hanging from his master’s arm for a long second, then shook his head.

"Fuck me."