Chapter 303: To Hold the Falling Sky Alone

The street was a graveyard of broken rubble and fading purple mist.

Every breath tasted of blood, and the cold, dead smell of the Grade 7 monster. Fourteen feet of twisted grey flesh loomed over the shattered road, its massive chest heaving as the pale, wriggling fingers inside its head twitched in rhythm.

The chorus of stolen voices, screams of children, dying gasps of students, weeping women, scraped out from its gaping mouth, vibrating through the rubble and hitting straight into the skulls of those still standing.

Twenty steps away, Roan spat a clump of dark, thick blood onto the ground.

His left arm hung useless at his side, the shoulder out of place and swollen purple. His silver hair, usually neat, was stuck to his forehead in bloody strands. In his right hand, he held the broken half of his spear, a jagged wooden piece barely three feet long.

He breathed through his teeth, each breath making a wet, rattling sound in his chest.

"Is that... all you’ve got, you ugly bastard?" Roan wheezed, his voice rough. He didn’t wait for a reply. Shifting his weight onto his good right leg, he lunged forward. There was no grace in the movement, just a desperate, limping charge.

He drove the broken spear shaft straight at the creature’s left knee, aiming for the spot where the skin was stretched thin over bone.

The wooden spike hit with a dull thud. The shaft shattered completely, splintering into his palm, but the impact forced the monster’s heavy foot to drag half an inch backward. The beast didn’t even scream. Its massive left hand swung down like a falling beam.

Roan tried to twist away, but his body wouldn’t move. The back of the creature’s clawed knuckles hit his side.

"Fuck—!" Roan barked, the word cut short as his ribs snapped with a sharp crack.

He was thrown sideways, sliding fifteen feet across the bloody ground before crashing into the broken remains of a shop. He collapsed into the dirt, coughing violently, unable to pull in enough air to scream.

"Roan!" Elisabeth screamed, her vision swirling with red spots as her mana channels burned like acid. "What the fuck are you doing, you idiot?!"

Her dress was torn to shreds, the fabric dark with her own blood from deep gashes across her body. She slammed her palms together. Crimson liquid, stolen from her own open wounds, leapt into the air, hardening into six thick, sharp lances of blood.

The blood spears hissed through the air, striking the monster’s chest. Three of them shattered on impact against its leathery hide, spraying red mist. The other three managed to dig in an inch deep, sticking into the grey flesh.

Elisabeth pulled back, trying to tear the creature’s muscle apart from the inside, but the beast just flexed.

The blood spikes snapped like dry twigs. The magic backlash hit Elisabeth square in the chest. She gasped, stumbling back three steps before her knees gave out, sending her crashing onto her side in the dust, her fingers twitching uselessly as her blood power collapsed completely.

A few yards away, hidden behind the remains of an overturned wagon, Amelia dragged herself through the dirt.

Her dress was ruined, soaked with blood and dirt.

Blood poured steadily from both her ears, dripping down her neck, a direct result of the creature’s screams tearing through her mind. Every pulse from the monster’s finger-mouth sent a fresh wave of sickness and crushing pain through her skull, making her eyes blur and her hands shake.

I can’t... I can’t just lie here. They’re dying... everyone is dying... I have to do something, Amelia thought, her vision swimming in red as she bit her tongue to stay awake. Just one shield. Just a splash of water to clear their eyes... anything.

She forced her bloody hands into the dirt, trying to call on her water power. A tiny, fragile bubble of water formed above her palms, shaking in the air.

But as the monster took a step forward, the ground shook, and its chorus of stolen voices grew louder, a chorus that sounded horrifyingly like the screams of the students who had been crushed moments earlier.

The mental blast slammed into Amelia’s head.

She screamed, clutching her skull, and let out a choked, desperate sob as the tiny water bubble burst uselessly into the dirt. Her forehead pressed hard against the ground, her fingers digging into the gaps between the stones until her nails cracked.

She tried to pull herself up, tried to drag her knees forward even an inch, but her body wouldn’t move. The sheer weight of the noise locked her muscles in place, leaving her shaking violently in the dust, her choked breaths swallowed by the monster’s roar.

Beside her, Nyra pushed herself up from the rubble. The wolf girl’s ears were flat against her head, her tail stiff, her grey fur matted with dark blood.

Three of her claws on her right hand were completely snapped off at the base, leaving raw, bleeding stumps. Her amber eyes were wide, flooded with deep, instinctual fear, every part of her beastkin nature screamed at her to run, to hide, to flee from the monster standing before her.

Yet, she bared her bloody fangs. A low, shaking growl tore out of her throat.

Nyra sprinted forward, keeping low to the ground. She didn’t attack head-on. She darted around the monster’s blind side, leaping onto its thick, trunk-like right leg. She dug her remaining left claws into its tough hide and bit down with all the strength left in her jaw, sinking her teeth deep into the creature’s leg.

The monster felt the sting. Without even looking down, it flexed its leg muscles. The sudden tightening of grey flesh threw Nyra off balance. The creature’s heavy tail swung around like a club and hit her hard in the stomach.

Nyra was hit so hard the air was knocked out of her lungs. She flew through the air like a ragdoll, crashing through a shop door and disappearing into the darkness of the broken building with a heavy, sickening crash.

The fighters were broken.

Under the shadow of the broken arch, Leo leaned heavily on Seris, his hand digging straight into her shoulder, knuckles white as bone as he fought to stay upright. His breath came in short, rattling gasps.

Every time his lungs expanded, a sharp, stabbing pain cut through his ribs, reminding him that his body was barely holding together. The tiny spark of Lunar power Seris had pushed into his core had restarted his bloodline, pulling heat from the air to slowly heal his internal bleeding, but his core was still almost completely empty.

Seris didn’t shift away from his weight. Her face was pale, her own breathing tight and ragged.

"We don’t need a win," Leo grunted through his teeth, his eyes locked onto the grey beast turning toward them. "We just need a gap. I can force a strike, if I use my sword form, I can throw off its balance. It’ll tear my channels apart, but it buys us a few seconds to grab the others and run."

He let out a bitter laugh.

"Damn it... relying on an incomplete form when I can barely stand... I hate this," he muttered under his breath, his fingers tightening on her shoulder. "I’ll draw its attention. Just give me one second to gather what’s left—"

He began to push himself off her, shifting his weight to take a step forward onto the bloody ground. His knees buckled immediately, his vision flickering black as sharp pain shot through his chest.

Before his foot could even hit the ground, Seris shifted smoothly beneath his arm. Without a word, her hand moved like a ghost. The sharp edge of her palm struck the side of his neck with quick, brutal force.

Leo’s breath hitched in shock. His eyes widened, his sentence dying in his throat as the world spun into total darkness. His legs gave out completely, his body collapsing forward.

Seris caught him, her arms wrapping around his chest to hold his weight before lowering him down until his back rested against the cold wall of the archway. She stood over his limp body, her chest heaving as she wiped a streak of blood from her lip.

"You talk a lot for someone who can barely stand," Seris muttered quietly. Her voice was flat, but her breath came out in short, uneven gasps.

She looked at his pale face. His lips were dry and cracked, his coat torn, and his skin smelled faintly of burnt air from the power he had forced through his body. He looked pathetic. He looked like he was one wrong move away from collapsing.

And yet he was still trying to stand up.

She didn’t try to understand the heavy feeling in her chest.

She had never been good with words, or feelings, or whatever people at the Academy spent their time worrying about. Before the Astra Union, before the Oracle found her in those dark alleys, her world had been simple: survive, stay quiet, and stay away from people.

Most people who dealt with her treated her like a strange, awkward person or a tool to be pointed at a target. Nobody bothered to understand her. Nobody gave her gifts without asking for something back.

Except for Sylvia... and the idiot lying at her feet.

Sylvia had taken her in with that soft, overwhelming warmth that Seris never quite knew how to handle. And Leo... Leo had called her a cursed doll when they first met.

He had yelled at her when she drove her blade through his chest to stop his Flame, and he had looked at her like she was the most frustrating person alive when Roan forced them to dance under the festival lights.

But he had never looked down on her. He had never pitied her. He had trusted her with his life without asking for proof.

He just treated her like a person. Like he did with everyone else. If he forced his channels open right now, his body would take a lot of damage. He would burn the rest of his life away just to buy five seconds against a monster that would step over his corpse anyway.

He always does this, she thought, her mind sharp and clear. He acts as if his life is just another tool to use up. Throwing himself into danger, pretending he can save everyone on his own. She wasn’t going to let him do it.

She had already dragged him out from under the monster’s foot. She had already forced her own breath into his throat when his lungs gave out. She hadn’t done all of that just to watch him kill himself two minutes later.

If anyone was going to buy time, it was her.

A quiet tightness pulled in her chest, but she didn’t hide it with excuses.

He owes me... again, she thought simply, her crimson eyes locking onto his face for one last beat, a strange, quiet weight settling in her chest. He always says that. As if these debts can be settled with words.

Seris didn’t look back at him. She straightened her posture, her bare arms shaking from exhaustion as she reached down to draw her sword. The thin silver blade caught the dim, smoke-filled light of the street.

She took a slow, deep breath, feeling the harsh, burning air fill her lungs. "Stay behind the wall, Leo. Don’t die while my back is turned."

She stepped out from the shadow of the archway, her boots landing silently on the bloody ground.

The monster’s head snapped toward her instantly. Inside its gaping mouth, the hundreds of pale, wriggling fingers curled wildly, and the chorus of stolen voices erupted once more, a sharp, overlapping scream that made the dust on the ground bounce.

Seris didn’t flinch.

She shut out the noise, locking her focus entirely on the monster’s movements. She dragged the last drop of mana from her core, pushing it into her legs and the tip of her sword. A faint, frosty light flickered along the silver edge, thin, brittle, but sharp.

The monster lunged.

Despite its huge, fourteen-foot frame, it moved with terrifying speed. Its massive grey arm swung sideways, aiming to crush Seris and the archway behind her in one sweep.

Seris didn’t try to block. She dropped flat onto her hip, sliding beneath the swinging arm as it passed inches above her face. The wind from the swing ripped through her hair and tore another rip in her dress, but she kept her eyes open.

As she slid past its leg, she thrust her sword upward with both hands, driving the tip straight into the creature’s back knee.

Clang!

The thin layer of Lunar energy on her blade burst on impact, sending a sharp shock of cold into the cracked skin. The monster let out a wet, gurgling roar as its leg stiffened, its swing missing the archway and smashing into the broken building beside it.

Seris rolled to her feet a few yards away, her breath coming in heavy gasps as dark blood dripped from her nose.

Shit! she cursed in her head, her teeth grinding as her left leg trembled under her weight. My strikes aren’t cutting deep enough.

The monster turned violently, swinging its backhand in a blur of grey flesh.

Seris raised her blade to block, but the sheer force behind the blow smashed right through her guard. Her sword was knocked from her grip, spinning through the air and clattering away across the ground. The heavy hit clipped her shoulder, throwing her backward through the air.

She slammed hard onto the ground, rolling twice before stopping on her back. A sharp, breathless gasp tore from her throat. She couldn’t feel her left arm, and a burning spike of pain shot through her chest with every shallow breath. Dark blood pooled in the back of her mouth.

Her legs felt heavy and numb, her vision swimming as her body screamed at her to stop.

The Abomination’s eyeless skull twitched in primal irritation. Realizing its sweeping blows were failing to catch her, the creature halted its movement. Its broad, grey chest heaved as its shoulder-to-shoulder maw split wide open, venting a dense, boiling fog of toxic purple mist across the street.

The mist spilled over the ground like thick liquid, instantly burning the skin on Seris’s arms and throat. At the same time, the wriggling fingers inside its jaw vibrated together, sending a violent blast of mental force straight into her head.

A sickening spike of pressure slammed behind her eyes. Dark blood burst from her nose, filling her mouth as the blast forced her to her knees. Her vision flickered red, her channels burning like fire inside her veins.

"Fuck... you..." Seris spat, blood spraying across the ground as she clenched her jaw.

She didn’t let her body fall.

Ignoring the crushing heat tearing through her mind, she planted her right hand flat against the ground, her knuckles turning white as she dragged herself back to her feet. Her left leg shook violently, her channels completely scorched, but she held her stance, raising her bare fists in the purple haze as her silver sword lay useless yards away.

The monster pulled back its huge, clawed right hand, gathering a heavy ball of purple energy around its knuckles, ready to crush her chest once and for all. Before the fist could swing forward, the air above the alley split open with a loud crack.

Crack!

The space above the street shattered like broken glass.

A long, gleaming sword dropped out of the tear, slamming tip-first into the ground right between Seris and the monster.

The impact sent out a smooth wave of force that blew the purple mist away in a single pulse and slammed into the monster’s chest, forcing the huge beast to stumble three heavy steps back as its gathered energy shattered into sparks.

The grey beast let out a confused, wet gurgle, its finger-mouth twitching as it stared down at the old weapon buried in the ground.

Seris’s breath caught as the heavy pressure from the blade washed over her. It was smooth, unshakably heavy, and undeniably familiar. A calm, steady voice echoed from the shifting space above the street—a voice carrying no fear, holding the quiet, undeniable weight of centuries.

"Sorry for being late. You can rest now, Seris."

Seris looked up toward the rift, her blood-stained lips parting.

"That voice..."