Chapter 99

Blood for Blood

Sylas spat to the side, drawing out a sword and standing still. Forty feet from him, he saw the armored shadows creeping forward, their daggers shimmering within the shade cast by the massive city of the dead. Focusing on them, he suddenly heaved his sword to the side at a speed nigh incomprehensible; a sensation of the blade cutting through the flesh assailed his fingers, causing him to glance to the side where he saw a black-hooded figure materialize for a moment before slipping off of the blade’s edge, falling to the ground.

Immediately after, he bent backward, dodging a dagger aimed at his throat, extending his free, left arm and grasping at the throat of the figure, holding it tightly while shoving the sword forward, skewering it through the hooded figure’s brain. Rather than tossing the body aside, he held it for a moment and propped it at an angle, blocking a slew of arrows that were aimed at him.

Relinquishing it after the fact, he cracked his neck for a moment before speeding forward. Halfway through the motion, he bent forth and propelled himself to the side, dodging two figures at the same time while using the momentum of motion to swipe the sword in a wide arc, spinning his body alongside the sword’s trajectory, cutting through the two figures’ necks in one strike.

Landing squarely, he slid forth some few feet and spun in place, executing a roundhouse kick that knocked the emerging shadow off its feet while Sylas brought the sword down and skewered it through the figure’s throat.

“Fuck,” he winced as pain assailed his right shoulder blade; an arrow manage to nick him, though luckily not penetrating. Taking a deep breath, he utilized energy to propel his blood toward the wound, immediately clotting it and even forcing it to heal at the speed visible to the naked eye.

At the same time, however, he didn’t stop moving, ducking to dodge yet another pair of daggers and immediately swiping his leg out, knocking the figure down before executing them with the sword.

The world went silent for a moment, causing him to look back and see why--an armored knight wielding a massive, three-feet-long broadsword appeared. He wore full plate dyed black, with a red cape fluttering violently behind him. Grinning angrily, Sylas knocked away the corpse next to him and faced the knight--he named him ‘Jack-fucking-ass’ due to the fact that he had been slain by the thing over twenty times now.

Taking a deep breath, he calmed his heart and waited patiently for the armored tank to arrive, stopping some twenty feet ahead of him. The two observed one another, with the knight’s gaze being hidden behind a metallic visor.

“Blood for blood," just like every other time, the knight uttered his catchphrase and held out the massive sword that had to weigh at least a hundred pounds. It was one of the reasons Sylas couldn't really fight, as even just the wind force created by a simple swing was enough to destabilize him. Nonetheless, he was slowly adjusting himself with every defeat.

The knight roared and pushed forward, and Sylas replied in kind; the former stabbed directly toward Sylas’ heart while the latter bent sideways, avoiding the giant sword entirely while using his own like a snake-like worm to aim at the holes of the visor. Few other places were unprotected, and wanting to cut through that plate while being unable to coat the sword properly with magic was suicide. Nonetheless, he could at least coat the tip of the sword with energy which ought to be enough to cut through the thin lines. If he was ever allowed, that is.

The knight skillfully moved his head out of the way, but Sylas didn’t pull back. Instead, he used the momentum to fly past the knight and avoid the retaliatory strike, sliding roughly across the dirt and grabbing the cloak to use as an anchor. Rounding the knight’s back, he stabbed at one of the pining points of the armor, but the knight used his elbow to block and deflect the sword.

Forced to let go of the cloak, Sylas slid further back before stabilizing and dashing forward. An overhead strike awaited him, and though he dodged it with ease, the resulting wind blowout of the strike still managed to shake him, despite having coated his feet in energy. That singular destabilization, however, was enough, and he immediately saw it--a flash of black.

The massive broadsword cut cleanly through his abdomen via a sideswipe, splitting his body in two. The most agonizing part, however, was that Sylas didn’t die immediately--in fact, he held out for nearly thirty seconds without dying. Not that he could do much as his body was beyond his control.

You have died.

Save point ‘Death’ has been initialized.

“AAAAAAGGHGHHHHHHH!!!”

Sylas sat on the roof of the castle once again, drinking from a jug of wine, staring toward the northern horizon. Replaying the fight inside his head for what felt like the thousandth time, he was still unable to figure out a counter.

“It’s fuckin’ unfair, though,” he mumbled, noting the discrepancy of weapons and armor used.

“What’s unfair?” a woman’s voice drew his attention to the side where he saw a heavily-clothed figure appear, staring at him intently from beneath the shawl.

“... a ghost?”

“No, just a guard who heard strange noises coming from above and came to investigate.”

“Ah, my bad, my bad,” he said. “It must have been the ghosts.”

“... then why is it your bad?”

“’cause... I’m also a ghost?”

“You don’t seem all that ghostly. As such, you should come back inside. You’re barely wearing anything.”

“Would you believe me if I told you I could melt all the snow around me with a single fart?”

“Please don’t.”

“But do you believe--”

“I believe, I really do, just don’t do it.”

“... you seem familiar,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Ah, this lowly one is not worthy of you, Sir,” the woman said, withdrawing. “Though, please do return back inside the castle.”

Staring at the fading figure and finishing off the jug, Sylas shrugged and stood up, stretching. He hardly felt cold anymore. It was a strange byproduct of his body training, being able to literally modify his body’s temperature at will. Not only that, he could even affect the surrounding area if he wanted.

He learned many-a-new thing and many-a-new secret in the last few years that he spent experimenting with the Way of Madness. He often ventured north, into the land of the dead, to use them as kind of a whetstone, a set of training tools for his progress. Over time, he’d gotten extremely good, actually, at fighting--so much so that he himself was surprised.

It largely had to do with the fact that his body no longer held him back, so the progress in the Heartseeker was accelerated. In fact, he was only one strike short of completing the second quest, but that last strike was twice as hard as all previous ones combined. He instinctively felt that he wouldn’t be able to complete it before completing the complete reversal of blood flow.

Nonetheless, even without it, his body felt far stronger; he could easily fight for hours when it came to stamina, and could even go toe-to-toe--however temporarily--with a genuine monster that was the armored knight. In fact, Sylas suspected that if he fought Iun again, he’d do as well as Derrek did--and it largely had to do with the fact that his body... was sturdy. It was incomparably sturdy.

Sometimes, it felt like he was wearing an extra few layers of armor with how ineffective most ordinary strikes were. In fact, he even tested it by having some young guards stab him with all their might, and the sword only managing to penetrate a couple of inches below the skin. Though he hardly understood the macabre and strange machinations behind how freezing blood made a body so much stronger, he was more than happy with the results.

Every push forward, after all, increased his chances of completing the main quest in the end. And even though the body's progress still didn't carry through the loops, catching up was relatively easy, and spending months after to push forward slightly before traveling north and testing himself out was how he got to where he was at today.

“If it’s like this,” he mused, moving his gaze southward. “Can’t I just ignore the winter and move out immediately to scout what’s happening in the Kingdom? May as well create some general plan before moving out with Valen rather than just going in blindly. I can just dance between going north to fight that damn cunt, and going south to see what’s what. Nothing major’s happened in the castle ever since that day all the way until spring, so I can hardly learn much else here...”

Hmm, let’s first complete the archery quest, he elected to head to his personal training grounds immediately. Since I can coat the tip of the sword consistently now, I should be able to alter the arrow midflight if I focus... fuckin’ hell, years of constant training for this shit. I really am a talentless hack, all else notwithstanding...