He was being crushed against the colossal body of the golem. And, at the same time, being suffocated.

By the body, by the tentacles.

This was ridiculous. Indignation set his fighting spirit on fire. He tried to break free, but, unlike with the sword, he couldn't simply transport himself out of reach of the tentacles once trapped.

He had to free himself by force. And it wasn't that easy.

Those tentacles had too much strength, or he was too weak.

Most likely it was a combination of the two.

In any case, it couldn't end like this.

Desmond had escaped from the burning ship. He had avoided drowning, sinking to the bottom of the sea.

And now he was going to be defeated for this?

Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous!

I will not allow it.

Desmond redoubled his strength, his whole body writhing, screaming, no, groaning like a beast.

A wounded beast, trapped. But a beast nonetheless.

They can't control me.

No one can control me.

Something had changed. He felt it deep inside him, though he couldn't name that change.

Soon after, he broke some of the tentacles, freeing his left hand in the process. Just his left hand.

But enough.

It severed the tentacles that bound his other arm.

The golem broke open other parts of his body, creating those tentacles, and tried to grab him again.

Desmond repelled those tentacles that came for him with a single violent attack.

Then, he released his legs.

For a moment, he considered jumping out of golem. Give priority to getting to safety.

But he had already been too close to death.

And the golem's heart was within reach, within reach of his sword. If he retreated now, he might not get another chance.

Surely… To be honest, he didn't even understand how he had managed to free himself from the tentacles, with his body in such a sorry state, where everything, absolutely everything, was an effort.

So he went for it. It was the best he could do.

Desmond jumped to avoid being caught.

The golem was still armless and legless, so it could only rely on the tentacles to catch him. Once in the air, he wouldn't be able to move to dodge the tentacles. But at least he wouldn't be making direct contact with the golem's body. Not until it was too late for his enemy to do anything.

He would cut off any tentacles coming for him as he fell.

And when he landed, he would do so while burying the sword in the enemy's chest.

Desmond cut the tentacles.

He landed hard, the sword sliding into its body....

But not all the way.

The blade couldn't go all the way because the golem hit him in the chest. Desmond went flying backwards.

The sword too, spinning in the air. It almost landed on top of him, in fact. Holy shit. It was so close, so fucking close.... But there was no time for regrets. What was done was done.

Desmond reached out, trying to grab the pommel of the sword.

The golem, missing arms and legs, still hadn't regenerated. So Desmond had time to do it.

Time to avert the disaster that loomed over him.

But he couldn't move, he could barely breathe.

He didn't feel able to do anything at all.

The only reason he was alive in the first place was that neither Roman nor his men dared approach, despite the obviousness of his dreadful state.

Or now because... because it was no longer necessary.

Even if Desmond managed to reach for the sword, grasp it in his trembling hands, would he be able to stand?

Would he be strong enough to crawl towards golem?

Would he be able to plunge his sword into that heart? To pull out the heart buried in that darkness and destroy it?

Even he couldn't see himself winning.

It seemed... Desmond had reached his limit, at last.

A torrential rain began to fall, heavy enough to mist all the surroundings. As if it were fog instead of rain.

The rain could wash away the blood that stained the ground.

But it wouldn't wash the taste of his own blood out of his mouth.

The rain was also falling on him, of course, with great force. One more obstacle. It was pushing him down.

It was as if the world itself was against him.

As if it was telling him: give up, stop fighting.

"Fuck you," Desmond mumbled.

His back went straight. Like not so long ago, Desmond stuck his sword into the ground and used it for support.

Almost at the same time, one of the golem's legs finished regenerating.

His heart began to beat faster. Painfully.

Painful. Everything hurt.

He still had a long way to go. If this was proving so troublesome for him, could he really get to the Empire and rescue Abigail?

No.

Desmond wouldn't think that way.

He wasn't allowed to.

He shook his head. The water that had dripped into his hair was scattered around.

Like a grain of sand in the desert.

Shit. My body... it doesn't listen to me. Shit, shit, shit.

The golem's left arm was almost regenerated, and the golem's right leg was now starting to regenerate.

Meanwhile, Desmond had made no progress in getting up.

Least of all when it came to finishing off his enemy.

Shit... Oh, shit.

Is this really my limit?

I'll kill it. I'll tear it apart.

He pulled himself upwards. As a result of the effort he coughed several times, forcefully, spitting up some blood.

He stood up on shaky legs.

But...

Actually, you couldn't call that standing up. If he stopped leaning on the sword, he would fall like dead weight back to the ground.

The sword was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

Desmond had managed to get up, but this way he wouldn't be able to get to the golem, let alone give it the coup de grace.

He saw Abigail in the rain.

That made him realize that, since he had come out of the sea, he hadn't seen her.

But was he seeing her now?

Or was it just an image conjured by his mind? An illusion to cheer him up, to give him strength. To push him forward.

In any case, Abigail couldn't help him from so far away.

And seeing her wasn't enough to overcome the state he was in. Only time would help him with that. Time that, of course, he didn't have.

If he was going to be defeated anyway, he'd rather it wasn't in front of Abigail.

Wet hair stuck to his forehead, making it hard to see.

Desmond took a deep breath. His chest, as hot as it was painfully cold, numb, shivered as he did so.

Knives. The pain was such and as if he had knives stuck all over his body.

As if he was slowly bleeding out.

It had been a while, but not long enough. Or if it could have been, but the golem had hurt him with its punches and tentacles.

In other words, maybe it hadn't been enough just because between the old wounds and the new ones, the regenerative power wasn't enough.

In any case, he was in this situation.

Nothing and no one would get him out of it.

Except for himself. But he couldn't see the way forward, towards the future.

Desmond's vision was blurred.

The surroundings seemed to be engulfed by the night.

Desmond took a step forward.

His options had been exhausted. There was nothing he could do now, with this body.

If only he had been quicker then, this could have been avoided.

Roman wouldn't have given the order...

The order to kill me, he thought.

Desmond threw his head back and upward, toward the pouring rain. Toward the dark night sky, all dark, no stars.

Laughing.

What was so funny? Well, that he hadn't thought of something so simple before.

He had been so focused on going for the golem's heart, when in fact....

The golem, regenerated, finally sat up.

Desmond raised the sword again...

Only this time he turned it against himself. Slashing his chest, cutting it open. His blood mixed with the rain and disappeared.

Desmond took a deep breath and reached a hand into the wound in his chest.

Through some broken ribs.

He grabbed the heart, and squeezed, and kept squeezing until it stopped beating.

But it took a while for the brain to shut down even after the heart stopped. Seconds, only, but it should be long enough.

He clung to his consciousness with all his might.

If he lost it, this would be counterproductive. But if he kept it...if....

If he kept fighting...

Thoughts, no, the whole world was slipping away from him.

Disappearing into the darkness.

Behind the veil of death.

Soon, he stopped being able to think. But not perceiving what was going on around him. Not yet.

He watched, therefore, as the golem fell apart.

Returning to its original form. A harmless ball.

Desmond stopped squeezing. His heart beat again, albeit slowly and intermittently. Like a light bulb about to melt.

Desmond crawled... no, more like staggered over to Roman. It couldn't be called anything else. But he got there. Somehow, he got there. Roman wasn't the only one surprised, so surprised that his face had turned white as cheese.

Even with him standing in front of the man, he wasn't looking at his face or his sword.

Roman couldn't take his eyes off his chest.

Off the open wound, still bleeding.

Off his heart, visible, throbbing. It sure was a grotesque sight.

Desmond was grateful he didn't have to see it.

But... it almost didn't matter. Because he could clearly feel the heart around his hand still. His fingers sinking into the flesh. That heat. All those nauseating sensations felt so clear in his palm, as if he were still clutching it.

"How... how... how is it possible? What have you done? How... how... how... how...?"

This creature, who had caused him so much trouble, who had almost brought him to death, true death...

He had said, he remembered even now, in these circumstances, that he was protecting this city, that he had been protecting it.

He had said, he remembered even now, in these circumstances, that he protected this city.

That he was making sure, through his secret dealings, that his city wasn't attacked. He wasn't innocent. He was a monster. But he kept innocent people out of harm's way, if you believed his words. And he did. Roman was probably just doing it for profit, nothing more, but that was the result It was what mattered...

Therefore, he should be kept alive. Right? It had to be that way, but, no matter how many times he thought about it, Desmond didn't see why that should matter to him.

Because he thought it did. He didn't, and he couldn't fathom the strange impulse that it should matter to him.

Roman brandished his cane.

Desmond stopped thinking.

It wasn't an ordinary cane; it concealed a sword. Some mechanism had set it free. It didn't matter. Roman gasped. His cane had gone flying, snapped in half. But that wasn't why he gasped. He did that when Desmond's sword nearly cut him, starting at one shoulder, in two as well. Not quite, but...

Still, he could be left for dead. Desmond withdrew the sword. He watched as the crime boss fell to the ground, under a red carpet that was being unrolled. He watched him with empty, glassy eyes.

It's done, he thought. That was it.

He raised his head. One look was enough to send Roman's men scurrying off, scattered into the night. Abandoning their boss to his fate.

Well, even if they had stayed, they wouldn't have been able to change it.

Screams.

Lights, noise. Now they were really coming to see what was going on, huh?

With a bitter smile, he hurried out of there.

Disappear into the night, if he could.

Before doing so, however, he looked around. He didn't see Abigail anywhere.

The ship had stopped burning. It had finally sunk.

So behind him it was all pitch dark.

He walked away, doing what he could, with that last image in his head. Spinning around.

***

Desmond escaped, though even he himself wouldn't say how he'd managed it. He didn't know where he was.

But he wasn't safe, not quite. Not yet.

He had...

He had to find a hiding place.

And he found it. A shallow cave, a hole to hide from the eyes of anyone looking for him and from the rain.

He sat down on the ground. He left the sword resting between one arm and his body.

It was like a kind of embrace.

Like when, as a child, he slept hugging his sword every night. It was the only thing that gave him security, back then. Since then he had gained many things... But, once again, that was the only thing he could depend on to give him security. The reliable weight of his sword.

For the moment.

For the moment, but that wouldn't last long.

He would be reunited with Abigail.

He had failed to secure his passage to the Empire, and he had left behind quite a mess.

But he would manage. Surely he would.

Desmond's eyelids were heavy.

Am I going to die like this, in a dark hole like this, out of sight of anyone, unnoticed?

Not until they find my decomposing body.

No.

He wouldn't die.

He wasn't going to die at all, ever.

He was supposed to take the curse of immortality in the end, leaving Abigail to rest in peace.

I... I...

Nothing. He was too tired to do anything.

His eyes closed.