Chapter 20: A Scar Remains

  “Only if I knew it. Only if I had never been marked.”

  Mo Fei’s one eye was closed, the other plucked out. He couldn't see the world through eyes, but he could see the Threads in the dark. The thread of Zhuo pulsed in his darkness, a dying heart. Faint, beating. Connected in less than just a few breaths.

  Any moment... Any moment it could snap.

  Outside, Jian Yue's raw voice once again tore through the desperate night, calling for help. Lin's head snapped toward the door when she heard it. She didn't speak or never needed to, her eyes found Han’s. They held there for a moment, then back to sigils… A signal that said.

  Go.

  Han didn't wait, and ran. The cold hit his face with a snowfall falling on his cheek, freezing it. He looked at the snow, and at the dark, and there, in the center of the snow plains stood,

  Jian Yue.

  Han's feet stopped, his breathing followed… And the world itself stopped, just to look at the hollow victory more clearly.

  Jian Yue stood in a pool of crimson that wasn't a shadow. His clothes that were once the color of storms were now fully crimson. Viscous blood freezing in the cold that changed its hue. Every closest major part of him had holes, wounds as if something had pierced through and kept piercing. His chest, his arms and shoulders, his legs. Han could see through some of them. He could see snow on the other side.

  And yet,

  Jian Yue stood restless. His hand still gripped his blade tightly, white-knuckles unmoving from it. As if his life depended on the sword… As if letting go meant collapsing and then never getting up.

  “Jian Yue!” Han's voice slightly cracked… Or perhaps almost did, but he swallowed it back. Han crossed the distance in seconds, hands reaching out, then stopping… ‘Where do you touch a man made of holes?’ “You're… you're bathing in blood. What happened? What-”

  Jian Yue's eyes found him. They were distant. Like someone looking through fog.

  “cathedral.” The word was a scrape. Jian Yue's throat said it was like broken glass resting there. “Zhuo… He went, he went for the eye. Five minutes. It should have taken-" Suddenly, he gasped, a wet, terrible sound he coughed out some spits, blood fell on the snow.” Five minutes since the Xul-Thal was gone, it's getting too long.”

  Han's hands traced the air, catching nothing but disturbance. “I… can't leave you like this. You'll-"

  “I might live.” Jian Yue's grip on the blade tightened more. Drops of blood fell from his knuckles. “Or I won't. But it doesn't matter. He's fifteen, Han. Fifteen. And I sent him alone.”

  His voice cracked on the last word. Just a little but enough.

  "I've lived at least a few years longer than him. I don't want anyone living less than me. I'm not…" He swallowed and winced under breath. "I'm not watching another perish… not him…"

  He tried to push past Han. His leg buckled. But before he could trip over his hand and caught himself on the blade, the blade he'd been using for a long time, not a blade but a protector, Han realized it. He'd been holding himself up with his weapon this whole time.

  Han’s arms held to support him.

  For a matter of seconds, less than a moment. Jian Yue's mask slipped away totally. Right now, at this exact moment he wasn't an ascended ‘Authority’. He was just a man who was now broken, bleeding, terrified.

  Then his eyes hardened.

  “Go,” he said. “Ascension will heal me… Don't worry about me but Zhuo… He can't ascend if he is not in the situation to kill himself…”

  Han looked at the direction of the Cathedral from a distance of more than 10 minutes. Han once again stared at Jian Yue to see the blood seeping into the snow.

  “Someone younger than me… that passes before me… I think I can't bear that thought too.” With these final words, Han launched himself towards the Cathedral as fast as he could.

  Within ten to thirteen minutes he reached the entrance of the execution chamber, his eyes scanned around heavily. There, Han found Zhuo at the edge of the Cathedral's mouth.

  The Kholkis lay beside him… a mountain of frozen flesh that was now finally still. Its chest was open. Its leg was gone. Its throat was a ruin.

  Around there gathered… Soul-eating vultures, their heads still complete, still staring at the torn flesh… One fluttering of the wing, then two then three. They were vultures but wearing armaments made of bones and their neck… Broken one movement broke and it would wave.

  Han had heard of them. The soul devourer, they didn't just eat flesh, but the very thing that came after it, the soul. Them, who lurch within a group filled with not just ravenous hunger but with the hunger of innocent and dark souls. They had never attacked the living, but they waited and when death approached then they pursued the soul and feasted .

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Han’s eyes shifted to Zhuo… And Zhuo…

  Zhuo lay in the snow, his frozen hand still wrapped around the dagger tightly, his breath so shallow Han couldn't see it.

  Quickly, Han dropped to his knees. Pressed his fingers at Zhuo's neck. His finger twitched when a nerve pulsed, faint, thread-thin.

  But there he found his courage to speak anyway, barely holding things together.

  “Zhuo,” Han whispered, a small, soft voice not the hard-loving tone of a veteran, but a real soft one. “Zhuo, I'm here. We're going… we're going to-”

  He didn't know how to finish that sentence. He didn't know what to say. He never felt like this for so long. He wasn't a healer, a doctor or a herbs expert. He wasn't a cruel strong man. He was just a man who had spent twenty years being nothing but filling orders.

  Though, he picked Zhuo up anyway.

  The boy weighed nothing. Or it was maybe because Han had just forgotten what it felt like to carry the hope of youths.

  He turned toward Still Point. Behind him, the Cathedral breathed its last. The soul devourers hiccupped a sound that felt like laughing perhaps at the calamity whose pride was remembered but never acknowledged.

  Or perhaps laughing at the epilogue itself, a mystery only they knew. Then again, to look back, they had reasons in either way, didn't they?

  Jian Yue, who hadn't moved, or couldn't move. His body screaming due to the numbness receding slowly, pain flooding in like a broken dam pushing out water. On his knees in the snow, blade still in his hand, he only prayed to Zhuo’s well, his eyes watching the direction of the Cathedral, not looking away.

  Waiting.

  Every second acted as a year.

  A spark ran off his eyes when he saw a figure. Running towards him. Han. And in his arms…

  Jian Yue's breath hitched his eyes flickered with hope he held his breath.

  Zhuo.

  He finally breathed when Han reached him, dropping to his knees beside him. Zhuo’s face was pale. Too pale. But his chest pulsing with faint breathing. Still breathing.

  Jian Yue's hand, trembling, reached out at Zhuo. With his bloody palm, he touched Zhuo's face, which was freezing cold.

  “Did I fail?,” he whispers. “Why did I?”

  A groaning noise from Zhuo’s mouth came and Zhuo's eyes fluttered open. Finding Jian Yue's.

  “Didn't I say,” he breathes. “I have grown.”

  Jian Yue's mask finally cracked, and completely gone. He could not hold on any longer. Tears freeze on his cheeks before they can fall. With a soft whimper.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You have.”

  Han finally called out Elara for more support, now assured that danger was gone.

  “Elara, we need a little bit more support.” Elara was already sitting near the door and from time to time checking the wound of Mo Fei and when she heard it she quickly ran for help.

  Han carried Zhuo through the snow. Elara came out and saw the horrible situation of Jian Yue, almost as if walking on a strand that could snap. She already knew what she had to do.

  The Still Points entrance appeared like a wound in the ice.

  Lin was already there waiting for them. She couldn't leave the sigils. But her face pressed against the barrier, her eyes wide, her lips moving in words no one could hear.

  Mo Fei saw the threads before they arrived. He saw four threads. One bright but fraying. One dark and riddled with holes, barely together. Two steady, carrying the others.

  He knew what it meant if they had died out there, really died. There would be no ascension, no second chance; they were harmed by entities. The rules of the cosmic horror obviously it couldn't be their side.

  “They're coming back,” he whispered.

  Lin already sensed the presence, of course she did; it was her territory after all.

  “Alive.” Mo Fei's voice cracked. “Barely.

  The door opened.

  Her eyes first lay on Zhuo. His eyes closed, breathing softly, then at the terrible state of Jian Yue. Alive only because of his ‘Authority’ she had realized that he had asked help from the ‘Warden’ and the help from the ‘Gods’ never came free.

  Her leg slightly shook. She wanted to help but couldn't. The the restraints were frustrating her more.

  “Let go.” A voice distracted her. It was Mo Fei's voice. He finally opened his good eye to look at her, then spoke again.

  “Let go… We will ascend the very next second you do that.” Mo Fei's eyes landed on the knives.

  Jian Yue groaned when he breathed.

  “He is right, we need to ascend. Zhuo won't be alive longer if he doesn't… Let go this.”

  Mo Fei's voice followed. “But before that,” he looked at Han and Elara. His one eye couldn't keep looking longer.

  “What will you do? You can't ascend like us.” His voice was different than ever; they couldn't quite put on why and how but it was… or only to Han and Elara.

  The soft voice of Zhuo breathing came. Faint, but real. Jian Yue sat against the wall, his wounds bound, his eyes closed, his hand still resting on Zhuo's ankle as if afraid that he'd disappeared.

  Lin's hands had stopped shaking, her tension lowered now. And the sigils were stable. For now.

  Mo Fei sat apart, waiting for them to speak, his one eye, the empty socket covered by clothes.

  Han stood by the door, his mind racing with thought. But with one certainty he had to decide.

  “I have to go,” Han said quietly to Mo Fei. No one argued. No one could. Elara stood with him.

  Mo Fei's thread-sight caught them… Two threads, bright and warm, moving toward the door.

  “Yes, I know… But where?” he asked. Yes, where they could go they had no family left.

  Elara looked at Han and nodded gently as she had decided it, they both, in fact.

  “We will find Grig in the Vraalk, he is already alone. We will find more people like us and build a place comfortable enough to live.” She paused with a small bright smile on her face. “And live the way we want… And to stop being slaves, a place that everyone calls home.”

  Mo Fei said nothing. But his hand found the Glaive beside him. Home… Home. His mind repeated the words Yes, home. This was exactly what he wanted and would always want.

  “I might someday look for you,” he said, “So you won't owe me anything.” His head was aching, but at this moment he forgot it. The thought of home comforted him. He missed living in his apartment waiting for his parents to visit him and when they did, they'd give him lectures to not slack around. He missed it all.

  Han almost smiled. Then, when Han spoke, his voice carried a small fondness.

  “You're blind.”

  “I can still see more than your veteran eyes, old man.” He forced the wittyness this time just so that they wouldn't remember a strategist but someone they lived alongside, even if just for a while.

  Before they could go, Jian Yue stopped them and he opened his eyes. And he pointed in a direction.

  “Take that key. Anyone who uses it gets a temporary hideout… though you can use it only once in three days, use it wisely, ” He said, giving them a final gift before the farewell, and he continued, “If the ‘Overseer’ someday knows that Vraalk is no longer empty and sends someone to check, you can fool them by this.” Then he continued again calling out his name.

  “Han.” Jian Yue's voice stopped him. The older man turned.

  Jian Yue met his eyes. “If you find others, if you build something there…” He paused, searching for words.

  “Don't wait for permission, you don't need to ask if you're allowed to live. Just... live.”

  Han almost smiled at him, before he spoke. “I wasn't planning to ask.”

  Elara stayed silent, her gaze shifted to Mo Fei watching silently with a noticeable smile, she said to him.

  “Thank you for changing my future…”

  Jian Yue tried to stand up, and she walked towards him to help her fragile hands support him. Her clothes also got soaked by the blood. Jian Yue was stumbling when he walked. He didn't speak. Couldn't speak. Every breath was a war with lungs.

  “I really hope someday, someday, you find your home,” she paused, hesitant to say the next words. “Or… At least you create one.” Mo Fei looked at her and then looked away, staring down at the ground. He had no words to say anymore.

  Then Lin finally moved her hands from the gateway and the sigils started to get dull. She gestured, and suddenly a door opened in the air.

  “This will lead you to ‘Vraalk’ now hurry up… stay hidden.”

  The door opened. Cold air rushed in. Han and Elara stepped through it. They walked toward ‘Vraalk’ for the future. A future where they were not slaves. They walked and didn't look back.

  In front of Mo Fei Zhuo breathed. Beside him, Jian Yue's hand tightened on the boy's ankle.

  A howling wind emerged as if someone had chuckled… above, far beyond the imagination.

  Mo Fei finally lifted his Glaive and prepared for the ascension.

  “Geez… again, I really hate it.” As always, the cost of ascension was death, inevitable death. But death for an ‘Ascended’ was just another door. He put the Glaive to his throat and stepped through.

  Mo Fei's one eye found Jian Yue. And then looked at Zhuo, still breathing, and still alive. Finally, his eye found Lin, exhausted but present.

  “I'll see you on the other side,” he said. In response, Jian Yue nodded before speaking.

  “Try not to die on the way.”

  “I always do.”

  After, Mo Fei said it. Lin's voice cut through the air, and she told him the next destination.

  “The world five… Longing Heaven… there is the city named ‘South Cleveland’ waiting there at the entrance of the city.”

  “How will I know where this city is?”

  “It will find you.”

  “HUH?”

  “Don't waste time now, we will be there soon.” The Sigils had dimmed now, her eyes flickered at them. The ‘Overseer’ would know the ‘Authority’ had weakened here.

  Mo Fei nodded, and the Glaive came down with a small hint of hesitation. He slashed down his throat. He felt pain just for a second before his eyes closed. His body laid lifeless on the ground before it burst and disappeared.