Memory Reaper's Ascension - Chapter 155: Manipulation

Chapter 155: Manipulation

Both Ishiki and Filch turned back towards the ground facing the source of the crash.

Not too far away—perhaps three or four streets away, a massive dust cloud erupted into the crimson sky. It rose like a pillar, billowing outward, backlit by the moon’s red glow.

And as they watched in growing horror, buildings began to collapse.

One… two and then three.

The buildings fell in sequence like dominoes, each one creating its own expanding cloud of pulverized stone and shattered timber.

“That,” Filch said quietly. “What was that… it didn’t feel like a rock.”

Ishiki nodded mutely, unable to tear his eyes from the destruction.

’The demon,’ he thought. ’The dragon kicked it so hard it destroyed three buildings just from the impact!’

The thought alone sent shivers down his spine, making his blood turn ice cold.

The dust cloud continued to expand, rolling through the streets like a slow-motion avalanche.

Ishiki eyes instinctively followed back towards the dragon who was now descending downwards. And for the first time, Ishiki could truly see its humanoid form in detail.

The dragon was… horrifyingly handsome.

Its body was that of a man—tall and powerfully built, with musculature that spoke of strength beyond mortal comprehension. Every line was perfect with an ideal proportion, like some sculptor’s vision of masculine perfection rendered in flesh.

It was completely naked, utterly unselfconscious in its nudity. Why would a being of such power concern itself with human modesty?

The four wings sprouted from its back in two pairs… the upper set larger, the lower slightly smaller. All of them caught the moonlight and shimmered like burnished metal.

The two tails undulated behind it were serpentine and prehensile, each one thick as a man’s forearm and easily a meter long. They moved independently, as if possessed of separate consciousness.

But what drew Ishiki’s attention the most was the forehead.

There, centered above those golden eyes, was a third eye-like structure.

Not an actual eye, but something else. A crystalline orb that pulsed with inner light, embedded directly into the dragon’s skull. It glowed faintly, rhythmically, like a heart made visible.

“We need to move,” Filch said urgently, bringing Ishiki back to reality. His grip was still firm on Ishiki’s uninjured arm. “That thing is coming down, and we do not want to be anywhere near where it decides to look next.”

Ishiki nodded wordlessly. His survival instincts… overrode everything else, even the exhaustion threatening to drag him down.

They ran.

Or rather, Filch ran and half-dragged Ishiki along with him, moving through the devastated streets with surprising speed.

Ishiki’s legs trembled with each step, his internal injuries were making every breath hard and painful. But he pushed through, one foot in front of the other, refusing to be the dead weight that got them both killed.

They rounded a corner and Filch pulled them both into the shelter of a partially collapsed building—a bakery, judging by the remnants of an oven visible through the rubble. The burgundy-haired young man pressed himself against the wall, breathing heavily.

Ishiki leaned against the opposite wall. The brief sprint had cost him more than he could afford. Blood was seeping through the gauntlet on his left arm again, and his chest was throbbing badly.

“Stay quiet,” Filch whispered. “Something’s moving.”

Ishiki froze, straining his ears. At first he heard nothing beyond the distant sounds of destruction and his own ragged breathing. Then—

Footsteps.

Both of them pressed deeper into the shadows, slowly looking out towards the direction of where the demon had fallen.

A figure emerged from the dust cloud that had engulfed the collapsed buildings. It was flying with the gait of someone injured but refusing to show weakness.

As the figure drew closer, the crimson moonlight illuminated its features, and Ishiki’s blood ran cold.

It was rather young man with pale face and distinctive features. He was wearing tattered white shirt and a pair of pants. His back was hunched at first and then it slowly straightened with wet sounds.

The young man was facing the other side, but there was something about him that made Ishiki’s eyes widen in terror.

He had coalesced floating spheres of crimson liquid above his palm.

’That’s Arthur… Arthur Sterling!!’

Ishiki couldn’t hide the dread he was feeling right now. Sprouting from Arthur’s back were two massive wings constructed entirely of blood.

Liquid blood held in wing-shape through the use of his skill, they were dripping and reforming constantly, maintaining their structure through sheer will.

And then Ishiki saw the blood manipulation in action. Arthur raised one hand, and blood from the surrounding corpses and debris began to flow toward him. It moved like living liquid, defying gravity, streaming through the air to orbit around his body in crimson spheres.

’His skill is terrifying as well… he can even heal himself.’ Ishiki was marveled at the sight of the ability. But then he shook his head.

’That is not important anymore. My guess was correct… so the demon that has infiltrated can control others. It had controlled that girl in the Cathedral and sacrificed her to unseal the dragon.’

’No… more accurately said, the demon takes over their bodies because no way that what I am witnessing is just mere control. So in conclusion… the original Arthur Sterling is dead.’ Ishiki realized with grim certainty. ’Or maybe trapped inside his own body. Either way that’s not him… that is something else piloting his corpse.’

Ishiki concluded what he could deduce from his knowledge and he suddenly felt that he knew a lot more about the general situation.

Having deduced that, Ishiki even tried and guessed of a reason why the demon might have unsealed such a creature from its imprisonment.

’They want that thing in its forehead!’

The demon-wearing-Arthur flew upward, toward where the dragon still hovered in the crimson sky. When it spoke, Arthur’s distinct British accent was there, but underneath was something cold and wrong.

“My Lord!” the demon called out, they were both now considerably low and so the voice carried easily across the distance to where Ishiki and Filch were.

“Please, wait! We must speak!”