Chapter 137: One Last Effort
The freezing wind cut against his skin like invisible blades, but Vincent didn’t feel it anymore, or maybe he’d simply stopped caring.
He sat on the edge of a tall building, his empty gaze fixed on the city below. His hollow eyes wandered aimlessly, lost among countless thoughts, some dark, others not.
His complexion was pale, far paler than that of any healthy person. It was obvious he had been through far too much over the past few days.
The blood-soaked bandages wrapped around his left shoulder, where his arm should have been, only made it all the more apparent.
The memories of Arnold lunging at him, while he’d been trying to heal him, were still burned into his mind.
He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, but his companion had ended up turning into one of those creatures.
The transformation had been fast. The moment he’d sensed that Arnold was gone, he’d noticed the change taking hold, but he’d realized it too late, and ended up badly wounded on his left arm as a result.
Seeing what had become of Arnold, his body riddled with wounds infected by that strange ice, Vincent hadn’t wasted a second contemplating what to do. He’d cut his own arm clean off without hesitation, anything to avoid ending up the same way.
Arnold, for his part, hadn’t attacked right away. He’d walked toward him with jerky, irregular steps, as if he were still trying to relearn how to control his own body.
But even as he moved, Arnold’s skin had begun to shrivel, drying out until it clung tight against the bone. He wasn’t human anymore, just a skeleton wrapped in gray skin, pale blue eyes fixed unblinking on him.
The sight had sent a wave of pure terror through him, and he’d known instantly he couldn’t stay there. He’d fled without hesitation, throwing himself off the building’s ledge, using his wind manipulation to put distance between himself and the structure, landing on a taller one nearby.
Using his mana hadn’t gone unnoticed, though. Within moments, he’d found himself surrounded by those creatures.
He had expected as much.
So he’d used what mana he had left to seal the wound where he’d cut off his arm, then infused the severed limb, still clutched in his remaining hand, with mana, and hurled it as far away as he could.
The creatures closing in had immediately bolted toward it like rabid beasts, buying him just enough time to escape and find safety.
He’d been right to think they weren’t after him, it was the mana. And that realization had saved his life. But the blood loss, the lack of food, and the inability to use mana again for fear of being found had left him in the state he was in now: malnourished, nearly out of strength.
He should have died the day after that escape. He was sure of it. But by some coincidence or maybe for some other reason he still couldn’t explain, he’d run into one of those creatures, weaker than him, and killed it.
He’d been ready to run again, but instead found himself watching the bizarre sight of the creature crumbling into ash, leaving behind a strange pearl. That pearl had become his lifeline.
It was the only reason he was still alive. Far from being in good shape, but alive.
He sat slouched at the edge of the rooftop, the endless snowstorm battering him as it always did. The cold had numbed nearly every part of his body by now, his mind already growing hazy from the sleep he hadn’t gotten in days, and the hunger was starting to gnaw at him again.
He still held that pearl in his hand. He’d used up about half of it, something that hadn’t just filled him with energy, but seemed to be strengthening his very foundation.
He looked down at the remaining half.
He didn’t dare consume it all at once. He didn’t know how long it would last, or how much longer he’d be stuck in this place.
So he had to ration what energy remained inside it.
It wasn’t a long-term solution. But it was something, for now.
He raised his remaining arm toward the sky, his eyes settling on the worn bracelet still wrapped around his wrist.
His expression, already strained with exhaustion, grew even more troubled.
’At this rate, I won’t last much longer...’
’Well, if this is how it has to end, I might as well make one last effort and get this over with, once and for all,’ he told himself, forcing his body upright despite the effort it cost him.
He could feel death creeping closer. Now, more than ever, he saw no way out of this place, and how could he, when he didn’t even know where he was, or whether there was any way out at all.
But of one thing he felt fairly certain: if Arnold had ended up here with him, then maybe the others had ended up somewhere in this place too.
He wanted to find them. To make sure they were okay, that his troublemaker of a brother was still alive somewhere out there. And finally, to see through the task he’d set for himself, before the end he now considered inevitable finally caught up with him.
It was his way of shedding the weight he carried, and hoping to find, at last, some measure of peace.
With that thought in mind, and the little resolve he had left, he pushed his body into one final effort, and set off, his destination the forest he could see rising in the middle of the city, not far from where he stood.
Meanwhile, several blocks away from the forest she had fled from shortly after arriving in this strange place...
Selena slowly consumed another one of those energy pearls.
She opened her eyes, her gaze settling on the three remaining pearls in front of her.
They were the spoils she’d earned after eliminating a few more of those creatures. By now, she was fairly confident in her theory, as long as she didn’t overdo it with the amount of mana she used, there was no risk of drawing the attention of stronger creatures.
With that in mind, she summoned them one by one, eliminating each as quickly as possible to avoid any unnecessary complications.
The creatures varied quite a bit from one another, but shared certain baseline traits, attack patterns, their tendency to strike without regard for their surroundings, and so on. All factors she used to her advantage, to maximize her chances of taking them down as fast as possible.
She could already feel she’d made another significant step forward, toward the advanced stage, and in fact, she was only a tiny step away now.
’Just a little more,’ she thought as she picked up another pearl.
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