Chapter XXII

The sky

Recommended song (which should keep replaying ) Sólstafir - Fjara

She stood there. Like nothing was real. In front of him. In front of the great and powerful king.

"I've been waiting for you" He said calmly, with his usually superior and calm smile. But in his dark brown eyes only destruction could be seen.

She didn't say anything, but was only looking down. Her eyes were covered by her messy hair. The road through the portal her mother opened became quite instable through the chaotic surroundings that Hao created. Her arms were covered in bruises.

"I am sorry for the inconveniences created. But I couldn't maintain my material form without disturbing space and time a little." He said with a polite, but arrogant, tone.

She made the oversoul. The light electrified her hair and its light was clearly absorbed by her green and sad eyes.

"Why?" she asked plainly. "You wanted this final meeting with me?"

She attacked him from distance, making some basic electric spirals. They dissolved before even getting close to him. He smirked.

"Not necessary. I was actually hoping to convince you, since you can't actually enter inside my Great Spirit Realm." He said calmly.

Her eyes became shocked for a second. She acknowledged the chaotic surroundings. The blood red sky, the huge flames, the deafening noise of the earth shaking, the wasteland that once used to be a sacred place. Everything was desolating, an atmosphere typical for him in his state and also made for distress and hopelessness. Her look was shadowed again. Her weak voice was trembling, although she spoke with complete confidence.

"I'm sorry, but I can't change my mind about you…about this…"

She formed the hexagon of a dazzling light. A strong energy blasted from the portal. The attack was so powerful that she could barely keep herself on her feet while controlling the shot.

He raised his sword. A normal sized, radiant red sword with golden royal embroidery. He blocked the attack easily enough.

"The spirit is strong indeed, but with your current furyoku level, you can't even use one tenth of its fully power." Hao explained plainly, even if he knew that wouldn't stop her.

He had just finished his words when another blast came towards him. The result was the same.

"I am somehow impressed…you became quite strong." He said with a pleased smile, maintaining his composure and having a sly gleam in his eyes. "But…" he dissolved her furyoku.

"It's useless." He said calmly. "All you do is damage yourself."

The last line caught her attention, thing which made him have a light satisfied smug.

"Haven't you noticed already?" he asked.

A strong ache echoed through her muscles. He was right. The intense energy using was hardly damaging her body. Her feet were shaking, her back was hurting, her blood tension was rising. She clenched her teeth. Another bright hexagon, even bigger, with its light even shakier. The laser emerged. She used up all her furyoku. All of it in the most powerful and last attack she was able to make with it. It headed rapidly through him, it splintered the air like an arrow knowing its target.

But she knew that he would stop it again. As easily as before.

This time, his sword attacked and the wave he made was powerful that it damaged her and made her fell on her knees.

"How foolish. This fight is over, you don't have anymore furyoku. What are you thinking of? Even if, absurdly, you could defeat me, if I die, I still remain the shaman king, my soul will only fully emerge with the Great Spirit.

I've maintained this weak material state…just for you. It's the full amount of spirit power that my body can handle. But even if in this state I can't use the entire Great Spirit, even if the only thing which separates me from the divinity state is simply death...

I am stronger than you could ever imagine. " He said with a mild tone. His smile disappeared.

"You're already at your limit. Don't worry, I'm keeping you alive. You will eventually stop with your nonsense as soon as you'll see the utopia I'll create.

There is nothing else you can do."

For Rilury, there really was nothing else.

It wasn't even her own planet that was being destroyed. The fate of the world was sad, indeed, but it was his dream after all.

Right now, she would have been home. But…

When she decided to choose this, she followed her heart, and home is where your heart leads to.

The loneliness she felt wasn't hers…It wasn't about the world, it wasn't about her, because, after all, she was also a monster…

It was him. The way Hao was right now. He was destroying himself.

She stood up. Her body was exhausted but she managed somehow to keep herself steady on her two feet. She clenched her fists.

She wanted- no, she needed to do this. To fight for what she loved. Even if it ripped out her heart. Even if it would mean her loosing her life. She looked directly in his eyes.

"This isn't just a simple battle, Hao…."

Hao became purely shocked to see another lighting hexagon covering her sight. This time, she was using her own life energy. The energy of her own soul. Of course, that would mean consuming her life until the end of it.

The violent light emerged.

He blocked it furiously. Particles of light were spreading away. His eyes were shadowed, his body was standing easily with its sword risen, stopping the strong pressure from the constant energy flowing.

Why? Why would she sacrifice herself to stop him? Isn't this what everyone tried to do in vain? Why would they always fight him, no matter what the costs are?

"Idiot!" he screamed infuriated, suddenly waving his sword violently to drive off the attack.

The defense was strong that it also counter stroke Rilury. Her body sprang a few meters away and landed brutally on the ground.

The blood was leaking through the crack of the earth made from the collision. She was in deep pain.

"You're lucky I've broke your attack before it killed you!" he said with a loud and furious voice.

She was lying defenseless on the ground. Her body was aching, her heart….her heart felt so heavy that it was even more unbearable that the whole physical suffer.

His eyes became darkened. She was at the verge of her death. But of course, he won't let her die. He wanted her to witness everything that he'll make as the allmighty king, even if she…

He chuckled. But it sounded hollow and demonic. Like a maniac God watching its own world destroying itself.

He looked at her and his lips closed to form a clearly dark smirk.

"You really are stubborn." He started walking towards her with slow and heavy steps.

Her last effort was made to roll over her back to easy her pain by getting rid of the pressure in her thorax. She was breathing heavily. She was covered in bruises, some of her clothes were ripped and blood was dripping from her head. The blue pendant had a slight crack.

He reacted so recklessly towards her. Couldn't he read her heart anymore?

She wanted to tell him everything... If she could now, but it was even hard to speak.

He came closer.

"How silly. You know, it was really hard for me to decide whether you were strong…" His fingers went on her bruised skin under the neck. She looked at his eyes, which were full of insanity.

She wasn't pleading. She wasn't doing anything, because she knew, deep inside, she feared the moment which was about to come.

He touched the damaged pendant.

"Or merely a fool."

He ripped her necklace brutally, thing which made her leak a short surprised scream, which hurt her body even more.

Once you are surrounded by your own demons, it's hard for you to see the light in others.

His power was as heavy as his soul. Lost in your own madness, it's hard for you to hear a clear mind with a broken heart.

"But I was right from the beginning. " he analyzed the blue stone and confirmed his thoughts.

Rilury was still in completely denial. Like an ill person with a deadly disease, trying to convince herself that she was healthy.

"Humph. You maybe are just superficial and my mind was creating simple illusions. Perhaps everything was fake, just like this..."

He threw up the pendant. The blue glass was rising up on the blood red sky.

Upon his face with deadly dark eyes, appeared an evil grin, the baleful apogee of a dementia.

With a short cut made with his hand, it broke into pieces.

Rilury's eyes were staring blankly at the blue pieces of glass falling off.

That pendant, was a symbol for her, meaning everything that she meant for him. That little special attention, the only fucking DAMN he gave about her.

It was all gone now.

Everything was broken. Her flesh, her muscles, her bones, her organs, her cells, her heart…

Her hope. Both physically and psihically wretched. She gave up on everything.

A state in which a person is the most vulnerable. Dead on the inside.

Lost in the vast black hole, waiting to be absorbed in its nothingness.

But there… wasn't 'nothing' in it. There was that divinity which she kept sealed.

The abomination which finally gripped her with it's hand.

Poison. Her tears are poison.

Her pupils dilated and were overflowed with yellow light. A strong flash enveloped her whole body, radiating like a supernova. Floating in the air, the power took her mind.

She lost her own self in the survival reaction of her body.

The chain broke.

Hao looked shocked at this outburst of light.

He looked at her in disbelief. Her hair was fully blonde and worn by the currents. Her eyes…were white and hollow.

Rilury wasn't there anymore. What stood in front of him was an unmerciful entity that wanted to destroy everything.

It attacked, wanting to slash his body with the gigantic sword it created out of its own aura. Hao blocked the attack quickly enough, and he eventually broke the sword tangle.

It caught him unprepared. How could this be possible? Even her own death couldn't awake such an immense power.

A flash of light came towards him and he managed to cover it with a burst of flames. His eyes were caught by the dance of fire which gave him a revelation, a splinetr out of the vast knowledge he obtained.

It was just basic shamanism. Her body fused with a part of an outer space divinity. It was something chaotic and unstable at the same time, because the fusion was incomplete and the spirit reyoku was so high that it took away her consciousness. It was a mechanism of survival: a machine that won't stop attacking until it got rid of the threat, and that was him.

Did he do something to her that made her loose all her hope for living? Which is why the subconscious felt at the verge of death.

A reckless killing machine. It was all his fault. Because of him, this reaction which will eventually consume her body, or stop only when...

He prepared his attack. Oversoul with the Great Spirit. A radiant blade, as bright as the sun itself. He raised it, waiting for the perfect moment…

It was clear what the result will be.

He could easily defeat this mindless entity which was using a simple puppet attached on the strings. Due to its agitation and chaotic direct attacks, it was simple.

It was coming closer... Her blank eyes...once green and beautiful…

He did this. He created a monster.

And winning would mean losing her…forever.

The sword sliced the air and blood flew out of a single body…

His.

The radiant yellow sword was plunged deep into his stomach. After coughing blood, a soft smile appeared on his lips. His eyes were slowly dripping out of life, but not until catching a final, sad gleam…

"Rilury…why…have I done this?..."

He coughed blood.

The bright stabbed blade dissolved. The weapon finished its target.

A soft look appeared in his eyes and a warm smile blossomed on his lips.

" I love you too much…to have lost you like that."

Light explosion. The yellow energy spread away.

Hao's body collapsed lifeless on the ground.

Her eyes regained the green and vivid color.

The reyoku of the holy spirit dissolved like it never existed…

She looked at her bloody hands.

His body was lying in a bath of blood, right in front of her

Heavy tears were deliberately falling without even realizing. She looked around and tried to comprehend the image through her shrunk pupils. She couldn't remember anything. But the present reality hit her as a clear answer.

She killed him.

Her fists hit the ground and her nails plunged into the earth.

She screamed like a mad creature.

Was this what she wanted it to be?

No…but she was weak…she became nothing but a powerless toy attached by the strings of despair.

Then why-…

There was no answer for her lost soul. Only one for her desperate heart...

Save him!

She was insane now, she had to be. She wanted to give her life to him, change this moment when she lost everything that she loved…

She will do it again.

Her hands pressed hard on his body, giving up the last remains of the power that still flooded in her cursed veins.

Her death would have been much, much better.

Too much blood spilled. Not enough blood for him...

Her eyes searched for something sharp. She looked at one blue piece left from the stone. Her broken trust, the agony that brought her here…. was nothing but a fake replaced stone…painted glass…

She squashed it in her glowing hand , making it powder.

On her face there was a sad, ironic smile….She suddenly remembered something and searched his pockets.

After all, he still kept it with him….

The dagger. She stabbed her left arm and created a blood transfusing channel using an oversoul. She pumped blood, she pumped energy, tried to pump her own life.

A red liquid combined with her tears was dripping out of her.

Rilury was desperate. She didn't care if it was the last mistake she did.

All she knew was that she wanted him…alive!

X

In the middle of nothingness, having the word under his feet, the lonely king…

was imprisoned in his heart.

To be continued…

i'll post the next chapter tomorrow, no worries ^^