Chapter 60: The Horror of FleshWeaver

Chapter 60: Horror of Fleshweaver

​The crimson sky rippled above them like disturbed water.

​Yi Jyuhan wiped a smear of blood from his lip, his fan clicking shut with a sharp echo. Beside him, Xue Lan rose unsteadily, the pale moon-textured claws of the night-singer reflected the crimson light.

​"He’s stalling," Xue Lan muttered, his nebula-violet eyes narrowing as he watched the Curator. "And He is not even using blood... almost as if–"

Yi Jyuhan followed, "As if He has no blood, but that’s ridiculous, what is he planning?"

​The Curator stood in the center of the nightmare domain, His expression remained as deadpan and unreadable as ever. His spine weapon lowered slightly, the bone clicking together like teeth.

​"What happened?" the Curator said, His voice dropping into that chilling, soft whisper. "What concerns you about stopping the fight?"

​He surged.

​The wind itself tore that time, the Curator appeared instantly in front of Yi Jyuhan, the spine weapon whipping outward and extending toward him.

​FWIP!

​The space inverted. Xue Lan stood in Yi Jyuhan’s place, his phantom dagger already thrusting upward into the center of the bony cage.

Shriek!

The dagger struck the blade with a loud shriek.

​Yi Jyuhan positioned himself directly above the Curator, opened his fan with a quick flick of his wrist. "Compression."

The gravity in the ten-foot radius around the Curator impolded inward. The air itself turned heavy, forcing the Curator’s knees to trip against the surface. The strings weaving through His flesh began to snap under the immense pressure. His skin got slashed by the air, but released only snapped strings.

​"You speak of your God," Yi Jyuhan yelled over the roaring vacuum, his fingers straining against the fan’s handle. "But you have no idea of the consequences."

​The Curator’s head snapped up, his dark eyes flashing with a sudden, violent spark of fury. ​With a grunt, the Curator forced His body upward against the crushing gravity.

Sssss

The flesh was torn but He didn’t care, He pushed Himself up nonetheless of the pressure of the immense gravity. He swung the spine blindly, a wave of brutal force tore through the vacuum itself.

​Xue Lan quickly disappeared, and appeared a few meters away from the wave. The nightmare stage was flickering, the crimson sky bleeding back into gray tones. His gaze lay on the chest, where His heart was. It was turning black slowly.

​"Yi Jyuhan,"Xue Lan called out, pointing toward the cluster with His night-singer claws. "I can’t manage longer, we need to end it."

​The Curator didn’t give them time to coordinate. He swept His hand forward, and the ground beneath Xue Lan turned into a swamp of grasping, pale flesh. Grotesque hands shot out toward him. Xue Lan snapped his fingers, shattering the immediate space to free himself, but the distraction was enough.

​The Curator was already bearing down on Yi Jyuhan. The bone broadsword came down.

​Yi Jyuhan held his ground. He didn’t swap spaces that time, swinging the fan horizontally.

"Rise."

​The bone sword struck an invisible, absolute barrier of compressed space. The shockwave shattered the surrounding illusionary buildings, kicking up a blinding cloud of red dust. Yi Jyuhan’s veins swallowed, his hands shaking violently as the Curator pressed the weight of the sword down.

Suddenly, a barrier stopped Him from hitting him. "Oh? How did I forget that you are a devotion based ascended."

​Through the dust, the Curator’s face was inches from His own. The skin on the Curator’s cheek had been torn open, revealing the worms in the flesh. Then the skin closed again, the strings sewing it and then dissolved.

"The birth... cannot be stopped," the Curator whispered, his voice cracking. "I’m not here to play, let’s see how long your Goddess will protect you."

"My lady had a great past and unlike the corruption you praise." Yi Jyuhan hissed.

​With a final, desperate burst of strength, Yi Jyuhan twisted the fan, reversing the space itself.

​Xue Lan descended from the fading crimson sky, the night-singer claws extended, aiming straight for the center of the Curator’s chest.

The Curator glanced over His shoulder. Xue Lan was upon him.

The night-singer claws pierce through the air, leaving the violet star dust in the air. But the Curator didn’t even try to dodge it, He turned His torso behind, intentionally letting Xue Lan’s claws plunge deep into His right shoulder.

​SPLAT.

​The pale moon-textured claws sank deep into the flesh. The wound immediately pushed out into a nest of writhing strings, all of them wrapped tightly around Xue Lan’s wrists, and caught him in mid air.

​"Got you." the Curator whispered.

​Xue Lan narrowed his eyes, almost deadpan. "I’m dreams, did you forget?"

​Yi Jyuhan didn’t hesitate. His fingers were bleeding from using his fan for too long, yet he rushed forward. He slammed his fan completely shut. The absolute vacuum barrier he had created collapsed inward on the Curator with a crushing force toward the ground.

​"Implosion!"

​The space around the Curator violently compressed, crushing His bony armor and snapping the pale strings that held His flesh together. The Curator’s left arm exploded into a cloud of dry dust and severed strings. Yet, through the terrific space, the Curator moved. Xue Lan quickly jumped back, the weapons still orbited.

​The ground beneath the nightmare world began to tremble like an earthquake. From the sky, a massive, weeping eye began to tear through the clouds.

"Live or die in the new world. It matters none." The air rippled in distortion. The Curator appeared right in front of Yi Jyuhan and slammed a fist into his guts.

Yi Jyuhan’s fan came toward the guts in a weak defence. The fist forced his wrist to push back, then his legs lifted from the ground, the punch throwing him away and crashing onto the house.

The architecture shattered, breaking into debris.

Xue Lan looked at the eye that replaced the moon. The nightmare was breaking from the force of the Curator. "Tch, Yi Jyuhan prepare for it. That’s the final chance."

Yi Jyuhan pushed himself up forcefully, groaning as his guts and back ached. His whole body trembled from the aftermath, his body numbing. "Yes, it’s been decades what even Lin has been doing?"

​Yi Jyuhan spat out crimson blood and wiped his mouth with the palm, his vision blurring as he forced his legs to stand there. "Lin is taking way too long, what if the God is born," he rasped, gripping his fan so tightly that his knuckles were swallowed. "You know what to do next right?"

​"More than I should." Xue Lan straightened himself. He dissolved into the nightmare world. His body turned into a cascading torrent of stardust. He quickly appeared near the Curator.

The blades that were revolving him multiplied, all of them lunged and drove into the Curator’s joints, anchoring Him to the breaking earth. The Curator moved the spine-sword, Xue Lan side stepped and pulled the hands back, the weapons piercing through the Curator.

Xue Lan disappeared again and descended through the sky. The Curator’s strings sewed the skin, pushing the weapons out of flesh. He quickly looked above and raised His hand, bones coming out and stopped the night-singer.

Hisss!

Xue Lan disappeared again almost instantly.

Clang!

The Curator glanced to His side where Xue Lan appeared, His hand alone stopping the night-singer.

Hisss!

Clang!

Hisss!

Clang!

Xue Lan forced Curator to step back with his relentless strikes but all of them were useless.

The writhing strings of the Curator lashed out, piercing through Xue Lan’s shadowy form, tearing at His essence and caught him, but Xue Lan didn’t let go. He closed his palms with a slap. All of the weapon covered The Curator entirely and pierced through the skin, Xue Lan’s nebula-violet eyes burning with a manic intensity. "I have got him! Yi Jyuhan!"

​The giant, weeping eye in the sky blinked, dropping a suffocating weight onto the battlefield, but Yi Jyuhan was already moving.

​He opened his fan and closed his eyes. Every ounce of his devotion, decades of refinement, and the remaining blessing of his Goddess ran through him. The fan illuminated with a crimson light. A pure, crushing pillar of compressed space that turned the red dust around him to white ash.

"​The great lady of space. She, who watches the line of crossing. The space between heartbeats. She, who knows where you entered and where you leave, the listener of void. The mother of learning who creates paths." He whispered and slowly opened his eyes. "The One Who Remains Where Space Occurs" His voice lowered dangerously calm.

"With your blessings. The purifying light!"

​He swung the fan downward.

​The crimson thick light descended. A pillar of absolute, localized gravity and blinding radiance slammed down. Xue Lan quickly jumped back, leaving the Curator bound by the weapons.

​TWANG–!

​The light slammed onto the Curator. The pressure was so immense that the Curator’s flesh tore further, the strings snapping entirely. They were trying to hold Him together, but vibrated violently and flesh began to scatter under the light.

The Curator pushed His body upward with a grunt, His hand shooting out with a sheer aura that broke through the air. Both Xue Lan and Yi Jyuhan’s bodies were thrown onto the walls. Finally, His body exploded outward in a shower of flesh that glued to the ground.

​The massive weeping eye in the sky bled and bursted into flesh.

Xue Lan hit the house, the wall breaking with a thud. Then the nightmare shattered like glass, exploding into fragments and dropping them back into the city.

​Silence fell over the crater.

​Yi Jyuhan dropped to one knee, his one hand clenching the ground. His fan slipped from his bloody fingers, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.

Xue Lan pulled his hand out of the debris and stumbled forward while coughing up, his fingers trembling as he stared into the center of the dust cloud. The night singer and the weapon surrounding him dissolved into the air.

​Slowly, the smoke cleared, the Curator’s clothes and outer skin fell away.

​There was no blood. There was no gory aftermath of a crushed foe. There were no bones at all, just flesh stuck to the ground

​Standing in the center of the crater was a hollow shell of skin without any limbs, held upright by a petrified spine, only for a fraction of a second before collapsing inward. His gaze fell on the spine weapon, now there was only a twisted rod of rusted iron.

​No ribs. No skull. No bones...

​Xue Lan’s breath hitched in his throat, his deadpan composure completely shattering. He took a step back, his voice a hollow whisper. "Yi Jyuhan! Look over there!"

​Yi Jyuhan stared at the pile of flesh, a cold dread washing over him that hurt far worse than his shattered ribs. The realization struck them both with the force of a physical blow.

"We were..." Yi Jyuhan couldn’t finish the sentence. His fist slammed the ground with an audible thud.

Xue Lan’s breathing increased. "A puppet... just a puppet. And it already was that strong..."

Yi Jyuhan closed his hands, digging his nails in the dirt. His jaws tightened in disbelief. "This can’t be. HOW... HOW... did I mess up this bad?"

He quickly stood up, his face was covered in dust. "No way, no way, no way, no way."

He turned toward the palace, and quickly rushed toward it. Xue Lan ran behind him. "No, no, no. He is there." Yi Jyuhan chanted. His mind raced with cursed throughts. He had sent everyone into the palace, he had trusted his own plan, and now that had been shattered.