Chapter 110: In a war, victory demands sacrifices

Seizing this opportunity to break the coordination of the two swordsmen, Tegan concentrated the Chi he was absorbing from the atmosphere at the tip of his heavy blade. The greatsword turned bright red, shining with a terrifying magmatic density.

But instead of aiming at Kristian who was advancing toward him, Tegan abruptly pivoted his torso and brought his weapon down in the direction of the houses located twenty meters behind Daemon, where several silhouettes had just been seized by panic.

A meteor of pure and concentrated flames shot at supersonic speed toward the dwelling.

Daemon did not hesitate for a single second. Ignoring the mortal danger, he used all the Chi in his legs to project himself across the trajectory of the magical shot. He interposed himself directly between the incandescent meteor and the facade of the house, crossing his katana in front of his chest while pushing his energy center to its ultimate limits.

*BOOOOOM !*

The impact of the fire discharge triggered a devastating pressure wave.

The thermal blast pulverized the front door and the front facade of the building, hurling Daemon’s body… He flew through before crashing violently against the back wall of the main room.

Dust and black smoke invaded the interior of the dwelling.

In the center of the ravaged room, under a table that had partially resisted the collapse of the ceiling… A mother clutched her two young children against her chest as they screamed in terror. Despite the flaming debris that continued to fall all around them and the crackling of the roof that threatened to give way, they were miraculously unharmed thanks to Daemon’s interposition.

Daemon straightened up with difficulty among the burning rubble, spitting a spray of purple blood onto the charred floorboards. His clothes were in tatters, the skin of his torso bearing severe burns.

“Are you all right? I’m going to get you out of here.”

Meanwhile, outside, Kristian took a slow step into the ravaged street. The white vapor emanating from his skin smothered the flames that were crawling across the ground.

“What is this Chi…?” Tegan stammered, his eyes wide before the gravitational pressure that was crushing the ground around him. “This isn’t Chi?!”

Kristian took a step forward, and his body instantly disappeared from the Master’s perception. Even with his advanced visual technique, Tegan failed to anticipate the movement.

Yet, despite his ability to read the energy circulation in the muscles, Tegan saw only a white line cross the space in a fraction of a second. Kristian reappeared abruptly within his completely open guard, having crossed the thirty meters that separated them through the combination of a superhuman physical speed and an energy projection.

His right blade came down in a devastating diagonal motion on Tegan’s left shoulder which immediately disarmed him. In the same thousandth of a second, his left blade described an upward thrust of mechanical brutality, which pierced the throat of the Fire Master from bottom to top.

The tip of the silver steel emerged from the back of Tegan’s neck in a spray of blood and smoke that evaporated under the residual heat. Tegan’s amber eyes widened in an expression of absolute incredulity. He tried to pronounce a word, but only a gurgle of blood escaped from his torn lips.

Kristian withdrew his blade. The massive body of the Fourth Sense Master of the House of Fire collapsed heavily.

Kristian remained standing for a brief moment above the corpse, short of breath but with a completely impassive face.

His white eyes, devoid of pupils, stared into the void without expressing the slightest emotion. He wiped his two swords on the flap of his torn blue tunic, then returned them to their scabbards.

It was then that the white vapor enveloping his body slowly dissipated, breaking the grip of the Seal of Conquest on his flesh. Instantly, Kristian fell to his knees on the stone, abundantly spitting a spray of purple blood that spread between his trembling hands.

“Damn it…” he groaned, his voice distorted by suffering.

Fighting while letting the instinct of Conquest take total control of his movements entailed a dreadful physical backlash.

His nineteen-year-old body could not sustain without damage the execution of techniques requiring a muscular and skeletal structure of at least Master level. His muscles were torn, his joints cracked and his broken ribs caused him intolerable pain with every breath.

But he had succeeded…

Even if it meant using Daemon’s presence as bait to fix Tegan’s attention, he had emerged victorious from a mortal confrontation against a Fourth Sense Fire Master.

Kristian rose with difficulty, bracing himself against the cracked stone wall. Pale-faced and with ragged breathing, he directed himself with a staggering step toward the residential quarter where the deflagration had occurred…

Under a partially collapsed roof, a childish and broken voice rose among the crackling of the fire.

“Papa… Sob… My papa is dead…”

A bloodied child, his face covered in dust and tears, was weeping bitterly while looking at the motionless body of his father.

The impact of the rocky deflagration had torn off the man’s lower jaw, exposing a shapeless mass of torn flesh and coagulated blood from which a nauseating ferrous odor escaped.

“Oh shit…”

At that precise instant, Daemon, who had just freed himself from the rubble of the neighboring house, froze.

Contemplating this macabre scene, Daemon finally understood, deep in his guts, why his uncle Dorian constantly repeated that peace had to be protected at all costs.

It was neither out of cowardice, nor out of fear of facing death on a battlefield, but from the bitter feeling of guilt provoked by the massacre of innocents caught between two fires.

Daemon saw himself in the hysterical tears of this child who had just lost the last parent remaining to him on earth. The image of his own father, Lancelot dead, passed before his eyes. He felt immense shame for having participated through his recklessness in such a carnage.

Listening only to his grief, Daemon hurried to approach the child.

He knelt in the dust and took him delicately into his arms, holding him tightly against his chest to hide from him the horrific vision of his father’s mutilated remains.

“I… I’m sorry… I…” Daemon stammered.

But what could his apologies possibly change about reality?

All around them, the howls of agony and the calls for help rose from the other dwellings destroyed by the blast of the explosion. Under the rubble of stone and flaming wood, several civilians lay trapped, their bodies crushed or amputated.

In a corner of the alley, the corpse of a young boy without a head, decapitated by a rock shard projected at high speed, rested in a pool of blood.

Daemon’s hands trembled frenetically as he held the orphan against him.

It was not the first time he had taken the life of a fighter or spilled the blood of an enemy. But it was the very first time he had seen the lifeless body of an innocent child.

In the heavy silence that followed the final collapses, Daemon prayed with all his heart, eyes closed, to one day be able to erase these terrifying images from his memory.

Kristian finally arrived at the entrance, holding his bruised left side.

He stopped a few meters from Daemon, observing his cousin who was cradling the weeping child amid the ruins.

“Tegan is dead, Daemon…” Kristian said in a neutral voice. “The path to the main manor of Fire is now clear.”

“Have you seen what we have done here, Kristian?”

Daemon slowly raised his head toward Kristian.

“Look at this child… look at this quarter. Is this really what my father and yours sought to accomplish when they spoke of honor and protection of the clan?”

Kristian closed his eyes for a moment.

“In a war, victory demands sacrifices, Daemon…” Kristian replied while gripping the hilts of his swords.