Chapter 386: Absolute Chaos [1]

Chapter 386: Chapter 386: Absolute Chaos [1]

Chapter 386 – Absolute Chaos [1]

Everything happened so fast that the Dragon Hunter was left stupefied. One moment she was about to tear out the eyes of her target, the next the boy was shrouded in fire, before fully transforming into a woman.

As the threat to her life became apparent, her mind was instantly pushed to its limit, exceeding beyond what any mortal could fathom.

She watched the cannon-like attack of the flaming woman come straight at her, the very heat burning her hood to nothing, exposing her face fully.

She didn’t care. She acted instantly, and the rain overhead grew heavier, a deluge crashing down on her the very instant the fire reached her body.

The world exploded.

Fire and water met with apocalyptic force. The water blocked the attack, but the fire was so hot the water itself began to bubble violently before exploding into vaporized steam.

That steam erupted from the friction of the two attacks, blanketing the entire battlefield in a heartbeat.

The Dragon Hunter woman was soon seen flung out of the cloud of steam, her body tearing through the air, crashing through obstacles in her path, hurled further from where the carriages stood.

In a single instant, her back slammed into a wide, black mountain, shattering it into splinters of rock, before she fell onto the rubble, eyes facing the starless, moonless night.

She coughed, blood slipping through the cracks of her stitched mouth. She didn’t have to wait long before the flaming woman appeared above her, hovering, looking down.

No one needed to tell her the nature of this being: a spirit.

And not just any spirit, judging by the crushing pressure building in her chest.

’Another hidden surprise from the boy,’ the woman thought, most of her clothes already burned away.

"I’m Scarlet," Scarlet said, temperature climbing to a staggering level, the air itself detonating in tiny bursts around her. "I heard you wanted the eye of my annoying contractor."

Scarlet looked down at the woman on the ground and narrowed her eyes. The woman had beautiful, wide black eyes, filled with a twisted mix of love and anguish.

But it was her mouth that caught the Primal Queen’s attention — stitched tightly shut with red thread.

’Interesting.’

Rain kept falling.

The woman slowly rose from the ground. Ignoring her own condition entirely, she looked at Scarlet, wondering where the little boy had gone.

But that thought hadn’t even fully formed before Scarlet’s body blurred, attacking again.

The Dragon Hunter closed her eyes, and, without knowing why, thought of her daughter. The daughter she’d abandoned at birth, unable to bear having passed on the Curse of Silence to her.

She wondered if her daughter had made friends. If she’d managed to accept her condition, unlike her mother had. If she was happy.

At that thought, a tear slid down her cheek, and the thousands upon thousands of raindrops paused midair, as if time itself had frozen.

Scarlet felt a sudden, lethal warning ripple through her. She halted her attack and retreated a step, watching the woman, and the space around her.

The countless suspended droplets spoke as one, the voice eerie, like a broken woman’s lament.

"Phantasm — A Cursed Mother."

"This fucking bitch!" Scarlet managed to say, before a crushing pressure slammed into her, nearly pinning her in place.

If a Soulblade was the expression of one’s soul and self given the most fitting form, then Phantasm went a step further.

Phantasm let you become the very concept or entity you believed yourself to be. It was a power of manifestation, the ability to become the mental image you held of yourself, provided you could withstand its weight.

And in that instant, Scarlet watched the Dragon Hunter’s Phantasm take shape, the whole world around them shuddering in dread.

The air itself turned cursed, a strange, forlorn feeling seeping into everything around them.

Thousands upon thousands of water droplets flooded towards the Dragon Hunter, remaking her existence into something else entirely.

And with that transformation came a domain — a sub-ability every Phantasm carried.

Water burst from the ground, sealing them both inside a space like a mother’s womb.

The Dragon Hunter’s transformation finished quickly, and Scarlet took in the full horror of it.

She was now made entirely of water droplets, each one crying in a childlike lament. Her face had become a mass of mouths, every one stitched shut, forming a nightmarish sight.

More water poured from her — red now, like blood. It bubbled and twisted into shapes resembling children; young girls, more precisely.

Their cries echoed on and on inside the domain, like a cursed refrain.

Scarlet watched all of this in silence, reading the power radiating off the woman. She wondered exactly how much time she had left in the real world.

Not much. Ten minutes, maybe. A shame she couldn’t draw on her full power, only 45 percent of it, right now.

Still, more than enough to handle a Fourth Rank.

"Alright," Scarlet grinned, taking in the domain enclosing her, and the woman before her. "I can’t use my Phantasm or my Soulblade in this form. But I won’t need either."

Her body ignited with silvery fire, the space around her recoiling in horror at the sight. "Let’s start with a Grade 3 fire: Cancer Fire."

The Dragon Hunter didn’t hesitate. Her eyes snapped open, and she screamed — the children screaming with her — attacking Scarlet from every direction.

...

The clash between Scarlet and the Dragon Hunter had blanketed the area around the carriages in thick steam.

Meadow still sat atop the third carriage, the Keeper inside pounding on the door, demanding to know what was happening.

She said nothing.

She looked around, fear and hidden horror plain on her face. She tilted her head up and saw the sky painted in nightmarish colors, as two Fourth Rankers tore into each other.

Two more of the same level of power were fighting just a short distance away, and all of it left her feeling like death could arrive at any second.

Still, Meadow held herself together, doing exactly what she’d been told: keep the Keeper sealed inside his carriage.

For that, she used an artifact she’d never expected to actually need.

A Tier Three artifact, built to trap someone inside a hidden pocket world woven from illusions.

An artifact her mother had grilled her about extensively, before finally handing it over after hours of pleading.

At least now the Keeper couldn’t get out. She looked around, hearing swords clash, flesh tearing, blood spraying, and wondered when Cassius and Sarah would finally show up.

’Fast. We need this to end fast,’ Meadow thought, staying perfectly still, terrified her artifact might fail her.

She glanced ahead and saw Diaila in the worst state imaginable, eyes brimming with tears.

The young tycoon said nothing, and simply hoped William was still safe.

...

William was locked in his own battle, eyes ice cold as his formless sword clashed against the faceless masked man before him.

The masked man hadn’t spoken once, and William didn’t bother either. Both his hands ached from the earlier surprise attack, but he was used to fighting through broken limbs.

His mother used to break his arms and legs every three days during training, forcing him to fight through it, considering that a critical weakness in swordsmen like theirs.

That training was paying off now.

William’s sword moved fast and fluid, each motion flowing into the next like water, before turning cold and overwhelming in the same breath.

It was impossible to tell which hand he was attacking from, no one could see his sword but him, and it could appear anywhere.

The masked man’s power seemed to compound over time.

As the fight dragged on, William noticed the man’s attacks growing steadily stronger and faster.

He frowned, wondering if it was time to break out his personal technique.

But right then, a body dropped from the sky, crashing into the ground with earth-shattering force.

The ground writhed as if in pain, the impact strong enough to blast away the remaining steam in an instant, freezing everyone in place, eyes locked on the scene.

There, on the ground, lay the Fourth Rank knight, half his armor shredded away. Black veins crawled beneath his pale skin like worms, pulsing.

He was poisoned.

He coughed, blood mixed with flies spilling from his mouth, the very blood eating into the ground beneath him like acid.

The tension coiled tighter, and the faceless masked men grew visibly eager, watching their master — the crimson-robed woman with a hand of bone — descend to finish off the knight.

The fight had unfolded so fast, so silently, that Meadow, William, and Diaila had all been caught completely off guard.

Meadow scanned for Mr. Green and spotted him slipping stealthily towards Diaila’s carriage.

A sharp dagger gleamed in his hand.

At first she assumed he was heading to help Diaila, until she noticed the undead parting silently to let him through, and alarm screamed through her mind.

She tried to shout a warning, but a cold hand suddenly gripped her legs.

Her stomach dropped.

She looked down and saw a black, faceless head emerging from the carriage.

"I spent quite a bit of energy bypassing this Tier Three artifact," the faceless voice said. "I hope you’ll make it worth it."

Meadow’s eyes went wide with horror before she was yanked down into the carriage.

In an instant, she was gone.

Meanwhile, Diaila remained completely unaware of the danger closing in on her.

Mr. Green was only a couple of meters away by then. Once close enough, he immediately understood exactly how weak Diaila’s Rule had grown.

He laughed cruelly, tore the Rule apart with brute force, and Diaila coughed up blood. She turned her head just in time to see Mr. Green’s faceless expression, dagger in hand.

At that exact moment, the master of the faceless attackers stood over the Fourth Rank Black Knight, poised to deliver the finishing blow.

She raised a bony hand, forming a corrupted sword out of bone, while summoning undead hands to pin the knight in place.

She brought her hand down, the sword falling straight towards him.

But just as the blade came within an inch of the knight’s chest, and just as Mr. Green stabbed Diaila in the stomach, poised to strike a second time...

...time stopped completely.

Everyone and everything within a two-kilometer radius — even Scarlet and the Dragon Hunter — froze in place.

Then, beside Diaila, a man appeared.

He was rather short, dressed in a black tuxedo, a black cane resting in his right hand, a pointed hat atop his head. A mask shaped like a pink pig hid his face, while a pocket watch glowed intensely in his left hand, cutting through the stillness of the frozen world.

He looked around — at the motionless bodies, at the powerful beings ready to tear off his own head, at the trembling, bleeding woman beneath him — and tilted his head slowly.

Then Omar of Fangs tipped his hat, like a performer greeting an audience that could neither applaud nor scream.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen."

His gaze settled on the carriage beneath his feet.

"Now, if none of you mind..." He smiled beneath the pig mask. "May I have the artifact?"

—End of Chapter 386—