Chapter 193: Impostor

Having a sword right through my stomach is one of the less pleasant sensations I’ve ever gone through. [Suppression] envelops me as I use it to manage the pain, and grit my teeth. My mind races as I think of what to do.

Vincent is fresh and I’ve just gone through a fight. Anna is right there - and while she might help, he could also use her as a hostage. But Vincent just twists the rapier some more, driving its point upwards, piercing more of my internal organs. Lovely.

“Snow,” he whispers gleefully, his lips twisted into a sadistic sneer. “Snow, Snow, Snow… you were so arrogant. So careless.” He moves me around with the tip of his blade, using it as a lever to press me against the wall. I feel his disgusting authority drink in my suffering and grow.

“And now, here you are,” he monologues. “At my mercy.”

He drives the sword deeper, the cut growing, and I let out a groan of pain. It sucks. I know no one is coming to help me. The others are fighting their own fights, now. All I can do is wait. 

Anna, foolishly, runs in. “Stop!” she screams, charging at Vincent, but he spins around and gives the girl a brutal kick to her midsection, making her fold in half. Right now, he’s too fast for her, too strong. After all, he gets stronger when he betrays someone. And, like the traitor he is, that’s just what he does.

Turning back to me, Vincent’s smile grows ecstatic. “Ah, Snow,” he breathes, laying a hand on my face, and I feel a shiver of discomfort roll down my back. “You were always so arrogant. So aloof. I wasn’t good enough for you, huh? You thought you were better than me, huh? Do you hate me now? Fear me now?” he asks, savouring the moment.

“Not particularly,” I reply, my voice a little strained given the internal injuries and the blood pouring out of my stab wound. His smile falters slightly as I speak, but I grit my teeth and talk some more. “Really, I could even forgive the stabbing. But putting your hand on my face is pretty gross. You’re a bit of a… ugh, fuck that hurts. A bit of a creep, I meant to say.”

Vincent’s smile falters some more, his lips slowly pulling into a frown. “You’re not scared,” he says.

“I am,” I reply. “If it makes you happy, I’m scared. I don’t want to die, and frankly, it’s not looking too good for me. So, you caught me. I’m terrified.” My voice is tight from pain, and I’m feeling a bit dizzy from the blood loss, but I live, for now. And so, unfortunately, all I manage is deadpan.

“You don’t sound afraid,” Vincent says, almost pouting.

“Sorry, I struggle to inject emotion into my speaking. Tone control takes a lot of effort and I’m kinda… preoccupied,” I gasp as the sword drives further, and I feel its edge brush up against my ribcage. Breathing is getting harder. The line through my body is looking rough. But I’ve not given up yet. Not ever.

At my words, Vincent smiles slightly. He brushes my cheek, asking, “So, how does it feel? Being betrayed like that? Forsaken, left to die, with no one to help you?”

“Pretty bad,” I reply honestly. His face falls. “Oh, sorry, was that a rhetorical question?”

The scumbag grimaces. “You’re miserable. I’m torturing you. Scream, you piece of shit,” he says, twisting the blade upwards. There is a very particular sensation to feeling it cut into my bone, and cut open one of my lungs. 

I draw in a pitiful, wheezing breath that sends further pain arcing through my body, and Vincent smiles. “Oops,” he says. “That must’ve been your lung. Can you still breathe, Snow? Or has your sass finally run away?”

Pitifully, I bring up a single hand, into his field of view, and sign something. He looks at it, furrowing his brow. “What?” he asks. “That… I feel like you’re saying something. But it’s not translating properly. What are you saying? Are you mocking me?”

Blood trickles from my mouth as I open it to take another ragged, horrible breath. Breathing with a stabbed through lung is probably the worst thing I’ve ever done. Each breath makes more of the sword’s bladed edge dig through my flesh. Vincent is so distracted by it, he doesn’t even notice the skills I cast.

[Selection] and, through it, [Obfuscation]. Despite everything, I keep my mana chained inside my body. My attunement loop is still active. And Anna is still in the room.

I watch as she gets up, pulls her knife, and stalks towards Vincent. All her calm has disappeared. There’s a desperate gleam to her eyes as she stalks forward. Slowly, quietly, each footfall made carefully to stay out of Vincent’s range.

Except, of course, Raven grabs her foot. They sneer as they move, still just barely escaping Sylves’ spell, but Anna stumbles. She stops, then turns around, staring at their hand. Raven says nothing, their voice dead, but the girl is stuck. Her stomps are pointless against the mob boss’ superior stats.

Then a banshee comes through the wall. 

Anna was able to avoid them on her way here, probably because I was attracting the ghosts like a beacon. The longer we wait, the more of them there’ll be. I feel it with [Observation], and cast [Suppression] on my own hearing - and Anna’s.

Not Raven’s.

When the banshee’s wail tears through the air, Vincent flinches, and I experience the most horrid sensation of my life. He flinches forward, into me, and his sword tilts up, slicing half my back open. Much worse than that, his head leans against my chest, blood dripping onto my clothes from his nose.

“Don’t… fucking touch me,” I wheeze pitifully, the air barely in my lungs. 

Raven’s fingers unclench as the pain spikes through them. Anna’s foot unsticks itself, and she steps forward again. Vincent is still staggered, and she is cloaked by two stealth skills. I hear Raven humming, but over the banshee’s wail, it means nothing. 

Violently, in a single motion, the girl stabs a dagger into Vincent’s back.

He gasps, his own breath catching as he staggers forward, his entire body squished against mine in the worst experience of my life. Then, with my minute strength, I grab his face and push him back.

Staggering with the motion, distracted by the pain, his sword pulls out of me. The cold steel scrapes against my bones one last time, and then, Anna trips him, and Vincent falls on his ass. Finally. Finally, I have my personal space again.

A quarter of my mana pool goes to healing. I activate the dozens of marks I formed inside my body, the preparations to fuck him up. My mana burns through me, my channels incinerated by the pulse of it, then instantly mended when the healing kicks in. My body writhes for a moment, and then my veins sear shut.

I’m not healed. In fact, I’m not even close to healed - but my bleeding stops. My lung is still collapsed, and I hack and wheeze, the breathing opening some wounds back up. The torrent of blood slows to a dribble, despite the visible hole through my chest. My stomach luckily closes before I stagger forward, falling to my knees, leaving its acid inside.

Anna instantly kneels next to me. “Are you okay, Snow?!” she asks, and I open my eyes in horror. Raising my arm, I point at Vincent, even as I fall on my face, into a pool of my own blood. Fuck, there’s so much. The floor is slick with it, and I can’t think.

Vincent staggers to his feet, then reaches for his back, and contemptuously pulls the dagger out, tossing it aside. He’s tougher than me - way tougher, and his authority is boiling now. The betrayal still empowers him, and I can see the way his blood pulses out slowly, rhythmically, flowing like honey rather than water.

And yet, he staggers to his feet. In a single swift, wheezing step, he lunges at Anna - and we can’t have that.

My attunement loop ceases. 

Mana pours free, and I see the banshee drink it up. Her scream redoubles, and Vincent staggers, but that wasn’t the point. Instead, I channel it all into [Suppression], driving the staggering man to the ground. He falls on his face, and it looks almost as pathetic as me, lying in a pool of my own blood.

I try to wheeze out something snarky, but really just end up gurgling blood and dirt and wheezing for air. As Vincent gets up again, I do the same, but Anna moves faster. She is over level fifty, after all. I see a mantle lay around her shoulders. It’s a thin, frail thing. A translucent sheen of silk.

Then she vanishes.

Even lying on the floor, with a hole through me, choking on my own blood, I manage to tilt my head and feel an urge of curiosity. I can’t feel her even with my [Observation]. She’s like a ghost in the wind. Another banshee enters the room and wails, and I [Deconstruct] them both before the moment ends.

[Level Up! 87 > 88]

I put the points into vessel. Reflexively, even now, I do it. More mana means I can heal myself - and I trust myself more than the tower. I do try to use a minor request to summon a healing tonic in my stomach, but it declines. Requests are partially disabled while in active combat. Frick.

My mind turns lucid again when I hear Vincent gasp-scream. Anna stands behind him, her dagger lodged in the back of his neck. Almost, at least. It skidded off his bone, to the side. Anna looks horrified at the blood coating her own hands, and Vincent reaches for her. He grabs her, and moves to slam her into the stone.

I [Suppress] him.

The throw turns into a pitiful thing, just making Anna fall, wrenching the dagger out of his neck. His eyes are bloodshot as he stands, his breathing ragged and broken. Anna lays on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, dizzy and confused. My mana is running on fumes, and I can feel myself fading.

But Perpetual Pursuit keeps me standing. It doesn’t help the pain. It doesn’t heal me. But I keep standing, I keep working, my mind still going through the motions. I scrape together my mana, and cast [Deconstruction] on Vincent’s leg. His shitty stance crumples in on itself as some of his bones fracture, his body more fragile from his wounds.

He lets out a ragged gasp, then his best, shitty attempt at a scream as he lunges at me. I try to stagger out of the way, but fail. He stabs me again, in the shoulder this time, leaving an ugly cut across my upper body. I groan in pain, then smack him in the face with a pitiful, bloodied punch. He twists the knife, then Anna tackles him, and his injured leg buckles. She drives him to the floor, jerking the rapier through me again.

Screaming in fury, she punches him in the face, much harder than I ever could. His nose cracks, and Vincent groans. He wraps his hands around her throat and squeezes. Anna’s eyes widen in fear for a moment, and she punches him again, then again. Then, she reaches out her hand.

Her face goes pale. I take a breath, and it hurts horribly. Gathering my mana, I wring out what I still have, my regeneration like a flood. And a dagger appears in her hand. It’s shimmering, pale-blue, and sharp.

Vincent’s eyes widen. His fingers clench, but the force doesn’t work properly. They’re [Suppressed]. He scrambles for violence, but there’s none.

Anna stabs down. 

Vincent dies.

[Level Up! 88 > 90]

More points in vessel. For a moment, I stagger. Then I catch myself. I heal a bit more. Then I step towards Anna. I lay a hand on her shoulder. She flinches at the touch, and with her flinch, Vincent’s hands fall lifelessly to the ground. Looking at her windpipe, dented inwards, I smile faintly.

Then I heal her.

Anna’s eyes widen, tearing up, and she stares at me. “Snow, you- heal yourself you moron!” she cries. 

I smile. With slow steps, I walk over to Raven. Another banshee appears, but I soon take it apart. [Deconstruction] breaks it, feeding me more mana. I pull the rapier from my shoulder. My defiance relishes my survival of the betrayal. My efficiency keeps my body moving despite everything.

Raven lays on the ground in a pool of blood. They stare up at me, feathers gathering around them for a teleport - but I break it. The magic comes apart at the seams, their escape attempt foiled. Even now, they’re slow and pitiful. I pick up the mana-dagger Anna dropped, its edge chipped and disintegrating, then I look at Raven.

“It didn’t have to… be like this,” I say, my voice a wheeze. I still only have one lung to work with, after all. Real trouble, that. 

At that, the sumeen hums with dark amusement. “It didn’t, Yuki. But it did. Will you kill me?” 

I think for a long moment. Then, I tilt my head. “Will you still come after me if I don’t?”

Raven sneers. “Yes,” they say, and I feel the ragged remains of their authority hum in agreement. “I break if I don’t.”

Slowly, I look at them. “You’d pick death over your authority cracking?”

“Yes,” Raven replies.

Then I shrug. “Death you shall have.” The knife comes down.

[You have killed a lv. 150 Darkfeather Drifter]

[Level Up! 90 > 94]

I put the points in vessel. Then, I breathe, and turn to Anna. I smile faintly, tilting my head. “Need more healing?” I ask.

The girl stares at me with disbelief, then slowly shakes her head. I use my pitiful amount of mana to heal myself some more, and breathing finally gets a little less painful. I stand. Somehow, despite everything, I stand. Blood flows from me, everything hurts. My mouth tastes like iron. But I’m alive.

For a moment, I close my eyes and relish the moment. My life. Then, with a swift motion, I wipe my hand on my clothes, walk over to Anna, and ruffle her hair. It hurts my ruined shoulder, but I do it anyway. She stares at me with big, teary eyes. 

“Thanks, Anna,” I say, simply. “You did well.”

She stares, then breaks out into a small, shy smile, and gives me a hug. “You’re not gonna die,” she says, disbelieving. “You’re not gonna leave.”

The squeeze hurts, but I let her do it. It kind of overwrites my disgust at Vincent’s touch with a mild discomfort. So it’s almost nice. Almost. I ruffle her hair again. “Not dying ever. These guys are way too crappy to kill me.” It’s arrogant, but that’s okay. I let myself be arrogant. Then, gently, after half a minute, I peel her off me. “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go get the others.”

Her eyes widen and she nods.

I can’t wait to see what my friends have to say about my current state. Just one little thing to do in the meantime.