Novel Full Chapter 360: I Lost III
Chapter 360: I Lost III
POP!
A sudden pop of cartilage.
Pain shot down his arm, and his sword grip faltered.
He blinked once…
Was this still a fight? Or had he fallen into another death?
His ribcage was next, wind molecules twisting and compressing.
Malik felt his ribs starting to buckle inward, as if someone was trying to fold his lungs.
His own Aether—what little remained—betrayed him.
It could no longer fight back against Cyrus’s, for his core held more of it.
Indeed, Cyrus was holding back his Aether consumption the entire time.
The past twelve days all led up to this, his hijacking of Malik.
POP.
His ribs.
POP.
His knees.
CRACK.
His spine.
A heart burned.
Malik died.
Again. Again. Again.
He had stopped counting.
…Or maybe he’d never started.
Every blink brought him to the same threshold.
If he blocked, his skull would split.
If he moved forward, his chest would implode.
If he dodged, the very blood in his veins would boil under Cyrus’s vacuum pressure.
A near-death cage, built from the inside, forcing Malik to end the job, over and over.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Matching his conservative Aether consumption was impossible.
Malik had an insane amount of fighting experience; he probably had more experience than anyone on Fam Iblis, but it was always against the same people, a repetition, nothing entirely new.
Cyrus was different.
His experience was completely different.
His world was completely different.
A world of Sultans.
No matter how impossible Malik was, Cyrus was simply an inch above him.
And so, to defeat him, Malik had to get creative.
His mind raced.
Faster than light.
Faster than fire.
There had to be a way.
There always was.
What did Cyrus teach him?…
Tighter micromovements.
Tighter Aether manipulation.
Minute sand shaping.
Molecular focus.
Directional flow.
…Hm.
Malik could feel it clicking.
The microcurrents, slipstreams, and gaps.
It all hit him, and his fingers twitched.
The smallest twitch.
Thousands of calculations went through his mind.
Cyrus could POP his body because he didn’t have enough Aether to resist.
And the only reason Cyrus could even reach the inside of Malik’s body was because it held air.
Of course, Malik simply could pause his breathing for twelve days after blinking, but that wouldn’t change anything, as he had already fallen into Cyrus’s trap the moment he set foot in the Holy City.
Indeed, the man’s air was embedded inside his body the very moment he entered the region.
…The bastard tricks never stopped.
So, since Malik couldn’t defend himself, he needed to attack first.
This attack had to be a decisive one, as none would follow it.
None could follow it.
He saw that happening in only one way.
And this way required everything he had.
The fourth wall arrived once more.
A grain of sand materialized.
It slid off his palm while he feigned an attack.
It floated, gently, and invisibly, cruising on Cyrus’s wind.
Right. The wind was Cyrus’s, not Malik’s.
Malik knew he couldn’t sneakily float his sand into Cyrus without him finding out, so he made Cyrus do it for him, using his blinks in a most extreme way, noting down every wind movement to the final detail.
It was insane… too insane, but that was Malik.
Just as the grain neared Cyrus’s skin, the bastard began his streak of—
POP.
Internal attacks, destroying Malik’s ribs.
POP.
His knees followed, and he was forced to the ground.
CRACK.
The moment his spine was no more, the grain of floating sand gained all of his Aether.
Boosted forward, it shot into Cyrus, past his Stormveil, digging deep into his skin.
Cyrus’s eyes widened as he felt heat form within.
Immediately, he realized Malik’s plan…
Too late.
He couldn’t react fast enough.
Now, Malik, like Cyrus, had the medium, but still…
His Aether was weaker than Cyrus’s, so how did he plan to ignite his fire?
It was simple; his attack came in the exact moment Cyrus’s control was focused on Malik, not his own Aether, meaning that it was a moment of weakness.
A moment that Malik capitalized on.
“Pop.”
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
An explosion rocked the region.
Cyrus shot to the ground, and his chest convulsed.
His head hit the stone, black smoke exploding from his mouth.
His knees thrashed over and over, arms collapsed to his sides.
The sky stopped moving, and the wind forgot how to blow.
And Malik…
Malik was already there, kneeling before the fallen Sultan.
The bastard was a mess, his silk robes in tatters, his crimson hair long since stained with blood, dirt, and soot.
The two locked eyes, both barely alive.
Cyrus coughed and tried to speak.
“Haaaaaaaahaaaaaaaa…”
He failed.
Smoke answered for him.
It kept leaving every orifice on his face, even his eyes.
Having a conversation wasn’t exactly a current focus for his body.
It was more survival.
So all that was left was a long, heavy silence.
Longer than the twelve days that came before.
Despite his injuries, Malik could easily kill Cyrus.
It would be as easy as taking candy from a mortal.
But something… something stopped him.
Did he begin to feel something for the man?
After spending all those years fighting him, did he change his mind?
No. That wasn’t it. Being killed by him for that long didn’t change anything.
He still felt the same rage, the same hate.
THIS WAS HIS LITTLE BROTHER’S KILLER.
If not for him… if not for him, Malik never would’ve suffered as he did.
Never would he have claimed so many titles that spoke of only sorrow and madness.
Cyrus was the cause of all of his misery… damn his lessons, damn his attempts at fatherhood. Always trying to teach him something, always torturing him for the day of his takeover.
“…Annoying bastard.”
Malik’s breath hissed through his teeth as he shifted his broken body.
His ribs and spine cracked further with every twitch, but still, he forced his arm up, one slow inch at a time.
Then, with the weight of an unfathomable number of years of hate behind it, he slammed his elbow down right onto Cyrus’s throat.
A loud, pitiful crack resounded.
Cyrus choked.
But he did not die… his life held.
They continued to stare at each other in the smoke and ruin, surrounded by a gigantic crater carved by their own madness.
Gold eyes looked down.
Pink eyes looked up.
A mirror of their first interaction.
A mirror of their second…
There was no mercy between them.
And still… still…
Malik’s elbow pressed, but his weight did not follow through.
He couldn’t.
He should have.
It would’ve been so, so easy.
But…
Cyrus never used it.
His Unique Ability. His Blessing.
The one gift every Mithqal wielded.
In all of his ’twelve days.’
Not once.
He never used it.
Why?
Because he thought Malik didn’t use one either?
Because he wanted to be fair?
Because he wanted to lose?
Malik didn’t care.
He didn’t want to care.
But it stuck in his throat.
Like fire unburnt.
A truth he didn’t ask for.
He stared into Cyrus’s bleeding, twitching face.
He saw the cracks in the man’s skin, where Aether used to flow.
He saw the poor attempt at a father figure.
The torturer.
The Sultan.
The killer of his brother.
The reason Malik became the monster he was.
He should’ve crushed his windpipe until it turned to dust.
MALIK SHOULD HAVE ENDED THIS BASTARD.
But again, again, again!
…He didn’t.
“I…”
Instead, his bitter whisper cut through the choking silence:
“I lost.”
Cyrus’s blood-covered lips twitched.
He tried to speak; tried to ask “Why?”
But the moment never came.
Malik was no longer there.
He left no sound or wind.
Only two scorched handprints in the stone…
…And a faint circle of dying embers where he had once lain.