Chapter 333

Jacob is keeping his eyes fully open. He owes Lancelot as much. And if the last thing his Squire ever does is kill him, Jacob does not want to flinch. He does not want to look sad.

Lancelot’s gonna be scarred forever from this. Well, Jacob hopes it’s not forever. He also hopes it’s not too short.

“Remember to mourn me for a few years at least. Wear black for a while, and at my funeral, please cry a lot on my tombstone.”

Lancelot is trying with all his strength not to be pulled forth by the growing Blood Nemesis. He shouts, “What are you saying? Are you stupid? Get away!”

“Nah,” Jacob smiles. “Just mourn me a little bit and then move on. Find a girl. You’re not a fat bastard anymore. It’s starting to become weird that it’s always you and me alone. I don’t like the implications of that.”

“Jacob!” Lancelot shouts.

Jacob’s about to look away, feeling tears about to run down his face, sad that his run with his Squire has come to an end. He cannot bear to hear the tragic words of his dear friend.

“No one thinks we are a couple. I am way too handsome to be with an ugly bastard like you.”

Jacob almost chokes and then turns to Lancelot.

“I said you slimmed down. I didn’t say you’re handsome. Have you looked in the mirror lately? Who’s finding you handsome? Blind people?”

“Your mom called me handsome.”

Lancelot is straining and growling, and his body is oozing Mana with such power and density that it surprises even Jacob. Even the gods themselves seem perturbed by the resistance that Jacob’s Squire is putting up.

“Don’t talk about my mom,” Jacob shoots back. “You probably almost killed your mom when you were born, with that fat head of yours.”

Lancelot laughs and then is pulled forward a little bit more, his giant body leaving gouges in the stone. Now the tendons in his neck look like steel cables. One step at a time, he’s getting closer to Jacob. His hands have claws made of Mithril, and they’re out. Upon them, there is solar Mana — the type of Mana that is powered by the sun.

Jacob knows that one swipe of Lancelot’s claws with his defenses down will kill him. It’ll be fast. It will be immediate, at least.

Jacob doesn’t wanna say anything anymore. He only has teary shit in his mind, and he doesn’t wanna subject Lancelot — a man about to kill his friend — to that.

But, in fact, he isn’t the one who actually says it.

“You’re my best friend,” Lancelot says, tears now coming out of his eyes.

“Oh my goodness, Asmodeus, do you hear that?” The Mad God cackles wildly.

And Jacob feels a deep-seated rage in his veins.

“They are just pathetic humans,” Asmodeus says. “Feelings are for the weak.”

“Where did you hear that?” the Mad God teases.

“Soon, the era of monsters will be upon the world, and it shall start with Jacob Cloud’s demise.”

“Indeed.” The Mad God laughs.

“Kill them for me when you’re out there,” Jacob mutters to Lancelot, who has just closed his eyes by now and does not dare to look at his future Knight.

But right when Lancelot’s claw rises in the air, there’s a pop, and everybody freezes.

“Jacob!” Marcel Valemont shouts and runs toward Jacob. “What is happening? There was something saying you were about to die. Thorne tried running through the portal, but it didn’t work, and— oh my god, what are you doing, Lancelot?”

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Jacob’s eyes are wide.

“Stay away! Marcel, get out of here! Lancelot’s about to be possessed by the spell. Run!”

His voice trails off — because suddenly, as Marcel comes over the plateau, his hair sweaty and stuck to his forehead and his chest heaving, the blood mist pours out of Lancelot and runs toward the Valemont boy.

“The weave is shifting,” Asmodeus suddenly says to the Mad God. “Control the weave.”

Marcel is not moving, but the mist has already fallen upon him.

“I can’t!” the Mad God shouts, growling now, serious. “That bastard boy has a fate stronger than the Squire’s with him. His Karmic bond is unbreakable. How is this possible? Who is he?”

That’s when Jacob suddenly realizes. He activates the Primordial Grimoire, looking at Marcel.

“It’s because you monsterified his twin,” Jacob says, turning toward Asmodeus’s incarnation. “I killed his monsterified twin.”

The red mist shivers around Marcel.

Lancelot is on his knees, gasping. The mist is still pouring off him.

“Damn it,” Asmodeus growls. “Blood Nemesis goes after the strongest Karmic bond. A blood debt like this? Well, it matters not. You killed this boy’s twin, Jacob Cloud. Half of his own body is dead by your hand. Few heavier chains exist in the whole of creation. Now what? Are you going to kill him as well? Are you going to kill an innocent—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jacob replies, looking at Asmodeus and then back at Marcel.

If he lets Blood Nemesis become too strong, even Marcel could be a threat. But as things are right now, Jacob is simply way, way too powerful to suffer death at Marcel’s hand. Maybe he has the time to come up with something. Maybe now, with Lancelot free, he can come up with a plan.

“Marcel,” Jacob says with his mouth dry, “listen and listen very well. This is going to try and possess you to kill me. I’ll try everything to save you and—”

Marcel is crying. But as tears run down his face, he’s also smiling.

“It’s okay,” Marcel says gently. “It’s okay, cousin. I wasn’t there when Cassian needed me. I was never there for him. He sacrificed so much more than I did. But this— I will be with him. I get to join my brother.”

From the foot of the pyramid, Kai starts laughing.

“Everyone’s coming! The family can be together forever.”

“Quiet!” the Mad God shouts, and Kai suddenly shuts up.

Jacob looks at Marcel. And his body, his entire body, feels cold.

“So, you’re ready to kill your cousin,” the Mad God says with a sweet voice. “Oh, what a fantastic poetic image. A tragedy, if you ask me. But in this theater, what a wonderful plot.”

Jacob takes a deep breath. He knows that the Mad God is trying to infect him with madness.

He looks at Marcel. His body is now seizing. His bones are snapping. The transformation is taking him way more violently than it would have taken Lancelot. Lancelot would have been much stronger.

“Boss,” Lancelot says, coughing, spitting some blood from the aftermath of being released from the Blood Nemesis. “What are we doing? What are we going to do?”

Jacob is observing when suddenly — as Marcel’s eyes turn red and his peaceful expression breaks — the mist divides, and part of it runs toward Asmodeus.

Asmodeus was saying, “I’m glad I stayed to watch. The Mad One usually builds crude spectacles. But this — the brother of the boy I turned, dying to kill the boy who—”

Asmodeus suddenly stops talking.

Because a blood tendril has reached beyond the Divine Barrier and planted itself in his chest.

“No,” Asmodeus says in disbelief.

But the red mist suddenly pulls him inside the barrier. The barrier bends easily around him and welcomes him.

Now Jacob is reading through the Grimoire and looking at Asmodeus’s mortal body.

[Blood Nemesis — Karmic Web, live trace.]

[Anchor debt: the death of Cassian Valemont to the God of Monsters, Asmodeus.]

[The web claims its Twin Blood tie to Cassian Valemont.]

There’s more to read in the Primordial Grimoire, but Jacob just smiles.

“I am a god,” Asmodeus starts saying, looking at his hands, wrapped in the Blood Nemesis.

“You made Cassian into a monster,” Jacob says. “You’re in his web of Karmic fate. The spell has claimed the tie of a twin.”

Outside the Divine Barrier, Armand Valemont’s face has stopped smiling. The Mad God looks at his own little theater as if it had just burned down. He cannot go in without tearing down the barrier. That is the only thing that’s keeping Jacob penned. But he sees Asmodeus rising from the spot the tendril had dropped him into.

“Well,” Asmodeus laughs, “inconvenient, but I shall just leave this flesh. Your other cousin can rage against an empty husk that…”

[Flaw: While Blood Nemesis feeds a vessel, the vessel cannot be vacated. The power is the lock. The tenant remains until the spell completes.]

“It appears that you cannot leave, Asmodeus,” Jacob says and slowly walks to pick up his sword and pat Lancelot on the shoulder.

[Flaw: Blood Nemesis requires the death of one marked vessel — the target slain, or the vessel destroyed. The spell does not specify which marked vessel.]

“Restrain Marcel for me,” Jacob tells Lancelot and then turns toward Asmodeus. “Gods lose a lot of power when they lose an Incarnation, right? That’s what happened to you when you faced King Baalrek in my body.”

Lancelot lunges at Marcel, who has just jumped at Jacob, tackling him to the ground and pinning him there.

The Leader of Champions stares down at Asmodeus’s incarnation, swelling with power from the Blood Nemesis, but looking stunned at the development.

“This didn’t go as planned, did it?” Jacob asks, summoning his Heartfire.

“I can still slay you!” Asmodeus roars as his body starts monsterifying.

Jacob’s body is fully covered in Heartfire and his aura has now dwarfed the incarnation’s.

“Can you?” he asks before disappearing right in front of the Evil God’s eyes.