Novel Full Chapter 1508 Problematic
Chapter 1508 Problematic
They nodded.
Black Fang began walking.
Her katana dropped to her side. The tip kissed the cobblestones and stayed there, dragging behind her in a long, grinding screech of violet steel against stone that echoed off the ice dome overhead. Sparks trailed the blade in a line of dying embers. Her pace was slow, measured. It was the walk of a woman who had been burned, blasted, and thrown through the air and simply decided that none of it mattered.
The violet fire along the katana’s edge had dimmed during the explosion. It reignited now, crawling back up the steel in purple liquid that left a trail of poisonous miasma in her wake.
Quinlan walked beside her.
Lightning surged through his body. It raced across his armor in arcing webs of white-violet energy, jumping between plates, crackling at the joints, turning the black steel into a storm given human shape. His saber’s edge glowed a deep, furious orange.
Each step left a scorch mark on the cobblestones.
Each step sent a fresh arc of lightning racing up his arm and across his shoulders.
The two of them walked side by side toward the cathedral steps. A steady, unhurried advance that said more than any charge ever could.
We’re starting to understand your tricks and we’re coming for you.
Velara watched them approach.
Her eyes tracked them. Black Fang on the left, blade low, scraping the stone, trailing venom and violet fire. Quinlan on the right, saber burning, lightning crawling across every inch of his armor, his crimson eyes leaving faint trails behind the visor.
Every cut from Black Fang was a finishing blow that happened to be blocked. The woman was the more lethal of the pair, and Velara had the severed legs to prove it.
But the man…
Velara’s eyes narrowed as they fixed on him.
“So the rumors were true,” she breathed. “You cast without voicing a single incantation. You don’t even use hand gestures to shape the mana.” Her staff shifted in her grip. “Fire, lightning, ice, wind, earth, water. All silent. All instant. How problematic.”
Quinlan grunted. “Problematic?” He kept walking. “Try killing an immortal bitch who regenerates severed limbs in two heartbeats and casts spells while her whole body is on fire. Oh, and she can also ignore the Heavenly Restriction and reach the level 80s because why the fuck not?” Velara’s expression went dark.
The golden light behind her surged, responding to the fury that twisted across her face. Her knuckles whitened around the staff.
“You don’t need to try! You need to stop this lunacy! Be like the rest of the mass-murdering, self-important, parading narcissists known as ‘conquerors.’ Leave my domain alone and take over the city! Every second you continue this heresy is another second of eternal damnation added to your sentence! The Goddess does not forget! She does not forgive those who raise their hand against her chosen!”
Quinlan shrugged.
“I don’t fear that brat. We’re on pretty good terms, actually.” He grinned behind the helmet. “Though she’ll probably write me up again after today. Complaint number one million, here we go.”
Velara’s eye twitched. “You dare speak of the Goddess with such-”
“The Goddess ceased to frighten me,” Black Fang decreed.
Her katana tilted lazily at her side.
“Eternal damnation. Judgment in the afterlife. The great reckoning that awaits all sinners.” She listed them the way someone listed ingredients for a recipe they’d never cook. “Every one of those threats has been held over my head my whole life. But… every one of those threats requires me to die first.”
She looked at Velara.
“So I just need to stay alive.”
The words landed flat.
Velara’s lips parted.
“As long as my heart beats,” Black Fang continued, “your Goddess is a distant concept. A story told to frighten children into obedience. She has no authority over the living. She judges the dead, and the dead are people who failed to keep breathing.” The violet fire along her katana flared. “I will not be among them.”
The Arch Priestess stared at her with an expression that had moved past fury into genuine confusion.
Black Fang was speaking like a true lunatic.
But what the Arch Priestess didn’t know was that the woman had already found her ‘Fountain of Eternal Youth.’ To Black Fang, the only way she’d ever get to interact with the Goddess in person was if she died. And if she was killed, then she’d already lost. Losers had no say in their fate. Thus, she couldn’t care less about the consequences that came after death, for death itself was ‘game over’ as far as she was concerned.
Quinlan glanced at Black Fang and chuckled. ‘Does this mean she’d become the most wanted woman in the kingdom, the head of drug trafficking in the Consortium, the monster that made kids cry just by uttering her name while fearing the Goddess?’
Truly, this woman had been a goner since before she learned to speak.
But Quinlan found it beyond amusing. A unique entity.
“Focus,” Black Fang hissed.
“I am,” Quinlan grinned.
“Focusing on me…” she growled.
“No way~” Quinlan chuckled, having been found red-handed.
“… We’ll discuss your combat behavior after I get the notification for killing this divine bootlicker.” Black Fang lifted her katana off the cobblestones. The scraping stopped. The silence that replaced it was louder.
“Now I’m scared,” Quinlan cracked his neck.
Velara stared at them. At the absolute, unshakeable indifference regarding the utter heresy they were committing. Two people who had been told they were damned for eternity and responded by discussing after-battle plans
Her teeth ground together as she glared at Quinlan.
“And for the record, I am not ignoring the Heavenly Restriction. The Goddess’s blessing lets me perform miracles, not ignore anything I desire. There is a difference, and I will teach it to you by being the one who ends your reign of terror.”
The cathedral pulsed behind her.
“Class is in session, then,” Quinlan grinned and lunged.
Black Fang moved with him.
Then the cathedral exploded with light.
Every window, every doorway, every crack in the ancient stone erupted with golden radiance so intense it turned the ice dome above into a second sun. The light screamed outward. A pillar of white-gold energy lanced from the cathedral’s spire straight into the Arch Priestess.
Quinlan skidded to a halt. Black Fang paused mid-stride.
The light was wrong. It carried a pressure that had nothing to do with mana or magic or anything either of them had felt before. No, that wasn’t quite right… Quinlan had felt this power once in his life, back when a certain cosmic kidnapper paid him a visit.
The pillar consumed Velara. The Arch Priestess stood rigid on the cathedral steps, her arms spread wide, her head thrown back. Her staff clattered to the stone, forgotten. The golden energy poured into her body from above and lit her from within until her skin glowed and her eyes became twin suns and her silhouette was barely visible inside the radiance.
She was receiving something.
Quinlan knew the signs because he’d lived them. The overwhelming pressure. The sense of a consciousness so vast it made the recipient feel like an ant standing beneath a magnifying glass. The absolute certainty that the being could unmake you between one thought and the next and simply chose not to.
‘A divine revelation.’
The Goddess was speaking to her Arch Priestess.
Quinlan couldn’t hear a word of it. Black Fang couldn’t either. Whatever was being communicated existed on a frequency reserved for one person alone, delivered through a connection that the cathedral had been built to facilitate.
The pillar thinned. The light receded. Velara’s skin stopped glowing. Her arms lowered, and her eyes returned to normal, and the golden radiance that had consumed her faded until she was just a woman standing on stone steps with tears streaming down her face.
She was crying. Even for an Arch Priest-classed person, speaking directly to the Goddess was a privilege that only occurred a few times throughout their long lives.
Her lips moved. Soundless at first, forming words meant for the presence that had already withdrawn.
Then her expression shifted.
The awe crumbled. The reverence that had softened every line of her face twisted into something raw and confused. Her brow furrowed. Her jaw worked. The tears kept falling but the eyes above them were no longer worshipful.
They were bewildered.
The cathedral settled into silence. The golden glow from the windows dimmed to its lowest yet. The air thinned. The pressure vanished.
Velara stood alone on the steps, staff at her feet, tears drying on her cheeks.
Her mouth opened.
“…What?!”
…
Author: With this, the month of February is over. Tomorrow, we’re starting March’s set of chapters. I hope I managed to end the month on a high note, though I’m not sure how you liked the fight scene. I tried my best but I know I have a lot to improve upon, so any and all feedback is welcome.
Thanks for the support and hopefully see you in March!