Chapter 73: Mockery

BOOM!

The stone plaza shook as Galzan dropped from above and landed beside Karl, Leon and Mira, cracking several tiles beneath his feet.

He straightened immediately and looked between the three of them.

"You bastards actually left me behind with Seraphine while all the interesting shit was happening."

Galzan brushed some dust from his clothes. "I wanted to see the proper scene too, you know."

Galzan was about to continue complaining when he finally noticed the figure standing before the open gates of the town hall and his words stopped.

The completely black body, the face beneath the darkness and even the general shape of the figure looked almost identical to Galzan’s human form.

Galzan’s eyes widened.

"What the fuck is that?"

He looked at Karl and then back at the figure.

"Why is he copying me?"

The black figure smiled before Galzan could say anything else.

"I’ve been waiting for you all ever since you entered the Sanctuary."

The Grim slowly stepped away from the gates, the Reaper’s Order still hanging from its neck.

"And how kind of you to deliver yourselves directly to me."

Leon immediately shifted the battle axe in his hands and started forward, but Karl raised one arm in front of him.

"Wait."

Leon glanced toward him.

Karl kept his eyes on the Grim even standing this far away, Karl could still feel the massive concentration surrounding the black figure.

Rushing it without knowing anything would be stupid.

The Grim seemed to take their hesitation differently and afaint smile spread across its face.

"At least you possess enough intelligence to understand your position not daring rush at me like savages."

The figure then turned towards Galzan and spoke

"And you."

The Grim’s smile widened.

"I intended to kill you before leaving this place anyway."

"You’ve saved me the trouble of searching for you."

Galzan’s expression immediately darkened as he looked at him in confusion but also didn’t move foolishly and maintained a safe distance.

The Grim looked around once more.

"Nothing?"

Its smile became increasingly mocking.

"Not one of you will even try?, how disappointing."

Karl suddenly smiled and the grims eyes shifted towards him using the same movement Mira disappeared from where she stood.

Her entire body melted into black-purple shadow and slipped across the plaza without making a sound.

A second later, she rose directly behind the Grim botth daggers were already moving toward its neck.

The Grim laughed loudly at this"Tch, such petty tricks."

It raised one hand and bllack vines burst from the stone beneath Mira.

They wrapped around her arms and torso before the daggers could land, tightening fast enough to pull her completely away from the Grim.

More vines erupted across the plaza almost at the same moment, several wrapped around Leon’s arms and legs.

Galzan and karl were also caught next

Leon immediately pulled against them but they didn’t even budge, Mira and Galzan also struggled and the floor below cracked but the vines didn’t budge at all.

Karl looked at the Grim with caution and surprise as all struggles failed.

The Grim looked around at them for a moment and then stared into karls eyes

"So this is all?"

It walked down the first few steps toward them.

"When you entered my Sanctuary, I sensed some talent in you and even decided it would be better to observe before acting."

The black vines tightened slightly.

"And yet here you are, helpless, I wasted my time worrying about beings like you."

Leon pulled against the vines again, but Karl gave him a brief glance and he stopped.

The Grim continued without noticing.

"Humans really are nothing weak bodies, short lives, useless emotions."

"Nothing but lesser creatures pretending they deserve a place among greater beings."

Karl laughed and his shoulders shook with it the grim immediately stopped and glared at him.

"What’s funny?"

Karl looked directly at it and spoke "You’ve spent all this time talking about humans like you’re something above them."

"You dare say this when you yourself are born of a human?"

The smile vanished from the Grim’s face as Karl continued.

"Fear, hatred, despair, Death Energy and whatever else he left behind gathered together... And eventually produced to you"

"So what exactly are you proud of?, you’re just the waste left behind after a human died."

The air around the Grim shifte and he glared at him in anger.

"Silence, you know nothing about me."

"Then explain it, if humans are so worthless and tou are so superior why are you still carrying the shape of one after seven hundred years?"

The Grim’s face twitched and it finally snapped.

"You really believe I’m some ordinary Grim?, those things were failures."

Its voice rose across the plaza.

"Every ordinary Grim that crawled through this Sanctuary was nothing more than a container."

The Grim pointed toward the city around them.

"Whenever something died, they gathered what remained working as useless cleaning organism."

Black energy moved around its fingers as it spoke.

"They swallowed all of it and carried it inside themselves, yet never understood what they possessed."

The Grim’s eyes hardened. ℴ

"They submitted to the Reapers and allowed themselves to be used."

"But I was not foolish like them, Irefused."

"Everything that entered me became mine, every pint of energy, power, emotions and will."

"And I didn’t stop there I consumed the others."

"I killed everyone that stoodmij my way the repears the beasts and even my own Kind."

"The centuries of accumulation of knowledge, power, authority, emotions I took it all."

"At last I surpassed them all no Reaper, no grim and certainly no lesser creature like a human can reach and become what I am."

Karl watched the Death Energy around the creature fluctuate harder with every sentence.

"I AM THE TRUE HEIR OF DEATH."

As the grim completed his words he stared at Karl expecting to see fear regret or awe but there was just mockery and contempt.

"So after seven hundred years of eating corpses and your own kind you think you have become worthy you are still nothing but waste?"

The Grim’s eyes became bloodshot and it roared. "You insolent—"

"What?, did I get something wrong or are you dumber then you look?"

The vines around Karl’s chest tightened enough for the white bone beneath his clothing to creak.

But Karl just ignored them and scanned him from head to toe.

"You were born just because one desperate human died while trying to save his little sister."

The Grim’s fists clenched.

"And now you’re calling yourself the heir of death because you spent seven centuries telling yourself something else?"

Karl smiled. "That’s embarrassing."

"ENOUGH!"

The Grim raised one hand and every black vine across the plaza tightened violently.

Stone cracked beneath Leon and Galzan as the restraints pulled against their bodies.

Mira’s shadow was compressed between several layers of black vines while Karl felt the ones around his chest begin crushing inward.

The Grim’s face had completely lost the calm arrogance from earlier.

"Enough of your worthless questions, I’ll crush you all here"

Karl stopped pretending and the pale support spine integrated into his body immediately.

White bone spread across his torso and limbs before closing around him like a second body, crimson lines running through the skeletal armor.

Karl pulled both arms apart.

BOOM!

The vines around him shattered broken pieces of black energy scattered across the plaza as Karl stepped free and the Death Stick appeared in his hand.

Its form extended into the long black scythe.

Galzan roared beside him and flames exploded across his body and the vines restraining his arms began burning apart as he forced them wider.

With one final pull, Galzan ripped himself free and huge burning sword formed in his hand.

He pointed it toward the Grim. "You’re just an arrogant fucking fool."

"Who are you to call me trash?"

Golden Qi erupted from Leon next as he activated martial saint descent.

His body disappeared beneath the dense layer of Qi as his attributes surged by five hundred percent.

Leon pulled once and the restraints split apart.

Mira didn’t even bother trying to break hers, her entire body melted into a black-purple liquid, flowed straight between the vines and spread across the stone beneath them before reforming beside Karl.

The Grim looked across all four of them and frozen for a moment but then his confidence returned.

But now it was mixed with pure fury.

"Just die."

Death Energy erupted from its body and flooded across the plaza.

The purple lanterns around them flickered as black energy rolled over the stone roads and climbed the nearby buildings.

The Grim slowly raised both hands.

"Your deaths will be the beginning of my new era."

Its eyes locked onto Karl.

"My era of domination."