ALL NOVEL Chapter 160 – Judgement
With a pop, Lia appeared right where she sensed the Undead presence. She was swinging her sword, held with both arms while registering the scene playing out before her eyes. Quatlo was dead; his chest had the Undead's arm buried in it, coming out from his back, holding his heart in a squeezing motion, ready to burst. As his last moment, Quatlo tried holding the monster's arms with his two hands to keep him in place while many of his soldiers were thrusting, stabbing their pikes towards the white-haired, green-eyed abomination.
It was a futile effort as his miasma shield, erected around him, pushed them apart, breaking the simple weapons. The man was wearing a soldier's armor, disguising himself as one, and probably when Quatlo came to examine him, he decided to shed the act. What he didn't expect was that there was someone like Lia present, who could arrive before he would have a chance to kill and turn everybody around him. Lia took a fraction of a second to note everything, and she was unobstructed by the miasma as she teleported straight inside the Undead's defenses.
"...?!" The Soulbound elder only had time to shield his neck with his shoulder, raising it slightly, catching the incoming blade of Lia with his flesh.
It sunk deep, cutting away muscles and tendons until it was lodged between the joints, connecting his arm and shoulder.
"Burn!" Lia thought, exploding with orange fire, resulting in a literal explosion, throwing the soldiers back and incinerating Quatlo's body into ash in a blink of an eye, giving him what he desired instead of being turned into one of them. Lia couldn't say if she saw things or not, but she felt as if Quatlo had smiled in his last moments before his body was entirely destroyed.
With a bestial roar, the Undead jumped out of the fire, smoking and sizzling all over his body. He turned his rage-filled eyes towards Lia, who was following him relentlessly, already striking at his body again. He had enough time to react this time, raising his hands, surrounded by greenish energy, blocking the blade with a loud clang and snuffing out her fire.
"You have been marked! Good!" The Undead grinned, his injuries healing visibly before making a hand sign and transforming his energy into a sword while in his head, information about Lia was appearing. "An Amarin, eh?" He licked his lips as the two already exchanged multiple moves, showcasing the Undead's proficiency in sword fighting.
What surprised the Soulbound warrior was that the information on Lia was fragmented. As if the one encountering her couldn't transmit everything. He only knew that the girl was an Amarin, wielded a sword, and was strong in fire magic.
"Ferocious!" He sneered, deflecting Lia's strikes, initiating a feint to counter-attack, but to his surprise, Lia simply disappeared, teleporting to his left, hacking at his waist.
To his surprise, her swords came apart at the last moment, coiling around his waist and his hastily erected shield, cracking it. Before he could entangle himself or bring his sword down on Lia, she let her flames burn intensely, scorching the Undead, turning it into a torch, glowing in a blinding light. She saw the armor and clothes turn to nothing, his skin coming off in flakes, revealing the dead muscles and bones underneath.
"Begone…" She whispered, pulling out her second sword, tapping the first one's hilt with her free hand, and cutting the warrior into two.
"Not bad…" The Soulbound warrior exclaimed, and Lia could sense the soul escaping but not to No-Space; it simply switched place with another that Lia mercilessly turned into ash.
"Bastard!" She clicked her tongue, knowing that her prey exchanged locations with another soul, most likely one of the others hiding underground. This meant he could swap bodies as long as there were any of them present.
"Boss!" Arrived Louise's panicked voice at once, "This is bad! Miasma is bursting forth from the sewers!"
"Where?!"
"Everywhere…" Lorin answered, feeling devastated. The protection they planted was blasted apart by the appearing Undead energy, starting to envelop the whole settlement, overpowering theirs.
With a wish, Lia flew up to the sky, high enough to survey everything and she could see multiple points in the city where the deadly clouds were spreading, horrifying the survivors.
"Join me…" An ethereal voice came from the smoke, resonating all-around Cathalica. "With me, your loved ones will be able to come back… look… they are already here…"
In an utterly delirious state, horrified yet dazed people watched as the dead, who were yet to be burnt, stood back up. It was them, even with the white hair and green eyes, even if their voice was a mixed mess. They spoke in their original tone with an unfamiliar tinge attached to it, urging their loved ones to join and resist.
"Leave." Lia sent to Louise and Lorin while closing her eyes. "We lost Cathalica." She could sense that around a hundred people already gave in and got their souls corrupted, turning into Undead and feeding his enemy, who was using it to try and overwhelm Lia, Lorin, and Louise. "The city is too far gone." She bit her lips, feeling that more and more people joined the Undead. Her second message was sent to her mother, not to the two who were hurrying out of the city. The answer arrived via a voice projection straight into Lia's mind only a second later.
"Cleanse it."
Lia took a slow, deep breath and let her mana gather up, ready to engulf the whole city in fire. As she was doing it, she sent a final message directed at none other but Lucian.
"I need help… Master…”
It only took a few seconds for Lia to feel the space next to her change, distort, and Lucian appeared, his long, white tail sweeping behind him while looking down on the city.
"And I shall…" He put a hand on Lia's shoulder, nodding at her understandingly, letting his 7th Tier strength be on full display.
Darkness covered the sky instantly; from it, red lighting came down, striking the freshly transformed Undead and blasting their bodies apart; when it hit people who were yet to convert, they were killed immediately, without a chance to feel pain. Unlike Lia, struggling to concentrate, her hands trembling while preparing her biggest spell, Lucian summoned a storm of death without any effort.
The moment he appeared, the Undead warrior felt the real threat. He simply couldn't stand up to someone at that level. He tried escaping, giving up on capturing the young Amarin prey that he initially thought about… but it was too late. With Lucian here, all access to No-Space was sealed off as his presence enveloped the region like a suffocating, black blanket.
"We are out!" Arrived Lorin and Louise's answer just when Lia finished her preparations.
"I'm ready…" She whispered, her eyes slowly opening, watching the thousands of people down below and seeing them turn or being blasted apart by a bolt of red lightning. "Thank you for coming…" She said, barely audible, but Lucian merely squeezed her shoulders, supporting her.
When Lia waved her hand and let her spell fall from the sky, it looked like a blue ball of flame, unassuming by contrast to the constant lightning strikes. Yet when it hit the ground, splintering like a glass bowl, multiple waves of blue fire burst forth, washing over the city like a tsunami. They were flowing like wild rivers and resembled a flood instead of a firestorm. Wherever it went, people, houses, roads, plants, the blood and grime on the walls, everything was frozen in an instant.
The Undead underground, ready to take control of the newly transformed and consumed, had no time to react. Their miasma, their mana, and their souls got frozen before they noticed anything strange, including their leader, who was planning on using the captured body of Lia as leverage to rise higher in the Sect, not to mention how juicy her soul would taste like. He wanted it for himself… what he didn't expect was the taste he yearned for would be something this cold. Feeling a chill run down his soul, he was dead by the time he thought about it.
"Overwhelming…" Lucian murmured, watching some of his red lightning being frozen just the same, robbed from his control, connecting the earth and the sky for a brief moment. "Lia!" He shook, grabbing at her, just noticing her wobbling once and falling out of the sky the next moment. Raising her in a panic, he couldn't help but curse at the unconscious body, noticing she used up all her strength and let her mind be vulnerable by allowing herself to fall unresponsive. "Silly girl…" He whispered, holding her limp body.
It was almost suicidal to let something like this happen, but she trusted Lucian with her life. She knew that if she let her mind slip, he would be there to pick up the pieces and protect her. Lucian held her gently while watching the destruction, shaking off the feeling of his mana being frozen into place and finally canceling his spell. When Lia's flames finally stopped, white, fog-like smoke surrounded the city of Cathalica, permeating for many years to come. No matter how hot the weather got, the ice never melted, and the chill persisted for decades. The city was deemed off-limits as people below Tier 4, if walking into the city unprepared, would be frozen to death… and not even Lia could save them. Even the young daughter of Reyra Amarin couldn't fathom what it meant to unleash the power of combined elements and what kind of toll it takes on the unprepared body.
Before leaving with Lorin and Louise, Lucian spent a day surveying Lia's spell, examining it, and walking through the frozen city. The ice gave out an intense, burning sensation wherever he strode, trying to eat through his protection and wiggle itself into his mana, trying to stop it from flowing and freeze it into place. It was an overbearing and terrifying feeling, something that was completely autonomous, and he was sure not even Lia could gain control over it again after relinquishing it.
"Is this what it was for Erias too? Is it what it is like for Reyra?" He mumbled, trying to imagine it, but there was nobody to answer his questions. Reyra herself was in the middle of exploring and experimenting with her newfound powers but going by what he was sensing and experiencing directly, it was something unmatched.
Seeing the citizens encased in their blue, icy cocoons sent a chill down Lucian's spine. He knew none of them were really there. Lia's combined fire already burnt them to ash, and what was frozen solid was only their image reflected in the ice. It was nothing but their last mirage, the light captured in a frozen prison. When he broke one, the figure of a young man, shielding his one-armed sister with a swipe of his claws, it shattered into millions of pieces, revealing glittering, clean ice only. Nothing remained in them, all was gone… destroyed. Burnt away.
"And she is only a Speciali. Is there a difference…?" Lucian thought, watching his breath being frozen in the air and falling to the ground while speaking, "Do combining the elements at an early tier… result in a greater yield of power? Will she become even stronger than her mother? Than her ancestor?"
It was a question that nobody could answer for Lucian, but he had a feeling that he was right. Lia's combined fire was growing stronger and stronger as she was getting to higher and higher Tiers of Magic. It was a growth that was exponential.
…
….
……
When Lia woke up, she felt exhausted, and pushing herself into a sitting position was a struggle. Looking around, she was in her room inside the Misfits' fortress, and the air was cool, thanks to a small, floating chunk of ice next to her bed, the work of Rinzen. Her window was closed, but she could see the sunlight push through the cracks of her shutter, not that she had any mind of walking out right now. Falling back between her pillows, she let her mind swim away, just lying there between dreaming and being awake, thinking about nothing, wanting none of her memories to swim to the surface… yet they did. Soon she was replying to everything that happened, the destruction and the fact that she not just signed the death warrant of thousands of people but also executed them herself.
"I hate this…" She murmured, covering her eyes with her hand, trying to hide her tears.
"Everyone does," Lucian answered her, making Lia shudder, looking around again and finally noticing him sitting in the corner, in the shadows. The way he rubbed his eyes made it clear that he was asleep until just now, woken up by her sobbing.
"I couldn't save… them…" She sniffled, biting her lips, "I couldn't save Rose, and now I couldn't…"
"Sssh…" With a step, Lucian was already sitting on her bed, hugging Lia close, rubbing her back, and letting her cry. "You can't save everyone."
"I…"
"No, you can't. Nobody can. If you think you can, you will kill yourself! Your mind will destroy itself before the Undead get you… So stop."
"But… why can't I?" She groaned between two sobs, burying her face in her teacher's chest, who had a kind look in his ruby-red eyes.
"Because you are not a god! Nobody can do that, Lia… even IF you were one, that would be simply impossible!"
“I could… if I were a god…” She protested, sounding a bit sulky, making Lucian chuckle, gently chopping at the top of her head.
"No, you wouldn't. Then nobody would die, and our civilization would cease to exist!"
"At least, I could destroy the Undead… all of them…"
"That would be something nobody would argue with!" He joked, trying to calm Lia down, not knowing that his little disciple had planted a very dangerous idea planted in her head just then.
