ALL NOVEL Chapter 188 – Siege (4) (End of Volume IV)
Lia's mind was completely empty at the moment. All unnecessary thoughts were discarded, and she focused on nothing more but on the aura of Yuya. Even without her teleporting, the speed she was capable of was faster than anything Lia could pull off. Her only advantage was that she could slip into No-Space without effort and reappear elsewhere.
"You little whore, you can run, but I will catch you anyway!" Yuya laughed, chasing her around the horde, which parted way, not daring to interfere, not even when Lia attacked them. This was the Supreme Elder's hunt, and they would be just as dead if they stole her 'kill.'
"Really now?" Lia murmured, and with a pop, she disappeared.
"Hmph!" With a sharp spin, Yuya turned around, waving her hand that looked like claws, reinforced by her magic. They threw sparks everywhere when they met with the reappearing Lia's swords. "Mine!" She was clenching down on her blades, exerting such force that Lia even felt it vibrating her blood and traveling through her body.
Her blue flames were held onto directly as Yuya's overfed soul was rampaging like a typhoon, blowing away the mixed fire as if it were nothing but a birthday candle. Even though Lia was using all she had, even her newly found wind spells, the difference in strength was simply too much, resulting in a sharp, cracking sound before she teleported away once again.
"You are going to DIE here!" Yuya roared towards the sky as a green column rose from her body, spreading out like a firework and bombarding the surrounding area with unnatural, green fire that burned away her own army just the same. It was bombarding not the body but the soul as dozens of Undead fell, the souls occupying them being destroyed by Yuya.
Looking on from the walls, Aurora was about to rush back out; seeing that Lia hadn't arrived, she realized she was drawing the frightening Undead away instead. That was akin to suicide right now!
"Stop!" Sion pulled her back, receiving a slap from her, leaving a cut on his face from her nails, but he didn't let go. "Don't be stupid, not when it matters the most! She can teleport, she can come back! Help us hold back the horde until everyone returns, and we can raise the barrier! We need you here now!"
Aurora's eyes were filled with unshed tears, unable to manifest words with her mana, so she simply nodded, looking behind Sion. She could see Koa as she hurriedly tried to stop the bleeding and mend the hole in Keily's chest with the help of other mages. Celine was in a comatose state, carried by Raufon, while Simbad was holding up Rinzen, who was murmuring the incantation. No matter her condition, she was doing her best to take control of every ounce of energy under them, hidden in the ice. Aurora had to follow in Simbad's steps, who, although worried greatly about Ceiline, looking towards her multiple times, never faltered, fulfilling his duty first, just as the remaining Three Ri mages, fighting relentlessly to hold back the Undead.
"Opparu will kill me for this…" Lia smiled sadly, looking down at the broken swords she was holding. Both cracked apart, missing half of their blades, left behind in Yuya's grip. She took out her last potions, gulping them down before turning towards Yuya. She was simply too strong and capable of resisting her flames... Even though she cuts, burns, and freezes through her body, reaching her soul, it is in such a wild and overflowing state that it feels like fighting against a tsunami, standing on a dinky raft. But she still needed some time… With her injury, Rinzen couldn't focus correctly, but Lia was already feeling it. The ice was stirring below her feet. It was almost ready...
"Mine… MINE!"
The cry of Yuya came almost from behind her, ticking her ears as she managed to blink way just in time before the crazed woman sunk her claws into the frozen ground, tearing it up and causing a chasm to appear. It looked like when a heavy stone was dropped on a frozen lake, spreading cracks everywhere; only these ones gobbled up around a dozen Undead who were unfortunately in its way. The outburst of icy energy from deep below caused even more damage, spreading and freezing the weaker Undead solid. It looked like a blue, chilly fog on a cold morning descending onto the battlefield.
"More, more, more MORE!"
By now, Yuya was rampaging and gurgling incoherently, going fully berserk, attacking everything obstructing her view of Lia, rushing after her on all fours. In her mania, she didn't realize that consuming Io's soul was too much for her own to handle, and she was close to detonating. Her soul frantically tried to alleviate the critical state it found itself in without less and less success. She was about to blow…
"This is not even a human but a beast!" Lia groaned, escaping the freezing energy from the cracks, feeling its effect on her mana, slowing its flow down, which was unacceptable in her current predicament.
"AAARGH!"
With an animalistic roar, Yuya was upon her once more, and no matter if she teleported, she already rushed to where she would appear, following her scent through No-Space itself. While in the other realm, Lia also realized something horrifying. The clouds were swirling in No-Space, like watching a storm from above, moving exactly where Yuya was occupying her space in Meriath. Her unstable presence affected No-Space, which Lia had never seen or heard about. This wasn't normal, and anything strange like this could only mean danger. Extreme danger.
"GOTCHA!"
Before she had a chance to return to reality, the roar of Yuya came from that 'storm' as a green claw tore through the veil, grabbing Lia by the ankles and yanking her out of No-Space like a ragdoll. With a hard slam, she crashed to the ground, coughing up significant blood and feeling multiple bones in her body being broken. Looking up, Yuya was hundreds of meters away, but her unnatural claw, a soul-like arm, stretched out far and wide. She already had shed her physical body and now looked like a bloated, unrecognizable monster, half real, half transparent. She was screaming and spitting fragments of souls out like saliva, cackling that she finally caught Lia. Looking around, Lia realized that she was close to the secondary walls and could feel Rinzen was already ready. She was only waiting for her to reappear and get inside.
"COME!" Yuya gurgled like someone with water stuck in their lungs, barfing up parts of Io's essence while aiming to drag Lia towards herself.
Because her unstable soul was connected to Lia directly, holding her, the chaotic energy disturbed Lia's connection to the Realm Key. Reality itself around them was being affected, distorted, and opened up as tears emerged around Yuya's body.
"You want me? You can keep part of me as souvenir, bitch!"
There was no hesitation in Lia's voice. She grabbed her left thigh, and with a snap, she froze her leg and broke it off like a twig. When done, she hurriedly formed a prosthetic out of ice and stood up, trying to run toward the others, but then she landed face-first on the ground. Looking back, Yuya was still holding her… her soul, a transparent leg that was only visible to the two of them.
"Have this too, then!"
Once again, Lia was not about to die here and not about to care about injuries. Waving a hand coated in her three elements, she severed her soul, letting Yuya drag it away like the hungry beast she was, gulping it down with delight. Standing back up, Lia managed to feel No-Space again, probably because of the lax concentration from Yuya, who was gorging on the piece of her soul. Holding onto the sudden boon in the chaos, she stepped through, appearing straight at the inner city gate. Right behind her, the icy prison was already rising towards the air, Rinzen enacting the spell the moment she felt Lia appear inside. It was a close shave as Lia's back was millimeters away from the growing ice. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw the disfigured Yuya and her mismatched eyes grew wide with panic at once.
"No!" She cried out, pressing her hand against Rinzen's ice wall, focusing her mind on the Realm Key on her finger.
The following explosion was nothing that Meriath had ever experienced in the past thousands of years. When Yuya ate Lia's fragment of a soul, it was the spark that started the chain reaction inside of her. The outburst of energy ripped her soul into millions of pieces, which was something no physical barrier could stop. Thousands of Undead died instantly as the shockwave spread out, tearing them apart like papier-mache figures in a hurricane. Lia knew at first that not even the ice wall would stop it, and it would wash over them, probably even kill them all, separating their souls from their bodies. Even if not, those who were injured, be it Keily, Ceiline, or Rinzen, were to perish in the impact.
"No…!"
With all her focus, she called upon her mana and consciousness, focusing it on the ring that stubbornly attached itself to her finger. A secondary bubble appeared around the city as it was hit by the waves of chaos just at the right time. The initial impact made Lia's body shudder; she turned whiter than an Undead, and her hair lost all of its colors. Her skin opened up, expelling all of her blood, and her ice-made leg shattered, but she didn't buckle. She held her hand on the ice, maintaining the secondary protection.
The hundred thousand souls inside the protection of the two could see as the world changed around them as they were directly ripped out of reality, and the entirety of the inner city was thrust into No-Space. Gone were the skies of Meriath, the Undead; everything was replaced by raging, violet, and orange clouds of otherworldly energy.
"Lia!" Cried out Rinzen, realizing what was happening, but it was too late.
Lia's mind was no longer present as she was no longer inside her body. She focused everything on protecting the others, even at the cost of her soul. She alone took on the wild explosion and its effects, and her soul was ripped out from her body in an instant. What was left behind was her last will, engraved into the Realm Ring that continued following its master's orders: Keeping the city safe and intact. It was what kept holding it in one piece, just like it did with Hajna's old, destroyed realm for eons on end.
The first to walk forward, approaching Lia's body, was Rinzen. When the rumbling stopped, and they were floating in No-Space like a drifting island, she rushed to Lia, touching her just so she could see her body break apart like a statue. She didn't want to believe it, neither did the other Misfits… yet Lia's body was no longer flesh and blood but a hardened, dried-out husk. When her stretched-out hand landed on the ground, it shattered into dozens of pieces, and the Realm Key clanged louder than any bell or warhorn, rolling away on the floor. It was a sound she didn't want to hear right now... She wanted to hear Lia say something... but no words came out from her frozen lips. Rinzen simply held Lia's head, looking into the empty, mismatched eyes with no light in them, hammering home the fact in everyone's mind…
She was dead.
