Chapter 89 - He Who Would Undo the Heavens (III)

Chapter 89

He Who Would Undo the Heavens (III)

The third wave came three days later–and it came like a storm.

Besides the two enemies from the first two waves, there was one more grotesque thing lumbering from the darkness, its misshapen limbs forming strange symbols outside its hulking shell. From a distance, someone might mistake it for a turtle–perhaps one with some strange growths on top of its shell–but it certainly was not one; the shell was full of bulges and rotting fungi, with dozens of cracks spreading out in strange patterns, giving way for the malformed limbs to protrude outward, hanging stiffly above.

Its legs–all sixteen of them–were so short they were barely visible beneath its behemoth of a body; rather than ‘walking’, it looked as though the creature was sliding as its baby feet did baby steps as it moved forward. Though creepy, it hardly perturbed Ethan–he’d seen far worse.

Taking a deep breath, he steeled his nerves and cut his forearm slightly, using blood to summon a blade made of blood above his head. The jump from 30 to 60 enemies was difficult, but not that difficult–however, from 60 to 120… it was a different world. Even from the onset, the initial rush of the monsters consisted of over 50 of them, almost the totality of the entire second wave.

Ethan didn’t linger on the edges and rushed over, blade in hand. Q’uilon danced–it left behind gorgeous and illuminating sparks wherever it passed, its shape seemingly bending and blending into its surroundings. Each time it came into contact with flesh, it would faintly vibrate as a burst of Mana slipped out from its blade, terrorising whatever it touched.

Blood sprayed out and gore followed, dismembered disfigurements flying out like an upward rain. In their midst, Ethan pushed–arms and fingernails clawed at his skin, scratching and screeching. Blood flew profusely, yet never touched the ground–it hovered for a moment and shot back up, hundreds of crimson daggers flashing dangerous light with each passing second.

Army of things beyond description fell toward him but he seemed impervious–in body and in spirit. Each stroke of the blade was the reaper’s call, and monsters fell. Yet, no matter how many he felled, they seemed to have no end. In his heart, Ethan felt cold–he’d never faced this many grotesque things in his life before. Even at the peak of his strength, he was uncertain of facing more than three or four at the same time, even if they were below his level. After all, his Class was the definition of squishy–the entire point was to be unseen, but if seen, it was over.

But, now, a new sensation crept its way into his veins, a new kind of spirituality bleeding into his soul. Excitement surged and he felt himself growing faintly fanatical–his movement quickened, and though he could feel hands and nails and fragments of bones digging into his body, he ignored them. One of the crawlers managed to pierce his right lung directly and all it did was briefly cause Ethan to breathe shallowly. As soon as the bone was removed, the wound closed up at a speed beyond reason–he was a bundle of flesh unmoving, untouchable.

In some ways, deep in his heart, he recognised he was more of a monster than these misaligned things before him. After all, no matter how grotesquely shaped they were, they still adhered to the rhyme and reason of life and death–they were not above the matter of cause and effect, and they were unable to defy the ultimate, cold calling of the abyss. But what about him? He had ‘died’ hundreds of times already–his human flesh, his human blood, his human heart… all things that conspired to make him who he was now stood as the testament that he was no longer precisely that–rather than falling and cradling within the sensation of decay, he thrived. In chaos, he felt warmer than in his mother’s arms.

His heart held no fear and his actions reflected it–soon, he forwent defence entirely. He let them attack–he let them cut, he let them slash, he let them stab, pierce, hook, grab, tear, bite, suck, leech… in their midst, he was the fleshy harbinger of doom–they gnawed at him, but he recovered. He bled so, so, so much–in fact, there came a point that his mastery of Hemomancy was entirely unable to keep up with just how much blood there was–rivers flooded the ground, and the obsidian slabs beneath him suddenly shifted. He could feel it–they were almost alive, like pulsating arteries in want of more. They were like excitable children before Christmas, their desires still unsatiated.

But Ethan held nothing back–his blade found necks and eyes and hearts and souls of otherworldly things, and he killed them by the dozens. He was mad–mad with power, mad with life, mad with a haunting desire to become hallowed.

Soon, a solitary figure stood–doused from head to toe in blood and guts–in the midst of the corpse graveyard. Delilah felt faint and fell, passing out, while Elijah keeled over and started vomiting until there was only raw bile coming out of him. He didn't dare look back at the centre of the arena, no matter what. He'd seen it all and endured it–just as Delilah did–in the grand daze of admiration. The man who was a human being made of flesh and blood, just like him, was ripped and torn repeatedly, facing apocalyptic things, and yet never fell. He endured, standing tall all the while, decimating everything that came his way.

Ethan noticed that the kids were not having a good time, but didn’t say anything. This was a rather decent, albeit a rather haunting whetstone for their spirits–especially Elijah. For the first half of the battle, the boy did his best to support him, but evidently got himself lost in the sense of admiration and forgot to do so for the second part. As the obsidian slabs below sucked up whatever was left of flesh and blood, seemingly begging him for more, Ethan frowned.

He’d finished the third wave and, thus, gotten what he came for–[Warping Needle]. And though he was confident he'd also be able to finish the fourth wave, the fifth one… was likely out of the question. Going from 120 to 240 was already beyond haunting, but from 240 to 480… it was the kind of number that Ethan couldn't quantify in his mind. Even a well-itemised party of six barely managed to finish the fourth wave and could go no further. Ethan, no matter how well-suffused with experiences and future knowledge was still just one man and one man that was woefully lacking in items.

Though the current misshapen things couldn’t harm him enough to outpace his healing and draining abilities, there would come monsters that would be able to do that, and his own damage would simply be unable to keep up, even if it was quite monstrous for a tank. It didn't matter–in the end, even finishing the fourth wave would give them an 'Epic' ranked item, not to mention the massive boost in Levels. Ethan, who feared he'd be stuck in Levels for a long, long while, suddenly found himself hitting another major milestone–Level 30.

Level 30 was the halfway point between the 'Beginning' and the 'First Law'--in fact, it was also the first introduction every Class would get to the notion of the 'First Law'. It wouldn't be spelt out, but the keen-eyed noticed several slight hints toward it. Ethan himself didn't in his previous life, but, as it went, hindsight was 20/20, and in it, everything seemed keenly obvious.

Partly because he finished the wave, and partly because he hit Level 30, his vision was entirely obscured by an incessantly large number of notifications. As there’d be plenty of time to check them out later, Ethan dismissed them for now and walked over to the kids. Delilah was still ‘napping’, her expression hardened, eyebrows furrowed in a frown. She was likely having a nightmare.

Next to her, Elijah sat with his head kneaded between his knees, arms crossed over.

“It’s gone,” Ethan had already cleared himself through Hemomancy, and when Elijah looked up, relief flashed in his gaze that the sight that made him sick was gone.

“... I’m sorry,” he mumbled an apology, feeling ashamed.

“What are you sorry for?” Ethan asked indifferently, taking out a bottle of water from his inventory, feeling quite thirsty–after all, he did sweat a lot, not to mention that he bled a hundred times more. Even if his body could recover, his mind was a bit slow on the uptake.

"I… I didn't help, at all, later. I… I got engrossed. And even then I… when I looked at it…" The boy's voice was cracked and his lips were trembling. Ethan sighed. Though recruiting kids was a good way to raise an obedient force, at the end of the day… they were kids. With all the positives came a bundle of negatives.

“Of course you did,” Ethan said. “If you hadn’t gotten sick, I’d have probably killed you as I’d be convinced you were possessed by some pervert ghost that wanted to pinch my sweet cheeks.” though Elijah wanted to roll his eyes, he merely chuckled weakly in response.

“I believed, Ethan,” Elijah suddenly spoke in a rather serious tone. “I believed I could keep up. When you told me what you wanted to do, when you confided in Ronald and me about the kind of truth that everyone would hold close to their heart… I promised myself I’d do anything I could to keep up. To help you save as many people as possible. To share your burden. But… look at me,” he looked up at Ethan, his eyes red as tears began to coalesce at the corners. “I’m becoming a burden. Can’t even handle monsters dying. I’m so, so, so weak… you’d probably do better without me here. You should have taken Ronald–him getting levels would have been much better!”

“...” Ethan remained silent. Self-doubt was the kind of worm that was long-living. No matter what Ethan said right now, it wouldn’t matter. Words of comfort would ring hollow, and words of reprimand would just reinforce that doubt. There were no magic words to dispel something like this–if there were, his profession wouldn’t exist, after all.

There was a massive skew in the perception of the world early on–there was an earnest belief that the world had adapted perfectly to the changes, that the people, due to their nature, found their 'groove' and thrived within the new reality. However, the truth was rather grim and painful–soon, the shock of it all would subside, and out would come the harrowing fears that had festered and fermented within the hearts of everyone for months. Elijah's was simply further exacerbated because he followed Ethan around–and Ethan was the ultimate realisation of what an average person would become in the future… not what they are now.

Above all other things, however–his experiences, knowledge, demeanour, and even the perception of the world itself–even above the vast age disparity, stood a singular difference that others wouldn’t instil within themselves for a long, long time, and it stood in silent loneliness: Ethan… was not afraid to die. In fact, death, to him, hardly registered as a concept. It’d be impossible to explain to Elijah, or anyone else, really, as it was a feeling born of concepts beyond life people were accustomed to.

That was why Ethan could submerge himself within the bundle of grotesque, misshapen things and let them claw at him willy-nilly–it wasn’t entirely because he was confident in his Class, but that he simply wasn’t afraid of death. He didn’t want to die, far from it, but that instinct, the one that both held up the people as it held them back, didn’t exist within him. He didn’t want to instil that feeling within anyone–if anything, he’d do all in his power and prevent the kids from gaining it. For now, however, all he could do was offer Elijah a single sentence.

“Then train,” Ethan said. “And justify my trust in you.” That was all–it wasn’t comforting and it wasn’t judgmental. However, it was what the kid needed–a fire… and the direction. Ethan simply demystified the fork in front of him and undid the alternate routes–he told him where to walk, and how to walk. And those who wander the world lost… only ever need precisely that.