Chapter 113

A Stroke of Death

Sylas held his breath, his expression a grimace of pain. His muscles were flexed taut, veins pulsating like worms, his skin steaming as though there was a fire roaring beneath it. Agnes stood to the side, biting her lower lip, eyes full of worry. He’d been in such a state for nearly an hour now, and yet what lay beneath the surface was even more horrifying. Even she felt it--the energy coiling around his blood, dragging it against the body’s god-given current.

Every so often, per his instructions, she’d toss a bucket of ice-cold water at him, immediately causing a rollout of steam to mistify him for a little while, though if it helped... she didn’t know. She couldn’t understand, after all, how could a human body even survive what his was surviving. Even she knew that a touch of energy anywhere within was virtually a death sentence--even means of human execution in some parts since it was so quick.

And yet, he thrived within it, within the rolling fires that burned even her, who stood some ten feet from him, steeped deep in the Cold Snap. It wasn’t painless though, that much she knew. From the onset, his face was that of a man suffering. His eyebrows danced and his lips trembled and his nostrils widened. Every so often, he’d bleed--most often from the nose, other time from his eyes, lips, ears, and sometimes skin on his body would simply rupture and spray out a handful of blood.

It was a horrifying sight to behold each and every time and it caused her heart to stop. Even if aware that, deep down, this to him was a catharsis as much as training--self-flagellation meant as punishment for his past, it wasn’t easy watching. Rather, it made it harder--since he believed he deserved the pain, the gain of strength from it notwithstanding. It pained her as well, and yet she couldn’t help as much as she wanted to. She was a stranger, a stray, a spec in the internal history that he was writing.

As long as it helped, she would muse. As long as it helped. It all suddenly stopped, his body relaxing as he opened his eyes. She didn’t run over in joy--this was the third time it happened. And, judging by the look in his eyes, he was unsuccessful still. He remained seated for a moment before lashing out, digging a ditch in the ground with his fist alone. Sweat blistered out, collected strands of his hair flaying about in motion.

“... are you hungry?” she asked, not knowing what else to say.

“... yeah,” he replied in a hoarse tone. “Water.”

“H-here,” she hurriedly handed him over a gourd, which he emptied in a single motion. “Uh, here’s some fresh bread and corn if you’d like.”

“Yeah,” he said, standing up and walking over to the large bucket, washing his torso and armpits quickly, ignoring the fact that she had to put on four layers of clothing just not to freeze to death while he walked around in knee-long pants and topless. He, then, sat leaning against the castle’s walls, chewing away at the bread and corn absentmindedly.

“How... how was it?” she asked carefully, sitting down next to him.

“I’m close,” he replied. “Should get it the next time.”

“... then... why’d you punch the ground?”

“Hm?” he glanced at her. “To expel excessive energy?”

“...”

“...”

“You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”

“... maybe,” though he tried to hide it, a smile inevitably crept on his lips. “In truth, I am a bit frustrated.”

“Why?” she quizzed.

“Because it’s easy.”

“Because it’s---what? Are you insane?” she exclaimed in horror. “That’s not easy! That’s outright impossible! What you’re doing... literally cannot be done by anyone else!”

“Not that,” he sighed. “There are no bottlenecks. No struggles. It’s just... smooth sailing. I don’t have to particularly work on anything, just mindlessly rush ahead and abuse the fact that I can’t die.”

“... you can die,” she said suddenly. “No, you do die.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think you know what you mean,” she added. “You’ve grown too numb to death, I’ve realized.”

“You’d too if you died thousands of times,” he said. “No, it’s probably in five digits by now. Ah, I ain’t bitching, though. I’m sure I’ll hit a wall eventually, I always do. I’m a talentless hack, after all.”

“Haaah, you’re many things, but that’s not one of them,” she said.

“By the way, did you make this bread?”

“No?”

“So that’s why it’s good,” he said.

“... and if I said yes? It would have been the worst bread you’ve ever tasted?”

“Shit, you’re catching up.”

“Haaah...” she’d been sighing a lot recently, she realized. But she’d also been laughing more. And feeling anxious. And nervous. And hopeful. Joyful. Excited. Mournful. She’d been feeling human emotions, at last.

The two didn’t speak anymore, not while he ate, when he finished, or when he returned to the session of torture. She’d known no other man who could do what he was doing--willingly walking into the kinds of pain that would have others screaming ‘till their lungs and throats collapsed and burned.

Once again, his body, scarred and patched and seemingly broken burned, his skin turning reddish. Veins pulsated, muscles bulged. Expressions danced like sorrowful swans. Lips quivered.

Time, like the blood in his veins, seemed to freeze--its passage intangible to the reality in front of her. To him, and in part to her, time didn’t matter. She’d lived out lifetimes in her dreams. Lived out thousands of stories in the voices that spoke to her. And he... he likely forgot that time was a thing. Days and months and years and decades to them were just words. Things divorced from their reality.

It was within the passage of the thing invisible, however, that the world abruptly changed; she felt it, immediately. The blood in his body went against the current completely, turning unwound. A muffled roar escaped his tightly-glued lips, his entire body shaking as though sitting on top of an earthquake’s epicenter. Blood began to flow out of his every orifice, it seemed, dyeing everything within and without him in scarlet red.

The horrifying sight that nearly had her puking aside, he stood up suddenly, his eyes opening. They were bloodshot red, like the devil’s. Not speaking a word, he reached toward the sword lying leaned against the wall and drew it out of its scabbard. The rugged gray of the steel shimmered briefly as it drew a grand arc toward the front.

Still not speaking, still red-eyed, still bleeding, seemingly holding the last breath--one that, if exhaled, would take with it the last of his life force--Sylas got into a fighting stance, his feet faintly parted, facing forward, the sword pulled back at his waist. And he stabbed.

It was a beyond quick stab, one she, at least, was unable to follow. Only its afterimage, the blur it left behind. However, before she could properly register even that, the second stab followed. And then the third. And the fourth. The only reason she could even tell the number is that they blew the wind toward her, over and over, despite the fact that she stood to the side, some fifteen feet away.

The wind was cold and carried with it the scent of death that the blade emitted; she knew that even if just grazed by it, most men would die on the spot.

Sylas continued stabbing all the way until after the ninth stroke; the stab caused his entire body to shift slightly and his lips to part, whereupon a mouthful of blood found its way out on the freshly-paved snow. He ignored it, however, his red eyes beyond focused at the tip of the blade. And then he stabbed again.

It was different. Even she realized it from the get-go. Not just different--no, it was not of this world. The blade ripped forward and shattered, the chunks of steel first flying off and, within the first feet of flight, incinerating. Yet, despite that, his motion continued. The blade was no longer corporeal--it was made up entirely of invisible energy. He pushed forward with every inch of his body, his bones creaking, cracking, and snapping like the branches of a tree. Yet he persevered.

Though she saw it all, she saw it because forces beyond allowed her to see it--all of it took less than tenth of a second to happen. Sylas finished the motion and stabbed out fully with a blade that was not there. The world fell silent and still for a moment before a thunderous roar blew her eardrums out and the violent, shattering wind blew her back into the wall. In soul-seething horror, she saw the trees bend and break under the mighty wind, with the direction of the stab... vanishing.

Where Sylas stabbed there used to be a thick, tall wall--now, there was a hole that ran on and on, deadly stillness all around it. She slid down against the wall, ignorant of the ache that was frying her mind. What superseded it was what she had just witnessed--a strike that defied the order of nature. A strike born not of a man.

Her eyes instinctively veered to the side, at the figure that procured it. Despite the fact that he stood in the melting, red snow armless, bleeding from the gaping holes at his shoulders, he seemed beyond tall, beyond amaranthine. He was breathing the last breath of his life, his eyes a mere visage of consciousness that was quickly fading, his body a broken, tangled mess of blood and gore... but her heart and soul were shaken and stirred with awe and terror she only ever felt when hearing the God’s voice. Before she lost her own consciousness to the pain she was yet to perceive, he managed to tilt his head to the side and lock his gaze with hers. He smiled, she realized. A smile full of pain, yet of hope. A smile of dread, yet wonder. Of fire that kills, yet births. Of hate, yet forgiveness. Anger, yet tranquility. And she smiled back. A smile full of hope. A smile full of wonder. A smile that births. That forgives. That tranquilizes. Within winds of time, bends of bones, and tears of blood... the two died.