333. Blood, 6

(Licht)

My long sword strikes the leg of the beast flying right past me.

It growls, but instead of trying to turn around when I'm in its back, it takes a leap further and flees into the storm.

I stand there in the eye of the storm, alone and a little surprised. I know full well given the wrath it kept spewing with every word that it's not going to escape. It's looking for another opportunity to strike me down and rip me.

A body larger than a bull, able to jump over metres in seconds. This one beast is far beyond what I've met so far.

I step toward the middle of this wasteland, looking around for where it will reappear for a split second before crushing me down where I am.

Most beings-like-her either mimic a body, making mostly a vaporous silhouette, or recycle a dead body found nearby.

This one beast, it's the third category.

It's not random flesh recomposed. It's designed. It created its own body as it saw fit, aiming for such weight and strength, along with this predatory aspect.

It exists and was made for its purpose... To kill humans, and to fight things such as me possibly.

A being-like-her straight believing in themselves as gods, with all its might and passion.

Rose or Rose Blume as it called her, created her Nemesis by attacking an ogre.

The first Licht might have created unknowingly this one there, by killing our god.

Because now a mad priest has risen to stand in the name of gods...

I'm growing more scared. I really am.

I'm afraid of how much of its insane rant could be true.

How much of this will be real?

I see an unusual movement behind the living curtain of the storm. I'm on guard.

I'm fairly confident still... Come at me Priest.

A rock, a boulder almost, pierces the curtain and is flying at me. Before I realise what I'm doing, my sword is stuck inside and only halfway through. I'm rolling over, thrown away on the ground from the weight of the impact.

No way...

My shoulder that was hurt by the rock hurts a lot and is bleeding. I don't think it's broken, but I flew. That boulder came like a cannon ball.

I stand up and reach the handle of my sword, but I don't have the natural strength to pull it out.

I then dodge the demon rushing over to finish me off. I saw it coming.

The giant and very muscular animal stands over the projectile it threw, glaring at me. It's able to jump with a strength that is frightening for the size and weight of its body.

Its hands pick up my sword and removes it from the broken rock with ease.

The blade is warped and broken between its hands, beyond repairs.

I'm scratching my chest. I already got a hand in my pouch containing the stone of light.

I don't really have a choice.

Should I taunt it before it tries to strike me again? It's growling like a cat or dog, I think.

Because even though another being-like-her warned us of that risk of war of species, I still doubt it's anything but this one's personal and lonely crusade.

I don't see beings-like-her getting united behind a cause. I've never seen such a human impulse of unity in them.

Still...

Just before it jumps right at me, I'm gluing the artefact against my chest.

The light floods my heart behind like a syringe, and flushes my blood with something else. I'm no more.

My feet get a little deeper in the ground, ploughing lines in the earth as I'm pushed back by the insane weight I'm withholding. My body as a human would be pulp on the ground under its forearms right now. But I'm holding its weight and mine.

P - Daiûa..

That means witch in this mouth. I like that insult.

L - And you're just a lost priest to me.

My hands begin to glow. The beast notices and steps back immediately, as if I had pulled a gun on it.

I now am armed again indeed.

The hair on its arching back is changing. Its body is changing, tensing like steel I can tell.

The ridiculous teeth are then receding inside the jaws.

Some muscles are moving around under its leather. It's like cables are being adjusted and rearranged under the skin of its arms and shoulders. It's adapting....

This time I'm the one jumping ahead in a swift opportune moment.

I surprise it, but not enough. It escapes the touch of my glowing hands.

I pick up my sword it has abandoned instead.

I push the burning light from my hands into heat onto it. The blade melts, covered in light. I forge it back into reasonable shape in a whip movement. The glow doesn't leave the blade now.

The priest keeps growling at me, probably annoyed by my witchcraft. My own fear has diminished on the other side.

I tipped the scale with this light running through my veins, and it knows it as well.

We're facing each other in a moment of silence again. I'll taunt him to push for a mistake.

L - Come Priest. I'll show you how gods die. Because you're less than humans.

The rocks below its hands are fissured under the pressure. I pissed him off for sure, but not enough to turn him mad and reckless.

It throws rocks at me with such force, it's like bullets and cannon balls ripping my flesh and clothes when they scratch me.

I've begun running at it after the main dodge, so I got closer despite the pain invading my body.

I appear dangerously close to him suddenly. It tries to sway me with his arm by reflex. Big mistake.

Its arm is sliced all along its length by my now poisonous and fiery blade.

He threw the strength to make most of the wound happen.

Its arm begins to burn entirely. I'm about to move for the chest when a strong kick gets me and sends me flying away. I still weight less than eighty kilograms, or barely with the sword.

Its leg itself weighs more than me.

I land abruptly beyond the curtain of the raging storm.

I'm scorched everywhere and almost naked now that my clothes have been shredded all over by the fight.

I stand up, my sight wobbly for a moment.

I cough hardly., pain surging in my tummy, like an aftershock. I breath painfully.

As I raise my eyes into the storm, I see lightning and the demonic silhouette coming at me from above.

I turn, twirl around, and throw my sword like a javelin upward in a roar.

I brace myself for the impact.

The huge body falls right next to me.

It's burning, flames spreading along its fur and beginning to boil its leather.

My sword is stuck in its chest, the glow vanishing since I'm not feeding it any more.

The rain of this storm extinguishes the flames rapidly.

It's not moving. Did I pierce its heart?

I taste blood more than saliva in my mouth.

I carefully go to recover my sword. Blood deep red and purple flows from the wound as I pull it from this mountain of flesh hard as rock.

It looks dead. But I know better.

L - We created the gods, stupid. You're nothing more but another branch of the spreading tree of living creatures...

I expected the feint and thought I was prepared.

The beast suddenly jumped on me with more strength than I could or would have expected.

Its jaws crush my right arm and the sword I held at the same time.

I scream. My fire rushes into my wounded flesh, now bursting flames inside that head.

We both scream in pain for what feels like minutes. I've thrown enough heat to melt iron again at the end of my arm... The head is shrouded with smokes and a smell of charred meat between flames.

The ruined head recedes, slipping away from me slowly. The shreds of my liquefied arm fall with a few drops of molten iron. They vaporise some water as they rapidly cool down.

Despite having no face nor mouth to show anymore, the beast still moves. Its head is mostly gone and the ruins of its lower jaw or neck still smoke. Its burnt arm from before falls in pieces as well.

It can't hear, see nor talk anymore. But apparently, it still lives on...

The stumbling Priest steps back gradually, then turns around, and runs away inside the storm with its three remaining limbs. It escaped...

I admire it, even though its vitality also worries me...

Me I'm just coughing blood.

My body tries to prevent my death with all its strength and borrowed power.

Using the power of Licht will always be a gamble...

But I have no other choice at this point but to push it further.

Either I'm bleeding to death here with a necrotizing stump for an arm, wounds I have little chance to survive normally, or I finish absorbing this power and reduce my lifespan to a few years at best, but I can heal this.

I'll try to make the best balance between the two again...

I slowly make my way to the peaceful eye of the storm again.

I'm collapsing there. I'm trying to save myself with what powers lingers, cautiously.

I don't believe there will be a real war as we humans understand it and this Priest thinks of.

A few skirmish between crazed individuals, no matter how zealous their beliefs, is not a war.

It's a childish understanding of what war really is... It's really just like them.

The strength of his faith and self-righteousness is a problem.

If the threat of a war is exaggerated, the one however of a new enemy daiûa rising against us, it's clearly real.

The beings believing they are gods may have childish understandings of the reality of things, but they are resilient, dangerous, and obsessive. A little like Rose.

I'm chuckling a little through my pain at that thought.

Unfortunately, it's true we now have at least one new enemy. A radical priest.

A demon believing in himself as the legate of god.

~