A group of bystanders stood there dumbfounded as a girl wept silently and gazed down a cliff where a sea of storm clouds waved furiously.
''Laura... he'll be remembered as..." said Nike, with her hand on Laura's shoulder, trying to comfort her. That was before the deaf girl's expression darkened as she swatted Nike's hand away, interrupting her.
She remembered everything they had been through together and shook her head in disapproval. Then she signed for her sister, who had studied sign language when she was younger and could communicate with Laura. ''No. He'll come back alive no matter what.''
Nike's expression widened in shock after her sister's statement, Laura had never recognized anyone but her sister in the past.
''He's too special to die in a place like this.'' she continued. ''Jack, will come back and show me just how strong he has become.''
The leader of the adventurers laughed, then answered:
''If you recognize him this much, I'll believe you! He must be an incredible guy for you and him to have gotten so far!''
Laura nodded.
Meanwhile, in the middle of a rain of air blades falling at extreme speeds, two figures were interlocked. A young 17-year-old and a monster bird the size of a truck were connected by the human's two swords.
Currently, one of them had a huge advantage, and it wasn't the fallen lord. Since Jack was basically on its chest while the bird was falling with its back down, he was not taking the brunt of the cutting wind attacks from the clouds.
Still, he already felt as if his skin was slowly being peeled out. And it was definitely torn all over, bleeding over him, but it was not as bad as the fallen who was bellowing in pain and rage, so that gave Jack some more hope.
He removed both of his blades from the body of the beast and began giving the wind blades a little help.
Tearing down the skin and feathers from the bird was hard, as it's feathers seemed like iron, hard to break and with cutting edge, despite the shallow damage it screamed even louder, so loud, in fact, that Jack's ears began to bleed.
However, nothing could stop him, as the blood he was taking from the fallen would help him heal and recover some energy.
That is until the bird, with blood-stained eyes, did something that would severely injure itself, but it did not care.
And that was spinning around once, dealing heavy damage to both sides of its body due to the wind blades, while also subjecting Jack to the same and possibly even making him fall to his death. Thus the bird rotated its body using the same strategy as Jack to try and shield itself from the wind blades.
Knifes of wind tore through the hero, blinding him with pain, however, the moment that Jack realized what was going on, he stabbed the fallen lord's back with one sword, making sure he wouldn't just fall off and die, but dealing minimal damage.
As for his other sword, it was enveloped in water and some mist, spinning as fast as he could to deflect most of the blades of wind coming to his vital spots.
Jack couldn't understand how he was still controlling the mist even after his initial attack had ended, but he felt he could now see that the mist was just a different form of water, even if it was this weird mist from the sea of clouds. It was almost as if his good fortune had linked how things worked in his brain.
Still, the damage he was suffering was no walk in the park. He felt as if his entire skin was beeing peeled off slowly by an old rusty knife.
Blood soaked his entire body, whether it was his own or that of the fallen.
Even his eyes could see only crimson everywhere.
Soon, besides the soft fog around them a sight red smoke started to go up from Jack's body.
All of this occurred while both were free falling, the fallen bird desperately beating its wings against an onslaught of invisible wind blades.
Both of the sky ocean divers were already a bloody mess and Jack, already feeling way too weak while upside-down was feeling an ever growing rage.
The one that had hunted and killed most of Silva's kind was right in front of him, facing the same maddening pain as Jack, but in a larger area.
''If I'm gonna die I'll just fucking take you with me!'' He roared while raising his other blade low as the beast was falling with it's chest wide open and Jack hanging on it.
Next he unleashed a series of wild cuts disregarding defending from the incoming enviromental hazards.
His blade teared into the wild bird's weakspots dealing massive damage however when he did so, the cutting winds tore him apart with pain all over his back and head.
''Shit I ain't prepared to lose this much blood yet! what was I thinking?! Follow your instincts smooth brain!'' He berated himself and then threw his body sideways opening a huge gash on the monster's belly.
Meanwhile the monster tried it's luck in shaking Jack off.
But now both of the young hero's blades were deep into its flesh, it was hard to kill this insect, way harder than the bird ever imagined.
Its hesitation gave Jack enought time to get back on its back and be shielded by his enemie's body.
And without hesitation, he started cutting again. The boy felt that every drop vital essence that touched his skin came with great pain and immense power.
Thanks to that, his instincts, physique and mind got sharper and sharper.
Whereas his perseption of time slowing down before would only be a small peak based of instincts, now he understood the powers of his instincts.
Every step was callculated and aimed at dodging wind blades, wings and maintaining his balance.
Every blow was premeditated as even throught the thick plummage, Jack aimmed only for weakspots and dealing as severe a injury and pain as possible.
Just then, he activated his powers and while the blood left him, he knew it was a dud, but paid it no heed and rolled again.
A hit.
''What is this? Did I finally began getting lucky after so much suffering?''
If he knew what exactly it was he had hit, he wouldn't even believe how lucky he was.
Nevertheless, he would soon find out and get just as baffled.
The exact moment his blades hit the creature, suddenly a small rift in space and time appeared right in front of it.
From it, several red vials appeared.
''No fucking way, what is this broken luck now?!'' He yelled internally.
Good thing his reflexes were fast too, as in the same motion of stabbing, he let go of the blade and proceeded to grab and chug as many of the red vials as he could.
These were healing potions, crafted by alchemists using monster blood and medicinal herbs.
He wasn't able to drink all four since, behind the last one, the gravitational warping energy dissipated and the glass was ejected, throwing it upward since it didn't carry the same momentum as the two enemies.
Besides, it was still enough, as from many meters ahead, Jack spotted soft light breaking through the sea of storms.
"Finally, we're leaving this hellish place... and there's one more thing I can do until we get there," he reasoned.
Unfortunately for Jack, his opponent also had a plan, while he thought of light and the water of life, it thought of a cold, hard stone.
The combatants were only a few seconds from the exit when the bird suddenly crashed its own body against the gray pillar that was almost invisible in the sea of fog.
Jack was violently throw against the hard surface and heard his bones crack, if he wasn't a monster himself, that would have been enought to incapacitate and kill most humans.
In contrast to Jack, that in mere instants, recognized the fallen's plan and also put his own into play.
Further up, every single human in the settlement felt the entire ground shake violently as if something colided against the pillar and made it sway.
Luckily this tower was broken at the top where the settlement resided and thus had less weight to be swayed.
The hero floated in midair, separated from the beast for a few seconds.
In response, it started to try and beat its wings faster to get away from the human.
"Oh, no way will I let you get away from me!'' He yelled at the same time that he focused on his surroundings.
Closing his eyes, Jack felt every single drop of rain but still went further, honing his concentration and survival instinct even further.
Feeling the cold, deadly fog and its wind blades, almost like in the cave's lake, his connection to nature peaked.
Again, water swirled like a hurricane that ended on his legs while a deep fog coalesced on the edge of his blade.
As the water vibrations from the bird below traveled through the fog, everything slowed down.
And reading them, Jack could easily find the monster, even in the deep fog.
He used all the energy and blood he could muster to gather as much water as possible, the fluctuations of his power sent waves into the sea of clouds.
In due course, he let gravity pull him down and used the hurricane around his legs to propel himself forward with blades in hand.
Meanwhile, the bird was starting to think of that human as something scary. It wondered with its superior intelligence if all this was worth it.
At least until it felt the energy fluctuations from above and turned to look, only to see the weak monkey emerge from the mist.
However, its image was entirely different, he had a horn sticking out of the right side of his head, his left eye was covered in symbols, its pupil split vertically like a predator, and, like a god descending from the heavens, small hurricanes surrounded him.
''Race to the bottom, bitch?!'' he yelled, prior to slicing one of the bird's wings off.
Next, he crashed straight into the monster once again, who was now crippled and falling with Jack at an accelerating pace.
In mere seconds, light engulfed both of them as they plummeted out of the deadly sea of storms.
As many pillars grew closer and then farther away as quickly as they came, Jack could tell how fast they were going.
The fallen lord tried flapping its remaining wind, but it only managed to change its route a bit.
The two were headed straight towards another pillar.
Just as they were about to collide on the side of the monolithic stone structure, the bird tilted its back and tried shredding Jack against the wall with its functional wing bellow.
He was almost caught in another one of the fallen's tricks, but managed to jump to the side where the stubble of the other wing was bleeding profusely.
The ''hero'' took the opportunity to bathe in the monster's blood from head to toe. The red smoke coming out of his body became even more intense, mixing with the mist and water still spinning around him.
He began cutting and slashing at the gapping stump with both water and fog coated blades, but following that, Jack rolled his powers twice and got nothing in either.
''Shit, did I jinx myself?'' He wondered while continuing his onslaught against the beast, even if it was the only thing keeping him from falling to his death.
"Once again, it doesn't matter!"He hit, but immediately realized it wasn't a good idea to stab the monster with it, but he didn't have a choice because the wall had just ended and only he and the monster were within reach.
When he hit it with the next blow, a chain materialized out of nowhere and bound him and the bird.
''Now how am I going to kill it and survive hell? He'll just drag me down!'' He thought, he needed something good, and fast.
But the fallen was not stupid, years close to that portal had actually rendered it quite smart. Therefore, when it noticed the chain around it and Jack, the bird yanked it.
''Oh no!'' the hero yelled as he was thrown off and was now dangling above the abyss again.
He still had enough blood in him to withstand the bird's deliberate bashing of him against the passing pillars.
He gasped wildly after getting the air knocked out of him.
''Again...'' He said in coughs, while beeing dragged by the chain.
He could still see the golden thread of fate still leading him to whatever his destination was.
It got brighter and brighter, just like Jack's disposition after losing some more of his blood to his swordsmanship skill.
After all, he felt he had great success!
But soon he was face-to-face with another tower.
''I can't get hit by another of them or things will go south.''
Therefore, Jack grabbed on to the chain and swung his feet up while focusing the whirlpool of water around his legs.
Good thing he did, or else he might've just broken both of his legs the moment he made contact with the hard gray surface.
Which he didn't, as his skill activated its unknown passive movement for the first time in a while, creating a thin distance if water and air between him and the pillar. That, in turn allowed him to run vertically across the pillar.
With one swift motion, water flowed from his legs and into the rock, helping him jump up and preventing any damage.
He ascended fast, and even before they could move away from the pillar, Jack was at the same height as the deadly bird lord again. Thus he propelled himself forward and lunged at the the bird again,landing squarely on its back.
It clawed and pierced with its beak to keep the human away, but it was of no use, for he blocked or parried almost every blow with a much greater ease than at the beginning of the combat. Besides that, it seemed like the human in front of the creature felt no pain and had no tiredness.
This time Jack opted to actually kick the creature in the face, as he didn't want to spend his precious skill so early as
something else slowly crept into the view of both of the fallers.
It was a layer of thick darkness where the light reflected by the moons could not reach due to the deapth.