I saw the reflection of myself, for a split second. Even with my heightened senses, I barely saw that attack, the sound of a hissing spear flew past my eye reflecting my terrified expression. My arms trembled as my strength couldn't hold back the spear any longer. The force of it travelling through my bones into my spine gave a numbing effect. If I had been one heartbeat slower, it would have pierced my cranium, killing me instantly.
After parrying off his spear, it returned to his hand with some type of power. He stood there silently staring at me. I took a step back and wondered if there was a way out of this predicament. A part of me, that part buried deep beneath the bravado wanted to run. The cowardice of mine came out like prey trying to escape.
"How about we talk this out? What do you want from me?"
He continued standing still there, not saying anything. He inverted his spear upside down and plunged it into the sand.
"I have for thousands of years maintained the world's balance through fear. Without me, the world would have plunged into absolute chaos. I made people fear death, fear pain. I kept the other Aeons in check but the moment I sensed your awakening. I knew you would upset the world's balance.
With the cowardice option gone, my mind started racing again, my heart started beating and my instincts were telling me that I was in danger. I had come to a no-return zone and just had to break through the wall.
"So this is not negotionable?"
A bead of sweat ran down my temple as I remembered the images of him piercing my head. How he is gonna do it to Aylin and me if we don't get out of here?
I was almost paralyzed by the fear, but the Aeon of Freedom inside me told me to move, the instincts of freedom overrode human nature.
My legs twitched as I readied myself, before I dashed away from him, turning my back.
He grabbed his spear again and started moving towards me. I leapt towards Aylin and grabbed her by her waist and ran in the opposite direction at full speed. The black mist emitted by the black flower made a dark trail behind me. I zoomed through the desert, ignoring all the desert sand biting into my skin like shards of
The wind roared in my ear, drowning out sound, but even so, I felt the vibrations coming from Aylin, she was desperately trying to communicate something. I looked down at her mouth and finally heard it.
"BEHIND."
Aylin's eyes shuttered wide open as she made eye contact with him. She gave a blood-curdling scream that ripped through the air. Before I even noticed that the monster was near, I felt a sharp pain a cold metallic blade slide across my skin. The pain was nullified mostly by the flower, and there was only one thing in mind, like any other prey being hunted by a predator, they do not think of pain while running, they sacrifice everything even their pain and suffering just to get away.
Still running through the desert, my feet burning up by the friction, I grit my teeth and push myself even further beyond, I felt it coming, the blade slicing through the wind and at the last second, I redirected my body, and barely escaped death.
It slightly tore off a piece of my shoulder, looking down at the wound I saw blood splattering onto Aylin's face as she screamed. A terrified expression grew on her face, her face became contorted as she wailed uncontrollably, covering her face with her hands.
"This can't be happening, this can't be happening."
With wide-open eyes that seemed void of life, she stared at me. Her trauma surged through my body, reacting with my freedom. Triggering memories inside, this in turn amplified the Aeon of Freedom's abilities even further.
Running even faster than I could, I managed to lose sight of him for a moment. As I thought I had gotten away something appeared in the shadows and kicked my ribs. I got sent flying into the sand, dust started to cover up my body. As I felt a sting throughout my body. Aylin was lying on the ground panicking with blood on her face, trying to find where I was. She finally adverted her eyes towards me. The Aeon of Fear dashed up to me.
"Are you afraid of me?"
My eyes flickered, and my pupils dilated as I remembered those horrific scenes, playing over and over in my mind.
The flower of Freedom pulsed and made a small black bubble around my body. The Aeon of Fear thrust his spear into it, and everything went black. There was a giant crater in the sand, as the wind struggled to blow sand into it, to refill the space. I lay there in the middle, trying to find him.
"Where did he go?"
Aylin shouted over a distance:
"ABOVE YOU!!!"
Without even looking up, I readied my weapon in my left hand and fired. He plunged with his spear and cleaved all my bullets in half, which exploded in the air.
I rolled to the side as he plunged into the ground, exploding the surroundings. He started to spin his spear in his hands and threw it as a javelin towards me.
"I wish for a location switch."
The next moment, I was in a different place, I was standing in the spot that Fear was standing… I peeked behind me, Aeon of Fear had been impaled by his spear.
I heard Aylin panting in the disappearing, sitting on the ground, with blood covering her face, I could make out a glimpse of pink on her cheek.
"AYLIN RUN!!!"
Blood dripped from his shoulder as he removed the broken pieces of armour from his shoulder.
I panicked as I saw Fear averting his gaze towards Aylin, now realizing that she was also a threat. Fuck fuck fuck! Without Aylin, I can't get back in time to save Emovi! Without her… without Aylin, I can't do anything.
"Petty tricks won't save you."
I had to get there before he killed her. I grabbed my weapon to my left and shot at him but he just grabbed the bullets mid-air with his hands before throwing them away before they exploded.
A sense of hopelessness grew inside me as everything I did seemed futile, and there was no way of saving anyone. I started to run towards Aylin trying desperately to reach her.
He pulled the spear out of his body, and blood rushed out of his shoulder, but he remained unphased. He turned towards Aylin and disappeared from my sight.
"AYLINNNN!"
I switched my weapon into my right hand, and with my black flower pulsating even more, I managed to intercept the spear before it could have severed her neck.
"Why are you protecting another Aeon?" He asked.
I remained unbothered by his question and started to swing my sword, all my hits getting blocked.
After parrying my sword strikes, he kicked me up into the air, before slamming me down into the ground. Coughing up blood as I landed with a thud, he was done though, he hurled the spear at me again.
"I wish for a location switch."
Again Fear and I had switched places and he got impaled again, this time in his leg. It didn't seem to phase him, not even showing a hint of pain. His eyes lit up in rage as he had been injured by his attack twice and it was because of a little girl. His eye turned towards Aylin, and he furiously stomped towards her, before asking her.
"Are you afraid of death?"
Aylin shrieked again and I rushed up towards Fear just for my blade to be stopped by one finger.
"What-"
A spear went through my chest and sent me flying away. Aylin turned her head in silence watching my body get mutilated by the wind, before crashing into the sand. Tears flowed down her eyes and she started weeping.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorreyy," she started crying her eyes out in front of Fear.
Suddenly it went quiet, the crying turned into grunts as Fear picked Aylin up by her throat. Aylin looked fear in the eyes before looking away, and smiling.
Fear became perplexed by her smile, wondering if she had accepted death. But before he could get an answer out of her, I appeared behind Fear with the spear intact in my chest. I sliced him multiple times before I stopped, he remained still, before kicking me away, while still holding Aylin.
I realized it was truly a hopeless scenario, and I grew despondent. My heart broke, as I knew my freedom would be taken away from him. Should I let the Aeon of Freedom out? Do I have any choice? The cuts I made on his back, just tore up his clothes, it inflicted no damage on his skin.
I had no other choice. I was going to let out the Aeon of Freedom's true form, and let him run a rampage, if it meant saving Aylin, and the others, there was no other way. The flower on my cheek ticked.
Fear turned his back and finally faced me, dropping Aylin down.
"Incarnation of Freedom, come forth!"
I heard an unfamiliar sound amongst the sound of the wind. It was a metal scraping sound, it grew louder and louder until I saw something in the distance. It had a silver glow, leaving a shiny grey trail.
As the flower continued to tick, I felt a hand pressed against my cheek.
"Freeze."
The flower on my cheek started to halt and my cheek turned white, covered in some hard silvery metal. A man in a white rope, silver accessories and long silver hair similar to Sekito's appeared in front of me.
"Silver saint."
A disgusted look grew on Fear's face, as he snorted at the man.
"It is gonna be fine now liberationist."
The man in the glow was so quick, that I couldn't even view his face, I couldn't even make out small details about him. I was lying there in a daze wondering who this "Silver Saint" was. But before I could get my answer, he had already vanished.
What was that? In confusion I looked down in disarray, seeing a silver pin in my chest. It got absorbed into my heart and I felt something emanate throughout my whole body. It felt, cold, my body felt as if I was stuck inside a pool of ice. But my muscles felt smooth and flexible as if they hadn't even been damaged. Then a boom happened inside my brain, it felt like I had opened another world of sensory and my entire body emitted a silverine aura. My hands were surrounded by this mysterious blue mist that made me feel unstoppable.
I had no clue what just happened but I'm going to use this energy to make sure I send him away.
"As if I would let you."
I felt as Fear grabbed my head and tossed me up into the air. My body didn't feel warm, even with all the air resistance, normally if a human were to go this fast, their body would heat up due to friction, but I didn't feel anything, this silverine aura, protected my body. I looked down seeing that I was getting further and further away from the earth. I looked around and saw clouds and geese, I tried slowing down my speed but by the time I managed to stop, I was already in the stratosphere. Gravity was getting weak.
I felt like power was coursing through my veins, it was something different from my Aeon of Freedom. The Aeon of Freedom enhanced my body and gave me the ability to create this ooze in exchange for freedom, but this power feels FREE!
As I was enjoying the moment with my new power, Fear appeared behind me.
"How did you get here so fas…-" I took a deep breath, realizing there was almost no air here, but the silverine aura helped me to breathe.
The hopelessness I felt earlier had vanished. Rubbing my cheek I realized that my flower had been frozen solid with silver.
The feeling of having no gravity made me feel weird, like some butterflies in my stomach. Fear propelled towards me, but then I realized that the aura made me able to walk on nothing. Moving around as normally as I was on Earth with no gravitational changes.
Fear raised an eyebrow and looked intrigued at me.
"Who knew the Silver Saint could grant such an ability."
He raised his weapon towards me and appeared behind me again, after some thought, I made up a hypothesis on why he can appear suddenly, and came to the conclusion that he was using the shadows to move around in. He appeared in my shadows but I blocked with my hand, and instead of my hand being sliced in half, it shockingly withstood the hit. Not only could I keep up with him, I could match him in strength! He kept hitting me, but I kept blocking with my hand, swatting away his spear at speeds faster than I could ever think was able to do.
He was taken aback, by the sudden revelation, that his attacks did no damage towards me. With a window of to counter, I hit him in the chest with my palm and the armor he was wearing started to freeze.
Shockingly he didn't react much, his expression grew cold as he adjusted his form.
Where was his spear? Why wasn't he holding it? As I thought of those words, something came out of my stomach, the spear. I coughed up blood again, before grabbing it, the spear dematerialized and appeared in Fear's hand.
Before I could think of anything else, my body instinctively tried to grab it, but as it touched my hand, it disappeared and reappeared in his other hand, this time it went into my neck, and blood spurted out of the wound, as it dug into my skin.
Fuuuuckkkk! Pushing it back with all the strength I had, his spear started to freeze but as the silver was about to reach his hand. Time fractured as I felt the cold embrace of the blade, I could see my body move without me, the world spun around and tilted.
The Aeon of Fear descended back into the desert where Aylin was sitting. Her eyes filled with worry, but as she saw only Fear in front of her she accepted dying. There was no point in her life anymore without me. She let tears stream down her face and she closed her eyes and accepted to get the same fate as me.
As Fear was about to finish off Aylin, he sensed something behind him. he quickly turned around, my headless body, moving on its own, it was floating in the middle of the sky, before sending a slash of ooze covered in silver aura.
My body staggered, headless but driven by a strange, autonomous will. It moved with purpose, groping through the sky like a marionette guided by unseen strings. It was like something else inside my body was controlling it for me, making my heartbeat even without my head. Blood didn't shoot out of the veins and arteries at my neck, it was like the bleeding had completely stopped flowing towards my neck.
I felt the air entering my open windpipe, being a cold stinging feeling, my head was slowly descending, I felt it crash through the air nearing me.
There wasn't enough time for him to block it, and both his arms were frozen solid, he struggled to break free, trying to move around while having his arms frozen.
He stared into the sky expressionless.
My bloodied fingers found the severed head, blood still spurting from the base. The veins crawled like worms, latching back onto the skin, fusing bone and sinew together. A sickening crunch echoed through my skull as my spine snapped back into place. As I put pressure on my head I felt the bones grinding against each other as ligaments started to regrow around them.
"Fyu twrelly thinfk fyu…" I coughed up more blood before being able to finish my sentence.
With one final twist, my head was fully reattached, Aylin watching in awe while holding her swollen red throat. Her eyes shined as she saw me in such a form.
She smiled before thanking someone, that I had survived. She started crying again, after realizing she won't be alone.
Combining both the Aeon of Freedom with silverine aura, I will completely end this in one move. No matter what, I will come out of this alive, with Aylin.
Fear shattered the silver on his arms before readying himself.
I dove straight at him, pulling out my weapon into my right hand. I filled the blade itself with all the silverine aura I had and the edge of the blade with every once of Aeonic power I had. This was my last resort and Fear readied himself, before making the spear grow and glow. He hurled it towards me, and with each passing millisecond, it doubled in size and doubled in velocity. There was no avoiding it, I didn't bother dodging, It cut through the entire left side of my body, and the flower nullified the pain. With eyes filled with determination, I ignored the fact that I was about to die. The pressure dropped inside my body and I lost my wind, not being able to breathe, my heart stopped beating. Somehow, my body didn't fall apart just yet and I managed to get within striking distance of him.
As he knew something bad was coming, he desperately tried to activate something.
"Aeon Accl…-"
"AEON HUNTING SLASH!"
The massively boosted sword sent two massive black and blue slashes of everything my flower had to offer. I gritted my teeth until they started to crack. The muscle fibres in my arms had been completely shredded. My very bones in my body broke but even so, with eyes of determination, I had overcome the fear of Death. The slashes intertwined and formed a giant X that clashed against the back armor of Fear. It sent him through the desert faster than I could see. In a split second, he was thousands of kilometres away.
I fell down onto my knees and then to the ground with blood pouring out of my eyes and ears.
Blood exited out of my entire body before I collapsed onto the ground with all my organs finally failing. Aylin came up to me and held my head up.
"Vivshi stay with me! Please don't die. With this wish, I wish for complete recovery."
Aylin fell down in exhaustion after she expended all her aeonic powers, and we both lay there, unconscious in the desert.
*In Mondlicht*
The people of Mondlict that day didn't hear anything, and the guards stationed at the walls didn't see anything. But the Aeon of Fear was lying slumped over on the walls, with two giant slashes carved into the walls that had been enchanted with physical resistance loxes. The guards on duty saw the crater in the wall. But by the time reinforcements came, the man who was on the wall like a mosquito stuck to a wall after being smooshed had simply vanished. The carvings on the wall were classified as a natural disaster by the government of Fukyuvi.
*Inside Mondlicht's most infamous bar*
A man with dilapidated armour, lox-protected cloth that had been completely shredded and a giant X mark on his back, walked up towards the barkeep and asked for a bottle of whiskey.
The barkeep had short green hair and a smile that seemed to keep the atmosphere calm. He rubbed a shot glass with a piece of cloth as he asked the man who just walked in.
"What happened now Tekuna?"
"I had an encounter with the embodiment of Freedom, no… should I say death itself?"
The barkeep let out a smile and slid the bottle of whiskey to Tekuna.
"Looks like the little brat outshined you this time."
Tekuna gave a slight frown. "He has grown."
He threw the armour down from his body and revealed that it had left a mark on his back. The mark he got when he switched places had already regenerated but this slash on his back, couldn't regenerate.
The barkeep looked at him.
"Well looks like a new era has begun… we are going to be hunted."
Tekuna's expression changed, the barkeep looked at him with a shocked expression,
"Are you smirking?"
"Hunted? No, next time… he will perish by my hands."