'Something's not right' a frown formed over the face of sleeping Sarra, air coming out of her lungs becoming heavy by each breath she was taking in. After a few seconds of this ordead, the malaise increased such that even drawing a single breath had become a dogged task, gradually stiffening her body - making it nearly impossible to sleep peacefully any longer.
With the feeling of a ton of weight on her chest, Sarra got up with a start. Her face quickly turned pale as she felt bile rising up her throat. She buckered down on her knees and emptied her stomach on the ground nearby. Her already empty gut turned inside out, throwing everything out in a sudden refusal, making her feel more sick than she ever was in her life.
Sarra felt ill, sickness akin to blight from the deepest hell rotting through her body and mind alike, making her unable to make head or tails of her dramatic deterioration of her state
"What is this?" Sarra whispered particularly to no one as she sprawled back on the ground in weakness, her eyes looking up to the same unchanging twilight of the sky of this foreign land as she recalled what she had gone through in the last few hours.
"Finally awake? Now tell me what happened and how did you end up in such a condition?"
Sarra who was feeling too damn disoriented by her own condition was spooked by the sudden voice in her head. Her body jerked up almost instinctively reacting to the shock, but the frailty prevailing in her body minimized her reaction only to the standard of sudden 'Oh'. After this passing of second, she slowly made herself look down with some effort and found a red ominous glowing script on her arm that appeared to be fully functional now.
"Aun...t Mercy?"
"Of course, who else could be? Now tell me everything from the start that happened while I was away. Don't miss anything because the condition your body is in… "
She stopped midway not completing her sentence but Sarra didn't bother to even think about it. In her present condition, even taking a breath in was becoming stringent with every exhalation on her part.
While fighting against her nausea, Sarra somehow managed to recount what happened till now from the start of the Envy 's sudden ambush to the freak of the thing's appearance in full context. She kept it short…very short, but also made this recollection extremely blunt, not caring to sugarcoat any of her fears and real thoughts at any moment of the story, likely a side effect of her sickness.
There was a small pause from the other end, which came to Sarra with a gracious grace of just lying there on the ground in silence, not thinking anything. Honestly at this moment, all she wanted was to feel better and any thinking on her part was doing nothing good to her or her condition.
Therefore when out of nowhere Sarra felt her spinning mind slowly beginning to get under her control, she first thought it was the result of taking it easy. She seemed surprised but didn't bother much to think about it as her condition slowly improved.
It looked slow to her but in reality within fifteen minutes she by herself wobbled back to sitting position on the ground while sighing in relief at sudden improvement.
"Now are you feeling good?"
"I think so. " whispered Sara as she massaged her head, gradually beginning to gather her wits back. Her mind was slowly getting better along with her body as she felt her health improving with each passing second.
"Okay now as you are feeling good, it is time to accomplish the task for what you have come here. You shouldn't stay there any longer than necessary, as my means are severely limited by the stretch of distance between us. Envy's betrayal was unexpected but honestly I shouldn't have counted on her from the beginning.
But again Envy was a kind of a back up plan… but now I guess you alone will suffice for that, especially with me with you. But before beginning I want to confirm something with you?
Is Envy… she really dead? "
Sarra, who was still not fully in control of her emotions, felt confused about the absurdity of this question. She nearly lashed out in her reply without even thinking a bit about it,
"Ofcourse, I saw her dying with my very own eyes. The summon killed it with just one glance, didn't I tell you before? I saw with my own eyes her heart bursting from inside it was horrifying. Wait, are you implying that you don't believe me?"
"No, no it's not like that. Okay, You shouldn't think about this anymore, just focus on getting better now quickly.
As for my question I simply meant that if she is dead then I need not do anything to punish her as you have already done it for me. It was kind of a waste for her to die so easily but I guess death for betrayal is the least apt sentence."
Sarra, frowned hard, holding back her tongue at the last moment from rebutting back. Her words struck her as very odd, something about it felt horrifying but right now she was unable to put her finger on it.
Slowly and steadily, as her condition improved she found herself back to the working condition.
Only to come at a sudden realization of what had happened just now. If not for Sarra's previous encounter, that was oddly quite similar in respective, that is, almost miraculous healing of her mutilated arm, she might have neglected her sudden improvement in health just now as a mere coincidence.
But right now it was beginning to dawn upon her that something was definitely not right. One time she could attribute it to some one of kind miracle drug but again and that too at this place ....One moment she was puking her guts out but next moment, she is as fine as a horse. How the hell did she get better so fast again?
Mercy unaware of the direction in which thoughts of Sarra was heading into, calmly continued giving her direction from the distance,
"Don't waste any more time and Stand up. You are already close to the location. I can feel from you, an enormous presence distinct to the Shadow weavers in some distance. Though I very much wanted it to be not like this but looks like you have to reach there to confirm my worst doubts. "
"Wait hold on" Sarra who had finally got her head straight in a place, and interrupted immediately,
"First you need to tell me about Envy? Why did she attack me? And second, what did you mean by Back up plan? Is there a back up plan?
And before all that, I want to know have you done something to me without my knowledge? How am I healing so fast?
From my meager knowledge about black magic, even we witches are not that masterful in this field. Such miraculous healing, and I have received it not once, but even twice in just two days. It sure is too good to be true, right?"
"Sigh!" There was a hint of annoyance leaking out from that sigh as the old woman answered her, "Sarra dear, we.. Adele doesn't have enough time for this. His body and soul is deteriorating by each passing second.
And you…the longer you dwandle here like this in meaningless conversations, the more likely that something will go wrong. You were incredibly lucky for that 'Hand' like creature's sudden retreat but luck will not have your back every time, trust me.
Please.. can we deal with this later, I will answer your questions, I assure you."
Sarra felt the genuine concern in her voice and it was surely legitimate, but she wasn't to be dismissed by such a simple excuse. She herself wasn't aware but her guts have increased several fold after surviving the ambush and that terrifying scene of Dream Realm. But maybe it was also the effect of apparent distance between two that made it incredibly easy to question her, without looking into her eyes.
Sarra dusted off her hands quickly and started her trek in the same direction as before but her mind was not focused on her surroundings anymore. Rather she was bent on pressing the Old witch for the real answers, not just lip service.
"Aunt, look I understand your worry. Therefore I will start to move right away. But I have already walked for two hours with nothing in sight, clearly we are still some distance away from reaching it.
So I hope you can answer my questions in the meantime, please?."
"Okay, I guess you are right to demand answers. Now thinking back, I should have told you everything from the start. It would have been a more efficient strategy. It was kind of my mistake to trust a venomous snake over the sister of the same coven as me."
Sarra felt her ears standing up as she asked in confusion, "What do you mean?"
"Sarra, your sudden sickness… right now was actually linked with it. You see, Envy was an ex-assassin whom I have chosen for her past exploits. For her experience in completing stringent tasks such as this, I had decided to bail her out but she wasn't just an ordinary Assassin.
Envy's origin is far more convoluted. She… was a poison damsel trained by an ancient organization, born and raised with deadliest venoms known to humans, in an aim to make her a living venomous human.
They succeeded in a way. As of right now she is the embodiment of living poison, very much like a dangerous viper whose every body part is laced with poison built especially to kill humans. Her each breath, saliva or blood is enough to kill a normal adult human several times over."
...
…..
…..
"What the f*ck….. are you talking about? How is this possible….. I mean…Dammit, this means I am poisoned, she scratched me on the shoulder. Why didn't you tell me before? "
By the end of the statement Sarra who was practically struck in the head by this sudden revelation was screaming in panic. She even stopped to check her shoulder scratch which was now scabbed over, but it did little to reduce her worry. She felt immensely angry yet anguished with such absurd yet almost blindingly fatal truth that this old witch had conveniently refrained from mentioning it to her before.
Sarra was not too unfamiliar with the concept of Poison damsels, as she had read about them in the ancient history recorded by the coven. They were prominent in times of very old royal families, who often used such shady tricks to assassinate their brothers and sisters but… this history was so fringe..so descript. It was such an archaic concept that it never occurred to her to encounter one by herself.
Sarra shivered as she quickly recalled their very first meeting where Envy had told her to refrain from touching her. She said that not because of her arrogance, there was a real f*king reason for her to say that. Now completely panicking her footsteps became faster, as she could not make herself digest this truth so easily. If she knew… If she, dammit.
"You.. You..." First Envy wanted to scream at her but suddenly realizing with whom she was talking to, she with an enormous effort softened her voice and changed her words,
"... Aunt, why? I mean it is clear that I am poisoned. I need to detox myself quickly, is there any summon for it or black magic spell for it? Any trade off?"
"Sigh, it's not as simple as you think. Spell is possible…but first you need her corpse for it. And with the speed you are walking with, I think you should be near her corpse, can you see it?"
Sarra woke up from her dazed state with her words as she stopped quickly. She looked around thinking that Mercy was right. Sarra was almost at the distance where she had seen Envy falling down in a pool of her blood but as she looked around her, her blood froze in horror. Her lips turned blue as they trembled slightly as she informed the Witch in her head,
"Sh-She.. Her body is not here. But how could it be? I saw her dying, I saw her heart exploding.. I saw…"
When there was no response from the other side, Sarra got anxious further as she walked further into the distance. But nada, there was nothing on the ground that displayed anything remotely to the location where Envy's corpse may have fallen. Infact, she even looked up to several hundred meters around the area, but still turned out with nothing, not even traces of her or her corpse.
"Could it be that she was swallowed by some beast…"
Sarra weakly suggested, but a long drawn sigh sounded from her connection with the witch. Then what followed was Mercy's old kind voice that sounded in her ears,
"See, that's why I was asking you about her death. Envy though young, is an experienced assassin who has been raised to bite anyone in her way. Such poisonous snakes don't die so easily even if you crush their gallbladder under your heel.
I can tell by your reaction that there aren't even traces of blood left behind by her. It is evident that she had been prepared for it, she erased everything that could be used to track her down or worse, curse her from a distance by a witch.
Clearly she had taken extreme precautions to act against us witches. Even in my home there is no hair left behind by her. Dear junior sister, We both have been played by that young maiden, and now if I have to guess she should be on her way to Adele since he is the only way out Dream realm for her and something with which she can blackmail me."
Sarra stood there shocked, unable to measure the depth of the such bold plot pulled by the Envy in front of their eyes. Maybe…maybe she had planned it from the very beginning. She must have already seen her as a dead woman, the moment she had met her for the first time but…
"... But why? What does she want? "
"Sigh. Who knows…being so old in this world I am no stranger to backstabbing and betrayal but she has descended even lower than that. But on second thought, It is my fault too to trust her, to save her from hell-hounds expecting her loyalty for it. Snakes shouldn't be blamed for stinging you as it is in their very nature to bite in return.
If I have to guess, it appears her hatred is with me. But because she isn't able to do anything to me, she wants to kill both you and Adele to take some kind of revenge against me."
.