Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 288: Those Who Hold the World at Ransom

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Toren Daen

It had been a long time since I welcomed anything cold. My blood ran hot, and every pulse of my heart banished the chill of the world. But in the depths of a hot and humid summer, it was a novelty to feel anything other than warm.

But as the slow rain soaked my clothes and made my hair stick to my skin, I marveled at how paradoxically relaxing the cold was. It washed the blood from my face in a slow draw that made me sigh in exhausted relief.

As I walked, I could feel the grass beneath the sole of my right foot. Taci had cut it off at the very start of our fight, which had relieved me of my well-worn boot. The soil felt grounded and real beneath my bare skin. The scent of fresh rain mingled with the quiet solemnity of the Glades.

The forest was silent except for the pitter-patter of rain and my beleaguered footsteps. Every beast had fled in the wake of the cacophonous battle that had made the sky tremble. Even those who bore the mantle of S-class ran with their tails between their legs.

My heartbeat slowed as I found the first trace. A tree ten feet thick had shattered clean in two like a matchstick from some sort of impact. And as I loped forward, mana rotation slowly drawing energy towards my weary mana core, I saw more and more signs.

A furrow of dirt trailed on like a road to destiny. Drops of red blood mingled with the puddles of rainwater, the cleansing breath of the sky pushing away the scarlet. But the devastation couldn't all be washed away by the rain.

Taci's body had smashed through a few trees, before carving a trench in the earth. It had finally stopped once his back hit a boulder. A pool of red slowly spread around him, unbanished by the drizzle from on high. The hole in his stomach wept crimson openly, an injury that was bound to be fatal eventually.

But as the young asura raised his head to look at me, I tilted my head contemplatively.

His entire face was burned. His eyes—all six of them—had been destroyed by my last strike. But he was still awake. He was still conscious. An asura's physique was absurd. The wounds on his body would have killed a normal man a dozen times over, but I could tell from the weak pulsing of his heartfire that he wouldn't die for a time yet.

Lightning flashed overhead, bathing us in light for a split instant. The rainfall picked up.

Taci and I exchanged no words. We didn't need to. As I slowly strode forward, a shrouded saber glimmering in my grip, we reached a quiet understanding.

Taci kept his intent leashed. Even as his death approached, he desperately refused to let me sense his emotions. His six arms—each blackened and burned—trembled at his side as he awaited the end.

Not from how weak they were, no: but from fear. My earlier sense of triumph and vindication sizzled away like drops of blood in the rain as I realized this. Taci was dangerous: a threat to every lesser in this world. But he was also a child, built and made to be a killer. He never got to choose his Fate, not like I did.

I arrived before the body of the broken god, staring down at him with solemn eyes. It is sad, in a way, I thought, raising my saber high. In two timelines, this boy dies to a mortal man for his loyalty to Kezess Indrath.

I exhaled, clenching my saber. Maybe, before the Breaking of Burim, I might have left this asura to die alone. But mercy for my enemies could not come at the expense of their victims—past or future.

I swung my blade, ready to relieve this dying pantheon of his head.

Instead, my body erupted in pain once more. I flew backward, lightning flashing overhead as something too fast for me to see cratered my ribs. My vision flickered in and out, before a tree welcomed my body like a clenched fist.