Chapter 692 - The Finger

When morning comes, we are one of the earliest groups to leave the guild branch. We receive no reinforcements, unsurprisingly. After all, Morwag is here now.

We step outside, and I am not surprised when he changes direction toward the Minefield outpost, where the fights broke out the night before. I thought about going there, too, as morbid as that sounds. If everyone in that outpost died, it is highly likely people from the surrounding outposts will head there, more interested in looting than searching for survivors.

The further we go away from the city, the more people I see gathering, all moving in the same direction Morwag took. He is already almost out of sight. So far, he has not used kinetic energy for movement, and I doubt he even has it. I already heard from Weslin what primordial energy Morwag has. I believe he has only one, and I am waiting for him to reveal it clearly so I can observe it.

I set it as homework for myself, something to muse over during guard duty, and to think about how it could "work". I also take my guard duty far more seriously now with Hela around, since I have no idea what to expect from her.

If she sneaks up on me like last time, I could end up very dead, very quickly. That is why most of my effort goes into detection, mostly searching for the small window of warning I might get if she uses her skill before reaching me. Of course, there is also the chance that it is not a skill as I think, but instead a fragment or maybe even primordial energy. Hell, it could be an item too.

Weslin knows her somewhat, so I am sure he is doing the same. Reliable as always. When I met him, he was a mid A-rank, but now I can say with confidence he is at the peak of A-rank, and without hesitation, I would grade him higher than Io. He does not even possess the weakness that cowardly thylarin had.

“I’ll be watching for Hela. If she attacks, I’ll take her first strike, then you can step in,” Weslin says simply.

I do not bother asking if he is capable of that. I have fought by his side enough times to know when to trust him.

“In that case, I will get ready and either place a mark on her or stop her,” I answer, already dividing my mind into three parts: one preparing a mark, another preparing disruption, the third taking care of the other stuff.

And, as I did with him, Weslin does not ask me if I can do it. Some of our dear colleagues glance at us, looking doubtful as they listen in. After all, it is an S-rank we are talking about. They probably felt secure with Morwag here, but seeing him abandon us at the first possible opportunity likely shook that trust. Even so, I am sure the demons among our colleagues are more disappointed that they cannot challenge him and die in the next second.

Isn’t that a bit cute? Like children. Silly demons.

That, of course, applies only to the ones weaker than me, so totally not for Morwag.

“Did you get the skill you wanted from your combination token?” I ask Weslin as we reach the outpost and set ourselves apart from the others while on guard.

“I have not used it yet. I want to level up the skills I plan to combine first.”

“Sounds like the smart thing to do. Smart, but boring.”

“Are you still annoyed that there is no five-skill combination token?” Weslin snorts.

“You know what, I am sure there is. You said you heard rumors about a four active-skill combination token, so why not five? That Diligence asshole is just hiding it from me.”

Neither of us sits down. We keep scanning the area, bodies warmed up and mana circulating, ready to be unleashed in an instant. In some ways, it is unnerving, in others boring, because I know we will remain like this for hours. Yet at the same time, it is exciting: a fight to the death that could start mid-sentence, mid-breath, with the enemy exploiting a single vulnerability we might show.

“I still can’t believe you actually met his projection. It only makes me more curious how you managed it,” Weslin says.

“I told you, I cannot say. I mean, I probably could, but it would piss off someone if I talked too much. So you just have to live with the knowledge that I saw his projection, somewhere, sometime.”

Weslin waves it off. “I do not mind that much. You know, when you traded me that insanely expensive information…”

“It was very cheap.”

“…that it is possible to meet Rulers on the floors, I actually thought the Living Tree would become the Ruler. When we went to the old capital, it caused us so much trouble.”

“Did it fly?”

“It could fly?”

“Yup.”

“It did not for us.”

“You missed a lot. By the way, aren't all ‘leader’ ants queens? The First One led his Colony, and everyone called him he.” I muse.

“Does it matter? He started as a result of an experiment. I always thought most of the other ants were created as his copies, or shared his genes, maybe some of them were modified to be queens.” Weslin glances at me for a moment.

I start to reply, but then notice he is not looking at me. His eyes are fixed on something behind me, and I freeze, every nerve tightening as my attention sharpens. My body coils, ready to explode into attack at the slightest movement.

Weslin does not move, nor does an attack come.

“I think she is nearby,” he mutters.

I nod and take a step to the side to make some distance between us, only to find myself somewhere else. Not teleported like Io would do, but as if I had stepped through an invisible portal, warped space placing me somewhere entirely different. What surrounds me are the destroyed buildings of an outpost. Some are still burning, others entirely evaporated. Blood is everywhere, along with clear signs of the fights that happened here.

In front of me stands Morwag, his expression tilted in faint curiosity.

“I thought I snuck up on her, but it seems that she used her tunnel to swap places with you,” the demon smiles. “She inverted the flow at the last instant. She was already focused on you, but instead of drawing herself through it, she tied it into Warp Step’s fold. That turned your position into the exit point while erasing her own. How sneaky of her. You were with Weslin?”

“Yes. Our outpost.”

Morwag nods, and in the next moment, he vanishes with an audible shockwave that rips through the area, throwing ruins and debris away from us.

I rise into the air and follow in the direction he left, watching him sprint across the ground. Each of his steps sends another shockwave, tearing the land apart and sending him far ahead.

Even as I push out as much kinetic energy as I can, I cannot catch up. His movement looks inefficient, it looks slow, yet he is far faster than me.

Multiple times, I try to activate one of my marks in the outpost to teleport there, but their end trajectory warps, trying to send me somewhere entirely different. Having experience with that, I notice it even though it is very well hidden, so I avoid using my marks.

As I finally reach the outpost, Morwag is already there, clashing against Hela. She seems unable to use her skill to escape as Weslin’s void flickers around her and the area.

And Weslin, well, he barely stands there, almost collapsing, with a long dagger stabbed through his chest, piercing out the back. The blade is transparent, with a mana structure shifting inside it, clearly trying to suppress his void, and to some extent succeeding.

Even so, Weslin holds out to stop Hela from escaping. His forehead scrunches with an expression of deep concentration. Both of his eyes are now noticeably red, and his heart thumps audibly in an erratic rhythm.

Morwag continues to clash against the velnar that towers over him. While she is faster and smoother in her movements, Mowag moves like something unstoppable. Every one of his attacks evaporates anything it touches, not in a dissimilar way from Lily´s [Disintegration]. But where [Disintegration] erases matter entirely, Morwag’s primordial energy unbinds connections, causing matter to break apart into an ever-changing mist of color. Sometimes it is brown like the stone he strikes, other times green like the grass, or blue like the mana projectile he hits. It always takes on the color most present in whatever he destroys..

Morwag has a single primordial energy called Binding Primordial Energy, and he now uses it in his attacks to try to cancel out what binds Hela’s body together. At the same time, he increases the forces that bind his body together, making himself extremely durable.

In just a few seconds, before I even reach close enough, these two S-ranks move all over the battlefield, exchanging dozens of blows. Multiple rings on Hela’s fingers glow, automatically activating barriers, attempting to counter Weslin’s void, trying to hide her presence, or increase her speed and strength.

But it all still seems to fall short against Morwag. His strength swells through his body while his primordial energy binds him from breaking apart, allowing him to push himself further and further with fewer consequences. Durability, strength, speed, and attacks that dissolve you into particles stripped of their bonds. Like an unholy abomination, a twisted fusion of Jean and Lily, given form in this demon man.

My [Eclipse] spreads over the area, and a black orb forms above my head as dozens of barrier segments flash into existence, blocking the attacks raining down on us to support the other members of the guild in the area.

I do not even try to attack Hela. While Morwag might be fine with Weslin using void on her since she attacked him first, I am absolutely sure he would not look kindly on my attempts, even if it meant she would escape otherwise.

Instead, I start building up more defenses, throwing lances and attacks where needed, and overall drawing more and more attention to myself from the other enemies.

I land near Weslin just as he staggers back with a groan, his void weakening and nearly disappearing, just enough for Hela to push through.

The air around Hela wavers as she takes a step forward to disappear. Morwag attempts to stop her, in what I guess is an effort to bind her to this place, but he fails. Like many others, while he is extremely talented with parts of his abilities, other areas are lacking or simply not as refined.

So the velnar escapes, and I let it happen without trying to stop her. For a moment, I ignore the rain of attacks. Even as multiple weaker and faster ones slip through my defenses and damage my body, I deflect only those heading toward Weslin. Instead, all the rest of my attention, the entirety of my Mana Wavelength Iris, is locked on observing the way Hela teleports, reading every frequency and fluctuation.

I watch mana move outside of her body as she does so hurriedly. I even see movement inside her body as her shielding weakens because her attention is elsewhere, and I study her skill, weaving and activating.

For a fleeting instant before she vanishes, her eyes snap to mine, wide with disbelief.

Then she is gone.

Weslin, barely standing beside me, giggles through bloodstained lips, his eyes still glowing a deep red. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and grins.

“Ah beh she din’ expec’ tha’,” he mumbles thickly, then spits something into his palm.

It lands with a wet thud. A severed finger, delicate and pale, much bigger than mine. The golden ring is still clinging to it. Hela’s.

I can only stare at it in shock while Morwag’s unhinged cackle bursts out behind us at the sight of the finger.

***

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