I have a request. Since writing this chapter, I listened to this song ,Honkai Impact 3rd Valkyrie Theme Rubia (Performed by Zhou Shen)
It was...well, what helped me envisioned this scene to be. I'm sorry that it took a good while to make it the best I know how but I have grown attached to say the least. But anyways, it would be nice if you could listen to this while reading.
Enjoy.
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Aric dangled in the air, blood dripping from his lips. They were much further away than their original location. It appeared that Lilith's barrier had moved them 5km away from Ashwick.
He looked at the hand that was in his stomach, then looked at Lilith, who continued her speech.
"Stand proud, Vayne. You were strong."
Strong.
Aric thought to himself while his gaze looked down as he started to lose focus.
That word used to mean something.
Aric had gone through wars and survived them. In fact, he survived the civil war that happened in the Czech Republic and even World War III. He was a man who was forced to be a soldier and take people's lives.
He didn't want this. He only ever wanted to be a philosopher.
But God be fucking damned if he wasn't good at it.
He was nicknamed The Reaper.
A name told by opposing forces, as Aric had instilled fear into the minds of his enemies. Aric could single-handedly turn the tide of war. Whether that be sniping critical targets, bombing key locations, blackmailing, manipulating, or whatever it took to win.
So with all the wars he had faced, he was close to death on multiple occasions. But every time he was close to death, he had a mantra of sorts that his mind would play when that moment came. This mantra would make Aric fight with everything he had left, even if that cost him his life.
You will die here. That's what the pain is saying. That's what the blood on your hands means.
This is where your story ends.
But even if that's true… I refuse to fall without purpose.
If I must crawl through fire, then I will. If I must bleed for a world I barely understand, then so be it. I have fought in too many wars to die with regret.
I have buried too many comrades to let their sacrifices mean nothing. I refuse to fall without taking one more with me.
So FIGHT, Aric. FIGHT!
Just one more breath. Just one more step. Just one more blow.
FIGHT, Aric. FIGHT, DAMMIT!
With adrenaline flooding his system, Aric suddenly gripped Lilith's hand. Lilith was stunned by this and looked confused while trying to get her hand out.
"What the fuck?"
Aric looked up at her and squeezed harder until her wrist cracked.
"I will beat you."
Just one more kill. Just one more move.
In one move that could be seen as suicidal, Aric overdrive his healing magic to seal her hand into his stomach, making sure she was unable to pull it out even if she tried.
"LET GO, YOU PSYCHO!" Lilith shouted, trying to yank her hand free.
"NO!"
Aric activated his lightning boots one last time and propelled them both downward.
BOOM!
They slammed into the ground, creating a huge crater. Aric was on top of her and started to punch.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
He pounded her face with electrified fists. She retaliated by punching back through the pain.
ONE MORE PUNCH, ARIC. ONE MORE PUNCH. FIGHT, ARIC!
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
"I'll kill you, demon!"
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
"I'LL SEND YOU BACK TO HELL!"
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
"I'LL MAKE SURE YOU REGRET FUCKING WITH HUMANITY."
Meanwhile, Seraphina and Evelyn were trying to find Aric as they had lost him. They followed his fading mana trail for a couple of minutes before finally finding him.
But when they arrived, they were greeted by a grotesque sight.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
Aric's face was bloodied and unrecognizable while Lilith's hand still lodged through his abdomen. Her own face had sunken in, parts of Sebastian's facial bone exposed beneath dying skin. This exchanged had gone for minutes to the point that Lilith no longer had the strength to punch back.
"You… re… fucking… insane." she gasped.
Aric didn't stop. "I told...you...I'll kill...you..."
THWACK!
"You...re...just like her..." Lilith said, coughing up blood.
THWACK!
Aric paused. He looked at her with his left eye swollen shut and his right eye barely open.
"I don't care…whoever the fuck…'her' is…"
THWACK!
"Just die already."
Lilith's voice was fading. "You...have...a lot of enemies...like..."
THWACK!
"…like…the gods…who want you dead…"
That made Aric stop for a bit. "...So?"
"He...wants you dead...I...was...just a tool...for him..."
With the little mana he had left in his body, Aric conjured a flame-forged sword.
"As I...said, demon. I don't care...I'm not going to be around for that anyways."
He plunged the sword into Sebastian's heart and ignited it fully.
"You...human...have my respect. It's a shame...I couldn't fight...at my full strength."
Lilith, with what little soul she had left, gave one final, amused laugh.
"Heh…haha…You're…just like her…If you ever go to Xyt…heri…s… find the new demon queen…you… will learn… the truth...about this world...The god...who wants...to kill...you is N—"
The flames consumed her before she could finish.
Sebastian, still unconscious from Seraphina's earlier barrier, perished without resistance. Lilith's remaining soul fragment was annihilated, her consciousness forcibly dragged back to her eternal prison.
Sebastian's body crumbled into ashes, and the hand that was in Aric disintegrated. Aric's mana was gone, his mana core damaged from overusing Overdrive. He glanced down at the gaping hole in his abdomen and instinctively tried to cast healing magic, but nothing came.
"Haha… blergh." Aric coughed up blood and collapsed onto the ground.
"Fuck...I guess...my time...is up..."
In a desperate attempt to stay alive, his mind triggered the mantra:
This is where your story ends.
"I guess...my job is done..."
Just one more breath. Just one more step.
Aric wanted to keep fighting, but the pain was unbearable.
I can't...
His eyes drifted to his left, where he saw Seraphina and Evelyn running toward him. Seraphina had tears streaming down her face.
"ARIC! NO! PLEASE, ARIC!"
Her screams blended with Evelyn's desperate calls for him.
"ARIC!" Evelyn yelled. "STAY AWAKE!"
"I'm so...sorry..." he said weakly before closing his eyes.
Seraphina dashed to Aric and grabbed him in her arms. "Aric. St—stay with me now! I'll heal you!"
But her mana was close to zero as well from the usage of Shadowstep. She touched his chest and felt his heart barely beating.
"Damn it!" she hissed as she started to absorb mana from nature.
Realizing it would take too much time, she turned to Evelyn.
"It's too slow! Evelyn! Give me your mana!"
Aric's body started to turn blue from the lack of mana, and his face was losing colour fast.
"Aric, come on now..." Evelyn said as she gave mana to Seraphina. Seraphina pushed her mana core to heal Aric while simultaneously absorbing from two sources.
Her breath hitched as she began overloading herself, black veins appearing on her arms as the corruption spread.
"ARIC! STAY WITH ME, ARIC!"
She clenched her teeth and overloaded herself even more.
"Don't you dare die!" she shouted, her voice laced with sorrow.
"Please..."
But Aric's mana core was not receiving the mana Seraphina was pumping into him. The mana sat in his body, unregulated. His body started to turn cold from the mana.
"What..."
Seraphina realized this and stopped healing immediately. To heal someone, they needed a functioning mana core or at least a beating heart.
Unfortunately for Aric, his heart was no longer beating.
His blood vessels were ruptured. His heart had failed. His mana core was critically damaged, and Seraphina didn't know how to fix that.
"Evelyn! What do I do?"
Evelyn looked panicked, blinking rapidly as she tried to think.
"Your Grace...I don't know how... but you're likely the only one who can figure this out. Maybe you can overload him with mana to force a new core... or create a new dark magic spell for this..."
"...But I'm afraid... we have no way of fixing a broken mana core... or starting a dead heart."
For a moment, all Seraphina heard was the wind.
"...There's...no way...?"
Aric's body lay limp in her arms. His blood soaked her hands and clothes.
Evelyn hesitated for a good minute before answering, "...Not that I know of...Your Grace..."
"No…" she whispered.
"I was too slow… I couldn't protect you…" Her tears splashed onto his unmoving face.
"You didn't deserve this... You were just a guy who was treated wrong... I treated you wrong..."
Memories began to replay in her mind. Every small moment they shared together. Things that might've meant nothing to others—but meant the world to her.
Things she never had with Vayne.
"And so, he's a doctor who walks with a cane, is addicted to Vicodin, and he likes to be an asshole. He insults everyone with the most creative insults too."
"But he's so fucking brilliant, Sera. He solves impossible cases."
"What's it called again?"
"Dr. House."
"You're such a nerd." Seraphina had said, smiling as she rested her chin in her palm.
"Yeah? Well, you listened to me explain a whole season, so what does that make you?"
She laughed. "Hahaha, a patient woman, of course."
Her veins glowed violently with unstable magic as her core overloaded threefold. She was desperate to get Aric back.
"You know, there's a lot of things I want to do once I'm done with the debts." Aric said while looking at her.
Seraphina looked at him back while tying her hair. "Such as? This world isn't exactly as nice as that Earth of yours."
"Well, it's like fantasy stuff, you know? I want to see some elves, maybe visit Thorin's kingdom, meet some orcs too. I just want to see all these other countries and cities."
"Fantas...y? Never mind, it's probably one of those weird words you have. But meeting them will take time. It takes weeks by land—days if we use magic."
Aric looked up at the ceiling. "It doesn't matter. I love traveling and visiting new places."
"I'll take you around, Aric. You need a guide anyways."
Aric laughed, "Hahaha, seriously? Okay then. I'll take you up on then."
Evelyn had to step away before being completely drained by Seraphina's absorption. Her face was marked with black veins creeping onto her cheeks as her body was being corrupted from within.
"Here you go, Sera!" Aric said eagerly, waving a big teddy bear at her.
She looked at him, confused. "This is for...?"
"It's just a gift. I figured that since we've already spent a lot of time together, and I have to be your husband until the debts are over, I should give you something."
He kept waving it at her, enticing her to take it. Seraphina, who had never received a single gift from Vayne, didn't know what to say.
"I..."
Aric placed the teddy bear into her hands. "Just take it. Once this is all over, and I leave, you can remember it as my gift to you."
At the time, she hadn't known whether she wanted Aric to stay or go. After all, he was just a stranger inhabiting her husband's body. But now, all she could do was cry as the memories came rushing back.
She hugged him tightly, her tendrils enveloping them both completely. She poured her own mana into him, trying to brute-force the formation of a new mana core even though the odds were near impossible.
"Your Grace! Stop! You'll go too far!" Evelyn shouted as she banged on the cocoon.
Seraphina ignored her and kept trying.
"Aric please...please Lysandra...He deserves to be alive..."
Even after an hour of overloading and giving, there was still no heartbeat.
"Hik...I'm so sorry..."
She finally let go of the cocoon and her upper body was covered fully with black veins. Evidence of how far she had pushed herself.
"Your Grace...your body..."
The people of Ashwick stood at a distance, watching in stunned silence as their saviour lay dead. Seraphina sobbed quietly as Aric's lifeless body remained in her arms. She hugged him tightly.
"Evelyn...I...couldn't..."
Evelyn knelt beside her, her eyes filled with sorrow.
"I...don't know what...to say...I'm so sorry."
Penelope and Borin dropped to their knees as they finally saw Aric's condition.
"No..." Penelope whispered, shaking her head violently.
"No, this can't be happening. Not after everything he did."
Borin dragged himself forward and gently touched Aric, confirming there was no pulse and no heartbeat.
"Damn it, lad… ye weren't s'posed t' go like this…"
He looked at Aric's lifeless face, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
"I… I never even got t' buy ye a proper drink, ya bastard..."
The townsfolk began gathering around slowly, forming a circle around the fallen hero. Their expressions mirrored the devastation in Seraphina's heart. Some wept openly. Others simply stared, stunned beyond words.
"AAHHHHHHHHHH!" Seraphina screamed into his chest.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
As she screamed, her hand began to glow with mana of pure black and burning with grief.
"THIS ISN'T HOW YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GO!"
The black mana began to seep into Aric and enveloped his dead heart,
"YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE!"