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“If you wish to know,” the youth began, “you’ll have to fight to stay alive first. After that, he can answer all your questions.”

Xen…

“What do I do?” Evan desperately asked, physically feeling the shard ripping through his stomach, absorbing his spiritual energy, and tearing through his insides. “I don’t want to die…”

For all his bravado and stubbornness to show any weakness, Evan was only human. And all humans feared death even if death was the only relief to their sufferings.

Evan had thought he’d be able to choose death over life without blinking an eye but as he stood at the junction, uncertainty and longing rose within him. Uncertainty of whether he could leave behind all the people who’d forcefully barged into his life and brightened his cold, lonely house. Longing for life, for some warmth from a particularly warm person.

“What came from you, can kill you or save you,” the youth’s voice rang out in the white void. “The one who yields or wields is you…”

Evan had blinked. “What?”

“Giving up is easy, persisting is not. Make a choice.”

“Wait!”

“Choose, Evan…” the voice had faded, leaving behind a faint echo in his mind. “Choose to live…”

The light diminished and his vision darkened once again.

Evan was lying with his eyes closed, barely conscious as he turned those words inside his head.

What came from you, can kill you…

He was lying on the ground like a corpse, hands still holding onto the shard jutting out from his stomach. Swallowing a cry of agony, ever so slightly, his fingers twitched against the shard.

Or save you…

With a deep inhale, Evan finally grasped the meaning of those words.

He focused on unlocking the barrier around his core of spiritual energy, which pulsed with light, ready to surge at Evan’s command and mend his broken organs. But instead of letting them heal him, he reversed the flow of energy, drawing back the light he’d used to create the shard.

What came from you can kill you or save you.

The shard was forged by Evan’s own hands. It had come from him. He’d been so focused on the pain and the dread of impaling the shard deeper that he’d forgotten just how easily he could disperse the spiritual light that constituted the shard.

While Xen was about to move to attack Knox, Evan spoke to him through their telepathic connection, barking.

Don’t fucking move. Stay still.

Using Xen’s body as cover, he grabbed onto the shard, draining its spiritual energy back into his body. Wherever the shard then grazed, spiritual light rushed, working on repairing internal injuries until the whole shard had disappeared into the hole in his stomach. Then he sealed the wound with a patch of energy binding that wound tight around his waist, a temporary bandage stopping the bleeding until his internal injuries healed itself.

Having abundant spiritual energy had its perks too.

When the spirits charged towards the Hellfire, which didn’t seem as hot to Evan as everyone else was screaming it was, hequietly cast a barrier over the Tomb of Ascension, right over the channel of Heavenly Spring Water.

It was an exorcist’s barrier, unforgiving and impartial to all. So as soon as the resentful spirits slammed into it, much like Evan’s touch, they were exorcised.

Evan slumped against Xen who seemed to have frozen while standing in front of fire—what irony.

Knox stared at him with a look of disdain, then scoffed. “So? Are you going to kill me? Now that your own life is on the line, suddenly your friend’s doesn’t matter?” A dark chuckle. “Truly, I cannot blame you. Betrayal is in human nature.”

Evan chuckled softly, still holding onto his abdomen. “Are you trying to manipulate me withthatexample? When you made my friend betray me? You’re asking for death,” then he cocked his head, resting it against Xen’s tensed arm. “But who said I have to kill you to stop you? I could simply break your legs. I’m sure Aaron would understand.”

Knox’s brows lowered. “Very well. Since you wish to meet your end at my hands, so be it. But remember, after I kill you, I will seek out every person you ever held close to your heart and make them suffer too.”

Evan sighed. “You talk too much,” then turned to Xen. “Other than his neck and spine, you can break anything necessary. I can handle the rest.”