Page 33

When Knox had been forcing Xen to summon the Hellfire, Evan had silently closed his eyes, trying to calm the rushed flow of blood and spiritual energy that was making the shard dig deeper into his abdomen.

As he lay there with his stomach pierced, the pitch darkness behind his lids slowly started glowing, until all of his vision filled with a familiar white light. Just like that time back at the purple-eyed demon’s exorcism, Evan floated in the white void inside his spiritual core. This time, he couldn’t see the youth but heard his voice.

“You cannot die, Evan. You must not.”

Evan stared into the white light, recognizing that voice. He’d heard that several times before, mistaking it for his conscience.

A sense of familiarity rose within him anew and Evan sucked in a deep breath. “Who are you? Why are you helping me?”

“…you cannot die.”

“Answer me!” Evan snapped. “Who are you?”

The youth was quiet for a moment, then softly replied, “You know.”

Evan did. He was subconsciously aware of it ever since he’d heard Knox spitting things to Xen like “still clinging onto the same person” and “killed him a long time ago.” But even after pondering for a while, the conclusions that rose in his head were so absurd that he was left reeling from irritation.

He'd heard and faced and come across his share of strange things in his life, yet this one matter rattled his brain like no other.

“You…” Evan cautiously probed, “…are me?”

The youth’s voice held a smile as he responded. “We are one, but not the same person.”

“How…” Evan tried to float towards the voice, trying to find a glimpse of that young face he’d seen before. His own face. “How is this possible? You…”

“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, he quietly 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 with that example? 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.”

Xen smirked. He didn’t need to be told twice. He flashed forward, a blur of red, eyes gleaming with barely withheld anticipation. Knox raised the golden spear and they clashed.

Flashes of purple and red and gold flew in all directions. The army of demons surged forward too but instead of Xen, they ran toward Evan.

An Eternal was terrifying enough, but an angry Eternal was certain death.

Evan scoffed, anger from God knew how many hours of pain and torture boiling over. Two orbs of spiritual energy conjured in his palms, growing bigger and brighter. “You fucking pests from hell, don’t underestimate me!”

When he shot the energy blasts, the blue light crashed into the low-level demons and instantly set them on fire. The ones with even less demonic energy were blasted into a bloody mess.

One after another, Evan hurled blasts of spiritual energy into the hoard of demons, driven entirely by unadulterated rage. Every time the wound in his stomach throbbed, his attacks grew more violent. He’d been kidnapped by his friend, tied to tree, trapped in a barrier, and stabbed with his own spiritual weapon, all without lifting a finger in retaliation. Now, every ounce of that suppressed fury exploded, unleashed on the swarm of pests before him.

Seeing that he didn’t intend to stop or slow down, several demons turned and started fleeing.

Evan’s nostrils flared. “Get back here! Where the fuck are you running off to?”

He pelted them with spiritual energy blasts, growling at them to stop and face him, cursing when they preferred to save their lives instead.

The fifteen men who were still tied together shrieked, trying to break free from the purple binding. Some of their blindfolds had come loose and they screamed even louder when they witnessed the creatures of distorted shapes and sizes slithering around, resentful spirits madly dashing into the barrier.

Evan sent some demons flying with spiritual energy blasts and dodged the pelting flames the Hellfire casually tossed every now and then. Rushing towards the men, he ripped off the binding which, surprisingly, wasn’t as indestructible as it’d seemed.

“Get out of here. Don’t look back!” The first fourteen had already fled before he could finish the sentence, but a ginger head grabbed Evan’s hands, eyes brimming with gratitude amidst the shock and terror of the situation.

“Evan—”

“Not now, Robbie,” Evan grasped his shoulders. “You won’t mention a word about what you saw here to anyone. Not even Tiago. Do you understand?”

Robbie nodded fervently. “I won’t.”

He was nodding yes but saying no. A baffling sight.

“Good. Now run.”

After Robbie disappeared from sight, Evan’s shoulders slumped in brief relief. At least now his debt would be waived off.

But then he looked up, and the relief faded.

It was utter chaos. Sparks flew from Xen and Knox’s fight, and the Hellfire spat fireballs everywhere, howling demons and humans on fire ran for cover. And following the low-level demons were massive rock structures stomping everyone and everything in the way. The ground trembled as Hellguards of various sizes and shapes charged forward.

A sharp pain shot up his abdomen and Evan staggered, grunting. “Fucking hell.”

The only possible weakness of a Hellguard in his true form was the opening to his demonic core. However, the placement of the core differed in each demon. If the target was missed, it would only piss him off. And the Hellguards weren’t exactly stationary at the moment, so locating the opening to their cores and hitting the exact spot while they were raging in that form wasn’t exactly easy.

Evan raked a hand through his hair, then looked around as if for inspiration, and spotted a figure impaled against a tree. With a huff, he sprinted to the tree, holding onto his abdomen.

He craned his neck at Zeev nailed way too high for him to reach. “Hey, stone-head! Are you alive?”

The figure didn’t respond, head hanging limp.

“Zeev?”

No response.

Evan inhaled deeply then cried out, “Your master is about to die!”

Zeev’s bloody fingers twitched. His eyelids fluttered. But he didn’t immediately come to.

Instead, a nearby Hellguard, short and thick like a boulder, heard Evan’s scream and rushed towards him like a mad bull.

Evan was busy shaking Zeev’s legs, and the quakes beneath his feet had been constant for a while so he didn’t detect a Hellguard approaching him.

Xen’s scarlet eyes flashed amidst clashing with Knox, who wielded the golden spear with impressive agility. “Behind you!”

Evan jumped slightly then spun around. Just as the Hellguard raised two fists overhead, intending to plummet him into the ground.

But before it could, a ball of flame exploded in its face. The demon roared as the Hellfire burnt it to a crisp.

For a moment, Evan simply stared at the demon’s remains, dumbfounded. Hadn’t Xen said he couldn’t control the Hellfire? Was he bluffing to stall Knox?

Evan glanced at the red-clad figure moving like a gale, each step as light as if stepping on the wind, each attack as deadly as a tornado. Xen looked engrossed in the fight, making sure he only injured Knox and didn’t accidentally kill him. That must surely exhaust more focus than a usual attack meant to simply annihilate the opponent. It didn’t seem like Xen had launched the attack just now.

Evan’s focus unintentionally shifted to the Hellfire blazing from the array inside the Tomb of Ascension. Had the fire just randomly targeted the Hellguard who was attacking Evan? Or was it trying to…

No. That was absurd. Even if Evan had earned the favor of an Eternal—somehow—assuming that the ancient, eternal flames of hell would try to save him was beyond Evan’s usual vivid imagination.

And yet, as he stared into the depth of the eternal flames, he could almost make out the shape of an eye—a huge scarlet eye staring at him.

“Ugh…”

Evan’s head snapped up as Zeev stirred, and instantly coughed up blood. His demonic energy levels had fallen so low that Evan couldn’t sense any on him. It was as if he’d turned human.

“Zeev! Zeev, wake up. Your master needs your help,” Evan wildly shook his leg again, almost dislodging it from his hip.

Amidst the curtain of long dark hair, two green eyes peeled open, staring directly at Evan. “My Lord…”

“Yes, he is alive. But he might not be for long. Can you transform into your original form?”

Zeev’s half-lidded eyes lifted, locking onto the exact spot where Xen was battling Knox. Even through the haze, he located his master without fail. With a muffled growl, he started thrashing, grabbing onto the ends of the bident and trying to rip the fork from his chest. The fierce determination to return to Xen was evident in his eyes. But he was way too weak. After a few desperate attempts, his hands fell limp at his sides.

His head dropped. “I am…useless to His Lord. I—I might as well…perish before showing this…this disgraceful face to him,” he heaved after every few words, weakly pushing out broken sentences through a bloody mouth.

Evan rubbed his forehead, then sent an energy blast to a demon who was approaching them. “Okay. Can you absorb my spiritual energy?”

Zeev’s regret-filled gaze lifted, and a subtle glimmer of hope flickered in them. “But I couldn’t…possibly ask—”

“It’s a yes or no question.”

Zeev dropped his head again. After a long pause, he mumbled out, “Forgive me for…what I said, sir.”

Evan paused. “…what?”

“Earlier…I didn’t mean to…upset you. I shouldn’t have…suggested killing your friend…to recover Reth… Forgive this servant for overstepping…”

Evan blinked up at him, then sighed. “That’s not—Okay, I forgive you. Now, can you transform using my energy, yes or no?”

“I could try…if you could lend me some…”

“Good,” Evan tiptoed to reach up and Zeev extended his hand. Blue light set course from Evan’s arm and traveled up, seeping into Zeev’s pale hand. Through his tattered robes, glimpses of his skin shimmered with blue light, slowly blurring into red as it coursed through his chest and spread up his neck.

But before it reached his temple, Zeev jerked, then slumped once again. The light faded from his skin.

Evan’s breath hitched. Had he accidentally sent too much spiritual energy and killed him?

“Hey! Wake up!” Evan shook his legs but Zeev had turned into all but a barely breathing corpse.

With a resigned exhale, Evan turned back to face the Hellguards now surrounding the tree beneath which he stood. His fists trembled on his sides as he stared up at the figures towering over him like buildings made of rocks.

Well, he was most efficient when fighting alone anyway.

But when he moved, a sharp pain jolted up his abdomen. He crashed to one knee, grinding his molars to shove down a groan. Even if his spiritual energy was abundant, his body was still mortal, still weak from bleeding out and suffering near-fatal injuries. And he’d exhausted too much of his strength while rampaging around in anger. The aftermath of it was just catching up to him now.

His gaze flickered toward Xen and Knox, but their figures had moved somewhere far beyond the forest. The clang of a weapon was still audible from a distance and the sparks of the demonic energy were still blasting into the night sky, but they remained out of sight.

Evan clutched his throbbing abdomen and slowly straightened. Breathing hard yet his chin held up.

The youth’s voice rang in his head. “Don’t give up, Evan.”

I won’t. Not yet. Not so soon.

Assuming a defensive stance, he made to draw out every last bit of his strength to summon a spiritual blast that could wipe out the whole clearing. Most of the cult members had been turned to ash or fled, so all that remained were demons. Destroying the whole area would eradicate the bigger part of the problem.

Blood pooled in his mouth and Evan swallowed it, gathering spiritual energy in his trembling palms.

The Hellguards sensed the pause in his movements, the scent of blood oozing from him, and didn’t waste any time before launching an attack. All at once.

A dozen rock structures lunging at a tiny, bleeding human. The sight would have been hilarious to Evan if he wasn’t the said bleeding human.

But even as several rock fists sped towards him, and the earth cracked beneath his feet, his resolve didn’t waver. He conjured a ball of spiritual light in his palm when—

Whoosh!

Between one blink of an eye and the next, Evan was grabbed, clutched into a warm wet cavity, and whipped away from the midst of the circle of demons. The action was so fluid that the sightless Hellguards didn’t detect it and started pulverizing the ground where their target once stood.

Eyes wide and suspended in the air, Evan was like a frozen lump of meat hanging on a hook. He swung from his middle which was snugly caught between something sharp. Warm puffs of breaths grazed his back and wetness soaked the back of his shirt. Something coiled behind him, slithering like a snake. A tongue.

Evan didn’t dare peek over his shoulder.

When the thing had grabbed him, he wasn’t able to see much because of its quick speed. All he caught was a glimpse of red eyes.

Specifically, three eyes.

Evan gulped as he hung from the jaws of the three-eyed hound. It’s wet tongue soaking the back of his clothes. The hound growled at some approaching demons, then stomped on them, crushing them to a bloody pulp. The seven spiky tails pierced through and ripped apart the demonic tongues trying to sneak up on it.

It took Evan a second to remember that this horror-inducing creature was on his side. But his muscles remained tightly coiled.

With a deep inhale, Evan threw a cautionary glance at the huge crimson eye on his left. “Uh, thanks…for that. But could you let me down for a—”

The hound growled.