The Final Battle- Part IV

Tynan:

“Now, if you will excuse me, I shall resume testing my new powers.” The master says while experimentally twisting his wrist, and at his order, Delilah’s body begins to twitch before awkwardly rising up to its feet, the veil falling off to reveal her disfigured face, reminding me that the person responsible for her pain is with us in the room, but after his vow of remaining to fight alongside me, I can’t seek justice on her behalf and attack his mate.

“Holy…” Axel chokes out quietly as he stares at the gruesome marks covering Delilah’s face, the body continues to twitch and shake, something withing it seem to be fighting the master’s order.

“I know right, one of your mate’s finest works I must say, she really did this one dirty…” the master addresses Axel while pointing back at himself, Axel’s eyes widen as he looks back at Ciana who looks away, once again, no regret in her eyes, she did what she did with conviction, the only reason she is not holding her head high while being faced with her crimes is because she can’t take that horrified and disappointed look in her mate’s eyes.

“Leora is a byproduct of magic, the witches, your mate being one of them, tricked Delilah, who had one of the oldest human bloodlines in the world and then kidnapped her and somehow impregnated her, thus the name ‘cursed child’, they then separated the mother and daughter, twice, this time for good…” I explain to Axel, for no reason but the compelling feeling that he deserves to know the truth, Ciana only breathes deeply before meeting his gaze with her serious one, “I did what I needed to do in order to create a better world for all of us, sure, it all sounds horrible and evil now only because we didn’t get to see the heavenly end of it, I didn’t want to rule over anyone, unlike this monster, I didn’t want power or wealth, all I wanted was a world where I and my sisters can live in peace and safety, where our mere existence wasn’t threatened just because another race didn’t like us, and where we only got to exist as annexes to others, servants…”

“No wonder she hated you so much…” Axel whispers in disbelief, and I feel as if his legs are about to give up on him, his eyes look like a dam about to break with all the emotions he is trying to contain, but this is hardly the time to exchange accusations and settle scores, and I make sure to tell him exactly that through my beast.

“It doesn’t matter now, we must kill him and its vessel before he releases all the souls trapped in the isthmus, especially those of my kind…” this bitch is bold as brass, I give her that, the way she immediately shut down her emotions, put on a mask of steel and put herself in the present, I can see how she managed to survive all this time, she is someone who puts their head before their heart, and it seems as if Axel is only discovering this now, I wonder how guilty he really is, and if he is in fact a victim of manipulation, which translate to idiot with capital letters in my dictionary.

“If we kill him, than Leora dies as well!” Axel deadpans before I even could, and something ugly rears its head inside me, I try to ignore it all and focus on the master who is finally able to fully control Delilah’s body, she now stands in front of him, her eyes vacant and lifeless, a bloodied dagger in her hand.

“She was created to die, Axel, we created her for this purpose, it has always been her destiny, she is not a normal human with a soul to mourn, hell, she isn’t even a human, you can’t…”

“You fucking know nothing about her or her soul, and if anyone is soulless here, it is you and the monster possessing her! Even that corpse has more soul than you.” Axel explodes with so much hate and pain it even startles me, his mate looks aghast with disbelief and hurt, her lips trying to work out an argument, an excuse, a sheen of tears threatening to break loose before she hides it behind that steel mask once again.

“No one is walking out of here alive unless my mate does…” I say with finality, tired of their bickering and wasting precious time, and it seems as if the master is also tired of it for Delilah pounces at Ciana, a black dagger in her hand, I guess it is the dagger the witch used to off her, and it feels like poetic justice to just let her off the shameless bitch, but the last thing I want is to bestow yet another strong pawn to the master.

Axel readies himself to stop Delilah’s attack, but Ciana beats him to it by creating a shield around the three of us, shields are a very advanced skill that can drain a witch’s magic…so why?

“Trust me, you don’t know what that dagger can do!” she says between gasps, and instead of feeling the least amount of gratitude, all I feel is rage, she used such dangerous weapon against my little Ora and her mom.

“Three against one isn’t really fair, this ‘beautiful’ lady needs backup, don’t you think?” the master announces while sitting back on the alter, a mischievous glint in his red irised, Ciana drops the shield while looking warily around us.

“What is this noise…”Axel looks around us back to the tunnels, I first hear the grunts, and then the steps, before we know it, we are surrounded by decayed bodies, thirty females to be precise, all of them armed with similar daggers to the one Delilah’s carrying.”What are they?” I ask no one in particular, something inside me telling me they are not mere corpses.

“They are the temple’s keepers, each one of them used to be an elder witch, leading the rest of her coven, just like sister Cassandra was, they are very old, very powerful witches, as for the daggers they are carrying, one slash is enough to drain the life force out of its victim and transfer it to its carrier, so each attack only makes them stronger…”

“That is nice to hear…” Axel mutters as the witches circle around us, the master sitting leisurely on the altar, Delilah standing in front of him to protect him, he knows that his vessel is too frail to withstand any of our attacks, but that is not what worries me the most, I know this man better than anyone, even when he is wearing the most nonchalant expression there is, he is always plotting something, always cooking something in the back of his mind, and always doing something while appearing to do nothing, a trait I recognized as one of his most dangerous ones even when I was a toddler, for it frequently tricked me into taking a breather when I wasn’t supposed to do.

“Anything else that we should worry about?” I ask dryly, noting how the dead witches formed a circle around us, how can they still have their magic even after death?

“From the way they are standing, I believe they are about to conjure the mortem ring, a very ancient and strong seal that traps enemies inside it and slowly drain them, all while pouring the temple’s energy into the ones casting it, giving them the upper hand and making them stronger, we have little time to defeat them, or we will be dead before we know it….”

“Now you want to battle your sisters?” I don’t need to look at Axel to know how bitter he is about his mate’s betrayal, something he is not trying to hide, and something tells me it has something to do with Leora, he didn’t sound this angry about her other crimes, but once he learned what she did to my mate his entire demeanor shifted.

I hate it…

“They are not my sisters, not anymore, they are puppets in Alexander’s hands, and right now, it is either us or now…”

“Glad I am not the only one you checked off your ‘stay loyal to’ list!” I roll my eyes at the sarcastic tone he is using, choosing to focus on what the blond witch said, a seal that drains the ones trapped inside, I doubt it would work on me, but I am not willing to test the odds, so instead of listening to more of their futile bickering, I charge at one of the witches, but as if she had predicted my attack, she easily dodges me with the agility of a humming bird, I blink at first, her moves almost too fast for my brain to assimilate, but unlike me, she and two of her sisters waste no time with their counter attack as one of them digs her hands into the soil, thick roots explode under my feet and trap me like a fly in a web, the other summons what appears to be a bubble of water all around me, cutting off my air, only for the third to raise her arms to the sky and summon a lightning bolt that scorches me to near death.

I try to remain conscious as the electric shocks roast my insides, the pain too immense to endure, the veins too strong to break, black dots appear in front of my eyes, but luckily it stopped before I lost my breath for good, and to my surprise, it is Ciana battling with the lightening witch while Axel chases after the one controlling the roots.

Taking the chance I am offered, I quickly push my body out of the water bubble, my lungs scream at me to take a second and breathe in as they threaten to explode, but that is a luxury I can’t afford for I know the rest of the witches will not sit by and watch, instead, I charge at the witch who dissolves into water once I am about to punch her head off, only to appear right behind me with a water spear in hand, I dodge at the last millisecond and jump away, still baffled about their reaction.

But then, a single glance at the master’s smirking face answers my questions.

He is the one controlling them, and he is the one who trained me, he knows how I fight and how I move, every single attack is something he taught me, something he can easily predicts…

Too bad for him, I am no longer the little boy who knew nothing but his cruelty and his little friend’s warmth, with that, I stand still for a few seconds, watching as four witches all come at me.

Cowards flee in the presence of danger, but danger flee in the presence of the reaper, mighty, strong, and merciless you are, wear your qualities like armor, letting them present you to the world, hit first without pity, the terror of Gods doesn’t wait for hit armor to be covered in spit and humiliation before swinging back… he once told me, I remember it clearly, I remember how he didn’t only wish for me to be the strongest creature there is, but that everyone knew what I am capable of, an illusion of a monster so untouchable even the Goddess can’t bare to look at it, he wanted to weaponize the fear I installed in those around me, for the fear of death was worse than death itself, he said.

But what he doesn’t know is that I haven’t been frozen in the mold he put me in, I broke that cage the second I broke his neck, I learned from Ben and my friends, I learned from Mila, and I learned from my little mouse, the ones who were not afraid of me, I learned to step back, to humble myself and to run away from a fight when there was nothing to gain, I learned that fighting in itself and victory were not things to celebrate without a purpose.

“We will cover your back, you just focus on him!” Axel announces in my brain, his tone bare of any hate towards me, which I am not glad about in the slightest, things were much easier when he hated me and my mate, but now, the guilt he is feeling might sway her back and I can’t live with that thought, especially with how I treated her before she left, maybe now she hates me, maybe she wants nothing to do with me and would want to return to the comfort of her first love, I shake that thought and accept his offer, charging forward, not wasting my energy with fighting the witches and only dogging their attacks, taking all the needed steps back just for that one I make forward, telling myself to quell the need to fight back, to prove I am the strongest, I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, I wish I had such clarity back when I was in the basement with Leora, I wish I managed to quell the desperate need to prove to both of us that she is mine.

The master tilts his head for a second before realizing what I am doing, to which he only shrugs before sending all the witches after me, I push myself to my full speed, evading every single one of their attacks while Axel and his mate utilized their occupation with me to attack them while they attacked me, they say the best defense is a good offense but in my case it is the other way around, lightning bolt keeps erupting from the sky and the three of us use the walls as our shield, letting the witches destroy the very same temple they are protecting.

You can’t kill what is already dead, but you can destroy what is pumping more life into it, the attacks grow weaker as more runes are destroyed, the very same runes that feed their magic, the closer I get to the master the hardest they try to get to me while completely ignoring the existence of Axel and his mate, the master probably sees them as insects that he would crush later, his ego has always been and will always be his biggest flaw, and now that he has nothing, it is but the illusion of power he is holding up to.

“They are growing weaker but so are we, we need to finish this fast…” as if I don’t know, I think as I finally manage to get closer to the master, still sitting with his legs crossed, but instead of staring at those deep irises like before, I try to look for something deeper…

I try to see my mate’s soul…