Ebony jumped into the hole in the ground without hesitating, because if she gave herself more ti to think, she’d find too many reasons not to—and none of them would help Veronica.
The fall was long and dark, with dirt walls brushing against her shoulders on both sides and the sound of wind rising from below as she descended. Her first thought wasn’t the impact, but the small vials she carried, pressing her arm against her side to protect them during the fall. "(That bastard is way too strong for ... It doesn’t matter if I die or not right now, I have to save Veronica.)"
The impact ca without warning. Her feet hit the cave floor and the rock gave way beneath her, breaking into fragnts that shot outward while her knees absorbed the fall with a resistance that would have shattered bones in any other body. She remained standing amid dust and debris, unhard, looking at the destruction around her.
The cave was a field of ruins. Broken rock everywhere, chunks of ceiling collapsed onto the ground, remains of the monsters from the previous battle mixed with dirt and dust into a uniform layer covering every surface. The air was heavy, thick with blood magic and freshly broken stone, and the faint light from the hole above didn’t reach the corners.
She activated her Healer ability without saying a word, letting her perception spread through the cave in all directions, searching for life signatures among the debris. Most were weak or nonexistent, remnants of creatures that hadn’t survived the explosions. But one was different, buried, small, flickering irregularly like sothing still functioning—but barely.
She didn’t know if it was Veronica. But it was the only thing there, and she had no choice but to move toward it.
She began clearing rocks. Her strength handled the work easily, tossing fragnts aside with quick, direct movents, emptying the pile piece by piece until fabric appeared first, then hair, white and covered in dust, then Veronica’s face with her eyes closed and her breathing uneven.
She was alive. But the way she was breathing wasn’t good, with pauses between each breath that lasted too long, and when Ebony placed her hand on her chest, she felt sothing wet and thick moving where there should have been nothing but air.
She pulled out a healing vial without thinking and made her drink it, tilting her head carefully so the liquid would go down properly. Veronica swallowed with difficulty, but she swallowed, and Ebony was already evaluating the next step when the sound ca from above.
A dull thud. Then the crack of earth splitting. Then the impact of sothing heavy landing on the cave floor just ters from where she was kneeling.
The man in white brushed dust off his shoulder with the sa calm as always, as if dropping into a ruined cave in free fall were part of any normal night. The crow mask looked at her from a distance without speaking at first.
"Where do you think you’re going?" His voice filled the cave as easily as it had filled the garden. "Ah, your cat friend. I suppose you’ll ask for help. I don’t mind, go ahead, heal her if you want. But if you take too long, I’ll heal mine too."
From the sleeves of his white coat, worms began to erge. Small, reddish, glowing, sliding down his clothes to the ground and burrowing into the earth with a silent, thodical speed, spreading in different directions beneath the surface like roots of sothing that ant no good.
Ebony tracked them with her passive ability, sensing how they moved underground toward the spots where the remains of fallen creatures lay. He was looking to reanimate them. To reconnect them. To recover everything he had lost during the night in a single calm motion.
She had to end this quickly. But ending this quickly against that man was a statent with no real support based on what she had seen so far. He was too strong, too calculated, and the plan she had used before—distracting him and making him lower his guard—wasn’t going to work a second ti against soone who had clearly been watching everything from the start.
Still, the purifying fire only needed an opening. A touch. If she could place her hand on any part of that body, even for a second, the fire would do the rest, burning every parasite inside him without needing anything else. The problem was getting to him.
She looked at Veronica. The cat girl was beginning to regain so color thanks to the healing vial, but the transformation that had kept her going all night was fading, retreating from her body with the slow withdrawal of sothing that no longer had the reserves to sustain itself. And where there had once been normal skin, a dark color was now visible in her veins, spreading slowly outward from the lungs.
The infection. The vaporized blood she had inhaled during the battle with the rabbits, contained while the transformation lasted and now spreading freely now that her body could no longer hold it back.
Ebony placed her hand on her friend’s chest without hesitation.
"Purify."
{{Life Magic X Warrior Art: Purifying Fire Fist}}
Green fire covered her hand and spread through Veronica’s body imdiately, running through her veins from the chest outward, following the infection in reverse and burning every trace of blood magic it found along the way. Veronica’s eyes snapped open, her breathing still uneven but cleaner than before, and she looked at Ebony with the disoriented expression of soone who had just co back from sowhere very dark.
But the infection was deep. Ebony could feel it as the fire worked, the amount of blood magic that had embedded itself in her friend’s lungs during the fight wasn’t sothing that could be fixed with a single spell and a vial. She could stabilize her, she could slow the spread, but without real treatnt and ti, it was only delaying the inevitable.
She gave her the last healing vial she had. Then she stood up.
"This girl’s a pain." She said it out loud, looking at the man with the crow mask with a calm that cost her more than she showed. "Bad attitude since the day I t her. But she was still kind to , and now she’s about to die because of you. Just because soone paid you to take a life."
The man didn’t respond. The crow mask stared at her without moving, with the patience of soone who had all the ti in the world and didn’t need to fill silence to feel comfortable.
Ebony looked at the half apple still in her hand. Her magic was already full from the first half, ready, with no space left to absorb more energy. Eating the rest without a channel for the excess was a risk she normally wouldn’t take. The body wasn’t ant to hold more than it could process, and the consequences of forcing it weren’t predictable.
She sighed with the particular frustration of soone making a decision they don’t like but know is the only option, and shoved the remaining half of the apple into her mouth in one bite, without ceremony.
The effect was imdiate—and not pleasant. The elven magic entered and found no empty space to settle, so it began to stack on top of what was already there, compressing, heating every channel from the inside until her skin started to radiate visible heat and her heart sped up, trying to distribute the flow before the pressure beca unbearable.
It was too much magic for a body not trained to contain it. But it was also the only reason what ca next could work.
"Where I co from, there’s a saying you should hear before your damn puppet dies." Her voice ca out louder than she intended, pushed by the internal pressure that had nowhere else to go. Her entire body burned from within, fists clenched, the accumulated magic searching for release in every direction.
She jumped at the man without an elaborate strategy, all that stored energy driving the movent, closing the distance between them in less than a second. The man with the crow mask stepped aside with a clean leap, letting Ebony’s punch pass just inches from his side without touching him.
Ebony landed with her fist already aid downward and slamd it into the cave floor with all her strength and all the magic she had built up, releasing everything.
"Those who live by the sword die by the sword, you piece of shit. PURIFY!"
{{Life Magic X Warrior Art: Scorched Ground}}
Green fire burst from the point of impact and didn’t stay there. It spread across the stone floor in all directions at once, racing through cracks and surfaces with the speed granted by all that accumulated magic that had found no other outlet, covering the cave floor in seconds and then climbing the walls.
In monts, the entire cave beca an oven of green fire. The flas didn’t burn the rock, didn’t consu the air, didn’t touch anything inert. But any parasite, any reddish worm, any blood-magic creature touching any surface of that cave burned instantly, without exception, without escape.
The worms the man had sent underground began to surface, burning, writhing, dying before reaching any of the bodies they were ant to claim. Dozens of them, then more, erging only to et the fire waiting across every inch of stone.
"Ha ha ha!" The man’s laughter filled the cave, genuinely unrestrained. He leapt upward to avoid the fire on the ground, landing on a raised chunk of rock not yet reached by the flas, and from there looked at Ebony with sothing that, even through the crow mask, could only be read as delight. "I knew you wouldn’t disappoint , girl! Go on, keep growing!"
Ebony looked at him from the center of the green fire, fists still burning, breathing fast from the strain of releasing everything at once. The heat of the cave was intense, but it didn’t touch her—the purifying fire recognized her magic and let her pass.
The man was still smiling from his elevated position, out of reach of the flas for now, watching her with that calm he had never lost all night. And Ebony understood what that ant for what ca next.
There were no more ten-minute rules. No more deals about scratches. What remained now was simple: the first one to land a direct hit would win.
Because Ebony’s purifying fire would kill every parasite inside him the mont she touched him.
And anything he touched her with would do the sa.
User Comments
0 comments from readers