Chapter 49: Internal Fight

Makun stood over him, breathing hard. Blood dripped from the bullet wound in his side. Flames still licked at his torso, but they were dying now, flickering out as the demonic smoke thinned. The spirits inside him were screaming, clawing at his ribs from the inside, but the fire had burned most of them away.

His right hand was blackened. Charred. The skin blistered and cracked, But his fist was still clenched.

He raised it again.

The spirits were screaming for blood, they had to finish the job.

They had to finish Mark.

WOOOSH!

His fist darted through air, thick smoke forming behind it, ready to finish Mark.

However, just as his fist was about to connect with Mark, Makun felt something snap inside him. It was not anything painful like what he endured since this morning.

No, it felt different, like a closing gate, something coming to an end.

His fist hung in the air. He could feel himself slowly regaining control over the ugly voices.

KILL. BLOOD. TEAR.

Makun ignored the voices, and instead focused on his chest, more precisely where the Route core lodged.

The grain pulsed once.

Then the world opened.

Something felt different.

All night long, even after he exited the Deep, Makun could feel his Route core absorbing energy, the pain had diminished, less painful than when his spirit body was in the Deep, however it had still been there.

But now, it stopped.

Makun knew it instinctively, he did not need any explanation from anyone. The Route core had just finished forming.

Is it over? Am I gonna finally regain control? Makun wondered.

ARRGHHH AHRGRHH

The entities screamed the moment they felt the Route core formation finish. Their scream was not one of hunger, not one of blood, no this time it was different, they were panicking.

They could not leave, not now.

Makun’s knees buckled, his raised fist wavered, moving forth and back as under the pressure of a tug of war.

The spirits weren’t trying to make him kill anymore.

They were trying to stay.

Makun could feel them better now after his Route core was formed. He could really feel dozens, no, hundreds of writhing, clawing, desperate things pressed against the inside of his ribs, his spine, his skull. They were no longer steering. They were anchoring. Trying to carve their names into the Core before it hardened completely.

And if they succeeded,

If they stay, I’m fucked.

He didn’t know how he knew that. But he did. The knowledge settled into him with the same weight as his Route, his Tier, his Grade.

Makun’s body swayed. His vision blurred. Blood dripped from his side, from his burnt hand, from his mouth.

The man on the ground, Mark, coughed, spat blood, and forced himself to sit up. His ribs were broken, his breath shallow and pained. But his eyes were sharp. Focused.

He saw the hesitation.

He saw Makun’s fist drop an inch.

And he understood.

“Ryan,” Mark rasped, voice tight with pain. “Now. Full binding.”

“He’s—”

“NOW.”

A figure materialized from the shadows twenty meters away. Tall, lean, mid-twenties. Short blonde hair, sharp green eyes behind thin-framed glasses. Dressed in a dark hoodie and jeans. His hands were already moving, fingers weaving patterns in the air.

Ryan Cole. Third-grade Initiate. Warrior Route. Binding specialist.

He didn’t hesitate.

His hands snapped forward, palms out.

“BIND.”

Bright, shining ropes erupted from thin air.

Not around Makun this time.

On him.

They materialized directly against his skin, his wrists, his ankles, his throat, his chest, wrapping tight like molten chains. The light was blinding, golden-white, pulsing with spiritual fire.

The moment they touched him, Makun screamed. Screamed in a way he never did before.

It was not the guttural, layered shriek of the entities.

His scream was raw, human, and extremely agonized.

The ropes weren’t just restraining him. They were burning him.

Not his flesh, though his skin blistered and blackened where they touched. They burned deeper than that. They touched his spiritual body. The chaotic vibrations. The entity-infested patterns carved into his soul.

The ropes were purifying fire.

And the entities inside him felt it too.

They shrieked.

Louder than before. Louder than anything Makun had ever heard. The sound wasn’t audible, it was spiritual, a frequency that rattled his bones and made his teeth ache.

The demonic faces in the smoke around his body twisted, mouths gaping, eyes wide with terror. They clawed at his ribs from the inside, trying to dig deeper, trying to hide from the light.

But the ropes tightened.

SSSSSSSS.

The sound of flesh burning. The smell of scorched ozone. Makun’s wrists smoked. His neck blistered. His chest felt like it was being pressed against a branding iron.

He tried to move. His right arm trembled. His left leg scraped forward half an inch. But the ropes held him in place, tightening with every struggle.

Mark pushed himself to his feet, wincing, one hand clutching his broken ribs. He limped toward Makun slowly, gun still in his other hand, barrel pointed down but ready.

“Hold him,” Mark said quietly.

Ryan’s hands didn’t move. Sweat dripped down his forehead. His jaw was clenched tight. “I’m trying. But he’s, shit, he’s resisting.”

“He’s not resisting. The fucking things inside him are.”

“Same thing right now.”

Mark stopped five feet away, eyes locked on Makun’s face. The black was fading from his eyes. Slowly. Flickering. Like a light shorting out.

“No,” Mark said. “It’s not.”

Inside Makun’s body, the entities were panicking.

The ropes were burning them. Not destroying, they couldn’t be destroyed, not by Tier 1 purification, but weakening them. Breaking their grip. Destabilizing the anchor points they’d carved into his spiritual body.

And the Core was still hardening. While the Core was hardening, the crack between the Veil and the Deep was tightening.

Every entity attracted by the chains to rush toward Makun’s body had difficulties entering.

If those already present in him didn’t root themselves now, they’d be expelled.

So they surged.

All at once. Every entity inside him threw itself at the Core, trying to carve, to bind, or infect it before the window closed. They tried whatever method possible to remain in here.

Makun felt it.

A crushing weight inside his chest. He felt like his heart was being squeezed by a fist made of smoke and teeth.

Whizz!

He couldn’t breathe. Forming thoughts in his head was even more difficult. He couldn’t think.

The world was just pain and pressure and screaming.

And then—

Thump.

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