Chapter 96: Yime

Makun had been overwhelmed. Every time he thought the mystic world could not get any stranger, it got worse.

The feeling in front of the ancient shadow was one he had not felt before.

It was different from when he had met the presence.

The energy from the presence had not been oppressive, but this was something else. It felt like he could be devoured, his will snuffed out at any moment.

After Jorg’s attack to counter the sword strike, Makun knew things had turned sour.

Jorg could not fight anymore. He had spent his Ashe.

Makun did not know how to proceed, how to get out of it. That was when he heard Orel’s voice.

“Boss, now.”

Directly after, an icy presence blanketed the bounded field.

It was chilling. Extremely so. The temperature had dropped to immeasurable degrees.

Everything in the surrounding—the lamp posts, the cobblestones, dust in the air—froze and cracked.

Makun felt his bones go cold. His body shivered.

He was trembling. This one was different from earlier. It was not because of pressure but because of cold.

He circulated his Ashe in an attempt to chase the cold away. However, as soon as it circulated, it was snuffed.

Fwoosh!

Yime appeared behind Cheryl and the shadow, who were striking toward Jorg.

Her golden hair stood still, not moving one bit, like a frozen fountain. Her long dark coat moved gently under the breeze created by the chill.

She looked at the shadow through her veil, her gaze dark but analyzing. She looked at it, classifying every one of its features in her head.

She nodded, then raised a hand.

A chill spread from her body.

The creature felt a disturbance. Its danger sense tingled, alarming it of extreme danger.

A new foe had appeared.

Cheryl’s possessed body abruptly spun around, facing Yime.

WOOOSH!

She slashed. The machetes came down in a twin executioner’s arc.

The sky darkened, deeper than when she struck at Jorg. A sword formed, larger than before.

Thirty meters of thick, oppressive darkness descended toward Yime.

Yime’s gaze remained calm.

She did not budge. Pressure meant nothing. The energy emanating from the sword meant less.

Her raised hand moved slowly. A particle formed in front of her. Tiny. Blue. The size of a grain of rice.

Vrooooop!

A chilling sound expanded throughout the bounded field.

Chill spread from it. Air molecules halted mid-collision. Dust hung suspended like constellations. Streetlights dimmed in arrested flicker. Sound waves flattened into silence.

It all froze.

The massive shadow sword halted mid-descent, its dark energy crystallizing into frozen blackness.

Cheryl’s body locked. Her eyes wide, pupils dilated in shock. Her hand still in a downward motion, the porcelain doll strapped at her waist. She was ready to strike, but she could not move.

She could not breathe.

The ancient creature behind them screamed. A soundless, spiritual wail of rage and terror. It had lost Cheryl. It could not speak anymore.

But it felt pain. Pain it should not have felt.

It tried to retreat, to dissolve back into the Deep, but the cold spread faster.

Ice crept across its spiritual form. Its claws shattered. Its eyes dimmed.

Yime looked at it, her expression deadpan.

Then she pushed.

BOOM!

The frozen air shattered.

BOOM!

The shadow sword exploded into a thousand fragments of frozen darkness, dissipating into nothingness.

The ancient creature’s form cracked. Fissures spread across its body. It convulsed once, twice, then shattered completely, its essence scattering like ash in the wind.

It was gone.

…

Jorg watched from across the parking lot, his tired gaze wide open.

They had been briefed by Orel. He had never mentioned the details but had asked Yime to only move when he told her to.

He had deduced that Cheryl had access to such a thing. So they went along with the plan.

He had expected an attack. He had expected Cheryl’s desperation. He also expected Yime’s intervention.

But such an overwhelming victory over such an entity.

He had never seen it coming.

There is a huge gap between Adept and Elite, he reminded himself.

What Yime had done just now was what he had been trying to figure out earlier against Bol.

Her ice element could freeze the ethereal. That was how she won against the creature.

She did not just freeze the environment. She froze the frequency itself. Stopped atomic vibration entirely. He analyzed.

He could not have defeated the creature because his Divine Repulsion was limited to the environment at its current stage.

No matter how many times he wounded Cheryl, as long as the entity was present, they had no chance at victory.

But Yime had snuffed it out in one move.

Her powers were inconceivable. What would win, my gravity or her ice? Jorg asked himself.

He glanced at the state of the field, only to notice Makun frozen in place, his eyes wide open, staring at Yime.

…

Makun was not frozen by Yime’s ice. She had enough control to decide who to freeze. No, he was frozen because he had received too much shock.

This display of power. Would I reach there one day?

Makun watched as everything crumbled. The sword strike from the creature had crumbled. The creature itself had vanished.

The air was crystal clear after every dust particle and streetlamp vanished.

Cheryl gasped, her body released from the freeze. She stumbled backward, clutching her chest, coughing violently.

Blood flooded from her back and all seven orifices. Every injury she had sustained exploded.

She could not handle it anymore. Thud! She fainted, her consciousness entering a deep slumber.

Is it finally over? Makun asked himself after Cheryl fainted.

It should have been over, but why were his feelings odd? Why were his senses tingling?

Something felt wrong.

“Bring them. They are coming with us,” Orel said, disrupting Makun’s inner thoughts.

Maybe it really is over and I am overthinking. Makun slowly stood up, walking to where Orel was.

They had captured the enemies. They could interrogate them and get some very important information from them.

“What do we do now?” he quietly asked Orel, even though he was not sure the latter was going to answer.

“Right now we—” Orel was answering when he snapped his head to where Cheryl had been.

Something felt wrong. Makun could see it written all over his face.

If Orel, out of everyone, reacted like this, then the degree of the problem was similar to that of an ant facing a mountain.

“Yime, the doll!” Orel screamed, pointing at the doll that hung from Cheryl’s waist.

Yime did not think and flashed to where the doll was.

However, before she could reach it, the porcelain doll strapped to Cheryl’s waist cracked.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

Thin lines spiderwebbed across its surface. Then it shattered, pieces falling to the ground in silence.

Cheryl’s unconscious body trembled violently. Her legs twitched, muscles spasming as if electric currents were tearing through her nerves. Her back arched. Her fingers clawed at nothing.

GASP!

She convulsed. Her mouth opened wide, vomit spilling out, mixing with blood. Her eyes rolled back, pupils disappearing beneath white.

The backlash hit her all at once.

The last bit of will she had disappeared into nothingness. Cheryl had died like that.

But Makun could not care less. The unease he felt ever since he had woken up from his usual nightmare had increased.

It doubled, then tripled. And it kept increasing.

BOOM!

A vortex covered the entire bounded field.

The vortex pressed down on Makun like a hand from the heavens.

His legs gave out, his vision blurred.

But worse than all of it was the sensation within, the chains wrapped around his spirit body shaking violently, pulling taut, as if straining toward whatever was emerging.

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