Chapter 50: Even The Heavens Come Against Me

The saintess let out a low hum of surprise but it was quickly replaced with disgust. “To think I’d see the day a fool would smile in the face of death.”

She looked beyond Aden. Lorelei was in a similar situation as her Master, her head was crashed into stone by the heel of one of the Saintesses. A scar ran down the side of her face that dripped crimson. The second Saintess came behind her and pierced the pit of her knee with an annoyed expression as she spat a mouthful of blood on her head.

“Arghhh!!!”

Lorelei’s screams reached Aden’s ears and fuled his urgency to greater heights. The pain was excruciating, but he could feel his Resonance slowly thickening to alleviate the pain that coursed through every fiber of his being.

“Your comrades have fallen. You are weaker than the Princess anticipated,” her eyes grew colder. “The Princess does not tolerate weakness.”

Her sword raised, the bloodied tip reflecting sharply in the holy light that she exuded as she brought it down sharply.

Aden’s heart dropped as the blade drew closer to his neck. ’What? She wasn’t supposed to kill me…’

The cold air blew against his neck, but Aden’s instinct shot to the maximum. He snapped his head to such an angle it threatened to break and caught the blade between his teeth.

A low clang sounded in the battlefield. The Saintess’ eyebrows furrowed as she grappled with the blade stuck in Aden’s teeth.

Aden’s body shivered countless times as the blade slid against his teeth. Blood flowed through the sides of his lips and his gums were a terrifying shade of crimson.

The Saintess kicked his head fiercely causing it to jerkto the side, but he didn’t dare let go of the blade.

’Come on…’

Another Saintess lifted her blade with annoyance in her expression. Aden couldn’t hear anything, but from the way she was speaking to the leader, it seemed like they were rather close.

He saw the blade flash in his peripheral vision, but he had no free limbs to block the attack.

The blade struck his skin, but there was only a shrill vibration that echoed through the ears of everyone present.

The heads of the two Saintesses torturing Lorelei turned in Aden’s direction. Their emotionless eyes clearly reflected surprise.

The shrill vibration died, and all that was left was silence.

The blade was stuck in Aden’s skin, but if one looked closely, a shimmering transparent energy stopped it’s complete penetration.

The air grew heavy and thick with the scent of bloodlust as Aden slowly took to his feet. The poles still remained in his skin and the blade snapped in two in the Saintess’ grip.

A bloodied smile that extended to his ears courtesy of the blade sent shivers down the spines of everyone present.

They took two steps backwards unconsciously. Their face paled as the sound of poles grinding against bone sounded in their ears.

Aden spat out the broke piece of the blade and let out a sound, a jagged, hoarse and bloodied voice that sounded like the embodiment of horror.

“You burnt my skin, burnt my innards, kicked my gut, ridiculed me and my people, pierced poles into my limbs, sliced my lips, and attempted to stab my back.”

His arm lifted and pointed at the Leader who was desperately trying to hide her pensive emotions. “For that, all of you shall not see the end of this day.”

Immediately those words left his lips, Aden moved so fast it looked like he disappeared.

Their pupils shook, and in the next moment, the heads of the two Saintesses behind the Leader was smashed deep into the ground with a sickening thud.

The dust hadn’t even settled from the impact before Aden was moving again.

The two Saintesses he’d pinned were twitching, their white helmets caved in like crushed eggshells. He didn’t check to see if they were breathing; he didn’t care. The sheer force of the Sync flared through his nervous system, and miles away, two of his Vassals fell into a dead faint as their skulls hummed in sympathetic agony.

The one who buried a blade in the pit of Lorelei’s knee ran forward, her boots scraping against the glass-charred earth. She tried to raise her hand, a desperate flicker of holy light sparking at her fingertips, but Aden was already there.

He wasn’t using a technique. He was using a grudge.

He caught her wrist mid-air. The sound of her radius snapping was dry and sharp, muffled only by her strangled gasp of pain. Aden didn’t stop there. He leaned into her space, his face, a mask of shredded lips and silver-black gore—inches from her visor.

“Where is that arrogance now?” he rasped, the vibration of his voice making the metal of her armor rattle.

The fourth Saintess, the one who had been holding Lorelei down, lunged at his back. She screamed a battle cry fueled by pure terror, her light-blade aimed at his spine. Aden didn’t even turn around.

The shimmering transparent energy around his skin flared. As the blade struck his back, it didn’t pierce. It slid off the frequency-aligned barrier, the screech of metal on energy set to a pitch that made the Saintess’s ears bleed.

Aden’s free hand shot backward blindly and grabbed the woman by her throat.

He stood there for a heartbeat, a grotesque bridge between two of the Crown’s elite, holding them both as if they weighed nothing. The poles still protruding from his thighs and shoulders leaked silver fluid, but he stood tall, the Adaptive Resonance finally holding the structural integrity of his broken body together through sheer spite.

“Master…” Lorelei whispered from the dirt, her eyes wide, watching the jagged shadow he cast.

Aden squeezed.

The Saintess behind him gargled, her feet kicking uselessly at the air. He turned his gaze back to the Leader, whose breath was coming in frantic, pathetic hitches.

“You said the Princess doesn’t tolerate weakness,” Aden reminded her, his grip on her shattered wrist tightening until the metal bracer began to bite into her own flesh. “Then she’s going to hate what I’m about to do to you.”

He slammed the two of them together. The sound of plate armor colliding with plate armor rang out like a death knell. He dropped their limp bodies into the dirt and turned toward the last one—the leader, who was forming a complex magic circle with solemnity.

The Leader didn’t beg. She didn’t even look at him. Her fingers blurred in the air, tracing glowing lines that hissed as they cut through the smoke. A massive, geometric circle materialized before her, vibrating with a light so pure it made the shadows in the district retreat.

“By the blood of the Sun,” she chanted, her voice trembling with the strain. “I invoke the Ninth Descent.”

The air pressure tripled. Aden felt the weight of it in his marrow. Above them, the sky seemed to open, a pinpoint of white-hot divinity focusing directly on his head. Th blade looked like it was an execution from the heavens.

Aden shivered. It was too much data, too fast. Miles away, he felt the Vassals’ heartbeats spike before they began to flatline from the sheer psychic heat.

“Master, get back!” Lorelei screamed, her voice cracking.

Aden didn’t move. He stood in the center of the gathering storm, the poles in his body acting like lightning rods. He stared at the complex runes, his bloodied lips twitching into a thin line.

“Complex,” Aden muttered.

The Leader looked up, her eyes wild. “You cannot adapt to the sun, Anomaly!”

“Maybe not,” Aden rasped. “But I can adapt to you.”

As the circle reached its breaking point, Aden lunged. He didn’t aim for her; he thrust his charred, blood-slicked hands directly into the center of the magic circle.

The sound of metal grinding against glass filled the air. The Holy energy fought him, burning his fingers to the bone, but Aden didn’t flinch. He used the light-poles still stuck in his arms as bridges, forcing his own volatile, transparent Resonance and the last drop of his Void energy into the delicate heart of the spell.

He was infecting it.

“What are you doing?!” the Leader shrieked. The brilliant white runes were turning a sickly, bruised silver. “You’ll kill us both!”

“I’ve died once,” Aden hissed, his teeth baring. “It was boring.”

The balance snapped. The magic circle didn’t fire; it imploded.

The blast hit the Leader point-blank. Her chestplate shattered, and she was thrown back like a ragdoll, her lungs collapsing from the backfire of her own power.

Aden was sent flying in the opposite direction. He skipped across the scorched ground and slammed into a stone wall with a sickening thud. The Sync with the Vassals finally broke, the overwhelming pain forcing his mind into a temporary, merciful blackout.

Silence fell over the crater, smelling of ozone and burnt meat.

Aden slumped against the ruins, his silver hair matted with blood. His breath came in ragged, wet hitches. Across the clearing, the four Saintesses lay broken, their Holy light extinguished.

Lorelei crawled toward him, her breath coming in frantic gasps. “Master… Master, look at me.”

Aden’s eyes flickered open. The silver light in them was dim, replaced by a cold, exhausted haze. He looked at his hands—the skin was gone, replaced by a raw, metallic texture that was already beginning to pulse.

“Lorelei,” he wheezed, spitting a glob of black blood onto the dirt.

“I’m here, Lord! I’m here,” Lorelei screamed as she held his face close to hers.

Aden gestured weakly toward the Leader. “The neck… the Royal seal. Bring it to me.”

Even as his body shut down, Aden was looking for his next move.

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