Chapter 83: What’s Beneath

I stumble back a few steps after saying that, the pain rushing straight to my wound. Blood begins to hit the floor.

Lately all I know is blood.

Whether it is my own blood or the blood of the zierel that I’m fighting against constantly… There’s always more. I just can’t seem to get away from it, no matter how hard I try.

There is always going to be blood she’d somewhere.

I don’t even know what just stabbed me in the stomach or who it could possibly be this time. But this proves something was definitely underneath all that flesh from the beginning.

The pain slowly begins to dissipate as I notice that the blood isn’t dripping down from my stomach anymore.

“Don’t let your guard down again. I am struggling quite enough the way it is,” Celeste speaks with a bit of frustration in her voice.

I’m sorry. I will do my best to avoid taking any sort of damage if I can.

“Great,” she responds before disappearing.

But standing in front of me now is the same girl I saw in those strange flashes, the visions. She isn’t the same little girl from before though, actually I’d say she looks about my age now.

The claws for hands tell me she is definitely a hybrid though.

I already knew she had to be a Zierel but I didn’t know what kind. Her being the hybrid that came out from the abomination behind is definitely understandable now.

Aether was right about a hybrid hiding within that thing but is she really just a hybrid? If she is, Zeno can probably handle this easily.

This is their bread and butter while I’m just… Just what actually?

“The boy from before,” She says with a calm tone in her voice.

The words don’t really come out as I continue to stare towards her.

“It is different when you actually see me for real, huh?” She asks politely.

“I didn’t expect to see you, but I’m definitely going to assume that you plan to kill me,” I respond with a serious, yet calm tone.

Her eyes seem to look past me, probably towards Zeno.

“You aren’t the main threat at hand right now,” She speaks with a casual tone.

BANG!!!!

A shot immediately fires past me through her shoulder but within a couple of seconds I can see it healing already. She just looks back at me and then disappears before I can even react.

Gunshots continue from behind me so I quickly turn to see what’s going on, only to find that I can barely see anything happening with the fight.

Hybrids really are going to be the death of me if I can’t figure out a way to keep up with them. Every single time they’ve been faster than me without fail.

I have yet to beat one in an actual fight… Airi and Zeno just seem to be around for the right moments.

How much faster do I really need to be to fight against them?

“Hybrids can only move that fast because they aren’t human. Most don’t have to worry about side effects to the body,” Celeste speaks up, interrupting my train of thought.

“But I also can move pretty fast,” I respond calmly.

“You’re moving at speeds that a normal human can handle,” Celeste says calmly.

My sword disappears once again as I take a seat on the ground for a moment. Trying to see if I can even make out what’s going on ahead.

Everything is kind of a big blur with no figures in sight.

Just the sound of Zeno firing his guns while slashing is easy to hear every now and again. The fight alone sounds like it is pretty intense for both of them, but what happens if Airi manages to get back up?

Airi and Zeno combined could be quite a deadly duo since it’ll give the advantage of range and close quarter combat. Something like that will put a lot of pressure on a hybrid.

But again she doesn’t seem like a normal hybrid, especially with the way she came out from that body.

I just don’t have any idea what else she’d be considered to be.

“She isn’t just a lesser hybrid, she is a true hybrid. Ranks do exist within our species but I didn’t think we’d ever see them,” Celeste speaks up.

“How many other ranks are there?” I question with a bit of curiosity.

“Lesser, True, Ascendant, Corrupted, and last would be sovereign. Corrupted is a bit different than you might be thinking,” Celeste answers.

“I’ll just do my best to remember the ranks for now. You can definitely fill me in on the differences in rank later,” I say while shifting my focus back to the battle.

I try a bit harder to focus on the fight ahead of me… Slowly I can see their outlines forming in the distance. Both of them are clashing constantly, giving Zeno no real distance.

Gusts of wind blows past me with each moment they clash, but I did notice that the field of darkness isn’t the same anymore.

It has completely disappeared, along with the intense pressure from before.

I’m guessing she was causing that pressure from inside of the dead abomination over there. There isn’t really much of an explanation otherwise.

Unless she chose to stop putting that pressure on everyone here, but I don’t see a reason for her to do that.

Fwoosh!

Bang!!! Bang!!!!! Bang!!!!!!!!

Shots are getting faster with each second that passes but it still doesn’t seem like the fight is dying down.

Grab.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and quickly turn to see who could be touching me now. As I go to look, I hear her speak.

“Airi will be okay, what’s going on over there?” Amelia asks with curiosity.

Thank God… It is just Amelia.

“A hybrid came out from that dead zierel over there,” I answer with relief in my voice.

“They don’t stop giving us surprises,” Amelia says as she shakes her head.

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