Chapter 82: Blind

Riven was feeling charged up as he watched the fight. It was as if lightning ran in his blood. “This is the type of power I want!”

He knew he wouldn’t even be able to get close to them without getting cut up. The aura pressure he was feeling was like a heavy weight on his neck.

He had even forgotten the pain in his body as he watched them greedily. “When will I be able to fight like them? When I reach their ranks, I bet I will be able to pull more than this off.”

Then he swallowed, wincing as his throat flared in pain. “But that’s only if I survive.”

The fight between the two had somehow dissolved into one where the other was trying to catch the one. Zandrel was flying from one place to the other like some kind of spider monkey while Malum was covered in an umbrella of flesh as several threads tried to get to his body.

Riven frowned. “Which of you is going to break this cycle and fight each other again?”

He said it as if he were a speculator watching a fight in the ring or an instructor watching a spar between his students. His eyes were glued to those two.

Zandrel changed tactics because, as the lower-ranked of the two, he was the one that would run out of power the quickest. His fingers twisted together, and the threads followed his example.

All the threads twisted together to form just four golden, thick threads that came down to drill into the shield around Malum, who seemed to be seeing what was going on outside the enclosed shield he made around himself.

The flesh shield crumbled away to nothing, and he jumped out, high into the sky. The red hole in his face had closed; the black bandages were already filling the spot.

But most of the bandages unfurled in his hand. The black bandages that unfurled gained a new edge, a dark luster that shone like polished stone or gem. It wasn’t all, though, because the eye socket that shone red in his eyes began to bleed. Blood ran down like a waterfall and soaked the bandages he was wearing into a deep red.

Malum then brought his hand down like a sword.

The black bandage spread, whipped the air like a lash, and slashed down. It was so long that it cut down trees, and the golden threads exploded as the bandages cut into them, slicing the threads into bits.

Zandrel howled in pain as if it was his own nerves that were getting cut up. But all the threads had been shredded. The red bandage was long enough to reach wherever Malum wanted.

“It’s finally over.” Riven breathed in relief because, for a second there, he thought Zandrel was going to win and get away with it.

Malum reached the ground from his jump, the bandage poised around him like serpents. “Well, tell me who you are working for. I assume my master will be interested in that kind of information.”

Zandrel laughed. “You assume a lot, Malum. This night might not have gone as I wanted, but I have learned more than I expected as well.”

His eyes turned to Riven. “And you have become even more interesting in my eyes. For you to have a Skull Lord make a move. Two Skull Lords. Hehe hehe, I can’t wait for the show that’s about to happen, but I pity you as well because more Skull Lords will turn their attention on you.”

Malum frowned. “What nonsense are you talking about? Forget it. I will just beat you until you can’t fight anymore and drag you to my master. That seems to always work.”

Zandrel straightened and bowed. His voice and face had lost its cruelty and returned to that soft, brotherly one. And as Riven and Malum watched, Zandrel lifted his hand and brought it to his left eye.

And without hesitation, his fingers dug in, and he ripped his left eye out.

Riven flinched in surprise. “What in the Dead Necromancer King!”

What shocked them wasn’t the fact that Zandrel ripped out his eye, even though that was a shocking turn of events as well. What shocked them was the fact that behind the ripped-out eye, there was no blood.

No bloody flesh or brain. Zandrel’s head was hollow. The only thing inside was hundreds of inscriptions that glowed with different flickering lights.

Riven understood at once. Zandrel wasn’t a real body. He was a puppet as well!

As the shocking fact was sinking in, Zandrel lifted his hand, and with a cracking, popping sound, the white eye exploded into a bright ray of silver that brought the sunlight straight atop the mountain.

Riven closed his eyes, and he groaned as the light stabbed into his eyes like fire. His eyes began to water as pain made him collapse, and he bowed his head into the dirt to hide his eyes.

He heard Malum curse and then a sound like something was ripping, and then silence. The silence seemed… At the same time, Zandrel’s aura vanished, and when Riven extended his senses, he realized that Kivara was gone as well.

It took time for the light to fade, and even then, Riven’s eyes remained in darkness. He could only see faint dark figures.

“You’re blind for now,” Malum said.

“What happened?” Riven asked. He continued doubtfully, “Did you kill him… it?”

Malum snorted. “That bastard was ready. A flash bomb in his left eye and a portal in his right. He escaped, carried your friend right away with him. And it’s a him.”

Riven swallowed as a stone dropped to the pit of his stomach. Kivara had been kidnapped by a slave-trading madman. He didn’t know what to think. The night was some kind of whirl of strange events colliding together in the most horrible way.

His head was pounding, and his throat itched. His eyes were dry and painful, difficult to see with. “Just what is he?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know, and since I don’t know which of the Skull Lords he’s working for, then I can’t pin anything down.”

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