Chapter 33: Upheaval (1)
Chapter 33: Upheaval (1)
Without warning, Joshua’s arm shoved Ariel aside. Engulfed in the frenzy of battle, surrendered to Rayner’s madness, her concentration shattered instantly. Predictably, her magic went astray.
“What the—!”
What are you doing?! But before she could even scream, every nerve in her body exploded in pain, surging toward the back of her left shoulder. The sensation was so intense, it was as though she’d forgotten how to speak.
She had no time to register what had happened, only pain rushed in. A searing, burning agony. So excruciating it eclipsed the ability to even scream.
The pain was so overwhelming that her consciousness began to drift. Her vision blurred. Her strength drained away. Rayner’s maniacal laughter faded into the distance. She knew the moment was brief, yet it felt eternal.
What is this? What’s happening?
Amidst the disjointed swirl of sensation, noise erupted all around. But Ariel had no capacity to take in her surroundings. The pain gripping her body refused to let her go.
Her mind raced, faster than ever, yet none of her thoughts resembled her usual self. Every single one was rooted in pain.
What happened to me?
Why does it hurt so much?
Is this how I die?
Is death really this painful?
And then…
[“If you don’t want to die, pull yourself together and move like usual. We’re still in the middle of battle. Block the giants. Call for support. Leave the Black Fog ones to the others. Magic won’t work.”]
Within the haze of her broken senses, one voice cut through loud and clear. Of all the words, one stood out like a beacon.
If you don’t want to die.
“I… don’t want to die…”
The primal instinct burst from her lips in a faint murmur. The will behind those words acted like a jolt of adrenaline. Her fading, darkening mind snapped back to life.
I can’t lose consciousness. If I want to live, I have to fight.
With that realization, strength returned to her as if by magic. Ariel reached out and retrieved Rayner, whom she had dropped in her weakened state. Steadying her ragged breath, she scanned the battlefield. Though her vision remained hazy, she focused until she could at least cast wide-range spells.
She forced herself to concentrate. If I want to live, I have to stop the giant. With that, she cast spell after spell. Pure survival instinct drove her on.
But—
No matter how powerful survival instincts may be, they don’t erase limits. Her body, already pushed to its absolute edge, reached a state where even the will to live couldn’t sustain it. Once again, her consciousness began to slip.
‘No… not yet…’
This time, even her desperate desire to survive couldn’t keep her awake. As her mind flickered and dimmed, fear gripped her.
If she let go now, she would die.
She struggled to hold on. Clawed after the vanishing light of consciousness. But cruelly, it continued to slip through her grasp. It drifted further and further away, until at last, it disappeared completely, and darkness consumed her vision.
A gentle warmth wrapped around her body.
It was the last sensation she felt.
* * *
Ariel’s thread of consciousness snapped. Her spells ceased mid-cast, and her unfocused body crumpled to the ground.
At that precise moment, in the center of the battlefield’s chaos, a figure emerged, shrouded in light.
“So this is the place.”
With a flat, emotionless voice, the light dispersed and revealed the figure’s face. Just as Ariel’s body was about to hit the ground, he appeared, catching her gently in his arms and rising with her.
“Completely…”
Jin Kreutz.
His silvery hair stirred faintly in the breeze. His golden eyes, devoid of emotion, swept across the blood-soaked chaos. Hundreds of people, a tangled mess of friend and foe alike. It was a grotesque battlefield where even distinguishing sides was nearly impossible. Of everyone present, only Joshua noticed Jin’s sudden arrival.
Jin looked like he didn’t belong, like someone from another world entirely. An indifferent observer in the midst of carnage. His gaze slowly fell to the woman in his arms. In his colorless golden eyes, Ariel appeared.
His eyes landed on her wounded left shoulder, blood still seeping from the hole.
“…”
In the blink of an eye, the emotionless eyes turned cold and sharp.
Jin reached out, carefully touching the bleeding wound. He stared in silence as the damp blood soaked his glove, as if mesmerized, then clenched his hand tightly.
“What a mess.”
He muttered curtly. And then, as if responding to his mood, the once-blue sky began to fade to gray. Rumble, the heavens groaned a low warning.
With a flinch, Jin tore his cape and used it to bind Ariel’s shoulder. Only after that did he lift his gaze from her unconscious form. His eyes flicked to Joshua. Since Joshua had been staring at him the entire time, their gazes naturally locked.
Caught in Jin’s overwhelming presence, Joshua felt, for a moment, as if he too were just an observer. The world blurred, and only those golden eyes remained clear.
Jin, after a brief glance, looked down again at Ariel. Though his expression remained blank, his eyes trembled slightly.
A storm of tangled, unnameable emotions rose from deep within. Jin suppressed them and leaned forward, carefully transferring Ariel into Joshua’s arms.
“Could you go ahead to the entrance? There’s an airship waiting. I’ll handle things here.”
His voice was hoarse, like something was choking it down. The emotions swirled within him, but at their core was one unmistakable feeling: rage.
Joshua forced down the chill crawling over his skin. With stiff movements, he took Ariel and nodded. And suddenly, the chaos of reality rushed back in.
Black fog-like creatures, no longer human, whipped through the air like weapons. Though some, like Lombard, fought without hesitation, most faltered. The monsters charging toward them had been their comrades mere seconds ago. It was hard to sever those ties coldly.
And yet that hesitation was driving them step by step closer to death.
Meanwhile, the giants, whose numbers had thinned since Ariel fell, were now hammering at the protective barrier conjured by the remaining mages, Jin among them.
The moment Joshua moved, the magic shield would weaken. Realizing this, he hesitated, but Jin spoke again.
“Just go.”
His voice was detached, yet urgent. In the next instant, a blue light flashed across the sky. Before it could even be perceived, jagged bolts of lightning struck downward, razor-sharp streaks shaped like fangs. They fell with blinding speed upon the giants that had been battering the shield. With deafening crashes, the lightning incinerated them on the spot.
A massacre unfolded beyond the invisible barrier.
“Go. Now.”
Jin didn’t spare it a glance. His voice was icy. His eyes flashed with such deadly intent that it felt like he might kill Joshua himself if he didn’t move. Joshua looked in the direction of that glare, only to see what was left of the forest.
It had been obliterated.
Not just the giants, but every obstacle in their path had been annihilated. The towering trees that had once veiled the sky now lay fallen, revealing the bleak heavens. Exaggerating only slightly, it seemed as if the horizon could be seen through the carnage.
Overwhelmed by the threat in Jin’s glare, Joshua ran. Despite his untrained body and injured arm, he didn’t feel the burden of carrying another person. Whether it was fear of Jin’s wrath, or simply the desperation of the moment, he didn’t know.
Amid the chaos, the two figures fled toward the forest’s edge. Jin watched them go.
“…Haa.”
He let out a long breath just to stay sane. If he didn’t, he wasn’t sure what kind of monster he might become.
The sky grew darker, like it was about to unleash a storm, mirroring the tempest within him.
She had always warned him not to take a personal interest in her. But he couldn’t help it. From the moment he learned of her existence, since the day she came into his world, his entire being had revolved around her. It wasn’t something he could control.
All he could do was pretend not to watch. Pretend he wasn’t there.
He knew everything about her deployments and training. Of course he knew she’d been sent to the Dimont Forest this time.
Then came the emergency signal, a call for backup.
He couldn’t even recall what he’d been thinking when he received it.
By the time he came to his senses, he was already in the forest, searching for the scene of the incident. Or rather, searching for her, hoping desperately that she wouldn’t be there.
That would have been enough.
But in the midst of that hellish chaos, the first thing he saw was her, bloodied and collapsing. He remembered catching her in his arms, and at the same time, a vivid red haze flooded his vision.
A memory, one from long ago, uncannily similar to this moment, overlapped with her image. The past shadowed her. And in that instant, time seemed to stop. The battlefield became meaningless.
From his toes to the top of his head, rage erupted.
The sky responded to his fury. Rumble, like a beast growling low, thunder rolled above. It snapped him back to awareness.
That’s when he felt the faint warmth of breath against his chest.
She was still alive. The wound was in her shoulder, not her heart. It had gone clean through, yes, but it wasn’t fatal.
If treated quickly, she would survive.
That realization pulled him back from the edge. He’d narrowly avoided unleashing the storm. If his wrath had been allowed to fall…
Nothing in the area, ally or enemy, would have survived.
Including her.
The very thought chilled him to the bone.
……
T/N: So how powerful is Jin exactly?
