As soon as Noir’s gaze swept by, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
[“Are we discovered?!”]
As I was about to start panicking, Noir turned in the other direction. The three of us breathed a sigh of relief… But was devastated shortly after.
“Dodge!” ｂ𝚍𝚘𝚟ｌ.ｎｔ
I shouted as my senses started warning me. Every direction was full of red flags for some reason, so I grabbed the two of them and jumped. As soon as I did, the spot where we stood before suddenly got smothered by hundreds of shadowy tentacles.
“Sh*t! We’ve been found!”
As I shouted, Ember quickly summoned her floating throne and hopped onto it. After finding her footing on the throne, Igni sent a wave of flames toward the swarming tentacles, trying to reach us who were up in the air.
I, on the other hand, took out my sword and swung it upward. From where I swung, something was bisected and fell down. It looked like a sharp needle made of translucent materials that snapped easily after getting hit. However, their numbers were beyond our imagination.
“Ember, dodge, fast!”
The needles were too many for me to clear out alone. Ember realized this too and turned the throne to the right, dodging the incoming waves of almost invisible needles.
As I and Igni were busy defending, Ember moved to shoot at Noir, who was walking away without even bothering to look at us. The railguns were immediately loaded with two large masses of iron and blasted away. Noir didn’t miss this and, with a wave of his hand, blocked it using his swarms of black tentacles.
He sneered at us, who couldn’t even begin to approach him.
“I’m surprised you managed to reach here.”
His gaze narrowed as he continued.
“But seeing that your numbers dwindled, it seems like a few were left behind. Did they sacrifice themselves for the rest of you to proceed?”
“Shut up!”
I roared in rebuttal.
“Don’t arbitrarily kill off my girls! They’re not like your tamed monsters. Oh, yeah, you don’t have one anymore!”
The cynical smile on his face froze, then turned into a frown.
“And you know who killed them, right? My foolish brother that you idolize right now.”
“Zeshion? Who told you he’s my idol? He’s not even qualified.”
In my heart, Fatima is the only God-tamer that I idolize. Not only was she my master, but she was also the one who gave me a lot of things. Especially emotional baggage. Just thinking about her caused my heart to skip a beat.
“Heh! Whoever your idol is, they’ll just die in my hands one day!”
“…”
“Master, no!”
“My Lord!”
In an instant, before I even realized what I had done, I was already aiming my sword toward Noir. My body was releasing a bloody mist as my skin got covered in black lines. Electricity arced all around as I gathered energy in my sword.
I didn’t spread my consciousness but instead went straight for him without even a slight deviation. One straight line aiming for his neck.
“[Lifeblood] plus [Echoing Thunderclaps]!”
With one step forward, Ember’s throne tilted greatly. In a flash, I was already beside Noir, the edge of my sword just a few inches from his neck.
In the slowed-down world, Noir’s gaze turned to me, as if he could follow my movements. However, it was too late for him to dodge. My sword dug into his skin, opening a large wound on the side of his neck instantly. He managed to tilt to the other side at the last moment, dodging the majority of the incoming blast of energy behind my slash.
I turned to him, seeing that the wound I opened was spewing large amounts of blood. Without waiting for my momentum to stop, I forcefully turned my body toward him and slashed downward one more time.
This time, he shouldn’t be able to dodge.
As I was thinking that he’d die with this strike, something squishy went *splat* as it reverberated in my ears. My body stopped instantly as two or three more of those sounds echoed.
Time resumed its normal pace. As it did, three explosion sounds resounded simultaneously. At the same time, I vomited a large amount of blood.
*Slosh!*
Blood flowed out of my body through three different openings. Two from my stomach and one passing through the center of my chest. As soon as I saw it, I also recalled that my heavenly halo was already used up for today.
“… I screwed up…”
I lost all energy in my legs and was only held up by the three black tentacles that pierced my body. At that instant, Noir moved closer to me, his left hand covering the wound on his neck that was still bleeding.
“Nice try. Just a bit more and I might’ve died.”
As he removed his hand, however, it had already closed, leaving an ugly keloid over the cut wound.
“Unfortunately, you still lack experience.”
The three tentacles melted like shadows and let go of my body. I fell helplessly to the ground, my vision slowly turning blurry. I guess since my body got tougher, the pain from my wounds didn’t muddle my thoughts.
“Ahh…”
However, with a large hole in the center of my chest, I can’t even mutter words anymore. My heart was barely safe, but major arteries were already ruptured. Without instant treatment, only death awaits me.
[“Master!”]
[“My Lord!”]
I could hear Ember and Igni’s worried voices through the link. However, they were still bothered by the tentacles of darkness, which made it hard for them to approach.
“… It’s a pity. I should’ve gotten the Administrator Privilege from you if I knew this is how you’ll end up.”
Noir sighed exaggeratedly as he waved his finger down.
Dozens of tentacles rose from the shadows around me and went down, aiming straight for my body. As my sight started fading to black, a faint flash of light colored my vision.
When I opened my eyes, I was already in a black space with a large table in the middle. There, five figures were seated and stared at me with warm gazes.
Did I just… Die?