Chapter 143 Clash of the Giants IV (1/2)
CHATPER 143
CLASH OF THE GIANTS (IV)
Fire blazed, scorching the previously sapphire-colored sky. It mingled intensively with the billowing smoke, with the darkness, and with the voids of nothingness and with the glistening light of life itself. It was a panorama of colors unfolding and blending and tearing before Lino's eyes, and it was as grand of a sight to behold as anything he could ever imagine.
Syvelea carried a maddened expression, far different from the way she was when she spoke to Lino. She spiked her spear with blinding flames and swung, tearing open wounds in the sky and beating back the darkness. Without even taking a breath of rest, she bellowed into the sky with a roar of contempt and mockery before the space around her suddenly distorted. The sheer outpour of Qi caused the world around her to destabilize momentarily, gaining her a precious second of peace before she tore it open.
Within a single step, she disappeared from the sight; it wasn't teleportation, Lino realized. It wasn't breaking the barrier of spacetime and moving immediately to another place. It was pure, physical movement that approached the speed of light itself. She arrived almost instantaneously in front of the man clad in glistening armor. Her spear pierced forth like an unstoppable bolt, shattering through the re-forged armor and shredding the man apart yet again. Gore of guts swindled out into rain, seeming as though the man exploded from within.
She then immediately pulled her spear backward and attacked with the blunt end. Before the engulfing darkness behind her even managed to approach her, it was met with a strike it could not avoid. As though the wind blasted the smoke away, that single strike scattered the darkness and sent the faint figure barreling through the sky. Syvelea spun in place, facing once again in the direction Lino could see her expression.
Face distorted beyond reason, bloodied all over appeared demonic. She was smiling, exposing the teeth which were certainly white just a moment ago. The smile was wide, causing her cheeks to actually tear open and splinter due to pressure and her gums to began bleeding. In addition to her crimson-colored armor, she looked more like the God of Blood rather than an Empyrean.
Lino could only liken her to Eshen, and even the latter seemed quite tame in comparison. Q'vil, Grazynth... though both certainly had their own pieces of madness in the way they fought, especially the latter, they also denoted a strange sense of grace, of determined, clear path. Syvelea, however, did not; Lino only saw wretched madness emboldened by the spilled blood and guts.
She stared at the recovering figure in the horizon. Morphed back into Syvelea's likeness, she seemed to have lost her mind yet again, screaming out into the sky before bolting in a flash toward her twin. She thrust her spear without mercy, splintering the just-formed figure into bits and pieces yet again, but still continuing to swing afterwards regardless. Over and over, round and round, through and through. Resonating sounds echoed, pressure building up, shockwaves blasting whatever clouds tried to gather.
Darkness... Lino certainly could not understand it. In his understanding, it was merely the absence of light. But, it was much, much more, he knew. It warped and wrapped, it split and combined, it disappeared and appeared. It wasn't like Nihility, which was nothing within nowhere; it was an existing substance... one existing everywhere within that nothingness. The mere concept caused Lino a headache, which is why he decided to drop the thought. It was simply beyond his comprehension.
A golden hammer suddenly appeared behind Syvelea and, before she had a chance to deflect it, rammed squarely into her back. Sound of the bones breaking echoed out as she was bent halfway before being thrust forward at immense speed, tearing through tens of miles within blink of an eye. Yet, she recovered almost immediately, forcibly stopping herself and turning around. The broken spine didn't seem to bother her, only further distorting her expression till the sides of her face tore open into holes, her bleeding gums visible clearly through them.
Her clear, beautiful silver eyes had long since turned red, and due to the blood scattered over her face, she appeared to be crying and laughing at the same time. And laugh she did; loud, brazen, defiant. In it, Lino noticed; that spark, the unifying conundrum all Empyreans have in common. The sense of simply not belonging within the world you were born, the sense of being outcast within the group you are supposed to be a part of... he felt it in Q'vil, he felt it in Grazynth, and he's now seeing it within Syvelea.