As I became accustomed to his movements, I also started to feel calmer. My breathing steadied, and my heart began beating slower. In contrast, his breathing had become more labored, and his attacks were becoming increasingly less precise, until finally...
I dodged a sloppy swing and drove my blade right into his neck, landing a fatal blow. He gasped and staggered backward, falling to his knees and grasping at the broken sword lodged in him. I stared at him dispassionately, not taking my eyes off him for even a second.
He ripped out the shard and immediately began to regenerate from his state of death. When he finished, he began chuckling until it became a maniacal laugh.
“Are you for real? Who are you?” he asked.
“Leave,” I demanded, not willing to play along. “I killed you. Get out.”
“Oh. Right...I did promise that. But...” he smirked, “you can’t really think that I’ll leave now, can you?” he roared with glee, picking up his blade. “Here’s where it really gets fun!” His blade began glowing red again, but this time, so did his body. “Get ready, boy.”
Suddenly, blood began to leak out of all the holes in his blade and collected into a large pool beneath him, prompting me to immediately jump backward to avoid touching it. But Soreya and the rest of the students who were lifeless on the ground had no choice but to let the liquid run over them. Then, in the next moment, heads began to emerge from it, and the once lifeless corpses of my comrades began to rise.
“How long has it been since I’ve summoned thralls?” he mused. “Be honored. This is me fighting at full strength.”
My eyes widened as I saw the faces of those that emerged from the blood. “N-No...” I silently gasped.
“Hmm? Oh. Right. So sorry for all the familiar faces. This blade turns everyone I kill into a thrall, and then I use my vampiric authority to command them. But hey, thanks to that, you’ll get a chance to say goodbyes,” he smirked.
“C-Ca’aaal,” they moaned.
The students he’d killed staggered toward me. But among them was one face that I couldn’t take my eyes off.
“Soreya...”
“Hey, focus up! The battle starts now!” he cackled.
I clenched my fists and began trembling with rage. I began seeing red, but just as I was about to lose all sense of self, I felt a certain weight in my pocket. I found myself reaching inside and pulling out a knife—plain in construction and completely normal. So light, but it felt like an anchor in my hand. The smooth wooden handle turned red from the blood oozing out of my hand. To me, it was the most important possession in the world.
As I held it, I could almost feel Soreya next to me. “This isn’t where we end.” Her words echoed in my head, calming me. I slowly exhaled, stabilizing myself. If his plan had been to corrupt my mental state with a psychological attack, he’d succeeded. But he’s going to wish he didn’t.
I closed my eyes and took a stance. The space around me faded to black. All that remained in my mind was him. I could sense his existence and every last minute movement of his body. So that was why when he flew toward me at an incredible speed, I was ready.
I disappeared from where the intruder swung his blade, or at least that was what it looked like to him. Right before he was about to make contact with me, I dodged, forcing his blade to strike the stone beneath him. His head turned toward me, and on his face was a look of sheer surprise—something he hadn’t shown this entire battle.
“C-Ca’al, you...” Master Crayne gasped.
But I didn’t pay him any further attention. Every last fiber of my being was focused on this battle. I couldn’t afford any unnecessary distractions.
The intruder followed up with a flurry of attacks, but they were so easy to dodge. It was as if his blade was telling me exactly how it’d move. He also tried using his super speed to overwhelm me, but it didn’t matter. I knew precisely where to move to dodge and even when to counterattack.
He tried using his thralls to attack me as well, but those were even easier to dodge. He might’ve thought that seeing the corpses of my comrades would’ve shaken me, but the rage inside me won out, honing all my focus onto just one singular target. There was only one enemy in my eyes right now, and I wasn’t going to let anything distract me from cutting him to shreds.
“I got you!” he screamed as he swung his blade down once more, convinced that he’d done it at a speed that’d force me to block and consequently allow him to shatter my defenses.
“Wha—”
I’m not even going to give you the time to finish that thought.
At the last possible second, I narrowly dodged his attack, quickly shifted my weight to wrap around him, then sliced through his ankle, making him lose balance. Then, I cut through his wrist, making it impossible for him to hold his blade in that hand.
“Gyaaaaaah!” He screamed.
He immediately gripped his blade with his other hand and tried to attack me again, but it was too late. I’d already followed up with a clean cut to his other wrist. He was spewing blood from both arms, but I wasn’t going to let up my attack. I rushed in and swung my knife at an upward slant, aiming for his head, but he was just quick enough that I only successfully left a large gash on his chest.
“No, this can’t be!” he spat. “I’m the true Blade Saint! Me!”
Out of desperation, he swung his arm at me, but I dodged it and with one clean slice, reduced it to a bloody stump. Then, I immediately repositioned myself so I could cut his other arm off. I need to stay ahead of his regeneration.
He cried out in pain and leaped backward, but to me, his movement was more sluggish than a fly. You’re not getting away! But just as I went to swing my knife, a bright orange light accosted my eyes, making me reflexively shut them. Ignore it. The sunrise doesn’t matter. I don’t need to see. I just need to keep my hand moving at the same path and I’ll get him. I will finish this!
My knife making contact with him elicited another scream of pain from him, but accompanying it was the unexpected smell of burnt flesh. When I cracked open my eyes to squint through the overpowering rays of the rising sun, I forced them wide open when I saw that he was no longer in front of me. He’d vanished into the dwindling darkness and reappeared at the wall of the monastery, smoke bursting from his body as his skin erupted in angry patches of red from the sunlight. The thralls began to disappear into the pool of blood that they’d appeared from, his sword with it.
“Lucky break, boy, but mark my words, I will kill you. Your victory today was merely a fluke.”
“You’re running?!” My fists shook with anger. “You coward! Don’t you dare run away! Soreya would’ve killed you! You’re nothing! Nothing!!!” I bellowed, hot tears filling my eyes.
But he simply snorted and melted into the darkness.
After realizing I couldn’t sense his presence anymore, I fell to my knees and roared into the darkness, gripping the knife Soreya had given me—proof that she’d existed; proof that she’d believed in me; proof that I’d failed her. Rage, frustration, sorrow, and guilt—all those emotions filled me, but no amount of time would ever heal my soul.
Soreya. Soreya... I’m so sorry.