No Regrets (Gore Warning)

Zeal and I sprinted in one direction, trying to overtake the other by stepping in front of them, but the flurry of attacks being launched stopped us from doing that. Shards of glass were being thrown up in the air.

More frequently than not, they slid against my skin and caused several wounds around my arms and legs. My clothing was tattered, and my body was weakened, it was only a matter of time, wasn't it?

My fist collided with Zeal's chin with a deafening slamming noise. With that lucky hit, his body was launched into the air by a few feet. I took the opportunity to grab onto his legs while he was in the air and threw both of our bodies down into the shattering glass.

Several shards pierced his back and I suffered from my own injuries, but rolling over and seeing him groan in pain gave me the motivation to continue fighting.

I went to stand over his body to land a punch in, but he kicked out my knees, flipped me over, and slammed me into the glass with the same force I did to him. I groaned in pain with him, but the last, severed tendril on his back shot into my spine and sent an electrical shock through my body.

I wailed out in pain, reaching for the tendril to pull it out, but he kept moving around, eventually pushing me against the ground while letting the electricity hit me. I head-butted the glass, shutting my eyes in hopes no shards of glass would kill my vision. With that kinetic energy absorbed, I launched it from my back and Zeal flew in the opposite direction, landing flat on his back about ten feet away.

I tried to open my right hand to push my body up, but the muscle was contracting because of the lasting electricity. I eventually stood up, panting for breath and pulling glass shards from my forehead.

"You want to keep going, old man? I still have a lot left in me." I told Zeal while stumbling. I blacked out for a moment while head-butting the glass floor, so I was still dazed from that impact.

"I think somebody should teach you how mortal you really are, White Stone." Zeal told me. His eyes started to glimmer with red as he dashed towards me. Just as he closed the distance and I was able to lock eyes with him, I realized that his system wasn't just corrupt.

There was something else going on. As tiny as they could possibly be while still being visible, strings like his tendrils floated around in his red irises, with a defining, purple color.

I ducked under his swing and squeezed my arms around his ribs with all my might, jumping up and body-slamming him into the ground one more time. Just as I did this, more tendrils shot into my body. I was shocked to see them again, but I logically wasn't thinking about how they had just completely regrown.

In retaliation, I pulled a knife from my hip pocket and shoved it deep into his sternum, feeling the resistance of the bone slowly give out as it slipped in and pierced his windpipe.

Zeal fell to the ground on his back as blood spurted from his chest. I took the knife out and fell backward, hearing the blade clatter against the ground.

"Gah… Xian… please…" Zeal pleaded. The red color in his eyes and on the stone subsided into their regular color.

"Please… don't let my children grow up fatherless… let's push this past us…" He said to me again. I stared at him with intense dread. Out of respect for his wishes to be a good father, I lifted him back on his feet, to which he put his left hand against his chest, and the wound slowly, but surely, healed to completion.

He slowly limped over to the water and put his hands in it, washing the blood off of his face.

"I'm sorry for fighting you, Xian. I truly lost myself there. I was only worried about making this world into the perfect version I know it could be." He said to me. I nodded, following his lead by pushing my hands through the water and washing my face.

Then, I felt something pierce my body.

Huh?

I opened my eyes after the water fell from my eyelashes to see two giant spikes made from ice pierce both of my shoulders. It held me off of the ground, so I couldn't touch it with my feet. The two spikes dug into my shoulders deep enough to destroy the strength in my arms. I couldn't do anything in this position!

"Ha-ha!! Look at you! Gullible enough to fall into your enemy's request… that's the difference between an ignorant child like you and the strongest White Stone like me! You dumb kid… now look what I have to do to you!" Zeal yelled out.

He slammed his foot on the blade of my knife and caught it before it hit the ground again.

"You're going to make me feel bad, you know? You even gave me the opportunity to go back to my family…" He told me.

With no hesitation, Zeal dragged the knife through the bottom of my stomach, slashing it out through the opposite side and flicking blood against the glass.

In one, definitive movement, my intestines slowly slid out from the large eviscerating cut placed right under my belly button. I could hear the noise of slimy, bloody clumps of organs splattering against the glass. My brain told me not to look at my pink guts swirling on the floor, as if I were to ignore it, I'd be okay.

"T-That's… what…" I mumbled.

Zeal destroyed the spikes of ice and I fell right beside my guts, watching the blood pool right against the temple of my head.

"I hope you fall asleep soon, it'll start to hurt any second now… if I'm lucky." Zeal told me with a smile.

My mortality finally caught up with me; seeing myself in this position, knowing I was going to die by evisceration… scared me deeply. Not even too long ago was I talking to people, having them expect my return. In such a short period of time, everything was ruined.

Even as I face my death with fear in my eyes, I didn't believe that blaming Sky was the right thing to do. His existence wasn't a mistake not to me. I smiled once last time as the vision in my eyes faded to black.

My only wish is that Zeal would die an excruciatingly painful death. I only harbored true hatred for one man, and it was him. To use his kids as an escape from his death… how ridiculous.