Chapter 36 - Across the expanse (7)

The winds howled all around us. The air flowed erratically, with violent gusts which scarred the ground and raised dust, dirt and stone fragments, followed by brief moments in which everything came to a halt, the air was still and tranquillity dominated the surroundings. Even when the winds came to a sudden stop, the lifted particles remained floating as if in defiance of gravity. A second later, they resumed their whirling around, driven by the movements of the atmosphere.

Faint streaks of kaleidoscopic lights appeared here and there, lasting an instant before disappearing and reappearing somewhere else. Complex luminous patterns emerged from nothingness, seemingly imprinting themselves in space itself, and then unravelled, blown away by the almost palpable fog which flowed with the wind and filled the surroundings.

The air itself had become corrosive. The gusts of wind felt like lashes against the skin. They tried to dig into the body and even when they were reduced to gentle breezes, it felt like bathing in a tub full of acid. The fabric of my clothes was wearing out, every strand thinning and decaying in cerulean ash, which in turn reduced to black powder fluttering in the wind before becoming nothing. My skin and body had started to show a similar behaviour and would have continued along that road and undergone the same fate of my clothes, had it not been for the aura flowing in my veins, imbuing my flesh and preserving my physical integrity.

The burning corrosivity of the environment was definitely unpleasant, but what captured my attention and distracted me from my reconstituting rib cage were the sounds filling the air. Howls, roars, chirps, hisses, rustles, and many more. Every single sound of nature reverberated in the sterile inhospitable land. Laughs, cries, sobs and unrecognisable voices. A multitude shouted here where there were only three people. These sounds were remembrances of the past, of innumerable victims felled by the scourge which had hit the world so long ago and had swept them away from its face. They were fragmented memories of their existence, or something which could be barely considered as such. Mana consumed and eroded complexity, leaving behind only a cacophonic mixture.

My gaze finally returned to my aggressor. His eyes were darting around, and they showed fear at last. He was on death's door. His skull showed no signs of healing and his aura had grown faint. He had almost completely consumed it, as it had been employed to stand up and subdue me after the severe injury to the head.

<<I have to kill her>>, he mumbled. His voice betrayed desperation.

He started limping towards Faye, with a feverish look. Before he could walk more than a metre, my fingers surrounded his ankle and I put strength into my grip. The small time interval he had spent gawking at the forming mana storm had been enough for me to recover somewhat. His blows had been hard, but had lacked aura.

Moreover, the sharp increase in environmental mana density seemed to have given my body a stimulus it had lacked. For the first time from my arrival in this world, I had been exposed to a massive concentration of mana, the force which in the first place had made my body become that of an archuman. Something inside of me clicked, my blood vessels enlarged and the flow of my aura through the circulatory system gained strength, restoring my body.

With an audible popping sound, my sternum snapped back into place and I exerted force on Sloan's ankle, making him fall prone to the ground and lose his grip on the mace, which ended up a little further away.

<<Let me go! We will both die if this continues!>>, he cried out loud, trying to persuade me.

His attempt was unsuccessful. As a matter of fact, in response to his words I crawled on top of him and pressed his face into the dirt. Although I was still injured and somewhat weak, I had become basically unresponsive to my own pain. I still felt it clearly, but it didn't seem to be able to influence my action whatsoever. It was quite the interesting sensation: moving around stinged and pained me, but it was like I wasn't actually aching, but more like I "knew" I was aching.

Incapable of completely grasping what was happening to me, I moved my arms under his armpits, coiled them around his shoulders and linked my hands behind his head. He tried numerous times to get up and move, but every single time I was able to break his posture and make him fall down prone again. Now it was only a matter of waiting. I could have cut the time by trying to reach the mace and use it to end him, but it would have required letting him be free to move as he wished, possibly enabling him to resume his attack against me. Just to be safe, I decided to simply hold him down and wait it out. After all, time was now on my side and from his bulging eyes he seemed to know it just as well.

The multitude of sounds had started to die down and the erratic blowing of the winds had started to stabilise and converge around us, moving in a circular fashion. We were now in the eye of a tornado, which was shrinking towards us. The fog had become denser and denser and the corrosion had started to take its toll, with parts of the outermost layers of my skin detaching and disappearing in a faint shine.

The same was happening to Sloan, but with a relevant difference, as his skin was not recovering. Anyway, for now, they were minor cuts and didn't endanger his life. This would soon change, but what would take him first would be something else.

<<Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!>>, he cried, desperately squirming and kicking, trying in vain to free himself from my grasp.

I didn't yield and held him steadily.

<<I'm Marcel Sloan and I will not fall like this! I will kill her and then kill you!>>, he cried again, his aura now being blown away by the wind, the last speck of protection he had.

<<Please! Let me go! I don't want to end like this! Not like this!>>, he begged, fearing for his life, his strength failing him and his movements growing sluggish.

Streaks of light formed all around him and the fog attached itself to his body, slowly permeating through his skin and penetrating deep inside of him through every single pore.

<<I'll kill you painfully… I'll kill you… I'll kill you…>>.

His voice had grown fainter.

<<I'll kill you… I'll… I'll… What? I want to kill you… but why?>>.

His words had become mumbles and his eyes had lost light.

<<Who am I?>>, he said in a clear voice, before closing his mouth for the last time.

His body drooped limp to the ground, having lost every ounce of strength. His gaze was void and he looked aimlessly to his right, with his cheek resting on the dirt and with the exact same blank expression and glassy eyes which had welcomed me for the first time to this world.

Lost the protection of his aura, he had fallen prey to the storm and his mind was no more.