Revival of the Slayer

Running as fast as possible, Faith escaped by breaking a hole in the wall with a ball of strands congealed into her knuckles. She shattered the wood and stone mixture running off into the forest at her top speed.

Usually, when blocking strands, the blocker could be seen wielding strands of their own. White blocked White, Red blocked Red, and so on and so forth. However, when Finlis blocked Faith's attack, nothing happened. It was his skin that stopped it, and since he revealed to her that it was cold, he also happened to notice one of Faith's tricks.

Enhancing the potency of Strands isn't always correlated to the color. The colors are to establish how seasoned the user was while using them. Knowing this, Faith would use the other abilities now in her body, such as her icy wrist, to implant the saber with even more power that nobody else had.

She was the only Asterio who could wield the power of Eternias simultaneously with other Bloodlines Abilities. However, despite all that she had accumulated, she still couldn't pierce the skin of Finlis Vega. It seemed that he was invincible.

While Faith retreated into the smoke and deep into the forest, she began to think about how Finlis went unseen throughout her entire time with Sky. He never made a move to take him out, even at his most vulnerable. While drawing her conclusions, Faith decided that it was absolutely certain that Finlis didn't exist until recently.

With her encounter at Shadows Onset, she also knew that Finlis was hunting her specifically. Somebody had been trying to take her down.

As Faith continued to trot through the forest, she caught something beneath her feet moving at a high speed, and quickly jumped back to see the dirt, trees, rocks, and bushes scattered in a circle around her. The ground had shattered like glass, and from the origin point, Finlis Vega stood with rocks scraping his skin, profusely bleeding from his wounds.

"I mean, was the joke that bad? Where are we running to?" Finlis asked Faith.

"H-How did you find me...?" Faith muttered. At this point, Faith was starting to feel nervous about her encounter with the strange man. Fear was quickly churning.

"I can't ruin all the fun, can I? I mean, I can sense you no matter where you are," Finlis told her. He teased her, grasping his hand open and closed. At first, Faith just thought it was some form of trash talk, but on a whim, she reached for the back of her neck, ignoring the hairs standing up on end, to feel a small lump at the top of her spine.

Finlis had put a tracker in her, unbeknownst to Faith. Her eyes widened as she attempted to pierce her skin to take it out with nothing even scratched. She couldn't remove it willingly.

"Does it scare you, knowing that I may be coming at any second to end your life? I only came back to show you that I know where you are. You can't hurt me, and now, you'll live every day of your life in fear that you will be killed by me. I could experience euphoria by that fear, could you? Will you? Are you?" Finlis asked her. His neutral and normal attitude was starting to slip past the confines of his teeth. His smile warped as he lost the façade of sanity.

"That's it! Oh, that look of fear on your face... oh, oh I love it so much! Hey, Faithy, will you think of me more now? Maybe even fear me a little bit? It's always been my dream to make an Asterio quiver in their boots at the sight of me or my name... maybe you can be my test subject," Finlis said. He didn't make any moves to attack, only kicking at rocks on the ground to pierce the logs of trees nearby.

Faith had never seen a person like Finlis, and the more he spoke, the more true it became. In spite of Finlis trying to get her to fear him, she scoffed at the thought and solidified her ground.

"I'm not scared of anything, I'm the daughter of Sky Asterio. Step aside," She said. She walked right past Finlis, and he remained latent. He didn't make a move, only smiling while watching her proceed forward.

"Ah, that's right. Denial is the first stage of grief. It is the first stage in losing something dear to you. Do you have a mother? Oh... too soon, isn't it?" He asked her. Faith turned her head in anger, reaching for her eye patch to stun Finlis with the Gaze of Wrath.

"The Gaze of Wrath won't do anything to me," He interjected. Finlis motioned his hand as if he was bringing an eye patch down, stopping Faith in her tracks, before smiling and walking out of the picture completely.

"Just, don't forget about me, alright? It would do you some good to be humbled. It might even provide you with more power than you have right now, your amalgamation of Strands. Until next time, Faithy. Stay frosty," Finlis said. He disappeared behind a tree in a way that he should've appeared on the other end, but instead, never ended up showing on the other side. He vanished into the forest without a trace to track him from.