Grown, Though Still Heart-Driven

Chapter 119

  Grown, Though Still Heart-Driven

The trees seemed to split into a path, Sylas mused. It was different from his memory, though, admittedly, it had been a while since he last trekked beyond the wall into the northern hellscape. The night, however, was still as viscerally dark as was in his memories--it made the empty woods full of ghosts, as every howling of the wind became a wail of an apparition somewhere in its deeps.

A roaring fire, however, helped the darkness, beating it back. The two of them sat around the light in silence, with Agnes delighting in some rest. She was quite like him during the first few years of struggle, where no matter how hard he worked on his body, it would all be undone each time he died.

Part of the reason why he elected to go north was that very body--no matter how hard he tried, he was unable to push his blood together into a heart-like clot. It wasn't just the entire capacity, but even a few droplets caused a blockage in his veins, and adding more onto them... didn't really do anything. It was painful if anything, but nowhere near-lethal or deadly for him.

What he hoped to achieve by going north is to stimulate himself in a fight--to try and use the energy within and without. Not to coalesce a heart or even anything remotely close to it, but to sense a general direction that he ought to be taking. As it stood right now, he could only go by Derrek's vague guidelines--as the man himself was not a Bloodstone Knight, he only had some shallow knowledge, especially when it came to the last stage.

According to him, it was about further reforging the body by displacing inner organs to form room for the second heart and then... making that heart. Though it was little to nothing, at least he could first focus on figuring out how to make some extra room for a new organ and worry about actually creating that organ a bit later on.

"I'm going to sleep," Agnes said suddenly. "What about you?"

"I'm not tired yet," he replied.

"How?! We've been walking all day long!"

"You haven't realized it," he smiled faintly. "But I usually go four-five days without sleeping."

"... what?"

"It just takes a lot for me to get tired," he explained. "Just walkin' is nowhere near enough."

"You're a creep."

"Ouch."

"Want me to stay up with you?" she asked suddenly. "Will you get lonely?"

"Yes, please do," he took the bait on purpose. "If you fall asleep, I might just lose my little mind."

"I'll wake up naturally," she said, lying down flat on the ground. Just before she did, green grass sprouted out of nowhere and formed a nature's bed beneath her. Though it wasn't the first time he'd seen it, he was still shocked at the sight. "Don't bother me."

"Aye, aye."

Sylas culled the flame soon after, not minding the dark. He focused mostly on drinking, another thing that was growing more and more impossible. In fact, by now, if he wanted to get drunk, he learned he'd have to drink at least several jugs of wine and forcibly prevent himself from taking a piss. And even then, it wouldn't even be considered 'true drunkenness' but rather a step below it.

It wasn't because he developed a natural tolerance to it, but entirely due to his blood. It became effectively immune to toxins of any kind, even literally burning poison when he tested it by injecting it directly into his veins. He had become a genuine freak of nature beyond just his immortality. His body... was no longer human's. Though largely a positive, he still worried about the general trajectory he was moving along.

If his body continued to grow stronger and stronger, more and more resilient to damage, he worried that there might come a point where he becomes quasi-immortal without needing to reset. It was still quite some ways away, as beheading him still resulted in a fairly clean and swift death, but he mused that there might come a point where he'd be able to regrow his head in seconds to prevent himself from dying.

Those were, at this point, largely the musings of a bored mind, but still, he had to worry. His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the sound of shuffling and low moans. Turning his head, he vaguely saw Agnes' frame shift, her arms leap out. It wasn't the first time he'd seen her like this--as per her own words, she was likely having a vision.

Though he was going to ignore it, her body suddenly heaved upward against gravity, floating midair as her arms spread out wholly. She remained suspended midair as though haunted, strands of her hair flying about sporadically. Her body suddenly began to glow in faint silver, her expression turning contorted, teeth biting into gums until they bled, the blood trickling out the corners of her lips.

He approached cautiously, calling out her name, yet found it impossible to actually touch her--any time he tried to get within the feet of her, some force repelled him back. At the same time, winds began to howl like mad and starved wolves, causing him to howl back, taking out a sword lying inside a scabbard on the ground and slamming it forward at the 'barrier'. The sword, however, disintegrated upon the touch, turning into vanishing ashes carried off into the story of the trees.

Though he wasn't disintegrated, he was blown back and into the tree, though the tree suffered far more harm as it was knocked over. Gliding on the snow, he struggled for a moment to stand back up, facing forward. By now, he was panicking. She wasn't like others. With others, he could reset. Rewind back the time to before whatever ails them happened. But she was different.

The howling winds soon began to surround her, causing her hair and dress to flap about violently as she began to scream. Her screams were not loud and soul-grating--they were low, hollow, child's almost in their naivety and innocence.

"Oh, FUCK YOU!!" he yelled, defying the winds that tried to push him back. Coating his veins in energy, he pressed forward. The winds were cold and cutting, shredding his skin like knives. Blood began to pour out of him, hundreds of wounds turning swiftly into thousands, but he ignored the burning cuts. He walked back to the barrier and found himself stopped again.

The violent winds continued to pelt against his skin, and the cold began to seep into his veins. Ignoring everything, he gritted his teeth and began to slam the invisible barrier with his bare fists. Each time he smashed it, it felt as though his bones would break. But he continued to hit it. Once. Twice. Five times. Ten. Twenty. Fifty. A hundred. He was rocking it, he realized. There was a reaction.

The now-shredded lips of his curled up into a smile when he saw the first crack appear in the invisible membrane. However, just as he was about to push through and get to her, he saw something that stirred his soul--cyan light began to shimmer from her as an orb appeared just above her head. He had but a moment to shield his head before the world exploded in the woe of sapphire.

The resulting blast blew him backward for over a mile, causing parts of his chest to melt and several of his ribs to crack. Even still, he was relatively unharmed compared to nature--all trees within several miles were gone, as were all the tiny hills and dips. It all turned flat and barren, like an apocalyptic wasteland.

Sylas forced himself back up, panting heavily and bleeding as though he had an ocean's worth of blood to bleed, his eyes widened, jaw agape in shock. Just then, the winds began to die out... and she stopped levitating, plummeting to the ground. As there was no snow to speak of, his now-bare feet were able to grasp the dirt as he ran forward with all his might.

She lay still on the patch of grass, her skin all but transparent, the silver glow beneath slowly disappearing. She was shaking whole as he crouched down next to her and felt for her pulse--it wasn't there... but she was alive. He could tell by the fluttering eyelashes, the curved lips that seemed an inch away from parting into a wail of pain, the chest that kept moving up and down, however shallowly.

It was then that her fluttering eyes began to slowly open, causing him to briefly sigh in relief. He truly was lost, unaware of how he would even go about trying to help her. Bit by bit, her eyelids parted, revealing the familiar, scarlet-red eyes that he had gotten so used to. Just a moment later, as those eyes landed on him, they widened in shock as a scream blew out from her lips.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" it wasn't, however, a scream of pain--but one of fear and shock. She shot to her feet--or at least tried to, scrambling against the ground to force herself away from him. "W-w-w-ho are you?!! Where is Sylas?!! What did you do to him, you beast?!!"

"... hey, hey, it's me!" Sylas cried out in bitterness. "C'mon, did you forget this handsome face of mine?!"

"WHAT FACE?!!" she screamed back at him. "I--I ONLY SEE BONES AND SOME FLESH HANGING OVER THEM! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?!!"

"Shit, it's that bad?" Sylas mumbled, feeling his face. As she mentioned, there was no skin, his fingers immediately touching the raw bone of his cheekbones. "Fuck. Uh. Before that, are you alright?"

"Shouldn't you be worried about yourself?!!" she finally seemed to have accepted the fact that it really was him, causing her to slowly walk back forward.

"I'll be fine," he replied nonchalantly. "It's you I'm worried about. You suddenly went fuckin' supernova. Look around you."

"Huh?" she finally paused and looked around, at last noticing the barren wasteland that surrounded them. "What... what the hell happened here?! Did you fight someone?"

"What? No--this is you. Just... you," he said. "Well, not you. Something inside of you."

"..."

"..."

"I... I did all this?" she gasped in horror. "No. No. Impossible."

"... Agnes?" Sylas immediately picked up on something.

"No, no, no, no, no, no!! NO!! This... no, no, no!" she began to wail incessantly and crashed to her knees, tears streaming down her dirt-laden cheeks. "They said, they said it wasn't me! They said... no, no, no! NO!!"

"..." Sylas stopped in place, his eyes widening. Looking up to the sky, he spoke to the invisible in the voice only he could hear. "Make 'er forget. I don't care what it is. Just... make her forget." he reached for his belt and took out a dagger, slashing his throat. It would still take a minute, he knew, but it was the quickest way he could kill himself since the beheading wasn't exactly possible.

"What are you doing?! No, Sylas! Why?! Why are you doing this?!" she yelled after him and ran forward, her tiny, shaky arm reaching toward his neck and pressing against the profusely bleeding wound. "Why?" she looked up to him, crying still like a newborn babe. Snot and blood and tears and dirt and sweat mingled and mixed to make a mess of her face, barely recognizable beauty shoveled beneath the layers of nature's makeup.

"... I felt like dying," he had to gasp for breath to speak, but speak he could still. "'s all."

"Please, please," she pleaded with him. "Tell me. Tell me. What happened. Please. Don't hide it from me."

"... I need ya' to smile," he said. "And laugh and bicker and roll your eyes."

"..."

"It ain't you," he said, gently wiping her cheek, though to dismal effect. "They were right."

"Sylas? Sylas? You're an ass! An ass! I deserve to know if I killed my loved ones!" her voice grew hazier as the world began to spin around him. "Would you want to forget what happened? What you did?!!"

"..." Gladly... he wanted to mumble, but neither the voice nor another breath left him. He turned stoic, cold, and dead, her strength unable to hold his falling body as it fell flat against the scorched, barren ground.

You have died.

Save point 'Death' has been initialized.