"You fucking asshole," I spat out, coughing.
Blood dripped out, seeping through my sword, Penguin's Fire still enveloping the man—yet… there was not as much blood as there should have been. I vaguely wondered if the blade of my Moonlight Sword was so hot, due to the Fire, that it was partly cauterizing the wound, but—fuck him. I wasn't exactly concerned about the man's level of pain right now.
I was still gasping and struggling to breathe, but somehow I managed to keep him down.
It looked like my recent ATK and CRIT upgrades had been successful, after all. I probably wouldn't have been able to impale his wrist, otherwise—or at least... well, not all the way through, probably.
Shit, I needed to get my breathing under control quickly.
The man tried to counterattack, but I'd be damned if I'd let him have an inch.
I raised my Elemental shield to protect myself against Penguin's Fire, and kicked him in the groin as hard as I could.
The man gritted his teeth, but didn't scream.
He'd almost killed me and my throat currently felt like hell. I wasn't exactly feeling charitable right now.
Elemental wind howled around us.
I kicked him hard again, this time in the ribs, and pressed down on my sword. It cracked the asphalt more, sinking deeper through his flesh, drawing out more blood.
"Who sent you?" I asked, my voice still off due to the recent strangling attempt.
No answer.
I brought my knee down on his solar plexus with enough force to make him wheeze.
"Who. Sent. You."
I pressed harder on the hilt of the sword. More blood flowed.
The man flinched, then looked up at me with a grin that made me want to punch his teeth in.
"What's your name?" I asked, seething.
"Guess."
I slammed my shoe into his shoulder.
His expression barely changed.
I was beyond pissed off now. I kicked him in the groin again.
This time he groaned, curling in on himself as much as he could with a sword through his wrist.
I tried to regain some control.
He was still on Fire, but we needed answers. We wouldn't get any if he burned to a crisp.
I let a wave crash down on him. Penguin seemed to register my intent, because he let his Fire extinguish rather than react, leaving the man drenched without inflicting additional damage.
I was also glad he'd somehow stayed hidden. I didn't want people to know about him, if I could help it.
The man tried to grab at me and I kicked his hand away, then sent Water to tie up his legs and wrists.
The cold water seemed to shock the man more than the kick, however. His whole body went rigid.
"Better?" I asked, pressing a knee into his chest and keeping it there. "Now we can have a proper chat."
My Water Magic wasn't strong enough to restrain him completely, but between that, my weight, and the sword through his wrist, he wasn't about to move.
The man spat at me, but I just avoided it.
"I'll ask again. Who sent you?"
Silence.
I evoked a smaller wave and let it splash directly onto his face. He sputtered and coughed.
"I can do this all day," I said. "How long can you hold your breath?"
"Fuck y—"
I cut him off with another splash.
I supposed my sword wasn't hot anymore. With every Water attack, blood from his wrist splashed onto his shirt.
I wasn't about to let him go without answers, however.
Besides, somehow, every time I used Water he seemed to get more and more enraged, which suited me just fine.
"Think you're special?" the man gritted out after another kick. "Think it's right you have what we can't have?"
What?
"We can't even see the fucking interface. How's that fair?"
No…
Wait. Was he one of those?!
Now that he said that, I realized that he hadn't used any Magic at all.
Not that that had made him any less lethal, clearly.
"So you thought you'd just murder someone about it?" I also hadn't been able to see the interface until a few weeks ago, and I definitely hadn't gone around strangling people! "What the fuck do you want?"
I was really seething now. How would killing me even help? Or was he just insane?
Besides—
Fuck, wait a moment. If he wasn't awakened, he should have been caught in delusions right now, just like those people Llewellyn was evacuating. Why was he not?
"You better speak before I let you bleed to death," I gritted out. "If you're not awakened as you claim, then how are you not hallucinating right now?"
The man grinned.
"…"
Wait.
My blood ran cold.
I'd only just realized that it looked like he had been stalling for time, which meant—
"I'm sure if he's gone," the man said with some relish. "The System's going to need to recruit more people."
Fuck.
He'd really been waiting for Llewellyn, then.
Did he attack me to use me as bait?!
Before I could kick him again, Llewellyn landed next to me, his sword at the man's Adam's apple.
Shit.
"Move and you're dead," Llewellyn said. Then, to me, "I thought I'd told you to call out if anything went wrong?"
"Didn't exactly have the time," I said.
The man's grin widened.
Then, in the split second that followed, he somehow broke free of the Water restraint on his wrist, reached into his jacket and flung two… somethings to the side.
The first one clattered once and detonated.
[System Notification: Distorted Realm stability critical!]
Fuck! We hadn't even found the Knot yet!
But that wasn't a bomb. Then what—
"What the hell did you just do?!" I roared, pressing harder onto the sword.
Llewellyn's blade also pressed closer to the man's throat, but what could he do except for—
"Too slow," the man said, still grinning. "You should've killed me faster."
The second device exploded just then, and the air around the man went still.
…Fuck. I knew what that looked like.
"You're not teleporting out!" I yelled, grabbing his collar and shoving him back down.
Penguin screeched too, diving from my pocket.
He let out a blast of Elemental Magic and in the instant that followed turned the man into a block of Ice.
…Amazing. He really was the best.
The blood gushing out from the man's wrist froze mid-spatter, red against the frost. Well, I supposed that as long as he stayed frozen, he wasn't about to die.
I somehow managed to yank my sword back through the ice and for a second, I thought it worked.
Then the air distorted and the man vanished—Ice and all.
Goddamnit.
I stood there, breathing hard, sword unsteady in my hand.
[System Notification: Distorted Realm stability critical!
Distorted Realm stability at 31%.]
I met Llewellyn's gaze. He was frozen in place too.
We both ran.