Chapter 6 v3
Burden part 3
The monster was almost on him.
The man violently raised his leg: a direct kick, charged with aura.
But the creature was faster. With a repulsive snap, it interposed one of its limbs and blocked the blow.
The impact resonated, but it didn't stop him.
The man used the inertia of the clash to pivot on his leg and leap with the other, rising as if the block had been merely a springboard.
The air parted around him.
The monster halted abruptly, driving four of its six limbs into the floor like stakes. The hallway shuddered with the impact, splinters flying in all directions.
With one of its two remaining limbs, the beast lashed out in a brutal whip, trying to catch the redhead mid-ascent.
The monster's limb descended like a whip meant to split him in two.
But it stopped dead.
The man had crossed his sword at the exact moment, the edge cutting deep and burying itself in the viscous flesh. He used that very lock as a pivot point: he stabilized his body in mid-air, planting his arm and right leg against the immobilized limb, tensing his muscles like springs.
The red aura condensed over his left leg.
It wasn't the same diffuse glow as before: now it was denser, almost liquid, vibrating with every pulse.
He contracted his leg.
An instant of silence, pressure building.
And then, the detonation.
The inverted kick struck the monster's left flank with brutal violence.
The impact hurled the creature as if it had been hit by a cannonball. Its body shot to the right, tearing through the air toward the interior of the alchemist's room where it had all begun.
The redhead spun with the momentum. A full rotation, three hundred and sixty degrees, and in that final spin he pulled on the sword, ripping it from the monster's limb in a spray of viscous fluid.
The monster flew several meters… but not enough.
It crashed against the floor, bounced with a roar, and dragged itself slightly before stopping. It didn't reach the inner wall of the room nor the hole still gaping in the floor.
The man landed firmly, though with his back to the room. His breathing was ragged, the aura still crackling on his legs.
He stood motionless for an instant.
'Where's the roar?' — he thought.
He had launched a blow that should have made the wood tremble, shattered walls, shaken the entire ship. But he heard nothing. Only silence, broken barely by his own breathing and the drip of water in the hallway.
BOOM!
A dry impact rumbled through the entire structure. The whole hallway jumped violently, as if the ship had dropped several meters all at once, like an out-of-control elevator.
The redhead cursed in rage at whatever was making the ship jump like that.
Another noise made him turn his head.
A second dry impact, closer, more immediate.
The torn-out wall from the room—the one the monster had destroyed at the start—was now falling in pieces upon him, an entire block collapsing like a guillotine.
The man raised his left hand, muscles tensing.
The weight fell onto his palm. The impact dragged him downward, accelerating the fall until his boots sank into the floor and he bore the entire block on his shoulder and arm.
ROAR!
A metallic, vibrant bellow filled the air.
He cursed it instantly.
He didn't need to see it to know what had caused it: the monster was moving again.
His gaze swept the scene in a quick flash.
If he let go of the wall, the young man would be crushed.
But if he did nothing, the monster would reach him in a matter of seconds. Three, maybe less.
He didn't wait to finish the calculation.
He was already moving.
He dropped his entire center of gravity all at once, freeing himself from the weight. The wall resumed its fall, plummeting to the floor. In that same instant, the man stretched his right leg in a horizontal, direct motion, and kicked the young man.
The young man's body was sent flying, moving just out of the wall's deadly trajectory.
The redhead used the next second with surgical precision: he bent his left leg and extended it like a spring, propelling himself in a short leap. With the little space gained, he curled his torso, spun, and went parallel to the floor, reducing his size just enough.
The wall smashed into the floor behind him, raising a screen of smoke, splinters, and dust.
But the man had already passed through the gap.
He had rolled to land right in the doorway, out of reach of the collapse.
The cloud expanded through the hallway, but it was thin. Light enough to let him see through it…
And what he saw froze his blood:
The silhouette of the monster, in action, showing him exactly what it had done in that instant.
The monster, seeing the cloud of smoke and splinters rise, slowed its charge just slightly.
It didn't lunge head-on: it swerved sharply to the right, right toward where the redhead had kicked the young man seconds before.
With a brutal movement, it caught the leg of the unconscious young man.
And without pause, it began to spin on its axis, using the boy as an improvised weapon.
The spin was devastating.
If the wall hadn't been torn out earlier, the young man would have smashed against it, shattered before even completing the turn.
The worst came after.
Before finishing the spin, the creature released the young man and hurled him toward the dust cloud.
The man caught the trajectory:
The young man flew over him, close enough to see his face, and smashed head-first into a circular window of the ship. Those windows were designed to withstand external pressure, to never give way.
But this one gave way.
The glass shattered into a thousand fragments under the impact of the young man's skull.
The frame was just large enough… or perhaps the young man's build was just slight enough. His shoulders passed cleanly through the gap, and half his body slid outward in an instant.
The redhead hesitated.
But he immediately understood what was about to happen and stretched his arms in a desperate grab, catching the young man's legs just as his hips were about to pass through the frame.
His hands closed tightly on the grip, securing him.
ROAR!
An impact resonated behind him.
The man wasn't surprised.
He had already anticipated it: the monster would never give him time, especially not now that it knew where he was.
The water on the floor responded first.
A liquid push rose like a spring under the redhead's back, catapulting him upward.
With a sharp tug, he released the pressure from his right arm, trapping both of the young man's legs with his left. The young man was secured against his side, dangling, still with half his body outside the ship.
His free hand closed around the hilt of the sword.
Clack!
His fingers tightened forcefully on the grip.
A twist of his wrist aligned the blade in a straight line, pointing directly at the monster charging from the dust curtain.
The air around him grew dense.
The red aura ignited over his hand, vibrating like contained fire, like incandescent metal about to burst.
He aimed for the center of the monster's head.
The one place where—according to the most brutal and desperate logic—its brain had to be.
His jaw tightened.
His eyes, filled with anxiety, fixed on the target.
And then, the change.
The strain showed on his face as the aura ceased being a static envelope. The energy began to flow, slide, crawling from his palm toward the sword.
First the hilt, then the guard, then the entire blade.
The red flowed like ignited blood until it enveloped the weapon completely.
The flash ran along the blade, vibrant, until it concentrated at the tip.
And right at the last instant, when the monster was upon him…
The aura finished coating it.
The sword had become a waiting projectile, a red lightning bolt lodged in his fist.
The steel found flesh.
The tip of the blade penetrated the rough skin first, then tore through thick muscle, and finally pierced something that crunched like hollow bone.
The edge didn't stop.
It advanced without resistance until the hilt slammed against the flesh. The sword was buried completely, sunk to the last centimeter.
But the creature didn't stop.
CRAAACK!
The floor rumbled under the monster's feet as it advanced, pushing with all its weight.
The redhead planted his boots, leaned his torso forward, center of gravity low, muscles burning. The water on the floor swirled, pressing in the opposite direction, trying to give him stability.
It wasn't enough.
The monster kept advancing, dragging him inch by inch.
The man's feet screeched in friction against the wet floor, leaving marks, losing ground with every second.
The pressure increased.
The young man, still held, leaned further and further toward the void as his rescuer was pushed toward the wall.
The man understood in a flash.
If this continued, they would both be crushed, and the kid would be flung outside.
With a guttural snarl, he lowered his left arm and released Eilor's legs.
In that same instant, the monster slammed him fully against the wall.
The impact pinned him against the wall.
The monster, however, didn't stop.
Its six limbs pressed like living battering rams. The creature's entire mass advanced with a violence that made every rivet in the hallway creak.
The impact shook the structure.
The redhead's body was trapped between the cold wall and the monster's weight.
But worse was the sword still buried in the monster, which was now pressing against his abdomen, right over the bruise.
Only because he'd used both hands in time did he manage to hold the sword just enough so the hilt didn't crush his abdomen.
Suddenly… it stopped.
The man blinked, bewildered.
The weight was still on him, but the monster was pulling back.
A fleeting thought crossed his mind:
"Is it dead?"
But no…
His blood ran cold when he understood what was coming.
The monster had pulled back only to charge again.
The redhead's skin crawled. He tried to escape with all his strength, but the young man's leg shifted and hooked under his armpit, hindering his escape. The beast was already charging for the second time.
BOOM!
The impact was brutal.
The redhead was driven deeper, embedded fully into the wall. The metal cracked and buckled under the pressure.
The sword's hilt slammed against his abdomen with a violence that vibrated through his ribs.
The air was forced from his lungs in a sharp gasp, almost a choked scream.
The blow was devastating.
A wave of raw pain coursed through his body, searing like fire in every nerve.
The wall buckled further until it could no longer hold and began to split open, letting in the rain, the wind, and the cold.
The wall tore open completely, and the two of them fell into the void.