Chapter Eighteen: The Spectators?

  The shadow void grew further, like ink from a broken pen or blood from a wound that'd never close. It flooded in the snow plains, swallowing almost everything, with no exception of rocks, ice, and even light.

  Jian Yue in the center of the shadow barrier of Xul-Thal. He was there like a dull, dying flower. Trying to follow its attack, but the attacks followed him.

  Xul-Thal didn't raise its hand. ‘It’ didn't need to. ‘It’ watched with its ten eyes, watching him struggle. watched him realize. The shadow stretched beneath his feet.

  Jian Yue knew what came next. Shadow edges. Blades of shadows came from the ground, thousands cut from a thing that didn't need to hold it.

  Jian Yue moved not fast, never fast enough.The first shadow blade missed by an inch; he felt the passing wind. The second blade grazed his cheek, followed by the treacherous pain.

  Just in the moment the third blade rushed through the air and almost reached his throat, the impact was meant to take his head, but Jian Yue chanted. “Silence!” The words weren't loud but commanding.

  The shadow edges stopped just for a few seconds; the impact of the attack vanished just before reaching Jian Yue's throat. A drop of sweat dropped from his forehead. Using his ‘Authority’ gave him a cost; it always did, but this time he didn't… Or couldn't hide. His body dropped the guard, and his senses harshly fell.

  The result… Not blindness, not deafness, but a thick wall between him and the world. Everything was further from it, including himself. He was still there but elsewhere. “I can't keep up with this rate.”

  Another attempt from Xul-Thal’s shadow to hit him: ‘It’ didn't try to attack, but it happened through its shadow. Arrows covered in the shadow launched from beneath. Jian Yue stumbled back. His blade moved swiftly in the air.

  His blade was a motion of blur, one… Two… three. The counting was instinct. The only way to survive this fast was to break it into pieces. Ten, twenty. The arrows slashed and dissolved into nothingness. Thirty, thirty-five. His arms screamed from relentless strikes. Fifty. The last arrow disappeared. All of these arrows slashed down precisely.

  Xul Thal spoke almost gently, “Fifty-three… you missed it.” The Xul-Thal corrected him and counted, off course ‘It’ did. ‘It’ had nothing more than time, patience, and curiosity about these small struggling things.

  Jian Yue looked down, and an arrow pierced his thigh, but he couldn't feel any pain. The cost of numbness was fully involved. As his hand curled around it and he pulled it out, blood didn't fall. A wound from shadow never did; they just left hollowness.

  The Xul-Thal tilted its head; a small bone-cracking voice echoed in the veil of shadow. That gesture, that horrible human gesture. ‘It’ held the weight of once being something that understood everything.

  “Oh, 'They' are watching.” They? Jian Yue looked around; no one ever was. He had fought ‘It’ before, but there were few Xul-Thal who had achieved omniscience… ‘It’ knew, ‘It’ saw ‘Them’... An omniscient Xul-Thal?

  “They?” Jian Yue's voice was barely a whisper. “Who are they?” Jian’s fingers clenched his blade tight. Jian Yue felt the weight of attention, something vast and distant and utterly indifferent, utterly silent, utterly watching.

  ‘It’ didn't answer immediately. 'It raised its head in the endless sky, at nothingness but at everything, and at the space where light forgot to go. “The ‘Spectators,’ they watch and wait and wager on who wins.”

  Hands came out of its feet. And it spoke again, or better to say, the world spoke for 'It.'

  “You're dying… ‘Authorities’ already cost a lower 'Ordinal,' and now you are in my domain.” Black, thick mist came out of Jian Yue's thigh from the wound, and it dissolved in shadow. “And here you lost 2 times the cost.”

  “Damn it. This won't end well.”

  At the entrance of the Cathedral, the wind breathed a warmth in the cold, spreading sultry breathing of something lowering the temperature of the blizzard.

  Zhuo ran towards it, unaware of the path leading him towards the hatred of the calamity. Suddenly a shrill cut through the air.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  A harsh sound that was abandoned by the long-forgotten chamber of execution. Utterly loud, utterly rampage.

  Zhuo’s steps slowed down till they stopped standing between the gateway of the cave, his hand trembling on his blade, almost losing grip.

  A boy that stood against the unknown destiny or a warrior challenging fate itself. “Where… Where is the eye?” His eyes scanned around, and he felt the scorching pressure in the air. Something had awakened.

  He was desperate, remembering the small nod of Jian Yue and his futile attempt of reassurance to Zhuo.

  Then-

  The ground trembled beneath Zhuo, mirroring the treacherous movements of Zhuo’s feet. Then ice on the cave fell with a loud thud.

  SCREECH!

  And it slowly rose from behind the cave, its deep eyes staring inside the soul of Zhuo. It had smelled the scent of those offerings he had failed to kill; its pride stung more than physical wounds.

  It remembered every single thing. It remembered being forced into submission. From being pinned by the creatures that should have been a waste of meat to the chain that bruised its neck. Every single detail was repeated in its eyes.

  It looked at Zhuo, his steps falling back… Three steps his hand tightened around the blade, speaking not of comfort but of the shaking of metal.

  Its eyes met a treacherous figure of Zhuo. The scent of the one who had seen its weakness, the hideous creature in its eyes, wasn't here. But this one, this small one smelled like him… All of them.

  Another squawk that simply meant “Close enough.”

  The wings partially cut the blizzard, and a sound of boom popped out, and it descended. Zhuo felt it before he saw it. He felt the rush in the air that meant death was coming.

  Left! Move left!... Too fast. The silver icicle wings burst into the ground. Zhuo’s steps moved left. His vision was buried in the snow bursting from the ground. The wind, itself a knife scratching his face.

  He held his blade tight. The Kholkis didn't wait; it had one intent: ‘Kill’ and kill anyone that had the same scent as those hideous creatures. Kholkis thrust its beak at Zhuo.

  His hand curled on the handle of the blade as his hand blocked it with a metal sound echoing, and his body pushed back.

  The difference in physical capacity was clear: a beast that could tear the wind and shake the ground. How could a kid like Zhuo fight it?

  He dove right, his blade almost slipping away as the metal scratched on the beam of Kholkis. The Kholkis's talon smashed the place where he'd been. The frozen plains trembled, the vast cave scarred almost as if a replica of a spider’s web.

  “Think!” He gasped. “Think, think, think.” He had never fought an entity this strong; he never needed to in the first place. “My ‘Authority’... No, it won't work.” He thought but couldn't keep the thoughts longer. It flew high and then descended like a crushing mountain, ready to hit the ground.

  Zhuo launched his body backward and snapped his fingers… The attack slowed down, but it was nowhere close. But now Zhuo could see why.

  The Arbiter of Motion

  'Ordinal' 7: he couldn't stop the motion or couldn't steal it from living things, but the movements of its beak he could slightly slow down… just enough to find the eye.

  His eyes traced the lines of 'Motion,' the next steps of Kholkis. He had almost forgotten the ‘Arbiter’s eyes,' but he didn't forget the cost.

  The Kholkis reacted again, but the next lung faltered for just a moment, for a fraction of a second before it could reach, and Zhuo reached first.

  Splash.

  His blade bit the wings of Kholkis, not deep enough but enough to remind it that a prey always fought back against an inevitable death.

  Kholkis screamed a sound building in its throat, but Zhuo slowed it down. The scream came half a second late, and Zhuo was already behind it.

  Another stab could land before he felt his blade freezing. He quickly pulled it out. The eyes of hatred looked at Zhuo, its neck tilted backward, and it charged at Zhuo.

  Zhuo tried to block it with the blade, but the ice melted under its breath, slipping off the beak to the shoulder. Blood dropped from his shoulder.

  His hands clenched tightly and then landed on the ground with a jump, stepping back. It blitzed again, but it slowed down.

  Zhuo used his 'Authority.', he had to. He saw the next motion, and he moved to the side at an angle, which he could never use again. A single perfect evasion, like a gift from his future self.

  “I have to see the motion of the eye.” His Arbiter’s eyes could see the motion, but the current situation and relentless strike from Kholkis gave him no time to lose his grip. Another strike… then another.

  The world blurred. He moved under the legs of Kholkis. Under its talons, as he dashed between its talons, he saw a motion; the traces of the lines were the same as a human eye's motion, a pupil's blinking would feel. Inside the left leg of Kholkis.

  His blade struck its leg, but it bounced back, as if hitting a stone with a metal. It didn't even react to this small slash. The edges of his blade… he noticed them, the thorny pattern appearing. His blade was getting dull from useless assault.

  “On my current 'Ordinal,' I can only steal motion from nonliving things with many exceptions.” Exceptions… the exception was the motion that could tear his body out of his physical capability. He raised his blade.

  “Lin taught me, watch it. Kholkis.” He threw his blade off with all his power; the blade moved faster, and the Kholkis looked at him in puzzlement. He'd use the motion of the blade, a line he saw together around the blade; his hand touched the silver tracing of motion. Where the beginning, the ghost image, was.

  He stole the motion when it was at the peak of its speed. Then it fell on the ground useless. Zhuo Ran, much faster than before, took out the dagger by hand.

  The Kholkis reacted and attacked with its wings. Zhuo didn't stop; he jumped. Higher than a human capacity, it landed running on its wing. He threw the dagger. It spun in the air once, twice, and then it struck the Kholkis's eye.

  The beast screamed in agony. But Zhuo was already moving; his hands had reached out for the dagger, fingers finding the hilt.

  He pushed it deeper, twisting it. Something vicious like blood but black and wrong sprayed across his face. But Zhuo didn't stop; stopping here meant giving it a chance and another reason for hatred, so he kept pushing. After all, he knew the eye was the most sensitive part.

  “I have to go for the eye now.” This was his strategy to distract it first, and then he could go for its leg. The ‘Original Eye.' Zhuo, distracted in his thoughts, didn't realize the Kholkis started flying upward. Before he could jump, the Kholkis descended with a crushing speed.

  It was adapting; they both were. Zhuo’s hand tightly curled around the feather of Kholkis, and his hand started to freeze. The temperature dropped significantly, his palm changing color and becoming hard and waxy.

  A frostbite that should have taken at least five minutes only needed seconds. Zhuo’s breath slowed down from the cold, and then it threw Zhuo on the ground; with a loud crash, he fell on the ice, his eyes closed in pain, and the next scene he saw was his death spreading its wings.

  He couldn't move.

  The Kholkis watched him struggle, trying to steal motion from air that had nothing to give in. With a crushing weight, it smashed its talon on Zhuo’s chest.

  “AHGH!” Zhuo groaned. Was it the end? He questioned himself. At his lowest moment. The Kholkis watching seemed pleased to take its revenge.

  The image of blind Mo Fei, Jian Yue's desperate struggle, and Lin's own fight to protect them. “What am I fighting for?” His eyes squinted in pain.

  “To survive? Perhaps so they don't have to… But right now. It hurts. I'm hurt and tired. They can't help me, but I could have. This was the moment where I could have helped them and eased their concern by showing my growth… I didn't grow, but I needed to…”

  From the cave a melodic voice came; the scent of the perfume reached his nose, already a strange comfort. “A child fighting his destiny. My, how cruel.” A smug, soft voice that he'd never heard before