Chapter 404 - An Old Friend

"Marcus?!"

"Marcus Ferrous!"

Hearing his name being shouted by the fox beastgirl he had been fighting Marcus was taken aback for a moment.

Still, he disregarded it quickly, as his soul devour skill muddled his mind and pushed him to go for the kill.

Soon there was a loud snap as the fox beast girl's right arm broke and Marcus' scythe stabbed into her chest.

Yet, even as her right arm broke, she kept strong with her left arm preventing Marcus' scythe from slicing her in two.

"Marcus please stop! It is me Lyra. Lyra Bridger!

This time, as this fox beastgirl called out to him, saying she was Lyra Bridger, Marcus stopped.

The shock of hearing a name of someone that had once been close to him, cleared Marcus' mind for a moment.

And looking down at her expression Marcus could see that any hostility was gone, replaced with a mix of fear, and disbelief.

"If you are Lyra then you should be able to prove it. How did you die?" 

He still could vividly remember that day when he and his sister along with a group of friends went snowboarding like they did every winter, but this time things went horribly wrong.

As they were going down a slope they had been on a hundred times, a new skier had lost control and ran into Lyra from behind sending her over the edge of the path and sprawling down the mountain.

It had been a horrifying sight to see for Marcus and his other friends as they watched Lyra fall.

By no means was it a sheer cliff, but it was steep enough and had rocks jutting out of it. And Lyra had bounced off one of them hitting her head along the way hard enough to dent her helmet.

Marcus and all of his friends who had seen this stopped as quickly as they could, but there was nothing they could do as Lyra sunk into the snow once her momentum had stopped.

The snow was too deep and loose to move over so none of them were able to even attempt going to help Lyra.

They quickly called for the ski patrol to send up a rescue team all the while hoping to see Lyra pop out of the snow. 

But she never did.

And by the time the rescue team had arrived, it was too late.

They pulled Lyra's corpse out of the snow, and Marcus along with his friends cried when they saw her limp body.

After that, all of them were ushered down the mountain and Lyra's parents were called to tell them about what had happened.

It was a tragic situation, and when they all found out the details later it was even more heart breaking.

Lyra apparently had broken her neck but had not died instantly and was apparently still conscious.

However, her legs and arms had been paralyzed, and as she laid there unable to move, she suffocated in the snow

Marcus could only imagine the horror that she had experienced as she died in excruciating pain slowly becoming unable to breathe.

So, he waited for this fox girl's answer, mostly not believing her, but some sliver of hope wanted her to be real.

"I died in a snowboarding accident! Please Marcus stop!"

As she said this Marcus who had actually been unconsciously pushing his scythe in deeper pulled back and started staggering.

A whirlpool of emotions then began running through him.

At first, he was befuddled, unable to think straight before believing that maybe he was having his mind read, but quickly brushed that off thanks to sound mind.

'Is it really her?'

As Marcus thought this, he came back to his senses completely and shut down his unique and supreme skills that were putting intense stress on his soul.

"AGHHHH"

Yet as he did the backlash of using the two skills in tandem for too long caught up with him and he collapsed to the ground now feeling the damaged done to him.

He had pushed soul devour too far and his form actually began to unravel.

Collapsing onto the ground Marcus felt the intense pain of having a part of his soul missing as he had burned it for fuel to empower himself.

Luckily his soul regeneration was just barely able to keep ahead of the damage he had done to himself, and he was slowly recovering, but he felt terribly weakened and could not move.

Seeing this Lyra dragged herself over to Marcus to check on his condition, not caring about her own sorry state.

She had never once thought she might meet someone she once knew again and was not going to let Marcus die here.

She pulled out a strong healing potion that was equivalent to a tier five spell, and poured it down his mouth.

Unfortunately, the damaged that Marcus had suffered was not going to be fixed by any sort of normal healing.

"Save your potions, they are not going to help me. I just need a few minutes and I will be fine." Marcus said weakly.

Of course, it was probably going to take him more than a few minutes to fully recover but he felt he would at least be able to move then.

Nodding her head, Lyra who had tears welling up in her eyes, suddenly started feeling the damage done to her body.

The adrenaline pumping through her was starting to lessen and her transformation was wearing off.

She then collapsed to her knees and held her right arm for a moment, before pulling out another potion and drinking it herself.

Quickly her wounds began to heal, but the exhaustion she felt from fighting Marcus was quite high and she was pretty ragged.

With both of them having worn themselves out, Marcus and Lyra just laid there in the crater that their battle had created trying to recover their strength.

"Marcus can you talk?" Lyra said as they both stared up into the sky.

"Yeah."

"Would you mind telling me what happened after I died?"

Going quiet for a minute Marcus collected his thoughts on what to say.

"It was sad. I know all of us that saw it happen had nightmares of the incident for a few months after. As for your parents it was devastating for them to lose you, and your little sister fell into a depression for a while. It was a tough time for all of us when you died, and the trial was pretty bad too. Your parents desperately wanted the man that caused your death to face some type of consequences, but they were unable to pursue criminal charges and the civil suit got dragged out so long they eventually did not have the heart to continue. Eventually though as time passed on, things did get better. Even after all these years your parents still live four houses down from mine, and they are doing well. Your sister just finished college and was apparently getting engaged. So, from what I knew before dying your family was happy."

After saying this Marcus began hearing sniffling beside him, and as he strained to turn his head,  he saw Lyra crying.