Chapter 201: Cautionary tale.

Chapter 201: Cautionary tale.

Emeri and I woke groggily, our senses returning to us as the acrid smell of blood filled our nostrils. Thankfully, the fighting had abated during our time away, meaning that reinforcements had yet to arrive.New novel chapters are published on

We found ourselves surrounded by the remainder of Dalius forces, though most of them had fallen in battle. Noticing our return, a lieutenant gave the signal to retreat which was followed by the sound of several dozen classers filing through a narrow corridor and back into the cavern.

There, we came across Dalius lazily leaning against a boulder as he nursed his wounds. The inquisitors body was nowhere to be found.

Ah, youre here! Good. Thats good

Dalius sighed, lifting his tired body from the ground and regarded us coolly.

Its time to fulfil your end of the bargain, princess.

The request seemed to catch her off guard, making Emeri lose herself in thought for a moment. In the meantime, a purple portal had appeared back to the hideout, through which the most wounded classers were already being transported, along with the corpses that were mostly whole.

Dalius was visibly starting to lose patience, obvious from the way he tensed.

So? Out with it, Emeri! What did you see? We dont have the time to dilly-dally. The people of the continent need to know the truth! Without it, theyll never wake from their nightmare of ignorance, never gain the ambition to pursue their true purpose!

Realising that the situation was doomed from the start, I wanted to pull Emeri away from the situation. Before I could figure out a way to escape, however, my companion broke the silence.

Im afraid youll be left disappointed, Considering Helios story could be called a cautionary tale against your every ideal, rather than gospel to reinforce it. Helios nearly fell to madness in pursuit of creating a better world, but saw the truth at the end of his path. He refused when the system asked him to advance to the ninth tier. As a result, he lost himself to his own deification.

The more Emeri spoke, the more deadly Dalius gaze seemed to become. Simultaneously, a blue mark began to glow on her wrist, before shattering entirely at the end of her explanation.

The contract had been fulfilled. Dalius spoke coldly. With it, any remaining obligations I once had to you have also been abandoned.

My eyes widened, realising what he was implying. Dalius continued with a deeper, gravelly voice, sounding almost as if he was grieving. He slowly raised his hand in our direction, which began to glow purple as the gravitational field around us twisted.

Sorry, kids. I cant have that story gettin out. I just cant. Not after the sacrifices weve made. I hope you understand.

Soon enough, he grew frustrated. Perhaps the way his men were getting annihilated by the pursuer was what finally sent him over the edge, because he held both hands out in front of him and started to summon a pitch-black hole of some kind.

All light seemed to be drawn into it, along with everything else, in fact. A powerful whirlwind originated from the hole, pulling in small rocks as it forced Revan and I to brace.

As the skill was completed, the hole had grown smaller and smaller, feeling more deadly the more it shrunk. With a gleeful cackle, Dalius released the hole, pushing it in our direction and watching as we were being pulled in slowly.

At first, Revan and I tried to keep our distance, but our hopes were quickly dashed. Especially Revan, whose body was too large to hang on to anything, was losing ground bit by bit. His tail was the first to make contact with the hole, disintegrating the moment it touched the projectile and pulling the rest of Revan in with it.

Taking advantage of Revans temporary death, I apparated right behind Dalius and activated breaking swipe once again. This time, he couldnt dodge even if he wanted to, as he was busy stopping the hole from going rogue.

My attack connected without an explosion and didnt even leave a wound, so much as a scratch. Thankfully, that hadnt been my goal.

A sickly green mark spread from the scratch, digging into Dalius flesh and spreading as I prepared to swing my weapon a second time.

Dalius, having realised that his hole had served its purpose, let go of the skill and let it fizzle out. Despite the curse mark, he was still far too powerful for me to go toe to toe with, so I hurriedly apparated to a safe distance, but not before his gravitational powers pulled a chunk of flesh from my back.

He snarled as I successfully made my escape and prepared to follow up his initial assault with ranged skills, but was stopped by a glowing spear arcing towards his back. Again, it served no other purpose but distracting him, but it succeeded.

Dalius whirled around with rage, finding Emeri there with an arm outstretched. Behind her, the inquisitor was slowly getting to his feet, golden fire starting to swirl around him.

To make matters even worse for Dalius, the pursuer had finished killing the rest of his subordinates and had decided to join the fray as well. It announced its arrival with the sound of howling skill fire, which caused a dozen violent explosions where Dalius was standing.

Finally, he had had enough. Dalius swore as he charged out of the dust cloud that the explosions had created, making straight for the portal to my right. Emeri and I tried to stop him with ranged skills, but he ignored them as they struck his body. Before the pursuer could get to him, Dalius had gone through the mirror-like portal and disappeared.

The portal in question made to close right after his arrival, but was momentarily prevented from doing so by the pursuer, which kept the tear from closing the same way he did his own method of arrival.

The elemental predictably didnt listen when I told it to abandon its pursuit, instead opting to rip the portal wide open as much as possible. As a result, the portal and the pursuer seemed to enter into a contest of strength, which the portals creator eventually won. It closed, but not before dissipating the pursuer as it ran out of mana to sustain itself. All this happened in just a few seconds, too.

As Dalius disappeared definitively, I felt my connection to his curse mark disappear. As I wondered to myself whether that meant that the mark had disappeared alongside the connection, the recovered inquisitor collapsed again, coughing up blood.