Chapter 337 Close Encounter

"Begone."

With a flick of his wrist, the Faceless One cast the summoned spirit aside like nothing more than dust to the wind, accelerating the particles of dirt caught in the wind to such speeds that they turned the armored hammer-wielder into nothing but mist within a moment.

'Already!?' Emilio thought, 'Can we really beat something like this–? Is this the sort of power a Primordial has access to...? Maybe fighting isn't the key here...If I think about it, there might be a way out of this...think.'

At the very least, the momentary distraction his summoned familiar caused released the binding effect on him and Asher, allowing them to land back down on the contorted street below.

"...Asher, you've fought it longer than me, so tell me if I'm wrong but...there's no winning against it, is there?" He asked.

As they both looked up, that question felt answered as the pale, inhuman figure continuously altered itself, not adhering to a single constant as the sky rippled as if it were made of water; abyssal tentacles extended from the Faceless One as the fabricated moon suspended in the sky turned to an eclipse.

Asher took a moment to respond before finally nodding, "I wasn't going to say it, but I can't foresee an outcome where we break through this thing."

The streets themselves changed as the concrete sidewalks were torn through by twisted roots, giving room for crooked trees to sprout, blossoming pitch-black and crimson spider lilies.

A Primordial; that which the Progenitor warned him never to face. Those warnings were realized no more potently than against but a simple strand of one such Primordial's power, feeling more like a world-ending cataclysm.

"...For now, let's run! Fighting it head-on isn't going to change anything," Asher said.

"Right!"

Just as the tendrils of abyssal complexion stretched out, leaving grime and darkness around the false cityscape, the two raced off into an alleyway, sprinting down its length.

It was reminiscent of the Unending Nightmare; having to run through a nightmarish, closed-off realm with an otherworldly horror looming over him.

Even as they went into the narrow alley, it wasn't free from the prying gaze of the Faceless One, as those twisted eyes blinked open on the side of the buildings, staring right at them. There was no sound that came from them, yet they watched; countless of these eyes spawned along the walls.

"Look out!" Asher called out.

As he was following behind, he looked down just as a crooked limb suddenly rose from a puddle on the asphalt; a contorted arm of rotten flesh of varying complexions, stitched and bearing many eyes of its own as well.

He didn't hesitate cleaving through the limb, but not a second after did dozens more spring from the walls around them, making the grimy, dark alleyway claustrophobic and dense with panic.

"In here!" Asher led, quickly gesturing for him to follow.

It was a circular sewer gate, which the Devilheart flipped up without any hesitation, fueled by the desperate circumstances as the depraved arms swiped and reached for the two desperately, getting too close.

"Hecate!" He yelled out.

Squeezing the bookmark as he called out for the name of the Curator of Souls, just as the realm around them became bleached, a light filled both Asher and Emilio's eyes. It felt like the grace of an angel itself found them amidst the hellish corner, enveloping Emilio's senses in warmth before–

"Pyuh!"

He found himself gasping for air, returned to the library of souls as he was on his knees in front of the book case. It took a moment for his senses to calm from their high-alert state after being under the prying eye of the horrific faceless deity.

'...I made it. It worked,' he thought.

"Nngh..."

Sitting against the bookshelf itself and rubbing his head as a quiet groan left his lips was none other than Asher, who managed to escape the Soul's Mark alongside him. The darkly-dressed fellow reincarnator stood himself up before looking around.

"You alright?"

Helping Emilio up, both Blimpo and Joel hoisted him from his shoulders, though the amethyst-eyed young man gave them a nod to assure them he was fine. The look Vandread had along with that silence he held seemed to imply he could tell something went "wrong".

"We're out of that thing's reach?" Asher asked.

"For the time being, yes."

The answer came from the silken, wise voice of the beautiful, yet imposing woman that ran the mystical library.

There was a change of expression from the usual lack of emotion Hecate showed–one that was quite frustrated as she moved to the bookshelf the Soul's Mark they just arrived from came. In a wave of her fingers, as if orchestrating an unseen force, she weaved an emerald spell that encased the shelf and its many books.

"'For the time being'?" Emilio asked.

"It seems your presence has lured a troublesome one into my library; even a fragment of his essence is like a knot of tumors that is impossibly tedious to unravel," Hecate explained, "However, the blame falls on me for allowing that faceless fiend to infiltrate the Soul's Mark."

"It's not–" He tried to say.

Hecate faced him and the others after completely sealing off the contaminated bookshelf, snapping her fingers as the emerald bookmark that Emilio held flew back into the hands of the Curator of Souls.

"The fact remains that I did directly help you just now in escaping from that contaminated Soul's Mark. As such, you cannot stay here any longer, I am afraid–still, you've found what you came here for nonetheless," Hecate said.

"Wait, I've got questions myself–!" Asher stepped forward.

–However, a single snap of the librarian's fingers warped the space of the library, seeming to shift its walls and floors as if the scenery itself changed before the entire group found themselves transfixed to another area.

"Huh?"