A great leap into the air, he moved closer to her, eyes glaring with precision; his hand gripped the sword tighter, swinging in a direction where his body kept refusing to close the wound, yet he still pushed through it.
The woman's whip was high in the sky, turning way sharper than it was before; the ground shook with the wind, dust falling off like a mist of darkness.
For a second, everything vanished under the cloud of dust, but Noen, he was nowhere to be seen.
Frantically, the singing lady searched through her eyes across the field, growling like a mad beast, but then a voice rumbled across the sky.
Blood filled upon her feet; it wasn't the ground that she had seen before; it was a blood bath ready to devour anything.
Noen smiled with a half-melted body; his flesh tearing slowly onto the ground, he muttered,
"Have a taste of my blood."
Those words felt like a silent voice before; among the sound, a piercing glare of spikes echoed.
Blood splattered, and for a moment everything was covered in red; silence filled the void, although the rain of blood didn't stop.
Noen glared with his plucked eyeballs while his body regenerated behind those fibers; first his brain, then, slowly, his whole body, grabbing the dirt that had begun to dry as Noen kept healing.
He smirked.
"I guess it wasn't enough to defeat you."
Slowly, the falling rain cleared, revealing a grotesque monster standing in front of him.
Her hands were as large as a stem of a bamboo tree, her claws extending like spider legs, glinting sharper than a metal knife.
Her eyes were fully distorted under the hollowness, maw falling, revealing a giant set of sharp teeth; her saliva slipped through her tongue, as if she would devour anyone any minute.
A shadow loomed over Noen, her size overshadowing him like an ant; he couldn't just stare at her in pure awe.
"Wtf is this..." he said, but—
Thud.
Crunch.
Squeezeee.
Her leg didn't spare him even a second before he was crushed under a titan's feet... or is he?
"Do... squeeze... crack! You... urgh..."
He struggled and struggled, kept regenerating while his body shifted shapes. His voice groaned in pain.
"Think I'm not done yet!" he shouted.
His body shifted, stretching like a giant sourdough as if it was freshly fermented; his blood spilled over across the ground. A sword formed before he appeared, far away from the place.
He was completely fine.
"No."
His body was failing, unable to bear more. What appeared outside, it wasn't as inside; the pain had hurled over his body already a hundred times. Regeneration kept on resetting under pressure; fatigue had started taking over, he thought.
"If it goes like this, I- I don't think I can go any longer..."
Screekkhh!!
The monster screamed, as Noen also prepared his sword, ready for a lunge.
"Sera. Please wait a little more."
"I will save you even if it costs my life."
***
"Mom?"
Silence…
plop..
"Sera, my little girl"
"Don't go outside until mommy comes back, ok?"
"Ok, mama!"
"Good girl!"
"But remember not to cross the boundary beyond the house— SERA!!
Huff huff huff
In a black pool of puddle, Sera lay motionless at one place, huffing, her breath ragged, discomforted by the past she just saw; her eyes trembled, tears swifting through her cheeks as if someone had opened a valve
"It's cold," a voice echoed, a thum of silence filling its weight, stretching across the dark that stared at Sera, who was crying, but her eyes said otherwise
It was the eyes of a person who had longed, buried, trying to cope with reality, and it was now Sera
She sat silently, bending her knees; her voice kept stuttering, and the same words repeated: "It's cold."Her body was trembling like it was a new dawn of the ice age. Inside this dark that felt surreal even to the earthly eyes
She folded herself like a closed flower withering under the cold skies, and around her, crystals of ice had begun to born spreading across the dark, freezing it cold, but a trickle of blood like maple syrup fell on those ice, making them eerily beautiful
Their red crimson glow looked so surrealistically obsessive that it overshadowed the heart beating above her
Lub dub lub dub
The world trembled, but nothing moved; just a set of hands moving closer, binding Sera in a cross prison held under the hands of a monster that looked at her with a motherly gaze
As if keeping a precious gift bound to her life, preserved under a womb with warmth of eerie calmness
The world shook again; water rippled under waves, yet the darkness didn't seem to falter from its place, stuck at one origin.
***
"How many times I try, it doesn't seem that I was even able to scratch her"
Noen thought, moving across the battered forest, stepping onto the remains of wildlife that were crushed under the brute force of two beasts fighting
His feet stretched on the dirt where the singing lady moved her giant claws, swinging them like a scythe that lay upon Noen's head; her hollow eyes stared through his soul
As if he anticipated the next attack, he turned his body into a sludge of blood, moving to a different place in an instant, where the place behind him was crushed under an invisible force
He formed a sword instantly; yet again it was useless, breaking the second on impact
"Tch." he jumped, dodging at an inhuman speed, his eyes scanning like a machine, but his movements started getting sluggish; his feet stumbled, flinching for a moment
But before he could do anything, those claws pierced again
He groaned, muttering, "Hey, bitch urgh... This fight is already going for 5days, haha.. He chuckled, his sound dry. "From what it seems, Sera is still alive"
"So, can't you just die quickly?" he said coldly, his eyes completely dead, grip strengthened across her claws; he crushed it under brute force, forcing it out of his body even if it tore through his abdomen.
The monster screamed in pain, crying before it went berserk; the world started shifting, day and night passed
And a moon rose above the sky; a giant eye hung open as if holding a judgment through its gaze, headless corpses hung over the sky like hanging chandeliers
The world shifted as if dancing with a melodic rhythm; a pleasant sound echoed until it screeched, a sound so loud that it made the world shatter.
Amongst stood Noen, who was breathing, yet his moment seemed weird, sluggish, as if he was drunk.
He stared, barely opening his eyes, and looked at the eye that stared at him as if judging the crime from a mother's eyes
He bent to his knees, ears bleeding, blood gushing out, yet he held his ground with bloodshot eyes, looking angrily at the lady who stood in the middle of it all
The singing lady was standing in her true form, a truly beautiful woman like a blue moon, yet her aura was like a chilling wind ready to kill anyone without mercy. Though something was strange about her, she wasn't the monster like before; it was a mother protecting something with her heart.
"DIE." Her words scattered like echoing beams, ringing in his ears a thousand times; he screamed through his lungs; the pain worsened, and he repeated his words, "stop!!"
Noen had lost it; he didn't look calm or composed; he was, this time, a human being, not immortal, a strangeness he had realised
His power had gone useless; he cursed in his mind, but those words turned into despair
"I'm deemed useless against her. Haha," a laugh filled with pain echoed, his face down, looking to the barren dirt, which had his own shadow reflecting over him.
"I couldn't protect anything."
"Not even that girl…"
SCRECHHHHH
"..."
A silent wind followed where Noen remained still, motionless like a falling corpse. Behind him, a huge set of 8 chains glowed, binding a blue light, something trapped between an endless void
A large claw moved closer, holding the chains like a delicate string
snap*
A chain snapped, and with it a giant clock appeared, glowing under a blue light; its appearance felt ancient, like an antique watch. It revolved, moving faster till all the hands stopped at one time: 12:00
Cr- Crack!
The time shattered, and with it everything fell silent, where a voice whispered: "Stop..."
The world turned grey instantly; all noises became still, only a voice moving closer
"How pathetic"
***