Once Igor saw the dealer, he crushed the man's neck and readied his glaive. He would kill Liu Xin today.
Igor didn't respond to the provocative words. Vitality churned within him. With his actions, he would bring closure to many families who lost their children.
.
..
…
|DxD|- Chapter 54- Fallen Tears
…
..
.
A cloaked man hidden behind a pale mask with only a head of blonde left exposed. Liu Xin wasn't sure if this man was a foreigner or a native born with a genetic mutation. At the least, he was sure his hair wasn't dyed; a foolish mistake to make when everyone and their mother had black hair.
"Yellow hair. Quite a rarity in these parts."
Liu Xin probed with a sneer.
"Are you a Hmong? I don't recall taking anyone from there. But perhaps my next reaping will—"
He retreated just as the glaive descended. His eyes narrowed in seriousness. This person was mid-class as well. Liu Xin retaliated with his sickle. The chain extended rapidly until he sharply pulled it back, making the sickle curve and slice.
Igor leaned back. The sickle missed his throat by millimetres. He fired a beam of energy from his finger. It was thin and dangerously fast.
Liu Xin sidestepped it. The beam managed to singe the rim of his conical hat. He began running around Igor. His sickle was his messenger of death that not only kept Igor at bay, but also sent frequent probing attacks.
Igor dodged with finesse. Liu Xin was much faster than he seemed. Grabbing the sickle by the chain was almost impossible. This simple middle-aged man was stronger than the average mid-class.
The fight between the two was swift and quiet. Steel cut through the air with a sharp, buzzing whine.
Igor dodged another blow and instantly vanished to close the distance between them. He slashed with his glaive and Liu Xin, with widened eyes, dodged just in time to avoid being decapitated. But his shoulder was struck.
"Argh!"
Was that a movement technique? There was no time to ponder. Liu Xin retreated and threw out a smoke bomb. The plume of poisonous smoke stalled his adversary's advancement, giving him the time to pop two pills into his mouth.
Igor did not gamble by chasing through the poison fog. His nose was irritated just from smelling the corrosive compound. He retreated back and pressed his hands in front of him, one palm over the other.
A storm of energy rapidly brewed before his palms and tore through in a gargantuan blaze more than enough to eviscerate the whole clearing. The streak of gold was brief and silent like a flash of lightning, but the damage was anything but subtle.
A thundering explosion destroyed everything north. Rows of trees vanished and the ground was carved in the shape of a long oval. Hardened earth sizzled and smoked with bubbling magma patterns from the intense heat.
Igor remained alert. From his side, a figure wielding a dagger leaped out from the forest. It blurred with speed towards him. He didn't sense life in this thing. All he felt was a vile energy. A corpse?
Igor disarmed it, punctured its chest with his hand, and grabbed its heart. But suddenly, this puppet grabbed his arm tightly and held him in place. Igor heard the whirring of metal careening towards the back of his neck. He swiftly made his glaive hover behind him and block the blow.
Suddenly, four spectral-blue men manifested mid-air and dashed towards him, their clawed hands stretched out for his head and torso. Pinned like this from all fronts, Igor was helpless as they each pierced…air?
It was an afterimage!
"Well this is a surprise."
One of the spectral figures reverted back to human form. Liu Xin looked up with a sigh. This was outside his expectations.
"A speedster and a flyer."
It was quite a find. Liu Xin was certain this lad would serve him very well once he refined his corpse into a zombie. But first, he had to ensure the boy didn't escape.
Liu Xin clapped his hands together and a horde of sixteen spectral clones formed.
"You have two choices, lad. You either stay here and fight or I go down and slaughter that entire village. Which will it be?"
"..."
Igor remained silent in the skies. He was several metres above, just beyond the treeline. The setting sun paused and the winds stilled, as if waiting for choice.
He held this strange corpse thing by the heart. Igor wasn't silent out of hesitation. He was determined to kill this man regardless.
Rather, he was stalling. His vitality was burning away all the vile energy in this walking corpse. At the very least, he would bury this unfortunate person. He just hoped they weren't vile.
Liu Xin widened his eyes then silently clicked his tongue when his control over his prized zombie was suddenly severed. This setback was like stabbing him in the heart. If he knew Igor could take away control, then he would've never used the zombie in the first place, or at least self-destructed it.
Igor corroded the energy away and threw the corpse far away into the depths of the forest. His vitality would protect it from both the impact and animals. Behind the mask, he was impassive. Fighting this man with emotion and righteous anger would get him killed. This kind of conniving opponent did not give chances for mistakes.
Igor held both hands in front of him. Between his fingers, eight small disks of energy whistled to life and spun with ever-increasing speed. Igor raised his arms and swung them down with force.
The discs shot down like missiles that reigned terror. Of the eight that exploded, three shot deep underground towards the faint presence he sensed hidden beneath.
The real Liu Xin, hidden deep below the earth, believed he was safe. How false that was. His movement was sluggish underground compared to the three disks grinding their way towards him. He dodged two, but as he tried to block the last one with his hand, it cut off two of his fingers and split his earlobe.
"Argh!"
He groaned through the pain and decided to rapidly ascend. Burrowing deeper was suicide.
Igor unleashed a barrage of attacks from the sky. After deliberately distracting the real Liu Xin by attacking his clones, he directed three discs to penetrate the ground in the hopes of killing him. It was unfortunate that couldn't be done, but with Liu Xin distracted, Igor had the opportunity to eradicate all his clones.
His glaive hovered into his hand and he descended into the field of dust kicked up by his discs. The clones were not completely independent. Without Liu Xin's control, they fell quickly and dissipated under the white hot blade of his glaive. Igor fired a blast at the last one before leaping back.
Where he last stood, Liu Xin leaped out. The index and pinky finger on his left hand were cut clean off, leaving only stumps. He looked calm, but he was seething inwardly. Losing his fingers meant he could no longer use his chain-sickle with appropriate mastery.
"Tch!"
He clicked his tongue and a sword flashed into his hand. Igor was already atop him the moment he wielded it. Giving an opponent time was a privilege for the strong.
The two drifted across the field, each fighting to prove superior. Their speed tore through the air. Blades of grass were uprooted beneath their shifting feet, never again to taste the soil so long as they continued fighting.
Igor pressed his advantage by targeting Liu Xin's left side. He demonstrated high mastery and experience over the glaive, using its extended reach to keep his opponent at bay while attacking.
Liu Xin was soon backed up against the old watchtower. He was feeling the pressure of Igor's flurried strikes. He wasn't given the time to summon more clones or use his techniques. Being put on the defensive like this…
"Hyaa!"
Liu Xin ruthlessly sacrificed his left arm. Igor's glaive struck down and severed it from the shoulder. That left him wide open.
Liu Xin directed his sword and pierced it deep into Igor's left side. The corrosive poison lining the blade sizzled his innards like hot flames.
Liu Xin twisted the blade to keep Igor in place, and with his roar, a plume of purple toxic smoke poured from his mouth. But what he didn't expect was Igor would respond with his roar too.
"Raaa!"
Igor roared out his pain with a surge of golden energy that tore apart his mask. It carved through the smoke and punched its way through Liu Xin's head. Igor increased the power until he couldn't endure the pain anymore.
He collapsed to his knees with gritted teeth. Liu Xin's had been carried by the blast and fell several metres away. The smell of burnt flesh still lingered, but Igor had no leeway to mind.
The sword was stabbed in him almost to the hilt. Blood poured out like water, drenching his shirt, cloak, and pants like a heavy rain. Several were split and crucial stomach vessels were split open.
Blood pooled in his mouth. He coughed it out and acted quickly. He only had moments before he fainted and minutes before he died.
Through clenched teeth, he gripped the sword with both hand. He chest heaved once, and only once more before he closed his eyes.
"Nnnnghhhhhaaa!"
Igor pulled out the sword. The sharp edges split him anew. The pain was so blinding he screamed aloud. But he endured and continued pulling until it clattered on the ground.
Heavy breaths followed. He lay on his side and clamped the wound shut with his palm. In his right hand, a small white vial appeared. It was a bottle of fallen tears, some sort of experimental phoenix tears created by Grigori.
Igor never imagined he'd need to use a prototype. His natural healing had always been strong and more than enough to get the job done. But to hell with it. He wouldn't last long at this rate.
He bit the lid open and spat it away. He took the vial and shoved the rim right into his wound. He screamed at the pain until his legs kicked and straightened repeatedly. His teeth grinded against each other, mixed with the tears spilling into his mouth. Igor had to be ruthless to himself. He couldn't risk the contents of the vial spilling out.
And so he lay in a pool of his own blood. His forehead was sopping wet with sweat, his jaws slick with blood from his internal bleeding. He felt himself healing…very slowly. Just fighting the poison took a lot of his vitality.
Igor slowly opened his eyes. His body felt so weak he could barely move. The fallen tears were a pause-button. It wouldn't heal him. It would only halt the worst of it. This wound was fatal, but he'd heal.
"This is quite the mess you're in, boy."
"..."
Igor didn't need to look back to know it was Baraquiel. He was just too tired to reply. His blood had mixed with sand to create a grotesque dark maroon pool that reached down to his heels. And with his safety assured, he finally let himself faint.
Igor closed his eyes and Baraquiel only sighed.
"Shuri will kill me for this…"
.
AN: Big boy Igor had nth fight and this one turned out quite bloody. Baraquiel is right about one thing though. Shuri will absolutely murder him. Unless the old fallen is willing to choke out a phoenix tear, he has some explaining to do. Because honestly? If the stomach vessel mentioned above is an aorta, Igor is well and truly f*cked.
Chapter 54
END