Chapter 84: Breaking Point
Morden’s fist grazed Darlus’s cheek by a hair’s breadth; it was so close that the wind from it made his eyes water.
Out of shock, Darlus stumbled back, tripping over a root and landing straight and hard on his bum.
"Dam, this student almost got me," Darlus muttered while he scrambled back to his feet.
Lisa didn’t answer him, though. She was too busy dodging a sword slash aimed directly at her neck; it was Morden’s own blade. He had picked it up not too long ago after it fell when he had summoned it when he was about to be taken over.
She twisted out of the way at the last second, but the sword caught a few strands of her hair instead.
"Twice," she said under her breath.
"That’s twice now."
The first near miss had been Darlus, and this time it was hers. Neither of them had actually landed a real hit yet, too busy just trying to survive whatever Morden’s body was throwing at them.
He had gotten so much stronger that he had taken the two of them at the same time and was even dominated; the fact that he was being controlled wasn’t helping either. He now also has almost machine-like accuracy.
"We can’t keep dodging forever," Darlus shouted, throwing another icicle that Morden simply weaved out of its way like it was nothing.
Lisa’s mind was already racing through options, but most of them were bad things she wasn’t willing to do to her teammates.
It all fell down to her eye ability; ever since she acquired it, she has always been using it at the basal level. A more socially acceptable one that allows her to pick up and detect what others can’t, and that was already enough. But it was deeper than that, far deeper.
"I never knew the first time I would use this would be against a friend," she muttered.
There wasn’t time to keep hesitating. Morden had lunged again, and this time he was much faster, and Darlus barely got a small ice wall up in time to block the strike. The wall shattered on impact, sending ice shards flying in every direction.
With that sight, Lisa made her decision.
Her eyes flashed gold, and the world around her shifted into something different, layered and translucent. She could see through the shadow now, past the dark tendrils wrapped around Morden’s body, and there, nestled just above his collarbone, was a small red glow pulsing faintly beneath the surface.
’That’s a red stone, so what they say that red stones can be used to power constructs are really true.’
’So we aren’t fighting a beast; we are fighting a Bearer’s construct.’
"Darlus, there’s a stone," she shouted.
"It’s near his collarbone, right under the shadow. That’s what’s powering this thing."
Darlus’s eyes lit up with understanding while his lips widened from end to end; the thought of being the hero was really invigorating.
"So if I hit that spot exactly, I might be able to stop whatever is wrong with Morden, "
"You’d need to be precise; too much force and you could actually hurt him," Lisa said.
Darlus thought for a second, watching Morden’s stance shift as he prepared to lunge again.
"I’ve got something," he said.
He didn’t summon a full icicle this time. Instead, he formed something thinner, more needle-like, barely visible in the light, similar to the ones he used against the magpies, but unlike that time, he didn’t shoot directly.
He waited, watching Morden’s movements, timing it against the same predictable opening he always used when he was about to attack, a sign of the predictability of machines.
Morden lunged.
Darlus sidestepped at the last possible second and drove the needle of ice directly into the spot Lisa had pointed out, right through the thin layer of shadow covering it.
Thankfully, the red stone cracked.
A sound like glass shattering rang out, and the shadow covering Morden’s body seemed to shake violently before it started peeling away in strips, disappearing completely as it went.
Morden’s knees buckled, and he collapsed forward, but before he could actually fall to the ground, Darlus caught him.
"Is he okay?" Darlus asked, looking over at Lisa.
But Lisa wasn’t listening. She was still frozen in place, her golden eyes wide, staring at nothing in particular.
Though Darlus hadn’t noticed, she has been that way for a while now; ever since she had given him that instruction, she hadn’t moved a single finger.
Because in that moment right before the stone cracked, her ability did exactly what she was scared of; it didn’t just stop at showing her the shadow. It had shown her through the shadow and past the shadow, straight into Morden himself.
She had seen fragments, quick and blurred, gone almost as fast as they appeared. A man arriving somewhere unfamiliar. A monkey. The same two figures standing together, growing older somehow, side by side.
Lisa didn’t know, but what she was looking at were the same images from the murals Morden had seen in the Old World.
’Why did I see that?’ she thought, her hands trembling slightly.
’That wasn’t supposed to happen. My ability shouldn’t be able to see something like that.’
"Lisa?" Darlus called out again, forcefully snapping her out of it.
"I’m fine," she said quickly, forcing herself to focus. "Let’s just get him somewhere safe first."
She didn’t say anything else about what she had seen, at least not yet. Not until she understood it herself or she had managed to talk to Morden about it first.
At this point, everyone in the team is now keeping at least one secret from the other.
****Elsewhere****
The man watched his connection to the shadow sever completely, the effects of its destruction rattling faintly through him like a dull throbbing pain.
But he didn’t seem angry about it. If anything, the corner of his mouth curled upward.
"Interesting," he said to himself, turning his gaze toward the direction Lisa and Darlus had gone.
"It seems you two will be tied into this much deeper than I expected."