Chapter 85: Ordinary Ending.
"Naomi was just an ordinary girl once, or so I was eventually told, she liked the colour pink, enjoyed playing with dolls. The only things she wasn’t good at were singing and anything that required a poetic mind..."
Same with her friend Andrea...
Apparently they grew up in the same neighborhood, shocking. I know. They even adored one another, but just like the beauty of a flower, that adoration eventually withered...
Naomi wasn’t sure when they drifted apart, perhaps it was after they realised they weren’t so similar after all. Andrea was strong, just not in the same way Naomi was, hers wasn’t so apparent, well only because Andrea was always taking center stage...
Be it junior or senior prom, Andrea was always the queen, in academics, she was unbeatable, in sports. Naomi wasn’t much of a sportsman.
Andrea was the exhilarating concert, and Naomi was the background noise at best, not because she couldn’t match her when given the opportunity, Naomi was the confident sort, she knew she wasn’t in any way Andrea’s lesser...
So all she had to do was prove it, but she didn’t know how. Then the world ended, humanity fell and the tower of mysteries rose to test those chosen, and she was one of them. What more proof could she possibly need? She was better.
Then she turned away from the gate before her, and right in front of Andrea, was a gate, it wasn’t any different from hers, but that didn’t matter to Naomi.
She ran into hers without a second thought, knowing whatever lay beyond, will be able to change her life.
Nothing really changed, sure she gained the power to change her form and probably finally destroy Andrea with just a touch, but Andrea also gained the ability to always see her coming, it’s ironic, hmm...
Basically poetic, too bad they both weren’t the poetic types".
... ...
Naomi’s face slowly materialised on the surface of the black sludge. The instant she looked up, her pupils contracted. Vincent had already broken through the white mist, his body descending straight towards her with terrifying speed.
She was too late.
The enchanted runes beneath Vincent’s cane erupted with a soft white glow as he brought it crashing down with a force far beyond what any ordinary human could hope to produce.
BOOOOM!
The entire ice boulder collapsed beneath the impact. Thick fractures raced across its surface before the enormous mass gave way, but unlike every previous collision, nothing exploded outwards. The black sludge beneath Vincent’s cane remained pinned in place. The glowing runes had made direct contact, refusing to let the dissolved body disperse.
A shrill scream echoed through the underground world.
Crimson blood suddenly burst from the black sludge.
It was a grotesque sight. A bleeding mass of black liquid writhing violently beneath Vincent’s cane as though every part of it had become a living wound. The sludge twisted and convulsed in every direction, desperately trying to escape the runes pressing against it, but Vincent simply tightened his grip and drove the cane even deeper.
More blood erupted from within the sludge, staining the shattered ice beneath it. Naomi’s scream grew increasingly distorted as patches of her human body repeatedly surfaced through the sludge before dissolving again.
Vincent remained expressionless.
The muscles across his shoulders tensed as he forced the cane deeper into the collapsed boulder. The enchanted runes glowed brighter with every passing second, the pressure crushing Naomi’s dissolved body while simultaneously pinning her body in place.
Vincent had no intention of letting such an opportunity slip away.
His pitch-black eyes remained locked onto Naomi as Deadlock tightened around her soul. Naomi suddenly felt an overwhelming pressure crush down on her, she couldn’t even tell whether the force was coming from outside her body or welling up from within her own soul.
Her Dormant Ability had never been designed to defend against attacks targeting the soul. Even so, the strange properties of her liquefied body provided just enough resistance to prevent Vincent from extinguishing it outright.
But the pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced.
"GET OFF ME!"
Her distorted face surfaced from the black sludge, screaming as it struggled to fully materialise before dissolving once more.
A deep sizzling sound echoed through the cavern.
The corrosive sludge had already engulfed Vincent’s legs. Smoke rose from his flesh as though he were being slowly cooked alive. Had it been the body of any ordinary Awakened, it would’ve begun dissolving by now.
Vincent didn’t move.
His expression remained as indifferent as ever while the enchanted runes continued pressing deeper into Naomi’s dissolved body.
One of Naomi’s arms finally regained its human form. She seized Vincent’s cane with both hands and desperately tried to push it away.
It didn’t move, not even an inch, Vincent was simply far too strong.
The veins across his forearms bulged as he calmly bore down with even greater force, forcing another scream from Naomi.
"You’re going to die today, Naomi." His voice remained cold and unwavering. "And you’ll die the same way you lived... a nobody, forever trapped beneath someone else’s shadow."
A bloodcurdling scream tore from her throat.
Vincent released the cane with one hand and swatted her arm aside as though brushing away an annoyance. Naomi’s hand was flung clear before Vincent let out a low growl and drove the cane down even harder.
The runes flared brilliantly.
Naomi’s body convulsed from the pain, she couldn’t endure it anymore.
The surrounding black sludge suddenly surged upwards, climbing over Vincent’s legs before swallowing his waist, his chest, then finally his entire body. The corrosive sludge wrapped tightly around him, hissing violently as it ate away at his flesh.
She was going to fry him alive, If Vincent refused to let go. Then she would simply melt him where he stood.
Yet Vincent remained unmoving.
Even after disappearing completely beneath the sludge, the pressure behind his cane never weakened. If anything, it grew heavier. The enormous sphere of black sludge trembled violently before it slowly began sinking deeper into the frozen ground, Vincent still trapped within it as he continued forcing Naomi further and further beneath the ice.
Neither of them was willing to yield.
One sought to crush the other’s soul.
The other sought to dissolve the body imprisoning it.
It had become nothing more than a contest of who would break first.