Chapter 587: Marcus and Sarah
Sarah didn’t answer.
Her eyes met the Surpasser’s without flinching or pleading. Her face held none of the fear that Marcus’s was drowning in.
For a moment, she simply stood there silently. Unyielding.
Then she began to walk toward them.
The Surpasser’s eyebrow rose slightly. He wasn’t alarmed.
Whatever this young woman was about to do, she couldn’t threaten him, and she seemed to know it. Her calm approach was interesting enough that he decided to watch and see what she had in mind.
Marcus’s swollen eyes brightened.
Through the haze of pain and blood, he watched Sarah walk toward the Surpasser. His mind grasped at the only interpretation his failing consciousness could produce.
Sarah was going to help him. She was going to save him from the monster above him. She was going to talk their way out of this, the way she had always talked them out of every difficult situation they had found themselves in over the past year.
Sarah had joined him for a reason, choosing him over the null for a reason.
Internally, he cheered her on. The words wouldn’t leave his broken mouth. But his heart, whatever was left of it that hadn’t been pounded out of him already, ran through the words on his behalf.
’Come on, Sarah. Get us out of here. Do what you always do.’
Sarah arrived beside them.
She looked down at Marcus with no apparent emotion. Then, she gently sat on his back.
Marcus’s confusion cut through the pain for a fraction of a second. His head turned as much as it could.
His swollen eyes tried to focus on her face, but it was blurry.
"Sar—"
Suddenly, wwo daggers appeared in Sarah’s hands.
The blades were slim and dark, coated in a fine sheen of her own mana as she settled her grip. She held them for a moment, angling them properly.
Then, without any hesitation, drove them down Marcus’s back.
~PTUI~
~PTUI~
The sound of tearing flesh echoed through the quiet space between the dome and the debris.
Marcus’s body jerked once beneath her. His broken limbs flailed against the ground. The two daggers had gone into his back on either side of his spine, punching through muscle and lung and finding vital organs on the way. Blood erupted from his mouth in a wet cough that sprayed the dirt in front of him.
"Sar... ah...!"
The word came out shattered.
His swollen eyes tried to turn toward her again. The disbelief in them was almost worse than the pain he was experiencing.
Marcus couldn’t believe it
His body was already dying and his mind was still scrambling to catch up. She had been beside him since their awakening. She had chosen him over the boy he had spent his high-school time mocking. She had come here today to be part of his victory.
His mouth opened again, asking the question that would likely get buried with him.
"Why..."
Rather than answering, Sarah twisted her daggers in his body, rupturing everything around them.
Marcus’s body convulsed. His remaining working hand scraped at the dirt beside him, then went slack.
His mouth opened one more time on a sound that wasn’t a word anymore. His broken face pressed against the ground.
Although his body stopped moving, Sarah didn’t seem to have finished. She pulled the daggers free from his back, and then she turned him around, and placed both of her hands on his chest.
The Surpasser watched her, his amusement now fully engaged. He could see that Marcus was on the verge of death, just mere moments away.
Sarah’s aura flared, coating her hands as she placed them on his chest. During his last moments, Marcus felt a calm energy suddenly engulf him.
’She... was faking it?!’ The thought was fleeting as the calm, soothing energy suddenly turned into a demonic one that began to strip him off the remaining power in his body.
’She is...draining me.’
Under the watchful eyes of the Surpasser, Marcus died.
Once she was done performing her skill, Sarah stood up slowly from Marcus’s corpse.
The blood from his final moments had caused a small spray of it to dot her cheek and forehead.
Her hair had a red streak in it too.
Sarah turned to the Surpasser that watched everything.
’She is so calm about it... betraying, and killing someone that had clearly trusted you with their life. She is interesting...’ The man thought.
He hadn’t expected this. He had watched thousands of confrontations across his career, and he could read most of them in the first few seconds. This one had blindsided him in a way that very few things did anymore.
From the moment he found the two of them, Sarah’s mind seemed to be made up. No—that decision had likely been made long before. She had merely been waiting for the opportunity to act on it.
"Well. Well. Well. That was unexpected." The Surpasser stepped closer to her, tilting his head slightly. "May I ask why?"
Sarah looked down at Marcus’s body for a moment. Then back up at the Surpasser, her expression unchanging.
"He was useless."
The Surpasser stared at her for a long moment. Sarah was not lying, this was her true feelings. Then he threw his head back and laughed. He clutched at his side as if the laughter had really surprised him.
Loose strands of hair fell around his hood as his head tipped back. When he finally lowered his head, his grin was more approving of the young woman in front of him.
"I like you. I like you alot!" His eyes fixed on her bloody face.
"Do you want to join us? I’m sure you will fit quite well."
Sarah stood in silence for a moment. Her fingers wiped the blood from her cheek with a slow motion. She looked at the daggers on her hips, then at the corpse behind her, then at the Surpasser’s face.
Her eyes were cold.
"Yes."