Chapter 369: Chapter 369

There was no breeze. The air was stale and still. A glance at the world of Limbo would give one the impression that time had somehow come to a complete halt. Limbo was neither warm nor chilly. The world stood in the eternal light of an early dusk. Night never descends to greet the world, but neither would a dawn break from the horizon to wake the world.

Despite all these phenomena of cessation of all things natural, Erin found herself being woken up by a strange chill of a strange breeze. The pale sky of Limbo greeted her sight, along with the debris of the lands. The world was crumbling apart, piece by piece, but all that crumbled floated into the sky as if to ascend into paradise. It wasn’t something that Erin understood. She didn’t care either way.

“...Revenant still works,” she sighed in relief.

Erin didn’t know how much time had passed. The last thing she remembered was her being blasted by some unfamiliar and twisted energy beam. She remembered how nearly her entire body was being torn and shredded. She should have died, yet here she was, alive and awake. As she tried to move, her body stayed still. She tried again but her body didn’t listen. She mustered more effort but there was still no response. It was then that an uncanny feeling struck her. She couldn’t feel her body.

Has she yet to recover from the overwhelming agony that numbed her body? No, that was not possible. She had suffered worse but it had never numbed her body to this extent after Revenant brought her back from the dead. Something was different. Of course, it was bound to be different. She was no longer bound to a System. It was to be expected.

“What now…?” she asked no one in particular. Under other circumstances, she wouldn’t mind waiting patiently until the numbness went away but there was no time to be stalling. Every second counts when one’s in a world that is falling apart. With great effort and exertion, she managed to move her head. As she did so, a numbing pain crawled up to her head. She nearly let out a scream but she bit down on the pain and continued to raise her head until she could see her body— or at least that was the most logical expectation.

What Erin saw defied that expectation.

“What the hell…?” she gasped. It was not an unfamiliar sight but it was a whole other story when it happened to oneself. Her body… her torso was not wholly there where it was. No, it would be more accurate to say that her body was in the same state as when she was killed. She was missing more than half of her body. “How in the name…”

It was a first… to be resurrected when the body was still yet to be mended from the fatal and devastating wounds and injuries. She knew there would be differences but this was completely out of her assumptions. “F-fuck… fuck…”

The difference was simply too drastic. Was mending the body a privilege of the System? No, Erin immediately concluded. It shouldn’t be. If it was, it was too high of a privilege. Mending the body should be a part of Revenant, not the System itself. Which meant… staying unconscious until the body was mended was the privilege here. Without the System, she would have to stay awake to watch her own tattered body being mended.

In the meantime, she should not be lying in the middle of the street. She didn’t know where the damn beast went but if it came back and found her alive… she didn’t want to imagine it further. With all the strength she could summon into her tattered and mangled body, she dragged herself into an alley. It took quite some time but she managed to do so. And by the time she reached the valley, her body had regrown until her thighs. Thankfully, the process was painless… or perhaps the pain was simply too great to be felt through the numbness. She didn’t want to think too much about that.

After more time had passed, her body was back in one whole piece. She could finally move her body freely. The numbness was still there but not enough to dull her movements. With her body fully regenerated, she climbed to her feet and fashioned herself a new set of garments with Bespoke.

“Alright… now where do I go?”

She was immediately presented with an obstacle. Where would she go? She knew nothing about Limbo.

“Damn it. Aedan… what the fuck are you doing?” she grumbled. “Just get your arse here already.”

She could imagine no one else but Aedan, who would swoop in and save her from this hellish landscape, being the knowledgeable and resourceful individual that he was.

“I should really take some general lessons from him.” Erin made a mental note to make sure to learn as much as she could from Aedan.

As she was contemplating her next course of action, she heard growling from the back alleys.

“That can’t be good.” It wasn’t a pessimistic assumption. It was a plain and simple fact. As far as she was aware, the only ones in Limbo, besides herself, were all hostiles. Whoever or whatever was growling, she had no reason to plop her nose into it. If anything, she should stay as far away as possible from that noise.

As if her inner thoughts were heard, the source of the growling came out to meet her. It stumbled into the alley. It was an Orok but there was no light in its eyes and no zeal in its movements. It was lifeless yet it was moving. It was growling but the growls were getting fainter and fainter, until it stopped growling. Its mouth was still agape but there was no sound from it. Then, it lifted its head and gazed straight at Erin.

Without a sound or noise from its agape mouth, the Orok charged straight at Erin with a face devoid of expression.

Erin manifested a sword into her hands and quickly cut down the Orok in half as it lunged at her. As the Orok met its demise, it let out not a single throe, croak, or groan, which was a staple reaction of a dying creature drawing its last breath. Yet, the Orok made no sound, as if it felt nothing. The abnormality continued. The Orok did not bleed. There was no blood to bleed. What flowed out of the bisected Orok was pale, viscous smoke that drifted into the air. The carcass of the Orok turned into a dry husk in seconds before crumbling into dust.

“This never gets easy,” Erin muttered. Eerie happenings and sights were dime a dozen in her adventures but she could never get used to them.

Before Erin could shake off the creeps, the sound of footsteps flowed from the back alleys. There were more than a dozen of them and the steps lacked any sort of rhythm. It was full of irregularities, much like the steps of a group of drunkards stumbling their way home. There were no drunkards in Limbo. If there were, they would have long been dead.

Erin didn’t stay and waited to find out. There was no need for that. There were no more friends in Limbo. She quickly exited the alley but as soon as she did so, she regretted it. A scattered horde of Oroks was waiting for her. They were still some distance away but they had all noticed Erin. They neither let out a roar nor a shriek. The Oroks simply stumbled their way towards her like a bunch of drunkards with no lights in their eyes.

Erin clicked her tongue and headed back into the alley. More lifeless Oroks greeted her, stumbling their way towards her. Erin scaled the walls and climbed up to the rooftops. There was not much cover on the roofs. If the beast from before saw her, it would be terrible, to say the least. She sprinted across the rooftops, leaping from one to another. Once she no longer saw any Oroks below her, she descended to the ground, into another alley. This one was wider than the rest. There was plenty of space, and less chance of getting cornered by an ambush.

Before Erin could decide on her next path, she heard footsteps stumbling around. The Oroks were close. There wasn’t time to deliberate. She chose a random building and hid in it. She made sure the doors were closed and the windows were shut. She thought about it, covering the windows but that would only incur suspicions. She didn’t know if the Oroks could differentiate. She didn’t want to risk it. She retreated into the deepest part of the building and huddled in the corner. It was pointless to confront them. Until Aedan arrived, this was all she could do. Run and hide.

“So, Rogan is dead,” Baloc mused as he witnessed the candle in front of him go out on its own. He didn’t blow on it. He didn’t fan it. The candle simply went out by itself and the candle had Rogan’s name carved into it.

That wasn’t the only candle. There were many others and none of it was lit. The candle with Rogan’s name was the last one that was lit but not anymore. There were no more lit candles.

“The mission is a failure,” Baloc grumbled and rose from his seat. Just a few feet away from him was a girl in light garments, robes that barely covered her body. It would have been a treat for the eyes but sadly, her figure was too gaunt and lacking to be savoured by the eyes. Baloc approached the feeble-looking girl who was kneeling in a fetal position. “What of the Saintess?” Baloc asked.

“The Saintess has escaped Limbo,” the girl answered without raising her head.

“Shall I cast another net?”

“Do you want to die?” Baloc scoffed. “If she has escaped Limbo, it could only mean that the Scarlet Blade is here.”

“Of course it’s a no, you idiot.” Baloc sighed.

The sound of a lock being turned and twisted echoed in this very compact room. Then, the only door in the room swung open. A well-dressed man strode into the room. The man’s gaze scoured the room the moment he entered and his gaze stopped at the candles. His gaze narrowed. “A complete failure?”

“Dead too, as you can see.”

“How is this possible? The Saintess’ guards at that moment should be no match for our men. We even dispatched the Oroks.”

Baloc sighed. “I don’t know what else to tell you, William. I’m at a loss too. Maybe those guards have been hiding their true strength?”

“Impossible. We have repeatedly appraised them with different kinds of instruments. They shouldn’t be able to hide their true levels. Our men failed. There has to be an irregularity or an unknown in the plan.”

“There is,” the girl said.

“What?” Baloc raised an eyebrow. “There’s an irregularity? Now you’re telling me!?”

“I wasn’t sure then.”

“What do you mean you weren’t sure then?” Marsh asked.

“I sensed the unknown when I cast the net, but the presence was barely… there. It felt negligible, insignificant.”

“You are truly an idiot,” Baloc groaned. “You have caused us—”

Marsh silenced Baloc’s outburst with a wave of his hand. He set his gaze straight on the girl. “What can you tell me about this unknown presence?”

“They have an extreme affinity with Spatial Magic. They were pulled into Limbo despite not being the target, nor were they anywhere close to the target.”

“Preposterous,” Baloc huffed. “If there is such a person, why haven’t we heard of them already?”

“Do you know who it is?” Marsh asked.

“...It appears to be a Fae.” Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs novelꜰire.net

“More precisely, a Fox-kin.”