The Last Godfall: Transmigrated as the Young Master-Chapter 162: Her Final Card

Water rushed somewhere down the street, a heavy surge followed by the rasp of stone settling.

Fire hissed where rain found it, short breaths of steam lifting from broken beams. The inn's front had split outward, boards flung into the road, shutters torn free and pinned under fallen masonry.

Jerenir stood there, upright, boots planted on bare stone. His coat hung straight, edges clean despite the debris scattered around him.

Walls had burst away from his position, bodies thrown clear in wide arcs that left a ring of space untouched.

Seris lay half-buried near the inn's threshold. Blood ran from her temple, dark against her skin, soaking into her hair and the grit beneath her cheek. Her fingers twitched once, then stilled. Her breath came shallow, counted, each pull scraping past pain. Her eyes stayed open, unfocused, fixed on nothing she could name. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Therell lay across the far curb, spine folded wrong, one arm bent at an angle that refused correction. Blood pooled at her lips with each weak breath, and the faint glow at her shoulder sputtered, then died. Malox had been flung into an alley mouth, face swollen beyond shape, one eye sealed shut, chest rising in uneven jolts. They were alive by chance, nothing more.

Jerenir's voice carried across the broken street.

"Are you satisfied," he said, eyes on Seris, "with how this ended." He waited a beat, then added, "Do you believe the time you bought was worth the cost."

Her vision smeared at the edges as rain slid into her lashes. The street noise dulled, rushing water flattening into a low roar. Pain rolled through her head in slow pulses, each one lagging behind the last.

She pressed a palm to the stone and tried to rise. Her shoulder moved late. Her elbow buckled. She lifted halfway before her arm gave and she struck the ground again, breath tearing out of her chest.

Jerenir stopped speaking. He watched her where she lay, head angled, as if checking alignment. The street filled with the scrape of settling stone and the hiss of cooling embers.

After a moment, he shook his head once, small and precise, a motion meant to correct a flawed mark.

When he spoke again, it was softer, almost absent. "It was never going to be enough."

The air shifted behind him, a brief displacement that carried heat and grit. He stepped a fraction to the side and raised one hand. Steel rang once, clean and flat, the blade turned aside before it finished its arc.

Malox came into view already off balance, weight pitched forward, arm overextended. Jerenir moved through him in a single motion. A twist at the wrist. A short drive of the elbow.

Something inside Malox gave with a wet crack that emptied his strength. His feet slid, then failed, and Jerenir caught him by the hair before he hit the ground.

Jerenir pulled his head up. Malox's face had swollen into uneven planes, lips split, blood sealing one eye shut. His jaw hung wrong. Breath leaked from him in rough bursts. Jerenir looked at him with the same mild focus he had given the street.

"You always think speed will save you," he said. "You think noise scares people like me." His grip tightened. "You think grabbing and running makes you clever." He turned Malox's head toward the curb.

Therell lay where she had fallen, chest lifting in shallow pulls, one leg angled away from its joint. Blood slid from the corner of her mouth and darkened the stone. Her glow stayed gone.

"Three of you," Jerenir said, voice level. "Arc three. Charging an arc five. Pigs chasing a carriage and calling it a hunt." He gave Malox a small shake. "You believed you will barge in and grab the prize while I stand there and scratch my balls."

Malox's throat worked. The sound that came out scraped. "Fuck you."

Jerenir's mouth lifted slightly. He made a low sound in his chest, brief and acknowledging, then adjusted his grip.

Jerenir kept Malox lifted as he turned his head a few degrees toward the inn. "What should be done with these pigs," he asked, voice unchanged, as if noting weather. The question landed flat, already answered.

Seris drew a shallow breath. Blood slid past her ear and soaked into her collar. "Don't care," she said. The words came out thin, spaced to spare her lungs.

Her hand found the stone again. She pushed, slow and uneven, knees dragging under her. The street tilted in her sight. She got one foot under her before her body lagged, strength arriving too late. She shook, teeth clenched, eyes locked forward. They stayed sharp despite the blur, fixed on him with refusal that did not soften.

Jerenir saw it. His gaze moved from her hands to her face and settled there. He sighed once through his nose.

"You're still doing that," he said. His tone carried mild irritation, the kind reserved for wasted effort. "Let it go."

She tried again, shoulders lifting, breath tearing. Pain spiked and held. She stayed upright for half a second longer before dropping back to her knees.

Jerenir watched without stepping in. "It doesn't change anything," he added, already certain.

He looked back to Seris. "Then wait," he said. "See it properly." He raised his free hand and held up one finger. He lowered it and lifted the next, the motion slow, deliberate, each count given space to land. Stone settled somewhere behind them. Water kept rushing. Fire hissed and died.

On the last count, something moved above the inn.

Gundal dropped from the broken roofline and released his hold mid-fall. A body struck the street hard and slid across wet stone before stopping near the crater's edge. Gundal landed a beat later, knees bending, suit snapping once before settling.

The body was Vencian. His hair had gone white and lay matted dark with blood. His clothes clung to him, soaked through, red spreading into the seams. One arm lay twisted under his torso. His chest did not move at first. Then it hitched, shallow, delayed.

"Alive," Gundal said. "Hard to say how much of him still lines up inside." He glanced down. "He fought. Took time."

Jerenir's eyes narrowed a fraction. "Dov?"

Gundal's mouth tightened. "Dead." He shrugged. "The boy killed him."

The street went quiet again. Jerenir did not look away. "You let it happen."

Gundal scoffed. "He asked for it. Demanded the duel." His tone turned sharp. "Have scene an Arkspren of Devouring Absence arche fight in a river before? After losing an arm and his anchor. Stupid to the end."

Jerenir exhaled slowly. "Yes," he said. "Stupid." He looked back at Seris. "Irrelevant."

Jerenir turned fully back to her. "Was it worth it," he asked. "You didn't buy enough time."

Seris's eyes stayed on the body in the street. White hair darkened by blood. One leg bent wrong. A rise of the chest that came late and shallow. She tracked that movement and nothing else. She did not follow where it led. She did not let her breath change.

"Stop wasting effort," Jerenir said. "Come quietly. I'm taking the boy either way. Whether it suits you or not."

She stayed still. Her face settled into something blank, features draining of strain. It was not surrender. It was counting.

Her breathing slowed and locked into a steady pull. Gundal felt it first and shifted his grip, while Jerenir watched her shoulders square and stay that way, unmoving, like something inside her had clicked into place.

She lifted her gaze to him. "You seem to like countdowns," she said. Her voice held, thin but steady. "I'll give you one."

Her eyes went black once more.

"If you take one more step toward him," she said, voice steady and audible to the street, "my heart will stop."

Gundal shifted. The sound of it scraped.

Seris did not look at him. "Immediately," she continued. "No delay. No struggle. My heart seizes. Blood stalls. I die right here."

She held his stare while the command locked in.

The street waited.

Jerenir reacted at once. His posture tightened, shoulders drawing in a fraction. "That's a bluff," he said. The word came out louder than before. "You wouldn't."

Seris shook her head, small and slow. "Don't test it."

He stepped closer despite himself, then stopped. "This is madness," he said. "It gains you nothing. You die and the boy follows. It's waste." His voice pressed now, clipped. "You don't need to do this."

Her breath hitched. She dropped to one knee as something tore inside her chest. Blood welled at her lips and spilled down her chin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and kept her eyes black.

"I know," she said. "I die." She swallowed and set her palm against the stone to steady herself. "So does the last thing I wanted." Her gaze flicked once toward Vencian, then back. "And they lose what they've waited centuries to reach."

The word hung there. They. Neither present nor visible. Yet real.

"I was already on borrowed time," she said. "This just decides where my body falls."

Jerenir's fingers curled, then flexed open again. His partner felt the shift and glanced sideways as Jerenir's eyes moved from Seris to the boy and back, tracking cost against sequence, until his jaw set on a single outcome.

"Fine, you win," he said. He turned his head sharply. "Gundal, back away from the boy."

Gundal hesitated, then stepped away from Vencian, irritation tight on his face.

Jerenir retreated two paces himself. "Release it."

Seris held the command a heartbeat longer. Then her eyes cleared. She sagged forward, breath tearing loose as her heart resumed its brutal work.

Jerenir stopped a short distance away. "This doesn't hold," he said. "Days of Ancestor is close. After that, Pentarch moves. Galanoth needs what's in the chalice." His tone had reset, clipped and functional. "You're delaying a schedule, nothing more."

Seris wiped her mouth and straightened with care. "I'll speak to that man," she said. "Until then, you don't touch him."

Jerenir considered it, eyes narrowing a fraction. Then he nodded. "Move," he said.

Gundal turned first. Jerenir followed, boots crunching over loose stone. Seris stayed behind a breath longer. She looked across the street at the ruin she had made, then down at Vencian where he lay. She stepped closer and crouched. Her gaze traced his injuries, the angle of his arm, the way his breath lagged.

Her hand lifted. It stopped a finger's width from him. It hovered, trembled once, then drew back.

She stood and turned away.

They walked off together down the broken street. Water kept rushing. Stone kept settling. Seris did not look back.