Chapter 74: Cross And Straw [23] A Lot Of Fun

Behind him, something laughed.

Something dangerous, something old and heavy with a weight he couldn’t see, yet felt pressing down on his shoulders all the same.

The forest gave way beneath his feet, obsidian trees blurring past, each one a dark streak against the pallid sky. He didn’t dare look back, afraid his legs would wobble like jelly the moment the beast came in sight.

The same words kept repeating in his mind, an endless cycle of desperation.

Run, run, run, run!

His body refused to go faster than it already was, legs burning and blood boiling.

Somewhere behind him, the only semblance of control he had in the situation snapped. The invisible tendrils of [No Will] that Leonidas had wrapped around Willow snapped, cut off by the creature.

He didn’t even know it was possible to cut things that basically didn’t exist, yet the damned pilgrim did it all the same.

Laughter echoed behind him, and something tingled in his mind. His eyes widened, and Leonidas ducked just as something passed overhead.

A tree in front of him shattered into fine bark as something invisible crashed into it. Leonidas didn’t spare it another glance, vaulting over the shattered tree.

Willow laughed again, louder this time, another sonic attack following the noise. He couldn’t see the attack, nor could he hear it, so Leonidas relied on ’context clues.’

He cast a quick glance towards the stretching trench that was moving towards him, guessed where the attack would land, and jumped out of the way.

Another tree exploded.

Before he could regain his bearings, something appeared in front of him. A barrier, whitish gray in color, stretching high up in the air.

He swung Blush without hesitation, but the blade rebounded with a soft plop, like it had hit solid water. Fortunately, the barrier wasn’t nearly as tough as the one the twins were enclosed in, and in a few hits, it shattered, the sky-high walls falling like glass.

Another sound followed by a pressure wave that turned his vision white for exactly one second, long enough for his foot to catch a root and send him sprawling across the obsidian ground.

He rolled, came up on one knee, and kept moving. Stopping was death. Stopping was something he didn’t intend to do.

The forest thinned ahead. He didn’t know why—the obsidian trees had been uniform in their density since he’d entered the accursed place—but there was light between the trunks now, pallid and thin, the particular gray of early morning that you watched while drinking coffee.

He ran towards it without a thought. Escape was the priority; nothing could be worse than a death where you didn’t die, but watched yourself slowly be corrupted into a hideous pilgrim.

Behind him, Willow laughed again. The sound had changed, less human with each iteration, the pilgrim settling more completely into borrowed vocal cords, testing what they could do.

He didn’t like what they could do. He particularly didn’t like the fact that each laugh seemed to come from a slightly different direction, as if the creature was circling without moving, rearranging the geometry of his panic.

It was as if the pilgrim was in no hurry to find and kill him, as if it had all the time in the world. He knew that Vis-ranked creatures could influence the natural laws of the world, but the arrogance was staggering.

But is it unfounded?

Leonidas thought as he ran, bursting into a slight clearing. The trees here were thin, barely wider than a twig, and sparsely spread. Up ahead, the forest continued like normal.

Pale moonlight fell from above, illuminating the figure that sat inside the glass circle. Her hair was white as freshly fallen snow, cut short till her shoulders, while her eyes were two orbs of glowing violet. Tears stained her cheeks, not yet dried.

Her hands were in her lap, palms up, fingers loose. She was wearing clothes that had been practical once and were now held together by the particular stubbornness of fabric that had decided it wasn’t done yet.

A small scar marred her upper eye, not entirely healed, but not bleeding either.

She looked at a glance to be at peace.

She looked, at a second glance, like someone who had been waiting for a specific person to arrive from a specific direction at a specific time and was simply passing the time until they did.

Wow...what a coincidence.

"Rani, was it? How do you do?"

Leonidas walked through a gap in the barrier and sat in front of her.

"I am well, Art, but unfortunately, we don’t have much time...only about a minute at most, so I’ll get straight to the point."

She wiped the tears from her eyes, a determined look burning in her eyes.

"You are going to die..."

"I see."

Leonidas had expected her to come with a magical way to save him, but the universe decided to shove a rod up his a—.

Ahem...

"Let me finish first. My brilliant brother gave me some instructions before he got thralled by the same thing that is controlling Willow."

Leonidas nodded and motioned for her to continue, not wishing to waste their time.

"Now this may sound insane, but the plan is mostly simple...we sacrifice you. Now I don’t know why he said this, but he also said that you’ll know what to do when I tell you, ’Sacrifice had a nice wife’."

That damned child...

So he even knew about that, but would it even work?

"How sure was he that this would work...I really don’t want to bet everything on this."

"One hundred percent," Rani said, without hesitation.

Leonidas stared at her.

"He said to tell you that specifically," she added. "He said you’d ask, and he said to tell you one hundred percent."

This was exactly why Leonidas hated seers; those damned bastards knew everything, manipulating everyone else to dance to their strings.

But then again, the only reason he would even know that is because I’ve told him in the future.

Behind him, the treeline shuddered. Something was moving through it with the patience of a saint, unhurried, letting them plan and plot.

The creature was arrogant, one who wished to crush their spirits and plunge them into the depths of despair at the height of their hope.

Barbossa had seen this moment. Had seen exactly what needed to happen. Had sent his sister across the depths of this infernal forest to deliver five words and one instruction.

Leonidas glanced at Rani...she looked a lot like her brother, which, in hindsight, made sense. They were twins after all. Her eyes were dark and heavy, weighed down with her own problems. But she still held her head high, determined to push through them.

It was respectable, but knowing that they were kids...Leonidas felt conflicted. He knew this was normal for his world; every single day, people entered the Labyrinth to see whether or not they had a dormant Source Element in their souls.

Of course, he was the same age as them, perhaps younger, but his mind...it was a mixture of two. He was mentally older than Willow and Rani...he didn’t know about Barbossa, that child was too unpredictable.

"You’ve been through a lot," he said.

Rani blinked. Clearly, it wasn’t what she’d expected him to say.

"So have you," she said, after a moment.

"Yes, but I’m significantly more resilient than I look." He paused, "Your brother. When you say thralled—"

"He’s alive," she said, cutting off his sentence before he even finished. "He’s just...somewhere else, for a while. He’ll come back soon enough. Yes...he definitely will."

Her voice held such hope, such conviction that it startled him. Blind hope...it was never good. But Leonidas wasn’t heartless enough to stab a kid.

At that exact moment, the treeline exploded.

Willow came through it at full force, and this time there was no patience in her movement, no circling geometry of terror.

The pilgrim had made its decision. Her towering form hit the clearing’s edge and kept moving, Smooth Criminal solidifying mid-stride, the blade already raised.

Rani stood instantly, her hands outstretched. The barrier rippled like thick milk, then all of it shifted towards the blade.

Rani’s barrier held, while Leonidas punched with his only good hand. His fist slammed into her midsection, the onyx armor eating up the damage.

Willow shifted her focus to him, spectral chains sprouting from her body. They wrapped around his body, sinking into his very flesh.

A sudden weakness engulfed him like a colossal wave of water. It was as if something was trying to impose its will on him, devouring his own.

Contract!

He realized the Source Element behind the technique, but it was of no use. Just knowing wasn’t enough to stop the inevitable.

Willow grabbed him with both hands, lifting Leonidas by the neck. A milky barrier forced itself underneath his hands, allowing air to pass through.

His legs wobbled uselessly, and a sudden laugh from Willow blasted Rani away. Willow stared at him with eyes full of madness, her expression twisted in delight.

"We’re going to have a lot of fun."