The beast was relentless. First, Kelly's nose shattered, then his cheekbone, followed by the sickening crack of ribs giving way under the repeated blows. Pain blurred into noise, and noise into nothing. At last, the barrage stopped. The beast was breathing heavily now, exhausted. Blood poured from its wounds, its body pushed to the very edge of death, but its determination remained unbroken. If it was going to fall, it would drag its tormenter with it.
Grabbing Kelly by the neck, it lifted him off the ground and bared its jaws, preparing its most lethal attack yet. With one eye barely open, Kelly watched the jaws of death close in. And for the first time since everything began… he finally gave up and thought.
'Again… what was the point of all this struggle…I tried, old man… I really did… I did gave it my best…but in the end… it still comes to this…Getting killed by some dog in the middle of nowhere…Heh… what kind of rotten luck is that…'
However, fate had its own way of doing things. Just as Kelly saw the jaws of death closing in, a flash of white crossed his vision. A white raven threw itself between him and his impending doom. Kelly's eyes widened and before he could even react
"Crunch… crunch… crunch."
The sound reverberated through the barren space, heavy and final. To Kelly, the world slowed to mere milliseconds. He saw his summon, the one that had protected him again and again crushed between those savage, merciless jaws. He saw its death and more than that, he felt it, echoing deep within his soul, tearing something irreplaceable apart.
Maybe Kelly hadn't noticed it. Maybe he hadn't realized it at all.
But the bond he shared with Crow was never superficial. For a summoner, a summon is more than a tool or a contract. It is the only true source of warmth for the soul. The connection between summoner and summon is sacred too close, too intimate, emotional and physical, their souls quite literally intertwined. If there were an alternate word for soulmate in a summoner's world, it would be summon.
Without ever realizing it, Crow had become what Kelly had been running from for the last two years. In a foreign world stripped of familiarity, Crow became his closest companion and even if Kelly hated to admit it, perhaps his only remaining family.
"AHHHHHHH!!!"
Kelly cried out in agony, with Crow's death, something else shattered inside him. Till death do us apart had never felt more real. The pain, the raw tearing agony he felt, eclipsed everything he had endured in the last two years since the day his grandfather died. He had tried so hard to stay emotionally distant, from everyone, from everything.
But summoning magic does not care about walls built around the heart. Everyone with the affinity knows the consequences. Everyone accepts them. Because this bond this unbearable closeness is also what grants them their power, their strength, and their very reason to stand.
Kelly, unaware of what a summon truly meant what that bond entailed, the significance of a first summon, or whether that knowledge had been deliberately withheld, kelly could no longer care. Because it didn't matter now, the bond had broken, and bonds like that always exacted a price. Kelly learned that truth in the cruellest way possible.
The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt. It was as if countless needles were driving into every inch of his body, repeatedly. His soul felt aflame, screaming as if it were being torn apart from within. His skull throbbed as though it might burst open, his thoughts shattering. His intestines twisted violently, his organs convulsing, each breath dragging agony through his chest, nausea rising, vision blurring, existence itself threatening to collapse under the torment.
"AHHHHHH…"
Physical injuries could be mended with medicine. Emotional wounds, given enough time, would dull and eventually scar over. But the injury Kelly suffered with Crow's death was different, it was a wound to the soul. Such damage had no ordinary cure. Only very special treasures, relics and resources could restore a fractured soul. Kelly, of course, had no way of knowing that. What he did know…what he felt...was pain so deep it threatened to erase him. And yet, perhaps that very trauma was the catalyst his skill needed.
From somewhere deep within, Kelly felt a vast, almost limitless energy stir. It didn't come from his body, nor from mana as he understood it, it welled up from the wounded core of his soul itself. That power surged outward, not violently, but desperately, as if his soul were grasping for the only thing capable of holding it together of making it whole again. Unable to heal itself, it chose to respond, it reached out to his skill.
Hatred and revenge were strange emotions. They did not soothe pain, nor did they lessen it, but perhaps they eclipsed it. Sometimes, they burned brighter than Love and Care itself. And that was actually what was happening to Kelly right now.
The moment his hatred crystallized pure, focused, and absolute his pain vanished from his awareness. His thirst for revenge drowned out everything else. And the skill answered him fully. The limits once imposed upon it shattered, as if they had never existed at all. Kelly's soul was wounded, bleeding, broken yet vengeful.
With what little will he had left, Kelly moved. He hurled his body forward, dragging the beast with him. The creature, already at its limit, finally faltered. Continuous blood loss, compounded pain, and exhaustion caught up to it all at once. No matter how strong it was, even it had a wall it could not pass. With a heavy, final thud, the beast stumbled back and collapsed its massive body trembling, breath ragged, life flickering on its last thread. Revenge was not healing Kelly's soul, however it was giving him the strength to stand when he should have fallen, long before.
Kelly's fury burned hotter than any pain he had ever known. With a final, desperate surge of strength, he drove his bare hands into the beast's chest, piercing its heart. The creature convulsed violently, its roar echoing through the barren landscape, but Kelly didn't flinch. He screamed not in triumph, but in loss.
"GLUTTONY!"