Chaos child - Chapter Twenty-Six : Weight of Rain
Galerius stood in long blades of wet grass. The wind howled along with an intense downpour.
The rain fell on the necromancer's body.
Beating down on the smoke, eventually dissipating, revealing his body.
Galerius looked over as the necromancer stood up…
He was now completely shirtless, his pants beyond ripped but still keeping his dignity, his body thrashed, rain pattering against his thin frame.
His left arm had vanished—a deep grey cavity carved through his shoulder, though the wound itself seemed to have been closed.
Did he cauterize the wound?
The necromancer just stood patiently, the rain beating on his body, while Galerius, opposite, just stared while growing incredibly impatient.
"Well, necromancer, are we going to end this or what?!" he yelled.
"Galerius… I will be honest." his voice flowed through the atmosphere,
"You made me realize a lot of things about myself, one being Weaknesses. Weaknesses that I didn't want to admit—I had."
"But facing you, I realized there's no escaping that fact…"
"That fact being, that even with all my spells, I still couldn't dominate you…"
"This was a somewhat humbling experience, but it helped me understand myself more and what I need to do going forward."
"For that... Galerius, warden of this city and strongest of this region, I thank you."
"It's too late for amends. It's time to end this, necromancer…" Galerius said, his tone cold and indifferent.
I can only feel that grin coming… my blood is boiling already just thinking about it!
But the necromancer does the opposite...
His face and demeanour completely changed to something plain and serious. His eyes lose that glint, and instead they dull over.
The necromancer doesn't blink, nor does he move. His body is completely still, like the rain. Like he's not there at all.
Why is his face like that... it's so uncanny…
For a moment, silence can be heard—not a single raindrop.
Then suddenly—The necromancer began his run straight at Galerius.
Galerius didn't react at first, but as the necromancer got closer, he snapped out of it.
Thrusting his fist, as all sound rushed back to him.
He could hear the squashing of footsteps against the grassy mud and the intense rain splatting against the wet grass.
When he thrusted his fist, the necromancer dodged him and appeared behind him. Though he was able to follow and attack again, the necromancer simply jumped over it.
Galerius kept trying to hit the necromancer. They twisted and turned, but the necromancer seemed to follow a pattern of movements.
What the heck? Why does he keep getting better at dodging?
The necromancer dodged, jumped over, slid under, weaved, even feinted attacks.
All calmly, his expression was completely unreadable.
He then backed away from Galerius and spoke.
"If you're wondering, I learned it from you."
"I'm not wondering anything!" he said, rushing toward the necromancer.
"There's six of them: intention, movement, timing, prediction, breathing, mental state."
Galerius gritted his teeth, lunging at the necromancer. It doesn't matter if he learned rhythm, because even if he did, it doesn't change anything. I already proclaimed that I will end him with my fist.
He swiped his fist at the necromancer, who dashed past him. He turned around immediately to face him, but the necromancer was already going for an attack, which made Galerius flinch into a block. But nothing happened. Huh? A feint!
Full of haste, Galerius went for another attack, but the necromancer repositioned, and before Galerius could even try to land one move, the necromancer escaped, making space between them.
They kept fighting like this, and Galerius would continue to fall for repeated patterns of fighting that the necromancer was doing. But Galerius, filled with so much emotion, couldn't see it. He stopped rationalizing, stopped trying to figure things out. He just fought, and he fought hard.
They didn't stop.
Their silhouettes fought in the night continuously, both exhausted—one a silhouette of rage and desperation, while the other of acceptance and finality.
The only witnesses to their battle were the rain and wind.
Then after long, Galerius caught on,
"Necromancer, come here! Stop doing that damn pattern! YOU KEEP DASHING AND THEN FEINTING, THEN REPOSITIONING, THEN ESCAPING! STOP IT! I SAID STOP, DAMMIT!" he shouted, saliva loose from his mouth.
Galerius is now completely hunched, his body drenched with rain.
The necromancer stood tall, his figure also drenched, but he didn't blink—not once. Thunder and lightning illuminated his grim, expressionless face.
The clouds roared with thunder.
A deathly gale swirled around the necromancer as he slowly walked toward Galerius. A great gale rushed past Galerius, stealing the warmth from his body, numbing his limbs.
"Is that my gale? Huh! —answer me." Galerius's voice is completely worn out.
He's holding on by sheer willpower.
Zero only stared back, raising one arm wide as the gale coiled around it.
Galerius met his gaze.
Silence.
The wind howled. Rain pattered. Thunder rolled.
Then—
Galerius doesn't even try to resist. He straightened, mirroring Zero, and spoke.
"Just do it—I concede—Zero."
Galerius realized that he had lost.
There was nothing left. He had nothing left to fight with. He tried everything, but his loss was inevitable.
So, as the clouds rolled, only thunder, rain, and wind witnessed this finality.
Zero sliced a large gash vertically in Galerius, from his torso to his shoulder.
Blood sprayed as he fell on his back.
Zero stood over his body, blood covering his face.
He still doesn't blink, and his face stayed expressionless.
Looking at Galerius, then walked to Galerius's side, fell to his knees, and looked up at the rain as the blood washed off him.
Galerius coughed, opening his eyes, seeing Zero.
He gazed at him for a while.
"Oh, you're just a kid. I didn't realize that before. Not to say it would have changed how I felt, but I might have been a little gentler. Haha." He coughed, chest heaving. He looked at Zero more closely. "You know, you look just as young as my daughter."
He lifted his arm with painstaking effort, placing his hand on Zero's head, ruffling his drenched hair.
Zero flinched a bit in pain but continued to look forward into the distance, unbothered.
Galerius smiled and took his hand off.
This time he looked off into the distance with Zero. "Listen, kid, I don't know where you came from or what happened in your past, but..."
He looked back at Zero, his face slightly concerned. "I can tell you're hurt. But hey, aren't we all, in some way?"
Galerius looked to the sky. "One thing I can tell you, though, is running away from it won't help. It will always catch up to you."
Zero opened his mouth. "I don't care. I live to dominate. I will gain power and control, and I will dominate more and more until everything and everyone—this whole world and even the next, if there is one—lives under, me.
Galerius laughed. "Haha." Then he coughed out some blood. "We all said something similar to that at one point, until we met…" Galerius's face lightened up. "That reminds me—you should meet Alco—"
Zero, with no remorse, plunged his hand infused with deathly gale into his throat.
"I have heard enough."
Then, as Zero is about to pull out his hand, Galerius grabbed onto Zero's hand, holding it in.
Zero looked at him and didn't even try to struggle against him.
"One more thing." His voice was barely above his breath.
"My daughter—her name is Freya. If you're planning to attack that provincial capital next, the only thing I want is for you to spare her. Please."
Zero just looked at him, expressionless, not saying a single word.
"Zero, I trust you. Galela, my fay, knows her whereabouts at all times. She should be inside me, resting near my soul."
Galeirus gently relaxed his muscles and released his grip.. "I know that you're not completely evil… Bye, Zero." He said, smiling one last time and breathing his last breath as Zero ripped his hand out, blood spraying upward like a fountain, turning the rain into blood rain briefly. Lifting his head up to the sky and closing his eyes.
He embraced it—fully.
After the blood rain stopped, Zero looked at Galerius's corpse. His hand extracted the soul of Galerius out of his body and grabbed it. Gradually he sucked the life force from it. This regenerated his hand, shoulder, and arm, heals all damage on his body—bruises, cuts, broken bones, everything—as steam left his body while he healed.
His body is rebuilding at the cost of Galerius's soul as it gets smaller and smaller.
Zero had one last long cut on his chest, but he looked at Galerius's soul and instead decided to let it fly away.
"Go and pass on with the little you have left, Galerius."
"Goodbye…"
Falling on his back, the rain pattering on his restored body, he exhaled steadily.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again, and there stands Augustus riding on Arcaeus. "Sir, are you okay?"
"I thought you didn't have a lot of mana left?" Zero asked
"Well, I barely used any spells, so I was able to keep reserves."
"So this whole time you could have been healing yourself and saved me the embarrassment…"
"Well, yes, but when I'm shattered piece by piece, sir, unless you're restoring me, I would have to put myself back together piece by piece too, as each bone is fundamental to my stability and due to the difficult nature of the battle, I thought it might be better to keep my mana for emergency. Hence why me and Arcaeus decided to reserve mana instead."
"Whatever…"
"Sir, we have a lot to do. Why are you just lying there?"
"Augustus, just let me lie here. I'm tired.... Let me breathe for just a moment."
Augustus remained quiet. He and Arcaeus looked off into the distance while Zero closed his eyes, the rain washing him clean.
Finality.