Brigante Ark - Chapter 179

Alastor halted once he reached a hall. It was rather huge to consider this for a mere dining hall. The windows at his right have been concealed by thin blinders, it was hard to see as it blotted the remaining light the sky has to offer, and farther in, it was almost black.

Alastor stretched widely as he approached the front steps. The mercenary halted and let out a long, wordless sound of relief, feeling his muscles aching. He doubted that anytime soon his back problem.

All was well at his end when suddenly a sudden expulsion of energy inside him disrupted his movements. It was the gut-wrenching twitch again, but this time it’s different. His mana is leaking out and his mind was in total heat.

Alastor groaned in pain as he endured the twitching flesh that incapacitates him. His head felt heavy and ringing. The room around him distorted into a pitch colorless ruin.

This occurred for about a minute before he laid on the ground, breathing convulsively.

He rests his eyes for the moment and takes a deep breath. He was unable to wipe his worried expression. Alastor hasn’t learned anything yet about what he is or what even happening to him. He wasn’t given enough time for Timber to teach him about the hunters.

Alastor sat, he hung his throbbing head, lost for a moment over his thoughts.

“So, that wench managed to find herself a hunter.”

It was that voice again.

Alastor stood wearily, his sword brandished in the air.

“I was beginning to think that I’m going crazy. Turns out you’re real after all.”

The man was on the stage, sitting on the stool in front of a piano, but he couldn’t see him because of the red curtains. Alastor did not notice the stage before. He must have concealed his presence and waited for him.

“I still am.”

The man behind the red blinders started to play with the keys. The progress of the tones is slow, mellow, and quite horrid.

Alastor started, “So, you’re that traitor that the sorceress yammering about.”

“And she must already fill you a lot of information.”

“None of them are good. She didn’t spare me with the gruesome details.”

“That and her antics are not really good for my image.”

“You kinda transported everyone here to their own demise.”

The man behind the curtains asked, “Really, is that what she told you?”

“That’s all there is.”

“And you were obliged to do this?”

“Reluctantly, of course. She drives a hard bargain.”

“You should be cautious with a woman like her. They know how to manipulate people.”

“Oh, I’m already way past that. I wasn’t given much of a choice really.”

“Is that so? Then you must be inexperienced when it comes to a woman then.”

“Not inexperienced as you are.”

“At the end of this, I will bask in your blood and you will drown in the eternal darkness of my sonata.”

“Bring it on.”

Alastor stretched out, propelled in the air in an attempt to cut down the man, but at the last moment, he swirled, the stage was gone in thin air as if it had never existed in this room.

“What the hell?”

As soon, a violin began to play. It was dark, monotomous, and uncanny.

Everything around him grew dark. The shadow seems to move around the corners of the walls as if it has a life on its own and observes him, seizing his being.

He grew pensive. Alastor lurched back. His palm rose, following the shadow moving around.

“Flamen!”

But his attacks are seemingly useless against the enemy as it slipped through, evading the attacks with ease. The shadowed maneuvered at the entrance and the pitch-black sprung towards him.

Alastor quickly maneuvered to leap on his right. As it passes by, the black entity materializes before his eyes.

Alastor had his hands reach to the ground, tumbling, and flipping over and cast his a transcendent wall, blocking the trajectory of a blade that was sent outpitched in the air. The black blade whistled sharply as it twirls and is stuck on the ground.

“This is quite a curious. You’re faster than those undead knights.”

He heard the monster wheeze. The monster sembles a noble knight only that its armor is tainted in black. The tip of its sword glistened for a second, it then travels around, protuberance spikes, tapering with shards, suddenly shot out, hurdling in the air to him.

There’s no strong source of light for it to refract such beam, it could mean that the shards themselves are producing light itself. Alastor was dazzled by the fracting light. No matter, the image is still in his mind even he was blinded for a second.

Alastor conjured another transcendent wall and turned away from his position. He conjured another spell in an attempt to blast the enemy but to no avail.

The monster jerked sideward, letting the spell come past at his left. The monster shoots itself forward. The sudden movements had taken Alastor by surprise.

Alastor motion his sword up, defending himself as the monster clashes its sword against his. The force had his heels felt the pressure, backing him each second passes.

The crushing sense of disappointment had washed over his face. He knew very well that this monster outclassed the others or maybe even him. He could have restricted its movements for him to strike a fatal blow, but no, he was playing safe in distance under the fear assumption.

Even if he berates himself over his foolishness, Alastor can only move forward.

“Fucking hell.”

Alastor inserted his hand, locked his palm onto the monster’s face.

“Flamen.”

The monster was sent flying, crashing against the wall. It cried in anger as it stood, gaining its footing. The undead warrior’s sword began to glisten, grew shards spike on its sword, and swing towards Alastor.

Alastor’s hand quickly conjured a wall, blocking most of the attack as the others pierced through but completely misses him.

As the monster growled, he conjured another set of walls that sembles a maze, mirroring their images and vanishing back and forth.

The activities of the transparent transcendent walls confuse the monster.

That was the moment for Alastor to drew his mana onto his blade. He prance around as he came past to the transcendent transparent walls one-by-one. His footing is skillful.

Alastor stopped one wall in front of the monster and twirled around with the momentum of the sword clashing against the armor of the confused monster.

He felt that his blade connect, the chips of the armor clang on the ground as black liquid oozed out from the monster’s guts.

The mercenary pursues the opportunity. He charged. The monster swings its sword but Alastor slipped down. He stopped in his tracks, felt something grab his coat. It was the monster who had caught him.

Alastor braced himself as he was sent flying over the wall. The bricks brakes, detached from the walls, causing his sight to blur.

His teeth clenched, darkened eyes flaring, Alastor slowly reached for his sword and rose from crouching. He quickly moved as soon as he heard shards racing after him. Fortunately, he only receives small cuts on his cheeks.

The mercenary throws himself in the air, hurling in tremendous speed, his sword strike. The monster swung its sword, parrying his attack with the rusty edge, the strength of momentum had caused the monster to stumble backward, growling over the man.

The monster came at him. At first, it became blurred in his sight, but in split seconds, the monster returned to its form again, crying out of pain. The wound that he had given to it earlier had heavily lingered on the monster and affected its mobility due to the wound.

“Biendo,”

With his spell, the monster was wrapped in yellow light. It was followed by a powerful thrust on the gut. The sharpness was magnified by the mana tapering on his sword as he dragged the blade up to the chest, splitting its heart into two. The monster let out an exasperating howl. But that lone wasn’t enough to kill it as its heart would regenerate soon after.

It was said in the books that the undead can also be defeated if a holy or a divine spell is cast on the heart of an impure monster. It’s about time to test whether those books are telling the truth or not.

Alastor place his hand on the chest of the undead when suddenly a red sigil appeared on top of them.

“The fuck?” He profane under his breath.

Alastor looked in confusion. He doesn’t know what the sigil is all about, but one thing is for sure, it’s the monster’s last act of dragging him down.

“Hell no.”

He said and cast the spell Flamen. The spell pierced through its armor and made a hole out of the undead’s body. Its rotten chunk of flesh burst and scattered all over the ground.

“That’s one down and one to go.”