Gleam [Karma Cultivator Isekai] - Chapter 94: Peace

Terror crashed into Chance like a tidal wave. It wormed into his senses and dug at his mind, desperately trying to take root in his psyche. Chance gritted his teeth, desperately drawing on his Essence and trying to repel the feeling.

The fear wasn’t natural. Sure, the monster was terrifying, but the magnitude of his response was irrational. Somehow, it was influencing his thoughts. Chance drew more Essence from his Gate, directing it toward his head in an attempt to block out the monster’s influence.

A loud bang echoed through the room as the door slammed shut, sealing their escape. Chance and Bella both backed up until their backs were pressed to the cracking stone and there was nowhere else to retreat from the faceless horror before them.

Chance’s Essence flitted from his grasp, doing everything it could to avoid being summoned. It was as if the Essence itself was terrified. The monster took a step toward them, apparently savoring their inability to act.

It wrapped its gangly arms around itself with sudden, jerky movements. Its fingers dug deep into its body and it dragged deep furrows down through itself, shuddering in ecstasy. Black flesh bubbled up from the wounds, forming into screaming faces that pressed against the prison of its skin before bursting like bubbles.

“Chance!” Bella screamed. “I can’t use my Essence!”

“Me neither,” Chance hissed, barely able to force the words from his lips. His eyes darted from side to side, searching for an escape, but there was nowhere to run. They were trapped in the room with the screaming creature.

Invisible bands constricted around Chance’s chest, making it harder to breath. He started to hyperventilate despite his best efforts to control himself. Chance bit his lip hard and the taste of copper flooded his mouth, but it did nothing to return his autonomy.

Slowly, inevitably, the monster took another step forward. It threw its head back and screamed, raising its hands up and digging them into the top of its skull. With a sudden jerk, it tore its own head in two.

Black liquid bubbled out from the wound, carrying the desperate, screaming visages trapped within the monster. Chance managed to force a little energy back into his third eye. It only lasted for an instant before it sputtered out, but his blood ran even colder.

While the monster itself was completely devoid of Karma, the faces within it had thin, barely visible strands of Karma running out from them. Before Chance could see more, the monster’s flesh bubbled and sealed over, cutting the Karmic ties.

It took another lurching step toward them. A hand extended, its jagged fingers reaching for Chance’s neck. It screamed and brought its other hand slashing down, cutting its own limb off.

The severed limb splattered to the ground in a pool of black liquid. Screaming visages surged, desperately trying to free themselves to no avail. The puddle slithered back to the monster’s feet, rejoining the main body as its hand regrew.

Chance’s brain refused to cooperate with him. He was barely able to put his thoughts together. The screaming filled his mind and locked his limbs. All he could do was watch like a deer in the headlights as the monster fought against itself, moving closer to him and Bella step by step.

His vision started to blur as his own body rebelled, trying to shut down and protect itself from the abomination before him. And, if it shut down, Chance knew that he’d never wake up again.

He screamed internally, battling with his own Essence to try and regain control of his powers. Dimly, out of the corner of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of Bella. She’d fallen to her knees, her eyes glassy and blank. She swayed in place, unseeing.

The abomination stumbled forward. It snapped its neck to the side, gurgling and snarling, then pulled it back into place. Tremors rocked its arm as it let it extend, reaching for Bella’s neck.

Help! Someone, please!

Long, grotesque fingers grew closer to Bella. The monster’s body wasn’t rebelling against it any more. It was going to reach her and bring her inside itself, just like all the other forsaken souls within the creature’s body.

Please! HELP!

There was no response. Chance’s body stubbornly remained frozen, refusing to do anything but watch. Not even the Old City responded. Perhaps it too was frozen, or maybe it simply had no way to manifest itself here.

Chance didn’t know. He didn’t care. All he saw was the hand of death, gradually preparing to wrap around Bella’s throat. It reached her neck and, finger by finger, started to tighten.

No matter how hard Chance begged or fought, his Essence refused to act. It was just as terrified as he was. Desperation flooded Chance’s body. He tried to beg the monster to stop – to at least take him first, so he wouldn’t have to watch Bella consumed – but he couldn’t even do that.

The last finger closed around Bella’s throat. The monster’s body shuddered and it raised her into the air, bringing her limp body closer to itself.

And then, in the sea of fear and panic that enveloped Chance, there was a spark of nothing. The understanding that he had absolutely no way to do anything about his current situation. He was simply too weak. Luck was simply that – luck. It couldn’t change fate. And, against a monster with no Karma of its own, his current abilities were worthless.

If he were Yamish, perhaps he could have done something. The Old City might have been powerful enough to resist the monster’s terror, or maybe it could have muscled it away. But Chance – Chance had nothing left. Nothing he could call on.

The universe didn’t even watch on indifferently – it wasn’t watching on at all. It didn’t care. Within a few moments, Chance and his Karma would be nothing. He and Bella would be forgotten by most. Yamish would move on to his thousands of other projects, and Yeo would never discover what had happened to them.

Chance’s shoulders slumped. There was no way he could use his strength to sway the results of the fight. There hadn’t been a fight at all.

And so, Chance did what he’d always done in the face of complete and utter adversity.

Thank you for this life, even if this is how it ends. I don’t regret a single thing I’ve done. I’ve lived without regret.

Thank you.

And, within that sea of complete and utter helplessness, that spark of nothing shuddered. It bloomed, and the vision he’d had of the golden, eight armed man filled his mind. It thrummed with such brilliance that the terror was crushed and ground out like a bug beneath its weight.

The golden figure looked down at Chance, his features impossible to see through the brilliant light flooding off him. He was pure energy, so far beyond anything or anyone that Chance had ever met.

In that moment, it became apparent to Chance why he’d felt as if his memory of the vision was flawed. His mind simply couldn’t recreate the sheer scale of power washing off the eight-armed man. It was incomprehensible.

It was infinite.

It was Karma, pure and unbiased. The binding threads of the universe that could not be denied by anyone or anything. No creature was free of them, no matter how hard it tried to pretend otherwise.

Essence sparked in Chance’s Gate. The vision swirling before his eyes sharpened. For an instant, Chance could have sworn that the golden man made eye contact with him. Warmth filled his body.

A clean chime rang out in Chance’s mind. The fear shattered like a plane of glass, and then his world was cast in swirling gold. Essence slammed into Chance’s body, flooding through his veins and filling every part of him.

Chance blinked. When his eyes opened again, a sphere of glittering light surround his body. Motes of gold swirled within it. The sphere swirled, sinking back in on itself and sealing to his skin.

Essence gathered at Chance’s back. A glowing arm materialized, condensing until it was as solid as his own flesh. The abomination froze. Then it lunged, its body expanding to envelop Bella.

Roaring, Chance lunged forward. His golden arm swung, crashing into the monster’s chin. A pealing blast echoed through the empty towertop. The monster’s head snapped back. Chance brought his urumi down on its arm, flooding the blade with so much Essence that it burned with light so brightly that he couldn’t even look at it.

The blade severed the abomination’s arm, searing through flesh and instantly cauterizing it. Bella collapsed to the ground beside the arm, limp. Faces erupted in the puddle, struggling to free themselves from the monster’s flesh. Chance reached for the puddle with his golden arm.

An invisible resistance pressed against him. Chance bared his teeth and channeled Karma, forcing his third eye back open. Strands of Karma slammed to life, shimmering faintly from the caged, suffering souls within the monster.

“They are not yours,” Chance said. The monster sent another wave of terror at Chance. A sense of joyous peace filled his mind, rebuking the emotion before it could take root. Chance just smiled.

Then he brought his glowing hand down. The invisible barrier shattered and he gathered the strands of Karma in his grip. With a snap, the vanished. Dozens of golden figures formed in the air beside Chance, tears of relief streaking down their faces.

Then they were gone.

The monster screamed, but not as a threat. It took a lurching step back.

“I don’t think so,” Chance said. He pressed his palms together and his golden arm rose over his back in the same motion. “Be at peace.”

He slipped forward. The monster slashed at Chance, but he twisted out of the way, stumbling past the blow and driving his arm of Essence straight into the monster’s chest. Its body bulged and hissed.

It screamed, clawing at Chance’s Essence and trying to rip it away. Chance just smiled, letting the Essence fill him even further, and pressed harder against the monster’s defenses. It thrashed and struggled, but nothing it could do could free it from his grip.

His fingers dug into the rancid flesh, tearing deeper into the prison until he felt them connect with all the Karma it had trapped within it. All the people who had been suffering within this wretched creature.

Chance felt their desperation and their pain through the Karmic threads. He felt their pleas for help and their longing for release.

He gave it to them.

A brilliant, ringing chime split the air. The monster threw its head back and screamed as Chance ripped his hand free of its chest. Hundreds of threads tore apart at his fingers, and the air around them filled with golden forms.

Black blood bubbled from the enormous hole in the abomination’s chest. It grasped at the air, trying to pull its victims back, but they were beyond its reach. One by one, the forms bowed to Chance and vanished.

With every departure, the monster staggered as if it had been struck. It wailed piteously, no longer a terrifying monster but a disgusting wretch, struck low by the very Karma that it had sought to consume.

And then the last of the glowing men and women was gone. Chance stood tall, his entire body lit golden and his third arm still in half of the prayer position above his head. The monster lay on the cracked stone before him, twitching.

It raised its limp, malnourished head. Chance’s Essence crashed down on it. The monster splattered across the ground, hissing and fading away into golden light until nothing was left of it.

Bella drew in a ragged breath. Her eyes rolled back into position and she choked on her own saliva, coughing as she pushed herself up from the ground.

“Chance? What happened?”

“I think I reached Knight rank. There’s more than one way to cultivate, you know.” A goofy grin passed over Chance’s face. Then the Essence surrounding him vanished with a pop and he crumpled into her arms, unconscious.