Chapter 17: Loss

Chapter 17:
Loss

 

“HNNNGAAAAAAAAAAW!” Flum howled in pain and kicked hard off the ground, sending herself flying backward.

While the pain was an issue, she was more driven by the fear of what would happen if her head split open. However, she was rapidly reaching the limits of how far her left leg could carry her. Flum lost her balance and tumbled to the ground, but fortunately, she had managed to safely move out of range and stop the rotational forces on her head.

It was looking like Luke’s power couldn’t be directed on an object in particular but only on specific locations. As long as she kept moving, she could avoid the complete loss of a limb like what happened with her arm and leg. Her limbs were already regenerating, but she didn’t dare

think about what would happen if her brain suffered any direct damage.

Still lying on her side, Flum spit out the vomit that had built up in her mouth and cleared her throat. She hoped to never go through something like that ever again. But she also knew that Luke wasn’t about to back off any time soon.

Luke wailed, his voice slightly deeper than Mute’s. He cocked his head to the side and walked slowly toward her, not yet showing any signs of attacking. A small burst of energy shot up every time his heels touched the ground.

Flum heard the sound of something cracking and scraping together—it was coming from the pavement where she lay. It peeled up before tearing away and reforming into blades that started to whirl, making an awful racket as they tore through the sand.

With her arm finally regenerated, Flum shoved herself back to her feet and started to stumble away. But just as she got out of range…

“Auunngh?!” Flum’s waist twisted with an awful snap. She felt her organs crush instantly, forcing blood up her esophagus and out of her mouth.

All she could do was crawl away as she wondered just how Luke could pull off such extraordinary attacks without so much as a hint at what he was doing.

Luke belted out another roar. Though devoid of emotion, he seemed pleased with himself.

Every muscle in his body throbbed as bright red blood pulsed between the fibers.

“He…predicted…my next move…and set…a trap?!”

Even with his mind completely consumed by Origin, he was still quite intelligent.

Flum tumbled along as she tried to weave between the invisible traps he’d set, while her body slowly regenerated and the feeling returned to her briefly paralyzed legs. She didn’t have the luxury of waiting until she fully recovered, so she continued to drag herself away from Luke as fast as she could.

Alas, she couldn’t put any distance between them with him still moving on two feet. Flum once again heard that tearing sound deep within her skull as her head began to distort.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!” She cried out in agony, brought her right hand to her head, and called up her reversal magic. There was an explosive crack as it made contact with Luke’s attack deep within her body.

“Aaaugh…gyaaaaaaaaaa!!” Flum wrenched backward, writhing in pain. She felt like she was being dismantled from the inside out.

She lost all vision in her right eye as it tore away and the entire right side of her face began to deform, barely held together by sweeping, misshapen scars. Parts of her skull began to show through, though she managed to avoid taking damage to her brain.

“Aaaauuugh!!” In spite of the immense pain, Flum forced herself forward, reaching ahead with her right hand, now badly burned and covered with a cloudy liquid.

She grabbed on to the ground and yanked her body forward. Next, she threw her left hand forward, still caked with blood, and gripped the gap between paving stones.

Ggggggggggggrruuuuuuu!

The ground began to churn, this time directly beneath her stomach. Fortunately, it was still moving slowly enough that her clothes got caught up in the blades, preventing it from digging any deeper.

Luke let out another triumphant roar.

Flum focused her reversal magic on the spot where her stomach touched the ground.

“Rever…sal!”

CRACK!

The two powers combined to form an incredible explosion so bright that Flum was momentarily blinded, her torso blown up and away from the rest of her body. She continued to scramble out of the whirlpool of sand even as her innards and shattered ribs were blown everywhere. As long as her heart survived, she’d be okay.

Even with the pain reduction granted to her thanks to the enchantment, her mind nearly went blank at the sheer magnitude of the injury. It felt as if a fork had been stabbed into her stomach and was whisking her insides.

Through all that, she summoned the Souleater to her hand. This, the first sign of her intent to go on the offensive, finally evoked a response from Luke.

After throwing his fist up into the air, a tornado spiraled around his arm for a moment before he shot it directly at Flum.

“Tsuaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

No words were needed to get his point across. He seemed to be screaming only to focus his mind and body as he attacked.

Flum jabbed the Souleater straight into the oncoming spiral.

She heard a crackle of electricity as the two met. Last time they’d fought, Flum easily countered Luke’s Rotation with her reversion, but with a second core, he was more than a match for her in terms of raw power.

She imagined that Luke would laugh if he were still self-aware enough to notice that their powers ran so counter to each other that he had to throw his life away to be Flum’s equal. Alas, he had no mouth to do even that.

“Ooooooooouuu!!”

What he did instead, though, was let out another roar before powering up another air blast and shooting it at Flum.

“Nnng…trying…to start a shoving contest? Eyaaaaugh!” Flum quickly lost in the battle of sheer strength and was hurled backward.

Luke created swirls of air at his feet and shot through to Flum’s side, where he pressed the attack.

A smile came to Flum’s lips as he veered into her line of sight. “Reversaaaaaaaaaal!!”

Flum reversed direction in an instant and shot straight toward Luke at high speed. Her body cracked like a whip at the sudden change in direction and she heard a loud snap in her spine, but the pain was nothing compared to what she’d experienced so far.

“Ha!”

Right as the two combatants flew past each other, Flum swung her sword, severing Luke’s right arm.

“Oooooooouu!”

His pained scream echoed in the empty streets, though it was only a matter of moments before his injury twisted closed and the bleeding stopped. Now thoroughly enraged, Luke focused his anger on creating another trap directly where Flum landed.

“Aaaah…gyauh!”

Just as she was about to retreat, she felt a sharp pain in her chest; Luke was trying to crush her heart. Flum forced herself forward to safety, though Luke refused to let up, alternating his attacks between her head and chest. Flum wasn’t making it easy for him, always staying a few steps ahead of each trap’s epicenter. This was a double-edged sword, however: the longer she ran from Luke, the farther it took her away from the guild where Y’lla, Slowe, and Cyrill were waiting.

After she got herself a safe enough distance, Flum turned a corner and hid in the shadow of a building. Between setting his traps and only attacking along a clear line of sight, it was clear that Luke was fighting cautiously. There was no way he was going to search for her blind.

Luke raised both hands to the sky and let out an inhuman, almost musical roar.

Flum looked down at her blood-stained clothes, shoulders heaving as she panted, and smiled wryly to herself. The battle had only just started, and she already looked terrible. She steadied her breath, mind, and racing heart. Even though the pain was mostly gone, she still felt a soul-deep nausea from the aftereffects of having her internal organs crushed.

“It’s gotten awful quiet all of a sudden. He was rampaging around just a few moments ago.”

No sooner had the words come out of Flum’s mouth than she heard a bone-rattling crash. She looked over in time to see the building to her right disappear in a shower of splinters. Or, rather, get smashed up into pieces.

“What was…”

A massive boulder, which had been shaped into a cone, had just flown past her, its spin allowing it to pick up and maintain its speed until it smashed straight into the corner of the building.

BASHOOM!

Another building fell, this time to her left. The next one would have to come right down the center, directly behind her.

“Aaack!”

She took off at the first sound of its approach, but, realizing it was too late to get clear, threw herself to the ground.

BASHOOM!

The building she had been hiding behind moments earlier, along with all the other buildings in the way, was reduced to a deep rut carved into the earth.

Looking back, she had an unobstructed view of Luke, his exposed muscles bright red. He was standing atop a pile of rubble and had his hand on the wall of a nearby stone house. He poured rotational energy into the building, and it ripped free of its foundation, spinning faster and faster until it transformed into a stone drill around four meters across.

The tip of the drill angled itself toward Flum, where she lay collapsed in the street.

“Ooooooooouu!!”

It shot at her with tremendous force, smashing its way through what scraps remained in its path. Flum got to her feet and ran for a few moments before diving face-first to the ground again, throwing her arms over her head to protect herself from the debris. She heard the sound of footsteps approaching and hurried to stand, only to find that one of her legs was freshly torn to shreds.

While Flum struggled to find her balance, Luke closed the distance, while his spiral-sheathed fist wound up to strike. Flum stood firm on her remaining leg and heaved her blade at Luke. The reversal and rotation powers clashed in a shower of sparks, lighting up the street.

Flum was growing desperate, following up with slash after slash as she prayed to get in a blow that would expose his cores.

Even without his right arm, he could still match her blow for brute-force blow. It would have to be speed that won the day. Flum was losing ground bit by bit; she started to withdraw from close quarters. At the same time, Luke raised what was left of his right arm and readied himself to lunge. It was an obvious feint, but Flum’s body still leaned back to dodge the attack.

FWOOSH!

She felt something blast past her bangs. He had formed a deadly replacement for his missing limb, coalescing his power into a phantom tendril.

I gotta get out of here!

Paring down his limbs didn’t do much to stop him. Flum assured herself that she’d gathered critical intel, even if the fight was a wash.

Swinging her sword one last time, Flum used the force of his counter to carry herself backward and make her escape…

…into another trap.

“Gaaaugh!! Da…!”

Her right leg twisted at the shin, the bone fracturing. Flum gritted her teeth as she landed on both feet. She tried to put some more distance between her and Luke, but it was slow going.

“Ooooouu!” Luke dashed ahead, lowered his body, and slammed into her, following through with an uppercut with his new right arm. She felt a finger squeezing her lower jaw.

It’s no good! I can’t get away!

An ominous chill ran through her body. Her skin tore away where the spiral-formed finger made contact, burrowing deep through the soft flesh beneath and snaking into her mouth, exposing her tongue to the open air. Moving her head had little effect.

“G-geeehyack!”

The finger crept into her mouth, feeling out a path through her nasal passages. Flum began to emit guttural noises she hadn’t even known a human being could make. Her eyeballs were plucked out from the inside as it pressed into the innermost reaches of her skull, where it started to tear away at her frontal lobe.

Flum’s face came free from her head and tumbled to the ground. Left with only half her head, she was engulfed in darkness.

Perhaps that was for the best. At least she would never have to see how bad she looked at the end.

She tried to sniff, but only blood poured out.

Unfortunately, enough of her tongue was left to still catch the coppery hint of blood.

She groaned.

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts.

This is pure agony. It’s awful. Someone, help.

She groaned again.

A human could still survive without their frontal lobes. It would take a blow to the deepest part of her brain stem to ensure death. However, Flum began to undergo a change as her brain was torn away. She had lost the balance between logic and impulse as governed by the frontal lobes.

In other words, she was undergoing a change in her personality and emotions.

During the short period before her body could regenerate itself, Flum felt her spirit completely shatter.

“Ooooooooooooooouuu!”

Judging by Flum’s current state, Luke figured that she was in no position to fight back. He went straight in for the kill, reaching out his left hand to crush her brain stem.

However, Flum sensed something coming her way and threw up both arms in front of her.

There was a loud explosion, and Luke tilted backward, feeling something sharp land right between his eyes.

“Oo…ooou…”

He was confused. Flum didn’t have a gun, that much he knew.

Three more shots pierced his shoulder.

“Oooooouu…”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuu!”

The two abominations groaned in unison. Flum was clearly the one on her back foot at the moment, yet it was Luke who was losing his nerve.

He frantically searched for the sound’s origin before settling on Flum’s fingers. Only her thumb remained on her left hand, though the rest of the fingers were quickly regenerating. Magic pulsed around her hand.

That meant…her hand was the gun.

Reversal could shoot off things that were fixed in place.

Reversal could take things on the inside and move them outside.

Having lost all logic and reasoning, Flum had turned her own body into a weapon by freezing the flesh around her fingers to harden them and then firing them as projectiles. These reversal-powered bullets of flesh shot straight through the field of Origin’s power surrounding Luke to hit their mark.

This was the chance Flum had been waiting for to bring her back from the brink of defeat.

“Aaaaaaaaauuu!!”

What she would think about this once she came back to her senses was another story entirely.