Chapter Nineteen: The Slaying

"You—you dare!" The youth watched his armor spiderweb and split, terror and fury flooding his eyes like a storm tide.

If armor could shatter like that, the ranks at his back faced a grim tide.

Eli kept his eyes shut, voice cool as winter rain. "Not bad as a return gift, right?"

"You... fine... fine. Stop talking. Fight!" The youth tore off the shattered plates, raised his greatsword, and rushed Eli like a breaking wave.

Eli didn't draw again. He lacquered his hands in blue energy, met blade with his fists, stepped back, eyes searching like a hunter in fog.

The youth hacked like a mad beast, life thrown aside, his swings a hailstorm.

They tangled like entwined dragons, tore across the battlefield, crashing through drifting corpses that hung in the void like broken constellations.

The youth roared like a primeval titan; his greatsword became the beast's claw. Each swing warped space, like water buckling under thunder.

Every time Eli caught the blow bare‑handed, he was hurled back like a leaf in gale. He shook his aching hands, grit his teeth, kept angling rearward.

"Today, I will kill you!" he bellowed, feet braced on a shard of floating rock, blade edge leveled at Eli retreating like a pulled tide.

As he set his stance, shapes clawed from the wrecked ranks behind him. Thousands, faces lit with rage, shouted and surged after Eli like a flood.

Eli frowned. His silhouette flickered through the star‑sea, a firefly dodging storms.

"Form up! Spear of Godslaying!" A commander swept his arm, and lines settled in formation across the void like runes.

A storm of violet spears screamed from the array, energy points locked to Eli, chasing him through space like hungry hawks.

Eli slipped a beat. A spear hit him head‑on. He caught its tip, but the force flung him across the void, slammed him onto a star, shrank him down, pinned him into a mountainside.

The youth's face hardened like iron. He raised the greatsword overhead and chopped toward Eli like a falling cliff.

The vast blade‑light swept the violet spears together, all crashing toward that star like a comet swarm.

Eli sighed, drew his sword again. His aura surged, cold pouring off him like winter frost.

Frustration pricked first, then action. "Enough. I can't keep worrying about Edlyn. At this rate, I'll die first." He glanced at Edlyn culling stragglers, nodded, drew back his mind, focused on this fight.

He watched the descending mass of power and let a thin smile bloom, like moonlight on ink.

The energy lit the void bright as noon. Facing that doomsday glare, he simply slid his sword across his own skin.

Blood flared from his wrist like a fountain. Eyes shut, he reached for the power stored in other‑space, a hidden lake under ice.

Liqianyu's spirit rode that current and guided it into Eli's body like a river finding its bed.

Eli drew a long breath. Power filled him rare and rich, and his feelings sank under its weight like leaves under snow.

He gave a wry smile, slim as a cut on ice.

Seems I'm almost there.

His face went cold. He lifted off the mask, dropped the hood, and opened his eyes like stars tearing cloud.

In his pupils, galaxies flowed. Pale blue energy misted from his skin. Eli stared up, indifferent, at the descending mass.

He pressed the ground lightly and rose, like a crane taking wind.

The planet's pull felt like nothing to him, a thread cut clean.

Eli drew his blade and laid it against his back, as if sheathing it in the sky.

A force even greater than the mass before him gathered, like a storm stitching itself from silence.

"Sever." He spoke low, like thunder under breath.

He swept his sword crosswise. A vast pale‑blue arc, like a saving light, shredded the violet torrent in an instant and drove it apart.

Eli raised his other hand, drew in the excess, and stored it back in other‑space, like sweeping embers into a brazier.

Better not to scar the cosmos.

Then the youth's blade‑light finally fell. Eli lifted his sword again, and the two forces slammed together like mountains.

The blade‑light cleaved the planet behind Eli clean in two; Eli himself was driven downward by the strike like a meteor.

But he took little harm, his aura a shield of winter glass.

He rolled his sore shoulders and said softly, "Big swing."

The youth's eyes cooled, frost edging anger.

This guy's strength far outstrips mine.

"Come. Rest here, all of you." Eli set the blade on his shoulder and closed his eyes again, calm like a night lake.

Without those law‑filled eyes on him, the youth felt himself loosen, like a knot easing.

A heartbeat later, he flushed with shame at the thought, heat under armor.

"I'm his trusted aide. You're just a guardian of a lower universe, and you dare treat me like this!" The youth spat through clenched teeth.

Eli didn't answer. He lifted his head, as if weighing each invader like stones in a river.

The youth's hair prickled. He felt like a rabbit caught in a lion's gaze, breath snagging.

He bit down, banished the fear, and turned to shout, "With me! Show this low‑tier guardian what our strength looks like!"

"Roar!" The generals bellowed as one; morale surged like a rising tide.

Eli tilted his head, eyes still shut. "So many against one?"

He snapped his fingers with a half‑smile. Seven figures stepped from behind him—his other avatars, all but Three.

"Go!" he growled.

The seven avatars flared with power and rushed the ranks like streaking comets.

"Myriad Spirit Locking Array." Several avatars traced sigils in the air. A storm of iron chains flew from beneath their feet and hammered the invading army.

"Not that easy!" the youth roared. His greatsword swept sideways and crashed into Avatar Two; both were blasted back like stones in a torrent.

Eli sat where he was. A vast barrier shimmered up around him, and the Jade Seal Sword circled above his head like a guardian star.

His soul‑energy split evenly among the avatars as he guided them with needle‑fine control.

...

"Aaah! Witch! Aaah!" Another champion got torn in half by the serpent's fangs, his cry fading like smoke.

Edlyn shook her head, voice lazy as drizzle. "You think surrounding me helps?"

She eyed the ragged ring of soldiers boxing in her and the great serpent, and smiled like a blade's fine edge.

"If we seize you, the guardian will surrender," said a masked soldier, tone flat as slate.

"Heh. Dream on." Edlyn cocked her head at him, eyes cool.

Runes Edlyn didn't recognize crawled across the soldier's armor, blooming like frost.

A towering prison of water dropped from above, caging the black serpent like ice around a river.

Many soldiers poured power in at once, tightening the bind around the serpent like tightening ropes.

Edlyn laughed in surprise. "Not bad. You've got tricks."

"Once the serpent yields, surrender politely and skip the pain," the masked one smiled. "Otherwise, I'm sure your guardian will gladly take your head."

"How do you know he's the guardian and I'm not?" Edlyn snapped her fingers.

"...No... impossible. There can be only one guardian! And with your measly power?" He shook his head, sneering. "Trying tricks? You're a turtle in the jar. Surrender."

"Alright. I wasn't planning to lift a hand." Edlyn smiled, flicked her left hand. Black mist poured from her core and condensed into a longsword.

"I'm the real guardian, actually. Sorry." She vanished and reappeared like lightning, carving through the ranks, then stood at their tail.

Edlyn sheathed the sword, stepped up, and brushed the water prison. It shattered at once, shards fading like rain.

The black serpent dipped its head and nuzzled Edlyn's cheek like a cat.

Edlyn smiled, pleased. "Alright, alright. You did well today~"

The serpent raised her head, glanced disdainfully at the frozen soldiers, and flicked her tail against the air like striking a drum.

The soldiers' bodies turned to ash and drifted away on a wind from nowhere, like smoke unspooling.

Edlyn tilted her head. "Hmm. Looks like Eli the fool let one boss slip."

"...Little girl. Are you truly the guardian?" A figure stepped from a hidden nebula, bearing a stern presence.

"Take a guess." Edlyn's gaze turned cold as steel.

...

"Die!" The youth brought his greatsword down, splitting the last avatar in two, then stood panting, staring at Eli within the barrier.

Eli cracked his eyes open, spat blood tinted blue energy, and gave the youth a cold, razor smile.

"Heh. Looks like your avatars aren't so easy to make," the youth sneered.

Eli rose and caught the sword hanging in the air like a hawk perching.

He felt the sink of defeat first. When the others woke from fainting, he'd be done.

Sure enough, one man against so many masters is a hard river to cross.

They met eyes. Then bodies crossed like blades in rain, clashing again and again.

But he'd spent himself against an army; strength frayed like a worn bowstring.

And the other's greatsword hammered harder than his blade. For a time, Eli fell behind, wind at his face.

He ground his teeth and held on, a lone pine in storm.

The youth saw it, sped his swings, and snarled, "Die!"

In a daze, Eli lost his sword. The greatsword knocked it spinning away like a star.

The greatsword chopped for Eli's shoulder, a guillotine falling.

He bit down hard. He knew this stroke spelled doom, and he forced power up, ready to trade life for life.

Then a voice slid into his ear like a thread.

"Raise your left hand, now!"

Eli didn't think. He thrust out his empty left hand.

The youth chuckled coldly and brought the blade down without mercy.

A flash streaked past like lightning.

A longsword appeared in Eli's hand again, weight familiar as an old oath.

It was cracked, bearing the scars of time.

Eli froze for a breath. He knew this blade.

His beloved blade from back then... the Holy Sword, Thias.

Thias caught the greatsword's descent, singing like steel on thunder.

The youth hadn't expected it. Eli seized the opening—Thias braced the strike, his right hand drew the Jade Seal Sword back, and one thrust pierced the youth's throat.