Infinite Mana Exorcist
Chapter 30: Crushed... character Job

Chapter 30: Crushed... character Job

The red blood slowly trickled out of his being.

Asher felt his life slowly leave him.

Something is wrong...

He thought finally.

His regeneration should have kicked in by now, or at least a system notification, but he couldn’t see a thing.

The pain was unbearable, and with every passing second, he felt his life slowly slip away from him.

Suddenly, thoughts of how death a second time would be started to cloud his mind.

No... I can’t die again... I finally have a world I want to live in.

Asher tried to retaliate against death, but the more he tried, the less he could feel himself in the physical.

He was dying, and he knew it himself. There was no way of him coming back to life.

This was it...

His exit...

Could this have been the mission all along? Protect the Queen? Could it have been a feign by the game? I was the one in danger all along... Fuck, I should have known. The Queen would never need help...

I fucked up...

I should have thought between the lines.

"Protect the Queen" could have been a language of the game referring to one of the royals, which is me and my sister...

Just like a game of chess...

Asher grunted slightly, feeling bad for having fallen for such a trick. If only he had seen this coming...

Mum... Nimora... I’m sorry—

Ding!

Ding!

As though manifesting in his thoughts, a pair of purple notifications appeared before Asher as clear as day.

At first, he was bewildered, thinking—Where could this be coming from? It was weird enough for him to see the notification as bright as day in his mind.

He took his time and went through the notifications.

{Master has taken pity on you and offered you a—}

{Reward: Shadow and darkness of Death shall follow you.}

{Do you accept?}

Asher trembled at what he read. "Master?" he thought first. The word carried weight for him, but there wasn’t much time left...

This was his only chance of living again.

---

Meanwhile...

The battle with the three-headed Night Terror had heightened.

After Fey had cut off one of its paws, all of a sudden, the Night Terror began to attack in ways that he could barely predict.

It had gotten faster and much more brutal in its attacks, as though under some sort of rampage mode.

Fey’s attacks instantly turned into blocks, and his attempts to counter resulted in injuries—either from being slammed into a wall or being slashed by the beast’s claws.

Nimora had joined the battle at that point, and even with her skill, the same result applied to both of them.

The three-headed Night Terror surely lived up to its name.

Nimora stood her ground, feeling her skin peel from the tight grip on her sword’s hilt.

"Even with my sword’s aura, I can’t leave a dent," she menaced over, seeing the Night Terror raise one of its mighty heads, mouth wide agape, and fangs directed at her for a fatal attack.

It plummeted down quickly toward her.

Nimora bent her knees into a crouch and pivoted to the left, leaving the humongous head to crash into the ground, raising pillars of dust.

Attack— her instincts kicked in at the opening, but she managed to restrain herself. This was a beast like no other she had trained to kill.

If she had her soul core ability, it would have been a different story, but that was only Asher, and he was still down.

She began to think of the best possible ways to win the battle and—

Grab!

She felt a hand wrap around her waist and pull her toward the wall.

As she was well behind the wall, the hand let her go and placed an index finger over his mouth to say, "Shhhhh."

Nimora furrowed her eyes, seeing an unfamiliar man, and Fey behind him, also hugging the torn-apart wall.

She opened her mouth to address the man when she saw the armor he placed on—it was that of an Exorcist.

He must have been a survivor or a passerby who had seen the ability of the Night Terror from afar.

"My Lady, the Queen has asked me to bring you and your brother to her," he whispered in the lowest tone possible.

And when the words crossed Nimora’s ears, she was excited, but as she thought about Asher’s predicament, her smile faded.

To the Exorcist’s notice, he felt her usual cold glare flicker in the wind. She was overwhelmed with grief from the looks of it, and as to why—it was concerning.

"Your mother killed Redrics. Are you not happy she is alive?"

Nimora shook her head slightly, feeling guilt wash over her. She had been the closest to Asher when the Night Terror attacked him. If only she had grabbed and pulled him back when he yelled to them, he would have survived.

The guilt stained her like some kind of disease.

Fey, from a distance, felt the same. He felt ill of himself—unable to save Asher. The attack Asher had taken was strong and would have surely killed him.

"Damn..."

Throughout Fey’s life, he had never had a friend. And when he finally did, he died right before his eyes, and he was unable to do a thing.

The thought clouded his mind, and suddenly, his legs gave way, leaving him to fall to his knees.

The Exorcist there did not need an announcement to read them. His face held no emotions. He only peeked at the three-headed Night Terror, which had gone silent, standing with its three massive heads twisting and turning from here and there.

"Why isn’t it moving?" the Exorcist asked himself.

A normal beast or spirit would have gone elsewhere in search of them, but this beast just stood proudly in one position.

The Exorcist narrowed his eyes around the debris, and his eyes stopped at a half-collapsed house.

"I can see the royal blood’s aura slightly over there... The kid is still alive," the Exorcist gulped. "If I can, I shall do my best to save your brother. He is still alive. Please stay here while I retrieve him."

The Exorcist muttered to the two in a low tone. Not waiting for a reply, he calculated the space between him and the next debris.

Once done, he dashed at an unspeakable speed towards it, very silently reaching a large boulder and crouching beside it.

"Oh my God, it’s like my heart leapt out of my body..." the Exorcist thought, taking another peek at the Night Terror. It didn’t seem to have noticed his movements.

Maybe it wasn’t that sensitive to sound.

To test his theory further, he picked up a rock the size of a fist, not too far from him. Carefully taking his calculations, he hurled the stone away from himself and the beast.

As the rock collided with the ground, the beast barely flinched.

This confirmed his theory.

The beast was not sensitive to sound or emotion.

Maybe it only noticed mana. That would explain why it hadn’t attacked all this while.

That meant he could move without getting noticed.

Taking this experiment very seriously, the Exorcist stepped out of the debris and started racing towards where Asher was, without taking cover.

Though he did not stand upright, he hunched his back and kept his eyes on the beast.

The longer he stared at the beast and noticed it wasn’t looking at him, the more he became motivated to straighten himself.

He was right. It couldn’t sense him.

Finally reaching the house debris, he took his eyes off the beast and stared at the wreckage.

At first, he couldn’t see anything but broken pillars and piles of dust, but after some time, he saw the twisted-up human in the debris.

It was Asher—in a very bad shape.

"Damn, how is he even holding onto his life?"

The Exorcist went closer to grab the first pillar on Asher and—

A low grunt came from behind.

Suddenly, the Exorcist’s movements halted, his skin crawled, and his heart instinctively palpitated.

"EXORCIST! GET OUT OF THERE!"

The scream came, probably...

Was it...

A second too late...?

The Exorcist craned his neck slightly to see the inevitable depth of darkness and countless massive jagged fangs like a cave closing down on him.

His breath held itself.

"Fuck... It tricked me..."