Advent of Eternity - Chapter 119 (Patreon)

It had been a long time since Cyll had last truly slept. Resting was fantastic, but sleep – sleep was another thing altogether. He’d gotten more than enough time to rest in his years trapped beneath the sea in Fort Fellwater.

Unfortunately, as powerful as his immortality was, it didn’t permit him to go without sleep forever. There was only so long he could force himself to stay awake, ignoring the siren call of slumber. He’d long since mastered the art of lying in a perfect state of stillness, something akin to meditation, to help stave the exhaustion off.

It had been several weeks since Cyll had truly last slept. When he laid down to catch a quick rest before heading out to explore the rest of Apton, the foul beast was upon him before he realized it.

Cyll found himself standing on an endless plain of grey ice. Streaks of black ran throughout it like veins, pulsing every several seconds. Deep within it, warped faces locked in screams of agony and pain stared back up at him.

“Shit,” Cyll growled. “Not again.”

An icy throne rose up before him. Within it sat the figure whose face he had never forgotten. Childlike features stared back at Cyll, framed with pale and jagged hair that had been frozen into brittle strands. Its fingers all warped, bending in the wrong directions as it leaned forward, revealing two rows of minuscule, razor sharp teeth beneath pallid lips.

“You offered so much,” the End breathed. Its words howled through the icy world around them, biting at Cyll’s skin like knives. “And yet you still reject me. Why seek my power, if only to trap it away forever?”

“I didn’t know what it would cost,” Cyll spat. “Begone. I have no desire to speak with you.”

“The price has already been paid,” the End said, shaking its head in befuddlement. “How can you not reach out and take what has been bought in blood? You waste their sacrifice.”

“I waste nothing,” Cyll snarled. He reached for Lassie, but the sword was nowhere to be found. He settled for spitting on the ice. “Release me. No matter how many times you ask, the answer will be the same. Until eternity has ended, I will not take it.”

The End’s face warped, the childlike features aging and growing feminine. Its frozen hair became long and smooth, and its face beautiful.

“You would dishonor her sacrifice,” the End said, running a hand along the stolen face.

Cyll roared, charging the monster. He threw himself forward, slamming into its chest and snapping the back of the icy throne behind it. Both of them crashed to the hard ground and Cyll slammed his hand into its chest. It cracked and shattered like brittle rock rather than skin.

“You will not use her face!” Cyll screamed, pummeling its chest. “Larissa has given far too much! No more!”

The End’s body regenerated between every strike. He tore at it like a crazed dog, snarling and screaming as his fingers were ripped apart by its jagged bones. Larissa’s face slowly faded, and the End returned to its normal appearance.

It rose, and Cyll fell back, breathing heavily. The wounds on his hands remained unhealed, but the stinging pain only served to help bring him back into reality. He panted heavily, undisguised hatred burning in his eyes.

“Never.”

“Your hatred is misdirected. I simply offer what is yours.”

“I will not take it,” Cyll hissed, slowly climbing back to his feet. His hands left bloody marks against his pants. “Not even if I am thrown into a cell to rot for the rest of history. Release me.”

“You will take it. To refuse is to dishonor the lives of all those who gave themselves for this strength.”

“To take it would dishonor them!” Cyll screamed. “Begone!”

The world bucked beneath his feet. A tremor ran through the ice, and cracks spread throughout it. The back of the throne lifted, floating back to its proper position and melding together with the rest of the seat.

A pitying expression on its face, the End stepped back and sat down in the throne. Its fingers warped backward over the armrests, and it leaned back. “We shall see.”

The ice shattered, and Cyll plummeted into the dark depths below. The frozen faces of his comrades flashed past him on every side, their gazes accusatory. A knot built in the center of his stomach.

Cyll jerked, gasping for breath as his eyes snapped open and he bolted upright. Knell sat on the bed across from him, his eyes closed. His chest rose and fell slowly in meditation. Cyll ground his teeth together and reached up to his back.

The comforting feel of Lassie’s hilt met his palm, and a faint warmth emitted from the blade. Cyll’s fingertips were still bloody, though the wound was almost completely sealed by the time he noticed it.

He rose to his feet, shivering slightly. His clothes were stiff and cold, and his hair stood on end, nearly frozen. Cyll quietly stepped outside of the room and crunched his hair out, trying to get it to return to its normal appearance.

It wasn’t doing much more use than just waiting for it to thaw normally would, so he gave up and strode over to the end of the hall, where a window overlooked the night streets of Apton.

Cyll swung it open and slipped out, dropping to the ground with a faint thud. He brushed his knees off and, after a quick glance around, strode away.

Judging by the position of the moon in the sky, it had been a few hours since he’d fallen asleep. As much as he hated it, he had more energy than he’d had in a long time. Sleep was truly a marvelous thing – when you didn’t have the End waiting for you to fall into it.

“I need something interesting to do,” Cyll muttered under his breath. He slipped through the alleyways, searching for any signs of a possible distraction.

In a city as popular as Apton was right now, he had no doubt in his mind that it would take long before he found someone at least slightly interesting. At this point, Cyll would have settled for just about anything to take his mind off things.

An hour later, Cyll leaned against an alleyway wall and let out a heavy sigh. So far, all he’d seen was people doing normal, boring tasks.

“Shitty night,” Cyll muttered. “I should have known. What do you think, Lassie?”

He reached up, resting the back of his hand against the sword’s hilt. It warmed to the touch, and he grinned. Cyll drew the blade and ran his hand along it. It really was warm. Almost comforting. Almost.

“Would be nice to use you on something,” Cyll said, stroking his beard with his free hand. “You’d like that too, wouldn’t you?”

The sword warmed even more. Cyll’s eyebrows rose.

“Oh yes you would. Who’s a good sword? You are.”

The sword jerked forward. Cyll stumbled in surprise, stepping out of the alley before he stopped himself. He stared down at the huge blade. It jerked forward again. Thankfully, nobody was in the area he’d chosen to sit down.

“What in the Seas are you doing?” Cyll asked. The sword leapt in his grip once more, tugging him toward the end of the street. Cyll cocked an eyebrow. “Wait. Is something there? Something for me to cut?”

The sword tugged again. A slow grin stretched across Cyll’s face, and he set off at a jog. Perhaps the night wasn’t quite as lost as he had feared.

That confidence quickly faded when Cyll found himself still jogging several minutes later. Lassie had directed him through the streets and alleys, winding all around town, but he’d still yet to see a single person that was even remotely interesting.

He just hoped that he’d stuck to the shadows enough to avoid Knell getting too many questions about the crazed homeless man running around town with his huge sword out.

Cyll was just a few minutes from giving up on the entire thing when the scent of copper tickled his nostrils. He cocked his head to the side with a pensive frown. His nose had never been something he’d felt was particularly accurate, but the scent was so strong that he could practically feel where it was coming from.

He followed the scent into an alley. Lassie’s handle grew even warmer, but the sword wasn’t pulling at him anymore. The scent grew even stronger, mixing in with salt and a myriad of other things that Cyll couldn’t place.

Cyll found himself standing at the edge of an alley, sniffing the air like an idiot. The scent was too strong to ignore now, but he couldn’t see anything. Cyll took a slow step into the darkness, and his foot collided against – nothing. There was just air.

A slow grin stretched across Cyll’s lips. “Ooh. Someone’s trying to use magic to keep people out. Now that sounds like a little fun.”

Lassie’s hilt warmed and the sword tugged his hands upward. The air glimmered blue around the blade as it carved through an invisible wall, splitting it like butter. Cyll’s eyes sparkled with delight. Beyond the darkness was no alley at all – a large, open square stretched out just before him, and there was a leg sticking out just a few feet away, lying in a growing puddle of blood.

“Oh, you naughty girl. You can cut magic? I owe Knell something big. I think I might be in love.”

His grin grew even wider as he poked his head out of the passageway and into the hidden square. Half a dozen men stood in a semicircle with their backs to him, surrounding something. Several others laid across the ground in various states of dying or dead.

“No more running,” one of the men in the semicircle said with a wheezing laugh. He coughed, leaning heavily on the wizened wood staff in his hands.

Cyll let Lassie’s blade scrape along the ground as he stepped out into the square. The men spun toward him, their eyes going wide.

“Hullo,” Cyll said cheerfully, raising a hand in greeting. “It smelled like fun in here. Did anyone save me some snacks? Also, could any of you give me an excuse?”

One of them fired a crossbow bolt at Cyll. He swung Lassie up, blocking the bolt with the flat of the blade.

“Who in the Sixteen Seas are you?” the man asked. “And what are you talking about?”

“You’re supposed to ask that before you shoot me,” Cyll replied, lowering Lassie and letting his tongue loll out of his mouth as he bared his teeth. He nudged the bolt at his feet with a toe. “I reckon this is excuse enough.”

He bounded forward, a mad laugh slipping between his lips. Lassie sung in his grip as he batted another crossbow bolt away and cut a bolt of flame in two before it could reach him. He arrived before the nearest man and split him in two with a single swing.

Blood sprayed around Lassie, sinking into the sword’s blade before it could splatter to the ground. Energy coursed through Cyll’s veins and he cackled. A man swung his sword at him, but Cyll shattered it with Lassie. He spun, bringing the blade clean through the fool’s neck.

Magic tore through the air and screams filled the night. Then there was silence, broken only by Cyll’s breathing and the drip of blood from Lassie’s sharp teeth. Evidently, the sword had gotten its fill.

Cyll pulled it free from the staff wielding man and rolled his shoulders. He glanced down at his shirt. It was completely ruined. “Gods, that felt good. I’m going to need a new shirt, though. Knell will kill me if he sees this.”

He flicked the blood from Lassie and sheathed it. He turned, then froze as he locked eyes with a woman propped up against the wall across from him, her hands pressed over a seeping wound in her stomach.

“This is why I hate the gods,” Cyll muttered. “Fate muddling bastards. Can’t I just have one night of fun?”

“You,” Nyra muttered, struggling to rise to her feet but failing to find purchase in the pool of blood growing beneath her. “You’re with the Scion hunter.”

“You’ve confused me for another incredibly handsome man with a long beard. Scratch that. You’re delusional from blood loss. I’m just a sexy angel passing by. Don’t mind me.”

Nyra let out a pained laugh. “It’s not that bad of a wound. I’ll be perfectly fine.”

Her eyes fluttered and her head lolled back as she lost consciousness. Cyll sighed.

“But I won’t. Now what am I supposed to do?”