Morgan was frozen in place. His mind refused to accept what was happening.
" It’s happening all over again."
In his mind, the image of the blood on the floor overlapped with the image of Lisa’s blood in their cozy apartment home.
" I was still too weak to save her."
Tears silently rolled down his cheeks, falling on the stones beneath him.
Due to his enhanced hearing, they produced a sound akin to a hammer gently striking the hard surface.
Morgan’s lit up glowing with a ghostly golden light. The gold bled into the whites of his eyes, but in the next instant, small dark veins spread throughout the gold, blotting it out completely.
Morgan’s eyes turned a startling gold and black, closely resembling the Drayghar’s eyes.
A dark aura emanated from him, spreading in all directions.
The Kravenar staggered back awkwardly from Emily, emitting a weak screech.
In the next moment, it stumbled towards Morgan.
Indescribable rage and fury bloomed in Morgan’s chest.
The Blood Reaper blade in his hand hummed with power, triggering a resonance with its twin.
The dark blade he’d given to Emily earlier flew from the floor where it lay, then stopped in the air in front of Morgan.
The blade Morgan held flew out of his grasp and joined its twin in the air.
The two blades glowed, pulsating with dark light at intervals, then in the next moment, they turned into a cool metallic liquid, flowing into one another.
The dark liquid pulsated vividly, emitting a blinding silvery light that lit up the dark tunnel.
When the bright light dissipated, a long, sleek, slightly curved blade hovered in the air.
Morgan spared a fraction of a second to take in the sight of the long blade.
The flat of the blade gleamed with a dark, silvery hue.
Along its edge, a brighter sheen shimmered with a silvery sheen. The blade’s edge pulsed in a slow, rhythmic cadence.ce
Morgan reached out, taking the grip in one hand.
The sword was light in his hand, almost like an extension of his body.
The grip was pitch black, smooth, and cool to the touch.
Morgan instinctively swung the blade a few times through the air, then promptly disappeared.
A split second later, he materialized in front of the creature.
His blade flashed several whistling sharply through the air.
The blade moved so fast it left after-images in its wake.
Morgan cleaved through the inky black appendages, the knife bisecting the limbs on the creature’s side like a knife through butter.
Morgan skidded back a few feet, then steadied himself, planting his feet firmly on the ground.
A moment later, he was on the move, swiftly dashing towards the Kravenar.
Morgan gracefully swung the slender blade through the air in a lethal arc.
A wave of light burst forth from the blade’s edge, washing through the dark tunnel.
The ground beneath the Kravenar crumbled, forming jagged webs of cracks.
The giant spider fell to the ground heavily then fell heavily to ground.
The Kravenar’s body split cleanly into two separate halves.
Morgan fell to his knees, using the silvery blade as a crutch to steady himself.
The dark blade melted down into a sliver of liquid, forming the original two blades.
The dark tunnel became hazy, then slowly faded from Morgan’s sight.
A litany of jumbled thoughts assaulted Morgan in his state of confusion.
" What’s happening? Am I passing out?"
The corpse of the Kravenar lay a small distance away.
" I should probably retrieve what’s left of Emily and give her a proper burial."
Then everything went black.
Morgan woke up in a pale, lightless world. He was clad in a white long sleeved shirt and white pants.
He spun around trying to gather his bearings.
A dark void stretched around him in all directions.
The dark void shifted fluidly, morphing into a place Morgan was intimately familiar with.
Morgan was back in his childhood neighborhood.
Cars were packed in the driveways.
He walked for a while, then eventually found himself in front of the old apartment that had been his childhood home.
In the distance, Lisa Greenwood, his mum, called out to him. She was seated on the swinging chair outside the front porch.
Lisa was dressed in a white floral dress, her lips curled into a faint smile.
"I remember that dress, mum liked it so much."
Her green eyes gleamed brightly in the pale light of the cloudy day.
Dark clouds raced across the sky of his mind scape, the weather changing unnaturally.
Tears slowly ran down his cheeks, the memory of the accursed night replaying torturously in his mind.
" Mum, I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to save you."
In his dream, Lisa smiled warmly. She slowly shook her head.
Heavy droplets of rain began to fall quickly, becoming a deluge.
Morgan woke up to the feeling of cold, refreshing water trickling down his throat.
His eyes opened slowly, then his most recent memories flooded his mind.
A pair of green eyes stared back at him. The dark-haired girl’s hand froze.
" You’re finally awake." ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novęlfire.net
Morgan scrambled to his feet, or rather tried but failed miserably, his body refusing to yield to his commands.
He let out a struggling yelp, his muscles spasming in agony.
" Crap, what is this pain?!"
He glanced back at Emily.
" Is that really you? But I thought you’d died. The Kravenar...it but you, then the blood..."
Emily sighed tiredly, then smiled.
" The Kravenar never bit me."
Morgan’s eyes widened in disbelief.
" But I saw it, what about the blood then?"
Emily grinned, her eyes gleaming eerily in the pale light.
" That was actually the Kravenar’s blood."
Morgan stared at her in puzzlement, slowly coming to terms with what she was saying.
" You wounded it? That gruesomely?"
Emily nodded, then continued.
" In the moment when the Kravenar but down, I think I tapped into my Talent."
The temperature dropped rapidly, and a sharp icicle formed in the air, slowly revolving in place.
Emily grinned proudly.
" Yep, when the Kravenar bit down, I thrust my hands forward, and in that moment, it’s like something clicked within me. Next thing knew, a long shard of ice had gone through its chitinous head, then in the next moment, the ice disappeared. What followed was the pool of blood that formed."
Morgan lay on the ground silently, contemplating the new information.
After a while, he let out a slow, relieved sigh
" Hey Emily, I’m glad you’re alive."
It took Morgan a while to recover from the strain of using his newfound power and straining his body to the limit.
" Wow, you should have seen yourself," Emily whispered gleefully.
" I failed her, I failed her, then in the next moment, you just disappeared.
You went loco on the poor creatur.e"
Morgan chuckled, wincing from the effort.
Morgan led her through the darkness for a while, then eventually the darkness gave way to a starry expanse.
The dark tunnel gave way to an underground chamber.
A wide chasm stood before them, leading deeper into the chamber.
Countless stars were scattered around the dark, illusory sky in the chamber. Faint wisps of fog floated through the air,
The most startling features were the ghostly twin moons that floated surreally in the sky, one glowing eerily with a pale green light while the other pulsed with ethereal blue light the suffusing the false sky with its ethereal brilliance, shining like a beacon of hope in the tranquil darkness.
Through the blinding darkness that stretched out in the lightless expanse below the illusory sky, Morgan could vaguely make out the structures of tall buildings.
" Where are we? Did we somehow make it back to the surface?" Emily asked with a hint of wonder in her voice.
Morgan shook his head, letting go of her hand.
" I think we went deeper this time. Unlike you, I stayed awake the entire time we fell."
He turned back, his brown eyes darkening at the memory of the fall.
" It was quite the fall. Anyway, we can’t have made it back to the surface in such a short time."
He turned back, walking till he stood at the very edge of the city.
" Besides, I don’t recall the sky on the surface having two moons. That alone is enough to convince me that we’re in an entirely different place."
A dark, menacing aura emanated from the tenebrous city below.
Morgan shivered slightly, then stepped back from the edge.
" I think we should then back," Morgan whispered.
Emily smiled faintly in the dim light.
Morgan turned and then paused.
" For now, but afterwards, we should return here sometime," he shrugged.
"Something about leaving this place without checking it out doesn’t sit right with me."
Emily glanced at him in surprise. "What do you mean by that?"
"I don’t know, leaving this place unexplored would be," his lips curled into a wicked smile, his brown eyes gleaming with the insatiable hunger of curiosity.ty
"It would be such a waste."
Morgan silently led her back through he darkness.