SSS Awakening: All My Clones Have Divine Bloodlines!-Chapter 40: Departure

What sounded like a powerful roar came from the direction of the city, and with it, something else entirely.

A sensation. Heavy and lethal.

Death.

It had appeared everywhere in the surrounding area at once, and even he, a B-Rank Mid-Stage, felt the pressure from where he stood, which was more than enough to put him on alert.

"In the name of the six gods, what is happening now?!" he said, and in the same breath he was already gone from his position, moving toward Lirath at full speed.

He spared no thought for Luna. There was no time. He had to get back immediately.

From the energy fluctuations alone he could tell that whatever it was, was anything but weak, so much so that he wasn’t certain he could handle it himself. If something like that had appeared inside the city, did that not mean the city was already as good as condemned?

’Damn it. I knew something was wrong with this fcking city,’ he thought as he reached the city’s edge.

He saw it immediately.

Above the plateau where the manor stood, in the distance, what appeared to be a black vortex was open, and from it, an oppressive presence was pouring out.

He stopped dead.

His eyes went wide.

The creature emerging from the vortex was tall and slender, humanoid in shape, but with no true head, only a mouth, attached to a long, stretched neck.

But as bizarre as its form was, that wasn’t what shook him. No, it was the vortex of energy itself, the thing from which it was emerging.

"No, that can’t be, that shouldn’t be possible..."

He had lived a longer life than most, with a great deal more still ahead of him, and he had never seen that with his own eyes. Only heard of it. And how could he not have, the creatures of the Abyss had long since become legends, pieces of horror stories told at night to frighten friends or lull children to sleep.

But what stood before him was not an invented story.

It was the horror story made real.

He could feel his entire body reacting to that being, a deep, visceral revulsion, one that wasn’t being processed by his mind so much as experienced directly by everything beneath it. Something old and buried was screaming at him, and his body was listening whether he wanted it to or not.

There was no doubt.

That was a Hollow.

"May the gods have mercy on us," he murmured.

He wasn’t a believer, not really. He knew the gods had existed, but he had never been the praying sort. Yet in this moment, anything seemed worth trying if it could make that thing disappear.

He knew it wouldn’t. And he knew he would have to step forward himself, or stand by and watch the city be leveled before the problem spread to the surrounding settlements.

This time he wasn’t going to hold back the way he had with Luna. He would give everything he had, and hope that help arrived before it was too late.

From the presence alone he could tell the creature was at least A-Rank. Not something he could defeat. But perhaps, perhaps, he could hold on long enough to slow down the destruction, buy whatever time could be bought.

While Selric found himself facing a problem of that magnitude, somewhere else in the chaos another figure was moving.

Limping. One arm missing. His body a map of wounds that had no business belonging to someone still on their feet.

Darius had stepped back once the Envoy arrived, there was nothing more he could contribute to that fight, and he had known it. But then something else had appeared in the city, a presence so heavy and wrong that even he had felt it like a fist to the chest, he couldnt go there, even if he wanted to, not like this, nor could those of his group that were still alive. thye are were heavly injured.

He walked anyway.

Each step was painful. His vision kept threatening to grey out at the edges, and the arm that wasn’t there anymore kept sending phantom signals that his brain hadn’t caught up with yet. He ignored all of it.

He found her near a shattered tree at the edge of the clearing, Luna, unconscious, face half-turned into the dirt, chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven pulls.

Something settled behind his eyes when he saw her.

He reached for the dagger at his belt. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"You," he said. His voice came out rough, barely held together. "You think you can do all of this and just walk away? Massacre my men, leave me like this, and just—" He exhaled, hard, through his teeth. "Answer me."

She didn’t, of course.

He kept moving toward her, slow and deliberate. Young. Striking, even like this. Full of potential that the world would have called extraordinary under different circumstances. He had seen how Selric looked at her, that careful, measured attention that meant the Envoy was already thinking of using her for his own gain. He couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let her walk out of this.

"On my honor," he said, more quietly now, almost to himself, "and on theirs."

He raised the dagger.

There was no way he was going to let this happen. Not while he was still breathing.

Squelch

A hand came through his chest from behind, and then withdrew.

Darius looked down.

His last thought, as his legs gave out and the clearing tilted, was a question he didn’t have time to finish asking,

He didn’t land. Not consciously.

Evan looked at his own hand for a moment. Blood ran down his fingers and dripped into the grass. His face held no particular expression.

The system notifications popped up to announce the kill, but he didn’t pay them any attention and focused on the Sleeping Beauty lying on the ground.

He sighed.

’Seriously... couldn’t you have just stayed calm a little longer? Did you really have to let loose in this mess too?’ he thought, lugging her onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before turning to look toward the city.

Even from here he could feel it, deep tremors moving through the ground, two enormous presences colliding somewhere above Lirath in ways that made the air itself feel unstable. For a moment, just a moment, the thought of whatever had crawled out of that Abyss portal sent a chill through him.

Then the feeling passed.

He turned in the opposite direction and walked into the forest, adjusting Luna’s weight on his shoulder, not looking back.