Bro, I'm not an Undead!

1427  Finish It (3)

One of the Fruit Bearers had been lying in wait. The shower of meteors had been the only real thing that hindered them from acting, but it had come to an end. They held up an ivory pot in the direction of the Chronocle Fiend right when its spear struck against one of the time cords it had pulled. The pot's wide mouth opened up.

The Chronocle Fiend shuddered.

It recalled this damned Realm rank pot. It was the reason why it had gone ballistic and blasted the Fruit Bearers to pieces earlier. But now, it was in use again, its user restored as though they had never been injured at all.

A song came from the pot, loud and ominous.

"Break thy time, time, time,

Harm O mine, mine, mine, Break thy valour, valour, valour, Take O mine, mine, mine."

The pot started to spot cracks and a moment later, it burst apart.

But as it did, the outlines of time that had been escaping from everyone returned to their owners.

…And then some the strings of greenish-white that made up the Chronocle Fiend vanished; there was no doubt about – it was smaller!

The creature's dazed face changed for the first time. Hints of fear showed. Its energy had been wasted again and with no effective result.

The Realm rank pot was called Beckon Your Hopes and Break Me. It was a Treasure that took its time reading the nature of an opponent's properties and then it took on the hostile effects of any attack cast by an opponent upon itself instead of the user. Anyone whom the user wished to be spared would be protected as well. (And of course, it was a single use item.)

Grim was glad to be spared indeed, but with Jiggorrhax rapidly getting eaten away by death and the Impermanence Fiends closing in, he didn't know if he would survive for long. Not even Asthon could pull a miracle that could save him from the encirclement by the enemies.

"Do you have any way to delay your death? Don't you dare die a pitiful death like this?" he said to the dragon desperately. "You're supposed to the Abiding Madness, right? A legend from history. What would I tell people when I get back to Aigas? That you died to trolls?"

As he groaned, grunted and roared in agony, Jiggorrhax found s split-second's worth of time to smirk.

"I'd rather die by my own flame!" he said and then he morphed to his immense dragon form, majestic and fierce, but his legs and half his torso were already gone.

Jiggorrhax drew a breath and without hesitation, he spilled the fullness of the same fiery breath that mended Aigas' Rules onto himself in attempt to burn away the death creeping upon his life!

It worked. Death was stalled, kept at bay, but it was only a matter of time before Jiggorrhax ran out of energy to burn himself. He could afford to spare his breath for a time though. His flames kept burning on his body, warding away the death.

Grim was relieved.

But now he had to defend the dragon while simultaneously finding a way to kill the Fiends.

How did one kill death?

It was impossible.

But… was it?

First was what Asthon had told him in the Permanent Haven.

"The man who created your Hidden Class only made it so that he could mimic the effect of beasts instead of becoming them. I think he could have done it, but perhaps he was afraid of becoming a beast. He was afraid of becoming something inhuman, wholly man and wholly beast. Are you afraid of that too, Grim?"

Two things sprang up in Grim's mind at that moment.

And then there was something that Skullius had said. It meant much more to Grim and made more sense now that he was in this perilous position.

"I call it the Impossible Task because it initially seems impossible. Facing a thousand of yourself all capable of responding and evolving like you… that would be impossible for most. But what I hope for you all to do is the impossible. That's why the saying goes "Between a rock and a hard place, not between a rock and a marshmallow." Hmm. I don't know where that came from, but it's fitting."

…And it was as though Grim saw himself and his dilemmas in a different light.

Right. Was he really afraid to toe the line between human and beast?

No. He wasn't, but even better than that…

'What's wrong with being both? What's wrong with going crazy as a man-beast and not having to worry if I'll find myself again? I'm not that complicated of a man anyway. I have no complex past, no complex ideology. I have nothing to lose.'

An Impermanence Fiend's fist blasted towards him right then while two others spat a Death's Tides from his flanks.

The Unlimited Star remembered one moment during the Impossible Task when thirty Grims had been rushing him while using all of his beast forms from every direction. There had been no option for escape back then. As such, Grim hadn't chosen to escape.

He assumed the same mentality right then.

What did he have at his disposal?

Death.

How could one use death?

Well… to kill.

Grim's pupil's constricted.

He pushed his own fist against that of the massive Impermanence Fiend with all his might.

When the two fists met… the power and momentum in one of them died completely.

The troll-like Impermanence Fiend reeled. Its fist simply lost all its imposing characteristics and went still. While it was dazed, Grim used Granted Warp to appear on its neck. He jammed his hand into its flesh and propped two fingers up its neck.

"Nos Aggrante."

The Fiend's head exploded from the inside, shattering into ugly pieces.

…But it still didn't die.

Aggrante wasn't enough, Grim knew.

…But Death showed him the way.

Death was not entirely loyal to the Impermanence Fiends after all, just like time wasn't entirely loyal to the Chronocle Fiend!

Death rushed into his eyes and even though Grim didn't process it right then, he had gained a skill – a Supreme Skill.

[Death's Apprentice: Three Strings]. It wasn't a normal Supreme Skill, however.

The Unlimited Star's vision was pulled towards the elusive, throbbing organ deep within the Impermanence Fiend, located just below where its navel would have been!

"I see!" he said.

In a barbaric show, he changed into a vicious, shaggy red beast with great claws and tore his way into the Impermanence Fiend's body. He broke apart every part of its unusual flesh and chomped on the ball-shaped throbbing organ. It looked like a peeled orange, only, with pink, ghoulish flesh laced with ripe death. This was the source of its powers and how it kept death as a companion and a weapon.

His body laced with death as well, Grim chewed on it hungrily, and swallowed.

A distance away from him, the Paradon Parody thrummed.

One Impermanence Fiend had been proven impermanent. Grim grinned with glee. For a moment, he wasn't Grim anymore. As he tore of the Fiend's corpse, which faded into some form of cosmic dust, he assumed his human form again.

Jiggorrhax had been left to fend off against the Death's Tide shower on his own, but he didn't complain. The Impermanence Fiends no longer cared for him. He warped away and watched as Grim stormed towards the rest of them, crazed. They were stunned by the death of their companion.

How had the little life-filled creature managed that?

They hissed and attacked Grim at once, using the remnants of Jiggorrhax's destroyed world as footing. They knew they couldn't hide from Grim as they could do with him, after all.

Grim tensed his naked arm and dark claws appeared at the end of each of his fingers. Death was a great companion. No. It was a great master.

He jumped to meet the enemies and swiped with his claws meaningfully at the air. @@novelbin@@

Instantly, two of the Fiends were violently slashed by quick, fangs of unseen death!

Their torsos, right up to where their navels would have been, were carved away in a blink… and they perished instantly.

The rest wore ugly, furious faces. Grim only laughed maniacally at them and assumed a huge serpentine shape as he streaked towards them.

But his enemies weren't done yet. They had more tricks.

Grim sensed an invisible pressure waft from them like a hot spray of air, with a taste of dust. He might have suddenly been placed in an invisible desert. But as the enemies kept coming, Grim aimed to meet and kill them.

…Until an invisible assailant knocked him so hard that he streaked several thousand kilometers away from Aigas!

But Grim used Granted Warp to teleport back in less than a second… only to receive a nasty blunt blow to his serpentine jaw. He spun and crashed against a piece of sky left from Jiggorrhax's second attempted world!

Grim's head was almost a pancake by then. The force behind the blows was serious.

'What type of death ability is this? I can't see where the attacks are coming from even when I focus death into my eyes,' Grim thought while bleeding profusely from the mouth. The Impermanence Fiends were following after him every time he received the hard blows.

Were they not the ones beating him with those attacks?

Another fierce blow broke a large piece of his serpentine body and sent him spiralling elsewhere in the void.

"Urghhhhh!" Grim roared in pain. The dense taste and smell of dust followed him everywhere.

What was this?

But then things got worse. He felt death's loyalty wane. His body had finally reached its limit while adopting the properties of death.

'Now is a pretty bad time for this!' he thought, aggrieved. But his scales were starting to disintegrate and his flesh was beginning to look less… lively. 'Damn it! Just how many times am I supposed to evolve and break past my limits?'

As he thought this, the Impermanence Fiends were on him again. He was forced to return to his human form and deactivate the properties of death Paradon Parody gave him.

Was Aggrante all he had now to fight off the Impermanence Fiends?

Was all hope lost?

"GRIM!" The call was so loud in his head that Grim had to grimace. He searched for its source and found a small bird streaking upwards, heading for the Chronocle Fiend which was being stalled by one of the Fruit Bearers.

The old bird gave him a wave with a wing before accelerating.

A brass ring teleported over him, and before he crossed it…

"FLY, YOU FOOL!"

Grim caught on immediately. He lunged forth in flight and then used Granted Warp to appear right beside Asthon. The old bird coated him with his Nitros… and then they both passed the brass ring. They streaked with fierce alacrity towards the Chronocle Fiend!

None could perceive how quickly they pierced the void!

As they coursed, a Permanent Haven appeared Grim, a giant orb of life energy, almost akin to a giant pearl on the outside.

It headed for the Chronocle Fiend and smashed it in the face before it could react. The creature grunted in annoyance. It had lost a tooth, but was unharmed.

…Until the Haven opened up.

 A great serpent head came out of the cavity in a flash, lunging to bite a huge chunk off the Fiend's cheek and devour!

Grim hurried back into the Permanent Haven, which closed.

It indeed had some resistance against the Chronocle Fiend's abilities. Back when Jiggorrhax and the Fruit Bearers were fending it off while the rest were in Asthon's Haven, they hadn't been siphoned off their time, he had noticed.

Naturally, that meant they were safe this time around too.

Indeed.

Grim was overjoyed. He wore a broad grin. The Paradon Parody, which he assumed Asthon had temporarily left to Azila and the others for protection, was already processing the properties of the Chronocle Fiend; time was a lesser concept than death, after all and required less prerequisites.

"We're almost there, Asthon! You did it! I would have died if it weren't for—" Grim said excitedly, but suddenly stopped mid-sentence.

He was suddenly ejected from the Haven.

He found himself falling leagues away from the Fiend… and then he saw the slowly crumbling Permanent Haven. Its pieces wound and poured into one singular point that formed an old, little bird. The bird spread its wings, almost helplessly… or maybe in a gesture of surrender… or maybe freedom.

It rapidly grew smaller and smaller in size before turning into a dark egg.

…And then even that vanished into nothingness.

Grim, watching with a lost expression, heard a few words ring in his head before he could understand what had happened.

"You were right. In the end, I did the thing I feared I'd die before doing. I did the impossible, all because of that damned mouth of yours! Hahaha! Direction repaid me well. So now, finish it, Grim, and make my long, meaningless life a little more meaningful."

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