Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Seven tumor bombs whipped through the air, tracking her movements. Revia knew no rest. They were on her no matter which direction she chose to run. She even slipped through the slimmest, narrowest cracks in the damaged, crumbling underground levels of the Purity headquarters, but they shrank and expanded as needed. They throbbed tauntingly, swelling with grotesque flesh and ooze that promised to singe her at the very least.

This was how Mercella, the Second-ranked Paladin Champion had fought indeed. Even if her body was now a simple husk – a bloody skeleton adorned in armor – her fighting style remained the same. She had always enjoyed burdening her opponents with a battle on two fronts – one from the tracking tumors, which she found easiest to construct with plagues, and the other with her own body.

…And as such, as fast as Revia was with her Divine Blessing, Hearts of Clarity, it quickly became less surprising when Mercella suddenly snatched her from the air and flung her towards one of the throbbing tumors. The squelching ball was about the size of a human head, and on contact, it exploded to release a great number of foul-smelling, bloody tendrils that would have borne through Revia if she didn’t guard desperately with her Perfect Aura.

The impact from them sent her smashing through several walls though.

She vomited blood once her momentum ceased and she thudded onto a floor.

Mercella was strong before, but she had never been this strong against her. Revia couldn’t have known, but Mercella was now a Divine vessel. Her skeletal body and powers now transcended the threshold of mortality, but she owned no soul. She and Uyuniya had shared part in the process to reach Divinity as per Elita’s design, but Mercella was now merely a puppet of the nine.

Revia struggled to a stand.

’Damn this mortal body!’ she thought, but rebuked herself immediately after. ’Ah, I can’t believe I missed being like this. The possibility of death, and the less drab emotions. Did becoming an undead affect my mood?’

Right then, more tumors sprung out of nowhere, racing towards her.

Revia formed a blade with her Perfect Aura and knocked away the tumors away as speedily as she could. Her hands flashed about at dozens of times the speed of sound, blurring in the dark of the night. However, fatigue was slowly piling. Warding away the tumors for one instance was no victory.

She dodged the rest, zipping here and there over long stretches with minimal steps.

Hearts of Clarity gave her three silver hearts that expelled threads throughout her body to support high speed movement. Revia hadn’t felt the strain of this Divine Blessing since becoming an undead because her body had learned to use it without the hearts, as though the freakish speed it gave was a natural part of her, but now…

Revia took a sudden blow to the face by Mercella. Unlike the half-hearted ones from before, this one broke her jaw and a chunk of her skull and she screamed as she tumbled across hundreds of meters.

As a warrior, she couldn’t lie down and listen to the sting of her wounds, however. She got up quickly, swaying slightly.

"How bold," a voice remarked.

Revia flinched. Her right eye was drowned in blood and the right side of her face looked as though it had been bitten into. She spat a blob of blood and searched for the source of the voice.

An old man with slicked-back blonde hair and eyes beginning to whiten with blindness slid into view. He was draped in the same thick, holy robes Revia remembered from back then, when he first appeared before her when she was younger.

However, diseased boils made his skin their fort, deforming his appearance.

"Valis…" Revia said breathlessly. "You too?"

Revia hadn’t managed to think about it, but she hadn’t imagined this High Priest, the man who took her from her sorrows, gave her purpose – a directive from the Deities, he had said – and even fought with her against the masked man back then in the Isise, would also be corrupted.

(A/N: Refer to Ch.181-190.)

"If you mean even I desired a new order to the Purity’s strength, you are right," Valis said. His mouth was strangely lop-sided. "Seeing how desperately you’re fighting, I wonder what is driving you now."

Revia was lost for words. She bit her lips, but her guard never slackened.

"You were always an anomaly, my dear. Truth be told, I only brought you into the Purity because of your talent, nothing more. There was a fire in you, but it blew in the wind, never having a course of its own. Meeting Elita certainly sharpened you, but it was a shame that you never managed to grow your own backbone. Even now, I see that you are lost."

Revia took in measured breaths.

"I can believe that. I never did buy into your sacred purpose for me anyway," she said, but the hurt in her voice was all too clear.

"You never did. But perhaps neither did we. Hence why all this is happening. Even if your sister crafted it all, we shall ride it for the greater good. More good than we ever did under the doctrine of the Deities," Valis said. "But for an aimless flame like you, you must be doused here, my dear."

The skeleton of Mercella creeped in from the darkness next to Valis along with a dozen tumors.

Revia scowled.

"I suppose this is goodbye to all fantasies," she said, preparing for what was most certainly death with a load of regret. She didn’t want to die before talking to Elita. She wanted so dearly to explain and to hear her explain herself, but… "My penance is a little too light though."

As Mercella took a step her way, someone else also approached Revia and stood by her side. He was no less bloodied and battered than she was, but he was very lively.

A terrible hue stormed from his jian sword, and a sharp look crept from his eyes.

"Your penance isn’t here yet," Alaris said as he brandished his sword. Revia recoiled in surprise.

"You were alive…" she said, but her voice thrummed with life.

"Just enough to be here right now," Alaris said and he narrowed his eye to the sight of Mercella. "But perhaps not for long."