Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power

Chapter 443: Chapter 443: Utter despair

Chapter 443 – Utter despair

’I was wrong!’ Rea cried, ’And I am going to die!’

Her restless, fear-filled thoughts were accompanied by her tumbling onto her chest, her forehead meeting something hard and cracked, blood spluttering out under the weight of Kaden on her back.

She groaned, cried, yet bit her dried, split lips before pushing herself up. She continued her relentless run, not even daring to look behind her or even around her.

Her eyes were only fixed on the Bridge looming on the horizon; a bridge she couldn’t reach despite so much unknown time spent running toward it.

At first Rea sensed that she was approaching the bridge, feeling a fire of hope burning inside her, giving her the strength to break her mind and body even more.

But that hope was slowly receding, and now only a candle was left, flickering sporadically, about to be completely snuffed out.

The Bridge seemed like an illusion created to kill her slowly — mentally first, then her body.

And Rea was afraid. Her body was beginning to fail her, unable to bear the continuing use of her power to enhance it. She had gone way beyond her limit.

Yet the God-Touched was not really concerned about her body. Because she knew with chilling clarity that her mind would break first before her body.

If not from the use of her power, then it would be because of the sight around her.

Rea looked beneath and around her as she tried to run away. The previous realm of smoke and ashes and dust was no more.

Instead, this was a realm of blood, war, pain and terror.

The sky was now bloody red, the ground nothing but a mix of blood, bile and piss and shit. Added to that, every step of Rea crushed bones or intestines or wandering eyeballs.

She was terrified.

The change of the realm had begun some time after the bridge and the humanoid creatures appeared.

A scent of death soaked the surroundings now, and Rea began to witness two sides battling each other. A harrowing war.

The battle itself was ongoing behind her, and slowly expanding in space, about to engulf her within a realm of absolute carnage where death was completely spat upon.

She was constantly dashing away, trying her best to gain time, but Rea truly could no longer bear the burden.

Her feet were completely swollen, bone-white and splintered, blood leaking out. Her face was ashen, fear and loss of blood making her look like a wraith waiting to be exorcised.

Her stomach was still torn apart, her intestines clearly visible from the outside.

One could only wonder how Rea was still alive with all these ailments in her body. Yet despite all this, her aching arms didn’t let Kaden go no matter what. She clung to him like a mother would to her own babe.

Unflinchingly.

But she could no longer continue.

So it was without any surprise that Rea fell face first into the ground, unconsciously drinking the disgusting blood mixed with so many things smeared all around.

She flung back her head, vomiting everything out of her mouth — with pieces of flesh and piss and intestines.

Her eyes then widened, sensing a bone stuck in her throat. She raised her swollen, bloodied hand, thrust it inside her mouth and tore out the black bone.

Her throat shredded. Rea then coughed like she was about to die, her eyes heavy with exhaustion and pain.

She took Kaden, noticing that only a small thin layer of cocoon fabric was left, and put him behind her. Next the God-Touched faced the approaching, spreading, bloating war and sucked a deep breath.

The battle was torn into two sides.

One side was composed of humans, but with stronger builds and larger sizes, their war-axes tinged with yellow. Their bodies were riddled with tattoos, their beards long and sometimes tied with finger bones or beasts’ teeth.

Allied with these fearsome creatures were red-skinned men and women, blood-red eyes, each of their attacks causing blood to erupt. But also a couple of hooded men wearing death-like cloaks.

They were fearsome, yet Rea felt like these beings were losing.

She looked at the other side, trying to stop her heart from running out of her mouth.

The opponent was a mix of too many creatures. There were dragons, bone dragons, wolves and dwarves, beasts with blades as hands, and still others with the mix of many beasts at the same time.

That was not what shocked Rea. The thing that unnerved her was the fact that once one of them died, they all regained another form. A form of a humanoid being with grey skin, and hair like threads.

But then, how could they assume such monstrous shapes while fighting?

Rea didn’t have time to answer the question as the war reached her.

She screamed atop her lungs, and raised her hand to block a sweeping war-axe coming down on her.

A gray barrier appeared in front of her, yet it cracked and shattered instantly the moment the attack landed.

Rea barely managed to use the shockwave of the attack to push herself and Kaden away from it.

But in that action, the God-Touched lost her left arm. She shrieked even more, yelling and crying and sobbing, barely stopping herself from writhing on the ground as a gargantuan wolf stretched its jaw wide open, about to swallow them whole.

Rea saw absolutely nothing, her eyes blinded by blood splattered on them.

However, in a twist of luck and skill, she used the body of another monster as a shield.

The wolf snapped inside its jaw the head of the crimson-yellow bird, causing a shriek of outrage to erupt.

The battlefield was chaos, and Rea witnessed power at a level never before seen bleeding through the sky relentlessly.

She felt like a mortal witnessing a battle between gods. And for such blasphemy, only death awaited her.

The God-Touched felt like abandoning everything. Her left arm was no more, blood and flesh spilling continuously down.

She was losing blood faster than ever before, and knew by then that she would die.

That thought sent inside her mind a sharp realization that made her cry even more.

They said only at death’s door does one realize what truly mattered.

Rea understood that at that instant.

Her father... since when did she ever see him again?

Was she going to die just like that? Unable to bear the promise she made to him?

No. No. No.

’I need you!’ Rea sobbed, the pain so overwhelming she felt like she was dead without being dead.

She needed her father, or at worst she needed someone. Someone who could help her, and if she was indeed going to die...

"Don’t let me die unseen!" Rea shrieked atop her lungs, then lost all energy before falling down beside Kaden.

At the left and right, like jaws closing on themselves, a bearded warrior and an immense white bear were running toward them, ready to send them to the afterlife.

Rea saw this, and tried to get closer with Kaden, seeking at least a kind of warmth before dying.

She reached her only right hand, and succeeded at least in grasping the hand of Kaden. The cocoon finally completely receded.

And with the bloody, death-filled touch of Rea, Kaden’s crimson star-lit eyes flickered wide open instantly.

And yet, the first thing he witnessed was a large man with a bloodied beard chopping down on Rea, whose tear-filled face was smiling at him in sudden relief,

"Ka—!"

She didn’t manage to finish as her head flew away, blood gushing out, drenching the face of Kaden.

Kaden lay there in absolute shock, frozen and stunned, his eyes so wide it looked like they would pop out of their sockets.

He mechanically lowered his eyes, watching the headless body of Rea, and lost his mind.

—End of Chapter 443—