Levi stared at the golden ashes that rested on the pedestal, his voice flat.
"Come out. I know you're in there." The silence pressed back against him. "Don't bother pretending. I felt you the moment I was being reborn."
A lie— he hadn't felt a thing during his rebirth.
"Playing hard to get, are we?". He turned his gaze to Cecilia, who was still knocked out cold. "I wonder what would happen if the inheritor of the Second Heaven was to suddenly die. In your presence, no less."
Levi turned back to the ashes with a sly grin. "I wonder how your mother would react." Still, there was no movement from the ashes.
Feigning annoyance, he gave the order to the leech.
"Kill her".
The leech glided from its position, where it had been curled around his legs. The faint tapping of its tiny legs against the stone floor was the only sound.
'I will just kill her and then use the power of the sixteen pieces to revive her.' He couldn't kill Cecilia permanently; she was his only way out of this realm.
By forcing the Golden Crow out, he planned to bind it with one of his pieces, along with Cecilia. This was the fifth stage of his plan: blackmail.
With a mental command, he slowed the leech's movement. The creature sluggishly wrapped around Cecilia and gradually started to crush her, but the ashes still showed no movement.
Disappointed, Levi changed the order. The leech instantly became a blur and dug its head into Cecilia's body, causing blood to gush out.
'She killed you without battling an eyelid. I am just returning the favor'. Levi told himself.
Suddenly, the air around him grew sharp and dry. His skin tightened, and his eyes stung until he was forced to blink.
With a sharp motion, Levi instantly dispelled the leech, watching it dissolve into frosted light— just in time.
The ashes erupted. From them surged a colossal crow, its wings draped in golden fire. Its body was nearly one and a half meters tall, and its three blazing legs slammed onto the stone. The sheer, fierce heat radiating from it forced Levi to stumble back.
The Golden Crow was here.
With a single beat of its wings, the Crow shot toward Cecilia's mangled body.
"Checkmate!". Levi roared.
His spectral chessboard expanded, freezing the Golden Crow and Cecilia's spirit in place. He exhaled, relief flooding him, and then grinned wide. He launched two pawn pieces forward, their glassy bodies sliding to encase both figures.
The chessboard shattered into drifting shards of black and white mist.
But the pawns did not solidify. They hovered, flickering, unstable, refusing to take form.
Levi's grin faltered. "What's happening?!".
Just then, Levi saw something fall out of Cecilia's torn clothes. It was a folded piece of paper. It suddenly opened up into a paper covered with cryptic markings. The paper instantly wrapped around Cecilia's struggling form.
An overwhelming, formidable power settled on Levi's avatar. Instantly, all his chess pieces— including the two flickering pawns— ran away from the pressure, freeing both Cecilia and the Golden Crow.
The markings on the paper lit up with a brilliant violet color. Before the Crow could flee, the markings slithered off the paper and into its body.
The paper began to absorb the Golden Crow just as it had done to Cecilia.
Then, the paper folded itself back into a plain piece of parchment. Levi stared at it, dumbfounded.
Just as suddenly, the paper opened up again, and the Crow came back out. This time, its golden eyes had changed to a ominous violet color. It snatched the paper in its beak and shot straight out of Levi's soul canvas.
The resulting shockwave was like glass shattering inside Levi's skull. He coughed golden-red blood, his eyes rolling back as his physical body crumpled, unconscious, on the chamber floor.