.Chapter 10 – When Gods Bleed (Expanded)
The demon commander stopped a few steps away from me.
Each footstep crushed debris into powder. The sound was slow, deliberate—ritualistic, savoring every second of my impending obliteration.
The pressure around him was suffocating. Not mana. Not aggression. Authority.
The kind that makes the world bend, makes reality itself hesitate, makes bones ache before contact.
I tried to move.
Nothing.
My nervous system screamed. Commands surged through my spine, down to fingers that twitched uselessly. My arms were twisted at impossible angles. My ribs had collapsed inward. Every breath shredded my lungs. Each inhale felt like inhaling shattered glass soaked in fire.
So this was it.
Not a blaze of glory. Not a heroic last stand. Just broken, discarded, waiting to be finished.
The commander tilted his head. He studied me like a weapon too cracked to ever fire again.
"Pathetic," he said, calm. His voice wasn't loud—but it pressed inside my skull harder than the screech ever had.
"That power… wasted inside a fractured vessel."
Behind him, the battlefield burned.
The village had vanished. Homes were molten frames. Streets split open like veins. Shadows of Kiran's azure afterimages clashed with demons. Somewhere beyond the smoke, the Azure Knight continued fighting—each strike flickering like a dying star.
Hina and Yumi lay unconscious near the shattered fountain, their mana faint but alive.
Barely.
My vision blurred red.
Move.
Move!
If the commander reached them…
A low vibration passed through my spine.
Not pain.
Memory.
"If you hesitate… everyone dies."
Kenji's voice.
Not screaming. Not raging. Quiet. Resigned.
Something stirred in the ruins of our shared soul. Battered. Cracked. Not extinguished.
"You're still here," I whispered internally.
No answer.
The commander raised his arm. Black sigils ignited along his forearm, folding reality inward. Space compressed into a single killing vector aimed directly at my head.
"This world will remember you," he said. "As nothing."
The strike descended.
And then—
Crack.
The sound came from inside me. My heart stuttered once—twice—then slammed into rhythm like a war drum. Pain exploded across my nerves as something reconnected. Not healed. Reinforced.
I coughed blood and laughed—a wet, broken sound that made the commander pause.
"Sorry," I rasped, forcing my head up just enough to meet his eyes. "I don't think I have permission to die yet."
The world snapped. Mana—no, reality itself—flooded my body. Not wild. Not uncontrolled.
Precise.
Kenji didn't take control. He aligned with me.
Fight smart. I'll supply power. You decide where it goes.
The commander frowned. For the first time.
I slammed my hand into the ground.
The earth didn't respond with brute force.
It obeyed.
Stone folded inward beneath me, forming a compressed plate that launched my body sideways just as the commander's strike pulverized the fountain behind me. The shockwave flattened the remaining buildings.
I rolled. Bones screamed. I forced myself upright using a jagged pillar.
"You adjusted," the commander observed, narrowing eyes.
I wiped blood from my mouth. Vision doubled, then stabilized as Kenji reinforced my optic nerves with raw mana.
"Yeah," I said. "I stopped panicking."
He vanished. Not speed—displacement.
I barely twisted in time. His fist grazed my shoulder instead of my spine, ripping through armor and flesh like paper. I screamed—not from pain—but from the pressure shredding reality around the impact.
Before he could follow up, azure light detonated between us.
Kiran crashed down like a falling star.
His armor cracked, one eye bleeding. Veins of blazing azure light spread across his body. He didn't speak. He simply attacked. Each swing of his blade tore chunks of space apart.
The commander blocked once. Twice. On the third collision, the ground collapsed.
The entire square dropped several meters, mana pressure crushing stone into dust. I was thrown again, slamming into a half-standing wall.
Kiran landed beside me, breathing hard.
"You're alive," he said grimly.
"Temporarily," I replied.
The commander stepped out of the dust cloud. His body steamed. Dark energy ran in veins along his arms—but his expression… amused.
"A human. A knight. And a broken god-child sharing a corpse," he said. "This battlefield is entertaining."
Kiran raised his blade.
"Kenji," he said without looking at me. "You're not controlling that power."
"I know," I answered.
"But you're guiding it."
"Yes."
"That's enough," Kiran said. "Stay behind me."
I shook my head.
"Won't work. He's reading your patterns."
The commander smiled wider.
"Correct."
He moved again.
This time, I moved first.
I didn't attack. I disrupted. Kenji's power surged—not outward, but inward—compressing my core mana until it screamed. I released it sideways, bending the commander's trajectory just enough that his strike missed Kiran's throat by centimeters.
Kiran didn't waste it. Azure light pierced through the commander's shoulder, freezing demonic flesh solid.
The scream that followed wasn't pain—it was rage.
The commander exploded backward, tearing free of the frozen limb and landing atop the ruined chapel.
"You adapt quickly," he snarled. "But you don't understand what you're facing."
The sky darkened further. The other two presences—the massive auras—shifted. Watching. Waiting.
I felt it then.
This wasn't an invasion. It was a test.
Kenji's presence weakened.
We can't win, he admitted quietly.
But we can survive.
"Then we make him hesitate," I whispered.
The commander raised his remaining arm, gathering energy dense enough to bend light.
"I grow bored," he said. "Die screaming."
Before he could release it—
A green glow flared behind us.
Yumi.
She stood trembling, blood running from her nose, hands shaking, pressing them together.
"Stop," she whispered.
The glow intensified—not healing. Binding. Roots of light erupted from the ground, wrapping around the commander's legs, slowing him just enough.
It was nothing.
But it was enough.
Kiran roared and charged, azure blade blazing brighter than ever.
I forced every remaining drop of mana into one calculation. Not power. Timing.
"Now!" I screamed.
Kiran struck. I released. Kenji burned.
The collision split the sky.
When the light faded, the commander was gone. Retreating, not destroyed. Roots lay scorched. The battlefield fell silent.
Not peaceful.
Exhausted.
I collapsed to my knees, face-first into the ash.
Kenji's presence dimmed to an ember.
"You did well," he said softly. "Next time… it'll cost more."
Darkness closed in.
The last thing I saw was Kiran standing over me, his silhouette framed against a broken sky. Not looking at me like a threat—but like a weapon finally awakened.