Chapter 83: Sliced Pain

Chapter 83: Sliced PainA giant, Elias felt the weight in his hand—about two or three pounds, heavier than expected. It had a hand crank on one side and a jagged metal spike at the end, the kind meant to puncture tin lids. It looked old, the wooden handle slightly warped, the metal worn but still sharp.

He stared at it. Then at Dot. Then back at the can opener.

"...Dot’s," he said slowly, "you realize we’re fighting for our lives here, right?"

Dot puffed up, indignant. "And you realize that thing can rip through reinforced steel cans, right? You said you needed to break through a hard shell—what’s tougher than 50-year-old survival rations?"

Elias opened his mouth, his mind still trying to process the sheer absurdity of his situation. "Where the hell did you even learn about this!?"

Dot’s voice rang out instantly. "It was in the book—"

"Hey! Focus!" Junjio’s voice cut in, sharp and urgent.

Elias barely had time to react before Vincent loomed overhead, his presence heavy, his body still radiating the heat of his molten armor. The twisted smirk on his face only grew as he cracked his knuckles.

"Now that your little military friends have been wiped out," Vincent said, his voice dripping with arrogance, "I can freely rip your shard out and retreat before backup arrives."

Elias took a step back, but it was too late. Sёarch* The Nôvelƒire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Vincent’s hand shot out, gripping Elias by the throat and lifting him clean off the ground. His vision blurred for a second, his feet dangling in the air. He struggled, fingers clawing at Vincent’s wrist, but the grip was like iron.



A few feet away, Yui stood, chest heaving from exhaustion. He watched but didn’t move.

What the hell is he doing? Elias thought through the haze, then it clicked—Yui was waiting for something.

Elias had been the one to say he had a plan.

He’s trusting me to do something right now.

Vincent’s grip tightened, cutting off his airflow, but Elias’s mind raced. He remembered their last fight—a bright flash of light to Vincent’s face had worked wonders.

But his vision ability didn’t suggest using light this time.

Why?

He felt a sudden shift in weight as Junjio tumbled off his back, hitting the ground hard.

Vincent hesitated. His fingers tensed, and then he grabbed at Elias’s shoulder and knee, his frustration boiling over.

His voice rose in confusion. "Where the hell is your shard at!?"

Elias almost laughed.

Of course. Vincent couldn’t see it.

The shard was under his rib cage.

He decided to bluff.

"Shard?" Elias rasped. "What’s that?"

Vincent’s eyes burned with fury. "Don’t play with me! I know you have one! You have to!"

Elias’s lungs burned, his vision flickering at the edges. He needed a way out—and fast.

"Junijo!" he shouted, voice straining under Vincent’s grip. "Teleport us to the highest point you can see!"

Junijo’s body trembled, his limbs heavy as if weighed down by iron chains. His face was pale, smeared with dust and streaks of blood. He gritted his teeth, eyes half-lidded from exhaustion, but his gaze remained fixed on Elias—still dangling by the throat in Vincent’s grip.

His hands quivered, barely able to rise from the ground. The muscles in his arms twitched, refusing to cooperate, but he forced them up, his fingers spreading as if clawing at the air itself.

A faint, metallic hum vibrated around him, rippling through the shattered landscape. The air bent and wavered, as though reality itself were being twisted out of shape.

His Ikona, still perched weakly on his shoulder, raised its tiny arm, mimicking his movement. Its body shimmered, the swirling hues of purple and orange flashing in rapid succession.

The ground beneath Junijo fractured, thin lines of light creeping out from his fingertips and racing outward like cracks in glass. The energy hummed louder, a pulse of invisible force rippling through the air.

His shoulders shook, his jaw clenched, and then—

Reality split open.

A circle of shimmering light burst into existence above him, swirling and contorting as its edges flickered erratically. It wasn’t a simple gateway. The inside of the portal warped and curved, a reflection of a place far above them, the clouds swirling from a bird’s-eye view.



The pull of the portal’s gravity bent the space around it, pebbles and dust rising from the ground before being sucked up into the vortex. The air grew colder, thinner, as if the atmosphere itself were being drawn in.

Junijo’s face went pale, his shoulders sagging. His fingers twitched, struggling to hold the shape of the portal.

The golden light from Elias’s vision flickered around the edges, guiding the opening as it widened.

Above them, the sky seemed to ripple, the top of a distant structure becoming visible through the portal’s distorted window.

And then the pull grew stronger, a howling wind dragging everything nearby towards the portal.

Vincent’s eyes widened, his grip loosening for just a second as his body leaned instinctively toward the vortex.

Elias felt the sudden shift in gravity, his body jerking upward as the pull from above grew stronger. He didn’t think—he reacted, swinging the heavy can opener at Vincent’s wrist with all his strength.

The jagged edge punctured the molten armor, tearing through the weakened seam where the stone had cracked earlier.

Vincent roared in pain, his fingers releasing their hold on Elias’s throat.

With a sharp gasp, Elias sucked in a breath, his lungs burning. He kicked off Vincent’s chest, using the force to launch himself backward.

His body went weightless as the pull of the portal took over.

Elias felt the sheer drop in his stomach before his brain even caught up to what had happened.

The world around him had exploded into open sky.

There were no buildings, no ledges, nothing but the sheer hundreds of feet of air beneath him as gravity pulled at his body. The wind ripped past his face, his limbs flailing for control as his instincts kicked in. He twisted, trying to stabilize midair, but the rapid rotation sent his vision spinning.

Then came the hard yank on his shirt.

Vincent’s clawed grip dug into the fabric, his voice a mixture of rage and confusion as he bellowed, "What the hell did you do?!"

Elias gritted his teeth, fighting against the rush of wind slamming into his face. I didn’t mean this high high! he thought, his blackened irises still glowing with the single red dot in the center.

Through the chaos, a mechanical voice rang in his head.

Levels too low to solve. Energy reserves depleted. Suggest retreat.

Elias barely had time to process the words. Dodging midair, he shifted his weight, narrowly avoiding Vincent’s fist cutting through the sky. His body twisted with the momentum, but the altitude gave him no ground to regain control.

What was that voice? he thought. Dot’s, is that you?

Her response came quickly inside his mind. "No! I think it has something to do with the crystal inside you! We don’t have access to everything yet, and my memories are messed up, so I can’t tell what it means! But what do we do?!"

Elias didn’t answer—because he had no damn clue.

Vincent, still gripping him tight, suddenly yanked him in closer, his fingers digging into Elias’s shoulder like a vice.

"I’ll squeeze the life out of you if I have to," Vincent snarled, his crimson eyes blazing, "and use your corpse as a landing pad."

Elias let out a strangled gasp, his shoulder screaming in pain as the tendons compressed under Vincent’s grip. They broke through the clouds, the thick vapor whipping past them, and Elias felt his stomach tighten.

Another twenty seconds, and they would hit the ground.



Dot’s voice flickered in again. "Elias, we need a plan—NOW!"

He sucked in a shaky breath through gritted teeth. "Dot’s—I need you to crawl onto his back and create as much black powder as you can!"

Dot hesitated. "Black powder? You mean—gunpowder?"

"Just do it! Don’t worry about me—I’ve got nothing to worry about!"

Vincent’s grip tightened further, his hand snapping over Elias’s mouth. His breath was hot, his voice practically growling in Elias’s ear.

"Is that really so?"

His fingers dug deeper into Elias’s shoulder, the pain turning sharp, electric.

Vincent smirked. "I guess a dead man has nothing to worry about, huh?"

"Nosey! Do something about that damned bug-looking Ikona!" Vincent snarled, still holding Elias in a crushing grip.

A panicked voice rang back. "I... I can’t really do anything up in the air! I don’t have any material to work with!"

Before Vincent could respond, a thick black cloud exploded between them. The world around them became a chaotic swirl of free-falling powder, the grains dispersing in every direction, coating them both in a blinding, suffocating haze.

Vincent’s body tensed as his vision vanished into the abyss of swirling dust.