Gun of Ashes

The pale flames were burning, and within the gray-white ruins, two different sounds were rising and falling.

Roger gasped heavily, clutching the hideous wound on his chest. The great sword had nearly torn half his body apart, burning bones and organs in the fierce fire, yet the undying flesh stubbornly proliferated, pulling and healing.

His vision was stained red by blood, turning blurry. He couldn’t see the path ahead clearly but could still sense Lorenzo’s escalating intensity of erosion. To kill the demon, he eventually stepped into the darkness.

Just a little further, just a bit closer...

Roger smiled, for he would show Lorenzo the greatest existence in the world.

But soon, the approaching sounds interrupted Roger’s thoughts. The sounds were complex — the noise of burning flames, the friction of metal dragging on the ground, and low panting; vaguely, the howling of a pack of wolves could be heard as if hungry wolves crawled out from the shadows.

He propped himself up with a long spike and stood up, his figure still a little shaky, but Roger could continue.

As Lorenzo speculated, this body was merely a temporary vessel for Roger. Under the dominion of consciousness, this body’s degree of mutation was far less powerful than the original body, which became his limitation. As for where the real Roger was...

”You look really good now, Holmes.”

Roger wiped his face, seeing clearly the beast-like Lorenzo, who now looked no different from a demon, like a black wolf clad in armor, hunting its prey by following blood trails.

But the next second, Roger’s smiling face froze in place, as a delayed explosion slowly reached his ears.

The black wolf gripped the great sword, its legs crashing into the ground, moving at a speed as fast as a meteor, bringing with it a stern killing aura, arriving in an instant.

The overwhelming presence of death captured Roger in an instant. He hadn’t felt this way in a long time, being gazed upon by death. He immediately made a move, trying to dodge to one side.

Lorenzo put all his strength into this sword. At the moment of sword release, he could no longer change the blade’s path. As long as Roger avoided this fatal slash at that time, he could continue fighting back.

Little did he know, in Lorenzo’s vision, Roger had already made a move; one Roger stood in place, while the other had already leaped into action, dodging to one side while simultaneously growing layers of iron armor to encase the still unhealed wound.

The illusory vision dissipated, and the real world began to move forward.

The great sword cleaved through the layers of heat waves, and just as expected, Roger dodged.

In his sights, Lorenzo was falling with the weight of a thousand pounds toward his side; Roger successfully evaded the attack, but suddenly, an even more piercing wind howled fiercely.

The great sword should have deeply embedded into the ground under its massive force and inertia. But under Lorenzo’s control, its power was forcibly twisted by his arm, causing Lorenzo’s arm to let out a bone-chilling crack, muscles tearing, bones shattering. Yet, by relying on these sacrifices, the great sword swung up into a massive crescent, sweeping through flames and dust, slashing a vacuum all around.

The meteor approaches, and the great sword vanquishes evil.

The iron armor hadn’t completely covered yet and was shattered, with the broken hard material stabbing into the flesh beneath.

The blood sprayed was torn into countless tiny droplets by the high-speed slash, and these crimson beads densely formed a thin blood mist, which then evaporated into nothingness under the high temperature.

”Holmo...”

Roger’s words were yet to be spoken when the large, hideous wound burst open through the broken chest armor with a brief delay.

The great sword slashed open his chest, with the wound extending from the left shoulder all the way to the right side of the waist and abdomen, further expanding the previous injury, losing the support of bones and muscles, his upper body leaned back powerlessly.

Under the threat of death, scarlet tendrils frantically danced upwards, attempting to weave the wound, but in a short period, Roger, relying on this current vessel, simply couldn’t do these. He could only faintly regain mobility amidst entanglement, but at this time, Lorenzo’s second strike was already gathering momentum.

Too slow, everything seemed too slow.

In Lorenzo’s eyes, the whole world had lost its color, with everything enveloped in blazing white flames. Yet, due to varying distances and light levels, the brightness of these burning flames differed, and it was from these gray, white, and black that the fiercely burning world was constructed as he moved along it.

Lorenzo could see Roger’s struggles, countless of him starting with this body, making different moves, the burning silhouettes disappearing one by one, leaving only the one correct action.

So clear, so swift, was this what Lawrence could see back then? No wonder he was so defenseless in his presence.

Lorenzo’s twisted, broken arm bled, unlike Roger, Lorenzo hadn’t yet touched the authority called Yanar. His self-healing ability was still limited, so more heavy armor was generated, like fixed plaster, firmly covering his arm.

The swinging great sword embedded into the ground, stopping steadily; then, Lorenzo’s injured right arm let go of the sword handle. He quickly turned around, left arm gripping the great sword, raising it while spinning, once more lifting the great sword.

The great sword rose straight up and then fell like a judge’s guillotine.

In the booming roar, the flames and dust scattered, the gray-white vision reaching its limit, fading away. The world in Lorenzo’s eyes reverted to its colorful state, followed by the ground beneath him starting to shake and collapse.