THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 367: 367. A MINUTE TO KILL

The battlefield descended into complete madness with Rika trying to kill Sagiri as fast as possible. Every passing second brought another deafening crack from the thirteen pillars as fractures raced wildly across their surfaces, and with every crack Rika went mad. Her attacks were becoming more reckless and lethal.

Crimson light poured through them in violent streams while the formation groaned under the unbearable pressure of the Archive trapped within it.

Sagiri felt every heartbeat of it, but he could no longer spare a glance.

Rika had become a relentless storm. Her movements had lost all restraint, her beast-like body throwing itself at him with terrifying ferocity.

Nokai clashed against her corrupted blade again and again, sparks exploding between black and crimson steel as the floating weapons assaulted him from every direction.

He could no longer attack. The formation had taken all his strength. He could only try to move as fast as Salka. He was completely cornered. Every ounce of his concentration went into surviving.

He twisted beneath one blade, knocked another aside, ducked beneath a sweeping claw, only for a second claw to catch him before he could recover.

”Die!” Rika roared. The beastly paw slammed into his side with enough force to shatter stone. Sagiri’s body was launched through the air like a ragdoll before crashing violently into one of the crimson pillars.

The entire formation shook from the impact. Cracks burst across the pillar beneath him as the force echoed through the remaining twelve.

Sagiri slid down the stone and dropped to one knee.

A violent cough escaped him, and blood splashed across the crimson-lit ground. His vision blurred for a heartbeat. Across the battlefield, Rika saw her chance. Her monstrous grin stretched wider than ever.

”I’ve won! Now you die,” she screamed. Every floating blade turned toward Sagiri at once. The corrupted weapon in her hand pulsed with crimson light as she thrust it forward.

All of the blades shot toward him simultaneously, converging upon his heart from every direction.

At that exact instant, the formation reached its limit. A sound unlike anything either of them had ever heard tore through the battlefield. It was as though the world itself had cracked. Every pillar shattered at once. Crimson light exploded outward in a blinding wave while the Archive, imprisoned for so long, erupted free in an endless torrent of darkness.

The two events happened simultaneously. Rika’s killing strike descended. The formation exploded. And the battlefield vanished beneath an ocean of black.

Darkness exploded outward with the collapse of the formation, swallowing the entire battlefield in an instant.

The cliffs vanished and the sky disappeared. Even the crimson glow of Rika’s weapons was consumed until the world resembled a bottomless void.

For several long heartbeats, neither of them could be seen.

The darkness became so absolute that it felt less like night and more like existence itself had ceased. Then it began to move. Slowly at first, the endless black started folding inward, drawn toward a single point.

Faster and faster it spiraled until the entire ocean of darkness rushed toward one small point.

Sagiri.

The ground trembled beneath the force of it. Every remaining strand of the Archive returned to its master in a violent torrent, disappearing into his body as though it had never left. The air grew impossibly heavy.

When the last trace vanished, Sagiri stood alone where the storm had ended. He somehow looked darker than before, as though the shadows clung to him.

His head remained lowered and his back slightly hunched over. He then finally moved.

When he finally looked up, his eyes were completely black. Not merely dark, but utterly devoid of color or light.

The sight froze Rika where she stood.

Then, slowly but gradually, crimson ignited within them, burning away the darkness until his familiar blood-red gaze returned, fiercer than it had ever been.

At the same moment, Nokai screamed.

The black blade burst apart in a violent shriek, splitting once... then again... and again, until twenty identical black blades hovered around Sagiri in perfect silence, their points aimed toward Rika like predators scenting blood.

The confidence drained from her face.

For the first time since the battle began, genuine fear took hold. She instinctively took a step backward. Sagiri watched her without expression. His voice, when it came, was quiet enough to make it even more terrifying.

”I gave you an entire minute to kill me, Aunt; it was more than you gave our clan before you wiped them out.” One of the twenty blades slowly rotated toward her throat. Then another. Then all of them moved as one.

”But you didn’t.” He took a single step forward. The ground beneath his foot fractured.

”Now...” His crimson eyes locked onto hers with absolute finality. ”...it’s your time to die.” Sagiri said.

”You are still poisoned by my blades... you will be be dead either way.” Rika snarled.

Sagiri chuckled

”Yes I am poisoned but dying from it... You are stupid to even think so, Aunt.” Sagiri said.

”It can’t be. The archive should have been crippled completely” Rika said.

”It could have worked on me months ago before I got the relics... now it will just weaken me for a day or two or a week but you won’t be alive that long

Sagiri sighed and just waved his hand.

The instant the final word left Sagiri’s mouth, ten of the twenty black blades vanished. Rika reacted fast, weaving through the blades to escape Sagiri’s attack. She was first indeed and being a nfolu trained in the desert her movents are fluid. Rika’s instincts screamed a heartbeat before the first blade appeared at her shoulder.

She twisted violently, the edge missing her neck by the width of a finger before burying itself into the cliff behind her with a deafening boom. She had no time to breathe. A second blade materialized beneath her ribs.

She kicked off the ground, flipping over it as it carved a trench through the stone. The third came from above. The fourth from directly behind. The fifth crossed the paths of the others, forcing her body into impossible angles just to remain alive. Every dodge flowed into another before her feet could even touch the ground.

She was a blur

She bounced from boulder to boulder, twisted through impossibly narrow gaps, rolled beneath one blade only to arch backward as another screamed inches above her face. Explosions of shattered rock echoed across the valley as each missed strike gouged enormous scars into the landscape. Dust and debris filled the air, reducing the battlefield to chaos.

Rika’s breathing became ragged.

Sweat mixed with blood as several blades grazed her arms and legs, each near miss reminding her that a single mistake would be fatal. Yet the assault refused to slow. The blades hunted her with terrifying precision, changing direction in mid-flight as though they possessed minds of their own, relentlessly cutting off every escape route she found.

The remaining ten blades floated silently behind him while he watched the chase unfold with cold, unwavering eyes. Rika was fighting someone who had already decided exactly how she was going to die.

Sagiri was in no rush.