THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 368: 368: NEW ARRIVAL

The Archive exploded upward in countless tendrils, wrapping around Rika’s wrists, ankles, waist, and throat before she could react.

Sagiri was about done with her.

It was time she died, and he wanted to look in her eyes as he finished her off.

She crashed hard onto one knee as the restraints tightened with merciless force. Every attempt to move only caused the tendrils to constrict further. Her claws dug furrows into the stone, but she could not break free.

Sagiri finally moved.

He raised a single hand, and the ten hunting blades immediately abandoned their pursuit, reversing direction in perfect formation. They returned to him one after another, joining the ten that had never left his side until all twenty hovered silently behind him like a shield.

He walked toward Rika without haste. Each footstep echoed through the shattered battlefield.

Then, with a slight movement of his fingers, the Archive lifted her completely off the ground. The tendrils tightened around her throat, choking the breath from her lungs as she clawed desperately at the darkness crushing her neck.

Slowly, inexorably, she was dragged toward him until their faces were only inches apart. Sagiri looked into her terrified eyes without a trace of satisfaction. There was only cold finality.

”Now, Aunt...” he said quietly, ”...are you ready to meet our tribe?”

Behind him, all twenty blades slowly rose into the air.

Their points aligned perfectly with Rika’s body, each aimed at a vital point. The air itself seemed to hold its breath. She still held that defiant look in her eyes, but Sagiri could smell her fear as clear as day now. Sagiri closed his hand. The blades began to move.

All 20 were not necessary o kill her but Sagiri was not planning o hold back.

BUM!

Then suddenly something struck him.

The impact came from nowhere.

A violent force slammed into his side hard enough to throw him several meters across the shattered ground. For the first time that day, Sagiri’s eyes widened in genuine surprise.

Impossible.

He should have sensed the attack long before it reached him. The Archive released Rika as his concentration broke. He recovered almost instantly, twisting in midair before landing on one knee.

Nokai and all twenty blades snapped back into formation around him. He looked up. A figure stood where Rika had been. Cloaked entirely in black, impossible to distinguish as man or woman, the stranger held Rika’s limp, half-conscious body over one shoulder as though she weighed nothing.

Their eyes met for the briefest instant. Then the figure vanished. They accelerated so violently that the air detonated where they had stood, leaving only a blur racing across the ruined cliffs. Sagiri shot after them without hesitation. The ground exploded beneath every step as he pursued at full speed, crossing canyons and shattered rock in seconds.

The twenty blades screamed through the air behind him, searching, hunting. He caught fleeting glimpses of the fleeing silhouette several times, each one lasting only a heartbeat before it disappeared again. Faster. Always just beyond reach. Minutes later, he came to an abrupt halt atop a lonely cliff overlooking an endless sea of broken stone.

Silence greeted him.

No scent.

No footsteps.

No lingering presence.

It was as though the stranger had dissolved into the world itself. Sagiri slowly lowered Nokai. His breathing remained steady, but his eyes narrowed. That should not have happened. No one had ever approached him that closely without the Archive warning him.

He dared say that no even Salka could hide from him entirely now but yet...

Who was that?

No one had ever escaped him once he chose to pursue. Yet whoever or whatever that figure had been had done both. For the first time since leaving the N’folu homeland, Sagiri felt something he had not expected to feel.

Confusion.

Sagiri took one step forward, then another, before his legs suddenly gave way beneath him. He dropped onto one knee with a heavy thud, one hand slamming against the cracked stone to keep himself from collapsing completely.

A violent cough tore through his chest. Blood splashed across the ground in dark crimson streaks.

”Damn...” he muttered through gritted teeth. The shallow wound left by Rika’s corrupted blade burned as though molten iron had been poured directly into his veins.

Whatever poison had entered his body was unlike anything he had encountered before.

It was not merely attacking his flesh. It was agitating the relics themselves. Deep within him, the Archive churned violently, its power fluctuating in erratic waves as though struggling against an invading force. Even Nokai trembled faintly in response.

Another cough wracked his body, forcing a second mouthful of blood from his lips. He clutched his chest as a sharp pain spread through every limb.

This poison should have killed him already. Any ordinary Keeper would have been dead long before now. Only the Archive’s relentless vitality and the relics themselves were keeping his heart beating, but even they were paying a price.

His breathing became shallow.

”Not... now...” he whispered, forcing himself upright before another wave of agony bent him forward again.

He needed to recover. Not for weeks. Not even for months. A few days would be enough if he reached the right place.

His crimson eyes lifted toward the distant north. Galka. Beneath it lay the Endless Pool. The northern counterpart to the sacred waters beneath the South. If anywhere could purge whatever had been injected into him, it would be there. And while he was there... he needed answers.

Senraki would have them, or at the very least know where to begin looking. Another cough escaped him, thicker this time, blood running between his fingers as he pressed harder against his chest.

The poison was spreading faster than he liked. He could feel it gnawing at the relics, disturbing the delicate balance within him.

Remaining here was no longer an option. With visible effort, Sagiri forced himself back to his feet. His vision swam for a moment before steadying.

He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, turned toward the north, and took a slow step forward. Every movement felt heavier than the last, but he refused to stop. He had survived too much to fall to poison.

Not before settling the debt that still waited for him.

Zaira, where are you? Sagiri’s vision swarm.

Damn!!