Born in Blood

Chapter 423 Forgiveness

The two landed opposite to each other.

Though, Usan couldn't stop.

With every second of staying idle, the skeletons below his feet pulled him down.

He had to keep moving his legs and swinging his arms.

But the feelings of bugs crawling in and out of him was relentless. Even with his shadows, it did little to protect him from the morbid sensations.

Anger.

More rage.

Anger was the kryptonite of fear. It heightened one's urge to act before they ever got a chance to act again.

If anyone else had been in his place, they'd succumb and scream from the top of their lungs.

Not him, though.

With newfound strength, Usan turned around and shot at the Empress again.

Strangely, the wide gash on her shoulder hadn't healed. It was still leaking with black blood, and it made no effort at reforming.

'She can't heal,' Usan realized, then spared a glance at his own body. Wounds and bruises weren't healing. 'Neither can I.'

That was a grim realization.

Although this put both bodies' healing factors on equal footing, Usan's frame was not as rigid and powerful as Rhea's.

Wounding her was going to be hard.

The symphony and choir was tenser now. Louder and faster, rising to a climax.

Abruptly, the bones below Usan's feet were melting away, turning into hardened liquid.

Usan jumped and wrapped his shadows around the wrist of a giant, but it was melting like a towering candle shaft.

The floor was lava!

The Empress sank alongside her melting bones, sending Usan a faint smile before disappearing below the white sea.

Inwardly, Usan cursed up a storm. The hand of the giant was sinking like a broken ship, and it would take him along with it.

Frustration.

Rage.

Anger.

He was tired of being dragged along. Treated like a lesser and looked down upon.

His father was a prime example of that. His entire family, as a matter of fact.

Thinking of them did nothing to quell the rage in his soul.

Enough!

All of Usan's shadows condensed around a shadow-sword.

His shadows were no longer being divided between offense or defense.

All of it had gone to offense, transforming into a single spear that burned with darkness and swirled with shadows.

This left him basically defenseless.

Just as the final fingers of the hand were going to drift under the white sea, Usan leapt into the air.

WHOOSH!

Then, he hurled the spear.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The spear let out a sharp hiss as it split the air, then made contact with the thick white sea, booming with tides of unbelievable power.

Instantly, several layers of the white sea were peeled open. And as his eyes brushed over it, he quickly spotted the Empress herself, taken aback by the sudden move.

She attempted to swim deeper into the waters, turning tail like a worm running from the gardener's hand.

As if he'd let her.

Although Usan couldn't teleport himself, the same couldn't be said with switching places with an inanimate object.

He'd done the same with his Shadow Clones.

…But since the Empress had denied him their usage, she thought the switching ability was blocked out, too!

She thought wrong.

Usan switched places with his spear, then immediately hurled an empowered shadow-blade at the Empress' back.

CHING!

It struck.

The shadow-blade pierced through her back and spread corrosive roots on her muscular skin.

Despite that, she tried digging deeper into the white sea, but Usan switched with the shadow-blade!

Usan locked his legs around the Mother of Abomination's waist, and his hands around her neck, tightening them as hard as he physically could.

Rhea bit down on his arm, sending another series of traumatizing images in Usan's head.

A moment later, she ripped off the limb entirely.

He almost let go. The pain was too much to bear. Too much for the human mind.

Almost.

Instead, Usan's Inner World washed over the two like a thin wave, transporting both into a void separate to the one they were already in.

The shock visible on the Empress' face was a delight to Usan that trumped many.

Now, they were in his world.

The Empress ducked and headbutted Usan as she rose to her feet, shattering a few of his teeth on impact and breaking his shadow mask in half.

He lost his grip.

The Empress was free, and she created as much space as she could within the black void.

As she snapped around with a violent gaze, her eyes widened in shock.

The mask was off. So were the bandages and most of the wrappings covering Usan's body.

Usan looked… severely anorexic. There was not a muscle visible on his body except that it clung to the bone underneath.

His cheekbones were sullen, his eyes dark and drooping with heavy exhaustion.

He looked more like a decrepit old man than a nigh-rank 6 cultivator.

Each breath he took made it seem like it would be his last, before his chest would rise again for another.

Rhea blinked with pure disbelief.

"You… you're a corpse!"

Despite his pathetic state, Usan managed a jagged, toothless smile.

"Takes one to know one."

His quiet voice was incredibly raspy, like two sheets of sandpaper rubbing against one another.

Rhea started to panic.

Despite how meek and weak Usan seemed, the certain confidence that radiated from him was incredibly unnerving.

Terrifying, even.

Like he was watching a man running into a fire of death, and smiling as he did so.

Wordlessly, Usan took out the Rank 6 wakizashi, raising it into the air and smiling at it.

He heaved a long breath.

"Noraey. Veran," Usan said under his breath, his eyes slowly closing. "Forgive me."

The Mother of Abomination let her shock remain for no longer.

Her stomach bulged as big as it could, and dense, thick-bodied Abominations burst out from her mouth and surrounded her figure.

The wakizashi exploded with the might of a Rank 6 item.

The Inner World, the Empress' Domain, and patch of the ocean visible from space, had all exploded in quick succession.