Chapter 15: 13 – Descend of the Spirit queen [3]

"A-Abyssal guardian!"

Monsters that were stronger than everything else on the floor, they were often referred to as the guardian of their respective layers. This one, in particular, was named—

"Death...," Glenn muttered in horror.

—and it was a fitting name. Just looking at its appearance—a more muscular and bigger version of Death's will—was enough to send chills down anyone's spine. Its bright red orbs that was probably its eyes stared at the three prey before it unblinkingly, lighting up the whole area with its bright eyes alone.

The Hero, who was mere inches away from the guardian, screamed in horror and frantically unsheathed his sword. "AHHHH! GET AWAY! [QUICK FLASH]!"

The force behind Hiro's attack was so great that it generated a small shockwave when it made contact with Death, sending Glenn and Annie tumbling to the ground.

Glenn gulped a mouthful of saliva in nervousness. 'If this is the full extent of the Hero power then... was he going easy on me before?'

Before he could finish his thoughts, Annie's shaky voice woke up him from them. "N-No way! Even that can't..."

The dust settled, and Glenn could see Death, still standing, looking at Hiro's sword, which managed to deal absolutely no damage, with annoyance.

"Are... you... done?" An ominous voice came out from inside Death's dark hood. Before anyone could express their surprise, the layer's guardian gripped its scythe and brought it down to Hiro. 

Hiro quickly sidestepped the attack and struck Death's legs with his sword. However, it was futile. As he dashed back to widen their distance, Death intercepted him by dashing behind Hiro so fast that it looked like it teleported.

"What—"

But he couldn't finish his sentence as the sharp tip of the scythe was right in front of him. Just as Hiro was about to surrender to his fate, he felt a pull on his shirt; he was made to fall to the ground immediately, avoiding getting his skull impaled by a hair's breath. He looked around confusedly, only to see Glenn right beside him; soon, he understood what happened.

"Y-You saved me?"

Glenn ignored his question and shouted, "Annie! NOW!"

Annie snapped her fingers and muttered, [Blink], teleporting both Glenn and Hiro closer to her now. Using this spell drained much of her strength. As such, she slumped to the ground with exhaustion. Before her head hit the ground, however, Glenn caught it and laid her gently down.

As Glenn turned back toward Death, Hiro asked with a scowl, "Why did you save me?"

Glenn shook his head bitterly. "Save? I merely needed your fighting prowess. I can't beat that thing alone after all."

Though convinced by Glenn's motive, Hiro couldn't help but ask, "Why didn't you run away with my woman? From what I saw, she can use spatial magic—"

"And look where she is now," Glenn pointed his chin toward Annie, who was sleeping peacefully on the ground despite this dire situation, "two [Blink]'s and she's already sleeping like a log. Beside, didn't you almost have a taste of its ungodly speed before? There's no way I'm going to be able to escape it."

Hiro nodded. "So, what do we do now?"

Glenn put his back against Hiro's and eyed Death warily. "You watch my back, I watch yours. From what I can see, the guardian excels at speed and endurance. However, strength... not so much. But don't let your guard down; its speed can be devastating."

"You seem to know your monsters well."

"Nope," Glenn chuckled bitterly, "I wish I was. Everything I said was pure observation. I was kind of hoping that you might know something about it in the books you read."

"What do you take me for?! I'm a Hero! I don't need some books! Everything I fight dies in one hit anyway!"

"And yet the guardian is still standing." Glenn clicked his tongue in annoyance. Even in this situation, he was still arrogant. 

'He's lucky I need him to survive. Otherwise, I'd just le—'

But his thoughts were cut short by the sight of the layer's guardian, or rather, the lack thereof. It simply... vanished. However, Glenn soon noticed a trail of sand dust approaching him alongside a blurry figure.

Widening his eyes in surprise, he tried to dodge back. However, the Hero was behind him and thus, he tumbled to the ground. Just as the guardian was about to turn him into red paste, something strange happened.

-"W-Where this?"

Glenn quickly covered his own mouth upon hearing his voice echoing back toward him. Calming down, he observed his surrounding. It was the same old apartment that he and Ava rented. However, instead of Ava, Katherine was the one lying on the bed; and she was looking at Glenn with shock.

-"Is this the soul space?"

With her mouth agape, Katherine nodded. "Y-Yes. B-But why are you here?! Aren't you fighting that guardian!?"

-"That's what I want to know. I was just suddenly... here."

Hearing this, Katherine scrambled out of the bed and rushed toward Glenn. 

Just as Glenn was about to ask what was going on, she pushed him to the side and turned on the weird black box that was behind him.

Watching Katherine fiddle with the buttons on the black box, Glenn asked, "What is it?"

"A television," replied Katherine curtly.

"Tele... vision? What's that?"

"You wouldn't understand. Now shut up for a moment so that I can concentrate!"

Heeding to her words, he kept his mouth shut and just observed her doing her job. After a while, the black box lit up, and reflected on its previous blank screen was a scene, one that was all too familiar to Glenn—the scene of the white sandy wasteland that he was just at moments ago.

That was when he realized something strange. The scene shifted around almost at random, with shots of the white desert and... the layer's guardians all jumbled together. But when he saw hands that were unmistakably his striking the guardian, something clicked in his head.

"Is that— a-am I fighting Death right now?"

Katherine gritted her teeth in anger and anxiousness and growled, "I wish! FUCK! THAT IDIOT!"

Pressing a button on the black box so hard that it nearly came off, Katherine shouted, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, STUPID BROTHER!"

Suddenly, a crackling laughter came out from the black box. "Haha, you found out about it sooner than I thought."

'Isn't this... Kevin's voice?'

Katherine glared at the box and pressed her face against it. "GET OUT OF HIS BODY NOW! I'LL KILL YOU DEAD WHEN YOU GET BACK!"

You are reading story Conqueror of the Abyss at novel35.com

Kevin laughed again. This time, his laugh contained traces of bitterness. "I'm afraid that the Spirit queen will kill me first before you can get your hands on me."

"THAT'S EXACTLY WHY! GET BACK BEFORE YOU KILL THE GUARDIAN! WE CAN STILL BEG FOR MERCY IF YOU HAVEN'T KILLED IT!"

"Kate... I'm tired of seeing dictators, greedy merchants, and senseless murderers achieve their goals using our powers. It'll be nice to see someone with the same dreams as us succeed. It sucks that I probably won't get to watch it but... at least you can see it in my stead, my dearest sister."

"N-No!" Katherine shouted with teary eyes. "You can't!"

"I won't change my mind."

"T-Then let me go too! I—"

"No. You'll have to stay here and make sure this kid succeeds."

"Wh-Why?! You're so selfish! It'll be lonely without you!"

"Ah, finally acknowledging that you need me?" Kevin chuckled. "But still, please stay here no matter what. Think of it as your brother's last request."

Glenn watched the conversation between the two siblings wordlessly, not knowing what to say. However, he understood one thing.

'Kevin's going to die if he does what he's going to do!'

As if finally acknowledging Glenn's presence, Kevin spoke, "Kate, can you let me talk with the newbie for a second?"

Katherine blankly nodded and walked away from the box. Her eyes were puffy and redder than normal; tears could be seen streaming down her cheeks. She ignored everything else, even Glenn, and slumped down onto the bed, hugging her knees and crying to herself.

As Glenn was about to comfort her, Kevin's voice rang out from the box again. "Newbie, I know what you're going to do. Leave it until later and listen to me first."

Glenn obliged. As soon as he made his way toward the box, he sat down.

"Just to make sure, can you hear me clearly?"

Glenn nodded. "Yes."

"Good. Now listen closely, because I will only tell it once." Kevin took a deep breath and continued. "You will never surpass, or even reach my level if you can't see what my martial art is capable of. Newbie, I'll show you what my martial art - the art of irreversibility - can do once, and I mean it. I'll break the rules of non-interference that she made us follow when we made the Skill book, so watch closely."

"...What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said. Now, the move is going to be... incomprehensible at first, but you'll figure it out eventually. After I'm gone, Kate will continue to guide you to reach the peak of the arts of Chaos. Although she always denies it, she's actually pretty proficient in my martial art."

"..."

"Well, I guess this is goodbye."

Normally, Glenn wouldn't have cared about someone dying, but something within him urged him to stop Kevin from dying at all costs. 

'But why? Why do I feel this way? It doesn't matter if that ghost died!'

Before long, he came up with a perfectly reasonable excuse.

'That's right, that ghost named Katherine would cause trouble for me if her brother died for me. So that's why I didn't want him to die!'

But even that didn't sound convincing to Glenn himself. However, he forced himself to believe that it was the truth. As such, he shouted, "Kevin! I'm perfectly fine with not reaching the peak of your Art! Just get back inside here already, you'll die otherwise!"

Kevin chuckled. "But you will die if I come back. Who else is going to defeat the guardian? Not you, and definitely not the 'Hero' hiding under the princess' sleeping body."

"But—"

"I'm resolved to do this. Now, watch closely. Whether or not my sacrifice will be in vain is up to you."

Suddenly, the imagine the weird box was projecting distorted with a dark color of crimson. Despite that, Glenn could still see what was going on. But... that didn't make a difference. What Kevin did was so incomprehensible that Glenn wondered if he was seeing thing.

Before long, he could hear Kevin's voice again. This time, it was much more labored. "Haaah... haaah... don't worry newbie, you don't need to understand it right away. Now— AHHHHHH!"

And with Kevin's painful scream, Glenn felt his soul being pulled out of the soul space. In a blink of an eye, he found himself in his own body again, with the guardian's mangled corpse beneath his feet.

To his right, he could see Hiro hiding behind Annie's sleeping body, eye widened in shock at the guardian's corpse.

To his left, he could see Kevin being tied up by thick chains that came out of rifts in space.

"W-What happened?!" Glenn shouted as he pounded on the chains, hoping to break it apart.

However, he was interrupted by Kevin's tired nod. "...It's no use. Unless you're as strong as her, you'll just hurt yourself punching these chains."

"Who's her?"

"You'll find out soon enoug— ah, speak of the devil."

As soon as Kevin finished his sentence, space rumbled. Glenn immediately looked toward the source of the rumbling, only to find a small rift in space. As he was about to inspect it, a delicate hand suddenly protruded out of the rift. It grabbed the space around the rift as if it was mere paper, and ripped it apart. Now, the rift was big enough for one person to go through.

Soon after, a woman emerged from the rift. With waist-long silver hair that swayed in the wind, gray wings that were wrapped around her own body, similarly colored tail that had a stinger attached to its end, and cold gray eyes, she looked more beautiful than any women Glenn had met.

And yet, he was the most dangerous he had encountered.

Crossing her arms together, she spoke with a low tone. "Kevin, I hope you know the consequences of your action."

Kevin smiled bitterly.

"Of course, I do. After all, you made sure that me and Kate know the rules—"

His smile then turned into a grunt.

"—o great Spirit queen, Glacia Gray."

You can find story with these keywords: Conqueror of the Abyss, Read Conqueror of the Abyss, Conqueror of the Abyss novel, Conqueror of the Abyss book, Conqueror of the Abyss story, Conqueror of the Abyss full, Conqueror of the Abyss Latest Chapter