Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power Chapter 444: Grief
Previously on Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power...
Chapter 444 – Grief
Had the world come to a halt?
In his stunned and scarcely recovered state of mind, Kaden couldn't even confirm that basic truth. The scene before him was simply too terrifying.
Initially, his thoughts refused to accept the horror unfolding, dismissing it as a hallucination induced by his metamorphosis. How he longed for it to be merely that.
But reality tended to be cruel, more often than not.
What lay before him wasn't some dream. Rea lay lifeless, her decapitated form still convulsing nearby, as though even in demise... the God-Touched refused to let go of existence easily.
For an instant, a peculiar conviction surged within Kaden, suggesting that the end hadn't arrived. Rea might yet be brought back.
However, before his mind could wander further along those lines, a sharp break occurred in his psyche.
"KADEN!" Reditha surged forth and materialized alone, her bloodied form maintaining her sword's shape.
She intercepted the bear's assault, while Blanche burst into view, manifesting in the heavens as her fiery pale Phoenix silhouette.
Her gaze burned with embers of fury and sorrow, fixed on her master huddled like a sphere, his stare vacant and utterly fixated on Rea's remains.
She opened her beak wide, unleashing a cry from the depths of her being. Countless solar orbs erupted from above — transforming the sky into a pristine white terror — before crashing down without mercy.
Reditha glided as an embodiment of doom — with precision that defied comprehension. She wielded her form more adeptly than Kaden ever could.
The sudden emergence of these two adversaries didn't escape the notice of the clashing groups. Yet, oddly — or perhaps predictably — the dynamics remained unchanged.
Their frenzy was tangible — rippling everywhere in a savage flow of dark fluid surging through invisible channels — indifferent to all but the urge to slaughter anything in their path.
Blanche and Reditha formed a broad perimeter around Kaden and Rea at the core, striving to repel the dangers.
Early on, they managed effectively, but the pair quickly grasped the dire nature of their predicament.
Their foes possessed immense power. And if shielding Kaden from dragons and colossal serpents wasn't enough, now add in titanic humans armed with battle-axes capable of delivering lethal strikes...
...the two allies understood they were wagering their very existences.
Still, they uttered no words.
No grievances or discussions escaped their lips. They merely steeled their resolve and charged forward, enduring frightful injuries along the way.
They only had to endure briefly, the duo pondered in uncanny unison, certain that Kaden would rejoin them shortly.
’His Will!’ Reditha mused as she dodged to the left, narrowly evading the spear-sharp talon of a twisted creature.
’Kaden’s Will is unbreakable! He won’t—!’
Her thought cut short as a fist shattered her jaw, sending her reeling. Her mandible dropped loose. She growled in rage, retaliating swiftly by plunging the sword into the monster's side.
The conflict intensified, and Kaden, shielded by his loyal guardians, remained adrift. But Reditha spoke true.
His determination was immense, and after nearly a minute of stupor, bewilderment, and warped dismay, the warrior gradually pulled himself together.
’Rea... is gone.’ Kaden murmured to himself as he inched across the nightmarish terrain foul with atrocity, approaching Rea's crimson-soaked head.
That phrase echoed relentlessly, on the verge of submerging him in an agony he'd endured only once before. An anguish he vowed never to face anew.
He lifted Rea's head, nestling it gently in his embrace, and nearly collapsed once more.
Even now, in her passing, her expression held serenity. As though beholding him awaken — witnessing her own end — granted her a perverse satisfaction.
It was disturbing, yet quintessentially Rea.
By this point, Kaden comprehended her depths better than she ever knew.
He recognized his betrothed's essence, and that insight, intertwined with her manner of departure, ignited a scorching blaze of wrath throughout his frame.
His presence exploded outward, sparking and enveloping his surroundings in strands of void.
He positioned Rea's head next to her severed body — as if it were ordinary — and rose upon his legs.
So consumed by rage and grief was he that he overlooked the blood weeping from his left eye; nor did he observe the subtle, potent gray luminescence emanating from Rea's form.
For a fleeting second, Kaden contemplated ending his own life, but he'd transcended such notions of intentional demise.
Should death claim him, it would be after expending all he possessed. Thus, he drew in a profound breath, sensing the second core — True Soul Core — throbbing within like a vital organ.
Though its advantages weren't fully clear to him, Kaden surrendered to his primal urges in that pivotal moment.
’I will perish.’
Kaden realized it immediately, surveying the ferocious entities clashing nearby. Despite his prowess, he was certain death awaited if he engaged these horrors.
His senses rang true, and the chilling, accustomed grip of mortality clutched at his core once more.
Escape remained possible with his abilities, but victory did not.
Yet that scarcely signified.
Within his thoughts, the sole vision that persisted was Rea's beheaded figure and her calm visage in her final instants.
Driven by that vision, his fury escalated steadily until Kaden's outline vanished from sight.
A colossal crimson-black energy burst from him, swelling across the entire sanguine battlefield.
Briefly, all combatants paused their struggles, turning their gazes toward him, their frenzied eyes glimmering with a hint of... awareness?
But it passed swiftly, as their inner chaos overwhelmed them, stripping away any semblance of reason.
Kaden paid it no heed.
"Come back." He commanded, his tone echoing everywhere, and Reditha vanished from the fray, rematerializing in his right hand.
He extended his left arm, and a ghostly light seeped through the void, coiling about it. The vortices persisted until a katana formed — pristine and elegant, gleaming and wailing as if alive.
Though it was his debut attempt, Kaden forged a blade from soul energy with effortless grace, akin to respiration. A feat deserving admiration.
But in that instant, Kaden was no longer himself.
He embodied Death.
And Death bore duties to perform.
"Need my help, sweetie?" Blanche queried, soaring overhead, her form leaking crimson.
"Hell." Kaden replied, his frame throbbing as he beheld his adversaries bellowing, charging at him with heightened fervor.
They seemed particularly intent on his destruction. Especially the Shapeshifters, as Kaden had dubbed them.
"Make this Hell."
Blanche's figure ignited fiercely, brighter yet subdued, "As you will, Prometheus."
He snapped his fingers, erecting a shield around Rea without a glance, and tore across the chaos in a direct path, leaving carnage of gore and limbs behind.
Before long, a third force entered the fray of two. The once-familiar ground morphed into infernal torment, as flames rivaling stellar heat twisted, danced, and consumed everything in sight.
The Shapeshifters wailed, the cloaked reapers shrieked, the blood manipulators liquefied, the massive tattooed warriors chanted amid their falls...
Solely one figure navigated unbound, reaping existences and essences along his route with ruthless accuracy.
He was The Harvester. He was Death and its envoys.
On that day, they all erupted through his vessel.
—End of Chapter 444—