Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power Chapter 445: Blood and ashes

Kaden had no clue how many of these creatures he had slain or the span of time that had gone by.

He genuinely had no idea. And he had zero interest in figuring it out.

He just kept slaying, his soul sword designed to damage and perhaps destroy the very essence of every entity within that bizarre location. Or so it should have. Yet even that proved ineffective.

This basic failure revealed a terrifying reality to him as he pressed on, cutting down each one in his path.

’These... these aren’t actual living beings!’ Kaden pondered silently, parrying an attack from a panther-like shifter using Reditha, spinning aside and delivering a powerful uppercut to its left jaw.

The jaw shattered entirely, and Kaden summoned a strand of his fire to incinerate whatever lay within the beast’s form.

But it didn’t work.

He swore under his breath and invoked his dual fused intents, at last managing to eliminate the shifter.

In that moment, more foes were already converging from every direction.

He drew in a deep breath and forged ahead.

The sole bit of relief amid this chaos was that the rival groups kept battling one another. However, had they chosen to target him first, Kaden knew he wouldn’t have survived this far.

Even so, he was approaching exhaustion.

’They lack true flesh and bone.’ He came to understand during his ongoing fights, sustaining injuries in spots, yet relying on his Death intent, blood techniques, and flames, he managed to mend his wounds.

His endurance wasn’t boundless, however.

’Regardless of how lifelike it seems to slice through them, they aren’t like us. Moreover—!’

His reflection broke off as a large, brawny woman adorned with facial tattoos severed his left arm with a clean strike.

Kaden grunted in pain, his eyes flaring with fury. He crouched low and unleashed a mighty kick at the woman’s legs, sending her crashing hard onto the gore-soaked earth on her back.

Blood sprayed upward.

She bellowed in a mix of fury and rage, but Kaden was now looming over her, his left arm regenerated.

"You bloody bitch." He snarled, plunging Reditha deeply into her gaping mouth. He abandoned her there, then spun about, confronting six adversaries — four shifters, a blood manipulator, and a figure draped in death’s shroud — all descending upon him.

Kaden’s expression remained steady as he charged at them, materializing right in their midst.

He hurled his soul sword skyward. It hovered briefly, then split into six soul swords. Kaden infused their blades with both intents and his Will.

He unleashed them simultaneously, while extending his arms outward like expansive wings.

Then he clapped — his palms shimmering in black, white, and crimson right before collision — precisely as the soul swords struck their marks and Reditha detonated the massive woman’s form behind him.

A thunderous boom erupted, trailed by a surge of crimson-black-white energy that engulfed all six foes and extended further.

Kaden, his complexion ashen, mouth parched, observed their cries of dread, and watched as their bodies dissolved utterly, morphing into an odd, sticky substance.

Following that assault, his doubts were verified. And furthermore, he uncovered a detail previously unnoticed.

"They..." his voice constricted like a clenched hand, "they consist of intents." Kaden yanked out a wyvern fang lodged in his left shoulder. "Yet also of Wills."

To put it simply, this gruesome field of combat was merely echoes of intents and wills from a bygone occurrence.

An occurrence that endured even now.

This epiphany filled him with dread. For if such formidable monsters were just echoes...

’...then what power did they wield at their zenith?’

That notion made him stagger, prompting Kaden to concentrate on the immediate peril above all.

He glanced toward Rea’s form, and immediately scowled. Her figure... it was enveloped in a gray glow steadily intensifying.

In response to that radiance, something deep within Kaden stirred. Something he’d overlooked for ages...

A Divinity. The Divinity of Sorrow.

His features twisted more, recalling Rea’s dire circumstances. He moved a step closer to her, only for half his frame to erupt in flames.

"Blood and ashes!" He snarled in rage, agony surging through his every nerve. On pure instinct, unaware of the method, Kaden snapped his finger with his mana — specifically his blood-fire mana.

Crimson-gold runes materialized across his scorched flesh, absorbing the flames’ might into themselves. In an instant, the blaze vanished.

Yet Kaden pressed further. He directed those runes at the blood controllers assaulting him, dispatching them in bursts of deadly sparks.

His visage was pallid as fresh snow, having expended far too much power in one go. Intent, Will, mana, soul... everything, along with intense bodily control, drove Kaden toward the brink of blackout.

Nevertheless, he endured.

Time dragged on — or perhaps stood still, it was impossible to discern — Kaden immersed himself in the horrors of combat and strife. Soon, he ceased all thought or hesitation.

He merely advanced, slaying relentlessly, oblivious to the gradual...

...decline in their ranks.

Not due to his efforts alone, but because the odd realm’s sky was reverting to its original state.

A domain of ash, grit, and haze.

And true enough, before long, Kaden dropped to his knees on the ground, his form drenched in blood and marred by countless injuries.

His lips were split, crimson trickling down, his left eye gashed away. His back bore the savage tear from a wyvern’s talon, exposing his bones clearly.

His head hung low, breaths ragged and loud, attempting to steady himself.

’How... how many more times until you can mend me, Blanche?’ He inquired, incapable of tapping his blood affinity or any other ability.

He was completely drained. He doubted he could even rise in that moment.

’One hour, sweetie,’ Blanche’s voice, laced with anguish and shame, echoed to him. ’I’m so sorry. But... can you endure?’

Her tone dripped with concern, her spirit torn apart at the sight of her master’s condition.

Reditha shared the sentiment, her dignity bruised by the recent ordeal.

She hadn’t experienced such helplessness since clashing with Shamsi, the Sun Empress. She’d vowed never to let it recur. Yet here it was.

This fueled her self-directed wrath.

Kaden, on the other hand, offered a weak smile before flinching from the ache in his face and mouth. He replied shortly after,

"Well, I will have to." He tried for a shrug. It came off as a clumsy flop.

He scanned his surroundings, finding no trace of the earlier horror. It felt as though the nightmare he’d endured was mere fantasy, but his battered body told a different tale.

It had been genuine. Still, not a single remnant lingered.

No gore, no remains, no battle-axes or shifters... absolutely nothing.

It was disconcerting, but even more so was the spectacle unfolding before him now.

Mere steps away, Kaden observed Rea’s severed head seamlessly rejoining her torso.

Then he beheld a phenomenon he believed unique to himself.

He watched Rea’s eyes snap open wide, flooding the eerie realm with dazzling gray illumination.

"GASP!"

She inhaled sharply, and Kaden’s dual hearts clenched.

"Blood and ashes..."

—End of Chapter 445—