Curselock

Chapter 126: In the Corner of Darkness

Chapter 126: In the Corner of Darkness

The reflection didn’t answer nor acknowledge Glenny in the slightest. It pulled back, lifting its iron sword and revealing that the shadowy figure down the street was still keenly watching. All around, a dull gray consumed and froze, trapping all in a perpetual shadow.

The iron sword fell, cutting down with the force of a prime rank two adventurer. Glenny buckled slightly under the strike, his crimson daggers finding purchase in an “X” formation. He pushed, sliding his weapons down the length of the sword like a crab’s pincer. He cut into the clone’s fingers, drawing only wispy black air from the wound before shoving off and retreating back to his petrified friends.

Still behind, the shadowy figure loomed, watching, waiting.

Glenny’s reflection, however, didn’t care to look at the cut along its knuckles. The wound wasn’t long for this battle, already healing over with a puff of blackness. The clone then postured, raising its sword in a stance forever ingrained in Glenny’s memory.

It was his father’s stance, one of the easier-to-learn sword dances.

The clone shot forward and Glenny met it in stride. He brought the force of the Sightless King with his daggers, allowing them to fluctuate in power until each was overcharged with crimson authority. It was a technique he’d been working on since Floe and Gelo’s dungeon, but only recently became proficient enough to use in combat.

The theory was simple. Glenny forged blades and constructs using the Sightless King’s stolen power. It was neither mana nor lifeforce, but a similar resource of hatred and malice. It whispered to him, pleas of murder and promises of power. It wished to be used, to set its chip into the game for a potential overthrow.

But Glenny had already adapted to it. He’d already taken the power for himself, allowing him to do more. The daggers glowed fiery red until he activated his chameleon invisibility. Instantly the crimson waned, falling into nothingness like the very air around him.

The clone followed through with its copied sword dance, perfectly performing each step and strike. Glenny blocked all of them in kind, moving his invisible feet to the sway of battle until an opening appeared.

He struck out, cutting into the clone’s gut before twisting his blades. The wound cauterized from the brimming power of the Sightless King but his Legacy ability ruptured organs and muscles, sending a spray of black blood and viscera out of the laceration like an active volcano.

The clone didn’t seem to mind, instead homing in on Glenny despite him being invisible. It lowered its sword, swapping into the second dance. It was a defensive formation, one meant to feint like it was on the back foot until it suddenly wasn’t. The dance ended with a deadly parry, one that clearly opened vitals points.

Glenny didn’t follow the dance.

After his mother died, his father’s training regimen for him tripled. Every fighting style, every sword dance, everything his father knew, everything he wished to know was pumped into Glenny until his fingers bled from holding his weapons. It was brutal and borderline abuse, but his father would have done anything to make sure he never lost in battle.

That he didn’t follow his mother too early.

The clone’s gut was healed at this point, even the armor it wore. It waited for Glenny to attack into its stance, but once it was apparent he wasn’t going to, it changed to the third stance of his father’s.

It now held an iron dagger inline with its sword. Parallel, each ready to lunge for ground. The third stance was a game of inches, of pushing for the smallest advantages while capitalizing on the deadly. It was difficult, one Glenny never fully mastered.

But defending against it? That was something he hardly practiced. There wasn’t an infinite amount of time his father could train him. There were jobs to do, people to protect. A life as a Royal Inquisitor was harsh and long, certain things had to be left to the sidelines.

Like seeing one’s children every day... or every year for that matter.

Glenny knew the general way to defeat the dance, however. He wove his overcharged daggers through and around the iron sword, focusing entirely on the iron dagger. It was the key, it was what gave the dance inches.

The sword whipped up from the ground cutting the duel in half like a crescent moon. The clone then thrust with the dagger, hoping to catch Glenny mid-dodge. It didn’t, instead Glenny leaned into the sword swipe, pushing forward instead of retreating back.

He parried the thrust easily, trusting his enhanced senses to catch deviations. This was single combat mind games as much as it was raw power. The only issue was that his target was a clone. A shoulder bash gave the option of a moment of reprieve, but both combatants chose to press forward.

They met again, dancer versus rogue. Father versus mother.

Six in total, each half-a-breath later than the last. They slammed with resonating force, each battering the same point in space. The conjured Sightless King construct dented, forcing Glenny to scramble to reinforce it by reforge .

During this, the clone never stopped the dance. The next swing came mere moments after the last afterimage hit, resounding the stilled battlefield with six more images. The next swing came before the last image landed, however, broaching two separate avenues of attack at the same time.

The next swing came before the fifth image. The swing after that before the fourth image.

The dance pushed hard until the third, where it abruptly came to an end. Of course the dancer could continue into a more difficult step, it was designed to end before the second. It was a vortex of stamina and mental focus, masters of the dance would still be winded after the initial cycle. And only those with the skills necessary would be able to do more.

The clone never grew tired.

Even after an hour of Glenny relying on his cloak to maintain his stamina and countless reforged shields to block the attacks, the clone never waned. Echo Waltz after Echo Waltz, each step continued until its apex, stopping just before dipping into something more advanced.

It didn’t need to, Glenny couldn’t keep up.

An afterimage he lost track of cut past his shield and into his shoulder. Blood and clear-cut bone slicked the street behind him as he fell. He crashed with the presence of mind of a toddler, his whole body aching to stop. The cloak was fully expended, all of its reserves gone without the cover of night to refill it.

The clone stepped over Glenny, toward Leland and Jude.

“Wait no—” Glenny yelped, his legs failing him. He tried to get up, his shoulder spiking with pain.

“Don’t!” he screamed as the clone drew back its echoing blade.

A crimson construct grew from his good arm, extending into the ground like a shooting star. The force launched Glenny up enough to find balance on his feet. He made his exhausted body sprint faster than ever before. He arrived as the sword came down toward Leland, reaching for it with a naked hand.

The blade cleaved through his fingers while the afterimages chewed through his palm. Glenny pushed against the clone with his broken body, nudging it away from his friends. The clone stepped away, drifting into the gray shadows of the frozen world.

For a moment Glenny was confused, at least until the figure from down the street exploded. Shadows sprung for him like a metal flake to a magnet, consuming him until a new dark shadowy figure was born.

“Glenny? What’s—”

The shadows moved and twisted, running up and down his body until coming to a rugged rest upon his shoulders. The parasitic cloak no longer looked like black fabric with subtly glowing stars, but rather a living creation of darkness. Wisps of black air resonated off of it, each falling away toward the nearest shadow before returning with more.

Like ants bringing food to their queen.

Glenny fell to his knees, the sudden shock of exhaustion and pain solidifying. He moved his raspy muscles, finding his hand with five fingers and his shoulder whole.

“Glenny, I think your cloak just evolved,” Jude said.

It was then Glenny realized the frozen dull world had returned to motion and color.

He smiled the best he could.