Even Death Grew Tired of Killing Me-Chapter 55 - 50

We led Edrin back to where Tomas’s body rested, at the entrance of the hall just before the chamber where the Bonebound Sentinel had fallen apart for good. The air there was colder than the rest of the passage, not as heavy as the chamber itself, but still thick with the aftermath of what had happened. Blood had dried dark against the stone. Bone fragments lay scattered farther in, no longer moving, no longer threatening, just proof of what it had taken to get this far.

Edrin slowed the moment he saw Tomas again.

He did not kneel this time. He simply stood there for a long second, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the still form of the man who had kept us alive longer than any of us had a right to expect. Then he turned to me.

"We wait here," Edrin said, voice steady but rough around the edges. "Lyra will return with reinforcements. We recover his body properly. We don’t move deeper unless Prince Valeyn authorized."

I shook my head.

"If we wait," I replied quietly, "whoever did this will move. They already know we’re here."

Edrin’s eyes hardened. "And if you go on alone, you die. Both of you. Then Tomas died for nothing."

"That’s not what this is about," I answered, forcing myself to meet his gaze. "If I walked into this palace without knowing the risks, then it’s on me. I-I never wanted Tomas to die because of this though, you guys are not meant to... to get involved like this."

"You don’t get to decide that alone once you ask His Highness for help," Edrin shot back. "As soldiers, we expect things like this to happen at any time. And you and your brother; you’re not trained for this. That’s why we’re here. To protect you."

"No," I agreed. "But I’m the reason we’re here."

Edrin opened his mouth to argue again, then stopped. His shoulders sagged just slightly, the weight of too many losses pressing down at once.

I turned to Kyren. "Give me a minute."

Edrin hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. "Fine. But don’t take long."

I guided Kyren a few steps back into the chamber, just far enough that Edrin couldn’t hear us clearly. The stone here still felt warm in places, as if the battle had left scars that hadn’t cooled yet.

Before I could say anything, Kyren looked up at me.

"Can you see it?" he asked.

I blinked. "See what?"

"Borrow the Observer Skill," Kyren replied calmly.

I did.

The world shifted.

Around us, drifting through the air like slow-moving embers, were faint, translucent orbs. They pulsed softly, each one carrying a different rhythm, a different weight. Some were already fading, dissolving into mist that flowed toward me, brushing against my skin, sinking in before vanishing entirely.

My breath caught. "What... are those?"

"Check your status," Kyren said.

I did, hands trembling slightly.

The numbers changed before my eyes.

Strength: 20 + 12

Vitality: 22 + 12

Agility: 20 + 12

Dexterity: 28 + 12

Intelligence: 76

Luck: Negative Infinity

I stared, mind struggling to catch up.

Then Kyren opened his own window, grinning openly now as his numbers ticked upward.

Strength: 57

Vitality: 85

Agility: 55

Dexterity: 65

Intelligence: 34

Luck: 75

"This is cool," Kyren exclaimed, genuine excitement slipping into his voice.

"Ho-how did this happen?" I asked, still staring at my screen.

"The sentinels," Kyren replied easily. "They were made using prime souls. Not full ones, but close enough. Since you didn’t technically kill them the normal way, you only got half of what you should’ve, times four since there were four originals. And I get half of what you gain. Equivalent exchange, remember?"

He laughed softly. "Isn’t it great? If we fight more things like that, we’ll get stronger really fast."

I looked at him.

At the casual excitement, the bright eyes, the ease with which he talked about it.

Then I thought of Tomas.

Of his hands glowing as he held our bodies together while his own fell apart.

Of the way his light had flickered and gone out.

My stomach twisted.

I lowered my status window slowly. "Kyren... do you really think that makes this worth it?"

His grin faltered, just a little.

Before he could answer, Edrin’s voice echoed from the doorway. "Are you done?"

I turned back toward the entrance.

"We’re coming," I called.

Edrin stood there, leaning heavily against the stone frame, armor dented and soaked with blood, his breathing uneven. He looked exhausted, but still alert.

"What’s your decision?" he asked.

I took a breath, ready to answer.

The floor moved.

Not a tremor or a warning.

It shifted.

Stone plates slid apart with a deafening grinding sound, ancient mechanisms awakening beneath our feet. Runes flared briefly along the seams, then vanished as the ground tilted sharply downward.

"Kyren!" I shouted.

The doorway slammed shut behind Edrin with a thunderous crash, cutting off his shout mid-word.

The floor dropped.

We fell.

The world flipped as gravity took hold, cold air roaring past my ears. I grabbed Kyren instinctively, fingers digging into his sleeve as the stone walls rushed upward around us. The chute twisted violently, jagged edges scraping past, sparks flying as we bounced and slid, barely missing protruding slabs.

My shoulder slammed into the wall. Pain exploded through my arm.

Kyren cursed, gripping my wrist to keep us together as we tumbled through darkness.

The descent ended abruptly.

We crashed onto hard stone, rolling, breath knocked from our lungs. I hit the ground shoulder-first, stars bursting across my vision, then skidded to a stop against something solid.

For a moment, there was only silence and my own ragged breathing.

Then the floor above sealed itself with a final, echoing thud.

I pushed myself up slowly, every muscle screaming in protest. Kyren was already on his feet, brushing dust from his clothes, eyes sharp and alert.

I looked around.

We were in a different place now.

This one was smaller than the last, tighter, the ceiling low enough that it pressed on my senses the moment I tried to sit up. The stone beneath my palms was cold and slightly damp, uneven in a way that suggested this place was carved long before comfort had ever been a concern.

Then a door slid open across from us.

Not with ceremony.

Stone scraped against stone, slow and deliberate, and beyond it stretched a long, narrow passageway swallowed almost entirely by darkness. The corridor seemed to drink what little light existed, as if it did not want to be seen.

There was barely anything illuminating our current position. Only two small blue orbs flickered weakly on either side of the chamber, embedded into the wall like dying eyes. Their light was unstable, pulsing just enough to show where the floor ended and the shadows began.

Kyren and I looked at each other.

Neither of us spoke at first.

"I don’t think we have a choice," I finally murmured, my voice sounding louder than I wanted in the confined space. "There’s no other way out. No stairs. No side doors."

Kyren glanced around once more, eyes sharp, then nodded. "Yeah. Forward it is."

He paused, then lifted a hand slightly. "Wait..!"

I frowned. "What is it?"

"Before we walk into something unknown," he replied casually, "I should adjust your attributes properly."

I hesitated, then nodded. "Go ahead."

Kyren stepped closer and raised his hand in front of me. His movements were precise, deliberate, fingers tracing shapes in the air that I couldn’t quite follow. There was no glow, no dramatic surge of power, no sensation of magic pressing against my skin.

It looked almost... mundane.

I watched him work, trying to feel something, anything, but there was only silence and the faint flicker of the blue orbs reflecting in his eyes. After a few seconds, he lowered his hand.

"That’s done," Kyren said lightly.

I blinked. "Uh, okay."

"Check your status," he replied.

I opened my system window.

For a second, my brain refused to process what I was seeing. I knew I had seen it earlier, but now, with everything properly added together, it finally sank in just how much my attributes had increased.

Strength: 32

Vitality: 34

Agility: 32

Dexterity: 40

Intelligence: 76

Luck: Negative Infinity

I stared at the numbers, then checked again, half-expecting them to snap back or blur into something else.

They didn’t.

My chest felt lighter. My limbs felt... steadier. Not stronger in an obvious, overwhelming way, but grounded, like my body finally knew how much force it could handle without breaking.

"I can’t believe this," I muttered. "This is... actually decent."

Kyren grinned, clearly pleased with himself. "Told you. You’ll move much better now. Hit harder too."

I flexed my fingers, feeling the subtle difference in control, the ease with which my muscles responded. Confidence settled in, cautious but real.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

Kyren shrugged. "You’re welcome."

I closed the status window and looked back toward the open passage. The darkness beyond seemed to shift slightly, shadows deepening as if reacting to our attention.

I swallowed. "You ready?"

Kyren’s answer came without hesitation. "Always."

We stepped forward together.

The blue light behind us faded quickly as we crossed the threshold, swallowed by the corridor. The air grew colder with each step, heavy with a silence that felt intentional. The walls narrowed just enough to keep us close, close enough that I could hear Kyren’s breathing beside me.

Whatever waited ahead was not hidden by accident.

And for the first time since entering the palace depths, I felt something other than fear.

I felt ready.

~~~

The passage finally ended without warning.

One step I was walking through narrow darkness, the next the space opened violently outward and my foot hit air before stone again. I staggered forward, catching myself just in time, and when I looked up my breath stalled in my chest.

We had emerged into a vast undercroft carved deep beneath the palace foundations.

The ceiling was impossibly high, lost in shadow, supported by massive black pillars that looked grown rather than built. The floor dipped unevenly, broken by shallow pools of dark liquid that reflected no light, only swallowing it. Thin streams of mist crawled along the ground, clinging to our ankles like something alive.

This place felt wrong in a different way than the sentinel hall.

Not constructed for defense.

Constructed for hunting.

Kyrene stopped walking.

I felt it a second later, the subtle pressure behind my eyes, the sensation of being watched by something that did not need to breathe.

"Don’t move," Kyrene murmured.

The words were calm, but his posture had changed completely. His weight shifted forward, knees slightly bent, shoulders loose, like a predator that had finally found what it was looking for.

I followed his gaze.

At first, I thought the shadows were just shadows.

Then one of them moved.

It peeled itself away from the base of a pillar, unfolding rather than stepping forward. A tall, thin silhouette emerged, its body elongated and warped, as if stretched by something that no longer respected bone or muscle. Its form was humanoid only in the loosest sense, cloaked in layers of shadow that clung to it like wet fabric.

Where its face should have been, there was nothing but a smooth, dark void, split by a single vertical line of pale silver light.

A Shadow-Wrought Reaper.

I had never seen one before, but the name surfaced in my mind with absolute certainty, dragged up by the same instinct that told me this thing had killed far more than it let die.

The air around it distorted slightly, sound thinning, light bending away. It did not walk so much as glide, its lower half dissolving into shadow with every movement.

Then another shadow shifted.

And another.

They did not step forward together.

Only one moved closer.

The others remained still, half-merged with the pillars, watching.

Waiting.

Kyrene exhaled slowly. "These are mine."

I turned sharply. "Kyrene..."

He raised a hand without looking back. "Theo. Stay behind me."

"No," I replied immediately, then getting upset for being told to do something by someone younger than me."We fight together."

Kyrene finally glanced at me then, and something in his eyes made me stop.

This wasn’t arrogance.

It was calculation.

"This thing feeds on hesitation and divided pressure," he said quietly. "If you step in, it will split its focus. That gives it room to kill."

The reaper tilted its head slightly, as if amused by our conversation.

A sound came from it then.

Not a voice.

A scrape, like metal dragged slowly across stone, vibrating directly inside my skull.

Kyrene took one step forward.

"I’ll handle it," he continued, tone steady. "You watch and learn. And if it gets past me... but then again it won’t."

He didn’t finish the sentence.

He didn’t need to.

I clenched my fists, teeth grinding together, every instinct screaming at me to move, to intervene, to do something.

But I trusted him.

The reaper moved first.

It vanished collapsing into shadow.

The mist at Kyrene’s feet exploded upward as the reaper reformed directly behind him, a blade of condensed darkness tearing out from its arm, aimed straight for his spine.

Kyrene twisted.

The motion was impossibly fast, his body blurring as he pivoted.

Kyrene slid backward, boots carving shallow grooves into stone, a grin flashing across his face that was sharp and feral.

"Fast," he muttered. "Good."

The reaper did not respond.

It struck again.

This time from above.

The shadow detached from the ceiling and slammed down like a falling executioner, both arms extended, darkness compressing into twin scythes.

Kyrene met it head-on.

He didn’t draw a weapon.

He stepped inside the strike.

The scythes passed where his head had been a fraction of a second earlier, slamming into the stone behind him with a shriek that made my ears ring. Kyrene drove his fist upward, wrapped in a faint, shimmering distortion, and smashed it into the reaper’s chest.

The impact thundered through the chamber.

The reaper was thrown back, its form unraveling midair before snapping together again as it hit a pillar hard enough to crack the stone.

For the first time, the silver line where its face should have been flickered.

I swallowed.

The reaper lunged again, faster than before, its entire body dissolving into a wave of living darkness that surged toward Kyrene.

For a split second, it looked like it would swallow him whole.

Then Kyrene smiled.

He didn’t dodge.

He stepped forward.

The shadows wrapped around him, climbing his legs, his torso, reaching for his throat like eager hands. The temperature dropped sharply, frost creeping across the stone beneath his boots.

I felt it then, a pressure so heavy it made my lungs ache, like the reaper was trying to crush everything in the room at once.

Kyrene stood perfectly still.

The darkness strained.

And failed.

A faint ripple passed over Kyrene’s body, like heat distorting air above a flame. The shadows froze mid-motion, locked in place as if they had struck an invisible wall.

Kyrene looked down at the tendrils wrapped around him and clicked his tongue. "That’s it?"

The reaper recoiled violently.

Its form tore itself backward, shadow ripping away from Kyrene’s body in shreds, retreating several paces in an instant. The silver line on its face flared bright, pulsing erratically for the first time.

Kyrene rolled his shoulders, completely unharmed, not a tear in his clothes, not a drop of blood on his skin.

"Too slow," he added casually. "And you make it too obvious."

The reaper shrieked.

The sound was sharp and piercing, scraping against my skull hard enough to make me stagger. The shadows along the pillars surged, reacting to the call, and the watching silhouettes shifted as if ready to join in.

Kyrene raised a hand.

The sound cut off instantly.

The reaper froze mid-motion, its shadow stretched thin and trembling, like an animal that had just realized it had picked the wrong prey.

Kyrene took a single step forward.

The pressure in the chamber spiked so suddenly it made my vision blur. The mist was blown outward, flattened against the walls, and cracks raced across the stone floor beneath his feet.

For the first time, I understood something with terrifying clarity.

Kyrene wasn’t fighting this thing.

He was letting it believe it had a chance.

Kyrene tilted his head slightly, eyes gleaming with quiet amusement. "Let’s make this interesting," he said softly.

The reaper gathered itself, shadow condensing, power spiking as it prepared something far more dangerous than before.

And then the chamber went completely dark.

Not shadow.

Not mist.

Dark.

I couldn’t see and feel Kyrene anymore after that...