Even Death Grew Tired of Killing Me-Chapter 65 - 60 - Astrae’s Struggle 2

[Third POV – Astrae]

The silence after the two Wardens fell did not last.

Astrae stood in the middle of the chamber, chest rising and falling unevenly, blood sliding down her side and dripping from her fingertips. The broken constructs lay in pieces around her, obsidian bone cracked and void-metal plates bent out of shape.

She knew better than to believe it was over.

The runes across the walls began to crawl faster.

A low vibration moved through the floor, subtle at first, then steady.

The fractured remains of the fallen Wardens twitched.

Astrae clenched her jaw.

"As expected," she muttered under her breath.

The pieces did not reassemble the same way as before. Instead, the fragments dragged across the floor, grinding and snapping into new configurations. Plates shifted, joints realigned. The broken leg she had severed pulled itself back with unnatural angles, reshaping into something thicker, reinforced.

A third presence stirred from the shadows.

Another Warden stepped forward from a recessed alcove she had not noticed before, larger than the previous two, its surface darker and more layered, as if built from deeper stone. The runes on its body glowed with a colder light.

Three.

One crippled but reforming.

The second, fractured but active.

The third, fresh and untouched.

Astrae exhaled slowly.

Her pride whispered that she could still end this with one decisive surge. That she was a goddess. That these were just constructs.

Her body answered differently.

Her ribs hurt when she breathed. Her shoulder throbbed where void-metal had crushed muscle. Her divine output was thin, unstable.

She tasted iron in her mouth and smiled faintly.

"Okay," she murmured. "This won’t change anything anyway, I’ll win."

The largest Warden moved first.

It did not waste time.

It slammed both fists into the ground, and the entire chamber pulsed. The aura thickened, pressing down on her like deep water. Her power cost spiked instantly. Even holding a basic reinforcement felt like dragging a blade through stone.

The two damaged Wardens advanced from either side, boxing her in.

Astrae did not retreat.

She ran forward.

She darted toward the largest one instead of away, sliding beneath the sweeping arc of its arm. The void-metal scraped her back, tearing cloth and skin, but she used the momentum to drive herself between its legs.

Instead of striking with light, she drew a thin line of condensed force along her forearm.

Not radiant. Not even holy

Dense.

She slashed across the back of its ankle joint.

The blade did not explode. It cut.

A thin crack formed.

The Warden turned faster than she expected, its elbow driving backward into her ribs. Something shifted painfully inside her chest as she was flung sideways.

She hit the floor and rolled, barely avoiding the next crushing stomp.

She came up on her feet, swaying for half a second.

Her aura flared involuntarily in response to pain.

The runes across the Wardens brightened immediately.

She felt the drain spike.

Astrae shut it down.

She could not afford large surges.

They were built to punish the likes of them.

The second Warden reached her first this time. Its massive hand closed around her forearm mid-strike, and the dampening effect flared at full strength.

Her blade flickered out.

The pressure in her arm felt like it was being slowly crushed in a vice.

The Warden raised her off the ground.

Astrae did not struggle wildly.

She went limp.

The moment the construct adjusted its grip to compensate, she twisted her wrist, letting the joint partially dislocate with a sharp crack. Pain shot up her arm, but the sudden change in angle loosened the hold.

She drove her knee upward into the seam beneath its shoulder plate.

Then again.

And again.

Each strike landed precisely where void-metal met obsidian bone.

The Warden’s grip faltered.

She dropped to the ground and rolled, snatching up a shard of broken bone from the floor as she moved.

When the construct swung again, she stepped inside the arc and stabbed the shard into the already cracked knee joint of the first Warden that had been reforming.

The shard shattered.

The crack deepened.

She pivoted and drove her elbow into the same spot, channeling a tightly compressed pulse through the fracture.

The leg snapped completely this time.

The Warden collapsed again, this time with less structure to hold it together.

The largest one seized her from behind.

Its arms wrapped around her torso, locking her in place.

The aura intensified to the point that she felt lightheaded.

Divine energy dampened.

Power cost rising.

Her lungs struggled to draw air.

The construct tightened its grip, crushing ribs further.

She heard something crack.

Astrae’s vision blurred.

For a split second, pride flared again.

She was Astrae Valyrix.

Warbound Herald.

She did not kneel to constructs.

And that pride almost got her killed.

The Warden lifted her higher, preparing to slam her headfirst into the stone.

She let go of that pride.

She did the one thing she had avoided since the fight began.

She called for help.

Not outward.

Not to another god.

Inward.

To the fragment of authority she had kept buried.

Not overwhelming, or radiant.

Focused.

She allowed the aura to flare deliberately, knowing it would spike the drain.

The runes on the Warden’s arms lit up, feeding off the output.

And in that exact moment, she reversed the flow.

Instead of pushing power outward, she pulled.

She dragged the suppression field inward through the cracks in its runes, forcing the dampening effect to turn unstable.

The Warden froze mid-motion.

Its runes flickered erratically.

Astrae twisted violently and slammed her forehead into the underside of its jaw. The impact split skin and sent fresh blood down her face, but it knocked the construct’s head back enough for her to wrench one arm free.

She formed a blade again, thinner than ever, and drove it directly into the core seam at the center of its chest.

She did not attempt to overwhelm it.

She threaded the energy through the fractures she had already created.

The construct convulsed.

Cracks raced across its torso like lightning across glass.

It swung once more, a desperate, uncoordinated strike that clipped her shoulder and sent her stumbling away.

Then its upper body split down the middle.

The void-metal plates tore apart.

The obsidian bone beneath shattered into jagged fragments that collapsed onto the floor in a heavy, grinding heap.

Silence.

Only the faint hum of dying runes remained.

Astrae stood unsteadily.

The second Warden, the one she had crippled twice, attempted to rise again.

She limped toward it, each step sending pain through her side.

She placed her palm against its fractured chest.

For a long moment, she simply breathed.

Then she whispered softly, not with arrogance, not with declaration, but with tired certainty.

"Enough."

She released a final, controlled pulse directly into its cracked core.

The remaining runes sputtered and went dark.

The construct fell still.

Astrae remained standing for a few seconds longer, staring at the broken remains.

Her hands trembled.

Her body shook from exertion and blood loss and suppressed power.

She had won.

Barely.

And it had not been because she overwhelmed them.

It had been because she adapted.

Because she sacrificed the instinct to dominate and chose instead to think.

She looked down at the shattered Wardens and felt something unfamiliar settle in her chest.

Humility.

These had been made specifically for her kind.

And they had nearly succeeded.

She swayed and caught herself against the wall.

Blood stained the stone beneath her boots.

She had survived.

But she knew now, without illusion, that she was not invincible.

Not here.

Not like this.

And that realization humbled her more than the pain ever could.

~~~

[1st POV – Theo]

We did not have a choice.

The hallway behind us had sealed, stone grinding into stone with a finality that left no room for doubt. The only path open was the one ahead, dimly lit by faint blue lines running through the walls like veins.

Kyrene walked beside me, calm as ever, hands relaxed at his sides. I kept glancing at him without meaning to. After everything that had just happened, after watching him fight like that, I still did not know what to make of him.

"You okay?" he asked casually, not even looking at me.

"Define okay," I muttered.

He smirked faintly. "Still walking. That’s good enough."

The corridor widened gradually, the air growing colder and heavier with each step. The sigils began appearing again, carved into the stone, layered over each other in complex patterns. Some were etched deep, some scratched over older ones, as if whoever built this place kept adding to it.

Containment, control, reinforcement.

The space opened suddenly.

We stepped into a chamber so large I had to tilt my head back to see the ceiling. It almost mirrored the structure where Astrae had been imprisoned, circular in design, runes and symbols carved across every inch of wall and floor. At the center, raised slightly above the ground, was a stone platform.

And seated upon it...

The lich.

It did not rise immediately. It did not move like it was surprised to see us. It sat there, as though it had been waiting.

Its layered bone frame shifted slowly, plates grinding against each other in a sound that scraped along my spine. Between the gaps, that dark, tar-like substance pulsed faintly, dull violet veins flickering under its surface. Its elongated skull turned toward us.

When its gaze landed on Kyrene, something changed.

"Interesting," it rasped, voice layered and distorted, as if spoken through hollow chambers instead of lungs. "Very interesting. Welcome to my abode interesting human, I’m Morveth Kael’Zhyr your... host for the time being."

Kyrene did not react outwardly. He simply stood there, looking back.

"Now, entertain me. I will play with you first," the lich continued, rising now, bone segments unfolding with deliberate slowness. "Afterwards, I will have you dissected. I wish to see what made you... you."

My stomach dropped.

Before I could move, Morveth extended one skeletal hand toward me.

I felt it before I understood it.

Pressure.

Not physical at first, but a force that gripped the space around my body and twisted. My feet left the ground. The world tilted.

"Kyrene!" I shouted.

The next second, I was thrown.

The force slammed into me like a wall, and I was hurled backward through the doorway we had entered. My shoulder struck stone. My head rang. I hit the floor hard and rolled.

By the time I pushed myself up, the doorway had already begun to close.

"No—!" I lunged forward.

The stone sealed with a thunderous crack.

Then the hallway shifted.

The floor trembled violently, and the walls began sliding, rotating, locking into new positions like a massive puzzle rearranging itself. I tried to run back, but the ground beneath me tilted, forcing me off balance. Sections of the corridor rose and folded in ways that should not have been possible.

I slammed into a wall that had not been there a second ago.

The movement stopped abruptly.

Dust fell from the ceiling.

Silence.

I looked around.

The space had compressed into a narrow chamber barely larger than a storage room. Three walls of solid stone boxed me in. Above eye level, a small rectangular opening slid open with a grinding sound.

A window.

I staggered toward it and grabbed the edge, pulling myself up.

Below me, the massive chamber.

Kyrene stood alone at its center.

Morveth was descending from the platform, its form unfolding fully now, taller than before, bone plates locking into place as it approached.

"Kyrene!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. "Run!"

My voice echoed inside my confined space.

But below, nothing.

No reaction.

No flicker of acknowledgment.

It was as if sound itself refused to travel down there.

I slammed my fist against the stone beneath the window. "Kyrene!"

The lich moved closer to him, each step deliberate, heavy, controlled. Its presence pressed against the chamber like a storm gathering force.

Kyrene did not run.

He stood there, shoulders relaxed, head slightly tilted as if studying something interesting.

"Run!" I yelled again, throat burning.

Nothing.

The window did not amplify my voice. It did not carry it. It simply allowed me to watch.

Morveth stopped a few paces from Kyrene.

The air between them warped subtly, as if bending under unseen weight.

From above, I could see everything clearly.

Kyrene looked small compared to that towering mass of bone and corruption.

My heart hammered so hard I felt lightheaded.

I pressed my forehead against the cold stone beside the opening, gripping the edge until my fingers hurt.

Please.

Please move.

Morveth’s jaw split slightly as it spoke again, tendrils within its mouth twitching faintly.

"Let us see," it murmured, almost curious, "how long you endure."

The runes across the chamber floor began to glow.

And I could do nothing but watch.