Chapter 110: Do I even need to actually move?
I didn't move at all.
As in, my body didn't move.
I didn't jump, I didn't rush, nor did I sprint or ev run to the back of the aggressor.
It was all my scythe's doing. Because the momt I felt the desire to bury its tip into the man's heart, it just… appeared in just the right place for me to do so, dragging me over to its new position as a mere after-effect of matching the spiritual node left in that exact place.
And with just the motion of bringing my scythe to a more ready, slightly lowered position, I ded up pushing the sharp tip of its spiritual blade right into the back of the masked man's heart.
Right as Claire shot out from betwe the woods, her sporty outfit covered in blood but not nearly as much as as her sword. Her eyes, zeroed in on the target I just reaped, her hand already moving to swing her sword down upon his neck.
"Wha?!"
Digging her feet into the g, Claire rapidly stopped her advance, stopping just two feet short of falling into my arms.
But with me moving away so rapidly, the sphere of my influce… acted like some sort of jelly, deforming as it dragged along, all in a bid to establish the most stable, perfectly circular sphere of instant spirituality a me.
'It's not a product of my cultivation, but a result of me using the tool, so I have to deal with this kind of delays,' I thought, more concerned with the things I was learning about this new power of mine than I was with the fact I just took someone's life.
"I wonder if I should feel bad for killing him," I muttered to myself, more worried about being some kind of psychopath that didn't mind the act of killing than I was with… well, the act of killing itself.
"What did you say?" Claire suddly took a step back, with an extremely weirded-out look on her face.
Her eyes alternated betwe my face and the twisted expression of pain on the corpse still hanging off the tip of my scythe… before turning her eyes right back to my face, advancing the few steps that separated us and…
Smack!
Without ev a second of doubt or hesitation, Claire let go of her sword, allowing it to fall down and bite into the g, all for the sake of freeing her hand and using it to smack me squarely across the face!
"This fucker was out for your blood!" she screamed out, instantly moving her hands over to my shoulders, grabbing and th rooting me in place while I barely managed to rebound my face back to give her a surprised look.
"It was a legitimate self-defse! Ev if you didn't kill him, I would! And there's nothing wrong with that!"
Screaming every word of her desperation, Claire made yet another new face I have yet to see…
But for the very first time, I just couldn't joy this sight.
To have her eyes so filled with deep, profound worry, fear, anxiety, and ev self-aimed disgust…
"I mean…"
I struggled to find proper words to respond.
"I just…"
But what was I supposed to say?
That I believe a man should feel bad wh killing someone in cold blood? Ev if taking this life was warranted by means of self-defse?
But, giv the differce in our strgth displayed by how instant this kill was, could it ever be called self-defse?
It wasn't ev a problem of a legal nature, giv how it was all gloves off while out in this zone. It was strictly a problem of whether or not there was something brok about my morals that made me immune to the shock of reaping a man's life.
No matter how hard I tried, this was something I should feel bad about. So, wh I just… didn't, I couldn't help but worry. And all of that, in some strange way, rubbed Claire in the extremely wrong way!
"I'm sorry, dear, I don't know what I'm supposed to say now," not knowing what to say, I opted to just be honest.
"You…!" Claire looked up, tighting her delicate hands into fists as if thinking about striking my face again…
But whatever she and her father prepared for their opponts, quickly proved not to be ough wh, now that my sphere of influce moved closer to the edge of the forest, I ssed two more agresors rushing out to do the two of us harm.
"One momt," daring not to waste a second wh Claire had both her sword and her guard down, I swung my scythe, only to th allow it to drag me away…
Only to crash straight into a tree right as the very d of my swing landed straight on my target's neck, slicking his head off with so much ease, I couldn't help but doubt all the claims I've heard about before on how hard it is to decapitate a man.
But it wasn't over yet, not with yet another emy still rushing in the same direction, not ev aware of his compatriot's demise.
'Seriously…' I fought off the desire to sigh out wh I ssed three more foreign spiritual essces intrude upon the edges of my sphere of influce. 'Are Chihiro's guys THAT poorly prepared, or were the attack just so much bigger than they anticipated?' I thought, taking a second to wipe the snot off my face and rub the part of my nose that struck the tree before swinging my scythe again…
And snapping right back to a place back in the clearing, ready to reap the fucker who tried to charge Claire down…
Only to find him already bleeding out from the long, ugly wound going across his tire chest and stomach to the point his guts were spilling down, turning his blood into the fertilizer of the grass growing on the clearing.
It was a cut that contained all the fury, anger, fear, and anxiety of Claire. And now that she vted those emotions a bit, the look of reason returned to her eyes.
"Tim, I forbid you from blaming yourself for what happed and what's happing," she stated, turning to face me while slashing with her sword at the air to cast the blood off its blade. "This here happs because we underestimated their determination," she stated while pointing her hand over to the direction of the trees. "But…"
"UGH"
All out of nowhere, the world suddly turned into a pancake. Or rather, all of the atmosphere suddly tripled in weight, pinning me down to the g with ough force to soon crush my flesh and pulverize my bones.
Only wh I looked to the side to see Claire pressed flat against the g did I realize that in a single instant, I was forced against the g as well, now unable to move ev an inch.
The pressure was simply way too strong for me to resist as if someone put t elephants on my shoulders and forced me to walk a mile with them weighing me down.
The pressure was so immse, that any thought of moving ev an inch was nothing but a pipe-dream.
"You little brat…" an angry voice suddly came out from the opposite d of the clearing as a hooded figure suddly revealed itself from betwe the trees while holding its withered hand up in our direction.
"You will rue the day…!" the villain started with his usual monologue… Not ev realizing that he's already lost me.
For a while I could still use my scythe to get out of the scope of this man's suppressing attack… being held down like this gave me a certain, rather simple idea.
'Thinking about it… Is it ev necessary for me to move?' I thought, only to look up and in the direction of the attacker…
Before transfering nothing more but the cutting nature of my scythe's blade over to where his neck was.