Chapter 287
Atasha’s POV
The realization came with dread.
“You are not sealed,” I said, the words leaving my mouth before I decided to speak thre
He laughed Sealed, he repeated, amused. “Such a comforting word. You all cling to it as if it means cafe
He moved suddenly.
1 barely caught the motion before he was on me again. His dagger out toward my midsection, and I wired leating the State scrape along my side instead of plunging into my stomach.
I retaliated immediately, slashing toward his thigh, but he jumped back with speed that did not match Kirol frame
He landed lightly and smiled again.
He is fast! Too fast!
“This vessel is inadequate,” he muttered, flexing, Rio’s fingers. “But it will do for now”
My heart pounded, but not from fear alone.
If he was a Shadow, then he had survived.
If he had survived, then the seal had not held the way the King believed,
This means our earlier assumption had been wrong!
He circled me like he had all the time in the world, dagger hanging loose in his hand, shoulders rolling once as if he was warming up inside a borrowed frame.
His tongue ran across his lower lip. “Do you know what is convenient about bodies like this,” he said, glancing down at Rio’s hands again as if they offended him. “They are already trained to survive pain. They already know how to kill”
He lifted his gaze back to mine, the red in his eyes seemed to deepen.
“But once I consume you,” he continued, voice dropping into something almost intimate. “This body will be stronger. The muscles will hold. The bones will stop failing. The vessel will finally be worth the trouble.”
My grip tightened around my short sword.
He wanted to devour me.
Not metaphorically, not as a threat meant to rattle me, but as a plan he had already rehearsed.
He had chosen me.
Not the powerful King nor Cassian who is a beastman.
Me.
Why? Was it because of my ability? The thought tried to root itself in my head and spread, but he moved again before it
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19:08 am Ppp
Chapter 287
could settle.
Rio lunged.
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I did not step back this time.
I stepped in.
My shoulder slammed into his chest and my short sword came up at the same moment, the blade angled to drive into his ribs as I tackled him with my full weight. We hit the ground hard, stone scraping under us, his dagger arm jerking up to stab
down.
Steel met steel.
My sword knocked his dagger aside, not cleanly, not safely, but enough to keep it from my throat. His free hand grabbed my wrist and twisted, strength surging through Rio’s joints in a way that made tendons scream. I rolled with it, dragged my blade back, and tried to jam it into the space beneath his collarbone.
He caught the flat of my sword with his palm.
I heard the impact through my own bones.
He shoved it away like it was a wooden training blade, then slammed his forehead into mine.
White burst behind my eyes.
My body buckled for half a second and he used it, knees driving into my ribs as he tossed me off him and rose in one smooth motion.
I pushed up immediately, blade still in hand, and cut toward his thigh again, aiming to slow him, aiming to cripple the legs that had carried him across walls earlier.
He twisted and let the sword bite shallowly into his outer leg, then grabbed my forearm with his other hand and yanked me in.
His dagger flashed.
Then, it slid between my ribs.
The pain was instant and hot. I choked, my breath collapsing, the taste of iron flooded my mouth. My knees hit stone and my sword clattered out of my grasp as my fingers failed.
He stepped back and watched me fold.
The wound started sealing even as blood spilled.
The flesh tightened. The tear closed. Heat surged through the damage and forced it to knit.
His grin widened as he watched it happen.
“Hahahaha! Wonderful!” he murmured, and the sound turned into a laugh that scraped the air. “You really are something special! I like you”
Saliva slipped from the corner of his mouth.
It dripped down onto Rio’s chin as he stared at me like I was food placed in front of him after a long famine, his breathing
Chapter 287
steady but his gaze bright, hungry in a way that made my skin crawl more than the knives ever could.
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I shoved myself upright and reached for my sword again, fingers finding the hilt, dragging it back toward me.
He was already moving.
He crossed the distance faster than my body could fully reset, grabbed my hair, and slammed my head sideways into the wall.
Stone exploded across my vision.
My back hit hard enough that the air tore out of my lungs, and something inside my chest cracked with the impact. I opened my mouth and vomited blood onto the ground, coughing once as my body tried to remember how to breathe.
The healing came anyway.
It forced itself through me, knitting ribs, sealing ruptured tissue, pushing the blood back where it belonged even as my stomach twisted and my throat burned.
He watched the recovery like it was entertainment.
His smile widened again, the spit gathered at the corner of his lips a second time as if his mouth could not keep up with how badly he wanted to tear into me.
“My… my… you remind me of someone,” he said, voice soft, almost pleased. “I have missed that kind of resilience.”
He stepped closer, dagger raised, his eyes narrowed as if imagining where to bite first.
“Oh… now,” he added, the words dragging out slowly, “I want your flesh even more.”
“Hahahahaha!” his laughter echoed against the walls of the cave as he lunged.
I threw myself to the side, shoulder clipping stone, barely clearing the line of his dagger as it stabbed into the wall behind me. I scrambled up, reached for my sword, and managed to get the blade between us before he could turn the missed strike into a second.
I slashed upward.
He caught my wrist again, twisted, and drove his knee into my abdomen.
The impact folded me in half.
“Now break for me!” he hissed. Then his boot hooked under my hip and kicked.
My body flew.
My back slammed into another wall with a crack that I felt more than heard, pain shooting down my spine and into my legs. The world tilted. My sword slipped from my hand. My fingers clawed at stone, trying to find grip, trying to keep me upright,
The healing surged again, heat flooding through the fracture, forcing bone back into place, sealing the break before it could fully settle into damage.
My breathing came in uneven pulls.
The cave light blurred at the edges.
2.00 am
Chapter 287
My eyes lifted anyway.
The red in his gaze held me like a hook.
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He moved closer, smiling like he had been waiting for this exact moment. Then he paused and turned towards the direction where we came from. “What a nuisance…..” he said.
田
