Reincarnated as the Final Villain's Vessel

The cold feeling in my chest was crawling into the rest of my body, or that’s how it seemed at first, but it wasn’t physical.

It was something different.

Something distant that exists on a different layer of existence... the soul.

The edge of his sword had passed the physical barriers, reaching deep inside me and touching my soul itself.

It was unbearable... creeping and strange.

For a moment it didn’t hurt, but that was only for a moment before it started to build.

My limbs stopped listening to me, and my body froze like I’d turned into a block of cold stone.

My eyes were stuck on the person in front of me, I saw the reflection of my face in his blue pupils, the shock drawn on my features.

For a moment I thought he was cheating, that this was some ability of his sword or a Relic... because there was no ability like this in the report I’d read about this person.

But no... he wasn’t cheating... because there inside him, the essence was spread out in complex patterns my eyes couldn’t fully take in.

Theo smiled, the blood flowing from his eye sockets in crimson lines. ”Y... you know? I never planned to use this.”

His voice was shaking, missing its usual humor... like he was struggling to form those words.

”But I don’t want to lose.”

He pushed the sword further into my chest, at that moment I wanted to open my mouth, scream... push this feeling away from me.

But I couldn’t.

All I could do was feel a cold piercing the depths of my soul... wounding it?

The strength faded from my body, and the swords fell to the ground with a muffled sound, I lost my will over the essence, letting it pull back and cancel my ability.

I lost my breath, the sounds around me disappeared, and all that was left was a blurry view of Theo Arlin’s face... his eyes and nose bleeding in lines of blood down his face.

Even in this state I could tell he was suffering to do what he’s doing to me right now.

”Don’t worry, you won’t die... you’ll heal with some rest later, and please don’t hold a grudge against me! Let’s have ice cream later like you said.” His voice was like a distant echo ringing in my ears.

I was on my knees, when did I fall?... I didn’t know, all I knew was the sharp pain deep inside me, like my heart was being cut by hundreds of blades while I was conscious.

Tightening his grip on me, Theo bent down and picked up one of my swords, he raised the steel edge toward my chest, he looked like he was thinking about where to stab me to eliminate me right away.

And I just knelt, my body wasn’t mine anymore, like my soul had been bound in another place separate from me.

That’s when Theo finally decided where to stab me... the bastard chose my heart, was he confident the belt would move me before I died or what?

When he put the metal edge on my chest, I realized I was really going to lose... I was going to lose.

Pathetic!... how pathetic I am.

The moment Theo put strength into the blade to push it into my heart... he stopped.

Not because he showed me mercy... no, but because he couldn’t push it into my heart, the muscles of his arm tightened uselessly and his pupils widened.

Because there in front of the tip of the sword, was a solid layer of ethereal blue light, like a block of floating steel, stopping the sword from piercing my flesh and ending this.

That’s when Theo opened his mouth in panic. ”Fuck.”

...

A while earlier, on the neighboring island... specifically where Emeris and Riven stood facing each other.

After the short, provoking exchange of words, silence fell over the forest for a few moments, broken only by the evening breeze and the distant shouts of the fight raging at the edge of the island.

Emeris’s smile didn’t fade, and unlike her Riven wore a big frown, her chin still raised with contempt.

Then they started.

The first to move was Riven, she vanished from her place like she’d been erased from the air, every kind of lifeless barrier and distance meant nothing to her.

She appeared right behind Emeris in silence, not even the air trembled around her sword when she stabbed at the shoulder blade, trying to pierce her heart from the opposite side... at least she tried.

Because there the blade stopped in the air, a thin layer of ethereal blue light stood as a barrier between her and ending the fight before it started.

It didn’t even touch Emeris’s gray armor... and even though stopping the stab of someone at Rank 4 is supposed to stir up a big shockwave, nothing happened here.

Even the air barely reacted to Riven’s sword, only her short hair flew back.

That’s when a shining blue edge formed in the air, like a barely visible spider’s thread above Riven’s arm, as it came down on it.

But the short-haired girl had already vanished, leaving the thread to plunge into the soil and fade at its owner’s will.

This time she appeared on Emeris’s right side, cutting toward her neck with a smoothness that couldn’t be explained, only for her sword to stop a hair away from that pure white skin... exactly like before.

Riven scowled, then used her ability to get away again before a thin thread passed through the place she’d been standing, threatening to split her in half.

Emeris just stood there, her smile never dimming, her hands behind her back like someone breathing in the evening air in the forest behind her house.

At the right moment layers of ethereal blue light appeared, stopping Riven’s silent, smooth strikes that looked like they could cut the toughest monsters like butter.

But in front of her power they could only stop.

She pulled back, leaving distance between them, unlike the rest of Rank 4, the clash of these two didn’t warp the nearby scenery... there was barely anything except those trees that fell in Riven’s missed attack.

Facing each other, it was Emeris’s turn to raise her chin, her voice soft and effortless. ”Is that all you’ve got? You know, for someone who barged in on our personal time on her first day, and insulted one of us, insulted him... I thought you’d at least have something to back up your words.”

Riven clenched her jaw, her teeth grinding in anger. ”Shut up, and don’t get full of yourself.”

That’s when her thin sword glimmered with essence, driving the shadows of the forest away, then with a fluid movement that passed through space itself, she cut the air in front of her horizontally, forming a shining arc.

The distance between the two girls was more than fifteen meters, but when she cut, the arc was already in front of Emeris, in front of her face.

Sharp and raw.

Emeris hadn’t moved her hand yet. Only a wall of blue ether separated her from the attack without any effort.

This time a loud crash boomed, like a thermal bomb had exploded against an unbreakable glass wall, the ground was dug up and the nearby tree trunks went flying.

When the light faded the destruction was visible in front of Emeris, but behind her barrier not even the small twig at her foot had shaken.

”Well!... that was a little exciting,” she muttered, watching Riven’s expression with amusement.

Then before the girl could rush into a new attack, Emeris raised her hand.

It was an unnecessary gesture, because she didn’t really need to raise her hand... it was just showing some respect to her opponent... because no matter how much this girl annoyed her that day, she didn’t really hate her.

So there in front of her, dozens of thin threads formed in the air, crossing and stretching in every direction for several meters, each one taller than multi-story buildings and thinner than a spider’s thread.

Only a faint shimmer of pure blue under the shadows of the evening was visible to Riven’s dark eyes.

All of this formed in a heartbeat.

Because the moment the realization crept into the Luminar girl, the ethereal web moved toward her, consuming everything in its path.