Chapter 323 A Fair Reward For Betrayal [Part 2]
The air between both of them was held in suspense for a short while.
Cal had a stern frown plastered to his face; what had happened had happened and he had his genuine reasons for doing what he did.
As Northern had postulated, Sura had promised him a way home. Because when one entered the rift, they couldn't leave until the rift's core was destroyed.
Sura for some reasons knew this was a rift and also knew where he came from. When Northern took Fano's name, he had instantly contacted Cal and demanded that Northern be killed quickly.
He promised to create the gateway out of the rift and return Cal home. Cal, having lost all hope of defeating Sura, saw this as the perfect trade.
Northern was strong, but he never believed Northern would be able to defeat Sura, not now, not ever.
"Even if I was to die in this battle, Sura will still kill you and your partner. This rift will be the end of you." His voice sounded with so much surety.
Northern tilted his head left then right, thinking a little bit about the words Cal had just said, then his eyes fell on Cal with a sudden sweet smile.
"That's great! You have made up your mind to die!!"
Cal's facial features tensed, his eyes darkly glaring at Northern. He lingered then asked:
"Have you even ever killed a man before?"
Northern was silent but his eyes were wrought with a vicious look, radiating an eerie blue light as Soul Taker danced with silks of fire.
Had he ever killed a man before?
The answer was no. He had never. And he never wanted to ever.
Morally, Northern hated killing a fellow being, he thought of it as bad and the trespassing of morality.
Drifters already are powerful enough as they are; such power should be focused on extinguishing monsters and rifts, creating a better world to live in.
Killing each other was just creating more problems for the world and reducing the number of drifters available to fight the rifts.
There was no sense in that.
However, when he thought of the necessary action of killing a human to protect what is his or because letting the person go in that situation just didn't feel right, he felt nothing.
It was like all his emotions had gone numb. Like he was empty and something in him was slowly disappearing.
For this reason Northern actually felt like a hypocrite towards Raven when they were about to start their journey.
Because he told her off against killing someone whereas it seemed like something he would do with no emotion.
So far so good Chaos and Void had done him a lot of good but he did not know how long that was going to last.
He didn't want to become an emotionless being, he didn't know what in him was going to change and because of it he was kind of scared.
Which is why he really didn't want to kill anyone.
But this guy right here… Cal, Cal did not deserve to live.
'I'd rather fall into depravity than spare him.'
Northern gripped his sword tighter and fixed Cal a more vicious glare, his eyes burning with contempt.
"No response." Cal scoffed, "I guess you have made up your mind."
He joined his hand to the one holding Stainless, then closed his eyes.
Slowly, the air around him began to boil, get thicker and somewhat had a foggy presence.
Northern instantly knew something was coming. Something Cal had never used.
Most likely it was what placed a Sage on a different category from other drifters.
They say their soul gained a personality and it seemed Cal's soul personality was lightning.
Northern knew which constellation was attributed to lightning, but had forgotten, and right now was not the time to think the likes of those things.
Cal was probably about to unleash something devastating upon him.
And he wanted him to, because who could be a better teacher of this new Speed talent of his save the original owner of the talent itself.
Lightning clapped around Cal as he moved his sword a little. One of his legs was slightly to the front while the other was bent back a little.
He was in a strange stance, one that wouldn't give him the momentum he needed if he wanted to aim for a speed cut.
However, his eyes were gleaming with a primal evil, one that made Northern realize that there was no backing down the moment Cal moved.
He either cuts down the traitor, or the traitor cuts him down.
And he was not ready to die, not now, not anytime soon.
Northern breathed in softly and breathed out again. He also had a card up his sleeve.
He had received something marvelous from advancing his Heritage to the next level. What better time to test it out than now.
'Remember the feel of Chaos, don't try to control it, flow with it…' He said internally to himself.
With [Formless] Northern found out he had gained that flexibility of flow.
He just needed to imprint the feel into his muscles and never forget the memory.
The first step to using the sword techniques he gained was Chaos footwork.
Hence, he moved his legs forward a little, brought his flaming sword to the front, and held it with both hands, his eyes locked on Cal.
The tension in the air grew heavier, everywhere became somewhat gloomy thanks to the atmosphere between both of them.
Even Raven was silently anticipating.
And without any warning whatsoever, Cal moved. And everything immediately stopped.
In that slight 0.0001 second, Northern's Chaos eyes revealed themselves. Immediately seeing through the time stop.
This was the true ability of the last skill that Cal had refused to use. While it was applicable in several ways subjective to the creativity of the user.
This was the best overpowered use one could find for it.
He would have won... if he wasn't fighting Northern.