CHAPTER 775: SHADOW OF DEATH

Quickly placing Allura on the operating table, Gin gritted his teeth and unbuttoned her shirt.

Immediately, the sight of blood and rotting flesh caused him to wince.

"I told you! You’re being too hasty right now. You’re already short on time and you keep pulling this crap. Do you want to die? Is the little time you have left too much? Is that why you want to speed things up?" Gin lectured in anger as he grabbed a knife and heated it up.

"Haha... It’s better to use Oblivion while I still can. Tiamat’s a dangerous one, even weakened." Allura laughed weakly while blood continued to pour from her lips.

"You don’t think it’s better to use that time with Alice instead of trying to solve potential dangers? Let me reiterate. POTENTIAL dangers." Gin clicked his tongue, cutting off pieces of rotting flesh.

Seeing the dark energy inside her body gnawing away at flesh and bones, Gin gritted his teeth.

"And if anything, why didn’t you use Oblivion on your own wound? Can’t you erase its traces or something?" Gin questioned.

Allura didn’t talk about her powers much, and what little he knew was what she could do while weakened.

"It’s not that simple. I already tried to do it before, but the curse only fought back stronger than ever. Why else do you think I’m in this state?" Allura wanted to sit up but Gin pushed her head back down.

"I don’t know, maybe because you keep pushing your body?"

The more Gin removed, the deeper his frown became.

Some of this damage... it wasn’t a result of the curse. It’s something else, something violent.

"I can already tell what you’re thinking. The price of erasure is pretty steep. It’s not something I can use often even if I was in my prime haha..." Allura joked, grabbing a cigarette and lighting it up.

"You know the medicine doesn’t work anymore right?"

"I’m aware. But I’ve gotten used to smoking, it calms me down I suppose. Though maybe it’s time I find something that tastes better than this medicinal garbage." Allura grinned before flinching from Gin’s surgery.

"Alright, you can tell me this after I finish." Gin wiped away his sweat.

As the Abyss Lord of Death, his authority was... a unique one.

The avatar of Death, not quite a god but one that is similar in a sense.

An omnipresent being who watches over the mortality of mortals.

With his authority, he’s able to see the ’shadow’ that’s being cast over someone.

A premonition of their lifespan and how long they can live.

With his powers, he’s able to adjust this ’shadow’ to some extent, either to make it thicker or to lessen it.

Some would perceive this as increased luck or decreased luck in some sense.

Being lucky that a sneak attack just so happened to miss your vitals, or a stray attack managed to kill your opponent. These were the kinds of situations that might occur with the use of the Death Authority.

Of course, using this power wasn’t without its drawbacks.

For the user of ’Death,’ the lives they erase are compiled as a tally. If you kill someone who’s supposed to live 3 more years, those 3 years are added to the tally.

Then, if someone was to die in a year, you can spend that tally to delay that time of death.

Of course, for those who live longer, it works a little differently but the general idea is what you take is what you can give.

However, that’s only when it comes to natural lifespan.

To ’erase’ the death caused by an attack, the cost multiplies manyfold as you are pulling a soul away from the grasp of death.

Allura’s... situation was unique. A mix of both.

As he stayed by her side, Gin had been delaying the time of her death via the ’time’ he’d consumed on the battlefield, the tally that he’s accumulated. But this was starting to lose its effectiveness.

The shadow of death loomed over her ominously like a thick blanket of darkness.

Once this lost effectiveness, he wouldn’t be able to ’pay off’ her death by attack.

"Done..." Gin let out a breath of exhaustion as he collapsed onto his chair.

"So how long do I got left?" Allura asked, buttoning up her shirt once more.

Scratching his hair, Gin closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again.

He stared at Allura.

The avatar of death that’s clinging onto her body...

"Do you want me to estimate an exact time or a general idea?" Gin offered.

"General idea."

"Not long. It also fluctuates based on what you do."

Allura’s fingers froze as a helpless smile appeared on her face.

"Not long huh? Alright."

Closing his eyes, Gin massaged his eyelids.

Allura was the first one that he’d seen with such a thick stench of death, someone that the reaper had been trying to grab yet kept defying fate.

In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if the Avatar of Death was to descend without any ritual just to claim Allura’s life.

As for the second one who’s in possession of a similar... ’shadow,’ it was Alice.

The shadow over her was... abnormal, as with everything surrounding her.

It was the kind of shadow of someone who’s ’died’ yet still lives, not quite an undead yet not quite alive.

A strange shadow that was thick enough to have the avatar of death cling onto them like Allura yet they haven’t shown up.

"I think it’s about time you cashed in some favours rather than doing everything yourself."

"When did you learn to read my mind? I’m thinking it’s about time as well. There’s nothing else to be done down here after all. So I’m thinking... the first favour I should cash in should be the Underground, yeah?" Allura smiled as Gin nodded his head.

Indeed, cashing in the favour from the Underground would help them significantly, especially considering their influence.

With Tiamat dealt with, Gin could only hope that cashing in favours wouldn’t take too long. He missed his granddaughter. Was she eating well? Was she getting hurt? Was that damn Luke laying his hands on her???

"!!!" Luke suddenly felt a shiver.

"What’s wrong with you?" Ria glanced over in confusion.

"Nothing, I just felt a chill." Luke rubbed his arms with a frown.

"Don’t tell me you caught a sickness?" Rosalyn frowned as Luke shook his head.

"Good, because we have no time for that and you can blame Alice for that." She grumbled.

While waiting for Alice to meet up with them, they finally got a message from her.

And the contents were... as expected.

[Infiltrating Sun Church. Can’t join up. Good luck.]

Just thinking about it made Rosalyn angry.

The f*ck did she mean infiltrating the Sun Church? What does she mean she can’t join up? Good luck?!?!

Seeing the quickly rising anger in Rosalyn, Ria quickly changed subjects.

"I thought we were going to see the cardinal? How come we’re journeying to the north instead?" Ria asked.

Next to them, Isolde’s expression remained the same.

"Because the cardinal doesn’t know us. The one he knows is Alice, and I doubt he’ll believe us. Not to mention the fact that since he’s affiliated with the Church, we don’t know if he’ll report it to the Goddess or not. Instead, it’s probably better to meet up with some of Alice’s other friends in the north since they’re not affiliated with the churches.

"Since Alice had made quite a few friends up north, it should be a relatively easy time to convince them as long as we show them some proof." Rosalyn sighed.

The second reason why she wanted to go north was to check out the situation with the Queen.

According to Alice, she was in a state of ascension right now. Similar to what happened with Velouria in the past, the Queen was trying to become a god. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be smooth considering the Zenia family might be targeting the north.

Thus, Rosalyn wanted to survey the situation first before deciding what to do. There was no telling when they’d be able to party up with Alice again, so it was best to make use of this time instead of sitting around doing nothing.

Ria was quite interested in the friends that Alice had made while she was on her own journey.

Considering the dangers that Alice faced, there was no doubt they were strong. The question now was how strong.

Right now, Ria felt as though she was simply a spectator. She could feel the potential inside herself, the possibilities using her Sigil and even the power of Nyzel that she inherited.

But tapping into that power felt impossible. It was as if a veil would not budge. She needed some fresh inspiration, a stimulant to push her beyond the boundary.

Perhaps seeing Alice’s friends should be able to spark that fire of competitiveness within her.

To see the gap between them.

Though there was another issue at hand...

"Miss..." Ria turned around.

"Astrelya. You don’t need to pay me any attention, I’m simply tagging along for when dear Alice returns. I tried to find her before but she’s with another girl." Astrelya sighed.

"Just ignore her. It’s not like we can do anything to her to begin with." Rosalyn reminded Ria.

Even if they didn’t want her to follow, what could they even do?

Rosalyn could try to fight, but there was an invisible wall between them. She could instinctively tell...

If she tried to fight Astrelya, the one standing at the end would be her!