Chapter 4400: From the Same Cloth (Part 2)

The grueling training with the Firstborns taught the undead Ranger how to use his body and powers to their full potential. His magical studies under Baba Yaga’s tutelage strengthened his foundations and widened his horizons.

Acala knew that, like Kelia for Dusk and Orpal for Night, he was Dawn’s weak point. The crack into her perfect crystal that the Dead King would one day exploit to bring her down, as he had already done with the Red Sun.

Acala endured his defeats at the hands of the Firstborns to discard his pride and learn humility. He grew stronger by the day, not because he had something to prove, but because he refused to let a madman take away everything he had.

Finding himself in the shoes of his victims had been a crushing yet enlightening experience. It had led Acala to realize that there was only one difference between the man who had once betrayed the Rezar clan and Orpal.

While the Dead King refused to look himself in the mirror and screamed to force the rest of the world to listen to his twisted vision of reality, the undead Ranger kept his eyes open and his mouth shut.

Acala didn’t like his reflection one bit, yet he refused to avert his gaze from the truth and delude himself that he was a victim of his circumstances. He looked the monster he had become in the eyes, judging himself as harshly as the rest of Mogar did.

’Orpal and I are the same.’ Acala saw the Chaos Annihilation nearing completion and attacked in a frenzy, even if it meant suffering deep wounds for little or no gain. ’Our foolish pride, reckless ambition, and undying envy are cut from the same cloth.

’We made the same choices, perpetrated the same horrors, and didn’t hesitate for one second to bond with a cursed object in order to take by force what we thought the world owed us.

’We have been blind for most of our lives, preferring to believe our own lies rather than accepting our limits and admitting we weren’t as good as we wanted to be. What I did to the Rezar clan is monstrous.

’I repaid kindness with selfishness, acceptance with envy, and love with hatred. There is no justification for what I did, and Nalrond has every right to despise me. I could blame my action on Dawn and claim that she controlled me, but I know that’s not true.

’I was in full control when we first bonded. She needed my permission to do anything, even shapeshift my body into hers. Dawn massacred the Rezars because I allowed her to.

’I used her rage to hide the shame for my actions. I let her kill the people who had saved my life and considered me family because I was afraid that the Rezars might reveal the truth behind my newfound strength to the Kingdom.

’I was a monster no better than Orpal. I’m still that monster, and I always will be.’ The Undead Ranger was honest with himself.

He knew there was nothing he could do or say that would change the past. It was the reason he hadn’t apologized to Nalrond or Salman and avoided meeting them unless absolutely necessary.

Saying sorry wouldn’t bring their loved ones back to life.

It wouldn’t help the survivors of the massacre overcome their grief or make them sleep better at night. Acala saying sorry would only enrage them further, making it seem as if he had moved on from his crimes and was asking them to do the same.

The only person that would feel better from the apology was Acala himself, and he knew he didn’t deserve it. He kept his pain as raw as that of his victims to ensure that he would never forget that his new life was built upon the graves of the Rezars.

The undead Ranger knew he could never atone for what he had done, so he put everything he had into becoming a different man. Someone Dawn could rely on and who would never fail those who believed in him again.

"You shouldn’t have stayed here after Dawn left, kid." Orulm said, conjuring the Chaos Annihilation and infusing it with Break energy. "It’s only thanks to your foolish pride that I get to add a Horseman to the list of my prey. Goodbye and good riddance."

Acala saw the anti-Guardian spell coming at him and said nothing. He just unleashed his Blade Tier Spell, Rising Sun.

"What?" Orulm said in amazement as the clash between the energy pillars generated shockwaves so powerful that both Eldritch and Horseman were pushed back. "How? Blade Spells take a long time to conjure, and I have the Maw of Bytra.

"There is no way you started weaving your spell after me and completed it at the same time. None!"

Yet there was.

Awakened at the violet core and Awakened undead past the half full-red blood core gained the ability to cast spells with their bodies. Every movement they made, no matter if the beat of their heart or the flick of a little finger, conjured a rune.

The faster an Awakened moved, the faster they would complete a spell, allowing them to cast magic in close-quarter combat even while their minds were focused solely on reading the enemy’s moves.

In Acala’s case, Dawn’s crystal was part of his body. Every time he suffered an injury or Orulm’s break energy destroyed one of his limbs, white crystals would knit his wounds or burst out of a stump to form a replacement.

The gemstones spawned from the crystal moved independently of his will, but they carried it nonetheless. Each shard formed along with a rune, bringing the Blade Spell closer to completion.

Acala had taken a calculated risk, sacrificing part of the life force contained in his blood core to save himself or at least Dawn. Rising Sun contained the energy from the Twilight Blade, Acala’s rings, and a few artifacts’ power cores.

The undead Ranger put every ounce of energy he had left and poured more as the white crystal in his chest generated new mana from sunlight. The golden and black pillars of light fought to a standstill, razing the Blood Minotaurs’ headquarters to the ground in the blink of an eye.

The remaining arrays burned like paper, while stone vaporized and the ground cracked. If not for Acala’s warning, the Undead Courts’ members would have died as well.

The entire city block trembled as if during a violent quake, as the people screamed at the top of their lungs in fear and called the authorities when it was far too late.

The tremors spread farther by the second and the light generated by the clashing spells was visible from kilometers. Such was the pressure they exerted that a hole opened in the clouds above Batara.

"Nice trick, kid, but it’s not enough!" Orulm’s spell didn’t just clash with Acala’s, it also destroyed its runes, forcing the undead Ranger to waste his energy waving them over and over again.

"I’m part of the next evolutionary wave. I’m a living Eldritch that will surpass any life form Mogar ever created. You, instead, are a mistake of the past. Begone."

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