Tarous, стр. 41

of sacrifice she was making. She was doing the right thing. If our roles were reversed I didn’t know if I had the kind of strength to do the same. I turned my swords back into the cube and placed it in my pocket. Normal attacks weren’t going to work. I was going to have to use my trump card.

I placed my hands on the barrier and used Devouring Life to try to pull the energy into me. Nothing happened. The barrier wasn’t made of life energy so it had no effect. I tried again, but with the same results. Meanwhile Nyxra’s energy blasts pounded against the barrier and appeared to be weakening the area in front of us. I tried not to chuckle. I was having performance issues, this was a first.

The scythe on my head glowed darker and I could sense knowledge passing from the grim reaper to me. Suddenly the technique Death Cannot Be Stopped became perfectly clear in my head. It was a technique that allowed me to pass through any barrier. It was complex beyond words. If I tried to learn it the normal way it would have taken me centuries it was so complex and profound. With the way the grim reaper had transferred the knowledge of the technique, it was forever burnt into my mind. I would never forget even the tiniest detail about this technique.

Like a wisp, but one made of death qi, I floated through the barrier to where the grim reaper was still trapped. He continued to struggle against the chains that bound him. The little tiny pulsating fluff ball of death qi that was me flashed and changed back into a witch.

“Now what?” I asked. I had no idea how I could help. We were surrounded by powerful witches, far more powerful than me. There was nothing I could do. The grim reaper looked down at me and I felt death qi consume every inch of my body.

“NO!” screamed Chaz.

Chaz reached into his robes and removed an ornate knife. He placed the blade on his wrist and with a quick but steady movement he drew it across. The blade cut deep and blood flowed from his arm. He didn’t stop there. He placed the blade on his cheek and sliced deep into his own flesh. Next he cut his forehead, then his other wrist, and eventually he moved on to his legs. Soon his entire body was covered in blood from the hundred cuts now covering his body.

The speed at which death qi was pouring into me from the reaper lessened, but it still continued. Slowly, memories began to float into my mind. I looked up at the reaper, a giant skeleton in a black robe carrying a terrifying scythe wherever he went.

“You were the son of a farmer, that’s why you carry a scythe. You could have made your weapon look like anything, but you spent most of your life working in the fields. You were familiar with the scythe so that’s why your God Weapon took the form of a scythe.”

I had always wondered why a scythe was the instrument of death. Now I knew.

“Your family was poor. They starved to death.  You starved to death with them and when death came to take your soul he took mercy on you. He felt pity since your life was so short and sad. Never did you hate others or fear death. Never did you curse anyone for your misfortune. You always did your best with a smile on your face despite how difficult things became. You were able to sway the heart of death himself. So he sacrificed himself and granted you all of his powers. It was the only way he could save you.”

He gave me a slight nod.

“You have done nothing but show kindness to others your entire existence. Even now you’re giving me your powers so that it won’t fall into the hands of someone that would abuse it.”

“I will be the master of death,” yelled Chaz.

I turned and looked at Chaz, all of the reaper’s memories of all the things he had done for humanity running through my head. “You’re not worthy.”

The power of death continued to flow into me, but some of it began to flow into Chaz as well. I wasn’t sure I was worthy of death’s power either.

“Death is inevitable. It is a cold truth that finds us all one day. Even death is dying right before our very eyes.” I motioned towards the reaper who had begun to shrink in size as he channeled away his power.

“There was no reason for my wife to die! She was still young, but even magic couldn’t heal her cancer.”

I felt his pain and his loss in my very soul. Poor Chaz and poor Nyxra. “Death is fair, we must all die. We are born to die and from the moment of birth we all have an appointment with death. Without death how can the children of the world blaze their own path if the older ones don’t ever step aside?”

“I refuse. I will defeat death,” spoke Chaz, his body glowing with the stolen power of the grim reaper.

“You cannot defeat what cannot be defeated.”

“Death took her from me and I will never forgive it!” cried Chaz.

The power flowing within me was overwhelming. I was death. I was the release from the pain of living. Like Chaz, I also glowed with the power of the reaper.

I clenched my fists. “If you hurt so much, I will remove all of your pain!”

I struck first. A wave of death spread out from me. I used my Withering Fist technique, except now it was a thousand times stronger. A wave of black flames exploded from my body and rolled off into the distance. The wave flowed through Nyxra, leaving her uninjured, but all the witches that were channeling their power into the pentagram began to wither and die before our eyes.

I think a better name for my