A Sinner’s Chance

Between the two options for a cure I would have liked if the second was easier to achieve, but seeing as how Arya had reacted to my presence I didn't think that was going to be an option. I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to kill an innocent person even if it was self-defense, just as I had in my past life. Knowing that I needed to kill her, I stopped being defensive and began to actively attack not sparing anything as I brought my full might to bear.

Purple-black flames spread from the black carapace of my palms and spread out along the rest of the my hand and forearms before it began to seemingly consume Arya's flames. Flames of Necrosis was one of my strongest Skills and it was one that I was now extremely familiar with. The only downside of the Skill was that it was short range and short-lived if it was too far from me. One of the reasons I'd been working on the wrist launcher was to remedy this as it could spread across both my carapace and thread while remaining at full power.

It was clear rather quickly that I had the upper hand due to my Skills, but I knew it wouldn't last long as even though Superhuman Regeneration was working its hardest it was unable to fully deal with the damage dealt by the curse. The feeling of being burned from the inside out was a strange sensation but thanks to Pain Nullification and Masochism it was barely a tickle though it couldn't prevent the damage from effecting me.

Clashes of golden flames and dark flames leapt out each time we clashed with each other. Her resilience surprised me as I thought that I should have been able to end the battle much more quickly yet here I was slowing down as she stayed on the defensive. Knowing that I would be the one to lose if we dragged this out much longer I decided to risk simply grabbing onto her flaming sword with my claws. Arya had been avoiding clashing with my flames too much as they ate away at hers. It was a strange feeling gripping the flames that shouldn't have had a solid form but I could see how effective it was by the panic on Arya's face.

Just as I managed to erase Arya's sword of fire and lunged to land a killing blow I suddenly lurched and stumbled over as I coughed up a viscous puddle of blood. I hadn't realized how far the curse had progressed until I was lying on the ground and saw that I could actually see inside and through some parts of my body, along with a golden flame that was slowly burning away and growing as it ate away at my flesh.

I could hear Arya's labored breathing as she slowly approached and forced myself to my knees against the will of my body. Every breath caused blood to leak from my lips but I simply ignored it as I stood once again and faced towards Arya. She had stopped just out of arm reach and had a look of horror on her face. "How can you still be alive?"

I knew it was a rhetorical question that she'd simply asked out of terror it was an all too familiar line. There was brief overlap of Arya and the vision of an enemy soldier from my past life as I recalled the first time I heard that line. I had stood up after crawling out from the wreckage of an Infantry VTOL after being shot down by the enemy anti-air turrets.

The look of pure shock and horror on the faces of the enemies soldiers as I approached seemed like an exact replica of Arya's as a rough cackle left my mouth and I took a step forward wrapping a claw around Arya's neck. It was almost as if I had gone back in time and was facing the enemy soldiers once again as I began to squeeze preparing to shatter her neck before I was suddenly unable to move and collapsed into a heap as my vision faded.