The Exorcist's Final Year

The Cemetery Keeper

The creature hauled itself from the rift, a towering monolith of compressed shadow and jagged tomb-slate. It stood nearly ten feet tall, its form shifting with the sound of grinding tectonic plates. There were no eyes, only burning rifts of white heat where a face should have been.

"Don’t just stand there with your jaw hanging open, kid," Nikolai said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, rhythmic hum. "It’s a Grave-Titan. Keep it occupied while I calibrate my resonance. If you get squashed, try to make it look graceful."

"Occupied?" Raka’s voice cracked, but he didn't retreat. He shifted his weight, his boots sinking into the loose, frozen soil. "That thing is made of stone and spite, Nikolai! How am I supposed to occupy a mountain?"

"Distract it. Be annoying. You’re good at that," Nikolai replied, not even looking back. He began to draw geometric patterns in the air with his fingers, the space around his palms warping as he gathered a terrifying amount of energy.

The Titan let out a roar that wasn't a sound but a physical blast of concussive force. Raka was thrown back, his boots carving deep trenches into the mud as he struggled to maintain his footing.

"Focus, Raka!" Nikolai barked, his concentration entirely on his own weave. "If you let it focus on me, we’re both paste. It reacts to high-density essence. It has a reactive shield. Use your head!"

"A reactive shield?" Raka shouted, dodging a massive, slab-like fist that pulverized the ground where he had stood a second earlier. Dust and debris exploded into the air, stinging his eyes. "You mean it absorbs big hits?"

"Precisely! It eats whatever you throw at it that’s too flashy. It grows stronger with every blast you send its way. If you can’t think of a way to sting it without feeding it, just stand still so I don't have to look at your corpse!"

Raka ducked under a sweeping arm, the rush of wind nearly knocking him off balance. "So it only reacts to high-density energy? It ignores the small stuff?"

"It doesn't even register it as a threat!" Nikolai dodged a falling boulder of debris with a bored flick of his wrist. "It's an ego problem on a cosmic scale. Go on, then! Be the insignificant flea!"

Raka scrambled around a cracked mausoleum, his breath coming in ragged hitches. He looked at his own palms. His aura, the "glow-worm" light he had been so ashamed of, flickered. It was thin. It was weak. It was barely enough to heat a cup of tea.

"Fine," Raka muttered to himself, his teeth gritted. "If I'm a flea, I’ll be the most irritating damn flea this thing has ever seen."

He didn't try to bulk up his energy. He didn't try to manifest a blade. Instead, he forced his aura to remain as thin as a thread, a single, needle-sharp point of light concentrated at the tip of his finger. He sprinted toward the Titan, ignoring the instinct to protect himself with a shield.

"Hey! Over here, you walking pile of rubble!" Raka screamed, darting between the creature's massive, stone-hewn legs.

The Titan pivoted, its head turning with the screech of dry parchment. It swung a fist downward, but Raka slid across the mud, passing directly beneath the strike. As he slid, he jabbed his finger into the joint of the Titan’s knee.

There was no explosion. No flare of power. Just a tiny, sharp spark of white light that sank into the creature's masonry-like hide.

The Titan stumbled, its massive knee buckling for a fraction of a second. It let out a confused, discordant hum, but the defensive glow surrounding it didn't even flicker. It hadn't perceived the attack as a threat.

"Did you see that?" Raka yelled, rolling to his feet and sprinting to the other side. "It ignored me!"

"It’s not ignoring you; it’s treating you like a mosquito!" Nikolai called out, his own aura now burning like a miniature sun behind him. "Keep hitting the joints! Disrupt its internal flow, but for the love of the gods, don't use more power than you absolutely have to. If you hit its core, it’ll turn you into a crater!"

Raka moved with a desperation he didn't know he possessed. He became a blur of motion, zipping in and out of the Titan’s reach. He didn't use the grand, sweeping strikes of a Master. He used jabs, taps, and pinpricks. Each time his light made contact, the Titan flinched, its massive form destabilizing, but the creature’s own shield remained inert, dormant because it felt no match to challenge.

"You’re getting better at being a nuisance," Nikolai remarked, his voice closer now. He was moving in, his hands wreathed in a cold, blue fire that pulsed with a rhythm opposite to the Titan’s own. "Now, create an opening in the chest cavity. The seal is failing. Make it hurt."

"I'm trying!" Raka gasped, his lungs burning. He vaulted off a tombstone, launching himself toward the creature’s chest. He didn't go for a strike; he went for the center of the creature’s glowing, purple heart-gem.

He didn't strike with light; he shoved his palm against the gemstone and held it there, dumping every ounce of his lingering, flickering energy into a continuous stream.

The Titan froze. The sheer persistence of the thin, low-level stream began to bore into the gem, grinding against the internal architecture of the seal.

"Now!" Raka shouted, his vision going black at the edges.

Nikolai didn't hesitate. He stepped into the space Raka had cleared, his hand moving like a striking cobra. He didn't use a massive wave of force. He used a concentrated beam of absolute zero-point energy. It struck the exact point where Raka’s thread of light was keeping the shield open.

The sound was like a glass cathedral shattering.

The Titan shrieked, a sound of rending metal, and then collapsed into a pile of useless, grey rubble. The purple light faded from the shards, leaving the graveyard in a sudden, ringing silence.

Raka collapsed into the mud, his hands shaking so violently he couldn't form a fist. He stared up at the sky, his chest heaving.

Nikolai walked over to the center of the pile, his movements slower than usual. He reached into the debris and pulled out a jagged, calcified lump—the core of the Grave-Strider. He tossed it into the air and caught it, checking it for cracks.

"Not bad," Nikolai said, though he didn't look at Raka. "You actually managed not to get us both killed. I’m almost impressed."

Raka tried to laugh, but it turned into a fit of coughing. "Almost?"

"Don't get cocky. You’re still a liability," Nikolai said, turning toward him.

That was when Raka saw it.

Nikolai’s left sleeve was shredded, and along his forearm, the skin was raw and blackened, etched with the same geometric, pulsing veins that had been eating away at Master Jun’s chest. The dark corruption was actively crawling up his skin, eating away at the sleeve of his expensive trench coat.

Raka scrambled to his feet, pointing. "Nikolai! Your arm! That thing... it touched you?"

Nikolai glanced at his arm with a look of mild annoyance, as if he’d just noticed a stain on his cuff. He pulled his sleeve down, his expression hardening into that familiar, unreadable mask.

"It’s a minor infection, Raka. Don't act like a child," Nikolai said, his voice clipped. "A Grave-Strider’s essence is volatile. It’s nothing a bit of proper sealing won't handle later."

"That’s not a simple infection!" Raka stepped forward, his eyes locked on the dark, spreading web. "That looks exactly like the curse on my master. You’re being eaten!"

Nikolai turned his back, his posture stiff. "We have the core. We have three more components to find. Unless you want your master to die while you stand there fretting over my health, I suggest you stop talking and start walking."

He began to move toward the exit of the graveyard, his stride perhaps a hair less fluid than before.

Raka looked at the pile of rubble, then at the retreating back of the man who was keeping his own death sentence a secret. He grabbed his pack, his hand tightening around the strap.

"How long?" Raka called out to his back.

Nikolai didn't stop. "Long enough to finish this job, kid. Keep your pace up. We aren't done yet."