Threads of the Soul

Chapter 499 - 499: Rigged from the Start

Alfie staggered backwards, his glaive clattering to the ground as the arm carrying it felt limp by his side. Blood trickled down the grooves of his iron-wood armour and dripped from the tips of his finger.His eyes darted around, watching the gas around him shifting as an invisible force tore through it. But it was useless to try and use it to know where his opponent was. By the time the gas had shifted, the Were-Tiger could have already crossed the room twice over, and a dozen new slashes appeared on his armour.

The only consolation was that it seemed to be playing with him. Enjoying torturing its food before it finally went in for the kill, and that was playing right into his hand. Although the flowers on his back had been destroyed, gas still poured from the area they had carved from, just not nearly at the same rate.

Alfie's leg was next to go. There was a sudden, split second force against the side of his leg before it whipped to the side and snapped like a twig. The bone erupting through his torn armour as Alfie let out a muffled cry and collapsed to his still functioning knee.

The Were-Tiger appeared in the same instance, simply manifesting with a flash of light and appearing as a set of furred feet in Alfie's line of sight as he stared at the ground.

A thick, fluffy half-hand half-paw clamped around his throat, the claws extending outwards slowly as they dug into his armour and pressed against his flesh. Like he weighed nothing, he was slowly lifted off of the ground until he was eye level with the beast, which left his legs dangling uselessly in the air.

The Were-Tiger slowly removed Alfie's helmet, as if he was unwrapping a Christmas present and was languishing in the anticipation. However just like a spoiled child at Christmas, his irritation and anger was plain as day as soon as he realised the gift he had unwrapped was not what he had been wanting.

A low, rumbling growl lingered within the tigers throat as he threw Alfie's helmet to the side, causing it to bounce along the ground and eventually skid to a halt underneath the veil of thick, green gas still swirling around their feet, or beneath their feet in Alfie's current case.

"You're not the Old Man..." The tiger rumbled, before narrowing his eyes slightly. Although Alfie's reaction was subtle, merely a slight dilation in his eyes, it was more than enough for the trained spy to notice.

"But you know where he is, don't you? You will tell me, now."

He squeezed his hand-paw tighter, digging his claws into Alfie's throat enough to draw tiny streams of blood. Not enough to kill him or do serious damage, but more than enough to prove that he could if he so wished.

Alfie clenched his eyes for a moment, letting out a strained yet contained groan of pain.

The Tigers other hand latched onto Alfie's bloodied arm, immediately pressing his claws into the fresh cuts, sending wave after wave of pain through Alfie's body. But even still he didn't give him the satisfaction of a real cry of pain. He kept his mouth clamped tightly shut as his eyes were aflame with defiance and... expectation.

"You will tell me, or I will teach you the meaning of true pain. You will be begging me to kill you by the end of it, and only when I am sure that you are telling me the truth, will I finally grant your...

Are you... holding your breath?"

A smirk danced across Alfie's lips, which were still clamped tightly shut, as a new bud sprouted from the chest of his armour. It quickly opened, right as Alfie clamped his hands tight onto the Were-Tigers arm, as the flower sprayed an extra concentrated dose of the gas that was still flooding the room.

The tiger tried to move backwards, to disappear far across the room like before, but Alfie made sure that he was dragged along with it this time.

It made it half way across the room before its legs gave out beneath it. The two of them hit the ground at the same time, bouncing and rolling across the floor from the tigers momentum.

But when they finally came to a halt, only one of them clambered to their feet.

Alfie glanced dismissively at the Were-tiger, who was sitting on all fours as it coughed violently, as he strode across the room without hurry. He searched through the gas for a few seconds, ignoring the lung ripping coughing and the retching of blood that came from behind him, until he finally bent down and plucked his helmet from the ground.

He placed it over his head, making sure that it was properly secure and covering his mouth, before exhaling deeply and taking in a new lungful of fresh air.

"I must say, I underestimated you." Alfie said coldly, glancing towards the Were-Tiger again, which had progressed from retching to full on puking up its own blood. It could barely support itself on its hands and knees, mostly out of a sense of pride than anything else.

"Not your fighting prowess, that was exactly as I expected. No... I thought that moving quick and breathing rapidly because of it would be enough. But I failed to account for a hastened metabolism.

Your body was taking in the poison, but it was processing it too quickly for it to last."

He hooked his foot under his glaive and flicked it into his hand, giving it a few spins to test its balance was still as he remembered, before slowly walking over to the Were-Tiger with it dragging along the floor behind him as one of his arms still failed to work properly.

"All it took was a concentrated dose to kick start the process. It weakened your body enough that the rest filling the room could do what it was supposed to do. I should be thanking you though, at least now I know what you are after.

However you should have realised that this situation right here... This was your destiny from the moment you faced me. It was rigged from the start."

"W-wait..." The Were-tiger choked out, his voice hoarse and wheezing from the coughing tearing his throat to shreds. But Alfie ignored his request, as he raised his glaive high and brought it down the very next second.

With a flick of his wrist, he whipped the glaive to the side to dislodge the blood from his blade, before resting it on his shoulder. He glanced at the head rolling across the ground with nothing but disdain before turning on his heels and walking out of the room, finally stopping his production on the poisonous gas from his back.