Chapter 40 - "You're Strong"

Luna leapt down from Blüt’s head, suddenly losing her footing. Exhaustion caught up to her all at once, both her mind and body weary from operating at her maximum capacity for so long.

Merri rushed over and helped her up. “You did it!” She cheered.

Luna smiled, internally she wasn’t quite satisfied, but seeing Merri’s smiling face made it all worth it. She struggled to move, limping forward. Every muscle in her body was exhausted. Her heart beat so fast, the air around her felt hot.

No…

The air around her was hot.

Why?

Breath. Breath on her back. Luna found strength she didn’t know she had, leaping away with Merri in her arms, just in time to see a gigantic hand cleave the air she previously inhabited.

He was so clearly dead. His eyes remained glazed over, the sword stayed pierced into his brain, but he still moved. It groaned, dragging itself toward Luna and Merri by its one intact hand. “Mama…” was all it could gurgle out.

“H-how?” Merri quivered, clinging to Luna.

“I don’t know. It shouldn’t be possible. He’s braindead. I pierced right through it…” Luna stared at him, bewildered. “Unless…?”

Luna looked at Merri. She couldn’t feel any magic coming from her. “Ten years of healing magic… Pumped into his body non-stop… If he absorbed it…” She could hardly believe what she was saying, but it was the only explanation.

“He can heal himself now?” Merri gasped.

The body’s legs shook as he made an attempt to stand. Its movements were rough and graceless, like it was being puppeteered invisibly.

Luna wracked her brain, but her neurons couldn’t fire properly, burned out from overuse. “His brain is damaged… He shouldn’t…” Luna bit her tongue. She had learned now not to doubt the impossible if it was right before her. She had to conclude based on what was in front of her, and what was in front of her was certainly an immortal.

“If he can heal himself then…” Merri began, clinging hard to Luna’s arm, tears began to well up. “He can’t be… He can’t be!”

It could not be, yet it was. Its eyes, still glazed over and without light, began to look around, quickly finding his prey. It was then that Luna realised what it was. There was no soul left in the husk before them. It was a hollow beast. No sense of who Blüt was remained within the enormous corpse, it was driven only by a desire to live. Blüt was dead, but the Immortal Ogre lived on.

Clack.

Luna frowned and raised her hand. “If I hit it with a Munditia, we can at least delay its regeneration… It’s not as good as yours, it’ll give us time to…” She trailed off. Time to what? She didn’t know.

Clack.

The Ogre continually failed to stand. Little by little his motor functions returned, every nerve rebooting off of pure instinct as its heart forced blood to flow once more through its cold veins.

Clack.

Luna’s hand began to glow, Munditia humming forth from her palm. “If we’re lucky… Maybe if we destroy the brain entirely…” Luna was lying to herself. Its injuries made it clear already that its healing was beyond that. It was baked into every cell of its body. So long as one part of it survived, the whole would regenerate. The thing before her was the world’s first true immortal.

Clack.

“Put that thing away.”

From behind Luna, a gruff voice spoke. It sounded dry, like it was the first time he had said a word in days. Luna turned, knowing instantly who it belonged to.

Clint Morgans looked horrible. Dark circles under his eyes and tiredness baked into every inch of his face. His clothes were torn and ragged, spurred boots scuffed and worn, every step he made with a “clack” was painful to him.

Beneath his shoes, his feet were red and blistered. His legs were tight and heavy from overuse. His entire body was on the verge of collapse. Clint had walked for three days straight to arrive here. He did not sleep. He did not rest. He walked 72 hours non-stop until he reached his target.

“You promised, didn’t you?” Clint stepped past Luna, closing her hand for her and sealing her magic away.

“You were listening? You were here for all of that?” Luna questioned, jolting to her feet.

Clint continued his calm steps toward the Ogre. “I was right.” He remarked. “You were wasting your real talent.” He stopped for a moment to turn and look at Luna, even under his hat his expression was clear. “You’re strong, Luna.”

Luna didn’t realise it, but tears were streaming down her face. Those words that had haunted her all her life. There was another dam her mother had placed all those years ago. An emotional one. It too burst completely, allowing proud, joyful tears to run free from her eyes. “I am.” She said with a smile, falling exhausted to her knees.

Clint stood before the beast, unflinching even in front of its gigantic, gaping mouth, which breathed heavily in, desperate for each breath.

“Can you hear me?” Clint asked.

Of course he received no response, the Ogre could not speak. Speech was human, and it was now anything but.

Clint aligned his revolver right between its eyes for maximum lethality.

“Clint, don’t!” Luna insisted. “Destroying his brain won’t work!”

“You were right.” He cut her off, then returned his gaze to the living corpse before him. “Can’t just do nothing.” Their eyes met. It couldn’t be certain as to whether or not the Ogre could even see anymore, large orbs in its skull thoroughly glazed over and devoid of life… But if it could see, it saw this.

A dark, cloaked skeletal figure looming over Clint’s shoulder, bony arms wrapped around him. Its skull held no expression, but somehow seemed to be smiling. If the monster was capable of recognition, he would know it as Death. Absolute death. Death that even an immortal would not escape. Even a mindless, shambling corpse knew what its presence implied.

It could no longer think, but at the sight of inevitable fate before it, its instinct to survive was replaced by one thing: Fear.

Fear was the last feeling the Immortal Ogre’s heart would hold as its brain was blown apart by Clint’s bullet.