HBWnovel Chapter 436 Put your heart into it!!
Chapter 436 Put your heart into it!!
The world around them was nothing but wreckage now.
The spirit realm, once a kaleidoscope of ethereal landscapes, had been reduced to a shattered wasteland. The ground—if it could still be called that—was fractured into floating islands of debris. The air itself seemed wounded, torn and bleeding with spectral energy that flickered like dying stars.
Neither combatant noticed.
Neither cared.
Blake's body was hardly recognizable as human anymore. His form had become a writhing mass of burning blood and molten flesh, constantly shifting, constantly breaking and remaking itself. What remained of his face was stretched in a permanent rictus of pain and fury.
Nemesis circled him, its body a sinuous shadow that occasionally solidified just enough to strike. Its elongated limbs twisted at impossible angles, sometimes splitting into dozens of tendrils, sometimes condensing into hammer-like fists that could shatter mountains.
"You disappoint me, blood-weaver," Nemesis purred, its voice a chorus of whispers that seemed to come from everywhere at once. "All this power... all this rage... and yet you hold back."
Blake spat a glob of burning blood that sizzled when it hit the ground. "I'm ripping you apart, you shadow-fuck."
"Are you?" Nemesis's laughter echoed across the battlefield. Its body suddenly split open, revealing thousands of glittering crystals, soul crystals embedded in its shadowy flesh.
Each one pulsed with a different rhythm, a different life stolen and consumed. "Do I look wounded to you?"
Blake roared, unleashing another barrage of blood-spikes that erupted from the ground beneath Nemesis. The familiar simply melted around them, reforming unharmed.
"PATHETIC!" Nemesis screamed, its voice suddenly thunderous. "You claim to fight for love? For your precious Rose?" It gestured to its chest, where one crystal pulsed brighter than the others—a delicate, rose-tinted gem that beat like a heart. "You don't even put your heart into it."
Something in Blake broke.
His heart.
His mind.
His restraint.
"My heart?" Blake whispered, his voice suddenly calm amid the chaos. His burning eyes fixed on the rose-colored crystal. "Is that what you want?"
Nemesis's grin stretched wider. "Show me what you're really made of, blood-weaver. Or I'll keep her soul forever... just another trophy in my collection."
Blake stood still, his molten form cooling, hardening. For the first time since the battle began, he closed his eyes.
"You want my heart?" Blake's voice was barely audible. "Fine."
His dug his hands into his chest and cracked it open.
Not metaphorically.
Not as some artistic flourish.
His actual chest split down the middle, ribs spreading like fingers, revealing his beating heart—a mass of pulsing red that glowed with unnatural fire.
Nemesis tilted its head, curious now.
Blake reached into his own chest and, without hesitation, ripped out his heart.
Blood didn't pour out. It hovered, suspended around him like a galaxy of red stars. His severed arteries and veins extended from his chest cavity, still connected to the heart in his hand, stretching like red ropes.
"You talk too much," Blake said.
Then he squeezed his heart.
Power erupted from him—not the wild, uncontrolled explosions from before, but something calculated. Deliberate. Terrifying.
Not with the wild, destructive fire from before. This was something else—a cold, calculated heat that didn't destroy the blood, but transformed it. The vessels hardened, becoming like steel, trapping the soul-crystals in a cage of blood-forged metal.
Nemesis thrashed more violently, its body tearing itself apart as it fought against the blood cage growing inside it.
"YOU CAN'T DO THIS!" it wailed. "THE OATH—"
"Fuck the oath," Blake said.
He closed his fist around his heart.
The network of blood vessels inside Nemesis suddenly contracted, crushing inward with impossible force. The familiar's body imploded, collapsing into itself like a dying star.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then—an explosion of light.
Thousands of soul-crystals burst free from Nemesis's collapsing form, hovering in the air like a constellation of multicolored stars. Each one pulsed with its own rhythm, its own life waiting to be reclaimed.
At the center of it all floated the rose-tinted crystal, still wrapped in a delicate cage of Blake's blood.
Nemesis's voice, now barely a whisper, rose from the shadows pooling on the ground. "You... can't... have... her..."
Blake looked down at the pitiful remains of the once-mighty familiar. It was nothing but a puddle of darkness now, clinging desperately to existence.
"I already do," Blake replied.
He reached out and gently took the rose-tinted crystal, blood cage and all, into his palm. The moment he touched it, the blood vessels unwound themselves, flowing back into his body through the veins still connected to his heart.
The other soul-crystals began to drift away, each seeking its rightful owner in the vast expanse of the spirit world. Soon, only Blake, the puddle of shadow that was Nemesis, and the rose-tinted crystal remained.
Blake looked down at his heart, still clutched in his other hand. It was pale, nearly drained of blood, beating weakly. Without hesitation, he placed it back into his open chest cavity. The ribs folded back into place, flesh knitting itself together.
He felt empty. Hollow. He had used nearly every drop of his blood in the fight. But in his palm, Rose's soul pulsed with warm, gentle light.
"Worth it," he whispered.
The puddle of shadow that was Nemesis began to bubble and hiss. "This... isn't... over..." it rasped.
Blake didn't bother to look at it. "Yes. It is."
He turned away, cradling the soul-crystal close to his chest, already thinking of the journey back to the physical world, where Rose's body waited.
Behind him, what remained of Nemesis gave one final, hateful hiss before dissipating into the ether, too weak to maintain even its most basic form.
Blake walked away from the shattered battlefield, his body broken, his blood nearly gone, but his heart—now reunited with Rose's soul—beating stronger with each step. He was going back to the blood cocoon, where Rose's body was.
He had won.
Not through superior strength.
Not through clever tactics.
But by putting his heart into it.
Literally.
Blake smiled as the crystal in his hand pulsed in time with his heart.
"Let's go home, Rose," he whispered. "Let's go home."