LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 21: Chapter 2:Eclipse Touch
The tunnels pulsed with an unnatural cold.
The dim lights flickered erratically, casting warped shadows along the damp walls. A low hum vibrated through the air—bzzzt… bzzzt…—as if something unseen was draining the life from the lights.
Then—
shhhhhh…
A whisper.
Faint. Broken. Crawling beneath their skin.
Luc's breath hitched. A shadow shifted at the tunnel's edge.
Then it lurched forward.
THUD. THUD. SCRRCH.
The revenant.
Half-rotted flesh peeled away, exposing blackened veins that pulsed with cursed energy. Its hollow glowing eyes locked onto them, its mouth cracking open in a silent scream—
SKREEEEEEE—!
A wave of cold hatred slammed into the tunnel.
Then it moved.
WHOOSH—!
Too fast.
Theo reacted instantly—FWOOSH! Fire roared to life in his palm. He swung a blazing arc through the air—
SHHHHHH! The flames whooshed forward, illuminating the tunnel—
But—
The revenant twisted.
CRACK! CRK-CRK! Its body contorted unnaturally, bones snapping as it dodged at the last second. The fire missed by a breath.
"Shit—!" Theo barely had time to reposition before—
WHAM!
The revenant slammed into the tunnel wall, rebounding at an inhuman angle.
SLASH!
Vera's next attack came fast—a spear of water, slicing through the air—FWSSH!
But—
SHRRK.
The moment it touched the creature—it phased through.
It flickered.
One second, solid. The next—ghostly.
Vera cursed. "Damn it—it's shifting between states!"
Luc barely had time to process before—
SWISH!
The revenant lunged straight at him.
A clawed hand—SLASH!
Luc threw himself back, the razor-sharp fingers slicing through thin air just inches from his chest. WHOOSH! He landed hard, boots scraping against the tunnel floor—
A heartbeat late—and that would've ripped through him.
Theo growled. "Then we just hit harder!"
FWOOOM!
He launched another burst of fire—hotter, brighter—burning BLUE.
BOOOOM! The impact sent shockwaves through the tunnel, the flames blazing outward.
The revenant staggered—
But—
CRACK.
Its neck snapped unnaturally. Its body twisted, reversing itself mid-air.
And then—
It kept coming.
Luc clenched his fists.
Theo and Vera were strong. Their energy flowed effortlessly through them—like a storm, like wildfire. Exorcist power.
But Luc?
His energy—his very existence—rejected it.
No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he trained—it would never flow through him like it did for Theo and Vera.
Because he was different.
Because he wasn't human.
The revenant shrieked again.
SKREEEEEEEEE—!
The sound was not just a monster's cry.
It was something else.
Luc's heart clenched.
This thing—it wasn't just a monster.
It was someone.
A lost soul, trapped in endless agony.
For a brief second—Luc understood.
And something inside him stirred.
A realization.
He wasn't like Theo or Vera. He never would be. But… maybe that wasn't a weakness.
Maybe it was something else.
Luc's fingers curled.
He pulled at his energy—not forcing it, not mimicking exorcists—just feeling it.
His demonic aura stirred.
HUMMMMMMM.
Dark. Heavy. Yet… alive.
And instead of rejecting exorcist energy—
He wrapped it around his own.
Not as an intruder.
As a bridge.
The two opposing forces—exorcist light and demonic darkness—fused.
A glow—neither holy nor corrupt—rippled around Luc's hands.
The revenant lunged again.
WHOOSH—!
This time—Luc didn't step back.
He met the attack head-on.
BAM!
His hand shot out—grasping the revenant's arm.
Normally, his fingers would have passed through its ghostly form.
Not this time.
Luc's fused energy burned against the revenant's decayed flesh—not as an attack, but as something else.
Something calming.
The revenant's body spasmed.
Its glow faltered.
For the first time, the overwhelming hatred in its eyes—flickered.
Then—
A surge of memories.
Luc's mind plunged into the revenant's past.
A Battlefield
CLANG!
CLASH!
Swords ripped through the air.
The sky burned red with smoke and fire.
A young man, barely more than a boy, stood in the center of it all. His armor was dented, bloodied—his hands shaking as he clutched his sword.
A voice.
His mother's voice.
"You'll come home, won't you?"
He had promised.
He had lied.
THUNK! An arrow pierced the ground beside him.
He ran.
He fought.
But he never went home.
The battlefield became a grave.
His body was left behind.
His name was forgotten.
His soul—trapped in regret.
A broken promise. A life stolen by war.
He had fought so hard to live—he couldn't accept that he was dead.
Luc gasped, snapping back to reality.
The revenant trembled in his grasp.
For the first time in decades—it remembered.
Luc tightened his grip.
Not to harm—
To release.
"You're free."
The revenant's hollow eyes widened.
Then—
It sighed.
A breathless, silent release.
The cursed energy unraveled. The decay faded.
And like a candle blown out by the wind—
It vanished.
Silence.
Luc stood there, breathless.
The last wisps of energy flickered around his fingers.
Theo and Vera stared.
Theo blinked. "What the hell was that?"
Luc swallowed. He didn't have an answer.
But deep inside—something had shifted.
For the first time… he felt closer to them.
To the people he was supposed to be fighting alongside.
To the humanity he was never meant to be part of.
Vera exhaled. "Well… that was different."
Theo huffed. "Yeah. But hey—job's done, right?"
Luc looked down at his hands. The warmth of the energy still lingered.
A small, quiet smile tugged at his lips.
"Yeah."
And then he looked up, a thought slipping past his lips.
"How's the other doing?"
End…