Brax heard them. Voices screamed at him to get up. The voices of his wife, his daughter, the eastern girl, and even Aziel, whose phantom stood right behind him, nudged his body forward.
"It's okay, brother," Aziel whispered. "You've got this."
Brax felt their words. Their touch. Their love.
"Can daddy really do it?" Nora asked.
There was no more back, only forward.
"Of course," Christa assured, stroking her hand along Nora's silky coffee hair. "Your father can do anything. He's the man I love, after all."
The middle-aged peasant merchant who was never anything special now stood alone before the grandest threat humanity could ever conceive. Magic unbeknownst to himself enveloped his body and being, and rejuvenated his breath with a second, nay, third wind. He murmured quietly and cast a spell, manifesting something into his palm. A set of little papers.
Alive, but barely, he had only a deck of gleaming crimson playing cards in his hand to fight. He threw the magical cards into the sky, and they neatly arranged in a spinning orbit around his body, fluttering like a ring of glowing golden butterflies. They were so bright that Brax had to squint his eyes as he plucked one from the air.
"It hurts," he said, readying himself to use the gambling magic he had long forgone. "It hurts so much. My entire body feels like it's on fire. But that don't matter now, because every choice I make now leads to the same end."
He flipped the first card over, and it had a picture of the blue lotus on it: the floral symbol of arcane energy. As it glistened, Brax felt a surge of power within him. The card he'd drawn imbued him with an incredible amount of magic; an unfathomable feeling he had never felt before, surging through every vein in his body.
The pain persisted, but it didn't bother him as much, for he felt so alive. The card he had drawn rejuvenated his energy back to full and gave him an excess more, and for the first time in his life, his magic showed its true color. It was not dull and dim like one might expect of a peasant who had been rolling around in dirt his whole life. No, the lovely aura Brax exuded was pure gold; a quality of his kind and noble soul. It was one befitting a king, even in his final moments.
Despite the energy coursing through him, Brax was still injured and couldn't move his body much. He would have to deal with the angel without moving from where he stood. The problem was that he didn't have any techniques to fully maximize this energy. He only had defense. He had to find another way. His only chance was to pour magic into those wild cards and hope Tyche's luck favored him that day.
The angel saw Brax rise and began to stumble towards him, sparing Cygnus for the moment. It didn't seem to see Brax as a threat and began to hover towards him. This time, however, Brax was ready. Whether it was a gift from luck or fate, he now had quite the pool of energy flowing through him, and he could manipulate the earth like never before. Pillars of geodes began to belch from the ground and knocked the angel back as weaved through a sea of stony spears.
Magic, driven by imagination, was always more suited for those with creative minds. Even the most boring of elemental magics could become the wildest spectacles of artistry and power in the hands of someone with an expressive mind, and though Brax wasn't the most skilled magic user, his mind was full of boisterous ideas.
Colorful gems embedded in the stalagmites spewed out like rainbow vomit, homing in on the angel with glittering streaks of deadly light. The angel waved its hand to create a field of holy energy, which managed to deflect the jewel bullets as they exploded on the barrier.
Brax reached for another card. A bit of sweat nervously dribbled down his forehead this time. He hesitated. If he put all his magic into those cards, he might draw one that could kill the angel, but also one that could just as easily kill him. Fear. Panic. Uncertainty. Magic with random effects may have been potent, but it was ultimately too dangerous to rely on. That's why no one before had ever mastered such useless magic.
But Brax was not strong. There was no other way to win. No time to think. He could only act on a gamble. Brax snatched a second card from the air and looked at it. Panic struck his soaking face as it began to smolder and burn away rapidly. He threw the card as far as he could while summoning stone armor around his body to shield himself from the explosion. With a resounding boom, the enormous fiery ball scorched the earth and left a small crater as the shock wave rushed past the unscathed angel.
When the rubble and smoke cleared, Brax lay on the ground surrounded by debris, even more bloody, burned, and bruised than before. His chest heaved upward heavily as he struggled for breath, and his heart felt like it was about to burst from his chest. Perhaps it was the smoke, the warm liquid escaping his skin, or the utter exhaustion from his weak body, but Brax's mind proposed the idea that it would be easier to let it go and die. The dead don't feel regret. To give up would be so easy. But he didn't. As each second passed, he felt his life seeping out of him, yet for some reason, his body refused to give out.
It was the death of a merchant.
Adrenalized to the max, the stone peasant's eyes grew white, and his mind went blank. The last of his energy was used to stand once more. Like a phoenix from the ashes, Brax rose. He grabbed the last card from the air, lurching side to side as he did so. He hadn't looked at it, but he instinctively pointed it at the angel. While it did nothing at first, its luster shone through as it began to charge up in energy and halted the wind's blow. Brax mumbled something incomprehensible, and then, a beam of pure energy, too massive to dodge, blasted the corrupt angel. With no time to escape, the angel held up its sword and spun it around rapidly in a circle, creating a shield to block its body.
Though the propeller swordshield seemed to negate Brax's attack at first, as the beam dragged on, the angelic black steel began to falter.
Then, it stopped.
Surrounded by fire that burned air, the angel was overtaken by the full force of the card's beam, disappearing in the show of light.
When the attack was finished, Brax began to fall forward towards the upheaved earth. He caught himself with his foot. The card crackled into embers as it dissipated into ash and was blown away by the wind.
Through the smoke, the corrupt being could be seen.
The angel, though not entirely fallen, was still.
Brax mustered himself to remain standing in tandem. He was not fully conscious, but he still stood. He waited for the angel to hit the ground, so he could claim victory for himself and those who fought before him. As the final man in the baton pass against evil, it fell upon him to witness the enemy's defeat so that the ones who died could have some peace in death.
But as much as Brax wished it, the angel did not fall.
In the end, his attack hadn't done a thing to the angel, and Brax had nothing left, not even breath.
He heard words carried by the wind's echo.
"Why fight a losing battle?" cold, windy words rang tauntingly, though no one else was anywhere in sight.
"I-" Brax's lips moved, though his body was numb and growing colder. "I'm comfortable fighting losing battles. Not because I can win, but because I've been fighting them all my life. The world's biggest loser is just the one who learned the most. I am a greater man than when I started this fight, and I can only wonder how far I could have gone had I started this journey earlier."
Brax lived as an unassuming, impoverished victim his whole life, yet in the moment where he stood ready to be slain, the man he used to be vanished. He was worth a damn, finally, and his soul felt tranquil, because he had done something no one else ever had.
His heart grew still.
Perhaps someday, someone would take up his will as he seemed to have taken that crazy eastern girl's. Mayhaps he would meet her in the afterlife. He'd love for Aziel to meet her.
Christa. Norah.Forgive me. Aziel, I'm coming.
The black angel was upon Brax and raised its blackened sword.
"With my last breath, I renounced the heavens!" Brax declared. "I ain't a hero, but just this once, I don't feel like a loser."
While most prayed to be saved in their final moments or cowered in utmost fear, Brax couldn't help but feel at ease. He placed his hand in his pocket and felt the black half of the metal pendant connecting him to Christa. If he were to die, perhaps he would take it to the next life, in which he may reunite with his love once more.
It truly was the death of a merchant.
He shut his eyes one last time as the sword came down. He saw them and cherished that one final vision. Forever intertwined, he was content.
…and the birth of something greater.
Clang! The angel's black sword flew away, and the angel stumbled back. An electrified kick to the center of its chest thrust it far back, and with a stuttering crash, it was lying in the grayed grass.
"No! You cannot die yet, my first friend!" a figure enshrouded in a whirlwind of electricity said as a smile appeared to block his path to eternal darkness. "When you are old and have lived a long life with your wife and daughter, and have filled your bellies with tons of delicious food, then you are allowed to die. Until then, there is much you still have to do!"
Blood dripped from her head as she clutched a bruised and broken arm, but she still managed to glow with the red divinity of god magic. As he blacked out and fell to the ground, Brax made out Xinyu's image while she loomed over him in a bloodied, beaten, and exhausted body. Despite the ravaged self she held, she never looked more radiant, and her smile, never more splendid.
That's right, Brax thought as his mind faded. A mere angel could never take down someone such as her. Her smile… is hope.
The Merchant of Joy had arrived, and she was smiling as always.