Date: January 11, 2018 | Time: 3:37 AM | Location: The Mother's Layer — Chasm Interior
Perspective: Lucas (Before the battle)
Winning head-on? Yeah, right.
I tapped the side of my earpiece, pretending to adjust the frequency. The air in the crater was already heavy with a suffocating, ancient sorrow, but the real pressure was coming from the five people standing opposite us. Navina, Celia, Cid, and those three elite lackeys.
System, assess the odds of a direct frontal assault.
「 Calculating... Probability of total party wipe in a direct engagement: 99.8%. They outnumber, out-scale, and out-mana you. Please reconsider your life choices, bronze kid. 」
Thanks for the vote of confidence, tin can.
"Lucas. Alina."
It was X.
"Do not speak unless necessary. Acknowledge with a single tap."
I tapped the earpiece. Beside me, Alina subtly adjusted her grip on her amethyst blades, her finger lightly brushing her own comms.
"Winning this fight through standard attrition is impossible," X stated, his tone flat. "Navina, Celia, and Cid are operating at an S-Rank threshold. Combined with Navina's three elites, they possess enough raw output to cool you two down, suppress your abilities, and re-engage indefinitely until you are exhausted. A direct clash is suicide."
I gripped my daggers. He wasn't wrong, but hearing it said so clinically stung the ego a bit.
"That is why we are executing a zero-bomb strategy," X continued. "We will use their own magic, and our own counters, to weaponize the atmosphere. It will rely entirely on forced reactions and cold reading."
I leaned slightly toward Alina, keeping my eyes locked on Celia's violent, black aura across the slush.
"What does he mean by cold reading?" I whispered.
"I have already constructed a mental cold profile of every combatant in this crater," X answered before Alina could. "From previous engagements with the Mother of Despair, I have mapped their combat instincts. Furthermore, the residual Psychonosis in this crater is currently manipulating their senses. It is making them act and feel entirely 'rational' in their decision to protect the beast."
The ghost paused, the silence stretching for a calculated microsecond.
"We are going to use their own defensive and offensive magic against them to synthesize an artificial Cell Paralysis Bomb. To achieve this, you two must pretend you are losing. You must get completely destroyed."
I blinked, a slow, eager grin tugging at the corners of my mouth.
Oh man, I love acting.
System, can I use a micro-application of water magic to simulate intense sweat? Make it look like I'm really try-harding and getting my ass kicked?
「 Affirmative. Micro-hydrating your pores now. I must admit, your dedication to being pathetic is truly a marvel of the human spirit. 」
Shut up and make me sweat.
"It's risky," Alina whispered, her purple eyes narrowing. Her Sword Saint aura flickered with genuine apprehension. "One mistake and we die."
"I have mentally mapped out all 49 required turns," X replied, dismissing her concern with terrifying certainty. "The chemical reactions are pre-calculated. You simply have to follow my lead and execute the specific magic I direct at the exact timestamp I provide. The final Cell Bomb will neutralize their somatic cells entirely. They will collapse at the very end, precisely when they believe they have achieved victory."
A drop of synthetic sweat rolled down my temple. I wiped it away, letting my breathing hitch just enough to look exhausted before the fight even started.
"So, pretend to be losing a lot," X ordered. "Can you do that?"
"Got it," I murmured, lowering my stance to look slightly off-balance.
"Understood," Alina echoed, her voice a tight whisper.
I spun a dagger of pure celestial light in my hand, keeping my gaze locked on the 'heroes' across the cavern. My heart pounded a steady, controlled rhythm.
"Let us win the defeat gambit..."
*
Date: January 11, 2018 | Time: 4:02 AM | Location: The Mother's Layer — Chasm Interior
Perspective: Lucas
*
I walked over the frozen slush, my boots crunching the ice. I stopped right beside Celia. She was completely locked, a living statue collapsed on the ground, her red eyes burning with a venomous glare.
"Playtime is over."
I looked down at her, not with anger, but with absolute boredom.
"You know how hard it was, Celia? Artificially sweating, holding back, not healing myself? Even not holding my daggers correctly, limiting my magic, just so I can utterly destroy you?"
She stared at me. A death gaze that promised a thousand curses, but her lips couldn't even twitch.
"I make a very clear distinction between what's a winner to me and what's not." I continued, my voice cold. "Right now, you're the loser on the ground, just like I planned since the beginning. You have the power and the skill, but you lack the experience to hold your emotions. That makes you weak."
I turned my back to her, my gaze shifting toward the massive, paralyzed form of the Mother of Despair.
"Now, their parasitic tragedy ends."
Celia's eyes widened, the muscles in her jaw straining furiously as if she could force her mouth to move by sheer willpower alone. No effect. The Cell Bomb was absolute.
I smirked, leaving her behind as I walked over to finish the job.
*
Perspective: Celia
*
SHIT SHIT SHIT...
My mind was screaming, but my body was a tomb. I watched his boots walk away.
Fucking stop, Lucas. I'll kill you even if it's the last thing I do.
Through the edges of my paralyzed vision, I saw Lucas and Alina approach the Mother of Despair, their celestial magic flaring to life. The beast lay just as helpless as we did.
I would have fucking won if I broke his two legs! I don't need a fucking delusional battle! Kaiser outsmarted me, only if he and Lucas didn't get in the way!
The black thorns of my aura were entirely dormant, suppressed by the absolute chemical lockdown in my somatic cells.
GO TO HELL LUCAS. FUCK YOU.
That bastard stole my fucking win.
A sharp crackle broke the eerie silence of the cavern. The Aether-Vox relay flickered back to life.
"Hello!? Guys?!" Sylvia's voice echoed over the open channel, frantic and panicked. "Navina, Celia?! What happened? Why aren't you guys talking?"
No one could answer. The only sound was the slow drip of melting ice.
Then, another channel clicked open.
"Yo yo yo, how's it going."
The voice was casual. Mocking. Bored.
My blood grew murderous cold. It was him.
"Welcome, welcome," X's voice echoed, dripping with a terrifying, synthetic cheerfulness. "It seems the verdict has been set, pals."
"You sure seem cheerful now," Alina noted, her voice flat as she approached the paralyzed beast.
"Mhm. It's over."
"How the hell are you in our secure channel?!" Sylvia's voice cut through the comms, entirely frantic.
"Your Vanguard squad is currently neutralized for the next 2 minutes due to an artificial cell paralysis bomb," X explained, sounding like a professor diagnosing a mild, unfortunate disease. "It's honestly a sad mystery."
"HUH?! That's impossible—!"
A sharp click. Sylvia's frantic voice was instantly severed from the feed.
"Gotta mute her for a second. I wanted to clarify some things," X said smoothly. "So listen up. The subterranean Ash Bomb will be fine."
I lay frozen on the ice, my red eyes wide with absolute, suffocating rage. What is he talking about?
"The bomb relies on rapid subterranean combustion to trigger a seismic leyline rupture," X continued, lecturing his two assassins while we were forced to listen. "However, our little 49-turn experiment fundamentally altered the crater's ecosystem. You flooded the localized environment with absolute-zero frost, buffered lye salts, and hyper-dense organophosphates. The sheer density of the atmospheric pressure and the suspended heavy-metal fog will completely choke the bomb's primary ignition phase."
I couldn't breathe. My heart hammered against my ribs.
"It exploding is actually not a tidal threat anymore," X concluded, his voice utterly bored. "It will act as a localized pressure vent. The land upward will be infertile for a few years, maybe, and it's going to rain ash in this crater. No permanent damages. No global problems. So yeah. Relax."
The ghost paused.
"Do the honors now."
My eyes darted to the side, fighting the paralysis with every ounce of my soul. I looked at the Mother of Despair.
The colossal beast was slumped over, her skeletal frame locked by the neurotoxin. She wasn't looking at Lucas. She was staring directly at me.
A single, massive tear formed in her hollow socket and fell onto the frozen slush.
Nature does not allow you to keep what's gone.
The thought wasn't a voice. It was a resonant, agonizing truth that washed over the crater.
Alina stood before the Mother, her amethyst blades raised high. She didn't hesitate. She didn't flinch.
"Zero Cut."
A flash of purple light severed the air.
The Mother's colossal head slid cleanly off its shoulders and slammed into the ice with a sickening, heavy thud.
My pupils dilated until my vision was entirely black.
The calcified, silver child—the core she had been protecting with her life—slipped from her severed, paralyzed arms and fell onto the slush.
"Waaaaah... Waaaaah..."
The sound was horrifying. It wasn't the roar of a monster; it sounded exactly like a human infant crying in the freezing cold.
Lucas stood over the silver child. He stared down at it, his green eyes unreadable in the dim celestial light.
Lucas... don't do it. I pleaded in my mind, my soul screaming against the paralysis. Please. Don't.
Lucas let out a slow, heavy breath. He dismissed his light daggers. The glowing blades shattered into harmless golden sparks that faded into the ash.
A tiny, desperate spark of hope ignited in my chest. He's stopping. He's letting it live.
Lucas raised his heavy, reinforced combat boot.
He brought it down directly onto the crying silver child with a brutal, sickening crunch.
The crying stopped instantly.
Silver fluid exploded across the ice, staining Lucas's boot and the pristine frost. The core shattered into a thousand lifeless fragments.
"That's the end," Lucas muttered, his voice entirely dead.
I stared at the crushed remains, my mind completely, utterly blank. Speechless.
A minute passed. Then, my fingers twitched.
The neurotoxin was degrading. Across the cavern, Navina gasped for air, collapsing onto her hands and knees. Cid let out a violent cough, his eyes wide with shock.
Before anyone could speak, the ground violently lurched.
A massive, terrifying vibration shook the chasm walls. The ice beneath us began to crack and splinter.
"Okay! Okay!" Sylvia's voice exploded back into the unmuted comms, frantic and desperate. "A lot has happened, but right now—escape! The vibrations are signaling the primary charge! The Ash Bomb is about to explode! Everyone, get out of there first!"
"Move!" Navina shouted, her Sword Saint reflexes kicking in as she grabbed Cid by the collar and dragged him toward the cavern exit.
Everyone stood up. They ran. They didn't look back at the crushed core or the severed head. They just ran toward the upward passage.
I got up slowly. My muscles screamed in protest, but I didn't feel the pain. I didn't feel anything.
I looked down at the ruined, headless corpse of the Mother of Despair.
Lana... you're gone... your haven... your paradise... you only wanted happiness...
As the ground shook violently beneath me, throwing chunks of ice into the air, I noticed something. The Mother's massive, severed hand was resting on the slush. Her long, skeletal fingers weren't curled in agony.
They were pointing.
Her hand formed a deliberate, rigid arrow, pointing directly behind me, toward a narrow, obscured crack in the deep chasm wall.
Are you telling me to go there? Is there something?
"Celia, come on!"
I looked toward the main exit. Lucas was standing by the upward passage, the walls crumbling around him. He was waiting for me.
"Stop standing there! We can talk outside!" Lucas screamed over the deafening roar of the shifting tectonic plates.
I stared at him. The boy who crushed a crying child under his boot. The boy who followed the ghost's orders without a second thought.
I turned my back to him.
I faced the dark, narrow passage the Mother had pointed to. And I ran.
"CELIA?!" Navina's voice shrieked over the comms.
"Celia, where the hell are you going?!" Sylvia screamed. "The Ash Bomb is about to explode! Go back!"
"Celia. Go. Back."
It was X. His voice was no longer bored. It was a sharp, absolute command.
"Go away, Kaiser," I whispered into the comms, my voice hollow and trembling.
I didn't stop running. The dark crack in the wall loomed closer.
"I don't want to see you. I don't want to talk to you. I'm going somewhere you can't reach me."
"Far away from you."
Tears finally broke free, streaming down my face as I sprinted toward the unknown.
"You broke our promise... you killed her."
"I will find—" X started.
I reached up and violently ripped the Aether-Vox earpiece from my ear, crushing it in my palm before tossing it into the slush.
I dove into the narrow passage just as the cavern behind me ignited.
"I gotta go get her!" Lucas yelled, leaping down from the exit to chase after me.
But he was too late.
The muffled, localized explosion of the suppressed Ash Bomb ripped through the cavern. A shockwave of heat and heavy ash slammed into Lucas, throwing him backward. The ceiling of the chasm groaned and collapsed, sending a massive avalanche of stone crashing down.
The passage was instantly, permanently sealed by a wall of rock that immediately began to rot into grey ash.
After a bit...
The noise of the explosion faded into a muffled, distant rumble.
I was alone.
The narrow passage was completely sealed behind me. The massive boulders that blocked the exit were already crumbling, their edges rotting into a fine, grey powder under the violent chemical reaction of the Ash Bomb. Through the tiny gaps in the rocks, I could see the crater outside. It was a terrifying, suffocating storm of swirling ash, blotting out whatever little celestial light remained.
My body hit the wall.
It wasn't a conscious decision to sit down. The tension that had kept my spine rigid, the furious adrenaline that had pushed me to run—it all evaporated instantly. My knees simply gave out. I slid down the cold, jagged stone until I hit the dirt, feeling like gravity had suddenly doubled.
The silence in the passage was absolute, save for the faint, steady drip of water somewhere deep in the tunnel. It felt unbearably loud.
The shadows beneath my boots began to stretch.
They didn't form violently. They seeped out slowly, pooling around my legs like spilled ink.
[ My Queen... ]
Crownless materialized first. The towering, armor-clad king of grotesques. He knelt beside me, his usually stoic, imposing frame hunched over. He reached out a gauntleted hand, his touch surprisingly gentle, hovering just an inch over my shoulder as if afraid to break me further.
[ Please... stop. ]
[ You are tearing your own soul apart. Please, my Queen. Breathe. ]
[ Kaiser... he has crossed a line that even a demon would fear to tread. To treat your devotion as a variable in a calculation... it is a coldness that exceeds the void. ]
Behind him, Mirage flickered into existence. The illusionist shadow wrapped her arms around her own chest, her form trembling with a mix of fury and grief.
[ I hate him! I hate him so much! ]
[ He did all of this! He planned every single moment of your humiliation! Every step you took to get stronger, every drop of blood you spilled... he just used it as fuel for his little bomb! ]
[ We lost, my Queen... He doesn't care about the promise. He never did. ]
"I'm so terrible," I whispered.
My voice didn't sound like the Queen of Curses.
It sounded like the weak, pathetic girl from the village.
"I can't even do one thing alone."
I pulled my knees to my chest, my hands trembling violently as I buried my face in my arms.
I tried. God, I really tried. I wanted to surpass him. I thought if I reached the pinnacle, if I became someone he couldn't ignore, he would finally see me as an equal. I worked harder than any of them. I adapted to the pain, I embraced the curses, I became a monster just to stand by his side...
And for what? To be paralyzed like an insect while he finished my kill? To have my 'win' stolen and turned into a lecture on some chemical bullshit?!
"I was the fool for believing I was worth a simple vow. I poured everything into a promise that he broke without a second thought. I trusted him. I thought I could trust Kai for everything... but I'm just pathetic."
Crownless lowered his head, his shadow-aura wrapping around me like a protective blanket, offering a silent, useless comfort.
[ You are not pathetic. You are the Queen. His failure to honor his word is his shame, not yours. But we are trapped now... this place... ]
I cried until my throat was raw, until I felt completely dehydrated of emotion. The hollow, burning emptiness in my chest was unbearable.
Slowly, I forced myself to stand. The passage was dark, sloping downward into the unknown abyss.
"Nobody will even come," I muttered, my voice hoarse as I wiped the wetness from my cheeks. "I don't want to see anyone."
I looked down at the flickering illusionist at my feet.
"Mirage," I asked, staring at the rotting grey dust seeping through the blocked entrance. "Did any of you know about the ash?"
The shadows shifted. From the red ribbon tied in my hair, a tiny, nervous fluttering emerged.
Belightest. The ash-moth.
She landed softly on my shoulder, her minuscule form shivering.
[ I... I know the ash, my Queen. It is ancient. Over 100 years old. That makes it... so much worse. It is starved. ]
[ No human, no elf, no dwarf... no race can move while it storms outside. To step into that cloud is to step into a furnace that consumes the soul. ]
[ It doesn't just burn. It absorbs magic. It is a parasite of mana. If someone tries to cast a spell to protect themselves, the ash eats the mana and grows heavier, more violent. If it touches skin... it doesn't stop burning until it reaches the flesh, the bone... leaving permanent, decaying scars that never heal. ]
[ That is why I hide in your ribbon... in your shadow... often. Even my touch... it burns Ronan... it burns Crownless. I am a form of this death, my Queen. I am the ash that stayed. ]
I listened to the terrifying description, my expression turning entirely blank.
"Yeah. I got it," I said softly.
I turned my back to the blocked exit. The storm outside was a death sentence for anyone who tried to cross it.
"Nobody can come and save me. And I don't want anyone to come either."
For a fraction of a second, his face flashed in my mind.
Kai...
I violently shook my head, raising my hand and slapping my own cheek hard enough to leave a stinging red mark.
"No," I hissed to myself. "He shouldn't come. He can't."
I looked down the dark, spiraling tunnel ahead of me. The faint sound of dripping water echoed from the depths, a lonely, steady rhythm in the pitch-black abyss.
I took a step forward.
"As I go deeper," I whispered to the empty air, the memory of a crying child and a severed hand guiding my path.
"I'll find what you wanted me to find, Lana."