Unlucky. Just unlucky. Those were the only words that could describe the situation. He had run into an enemy who could cut through the air with nothing but wind, an enemy who could shoot plasma beams from her hands, an enemy who seemed like a demi-human in disguise, and on top of all that, she was an Enlightened.
'A fucking Enlightened,' Lucid thought, the reality of it staggering.
It made no sense. Someone as powerful as his previous comrades from Earth was here, in this backwater town, trying to seize a piece of land that was not even that significant. The scale was bewildering.
The tentacle of violet energy tightened around his torso. By now, he could barely breathe. His body was held in an awkward, painful shape within her crushing grip. The appendage felt humid and unyielding, like living iron. He could not move.
It tightened further.
'This is the worst way to go out,' he lamented silently.
He tried to fight for control, to focus on that faint green light that had earlier repaired his injuries and reinforced his body. But he could not. He was utterly powerless.
Amidst the pressure, he could hear her laughter, a condescending sound that echoed around the ruined garden.
His arm made a sickening cracking sound. The healing light was not enough. He was getting more injured rather than healed.
"AGHHHH!" he screamed, the sound torn from his lungs.
The laughter upon hearing his agony seemed to grow more profound, more pleased.
'Yes, this is it. I am really done for. Who knows if I will even be in control in the next iteration?'
He seemed to surrender inside his head. His thoughts were nothing more than pity and despair. Strangely, Karmen's presence was gone. Lucid was in much more control now than he ever had been.
'Did he already throw in the towel? Man, I hate that guy.'
"You are a coward, Lucid."
Karmen's voice spoke. His mouth moved without permission, the words shot out loud and clear despite the terrible sounds of the tentacles tightening.
"A coward? Me?" Lucid muttered in his own mind.
He laughed, a bitter, internal sound.
"Me?!" he shot back, the thought fierce. "Do you have any idea how much I have gone through because of your sorry life? 'Boo hoo, my family is dead, please resolve my matter.' I am trying to save them, something you clearly failed to do, and you are calling me a coward?"
"Lucid, you are only doing this because your own existence is at risk," Karmen's voice countered, calm and accusing.
"Of course I am! Are you telling me to gladly offer my life up in the hopes of saving some noble's personal issues? I mean, would you do the same for me? I would love to see you try. My, how I would laugh at your sorry state."
"That is not what I mean, Lucid."
"Then what do you mean? You called me a coward for not being able to save your family, for not accepting death."
"No. You are a coward for not accepting fate."
"BAHAHAHAHAHA!" Lucid's mental laughter was a wheeze that escaped his nearly collapsed chest. "It is pretty ironic. The guy who wants me to save his family, who are all set to die, is telling me that I am a coward for not accepting *my* fate?"
He laughed more, wheezing air escaping his damaged lungs. "Is, is he telling me that I am a coward for not accepting my fate?"
He stopped. By now, his arm was broken. He was so close to becoming crushed pulp under Ivy's relentless strain. But at this point, he let go. What was the point? He would die anyway. He had already accepted his death once, twice, thrice. He had lost count. He let go of the struggle. What were these impossible trials he was fighting? The Sentrum rift earlier had been easy work compared to this. Fighting this Omega-level rift was a true hassle. He recalled back on Earth how his leader, Renji, never went alone into an Omega rift. He was always accompanied by another teammate. If his strong leader could not handle one alone, what in the world was he doing challenging one in another world all by himself?
Lucid's anger was profound. Bitter memories of Earth resurfaced. Why was he always referred to as a timid person? A spineless idiot. The remark echoed in his memory now. Just why? He tried his best. He admitted he was not perfect, but he was not a hero. He was barely an adult. Names like Aika and Renji were faint and so far away, like recalling a bitter, distant past.
'Jake was the real coward.' Where had that idiot disappeared to? It was a question that gnawed deep inside Lucid all the time. Karmen, the real Karmen in the real world, had sent him out to clear a rift in some mind that was a threat. He had been accompanied by some shady musician, and this was where he ended up. Stuck in a complicated loop that would never end. The worst part was that this was real. The events he experienced, minus the ones he interfered with, had actually happened. So a monster like Ivy was actually real in the real world.
But he let go. He let go of being Karmen, of being a savior, of being a masked figure, a coward, a rift hunter. He let go of all those names and titles. He was Lucid. Just Lucid. Just a young man who had tried his best in every situation, but who was timid nonetheless.
'Yes, that is who I am. A spineless idiot.' He chuckled, the old, insulting nickname igniting a strange, nostalgic feeling in him.
His eyes opened with a newfound, cold clarity. The forgotten sword, the family heirloom, was still in his right hand, though his other arm was broken. In that moment, he stabbed. He thrust. He did everything he could to maximize the damage to the tentacle holding him. If he was going to die, he might as well die going out with all the might he had left.
A voice resounded in the garden.
"Oh, the little puppy is trying," Ivy sounded amused.
"Lucid, you coward. Accept my fate. No, our fate," Karmen's mouth moved again without permission. "We were meant to submit to Mother Alisia."
Their voices were just muffled static to him now. He carried onward. These fake titles bestowed by people, who classified a person's personality as being brave, being rich, being a coward, always sparked a flame of burning hatred inside him.
"We are all people navigating through the world, trying our best to enact our goals," he whispered to himself, a final affirmation.
He spun inside the hole of the tentacles and cut one with a desperate slash. The air was a fresh breath hitting his torso and nostrils. It was refreshing. He looked at Ivy dead in her eyes from where he was trapped. He focused. He was not fighting as Karmen anymore. No, he stopped relying on other people's powers. He had to fight for the sake of himself. And, he could not quite recall why, but he was starting to forget what had happened prior to coming to this rift, and who was waiting for him.
All he had to do was come out of this trial, this moment, this single place, alive. Nothing else mattered.
Lucid cut the remainder of the tentacle binding his legs. He dashed, leaping into the air, and performed another desperate maneuver. He fell back to the ground, breathing hard, his eyes closed. He prepared himself, as if he was summoning something from a distant memory. It was but a single moment of focus, but to him it felt like hours standing there.
Then, a puzzle piece lined up in his mind. It shone bright.
A system-like message, ethereal and silent, appeared in his perception.
***
Error, Error. Restriction uplifted.
***
"Alice!" he yelled out, the name a lifeline.
"I am here, Lucid. I was always here. Do not give up." Her voice was a relieved, half-sobbed whisper. He felt a surge of relief upon hearing those words. With that, it clicked. The way he fought, the way he maneuvered, his past abilities on Earth, they began to align.
The bright green light shone again, more powerfully now, reinvigorating him. Though his personal Fate Essence was nearly spent, Alice's was not. It healed him, but it could not heal as much as he needed. Its rank was too low.
"The Chain of Heart!" he yelled. A bright, white light resembling a luminous heart pulsed inside his chest, beating in a slow, steady rhythm. His perception sharpened. His Fate Essence pool felt deeper, though the healing effect was still small.
'But I need to fight. I cannot always just heal and throw punches. It is futile,' he thought. Alice's traits were great for support, but they paled in comparison to what his old offensive-oriented comrades on Earth could do. Then, an idea formed.
Time seemed to slow. Ivy was moving slowly because of his heightened perception.
"Lucid, you do not need any offensive abilities. You are enough. You can turn this around without a weapon," Alice's voice encouraged gently.
"You do not need a weapon. I appreciate it, Alice. Gosh, I missed your pep talks," he whispered back.
He focused more. An incandescent white, shadowy, ethereal screen popped into his vision, one that resembled a status screen.
***
Enlightened Title: The Divine Maiden
Name: Alice
Rank: Primordial
Fate Essence: ∞
Trait: [The Chain of Heart] ██████▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
Description: Lost in time and space... Error... Error... This message cannot be revealed further.
***
He looked at the trait now, focusing past the obscuring bars.
***
Trait: [The Chain of Heart]
Description: The sin of envy shackled her heart. Despite her inherent will to show kindness, her subjects shackled it with the chains of envy.
Trait Rank: F
Attribute: The wielder of this trait possesses the heart of an ██▒▒. Grants: Weak Regeneration, Weak Perception, Weak Fate Essence Regeneration.
Passive: [The Divine Unchained Heart]
Once the user's soul ceases to exist, the chains wrapped around the heart are freed. The being may continue to exist in its original state for a limited period, until they exhaust their reserve of Fate Essence.
***
He mentally tapped at the trait. It did not work. He tapped the passive. It did not budge. But when he tapped the description, strangely, the screen reformed. The black letters swirled and parted way for new words.
***
III. Envy — The Shackled Heart
They envied the devotion she inspired. The faith she received without demanding it. So they opened her chest, not to kill, but to bind. They wrapped her heart in chains, tight enough that every beat hurt, tight enough that love became agony. If they could not be loved as she was, then she would love no one freely.
***
'Her heart was chained.... with shackles....'
'That is it.'
That was the part he focused on. Raising his one good hand, he reached toward his own chest and pierced it, white light surrounded his hand and chest. In that moment, pain should have followed, but it was something else entirely. A new sense of relief, a shocking exhilaration. He took what seemed to be a hard, geometric shape from within his own being and pulled it out. It shone with a bright, luminous light. It seemed to wrap effortlessly around his forearm, all the way up to his hand, where he held it like a thread. Each arm, each hand, now bore the ethereal, glowing chain. The Chain of Heart. The chain was the part suppressing the heart. He felt he had not unwrapped the heart completely, but the length of chain he could summon was enough. The chains were never truly free unless the wielder, Alice, died. So, in this borrowed state, he could summon an infinite amount of chain if he needed.
"Lucid, that is, my chain," Alice's voice came, sharp with a echo of pain. "Hnghh."
"It is okay. Take your time. I will end this in less than a minute."
Lucid did not feel a new found power. He was not reborn. No, he had simply forged a new path for himself in this world that had always pushed him around, demanding he submit to its will.
Time flowed normally now. The raindrops that had stayed static in the air were now falling freely. Ivy looked at him, her head tilting.
"You are not Karmen?" she asked, her formal tone laced with genuine confusion.
Lucid looked down at himself. It was the same tattered clothes, the same mist clinging to his face from the light rain. But he felt different. He was himself again.
He managed a faint breath of relief. "Damn right I am not."
Holding his hands up, loose, incandescent chains fell from his palms, hanging below his elbows, swaying with a ghostly light.
Ivy lifted her scythe of violet energy without another word.
Immediately, a chain shot out from Lucid's left hand, wrapping around the shaft of the scythe. He pulled it forward, disrupting her aim. A compressed cut of energy still cleaved through the air. He deflected it with the edge of his chain-wrapped right arm, the luminous links sparking where they met the attack.
He threw the chain again, wrapping it around a newly forming energy tentacle. He pulled her close, knocking her off balance, and jumped into the air. He dismissed the chain, letting it flicker back into non-existence. Now in the air above her, he shot chains from both hands. One wrapped around a tentacle, the other around her arm. Lucid used the connection to propel himself downwards with a fierce kick aimed at her face.
The kick connected with a solid thud that resonated through the rain-choked garden.
He jumped back from her face, leaping away. A tentacle shot toward him. He wrapped it in a flurry of chain-links, crushing the energy construct within his grasp. He blocked, deflected, and punched forward, the chains adding weight and reach to his blows.
"Ugh, you persistent rat!" Her voice cut through the air, all formality gone, replaced by raw, snarling fury. The polite, cruel healer was completely shattered, revealing the vicious creature beneath.