Armu's voice broke the trembling air, rising with the glow of her rose-flame crown, each word rippling through the sanctuary as if it came from the walls itself.
"I am guided by the Rune of Heaven! The Founding Light of Lancelotis! The Early Morning of Serenity! I cannot stray from the light I was created to protect!" Her four arms spread wide, the harp's strings shivering under invisible fingers, bleeding music like veins of sound.
Vert's breath hitched as her visor cracked from the pressure of that divine voice. "Djinns can control the body, possess us really," she shouted, voice shaking. "If she gets into one of us, hit them hard! The shock will break the trance!"
Park's tone was cold and steady under the hum of his helmet. "Stars guide us… She's wounded from her fight with Aphollo or from the Witch Mother. She's dying. We just have to survive until she burns out—"
Cainan didn't wait for the sentence to end. He tore forward, the ground erupting under his boots, barbed-wire steel roaring with red-and-black flame. "Fuck strategy," he snarled. "Go for the kill!"
'I don't care. Chess was reckless, he thought pain would make him stronger. I'm not supposed to care about idiots like that. But why does it sting? Why do I see myself in him?'
His thoughts bled through every heartbeat.
'Is that how I look, charging like a fool? Do I enjoy it? No. I hate this. I hate every second of impatience. But I keep doing it. I keep fucking doing it.'
His blade came down fast. Armu met it with an upward slash, her harp strings flaring alive on their own, singing as if possessed.
The collision birthed a white storm of roses and light, splitting the entire hall in two, marble, pillars, and corpses shredded in a single sweeping bloom. At the last instant, Vert lunged and smashed her hammer into Cainan's side, sending both of them tumbling through a collapsing wall as the explosion swallowed the rest.
Noov sprinted through the chaos, his body a storm of jagged bone and blood. Fire crawled along the walls, as Armu glided through it like an angel of wrath. Her voice rang in hymn, "Lancelotis' light shall prevail over Nacht's abyss! Darkness and Light, twin eternities at war, each hungry for dominion! If Light falls to Darkness, terror shall define reality! If Darkness falls to Light, tranquility will reign eternal! Both are the twin pillars of creation, and I will not let terror prevail!"
Noov lunged upward, his claws slicing through the air, bones splitting from his own ribs, his arms, his back. He tore through her rose wings, and blood mixed with petals. Armu spun with one elegant twist, slashing once as her strike was surgical, and Noov's body split clean in half. The harp played a dreadful chord as she moved, her sword and harp in perfect duet.
But Noov didn't die. His body began to reform; blood, bone, and roses crawling back together as he growled low, animal and dying.
Armu sang while she fought, her voice crystalline and sweet: "Lancelotis, whose dawn begets beauty, whose gaze scatters night, your radiance is the peace of all…"
Her sword clashed against the harp in one final strum, an explosion of red flame and white brilliance erupted, the force annihilating what remained of the sanctuary's ceiling.
Her blade burned, roses ignited, and she carved the air in violent rhythm, scattering destruction outward once more.
A single blast punched through Noov's torso, but he charged through it, body engulfed in fire, roses blooming violently from his wounds.
He growled and thrust his bone-spikes through her chest. Armu gasped, divine ichor spilling from the wound like molten light, and drove her sword through his throat in return. Roses erupted from Noov's mouth, twisting like vines but he didn't stop. He summoned one last spike from his skull, impaling her neck in return. Still, she did not die.
Park remained still, his hollow suit kneeling in prayer, hands open toward the air. From the voids of his palms, four black holes unfurled like dying suns, swirling and howling, their pull dragging Armu toward them. Her rose flames stretched and tore, fighting the cosmic gravity as her wings shredded against the pull.
Elsewhere, through the smoke and in a nearby room, Cainan and Vert stirred from the rubble. Dust filled the air like powdered ash.
Cainan coughed, glaring, sword half-buried beside him. "What the hell areyou doing?!" he barked, dragging himself upright. "I almost had her!"
Vert stood opposite, sawed-off gripped tight, pointing right at Cainan. "You're gonna get us all messed up, Cainan!" she snapped.
Cainan pointed his flaming greatsword at her, fury shaking his hand. "Then stop getting in my way. You guys don't have to follow me everywhere. I only ever let the cat I stole do that, and guess what? He's dead."
Fire bloomed in the distance, painting the room with molten color as Vert stood before Cainan, both silent, surrounded by the quake of collapsing buildings and the shrieks of the wounded.
Cainan's hair was dusted with ash, his blade weighing heavy on his weary arms, buzzed with unspoken tension. "Why did you stop me?" he asked, voice edged with irritation and exhaustion. "Don't tell me you're feeling bad for that thing? It wants to KILL us. Kill or be killed, that's the motto, woman."
Vert's eyes softened, though her jaw locked tight. "You're just like my husband… you were just like him. Reckless and seemingly ready to get your head blasted off." Her voice carried through the roar of flames, trembling but certain.
"That's my business," Cainan replied sharply, turning his gaze away. "I got my own stuff I need tending to. Not trying to impress or protect any of you, if that's what you expected out of me."
"Back in my world," she began, and her tone shifted an and became steady, yet cracked around the edges. "Me and my husband both served in the brigade. He was reckless, so reckless. I saved him so many times I stopped counting. I was a medic, never fighting, but I loved him too much to complain. Then he got hurt, got short-term memory loss, and things changed from there. Every morning I had to remind him we were married, and fixing it cost more than I could bear. So I joined the brigade again but as a fighter. The frontlines paid more any damn way."
She took a shuddered breath, staring through Cainan. "Whenever see someone like him, like you, I can't focus. I lose myself, and I hate losing myself. I fought to remember who I was, someone who never wanted to kill anyone but just to help. Someone who became a killer to save someone she loved. So please if you're gonna keep running toward death, do it when I'm not around. I really…can't lose myself again."
"Tch. I care about my survival only—"
"By rushing to die?!" she snapped, raising the sawed-off. "Believe it or not, we don't need you dead right now. You're pretty strong if you haven't noticed."
Cainan's teeth clenched as memories tore through him, the sky splitting open, the monstrous brain staring down, the agony before his body burst apart and died.
He muttered lowly, voice rough. "I can't die. I won't. I've survived this long doing what I do best. Changing's the same as dying, so why do it if you wanna live?"
His hand tightened on the burning blade, the barbed wire cutting into his palm. "Let me do what I do best, which is the only thing I know, is take. Take, take, take. That's it. Fighting. I hate that I pitied that dead Chess over there, and it's messing my head up. I won't make that shitty mistake again."
Vert lowered her weapon, smirking through her anger. "I'll kindly shoot your head off if you want!" she said, voice bright with defiance.
Cainan turned, running back into the inferno. "Please. You wouldn't get a round off me."
The two burst into the chaos where Noov's monstrous bone limbs impaled the ground and Park's dark orbs pulled debris into their gravitational whirl.
Armu stood at the center, rose head blazing with red radiance, her blade humming like a harp string. "I am the djinn of light!" she declared, her voice ringing like church bells through the ruin. "The source of a paladin's power! Lancelotis said so! Curse the brain for making the brothers divide!"
Her blade struck the air, and celestial tones erupted, each note detonating into a concussive wave of light and blooming roses, blinding and violent.
The hymn shattered glass and tore through eardrums; Cainan gritted his teeth, Vert screamed as blood trickled from her ears, and Noov fell to a knee, bone armor splintering. Only Park stood unaffected, his empty suit unbothered by agony.
Vert shouted over the deafening hum, "All we have to do is survive! That cursed wound on her side's worsening!"
"She has about twenty seconds until she dies," Cainan muttered, tightening his grip. "The more she fights, the more her wound opens. She would've lasted longer if she sat her ass down somewhere."
Vert added, "Survive for twenty seconds then."
Then they struck. Vert darted forward first, her sawed-off whirling in a crack of thunder as it morphed into a hammer mid-swing. She crushed the ground, the red current flashing up her arm before she spun it into a backhand strike that Cainan used as cover. He blasted through the haze, dragging his greatsword across the ground, sparks spiraling upward as he brought it up into an overhead carve.
Armu parried with a single luminous sweep, the collision igniting the air. Noov lunged from behind, his spine exploding outward with spear-like bones; he drove them like claws, slashing through the light to pierce her shoulder. She retaliated with a twist, slashing through his bone arm, forcing him back howling.
Noov growled, "Not work!"
Park raised both hands in prayer, four black-hole orbs spiraling to life around him, bending the smoke and rubble inward. "You guys keep applying pressure, I'll try to throw her off balance. I just gotta focus more.."
He launched them forward, their pull dragging Armu's robes taut before detonating in a blast of compressed space.
She staggered, radiant blood spilling from her side, but her composure never broke. She swung her blade, tracing ancient sigils through the air, each motion birthing a violent plume of white fire that tore the floor open.
Cainan dashed through the smoke, sliding beneath one beam of light, flipping his blade in reverse, and slamming it upward through her guard. Sparks exploded, the barbed edge grazing her ribs.
Vert charged in with a hammer spin, catching the recoil off Cainan's strike to drive her weapon into Armu's knee, shattering her balance.
Noov sprouted behind her, bones protruding from his shoulders like jagged wings as he leapt, impaling her mid-back with a feral growl. She shrieked, swung around, and unleashed a circular blast that sent them scattering.
Still, the team pressed, but Armu was insanely tough. Vert's weapon shifted back to its sawed-off form as she fired point-blank into Armu's ribs, red lightning bursting across her body. Park's remaining orbs converged, pulling her backward just long enough for Cainan to sprint up a collapsing wall, leap from it, and bring his sword down in a single roaring strike that sliced through her light barrier and tore across her chest.
Armu staggered, panting, blood and radiance dripping from her wound.
Vert thought with a grin, 'If it wasn't for her existing wounds…we'd already be toast. We got lucky, we really did. Maybe it's fate that I will really meet you again, my husband!'
Yet Armu's eyes blazed brighter than ever. With a cry that split the air, she struck out, her blade slashing her own harp and singing a note so pure it shattered everything around her.
The team was hurled back, Cainan's stomach gashed, Vert's armor scorched away, Noov's bone spines snapping like glass. Only Park stood once more, silent and steady.
"I… I am the Light's Djinn!" Armu cried, tears streaking through blood and glow. "I am… I am…" Her voice cracked into despair. "I don't know why… why did the brain have to come? It ruined everything… ruined light… counterparts of one another trying to dominate their own body! Lancelotis… take hold of my soul, before the brain does!"
Her body trembled, radiant blood rising off her in drifting streams as she floated upward, haloed by ruin and dust. The battlefield fell silent except for the flicker of flame and the pounding of hearts, every gaze locked on her as she lifted her trembling sword toward the broken sky.
Cainan scoffed, "Shit!"
Armu rose higher and higher, her wounds spilling light instead of blood, roses swirling upward in ribbons of white flame.
The chamber quaked as her voice broke through the chaos. "Lancelotis… take me to your afterlife! I deserve it! I did everything you asked of me and more!" Her scream fractured into sobs, arms reaching to the ceiling where no heaven answered. "You made me into a djinn! I was nothing but a commoner who just wanted to see the truth in this dark world, to finally see some light so I wouldn't give up on myself! And you blessed me! Claim my soul before the brain does! Please…"
The petals spiraled faster, then caught fire. Her flaming red rose head dissolved into ash midair, collapsing in a cascade of burning petals that shimmered before vanishing entirely.
Beneath the smoke, her human form reemerged, skin pale as moonlight, hair silver and soft against the air, eyes frightened. It was her before faith, before Lancelotis, before she became a vessel for divine light. Her body plummeted like a broken star.
Vert yelled, "Watch out—!"
The impact detonated the chamber. A vast explosion of white light and roses ripped outward, a blinding, searing pulse that flung Cainan and Vert across the ground, their armor scraping through debris. Park staggered but held his footing as the shockwave tore across the floor, shattering walls and flinging broken stone in every direction.
Vert rolled twice before slamming into a beam, gasping. Cainan's sword skidded out of reach. The air smelled of burnt flowers and iron.
..
When the storm of dust began to settle, silence reclaimed the room, only the faint crackle of burning petals echoed in the corners.
Cainan grunted, forcing himself upright, coughing through the smoke.
Vert sat up beside him, her sawed-off sparking faintly with leftover static. Park walked forward, slow and steady, his blackened visor turned toward the lifeless Armu lying amid the ruined floor. "This is insane… she had some sort of magic bomb inside of her." Cainan muttered under his breath.
Vert looked around the wreckage, her expression faltering as her gaze froze to the right. "Oh… no."
Noov hung impaled against a bent support beam, his body brutally pierced through the abdomen by jagged steel. His heart, a grotesque, pulsing mass of marrow and red light was jutted halfway from his chest, twitching weakly. The regenerative glow that once protected him was now fading, his body cold and still.
Cainan stood, silent, then finally said, "Fuck…he was pretty good too."
Vert's voice cracked with weary irony. "One would expect people… summons like us to last longer in a time like this. Especially when it feels like we're the main players of everything."
Park's voice was quiet, almost serene but hollow. "I wish the stars would answer my request. Do our souls get taken by the brain if we die here? Since we are not from this world?"
Cainan replied, shaking his head. "Good question that I don't wanna find out for myself. Let's go."
Vert lingered by Noov's body, eyes locked on him. Her jaw trembled, but she said nothing. The air was too heavy for grief, too charged for denial it seemed. Then suddenly, a sound tore through the silence, a scream that was horrific.
Armu's body hadn't moved. Her limbs were still, eyes wide open and glassy, mouth slightly parted. Yet the voice came from her lifeless lips, sharp and agonized, echoing through the hollow chamber. "They're trying to take it! Lancelotis! Help me! Fire… there's fire! Don't let them take my soul, Lancelotis!! Where are you…? Have you left me…? Does the brain hold that much power… over even gods?! Please…!"
The echo faded, stretching into a low whimper before dying entirely. The air turned icy. Cainan froze, his spine crawling, the echo of her plea clawing through his chest.
'Her soul was being taken…to where? A place with fire…? Hell?'
Vert's face had gone pale, her hand trembling around her weapon. Park lowered his head, hands together in wordless prayer.
"Can we leave now…?" Vert whispered. "Please.."
Cainan stared down at the floor for a long moment. "Yeah."
He turned, stepping through the ruins, his mind whispering to itself like a mantra he'd buried a thousand times.
'I'm going to be king. I'm going to be king. Don't lose your head, Cainan. You never did. Even in a different setting, don't forget what kept you alive during the craziest stuff. I'm going to be king. I won't let fate ruin it for me.'
…
The Temple of Light sprawled around them like a carcass of divinity, hollowed corridors devoured by cursed bramble, corpses strangled in vines of rot, the white marble cracked and suffocating beneath the weight of decay.
The air was thick with the stench of coagulated faith. Cainan walked first, his blade dragging behind him, scraping the tiles that once glimmered in sacred reflection. Vert followed, her shoes tapping softly, eyes alert but tired. Park, the empty astronaut suit, trailed behind with his helmet's cracked visor reflecting nothing.
The walls were lined with more statues of Lancelotis, each carved in perfection: shining armor, a serene face, and a raised hand mid-benediction. And as they passed, the statues began to speak, their hollow mouths leaking recorded sermons into the ruined air.
"Lancelotis is here! He sends his djinn to speak with us!" one boomed.
"It's Armu!" cried another, its voice shaking the broken ceiling dust.
"I bring news of his majesty! If we are slacking in helping the world see the light instead of the darkness within, we must take up alms! Lancelotis feels a dark age coming—"
Another voice chimed in, "After he spoke with the God of Dreams and Nightmares, he saw the dream and nightmare of something not known to him. Be ready to defend everything with your faith!"
And in unison, the stone heads echoed like a chant of madness:
"Light protect us!"
They moved through hallways that twisted upon themselves, where golden murals were split by blood and roots. Even the dead priests were bound to the walls, their faces locked in half-prayers, robes turned black from time. Vert whispered, "This place was supposed to be sacred…" but her words drowned beneath the next wave of hollow proclamations.
"The Light will always guide us!" another statue cried.
And further in, others spoke like arguing preachers.
"Followers of Nacht have been conjuring witches, raising the dead. I don't know if we—
"Watch your tongue, newcomer! Cast all doubt aside! The Light will persecute them! We will purge them all and spread radiance!"
Their doctrine tangled, voices overlapping like fanatics frozen mid-sermon.
"We take in those broken by the darkness! They take in those broken by the darkness! There is no difference but our faith!"
And then one whispered, quieter, almost human: "Our Pilgrim will lead them home… to the afterlife."
Something cracked in Park. He roared, lifting his gloved hand as black holes bloomed from his palms like collapsing stars. "Shut up! Shut up!" The gravity crushed the statues into dust, ripping the old sermons apart. Rubble fell like pale rain.
Cainan didn't move, just looked at him through the haze. "Leave him. Come on."
Vert exhaled sharply, shaking her head. "You know we can't rush around here separately. We don't even know where we're going."
Cainan glanced at her, dryly. "Ugh. Fine. Calm him down. He's YOUR friend, isn't he?"
Vert forced a smile, brittle and wrong. "Park!" she called. "What's the matter?"
He stopped. Turned. Dust clung to his cracked visor. "You think I want to hear all this?" his voice trembled through the suit's speakers. "Forcing my voice to sound tranquil and holy when I know the stars don't hear me? I used to talk to them. I never made a choice without asking them first. Then I ruined everything in my own world, then came here, and now every time I call out to them, I feel like a fraud. Like I'm just pretending faith exists for me. The stars used to guide my every choice so I won't mess up anything like before, but now they are quiet, I don't know what to really do with myself. The stars were the gods in my world, and more."
Silence. His helmet lowered slightly. "I said too much. Apologies for my outburst. Let's continue."
He walked past them, his steps leaving faint black scorch marks on the marble. Cainan and Vert shared a look, neither spoke, and they followed.
They descended the massive stairwell a spiraled through the temple's core, the light fading to a dim blue haze. The staircase opened into a cavernous chamber, and at its center stood a monolithic statue of Lancelotis, holding a lantern once said to contain eternal light. Now the lantern was dark.
Around its base were mountains of corpses tangled in bramble, lightless eyes staring up like broken prayers.
"So we're just gonna keep going down?" Cainan muttered.
Vert shrugged. "You're the one in front. We're just following."
Park said nothing.
At the bottom, the path dead-ended at the statue's feet. "Welp, we tried," Cainan said, gesturing to the wall. "Guess we're stuck here forever."
Vert rolled her eyes. "Don't give up so easily, kid."
Cainan smirked. "You could at least smile like when you were acting like a deranged hyena back at the prison."
Vert twisted mockingly, rubbing her hands together and trying to look cute in a mocking way, "Oh? I'm so sorry, my idiot companion! Do you want me to strip and dance on the statue too?"
"Yeah," Cainan grinned, "could use a little entertainment before we rot down here."
Vert fired her sawed-off near Cainan's foot. The echo cracked through the chamber, but Cainan didn't budge at it.
Vert exclaimed, "Didn't you just say not to be gloomy, brat?!"
Cainan didn't flinch. "I was talking to you. Not me. I don't count if I'm not talking to myself."
"How old are you again?"
He hesitated. "…Forty—"
"Fucking lies."
"…Nineteen."
"That's better," Vert said flatly.
Then, behind them, the air shimmered. A faint wisp hovered, its wings woven from white light, flickering like breath through dust. None of them noticed. The statue's empty lantern began to glow faintly, veins of light crawling up its arm.
The wisp shimmered brighter, its glow pulsing like breath, and a soft, airy voice broke the tension—
"You guys are the newcomers, right—"
BANG!
Vert's sawed-off thundered through the silence. The wisp squealed, light scattering across the stone floor like spilled lantern oil. It hit the ground with a pathetic thump.
"Tried to sneak up on us, huh?!" Vert barked, already firing again. Her sawed-off rippled, twisting in a blur between a spiked hammer and the shotgun with each swing and blast, until it looked like she was both firing and smashing at once.
"Kill it! Kill it!" Cainan shouted, plunging his greatsword down again and again, stabbing through what looked like nothing and everything all at once.
Park stomped beside them, each step landing like thunder, grinding the glowing shape beneath his boot.
The wisp shrieked, "OW! OW! OW! OW! FUCK! STOP! STOP!" Her voice cracked like static lightning. "WHAT DID I DO?!"
Vert fired again. "You moved! That's what you did!"
"Get off me! I'm not your enemy!"
Cainan raised his sword for another hit until Vert threw her arm across his chest. "Wait, guys, I'm not the brightest, but I think it might not be our enemy!"
Cainan squinted at her, still breathing hard. "I don't know, it just attacked us out of nowhere."
Park tilted his helmet slightly, the cracked glass catching faint light. "Mm. We must hear it out."
The wisp, battered and dim, slowly floated upward, muttering, "Lancelotis forgive me for cursing…" She turned back toward them, wings trembling. "You have slain the djinn Armu. Why?"
Cainan rolled his eyes. "Why? That rose-headed freak tried to kill us first. We told her we knew who the witch was and who the Primarch of Stroheim was that invaded this place. But before I had a chance to explain, she attacked us, her head turned into a flaming rose and she killed two of our people. Plus, she was already dying. So technically we didn't kill her."
The wisp dimmed sadly. "Sad, really. She was one of the most well-known djinn out of all the gods when they used to be present."
Cainan frowned. "Well-known djinn's?"
Vert crossed her arms, smirking faintly. "Like I said before, Djinns are common, remember? The stronger gods from this world had djinns to speak for them—and sometimes even turned into them to hype up the followers. But EVERY deity has one."
The wisp nodded. "Armu was in despair since the brain came and the gods left. She tried communing with Lancelotis, but no luck. No one bothered her, no one entered her chamber unless they wanted to die beautifully. She was… angry, broken. Once a slave under bandits, freed by the Pilgrim and the followers of Lancelotis. The Pilgrim ferries the lost to Lancelotis, and the dead to his afterlife."
Cainan tilted his head. "Afterlife? I thought people's souls got snatched by the brain."
The wisp flickered sadly. "Once the brain came, without the gods, their afterlives were destroyed. Each deity had their own world, their own eternal rest for believers. But now… all souls are dragged into the brain's pull. It's horrible!"
Cainan pointed his blade lazily at her. "Okay, I think I get it now. I just wanted some insight before I become the greatest king ever. Take us to the witch now and also that deranged Primarch who made a mess around here. Where are they?"
The wisp floated in uneasy silence, wings trembling. "Well… they can't be reached from here. Walking there will be impossible. That's why I came to find you."
Park stepped forward calmly. "How do we get there then?"
"Follow me!" she said brightly. "I'll take you to the Pilgrim!"
Vert cocked her head. "Wait, you don't hate us for what we did? We fought your djinn. Aren't you guys, like, connected by magic strings of light or something?"
"I hate that she died violently in front of the blades that don't worship the light like us," the wisp admitted. "But you are our only hope to save the temple."
Cainan laughed. "Save? You must've got that wrong, wispy. I don't know about those two over there, but I'm not saving anything. The only way out of this dump is to stick with our mission: kill the witch, then kill the Primarch when he's off guard. Then I get to live and be king of Kalhalla. Let's go. My two servants here will handle resistance from the others."
Vert and Park snapped in perfect unison: "Servants?!"
Cainan ignored them and started walking toward the ruined corridor.
"You don't know the way," the wisp called after him, "so where are you going?"
Cainan stopped, groaned audibly, and turned back. "Ughhhh. Lead, then."