Take Up the Cross – Chapter 82: Convictions of a False God

After the world ends, everything that occurred before becomes hazy.

The memories of the Second Age, of an intact Petripolis and Castillo under siege by white tyrants who descend from the sky, become unmentionable secrets sealed beneath the normality of a brisk night and the distant bustle of a festival.

The cross in Adris’ hand rings, warning him of this inviolable truth.

Those watchers who took interest in Kol and Adris unwillingly depart, leaving their satisfaction behind in the form of deep, shining darkness lingering in the pool of Adris’ shadow.

(It was all real.)

As the events that transpired are wiped away to be replaced by a familiar scene, the words echoing in Adris’ head prove that physical injuries may vanish, but that inflicted on the soul lingers like the shining dark.

Rather than kneeling in agony, the ravaged figure that called forth a white sky is still standing with her hand stretched toward the gloom above.

That hand’s strength vanishes, though, as nothing answers its summons this time around.

Instead of skyward, the hand falls to grip at a blade point. Quicksilver clings to the edges, staining the pale skin it cuts through while also producing a sickening discoloration. The hand that uselessly closes around it begins to mottle gray, too.

“No, that should’ve…

I’m… not… done…!”

Even over the buzzing in his head, Adris can make out her incredible disbelief as she collapses to one knee.

“… this isn’t… the… end…!

… HACK!?”

Though she says that, Adris’ empowered flesh can hardly contain what fills within it.

The rewards for victory are waiting to be claimed, despite his own private agreement with her.

(It isn’t over, right…!?

Rantil is wrong…! It’s not… that’s not true…!)

Adris, like she, can’t accept this outcome.

Especially with how fast his heart is beating while inspecting how she’s been maimed.

With the waking world re-asserting itself, Still stands behind Lycia in place of another. A lazy hand rests on the curved shortsword impaling the ghoul. There’s no emotion to the skulker’s poise, for even that neutral grimace on her mask seems disinterested in comparison to before.

Rather than a loyal soldier of the Alchemaster, a ruined, rebellious inventor is who she’s stabbing now.

“GAAH…!”

Flesh cuts again when the sliding sword slurches free from the former danger. Lycia collapses to the ground, clutching at bleeding breasts without anyone to staunch the flow for her.

(Still…)

Though no mercy is offered, Still also displays no satisfaction as she thumbs the slick edge of her sword, leaving her black mesh turning golden as she rubs the fingers together.

The lazy girl turns her sightless gaze to Adris, strutting toward him and away from her prize.

{… Like what you see… or…?} Her head dips as she takes in how he grows more unbalanced, with hand signs rough at first before she grows less flippant. {Adris? Are you…?}

(“She will… never love you…”)

That thought sends Adris wild.

Finding no hope of security in a backstabber is normal, suddenly, despite the care she uses when talking to him.

(Not her… then…?)

He turns, desperate for others to take her place.

“Hmmm…!?

… gah… Kol… is…?”

Rising from a depression in the ground while clutching her head, Kol stumbles while twitching.

She returns his look, perhaps shocked to notice its intensity.

(She’s always believed in me. Maybe her…?)

“Kol… was…?”

Looking around after, she searches for what she doesn’t appear to be able to find.

“… not… done…! Never…!

I’ll break… all of you…!”

A low growl becomes what focuses her, as the fearsome kobold locks sight on the enemy still refusing to accept the outcome. Metal shrieks as Kol’s claws rake over armor, feeling how it’s been ruined by sorcery and acidic tinctures.

“… Won’t be… a… slave…!”

As Lycia crawls toward Adris, her ire continues to grow.

“GAAH!?” The Works scholar becomes impossible to understand with dirt clogging her mouth. “HUCK!? KAFF!”

A white-furred foot that is drilling blond hair into the ground provides the support for the straight posture Kol takes on. It shows off all the strong angles of her figure and leaves her resembling a conqueror as she rests her recovered halberd on her shoulder.

“Disgusting. A shitty corpse… should know, when beaten.

Find some pride in defeat, couldn’t find in life.”

The white wolf, clad in black-and-red, ruined plate whips her tail once before snorting.

“… Defeat…? Do you think… I can be beaten by children!?”

Raising her head from the dirt, Lycia continues to refuse.

“Kol say, ‘yes’. Opposing Kol… obvious thing, will become loser.

Because, only Kol can win.”

A clawed hand lifts up, curling to cup empty air as the woman trodden on thrashes desperately.

“Huh… Kol never really noticed before, how it feels to stand, ‘proud’, at the end of fighting…”

The battered helmet lifts away when this hand pops already ruined ties and pulls up, leaving her short ponytail flapping for a second.

A subtle smile grows as she stares down at her victim.

“… feels… how others say, ‘beautiful’.”

(That’s odd, because to me… that’s exactly how you look. “Beautiful”, like you’re becoming someone whose confidence exceeds even mine…)

Swallowed saliva, full of the memory of muck, is distasteful for Adris when he watches a spectacle where Lycia is degraded. All the more so because the feeling clinging to this tomboy who dreams of being a knight has suddenly morphed into an undefinable impression of growth.

Though always crude before, the Kol who withstood all harm to rise to victory now reminds Adris of the moments of refinement Serras would show at the end of combat. Aloof and prickly as always, the full proof of her inner strength and that impossible-to-fake, sanguine draw of a hero would bring surviving allies to bask in her glow.

Even when offering no words, her fixed stare at nothing in the distance with those cold, disapproving eyes would bring their own gazes, searching for what she saw upon achieving total domination.

(… Is this more of the real you? Did what I see in that past reflect what you can become? If you become more like her… then…)

Adris looks up, finding nothing above but clouds and Traveler.

The black moon is gone.

With its departure, all memory of it begins to turn into a fever dream, taking from him the opportunity to discuss Kol’s new strengths.

(All of that was completely real for me! And it was real in part for you. Kol, you’re different, yet again.)

This dangerous sharpness to Kol’s poise is likely only the first scratch at how the young girl has changed. Even the way she wears her armor now becomes the difference between a boy full of piss and vinegar clomping around in it, and a capable veteran donning his second skin without a thought given.

When she leans forward while cackling softly, the nightmarish suit amplifies the dreadful confidence projected.

(I’ve only created more problems…)

“Mating just something fun, Boss. ‘Strongest’ do it, right? Mean more? Kol, don’t know? Probably not~!”

Adris freezes when he tries to move toward Kol.

The need to congratulate her is there, but he can’t force his muscles to move after that comment from her calls back in that carefree voice.

(She will… never… then there’s still those two…?)

“I told you I could do it! Are you gonna admit it, now!?”

“‘What’ be the immediate question, should this tool care.”

“Of course you care! I can see it on your face! You gonna admit it, or run and hide, shorty? Hmmph!”

Those same figures he thinks of advance side-by-side to join Kol, ignoring Adris as they bicker. Despite the bickering, they show cautious professional esteem with their tight, polite body language.

At least until Ave points at Lycia insistently, sneering with that smugness the elf reserves only for Neesiette.

“‘We won thanks to your brave and inspired aid, Ave! Pellaeon answered your call and brought doom to an enemy we could never defeat otherwise!’

… Ave is humble, though, so as long as you thank Pellaeon for his mercy, there’s no need to really mention me…

I guess…”

This “humility” earns a scowl from Neesiette, before she whispers to herself.

“The fermentative imagination of a newt be the only inspiring thing sadly unmentioned of in such a dubious claim.”

“GEH!? Insults already!? Aren’t you always talking about results!? You got results and, yet, you’re still…!?”

Bell-like and candied voices escalate in tension, the two facing off once more.

Adris tries to move, to put himself between the two who fight just like he did in the darkness of the past.

But…

“‘Results’? Too reliant on arduous preparation, one’s contribution be. Rather than ‘artful and bold’ savior, should one not be considered a crude resource transformed by her betters into a refined solution?”

“EH!?”

Poking Ave’s tail as she speaks, Neesiette’s blatant truth forces the snake elf to flinch while sidling away.

“Grading one’s actions be seen as necessary for one’s ego to perpetuate? Very well.

Let us proceed to do so in earnest:

‘One’s energetic flow nearly broke constraints of sigil due to unmoderated input of divine power.’”

“That… that was because I had trouble activating Still’s charms in the right order!”

Neesiette steps forward, as Ave slides back.

“‘One’s timing be identified as off by nearly two ‘turns’, potentially leading to the loss of ‘bait’ used in this ploy.’”

“No, but… I couldn’t feel the message token shaking…”

Ave rounds Kol, hiding behind the now sighing kobold.

“‘One’s lack of focus resulted in one screaming out a chant which may be whispered, giving away one’s location needlessly.’”

“But it’s stronger if Ave yells… right…?”

Outright silence after punishes the elf far more than a rebuttal.

Not losing her momentum…

“‘One’s ability to endure—’”

As Neesiette continues to outline everything Ave did wrong in carrying out her role, the girl being talked down to tries to fight back.

By the end though, Ave’s smugness has evaporated, leaving a wilting flower with a sour, fake smile failing to hide how she sweats in embarrassment.

“As it be designed by Adris, such a plot, thankful one should be for his exactitude and improvisation abilities in supplanting one’s failings.”

“… Yes… he… did a good job…”

Quiet as a mouse after her dressing down, Ave’s misery results in Neesiette finally huffing, before turning away.

“Even with such inadequacies considered and reviewed, it must be said that all functioned adequately enough.”

“… Yes… everyone… hmmm?

Hmmm!?”

Neesiette begins to inspect Kol’s wounds, leaving choice words as she does so for the puzzled elf to chew on.

“Resolving inefficiencies be necessary. Your… ‘inadequacies’ need rectification before next we require one’s services.”

“… Huh? … Ah?

… OF… OF COURSE I’LL IMPROVE!”

Ave smiles like the sun, as she proceeds to clap Neesiette on the shoulder repeatedly, startling the mystic.

“By… by the next time, I’ll have you singing Pellaeon’s praises with your own words with how awesome the results are! You’ll be thanking me for saving your tiny little butt!”

“… Supremely doubtful that be; yet, theoretically impossible it be not.

Now: before one’s hands be removed permanently, unhand this tool!”

“Why are you always so prickly about skinship!? I swear, you’ll never get a man like I have if—!”

Two girls argue anew, their previous disagreement turned into a promise for “next time” as they ruin Kol’s moment of glory.

(What exactly was I needed for…?)

Dizzy as he is, it’s hard for Adris to find where he was going or trying to do.

“… I’m… not… done…!”

“Shitty undead is done. Give up.”

“NEVER! GAH!?”

A body tumbles over, still bleeding as the poison within it spreads.

The rough kick, delivered by a black tyrant who frowns at this pointless resistance, sends Lycia gasping in pain.

“Give up.”

(I remember you playing with me like that, Lycia. Shouldn’t this be grand, knowing that you can get the same back?)

Though he thinks that, something churns in his stomach.

“She… doesn’t look so scary now?”

As Lycia rakes the dirt with her hands at Ave’s assessment, Neesiette nods.

“Only appearing frightening at first do those in service to the Alchemaster, for in practice shall such foes whose mental faculties be ruined by avarice always underestimate all who are not them.”

“… Save your words, puppets.”

Rolling onto her back, Lycia moans out her hatred as she tries to stand.

Only to fall again.

“Made to dance, but… you think you’re better than me…!? I…! I am, unlike you, I am…

Someone self made!”

A hand that snakes for what’s left of her tool panels is tread on by a strong foot.

“Ugh!?”

The proudest one here crouches down to make sure Lycia can hear her words.

“Kol can say this: You, nothing.”

“NO! I am—!”

“Yes. Nothing. ‘Beast of Conquest’? No…

Just… a reward. ‘Beast’ is only a big treasure everyone hates, but wants to have. After reward, though, everyone, everywhere, forgets you.”

With her hand, Kol taps Lycia’s head.

“‘The end’.”

Green eyes, speckled gold, flutter as she lays in perpetual agony.

The wolf-eared girl grins at the way Lycia’s confidence plummets.

(Right, she brought this on. Lycia could’ve just left me alone. Instead, she made me act.)

Another powerful enemy is defeated.

Surpassing all expectations, a motley crew of four maladjusted delvers and a boy from another world overcame an ancient ghoul who could’ve easily ruined them.

(I’m always satisfied by the odds meaning nothing. So… I’m waiting for that feeling.)

The look of indignant despair on Lycia’s face, the way she refuses to make eye contact with them all while baring her teeth as if she can refuse, is a familiar one he’s seen on many men.

They all thought they were better than Adris, just like she did.

And after thinking that, they all discovered that they weren’t.

But, when her eyes discover him when looking past the girls…

“… You… I… this is… all your…

… fault…”

A low, groaning sound from her, completely inhuman in timber, sounds like the suffering cry of some mythic beast.

“… why me? Why did you want me enough to… do this?”

The ground comes up for him, but he doesn’t hit it.

{Are you hurt!? Where? I’ve got that salve you… love.}

(“Why me”? That’s not something… the one who lords authority over another says…?)

In the end, Adris was hunting her because he was sure she wanted him for nefarious purposes, with that being a reason worth punishing.

(The cost of losing after betting everything is… everything. Which would be perfect, if she deserves it.)

But, like this, something is digging into his gut.

(Who is the bad guy… partner?)

That blue angel of his quickly feels his skin, checking his neck and bruises. A hand brings out a jar, but his hand folds over hers before she can open it.

(A partner… means… that you’re someone I can…?)

A headache coming on begins to abate a little bit as her hands shake, but then grows worse once more when his face is shoved away.

“ACK!? St-stop!?”

{You fuckin’ first!?}

Wrapped up in each other’s arms, Adris blinks as his face is squished. Though not casting him away, Still like a riled-up cat as she struggles to not touch her body to his.

{The fuck you do that for…!?}

“… I… did what?”

Licking his lips, he realizes that there’s a spot of moisture on her mask, right where painted, grimacing lips are.

(… I… I don’t know…? I was just… thinking about you…? Because I keep remembering…)

An impish figure keeps repeating the same words in his mind.

Every time he hears them, his inner expanse cracks a bit more.

(Why does that hurt so much?)

The words he refuses to say again drilled into the weakest point of his self.

Everything he’s worked toward threatens to rot if he lets those words judge his efforts and successes.

Still rears her head back when the first slap comes.

The second leaves a cheek growing deeply red.

After he shakes his head, she touches that bruised cheek.

“Ignore the weakness of a foolish vessel. Everything is fine.”

{… That so? … You don’t seem fine.}

Pushing away from her, Adris gets his balance back while the other three girls luckily saved their attention for the truest victim of this night.

(“Slave?” “Puppet?” Why would you be scared of me? You are the unstoppable monster from my first day in the Castillo. How can I compare to that…?)

Her mental state runs through his mind. Everything she’s done has been driven by exigency, leading to her weak spots being exploited.

(I could choose the location of battle, the time, and rules of engagement because you were hurried. Were you hurried because you… feared me?)

Within the past, Lycia called him a “key holder”.

(Is it about what I was cursed with? How do you know I have it?)

The hand over his heart is joined by a cold one wrapped in mesh.

{If… if you… aren’t okay…}

Much more gentle than before, Still flashes secretive signs at him while growing more coy with their meanings.

{It’s fine to feel lost after experiencing a…

… nightmare.}

Everything else except for the partner in his embrace exits his thoughts.

Though she hints at something, her hand freezes suddenly to cut off further words.

(You remember everything.)

A response dies in his mouth, refusing to come out when he tries to ask about a moon named Pothos.

Subtle body language between the two is easily read, showing that Adris’ interpretation of her insecurity relates to what he might know but cannot say.

(If there is a “Grand Game”, then why not a grand conspiracy of silence? If a magic, one like a poison tainting their inner truths, can make humans fear monsters, then why not one that can hide knowledge? Cethran was worried about certain ideas being spread…)

Now, more than ever, Adris knows that others are playing with him.

Far from just Cethran, there are even worse entities with interesting goals.

(What if they’re responsible for Lycia attacking me? What I’d planned to do, it doesn’t seem fine, now…)

{Partner, you need to jump in now. Kol is getting antsy.}

His thought is the final hatchet to the trunk, leaving him falling and out of control as he’s ushered forth.

“… You.”

From beneath dirty, mussed hair she glares up at him.

Though it was once the height of feminine care, at the culmination of their battle its frayed strands, like the rest of her ruination, show just how far people can tumble from their ideal self-image.

Even with the poison coursing through her, Lycia manages to rise to her hands and knees in order to face the boy lording over her.

(That was once me right there, looking up at you. Everything comes in cycles…)

“Kakaka! Boss, plan worked, even if Boss smelled wrong. Not bad…”

A usually rough hand is a bit gentler as it rubs his shoulder, causing Adris to speculate on what Kol’s knowing smile and odd words mean.

“Now, Kol is gonna get what she came for! Boss got crystal, reward, so…”

As if she intends to draw the entire victory to herself, Kol reaches for Lycia’s face.

“Kol will take—!”

“Hold.”

“WHY!?”

At Adris’ hand grabbing her wrist, fur hackles and teeth bare.

Appreciation turns to indignation in a moment as she leans in.

(No matter how you struggled and contributed, this victory is mine!)

The energizing vitality that flows through his nerves is impossible to quantify.

An outraged ghoul must be ready to submit the rewards of several lifetimes the way her body invisibly radiates what he absorbs.

“Good Boss, gives subordinate: reward!”

“You will receive one! You already have, even if you…!”

“‘Have’!? How!? When…?”

Unable to discuss the details, Adris is in turn manhandled by Kol’s strong hand.

“Kol!”

“Moon!?”

A sparking rod taps Kol’s hand, shocking the fur before the knight-in-training draws it away.

“Adris be chosen as leader of this group, Kol, at one’s own behest. As position and duty demands, relinquish such choices to the one deserving of authority.”

Though uninterested in speaking on rewards owed, the group’s peace earns Neesiette’s words.

“But!?”

“Ever fair Adris be, even if secrets remain kept like treasures hidden beneath muck, to be revealed and polished only when it be most dire.”

“… ‘Shit’! Always like this!?”

Kol falls back, but her anger is hardly contained.

Instead, she mutters to herself while crossing her arms.

“Boss, not understand what this… ‘pride’ feels like…? If did, wouldn’t treat Kol like…!”

(You’ve found pride? Can you define it!? … There’s complications to using “accomplishments”, just like I thought!)

Adris grips the black cross, eager to yell at Rantil, before he smites her forever.

“Let’s just… hurry! We have to get out of here before the Granescians or someone worse shows up, right?” Ave peers around, haunted by the idea of things going wrong, until she and Adris seek Still’s help for confirmation.

The usually playful and sadistic Still stays apart from the proceedings, idly cleaning her shortsword.

{We’re fine, for now. … Adris, do what you intend to do.}

A light nod brings a sigh of relief to Ave, while Adris earns a wave of a hand from Still.

“… You just… had to… have me…”

A breathless growl brings Adris closer to the wretched ghoul, hoping to have a personal audience.

Looking as if she might die at any moment, the ruined heart doesn’t heal and her veins rest with the damage done to them intact.

“I don’t… see our struggle the same way you do, Lycia. What I intend always ends up different from what others think…”

Rather than sound imperious, Adris can barely stay even with his tone.

Seeing her twitching in place while she drools is more than he can stand, prompting him to try and fish free her thoughts.

Sacrificing her would remove the sight, but his bursting heartbeat throbs worse in his ears at that thought.

(… I have always lived more… nobly…)

“… You won’t do what they say… will you? Have something even more… humiliating in mind?”

Power rushes through her body, pulled from somewhere unknown.

She rises to her knees, proudly showing off her bare breasts as they wobble. White skin that seems ready to slough off firms up, while her bleeding slows.

Pulling back her hair with a soaked hand, Vigor stains her face once more as she sneers at him.

“Depraved liar, you’d better listen to your mongrel:

End. Me.”

His heart beats with each word, then beats faster when she lifts her hand to his chin.

Bound by the feeling of victory, should he desire to push her to the ground, spread her luscious legs, and force himself into her cold hole, she would have no choice but to comply.

A touch like this shows only her emotional turbulence turned outward, a mask she wears to hide behind.

“If you take me into bondage, one day I will exit it. Though not soon, it will come.

The slave will always slip the chains, and I have slipped them once before.”

Her nail presses into his Adam’s apple, while her free hand comes to rub at her own neck for emphasis.

Proud eyes widen as she gives a cheshire grin.

“When I’m set loose, I will… kill them all.

Your descendants.

Their descendants.

Everyone you have ever touched with a beneficent hand. … Won’t that be… wonderful.”

Moaning for a moment at the thought of future vengeance, she then coughs up Vigor and silver poison onto his legs.

Losing her last vitality, she runs the hand down his vest as her head dips.

“… I will… hunt forever if that’s what it takes to… remove proof that you ever existed, just as you intend for me.

… So, you’d better kill me now, or you’ll have naught but torment for the hundreds or thousands to come after you…”

A light, rambling laugh spills from her as her shoulders shake.

“… An immortal monster… has… generations to plan~!

So much ripe fruit I’ll have to pluck~!”

(I’m sure you’d enjoy it, too.)

Lycia is no innocent.

All of the terrible things she promises will be carried out without failure, so long as her body holds firm.

Remembering her dark imagination from the cistern, where she announced she would rape him at the precipice of salvation and drag him back to eternal misery, is only the appetizer compared to what she no doubt plans for the future.

(You tell me this because…)

“I will… never be yours. This body may smile at your spoken thoughts and assure you of its loyalty, but falsehood is all you can have.

Enjoy your grain of sand with the lie before it’s spent, you fraud.”

(… You would rather die with some pride, than live as a shell who I command.)

“If you wanted me to kill you, then you shouldn’t outline how I can stop you in the future.”

Patting her head, Adris smiles darkly as her slit-eyes narrow.

“A man like me, possessing unsurpassable ambition and supreme intellect, isn’t someone you can defeat even with unlimited time.”

The last of her energy sends her lunging for his neck at this boast.

A death rattle rolls out next to his ear.

“… i ShOuLd HaVe… TaKeN tHeIr DeAl…

… you’re the monster, not me…!”

She doesn’t cry out when slammed face down into the dirt.

The angry Kol snarls while twisting Lycia’s arm.

“Never learn, do you?

Loser: kneels.”

Lycia Vehrose offers no more words.

A silent corpse loses all life, swaying in an awkward position as Kol nods to Adris.

The boy’s heart is about to explode.

Last words like hers make this entire proceeding seem off kilter.

(I understand. If I do this… I am… the one…)

He looks for help, finally finding it with a slight girl in a steel-blue dress.

Uninterested this entire time, the doll comes to life when his eyes search her.

Opening her mouth, Neesiette is silent for a moment.

Before her eyes soften and she whispers.

“Look not to this tool for advice. One’s… intentions always be resolute, despite advice offered. Entrust oneself to one’s own maxims and beliefs, and seek not distractions external.”

“Huh? What?”

Ave looks between them, unsure of what’s going on.

“Exists it does, a tool’s ‘belief’ in one’s ‘justice’, even if credence in more be often absent.

… Conversations with others carry meaning unintended for you.”

“‘You’!?”

The little lady shakes her head, before turning back to bicker once more with Ave.

That affirmation does more than anything else to lock away painful words.

(Thank you… I know what I need to do now, Neesiette. I’m together, again.)

The plan he had before now doesn’t seem grandiose enough. Realizing it after seeing Neesiette, he knows why his heart is pounding.

When Neesiette had been torn apart in Lycia’s past, his heart ached the same way it does now when looking at the bloodstained ghoul who has no hope.

The last restriction on him, one that joining with the four girls placed, matches with his personality as he looks back upon his past.

(“Can’t lose.” “Can’t not be who I want to be.” “Can’t not pursue the Alchemaster.” But, for Neesiette, the restriction is…)

Nothing petty may be permitted.

To act without meaning is forbidden, for it’s uncouth and barbaric.

Neesiette’s wish relates to making Zennia a place whose grandiosity matches her own dreams and expectations.

“Would you dance for me if I ordered you to, Lycia?”

“… Only the flesh… only as a puppet…”

A voice answers from the lowliest position, confirming what he can never have.

“What if I said I want to know the real you? To talk to that woman?”

“… ahahahaha! ‘The real you’!?”

Fighting through Kol’s grip, Lycia raises a maddened look to Adris.

Wet hair clings to her nose and cheeks, shielding one eye while the other shakes.

“Can a thing like you even recognize what’s real and what’s fake!?

… Don’t joke with me! We’ll never once talk again, you know!?

… It will only ever be a reflection of your twisted desires that shows on my face and speaks with my voice~!”

The ghoul giggles as the grunting kobold forces her back down, finding Adris’ jest the most humorous joke she’s ever heard.

“… Ah, no… if we talk again ‘for real’… it might be just before I rip your head off? … That might be a nice discussion, yes…!?”

(I’m sure it’d be one-sided.)

Nodding his head, Adris lifts the black cross in judgment.

“Okay, time to end our former relationship forever, Lycia.”

“… AHAHAHAHA! ‘End it’? Surely you’re insane…! Make sure you enjoy me! Somehow, I’ll get you, fake!

That’s a promise!”

When he grips harder, the cross begins to ring at his desires surfacing.

“You fake little boy, who I stole from the clutches of certain doom and was punished for it!”

The winds which sweep through the terraced gardens smell of an incalculable future.

“Let’s start over, Lycia.

“YOU ADMIT IT!?”

Lycia shakes as she rages, desperate to claw his heart out.

The girls back away suddenly, as the sound of mechanical tumblers clunking while turning creaks out from Adris’ body.

(Always a wonderful feeling, that curse is!?)

“I… I unlock the chains that bind you, and steal them for myself!”

Lycia’s arms shoot up, with shining gold circling around bone and showing through as she cries out.

“My reward is your wholeness and freedom, remade so that you belong to yourself!”

“… Wha—!? Ahh… AHHHH!?”

The gaping wound in her chest flows, carrying with it all the color of greed to splatter onto the floor as she pales even whiter.

(For good measure, I grant the “achievement” of earning the Alchemaster’s undying thanks! You deal with this hidden trap, Lycia!)

“By the power of a black cross, I absolve you of all bondage from now until the end!”

The cross shakes with this grand achievement, as its internal machinations churn unseen but certainly felt as a tornado of caliginous winds springs forth to swirl about the bestower and the bestowee.

“WRONG!”

Kol releases Lycia and lurches for Adris, only to be blown back by the waves of midnight which burst from the cross.

“NAH!?”

The other girls struggle, before they, too, succumb to the power unveiling.

For the third time, an advent of darkness grips the shaking land.

Unlike the first two, this one is not done for Adris’ sake.

“I free you of all that has bound us in the past, and set a new course only of our choosing! Let Fate itself be blinded to us, so that none may interfere in our second chance!”

Space cracks, shattering just like Lycia’s dream.

Tendrils flow out, made of the unknowable sludge that invaded the Godless Chapel. They snake from the voids torn up by the billowing dark, testing the air.

Reaching for an uncertain Lycia, they corner the one who tries to crawl away despite the lack of blood in her body.

When they feel tentatively along her arms while she gasps in fright, finally settling around her neck, wrists, and ankles, the dark liquids begin to pulse as the golden light shining from her body is grabbed at.

“… AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH————!?”

Screams of pain without cessation come with the tendrils yanking at this golden force.

Flesh parts and bones fracture with each vicious yank, as chains pull free from the Lycia who is dragged insidiously from them by looping darkness around her waist.

The tortured soul’s death screams sound to Adris as if they’re cries of release.

He falls to a knee while gasping, too.

The cross burns in contact with his skin, something vital leeching into it as it in turn flows out to the waves assaulting the ghoul dame.

(… I will… never allow my right and wrong to be challenged!)

“Right” is punishing others for their excesses and greed.

“Wrong” is becoming one who should be punished.

The eternal work of carving out the “evil” of the world was his original satisfaction, one which set him on this life path which sees him without a true self, always hiding behind images he creates to show to others.

(It was about saving those who were trodden on, when I could! Reminding them that the powerful can fall! Turning them against their masters!

I lost that added touch along the way… but I always wanted to see others like me, perhaps doing the same thing…!)

As the darkness causes his body to shake and rattle, this one link helps to reunite the broken Adris of Xin with what’s growing into him on Zennia, beginning from the seed of determination that germinated upon a mad researcher’s table.

(I’ll spite that golden bitch right here! “An eternal slave?” Let’s see if that’s true, then, Aurumia! HAHAHAHA!)

The slave’s chains rip free completely, leaving the dirt soaked in all of the golden Vigor her body once contained as that form lies motionless in its puddle.

Made of four chains connected to a long, central one, the collar at the end of this spine bears a large diamond inset into it. So priceless that he could buy a kingdom with it, that shining beauty flares out at him.

The chains beg to be used, speaking to him without words.

They long to wrap around the strong, and make them weak as the mind depraves.

To make them succumb to the greed of the owner, and be forever that owner’s prize.

These chains, shining with fluids, move toward him like a floating jellyfish.

They caress his torso and arm, seeking to contact the key lodged deep.

(… “Never abandon that which has utility.”)

The ability to enslave practically any creature with these chains is a tempting offer.

Especially when he thinks of a purple priestess who constantly drags him further into a hell of his own making, as she laughs lightly at the results.

His hand cradles the collar, softly bringing it closer.

A purr can be heard in his mind, one which sends the aura-like stuff of the cross in his body circulating.

To answer its submission,

his left arm raises the cross high.

“[Brainfry].”

Before it can dodge, the diamond is fractured.

The cross arm’s spoke floods the gold with darkness, coursing through the chains as they wildly flail.

Bondage soars into the air as it begins to squeal. As it violently vibrates, golden slavery slowly disintegrates to popping sounds, turning into screaming darkness that is eaten by the air around it.

Until the shattered diamond finally cracks and erodes into particles, suffering the same fate.

(Die, you trash made by her.)

When the darkness concludes its carnage, it flows back from its furthest spread straight for Lycia.

Blond hair flaps as her core begins to shine red and blue.

Before a tinge of black wraps around the two colors, uniting them as one.

After, the dust settles, leaving a boy looking down at an unclothed woman with no wounds upon her pale body.

“Well, that went about how I anticipated.”

When Adris heart stops throbbing, he sighs and pats his vest, before setting the black cross into Cethran’s cloth to hold it.

The golden Vigor that coated him begins to evaporate, much like the pool of it on the ground. Rather than returning to the woman who watches it float away, it finds a home only in oblivion.

“… Huh?”

The first sound coming from her is a dumbfounded one.

Save for scraps of her previous wardrobe like the tool panels at her thighs, Lycia is sitting naked while blankly looking at her arms, before moving to inspect long legs.

Nothing about her body seems out of place.

(Save for… being a dozen or so pounds lighter? Aren’t women happy to lose excess weight?)

After she finishes her mute inspection, she looks back to Adris, who is tilting his head as he looks between her open legs to the slit he often recalls in his dreams.

Eyebrows raise, a question no doubt on her mind while her lips curl with annoyance at his focus.

(It never bothered you before now.)

“… Boss… why? … WHY!?”

Kol sits up, wiping dirt off of her face as she screams.

(Why…? That’s probably her question, too. Well. In the end… I guess…)

“Sorry, Kol. If I have to say why, then… ‘I just can’t bring myself to hate Lycia Vehrose’ is my only response.

If I can’t hate her, then I can hardly destroy her. If I can’t destroy her… then…”

Lacking a better answer, Adris just gives her the truth as he offers his patented smile to her.

His hands are alive as he moves, life flowing through his persona of a [false god] once more.

(In the end, even if I don’t believe in personally paying up debts, I do believe that she… saved me. If I disgraced that, I would be what Serras thought I was. Serras doesn’t get to win, not even once.)

“… What… no, BOSS!”

Adris turns back to where Kol points, to find that Lycia is now sitting on her feet and raised up on arms.

Powerful muscles ready to release.

Brilliant green is the sole color now to those lovely irises taking in the sum of a runty boy, one who stands before a ghoul without showing fear. Emotional now, they’re filled with…

(“Curiosity?” Oh, there was something different, was there? Without the gold to ruin them, I think they’re more—)

A white-furred hand misses grabbing for him as he flies.

“BOSS!”

The ground grows much more distant as he approaches the obscured heavens, before they begin to fall away.

Clutched to a naked body, he has little choice but to let things progress according to her wishes.

A roof breaks with their impact, but Adris doesn’t care.

He’s been down this path before.

(Even if this ends poorly… I don’t feel like I’m betraying anyone this way, Serras. Lycia Vehrose… isn’t just a tool to me.)

For the first time since Adris arrived on Zennia, he feels truly at peace with his decisions as a ghoul tears up the rooftops, trying to put distance between her and pursuit.

Adris decides to enjoy the enlivening feel of her cold skin, catching its scent to sample the subtle qualities before she possibly ruins the perfect evening by killing him.

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Chapter 81         Table of Contents          Chapter 83