May 15th, 2033.
Alma dodged a beam of energy Jasmine released toward him, quickly shifting his body aside before another beam followed, then another, each one cutting through the air with enough force to leave destruction in its wake. To anyone else, the relentless barrage would have been overwhelming, leaving almost no opportunity to think, let alone react. However, Alma Alastor was the exception. Possessing the experience, perception, and sheer ability necessary to remain composed even when surrounded by attacks from every direction, he dodged precisely.
Jasmine fired another beam of light toward Alma, then immediately launched two more toward the trees where she anticipated he would dodge, before sending another directly into the ground. Four things happened almost simultaneously! Alma reacted to the attack, the first beam forcing him to move. The two other beams of light striking the trees and shattering their trunks so that they began collapsing directly toward him. While the final beam struck the ground in front of Jasmine, closest to Alma, erupting into a blinding rain of dirt and debris that obscured his surroundings.
Alma reacted instantly, using Gale to violently redirect the falling trees away from him while simultaneously scattering the splinters and broken pieces of wood that followed behind them, before immediately turning his attention toward the cloud of dirt that had been thrown into the air. With another use of Gale, he swept the debris away, clearing his vision and restoring his surroundings to view, only to realize that Jasmine was nowhere to be seen.
His eyes moved across the forest, searching between the shattered trees and through the spaces beneath their branches before traveling upward toward the sky in anticipation of an aerial attack, but no matter where he looked, there was no sign of Jasmine anywhere.
"Presence: Unveiled," Jasmine suddenly said from directly behind him.
Alma turned immediately, his body responding before his thoughts could fully catch up, but there was nothing behind him.
In the same instant, multiple beams of light and energy appeared throughout the area surrounding Alma, forming an all-encompassing dome that seemed to leave him with nowhere to escape. His eyes widened as his mind registered the dozens upon dozens of beams that surrounded him from every possible direction, each one appearing capable of striking him simultaneously. While the beams of light traveled toward him, Alma immediately activated Evil Eyes and peered beyond the deception, seeing through the false images and discovering that nearly every beam surrounding him was nothing more than an illusion.
Only one was real.
As the single genuine beam mimicked the appearance of a hundred others and rushed toward him, Alma simply shifted his body aside, allowing the true attack to pass while the remaining beams harmlessly passed through his body without causing any damage.
Jasmine stared in shock and bewilderment, with a hint of annoyance creeping into her expression as the strategy she had carefully constructed was discarded almost effortlessly. Alma turned toward her and found Jasmine standing with her hands clasped together against her waist. This became the signal that meant their training session had come to an end.
Alma smiled and walked toward her, reaching down once he was close enough to gently pat her on the head.
"Good job," he said proudly. "You've improved significantly since we started training less than a month ago."
Jasmine smiled warmly at his praise, allowing his words to settle deeply within her as she looked up at him. "Thank you, Dad. You've been a really good teacher, and I doubt I could've gotten this far without you."
Alma shook his head with a small smile.
"Thank you, but your talent would've shone through regardless of who taught you. I'm just bringing it out a little faster than if you had been taught by another teacher." He paused for a moment before continuing. "And may I ask what that move you used was? 'Presence: Unveiled'?"
Jasmine immediately perked up at the question. "Oh, that's just a name holder that allows me to manipulate my energy correctly into doing what I want it to do," she explained. "'Unveiled' isn't actually an ability, more like a crutch that helps me better control the energy."
Alma nodded in understanding, genuinely impressed by the concept.
"That's impressive. Developing the name of an ability that forces your energy into remembering what to do through a specific phrase is astonishing. But you need to be careful." His expression became slightly more serious. "If you rely on that technique too much, it'll eventually backfire, and you may reach a point where you're no longer able to manipulate your energy in any other way."
Jasmine looked confused, raising an eyebrow as she considered his warning. "What do you mean? How will my energy ever do that?"
"If you constantly rely on one specific type of energy manipulation instead of commanding it on the fly, you'll eventually limit yourself to that one method of manipulation," Alma explained. "Concealing instead of outputting, outputting instead of concealing, or whatever else you teach your energy to do through repetition. It all comes down to which technique you use first and how heavily you depend on it. Just be wary, okay?"
Jasmine nodded, taking his warning seriously. "I will. Thank you."
Alma nodded in response before relaxing his expression once again. "Anyways, this is enough for today. Tomorrow, we can come back and do some more, but I'm starving." He looked toward Jasmine with a grin. "Are you hungry?"
Jasmine chuckled. "You're always hungry, Dad."
"It is considered the best time of the day," Alma replied with complete seriousness.
"Daad, that's only for breakfast or dinner," Jasmine said, staring at him as though his reasoning made absolutely no sense.
"Then lunch is in the middle, so even better?" he asked.
"You're acting my age," Jasmine said flatly.
"And I eat like you, too," Alma replied.
Jasmine gasped in mock offense. "Dad!!"
Alma laughed loudly as the two continued walking out of the forest together, their conversation gradually becoming lighter as they made their way back home. Yet, beneath the humor and the warmth of the moment, Alma knew that training Jasmine in this particular area had been a poor decision. He had no better option available to him other than taking her somewhere outside the United States, and he had never traveled outside the country before, leaving him with no idea where he could possibly find a safer and more suitable location for her training. And to make things worse for his situation, he wanted to keep the training entirely secret.
And that decision would rear its ugly head very soon.
───
June 12th, 2033 — The White House.
"Alma, I need you to assist with the security of the Pride Festival occurring in Winston-Salem tomorrow," Emmanuel said. "The event is happening at 10 AM, but I want you there an hour earlier."
Alma stared at him with a confused expression.
"What? Pride Festival?" Alma asked with confusion, almost defensively.
The concept was entirely unfamiliar to him, and from his own perspective, the word itself carried a meaning that immediately made him uncomfortable. Alma associated pride with something inherently sinful and connected to the Devil. The idea of an entire festival being centered around it therefore did not sit well with him.
"And why do I need to go?" Alma continued.
"The Pride Festival is a highly populated event, and Winston-Salem is also among the areas where Beasts of Ruin appear with high frequency," Emmanuel explained. "You're the only one I can confidently send there. The other Monarchs will be attending different festivals as well, some before and some after yours, so please don't suspect that this is a targeted assignment."
Alma's confusion only deepened. "What is a Pride Festival? Are they celebrating the Devil?"
"No," Emmanuel replied. "It isn't a celebration of the Devil, nor is it simply a celebration of pride. It's a festival where gay, lesbian, transgender, and all sorts of colorful people attend to celebrate self-acceptance and their community."
Alma stared at him. "What?!" His confusion became even more apparent. "Transgender? What in tarnation are you talking about?"
"Oh, right, I forgot you're from the '40s," Emmanuel said with a deadpan expression and an exhausted sigh before continuing. "It isn't celebrating anything evil, at least not according to your worldview. The point is that there will be a lot of people there, and I need you to help protect them from any Beasts of Ruin that might appear. Can you do it?"
"Of course I can," Alma replied without hesitation. "I'll never turn my back on people who need me. I'll be there."
Emmanuel nodded, satisfied with his answer. "Thank you. That's all I wanted to tell you. Good luck tomorrow, Alma, though you probably won't need it."
Alma smiled back. "It never hurts to wish for the best."
He waved Emmanuel off before exiting through the door, leaving the President behind as he continued contemplating the strange assignment he had just been given.
"Pride Festival?" Alma muttered to himself as he walked away. "This is the first I've ever heard of it, and what was he on about with transgender? What does that even mean?"
After a moment, he simply shrugged his shoulders and continued onward.
───
June 13th, 2033 — 9:30 AM.
Jasmine sat on a fallen tree, panting heavily as sweat poured down her face and soaked through her clothes, her entire body trembling from exhaustion after hours of relentless training.
"Did I... do good...?" she managed to ask between heavy breaths.
Alma nodded with a proud smile.
"You did great. Each day, you're improving, but you still need to find a workaround for that technique." He paused, watching her carefully. "As I said, it's good in the beginning, but don't let it control you instead."
Jasmine nodded, attempting to push herself back onto her feet, only to stumble and fall right back down as her exhausted muscles refused to cooperate. Her entire body ached, her breathing remained heavy, and every movement felt as though it required an enormous amount of effort, because since seven in the morning, Alma had worked Jasmine relentlessly, pushing her beyond her limits and forcing her to learn how to control her energy without relying on the technique she had developed.
It had been immensely difficult, and despite giving the training everything she had, Jasmine still couldn't completely accomplish what Alma was asking of her, but she refused to allow her failures to discourage her. Every mistake was another step toward understanding the energy that existed within her.
And she would keep trying until she mastered it.
Alma picked Jasmine up into his arms and carried her back toward the apartment, flying through the air with enough speed to make the journey short while still keeping her secure against his chest. Once they arrived, he carefully set her down at the kitchen table before turning his attention toward the rest of his children, preparing breakfast for everyone while Jasmine remained seated, still exhausted from their training session. Alma ate half of his own bowl before pushing the remainder toward Jasmine, insisting that she eat something after being worked so hard, and once he was certain everyone had enough, he prepared himself to leave.
───
Winston-Salem, North Carolina — 10:15 AM.
Fifteen minutes had passed since Alma Alastor, the Dragon Monarch and appointed guardian of the festival, had arrived in Winston-Salem, and from his position atop one of the surrounding buildings, he immediately noticed how unfamiliar the atmosphere was to him. Built into the city below was an underground railway station, though it was far smaller than the sprawling subway systems he had seen elsewhere, consisting more of a compact underground passage through which trains could travel beneath the streets. Alma crouched at the edge of the rooftop, his eyes scanning the festival below while the parade continued peacefully through the city, and for the moment, there appeared to be nothing threatening enough to warrant his intervention.
What did catch his attention, however, was the sheer amount of color surrounding him. People walked through the streets dressed in bright, extravagant clothing, waving rainbow-colored flags above their heads as they laughed, cheered, and celebrated together. To Alma, the sight was strange for reasons that went beyond his unfamiliarity with modern society; the rainbow had always been associated with God's promise of never flooding the Earth. Something divine and holy. And yet here thousands of people were carrying it while proclaiming pride in themselves and their community. He could not determine whether they were ignorant of the symbolism or simply held an entirely different interpretation of it, and for the moment, he decided that it was none of his business as long as nobody was in danger.
The parade continued without incident as it proceeded down NW Trade Street, and Alma moved from one rooftop to another, keeping pace with the procession while carefully watching every side street, alleyway, and intersection the people would eventually pass through. Everything remained calm until the parade approached the intersection at Fifth Street, where Alma immediately noticed something that did not belong. There were nobody standing or walking the sidewalk, the noise of cars on other roads were missing. It had suddenly turned into a ghost town. The sudden absence of life created a silence so unnatural that Alma's instincts immediately began warning him that something was wrong.
The parade continued forward, completely unaware of what awaited them, and as they moved farther down Trade Street toward the Sixth Street intersection, Alma's uneasiness transformed into certainty. Halfway down the street, he felt something approaching, and his head snapped toward the opposite end of Trade Street just in time to see hundreds of figures wearing dark cloaks and hoods stampeding toward the parade. Alma reacted instantly, launching himself from the rooftop and landing behind the procession with barely a sound, his body already prepared for combat as he activated his Evil Eyes.
What he saw nearly stopped him.
The people charging toward them had no souls.
Alma took a small step backward, his expression tightening as the realization settled over him, before he shook his head and forced himself to focus, deactivating Evil Eyes. He immediately flew toward the approaching figures and landed before them, politely asking them to turn away, then ordering them to stop after the first attempt failed, but none of them acknowledged him, simply walking around, continuing their relentless advance as though he were nothing more than an obstacle in their path. The strangest thing was that they had human mannerisms. They acted like people on their way to work. It confused him as much as it scared him. Alma moved ahead of them and extended his hand, unleashing Gale to push the entire mass backward. Several figures were thrown onto the pavement with heavy thuds, while others stumbled and continued forward, and when one suddenly swung at him, Alma caught its hand without difficulty and drove the figure into the ground.
The impact shattered the illusion.
Instead of flesh, Alma's hand met wood.
His eyes widened as he stared down at the figure beneath him, realizing that what he had just thrown to the ground was not a human being at all, but a human-sized doll constructed entirely from wood. Alma activated Evil Eyes again and looked across the approaching crowd, confirming what he had already tried to reason against; every single one of them was soulless. He had known that they were not human, but seeing hundreds of wooden bodies moving with the appearance and behavior of people was entirely different from merely understanding the concept.
For someone whose perception was intimately connected to the soul, the sight was profoundly uncanny.
One of the wooden dolls suddenly leaped toward him, but Alma did not even bother turning his head in its direction. He extended two fingers and fired The Greatest Offense: Spear, directly through its chest, expecting the soul-erasing weapon to tear through it instantly, only for the spear to pass harmlessly through the wooden body and continue into the sky. Alma's eyes narrowed as the realization became undeniable.
'It's just as I thought. I can't use any soul-related abilities on these things.' Alma thought.
Before the doll could reach him, Alma seized it by the face and slammed it into the pavement with enough force to splinter its body, then grabbed its torso and tore it apart from the pelvis. Casting aside the uneasiness that had momentarily seized him, Alma straightened himself and hardened his expression before charging directly into the mass of wooden bodies, tearing through them with overwhelming efficiency as though a hot knife were passing through butter.
He was halfway through clearing the street when the screams of the civilians behind him abruptly filled the air.
Alma's body snapped around.
Another wave was charging toward the parade from the Sixth Street intersection.
He immediately launched himself forward, intercepting the approaching dolls before they could reach the civilians, and began destroying them one after another. Yet before he could clear the entire wave, the pavement beneath his feet began to tremble.
Alma's eyes widened.
'What now? An earthquake!?' He thought with exasperation.
Before he could further his thought, the tremors intensified, and what appeared in front of him made his expression change for the third time that day. Down Sixth Street stood at least a thousand wooden dolls, while another thousand flooded down the opposite side of the street. A third wave poured in from Trade Street, and then, as though the situation had not already become overwhelming, approximately three thousand more emerged from the intersection of Fifth Street and Trade Street.
Alma immediately pointed toward the underground station.
His best chance was to get the civilians underground and into the train station where they could flee, or atleast the confined environmentat would give him a better position to defend them. He raised his right arm and shouted, "Mirage!"
Twelve copies of Alma appeared around him, each clone immediately charging toward a different wave of wooden dolls. The battlefield erupted into chaos as the clones tore through hundreds of wooden bodies, their movements nearly identical to Alma's own as they kept the advancing masses occupied. Meanwhile, the real Alma turned his attention toward the civilians, guiding them toward the underground station and ensuring that nobody was left behind.
During the parade's panic, they followed Alma's orders without second-guessing. He was a leader in that moment, someone they trusted instantly amongst their confusion and fear.
For a moment, it seemed as though the plan was working.
Then the wooden dolls began emerging from places that should have been impossible.
They didn't break through walls, instead, they pushed themselves out from them, as though water through wood. Beneath sidewalks they emerged, and even from inside buildings, appearing as though the entire city had become a nest from which they could reproduce endlessly. Several of them slipped past Alma's clones and began descending toward the underground station, forcing Alma's eyes to flash with panic as he immediately pursued them.
He reached the entrance before the dolls could reach the platform and tore through them with ease, destroying every one that managed to reach him until nothing remained except scattered limbs and splintered pieces of wood that rolled down the stairs.
The civilians stared at him in horror and disbelief.
Their only line of defense was a man most of them had never heard of before, someone whose abilities and movements were so far beyond anything they could comprehend that they could barely understand what they were witnessing. Yet despite their confusion, they placed their faith in him, silently cheering whenever he destroyed another wooden doll and praying that the strange man protecting them would survive alongside them. To them, Alma appeared restless, unstoppable, and completely confident.
A hero.
But Alma was still only one man.
His twelve clones were fighting thousands of wooden dolls above, and eventually, the sheer number of enemies began to overwhelm even them. The dolls that slipped past the clones funneled into the station, and although Alma destroyed every one that reached him, each passing doll created another opening through which several more could follow. Alma immediately understood where the situation was heading.
He raised his palm toward the staircase leading into the station and unleashed Gale.
A tremendous gust swept through the entrance, throwing the advancing dolls backward and buying Alma a few precious moments. He immediately used that opening to destroy the dolls that had already slipped through, but then something else happened.
Wooden bodies began falling through the ceiling.
They crashed down into different sections of the station, scattered throughout the crowd of civilians, and before Alma could reach them, they disappeared among the people.
These dolls were different.
They were wearing human skin and clothing.
They blended into the crowd so perfectly that even Alma's ordinary perception could not distinguish them from the civilians surrounding them. Fortunately, he possessed something far more powerful than ordinary sight. Alma activated Evil Eyes once more and scanned through the crowd, immediately identifying the soulless imposters hiding among the living.
He moved.
Alma charged through the station with surgical precision, destroying the wooden dolls without allowing his attacks to even graze the civilians surrounding them. His movements were so precise that they resembled those of a brain surgeon operating upon a patient, except that he has surpassed even that. Alma wielded overwhelming physical strength and supernatural abilities that could all of the people here in an instant, and possessed control that could only be called truly remarkable.
Yet while Alma dealt with the hidden dolls, the wooden figures he had previously sent flying with Gale began gathering themselves and returning to the station.
The screams of the civilians filled the underground chamber once again.
Alma immediately snapped his attention toward the staircase as another wave flooded downward. His precision, extraordinary as it was, had become the limiting factor. By the time he had destroyed half of the hidden dolls among the civilians, the others had already begun moving deeper into the station. If Alma were willing to disregard the lives around him and simply destroy the civilians alongside the wooden dolls, the problem would have been solved almost immediately.
But Alma Alastor did not think that way. He never had.
The lives of the civilians were not obstacles to his victory. They were the reason he was fighting in the first place.
And then, something entirely new entered the battlefield. Alma felt it before he saw it.
Something was wrong.
From somewhere within the shadows, a glowing circle of light suddenly manifested, its unnatural radiance cutting through the darkness of the station. Alma immediately turned toward it, his eyes narrowing as he saw something that appeared almost beautiful compared to the crude wooden dolls surrounding him.
"Astral Projection: Distance Negative."
A woman's voice echoed through the station.
At that exact moment, identical circles of light appeared around the stomachs of every civilian.
Alma's eyes widened.
The circles began closing rapidly.
"Gale!" The force of Alma's Gale erupted outward, pushing the civilians down to the floor, then slid against it, away from the closing circles before he immediately flew toward the opposite side and unleashed a second, gentler wave beneath them, cushioning their descent and preventing them from being injured while simultaneously lifting them up gently.
"Tch." The woman's voice came from somewhere within the shadows before disappearing completely, her form vanishing just beyond Alma's sight.
'That person just now was... an Apparition.' Alma's expression hardened. 'A purely spiritual form. Was it a Human of Ruin!?'
"What's wrong?" A distorted voice suddenly spoke from behind him.
Alma turned sharply.
A wooden doll stood only a few feet away, its featureless face staring directly at him.
"You seem to be unsure of what to do next," the doll said, its distorted voice carrying an almost mocking tone. "Perhaps you oughta go back home and pretend you weren't here to protect these people."
The civilians looked toward Alma, fear spreading across their faces as they heard the strange creature speak. From their perspective, the situation had become incomprehensible, and if they had been standing in Alma's position, they might have already considered retreating.
Alma, however, remained still.
'It can speak? Not only that, it seems completely aware of what's happening around it. But it still doesn't have a soul, which means it isn't acting according to a will of its own.'
A smile slowly appeared across Alma's face. "And leave all these people here to die?" Alma asked, gesturing toward the frightened civilians behind him.
His smile disappeared.
What remained was a quiet, restrained anger.
"Please. As if someone like you, who is trying to end lives instead of preserving them, has any room to tell me what my options are." Alma's eyes narrowed as he stared directly at the doll. "You're nothing more than an ant in an ant colony."
"Bold words coming from someone who has clones upstairs," the wooden doll replied with a distorted laugh. "You couldn't even uphold the simple saying that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. You failed twelve times."
Before the doll could say another word, Alma seized its body and ripped its torso apart diagonally, splitting the wooden figure in half as its broken pieces crashed against the floor.
'And it has lungs? What am I even fighting?' Alma thought, staring at the wooden creature with growing unease as the implications of everything he had witnessed continued to pile upon one another.
The parade moved behind Alma, keeping as much distance as possible between themselves and the wooden dolls, and for the moment, the area directly behind him remained one of the safest places they could possibly be. Alma glanced back at the civilians before turning his attention toward the mass of wooden dolls once more, his mind rapidly piecing together every detail he had observed since the attack began.
'Is this their strategy? Overwhelm and attack? The Apparition disappeared shortly after using that attack, so perhaps it has some kind of cooldown or interval during which it cannot use the ability again. As for my clones on the surface, they're still dealing with the majority of the dolls, so that leaves the ones down here and the Apparition as the immediate threats.' Alma's eyes narrowed as he continued analyzing the battlefield. 'But then... why aren't they using that trick again? Half of the dolls down here entered by phasing through the ceiling, and if they can do that whenever they want, why would they bother attacking head-on? Why even give me the opportunity to see them coming when they can use the element of surprise whenever they please? Something isn't right here. Is there an ulterior plan? Do they have another trick waiting for me? And if they do... will I be ready for it?'
"Boo."
The Apparition's voice came from directly behind Alma.
His eyes widened, and he immediately swung around, but there was nothing there.
The Apparition had already vanished.
A moment later, it reappeared among the wooden dolls, where its form could finally be seen clearly. It possessed the appearance of a woman with her hair tied behind her head, while the rest of her body lacked nearly every biological feature that would normally identify it as human. Its body was little more than a spiritual manifestation shaped into a feminine form, with only its chest possessing any distinctly feminine structure, even that lacking nipples or any exaggerated proportions.
"On a serious note, you probably should leave," the Apparition said mockingly, its voice carrying an almost playful quality despite the situation. "We promise we won't tell anyone, and we'll make it seem like we attacked while you were off saving people from Beasts of Ruin."
'They're awfully adamant about getting me to leave,' Alma thought, narrowing his eyes. 'Are they trying not to fight me? This entire time, they've mostly targeted civilians instead of me, aside from the attacks on the surface. Did the environment changing force them outside of their original plan, or did everything unfold exactly as they intended?'
"I would never leave," Alma said calmly, his gaze remaining fixed upon the Apparition. "But let me humor myself for a moment. If I did leave, you'd still slaughter these people, wouldn't you? So even if I were cowardly enough to abandon them, I'd know innocent lives would be lost. In the end, whether I stay or leave, your objective remains exactly the same."
The Apparition's expression shifted ever so slightly, taking on a hint of concern, while the wooden dolls surrounding her remained unnaturally still.
'Thirty-three in total,' Alma counted, his eyes moving across the room. 'I can use Spear and erase the Apparition in less than a second. That would leave the dolls for me to deal with manually, but that should still be manageable.'
Alma raised his hand toward the Apparition. "Spear."
The projectile launched forward with tremendous speed, piercing directly through the Apparition's body.
Yet it did not die.
Instead, one of the wooden dolls standing nearby suddenly vanished entirely, its body erased as though it had never existed.
Alma's eyes widened. "That was..."
"One of Keaton's moves?" a wooden doll finished for him, bursting into a crazed laugh. "You bet!"
Alma's hand instinctively began to rise, preparing to activate the Endless Labyrinth, but he immediately stopped himself. His mind flashed back to what had happened to the people trapped inside with Keaton, remembering how none of them ever returned to normal society. They had fallen into comas, their souls separated from their bodies, until eventually their bodies died. Using the Endless Labyrinth here would mean exposing the civilians to the same fate, and Alma could not justify that risk merely to eliminate the Apparition.
It would not even solve the problem.
The ability would affect the Apparition, but the wooden dolls would remain, and the civilians trapped within the station would ultimately pay the price.
"Make sure you all stay back," Alma ordered the civilians, his voice firm enough to cut through the panic. "You'll die if you go any farther past me."
The crowd shrunk back, heading his command.
The wooden dolls made the first move.
Several of them suddenly charged toward the civilians, attempting to reach the crowd before Alma could intercept them, but they did not even make it halfway. Alma moved through them in an instant, destroying each doll with brutal efficiency until the final one collapsed beneath his feet. He straightened himself just as the Apparition finally made its move.
"Astral Projection: Severing Hog Tie."
The Apparition extended her palm, and multiple glowing crosses shot forward, each one slamming into an invisible barrier surrounding Alma.
Alma stared at them with mild curiosity.
He had already activated Withering Grace at an extremely low output, commanding the area of decay to 3 inches around him, carefully controlling the ability so that it would decay only what came into contact with him without spreading throughout the station. The crosses struck the invisible field, bounced away, and dispersed into harmless particles of dust.
'Why would the dolls attack me? They're obviously connected to the Apparition. If destroying them beforehand prevents her from using them as a means of transferring attacks, then killing them should be the ideal strategy. Unless the wooden dolls on the surface are connected to her as well.'
"Spear." Alma fired again, sending the soul-erasing projectile directly toward the Apparition's chest.
It passed through her harmlessly.
Alma narrowed his eyes.
The result confirmed his suspicion.
The Apparition suddenly vanished, only for another wooden doll to appear behind him, its fist slamming directly into Withering Grace. Alma immediately turned around, prepared to destroy it, when the Apparition herself appeared behind him and struck the barrier with her own fist.
Alma stared at the two attackers with confusion. 'Why would they attack me while Withering Grace is active?'
"SPIRIT ENHANCEMENT!!" Both figures shouted simultaneously.
Their fists collided with Withering Grace, and instead of immediately decaying, they began pushing through the ability. The spiritual force surrounding their limbs resisted the decay, allowing their fists to gradually advance toward Alma as cracks spread across the ground beneath their feet from the sheer pressure being generated.
An inch was shaved off from Withering Grace. Then another.
Alma's eyes widened slightly.
He could feel it.
Whatever Spirit Enhancement was, it was granting them enough additional spiritual strength to resist Withering Grace and actively fight against it. The ability was not merely increasing their physical attacks; it was reinforcing their very existence against whatever they touched.
Alma responded instantly.
He drove his fist into the wooden doll's head, obliterating it before it could advance any farther.
The Apparition disappeared at the same instant, reappearing among the civilians, where the crowd was becoming increasingly filled with disguised wooden dolls. The civilians screamed and scattered, desperately attempting to distance themselves from the creatures while Alma remained between them and the advancing threat.
Alma stared at the chaos before him, his mind working rapidly. 'Spirit Enhancement... I've never heard of anyone using it besides them, but from what I've witnessed, it doesn't merely amplify their attacks. It appears to create a spiritual barrier between their souls and whatever they touch, enveloping the limb in their own soul and reinforcing it from the inside. It's essentially armor that can't be seen.'
'And because of Spirit Enhancement, Withering Grace can be bypassed, allowing them to physically reach me. That doesn't matter by itself, though. I can increase Withering Grace's output to a level that would render their Spirit Enhancement effectively useless. But with this many people surrounding me, I can't simply increase the output without risking everyone around me.' Alma's expression hardened.
'Ordinary people can theoretically use Spirit Enhancement alongside a Monarch through Liminal Bonds, but that depends on their bodies being living organisms and their connection to a Mythical Beast allowing them to interact with their souls at a much deeper level. The Apparition is naturally the most dangerous with Spirit Enhancement because it is nothing but a soul. Using it should be effortless for something like her.' His eyes shifted toward the wooden dolls.
'But the wooden dolls shouldn't be able to use it at all. They don't possess souls. They aren't living organisms. They shouldn't even have the means to comprehend something like this.' Alma's eyes widened as another realization struck him.
'And yet they're communicating, breathing, thinking, and acting with individual consciousness.' His expression became cold. 'Then this means... that someone is controlling these wooden dolls from somewhere else!'
Alma understood that he could not simply kill the Apparition while the wooden dolls remained connected to her, leaving him with only one viable choice, even if he was uncertain about the consequences. He would have to allow more of the wooden dolls into the station.
Alma recreated his twelve clones, ordering them to focus entirely on protecting the civilians while he began destroying the dolls already inside. To anyone watching, it might have appeared reckless, perhaps even desperate, but Alma was not gambling with their lives.
This was a calculated ploy.
His real objective was to isolate the Apparition, activate the Endless Labyrinth, and separate her from the dolls before destroying everything that remained.
A woman nearby was crying uncontrollably, her hands covering her face as she closed her eyes and desperately wished for the nightmare around her to disappear. A man noticed her fear and approached, gently taking her hand as he tried to reassure her despite the chaos surrounding them.
"We've got this," the man said with a reassuring smile. "That man has protected us this far. All we have to do is stay out of his way and let him handle everything else."
The woman slowly calmed at his words, gripping his hand as she used his support to rise to her feet.
When she tried to move away while still holding his hand, however, the man did not follow.
She looked back.
A massive hole had been punched through his chest.
His eyes were wide with fear and disbelief, his expression frozen in the final moment of his life before his body collapsed backward and struck the ground.
Alma saw him fall. His expression changed instantly. He gasped, his eyes widening as he stared at the dead man.
The woman could only stand there in stunned silence, unable to comprehend what had happened. He had been speaking to her less than a second ago, reassuring her, helping her stand, and telling her that everything would be all right, yet now every word he had spoken belonged to the past. She collapsed onto her knees beside his body, staring at the lifeless man with an expression of absolute devastation.
How cruel the world was.
How cruel it still is.
Alma appeared beside her moments later.
He lowered himself onto one knee and gently lifted the man's head, supporting it with one hand while taking the man's cold hand into his own. Tears slowly fell from Alma's eyes, few in number but heavy with an emotion that went far beyond simple sadness. He was not crying because he had failed to defeat the wooden dolls quickly enough, nor because the situation had become more difficult than anticipated.
He was crying because a life had been lost.
And worse, that life had been lost while Alma was there.
Under his protection.
Under his watch.
Alma gently lowered the man's head back onto the floor and closed his eyes, ensuring that the terror that had remained frozen upon his face would no longer be visible. He slowly rose to his feet, inhaling through his nose before exhaling through his mouth as he forced himself to calm down.
"You all have some nerve..." Alma muttered.
He slowly turned around.
The Apparition and the remaining wooden dolls stood across from him.
They were silent.
Alma reached toward his neck and grabbed his red tie, pulling it loose from beneath his collar before removing it entirely. "I'm going to take this tie, wrap it around your neck, and crack your vertebrae until they're nothing but dust."
He folded the tie neatly and placed it into his pocket.
Despite his words, Alma still refused to use the Endless Labyrinth. In his eyes, it remained useless under the circumstances, and whatever rage now burned inside him would not make him abandon his principles.
But the wooden dolls were about to learn what happened when that restraint disappeared.
In the span of a heartbeat, Alma destroyed two of them.
Then another.
And another.
He tore through the crowd of wooden dolls with the efficiency of a searing-hot knife cutting through butter, his movements precise and merciless as he dismantled them one after another. His expression remained completely blank, his eyes cold and calculated, carrying none of the warmth that had been present moments earlier.
There was no shouting.
No rage-filled speech.
No hesitation.
Only Alma Alastor, moving forward with the silent fury of a man who had just watched an innocent life disappear beneath his protection. And it was haunting to the Apparition and dolls. He moved even faster, pushing himself to his limits. He would not allow another death.
And so began the slaughter.
Alma had nearly finished eliminating the wooden dolls on the subway platform when two train cars suddenly arrived, their doors opening with a mechanical hiss that echoed throughout the station. Terrified and desperate to escape the chaos as quickly as possible, the civilians immediately rushed toward the newly arrived cars, believing that they had finally found a way out. Despite this being Alma's wish, something told him it was a terrible thing. His eyes widened in alarm as he watched them move, and he reached out toward them.
"Stop! Get away from there!" he shouted, but his warning came too late. As the doors opened fully, more wooden dolls stood waiting inside, packed tightly within the cars like a silent army, and the civilians closest to the entrances were immediately attacked, their chests caving inward beneath brutal blows before their bodies collapsed lifelessly onto the platform. The crowd erupted into another wave of screams, turning and fleeing toward the main entrance where Alma stood, their desperation causing them to bump against him as they attempted to push past him and escape.
"Don't! There's still more coming in!" Alma shouted, holding back several civilians while desperately trying to make the others understand that running blindly would only lead them into another trap, but fear had already consumed them, and they refused to listen.
The civilians who reached the top of the staircase were immediately met by another wave of wooden dolls, several of them being seized and killed before they could even comprehend what was happening. Alma could only stare for another brief moment as people were slaughtered on both sides of the station, his mind desperately calculating which group he could save first. The civilians near the trains greatly outnumbered those at the staircase, and although abandoning either group felt unbearable, Alma finally made his decision and sprinted toward one of the train cars.
The wooden dolls continued pouring from inside, flooding onto the platform in seemingly endless numbers, but Alma vaulted over the barrier and seized the rear of the car, his fingers digging into the metal as he swung himself forward and drove both feet through the glass in one fluid motion. The wooden dolls inside immediately turned toward him, but before they could attack, their wooden bodies began to wither and rot.
Alma walked slowly through the train car, his eyes fixed straight ahead with the same cold, calculated expression that had settled across his face earlier, while everything around him began to decay beneath the influence of Withering Grace. The walls rusted, the seats deteriorated, the ceiling cracked apart, and even the rails beneath the train began to corrode as the very material of the car aged beyond its natural lifespan. One by one, the wooden dolls decayed alongside it, their bodies collapsing into dust before Alma finally stepped out onto the opposite side of the platform. He immediately deactivated Withering Grace, unwilling to risk allowing even a fraction of its effect to reach the civilians.
Alma raced toward the second train car, seized one of the wooden dolls, and slammed it against the side of the carriage before activating Withering Grace once more and beginning to walk through the train. He could not simply unleash the ability at full strength, because the civilians surrounding him were too close, and allowing the decay to spread beyond the boundaries he had established would kill them just as easily as it killed the dolls. That was why he walked instead of sprinting, carefully controlling the ability with every step and ensuring that its effects remained confined to the enemies directly around him. Once he reached the opposite end, Alma stepped back onto the platform and immediately deactivated Withering Grace again, only to turn toward the staircase and freeze in disbelief.
There were even more wooden dolls at the top.
They had already begun flooding into the station, tearing through the civilians who had gathered there and transforming the staircase into another scene of carnage.
And thus, the massacre truly began. Blood pooled at the staircase, dripping down onto the platform. Heads were severed. Limbs were ripped off and used as weapons for the same person, or a different one. Blood. There was so much blood. The copper in the air stung his nose.
Alma stood frozen in place, unable to move as he looked from one side of the station to the other, watching people being slaughtered no matter where he turned. Behind him, the same horror unfolded among the civilians near the trains, while in front of him, another wave of wooden dolls descended from the staircase. Everywhere he looked, there was only death, blood, and screaming, and the horrifying reality settled into his mind that saving one group meant allowing another to die.
If he focused on the staircase, the people near the trains would perish; if he focused on the trains, those at the staircase would be slaughtered, and if he used Withering Grace without restraint, it would kill the wooden dolls and civilians alike. Even the Endless Labyrinth presented an unbearable cost, because although it could affect the Apparition, it would not properly eliminate the wooden dolls, while the souls of the civilians trapped within it could be separated from their bodies and subjected to consequences Alma was unwilling to inflict upon innocent people.
A woman cried beside him, screaming as she desperately tried to wake another woman who had been holding her hand only moments earlier. Alma's body remained motionless as that sight pierced through him, and suddenly, an old memory forced its way into his mind.
The office buildings.
The roads.
The streets.
All those people who had died before he first activated the Endless Labyrinth.
It had been the first time Alma had ever used the ability, the first time he had been pushed beyond his limits, and the first time he had experienced despair so profound that it nearly consumed him entirely. He was the lonliest boy of that era, having been isolated in more ways than one.
If he had been willing to use that ability again, countless lives could have been saved in this station. The situation could have ended quickly, perhaps even effortlessly, and everyone could have walked away alive, but Alma knew exactly what using it would mean. The ability had consequences that extended far beyond the immediate battle, and the people caught inside it could suffer for months or even years afterward. He had spent more than three months training himself to control the Dimension and its powers, yet never once activated it, even now, he was uncertain whether he could use it safely around so many people.
He was unsure.
But the longer Alma stood there, the more his mind began to fracture beneath the weight of every scream, every body, and every life slipping away before his eyes. Eventually, as his thoughts began to break apart, so too did the restraints he had placed upon himself. The civilians did not understand what was about to happen, the wooden dolls and Apparition could not comprehend what Alma was preparing to do, but would come to fear it, and every Monarch who felt the sudden shift in power would soon understand the same truth.
---
"What happens when you activate your Dimension, several things occur." Ardath said from within the White Void, two months before June 13th.
Alma stared at her sternly, paying close attention, while also having the expression of a confused child.
"First, it will be a near-cataclysmic event that everyone in the world will feel. Monarch, Masters, Beasts and Humans of Ruin, along with regular people. The world will change after your Dimension has been used. So if you have to, and make certain of it, that it is used as an absolute last resort in any situation." Ardath said.
Alma nodded in response, not yet saying anything.
"Second, since you do not have any other abilities other than your Dimension, you cannot get used to a tax of Liminal Bonds. Be wary, the use of Liminal Bonds taken from your Dimension will be severe. You may be a master at manipulating this energy, but all you're doing is controlling it through your body, channeling it as you please. You're not expending it anywhere, or pulling it out from your body and severing the link." Ardath said.
"And lastly, our connection will be temporarily severed. You'll still have access to Liminal Bonds, and can even use your Dimension again, but we won't have contact." Ardath said.
"Does this apply to other Monarchs as well? Do they lose connection to their Mythical Beasts too?" Alma asked, finally speaking.
"No. We lose connection because you're ripping the White Void, adding an immense amount of Liminal Bonds to it, and creating a space where it can become reality. During that time, I cannot be there. Not out of choice, I physically cannot be there." Ardath said.
"I understand." Alma said. Arguing anything to her would be pointless. She knows what's best for him in the Monarch realm.
---
And so everyone across the world, whether they knew about him or not, would feel that... The Strongest takes a chance!
"Dimension Creation..." Alma raised his right hand in front of his face, extending his index finger upward while curling his middle finger halfway inward, his ring and pinky fingers extending outward as his thumb met their tips. Behind him, the space grew dark, reality itself slowly began to fracture. "Chime of the Golden Toll!"
A crack opened within reality, spreading outward before swallowing the entire subway station and everything contained within it. In an instant, the massive tear sealed itself shut, leaving behind nothing but a tiny fracture in space before even that disappeared.
Across the world, every Monarch became uneasy. Jasmine felt it as well.
The power of a Dimension belonging to the Dragon Monarch had erupted into existence, and the sheer force of its creation shook the Earth beneath it, threatening to send tremors and earthquakes throughout the globe. Even regular people felt off when it occured. Inside his office, Emmanuel suddenly gasped as he felt the overwhelming presence descend upon the world.
"Oh, no..." He immediately rushed from the White House and headed toward Winston-Salem.
The decision Alma had made was a gamble every bit as dangerous as using the Endless Labyrinth, perhaps even more so.
But after witnessing countless people die beneath the hands of the wooden dolls and the Apparition, Alma had stopped caring about the risks. His priorities had changed completely, because the number of people dying was steadily approaching the number of people still alive, and Alma Alastor could not tolerate the death of another person, not even a single injury.
The deaths had effectively shattered every safeguard he had placed around himself.
The only reason Alma had refused to use the Endless Labyrinth was because, aside from the Apparition, the wooden dolls would remain unaffected, and even if he could somehow drag the souls of the civilians into the Endless Labyrinth alongside them, he could never bring himself to sacrifice innocent lives merely to secure victory. Deep down, Alma already knew that no matter how desperate the situation became, he would never willingly make that exchange.
But Alma was not careless.
The instant the Dimension formed, the wooden dolls became completely motionless, their connection severed, while the Apparition stood frozen in shock. Alma immediately moved, the enormous golden bell suspended impossibly high above the Dimension began to ring. Less than a second after the Dimension's creation, and barely an instant after its first chime, Alma raised his hand and fired Spear directly into one of the wooden dolls, the projectile piercing its chest with absolute certainty and erasing it from existence.
The Cheat Sheet of Alma's Dimension, Chime of the Golden Toll, was fundamentally different from the combat-oriented Dimensions possessed by other Monarchs. Rather than simply granting Alma a predetermined attack or defensive ability, it manipulated probability itself, allowing anything Alma personally attempted to accomplish to become reality if the Dimension permitted it. Under normal circumstances, the probability of Alma successfully striking one of the wooden dolls with Spear was effectively zero, yet Chime of the Golden Toll could overturn that probability and transform it into absolute certainty.
Alma moved with unprecedented speed, destroying doll after doll with Spear within fractions of a second, but even that was not fast enough.
He knew what using his Dimension around ordinary people could do.
The reality within Chime of the Golden Toll was fundamentally different from Earth's reality, and without proper preparation, the civilians caught within it became vulnerable to its effects. The Dimension's Cheat Sheet affected everything inside its boundaries, from material objects and living beings to souls themselves, and Alma had not yet learned how to selectively alter the probability of anyone other than himself. He could make his own actions certain, but he could not yet guarantee that the civilians would remain untouched. And so, one second was the absolute, maximum limit he would allow his Dimension to be up for. Any longer, even just 0.1 seconds longer, could kill the civilians.
Their bodies began suffering beneath the unnatural reality, while their minds endured an oppressive solitude equivalent to years despite lessy a second passing outside.
'Faster. Faster! Why can't I be faster?!'
Alma pushed himself beyond what he thought possible, tearing through almost every remaining wooden doll. But it wasn't enough. He felt as though it would never be enough. The want, the need, the desire to be more than what he was, despite him already moving beyond his limits and without the Endless Labyrinth, had consumed him.
This desire built within him, until he could not bare it any longer. A tingling sensation erupted in his right hand, closing tight around something that wasn't there, before it arrived in his left hand, trying to release something that wasn't there. Then it shot into his mind. The information of what he was doing. Of what he was about to do.
The Strongest cast his gaze to the Apparition, running toward it before slamming his fist into its soul. "The Endless Hunger: Devour." A black smoke appeared at the center of his plam, growing exponentially in thickness and quantity until it consumed the entire form of the Apparition. It did not curl behind, or even touch Alma's sleeve. It was purely focused on the Apparition, and only traveled in that direction.
And as quickly as the smoke appeared and grew, so too did it die down and disappear, taking the Apparition along with it. Alma turned his attention back to the wooden dolls and rushed toward them. He tore them to pieces, firing Spear to destroy a few more, before he leaped in the air, thrusting his left hand forward.
"The Endless Feast: Engorge." Despite the situation, Alma announced the ability with absolute calmness in his voice. Though his mind was anything but calm. A white smoke appeared at the center of his palm, before it grew even more rapidly than the black smoke of Devour, engulfing the rest of the wooden dolls.
Their bodies were filled with this smoke, growing rapidly before bursting from the strain. And as soon as the final enemy fell from the affects of the new and strange abilities of Devour and Engorge, and exactly after one second since the activation of Chime of the Golden Toll, the Dimension of the Strongest... collasped.
Following the collapse of his Dimension, the Strongest Monarch Amongst Humanity had eliminated all of the 6,929 opponents in approximately one second.
No additional civilians died after the activation of Chime of the Golden Toll, but the damage inflicted upon their bodies was comparable to second-degree burns, while the psychological effects of existing within Alma Alastor's Dimension left their minds having experienced a solitude equivalent to approximately five years.
The moment the Dimension disappeared, Alma collapsed onto one knee, planting a trembling hand against the ground as he struggled to breathe. Never before had he exerted Liminal Bonds, and the tremendous amount of Liminal Bonds that Chime of the Golden Toll expended had caught him completely off guard. For the first time in a long while, Alma was not standing as the unstoppable Dragon Monarch, but as an exhausted and frightened man.
The bodies of the civilians could be healed by Amelia, the Hydra Monarch, but their minds were another matter entirely, and Alma knew that the psychological damage inflicted upon them would not be nearly as simple to repair. He understood exactly what had happened to them, and the knowledge only made the guilt weighing upon him heavier, because he desperately wished there had been another way to prevent both the injuries and the lives that had already been lost.
The distinction between his Dimension and the First Circle was that eternal separation from God and total separation from time were deadly in their own right, each carrying consequences that extended far beyond ordinary physical harm. But the after affects of his Dimension were much more favorable to the civilians than the ones of the First Circle. That was ultimately the deciding factor for what made his decision.
Alma slowly began to recover, keeping his attention on the civilians while the twelve clones he placed on the platform continued fighting the remaining wooden dolls. He pushed himself upright and prepared to finish the rest of the dolls on the surface, but before he could take another step, his eyes widened.
He froze.
Blood slowly escaped from the corner of his mouth.
Alma's eyes traveled downward, following the strange sensation spreading through his chest until they settled upon the sword protruding from it. He stared at the weapon in confusion, unable to understand when or how it had appeared, yet he forced himself to remain focused and prepared to continue fighting. Then, at the top of the staircase, stood the one person he never thought he would see.
Or, more accurately, the one person he never wanted to see in this situation.
A chain extended from her hand, connecting directly to the handle of the sword buried within Alma's chest.
It was Jasmine.
Alma's eyes widened once more, and the blood in his veins seemed to turn cold as his heart began pounding dangerously fast.
His clones instantly vanished, dispersing into smoke.
'What...?'
His thoughts struggled to form. Something had interrupted his connection to his abilities.
'Jasmine?'
Memories flooded through his mind with overwhelming speed, each one sharper than the last; helping her in the alleyway, buying her clothes and food, protecting her when she had nobody else, sleeping under the same roof, laughing together, spending time with her, and, most recently, teaching her how to control the strange energy flowing through her body.
'How could she...?'
The sweet, innocent girl Alma had come to know and love had done this to him.
'How could you...'
She had betrayed him.
She had driven a sword through his chest.
'Do this to me...?'
Something inside Alma had been eradicated.
Then reality itself began to fracture around him.
Small cracks appeared throughout the space surrounding his body, completely unnoticed by Alma as they slowly widened until each one expanded to roughly the size of a golf ball. From those fractures, dark-black chains erupted and wrapped themselves around his torso and legs, while several others, each tipped with cruel hooks and lined with jagged spikes along their lengths, pierced into the sides of his legs and drove themselves into the front and back of his chest.
The chains wrapped around his torso and legs suddenly released, leaving only the hooked chains embedded within him to keep him restrained, while additional chains emerged from the fractures and wrapped around his wrists, binding them tightly together before forcing his arms against his pelvis.
Only then did Alma finally understand what was happening.
Tears threatened to spill from his eyes as he let out a strained groan and attempted to pull himself free, but the chains refused to yield. He fought against them with every ounce of strength he would muster, yet his efforts accomplished nothing.
Alma grunted as his knees buckled beneath him, forcing him back onto the ground as he stared upward at Jasmine.
"You didn't expect me to be behind this, did you?" Jasmine asked with a slight smirk, her expression carrying an unfamiliar confidence. "Though, there's no way you could have. You loved me too much to ever notice."
She tilted her head slightly, almost as though she were correcting a student.
"But for someone who acts as a teacher, you ought to know better than to become careless during combat. In fact, everyone knows that, except for you, which makes this rather ironic, don't you think?"
Alma said nothing.
His mind was already racing through possible solutions as he desperately attempted to understand the situation surrounding him.
'I can't move an inch. These chains injected me with some kind of muscle relaxant, and I can't feel most of my body. Does this mean I've lost? Is it over? I'm completely at her mercy.'
His eyes narrowed.
'This is fake.'
From the shadows, Quinex stepped forward, slowly clapping his hands as he approached.
"Good performance! To think the Dragon Monarch's own daughter would betray him was completely unprecedented! Bravo!" he exclaimed, his voice carrying an almost theatrical enthusiasm.
Jasmine glanced toward him strangely but ultimately paid him little attention.
"It appears so," she said simply.
Alma's newest addition to his arsenal of special eyes, the Eyes of Lust, allowed him to see through illusions and perceive alternate existences, and he immediately activated them. His gaze dropped toward his chest.
The sword was gone.
There was no wound.
There was no blood.
'Even the sword in my chest was fake.' His breathing became heavier. 'How much of my perception was being controlled? Was any of this real? Were there ever any wooden dolls? Was that Apparition real?'
His eyes darted toward the surrounding area, getting so far due to his neck being hard to turn. 'The civilians...?'
Alma's thoughts raced faster than he could properly process them, each realization forcing another question into his mind. He had been deceived, but he had no idea how long the deception had lasted or which parts of his experience had actually happened. His heart pounded harder and harder as panic began creeping into his mind, yet Alma forced himself to breathe, deliberately calming his thoughts and relaxing his body as much as the restraints allowed.
"So..." Alma finally said, raising his eyes toward Jasmine. "What exactly are you?"
"And what am I?" Quinex asked, stepping forward with a grin. "A crumb from the main dish?"
Alma ignored him.
"What are you talking about?" Jasmine asked, her voice becoming sweet and innocent once more. "I'm your loving, endearing, and innocent little girl, Jasmine Alastor."
Alma stared at her. "Your physical body, mannerisms, personality, and..." His eyes widened, gaze intensifying as he peered directly into her soul. "Even your soul all say that you are my daughter."
He lowered his head, allowing his hair to fall over his eyes. "But..." There was a truth that defied logic.
His voice became quieter. Then his head snapped upward. His eyes locked onto Jasmine with an intensity that made the air itself feel heavier. "My heart denies it all!" His voice suddenly erupted through the room.
"There's no way my daughter would do this! So why don't you just tell me..." His expression twisted with rage and desperation. "WHO THE HELL YOU ARE, YOU COWARDLY IMPOSTER?!?!"
Jasmine's smile remained, but something in her eyes shifted.
'Your... heart?'
For the first time, genuine curiosity appeared within her expression.
'How much love and recognition can you store?'
Then she smiled.
It was far too sweet.
Far too innocent.
Far too much like the Jasmine Alma knew.
With the fingers of one hand, she slowly dug into her own eye sockets, forcing her fingers beneath the skin as blood began pouring from the wounds. At the same time, her other hand plunged into her own neck, tearing through skin and flesh with disturbing ease. She ripped the disguise apart, peeling away the false appearance until an immaculate white skull was revealed beneath it, blood dripping down its otherwise pristine surface.
Alma instinctively recoiled, attempting to move backward despite the chains holding him firmly in place, his expression twisting with horror at the sight before him, yet still holding a snarl of defiance.
Even Quinex took several steps backward. For once, even he looked genuinely disgusted. It disturbed him deeply.
"It turns out your heart was more knowing than your mind is," the creature said, its voice still carrying Jasmine's tone despite the grotesque form beneath the disguise. "What a pity you didn't listen to it sooner."
It glanced toward Quinex. "Though, I suppose I should wrap things up here. I don't want any Monarch showing up to rescue you."
She pointed toward him. "You there. Continue with whatever plans you had. He's yours now."
Without another word, the creature turned around and began walking up the staircase, leaving Alma restrained on the ground.
Alma watched her disappear.
The cracks in reality surrounding him widened once more, gradually expanding until they began swallowing his body piece by piece.
'You monster...'
His eyes remained fixed on the staircase, the creature no longer there.
'How could you?'
And thus, The Strongest There Is was sealed inside an alternate dimension, never to be released again. The world would fall to chaos without the Dragon Monarch as its sole protector. The Monarchs of the current era would not be enough to defend the world from what would follow.
Destruction befall all.