CRACK!
The spear finally pierced the cursed Crown. The shard pieces shattered before scattering among the ashes and blood of the surrounding corpses.
Splurt
The action did not go without retaliation, as Zelrathus's pointed nails pierced through Ashen's bloody armor, reaching his stomach directly.
But he barely twitched. The wound was just one of many. Every part of his body bled constantly; finding an unharmed place on his skin would be a miracle.
He felt numb all over, as if moving an inch was a monumental task, but only his eyes stayed more fiery than anything else.
The molten gold pupils were like embers in the dark as they remained trained on his foe.
"Ke– KEKe–ke—" A strange laugh rang out from the creature now brought down from the skies, finally at his feet.
Spit.. Splatter!
Zelrathus spat out black blood while still laughing even in His dying breath.
"Who..." He started, gazing at the looming figure above Him, "...would've thought..."
The permanent grin on His face stretched further. "How wrong We were... Ah, how so wrong... It appears the true threat has always been under our nose..."
It seemed the Crown of Splintered Glass was the true source of His power, as well as His life, since He finally ceased His struggle.
Ashen would know best—His heart was the first thing he'd ripped off, followed by a spear to His brain, but it did little to slow Him down.
"Ah~ how miserable would they be once they finally meet such a monster~" Zelrathus murmured as He imagined the surprise awaiting His fellow Outer Gods.
SquelchShlick
SquelchSplurt
Rip!CRACK!
The man above Him didn't react to any of His words. He just kept silently ripping and stabbing with mechanical mania.
Zelrathus cast him one last, lingering glance before his eyes dulled, and the ever-present grin that mocked life itself softened into stillness
"Haaaah~ and who would have thought... that the taste of my own misery would be so exquisite~"
His last words echoed hollowly, emptily, as they drifted futilely in the air with the only witness—a man who had nothing but His eternal and final death as a mission.
"..."
Finally, after what seemed like minutes since Zelrathus completely stopped moving, Ashen ceased his actions.
Trailing his now dead gaze onto the surroundings, he finally found her.
His Alice.
Despite the hellish scene surrounding her body, a circle seemed drawn where no filth could enter. He had made sure of that during the days he spent fighting Zelrathus.
He took a step forward, but was forced to stop and glance back.
Zelrathus's corpse was silently dissolving, and in its place a heart appeared.
It was a human heart, not like the countless deformed and grotesque hearts he'd ripped from the monsters he'd killed.
And it didn't take him long to guess whose heart it was. It was hers.
It seemed this was Zelrathus's final gift, prepared like a twisted reward to grant just in case He was defeated.
"..."
Ashen's cold face finally cracked, making way for an expression so anguished it barely retained human shape.
He picked up the heart, his touch so careful, as if he were handling the world's most precious treasure.
Silently, he approached Alice before finally kneeling at her body and placing her heart where it belonged. His vain acts didn't change reality, nor did they bring her back.
He stayed there, rooted in that spot, refusing to leave her or what remained of her.
He didn't know how many hours had passed, but the sun had dipped down, and with it, the last remnants of the human army.
Now, as the last human alive, the creatures eventually turned to him. His fight with Zelrathus had always deterred them from going in his direction, but with it finally over, his clearly broken state, and their overwhelming numbers, they finally let their instincts to destroy and kill take over.
Ashen barely reacted at first, but when they threatened to step into the circle where she lay, he moved.
Another bloodbath started.
He killed and killed and kept killing. He never stopped, and they were equally endless.
The sun completely dipped, and soon the moon took its place, and he kept killing as they kept coming.
The sun rose anew, but the slaughter never stopped—not when it silently went down once more, and not when he felt himself dying with every blow he received.
But that never fazed him. His only reason for moving now was to protect what was left of her, no matter how hollow it felt.
If he lost his life in the process, then so be it.
He didn't know how many times the sun greeted his empty face; he had lost count after the tenth. But what he knew for sure was that he had finally reached his limit.
If not for the strip of cloth tying his spear to his hand, he would have let go long ago.
But reaching his limit had been a normal occurrence in his life. To him, it just meant it was time to break it.
He forced his body into a stance with his spear as he awaited the next monster, but nothing came.
He lifted his face, and the only thing he saw across the horizon was corpses.
Millions of monstrous corpses with few human ones scattered in between. But not a single living thing remained.
He had killed every last one of them.
But this accomplishment did not rouse any feelings of triumph. No joy could be felt, nor pride at achieving such an impossible feat.
He just dropped his spear, turned back to that still-clear circle where she lay, and walked there numbly as if he had just finished a mundane task and returned to his true duty and place: to guard at her side.
The least he could do was guard her in death if he wasn't able to do it in life.
He couldn't tell how long he lingered—days or weeks, he couldn't say. He remained until time itself stopped mattering.
He only came back from his frozen time when a new presence entered his perception.
Seraphine...
The next thing he felt was a crushing hug, followed by her tearful face as she screamed something.
But he seemed to have lost his hearing, and even what remained of his vision was white and black.
She kept cleaning his face with her sleeves while muttering something, but such actions were useless… His eyes never stopped crying blood, after all... no matter how much she wiped.
↻⋄↻ ↻⋄↻
.
..
...
"AHHHHHH—- NOOO"
"AHHHHHHHH"
"AHHH..."
He shot upright with a strangled scream, then another—raw, animal howls tearing from his throat until his voice cracked.
"Huek—! Huek—!"
His hands clawed at the air, at his own skin, as if trying to tear off the memory still clinging to him.
Creak!
He doubled over, chest heaving, breath coming in sharp, broken gasps that bordered on sobs.
"Haah... Haaah... A lie..."
His fingers dug into his scalp, nails biting skin, as though he could rip out the nightmare by the roots.
"No...Hhhk— that's... that's not real...Hhhuek!" Even when the screaming died, a low, hoarse whimper stayed in his throat.
His body trembled violently, shoulders shuddering as despair settled in, heavy and choking.
He rocked once, twice, as if that tiny motion was the only thing keeping him from collapsing completely.
He glanced around, and his own room greeted him. Same walls, same door, same everything.
That seemed to calm him somewhat.
"It's nothing but a nightmare... get a grip," he muttered to himself.
But the vision was too real, too visceral to dismiss as a mere dream.
His brain worked overtime to come up with a plausible explanation, and he finally remembered a particular skill.
As if it were waiting for him to recall its existence, it shimmered before his eyes on the now-visible status screen.
==============================
4.1 Innate Powers
—Twin Souls:
A forbidden evolution of Recall, Twin Souls no longer merely "switches" between personalities—it duplicates the sealed self into a fully independent and identical soul, bound to the same body yet operating as a distinct entity.
-Traits:
Two Souls, One Vessel | Shared Yet Divided | Duality of Power | Price of Wholeness.
"You are the wound. I am the scar. Together, we are the reckoning."
==============================
It seemed that the saying his twin had offhandedly thrown his way when he asked why he looked so dead had just gained a whole new meaning.
"Ignorance can indeed be bliss, sometimes," he muttered with a bitter sigh.