Chapter 20 - Slayer

The eating sounds finally stopped.

In its place was a ringing silence that was so much worse.

My mana bar was a flat, blinking red line.

[MANA: 0/150].

I was empty.

Completely useless.

A mage with no magic is just some guy in a fancy tunic, kneeling next to the friend he just got crippled.

My brain was stuck on a loop.

Just playing back the sound her bones made when they snapped.

CRUNCH.

CRACK.

CRUNCH.

It was the theme song for my epic fail.

My body wasn't even listening.

This cold, heavy feeling had settled deep in my bones.

My muscles were totally locked up.

It wasn't fear.

It was guilt so heavy it felt like an anchor was dragging me to the bottom of the ocean.

The system notification wasn't a surprise.

It was just the universe rubbing it in.

It wasn't some godly power that broke me.

It was the crushing weight of my own screw-up.

I was the raid leader who couldn't even move.

A hero frozen in a statue of his own failure.

Across the hall, Gandalf finally snapped out of it.

His despair turned back into that familiar soldier-face he always wears.

"CANNONS!" he bellowed.

His voice was raw and desperate.

"FIRE AT WILL!"

The cannons roared again.

They were wild, panicked, and did absolutely nothing.

Royal Champion Dareth saw his last hope fizzle out.

He let out one last, ragged war cry and charged.

He wasn't trying to win.

He was just a dad buying his son a few more seconds.

The red-haired Titan just grabbed him mid-swing.

There was a final, sickening crunch.

What was left of the Royal Champion hit the floor in a heap of twisted metal.

Gandalf watched his father die.

His command choked in his throat.

It turned into this guttural, animal sound of pure rage.

He wasn't a captain anymore.

He was just a son.

A broken, weeping son.

With Gandalf lost in his grief and me stuck in my own personal hell, someone else had to step up.

Lianna.

Her voice cut through the chaos like a knife.

"Civilians, to the tunnels!"

"South gate is the only exit!"

"Rear guard, form a shield wall!"

Her orders were perfect.

Precise.

Logical.

I guess she was the raid leader now.

She ran over to me, her face a grim mask.

She grabbed my arm, her grip strong.

"Quinn, move!" she yelled, trying to shake me out of it.

"You're no good to anyone dead!"

Her words just bounced off the wall of guilt in my head.

I couldn't move.

I just stared at Yael's still, broken body.

Lianna swore under her breath.

"He's in shock."

"Useless."

She turned to two of the guards.

"Get her!"

"Get Yael to the tunnels! Now!"

The guards hesitated for a second.

But Lianna yelled again, and they moved to lift Yael up.

That was the sight that did it.

Seeing them reach for her.

Seeing her about to be carried away from me.

It finally, brutally, broke whatever was holding me down.

"NO!"

The word was a raw, broken sound that tore out of my throat.

My muscles unlocked.

I staggered to my feet, my eyes probably looking wild.

The ice in my gut didn't melt.

It flash-boiled into a cornered, desperate rage.

I shoved the guards aside.

"Don't touch her!" I snarled.

Ignoring the pain in my own body, ignoring the world ending around us, I carefully scooped Yael into my arms.

Her body was a dead weight.

Her shattered legs just lolled at these awful, unnatural angles.

Feeling her so broken, so light, in my arms was a whole new kind of pain that just burned my Glass Cannon flaw to ash.

The red-haired giant, who had basically written us off, noticed the change.

Its cold, green eye swiveled back to me.

It saw the "error" was back online and trying to run away with its broken toy.

It surged forward, moving impossibly fast, ready to fix the glitch for good.

Lianna saw it coming.

"Quinn!" she screamed, and it sounded like she was genuinely scared.

I wasn't frozen anymore, but I was still empty, powerless, and carrying a person.

I couldn't dodge.

I couldn't fight.

All I could do was turn my back, shielding Yael with my own body, and brace for the hit that would end us both.

Just as its shadow fell over us, the ceiling of the Great Hall groaned.

It started to collapse.

Huge chunks of stone rained down, crushing everything.

The giant had to step back, shielding its eye from the falling junk.

That was our chance.

"This way!" Lianna screamed, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward a dark tunnel opening.

I ran.

I ran with Yael in my arms, my lungs on fire, my mind just a white-hot scream.

We plunged into the darkness just as the tunnel entrance collapsed behind us with the sound of the world ending.

We were safe.

For a second, anyway.

Darkness.

Dust.

The choked sobs of the few people who made it.

I didn't stop.

I carried her deeper into the tunnel, my only focus the fragile weight in my arms.

I finally found a little alcove and gently laid her down.

A low groan escaped her lips.

Her eyes fluttered open.

The beautiful amethyst color was clouded with a universe of pain.

They focused on me, and the haze cleared.

It was replaced by a cold, hard fire.

"Put… me… down," she rasped, her voice a shredded whisper.

"Yael, I…"

"Don't," she hissed, the word laced with a poison I had never heard from her before.

"Don't you dare say my name."

She tried to push herself away from me, and a sharp cry of pain tore from her throat as her body reminded her of its new, broken reality.

Tears of pure fury streamed down her face.

"It was always this, wasn't it?" she choked out, her voice cracking.

"Every game, every life… I'm always the meat shield."

"The first to die, the first to get hurt."

"Your goddamn health bar."

She looked at her mangled legs, then back at me, her eyes blazing with a hate so pure it felt like a physical force.

"Look at me, Quinn!"

"Look at what your pride did!"

"You just had to poke the god, didn't you?"

"You had to prove the 'error' was the main character!"

"Stay away from me," she snarled, her voice dropping to a dangerous, trembling whisper.

"I'm done."

"I'm done being your shield."

"I'm done dying for you."

"Get away from me before you get what's left of me killed."

Her words were like daggers.

Each one was a perfectly aimed critical hit right to my soul.

I actually flinched back like she'd hit me.

My hands fell away from her.

A few feet away, Gandalf was on his knees, crying over a broken piece of his father's sword.

He'd lost his father.

I'd broken my best friend.

We were two commanders, two sons, united in our failure.

I didn't cry.

I didn't scream.

I just stood there, empty, the echo of her curse ringing in the silence.

The world had gone quiet.

My pride was a dead thing, a ruin inside me.

All that was left was the mission Vex had given me without even knowing it.

All that was left was the hymn of my weakness, and this desperate, burning need to find a cure.

Her final words hit me like a physical blow.

"Stay away from me."

I stumbled back.

She didn't want me anywhere near her.

For the first time in my life, in any life, she had pushed me away.

Gandalf, his own face tight with grief, walked over and stood between us.

He was protecting her from me.

He ordered two guards to carry her deeper into the tunnels to find the healers.

I watched them go, her angry, pained face staring at me until she was gone.

I was alone.

The silence in the tunnel was filled with the echo of her angry words.

My pride hadn't just hurt her; it had made her hate me.

The weight of that was crushing.

I fell to my knees, my head in my hands.

I had failed.

Then, my System lit up in my vision.

It wasn't offering a quest.

It was offering a choice.

The screen was cold and serious.

Two words flashed in front of me.

[YES] [NO]

A tiny bit of hope, a feeling I thought was gone forever, sparked inside me.

"What is it?" I asked in my head.

"What's the program?"

The System answered.

Its voice wasn't friendly anymore.

It was like a doctor explaining a really dangerous surgery.

It sounded way too good to be true.

"What's the catch?" I asked.

The System's answer was immediate and scary.

Another screen popped up.

It showed me how my soul would be rewritten.

It was offering to strip away the person I was.

My charm, my pride—it would all be burned away and turned into a weapon.

I would become a monster to hunt a monster.

A cold, efficient thing of will and fear, powered by the same guilt that was crushing me.

The final warning was the worst part.

[YES] [NO]

I thought of the dark tunnel where they had taken her.

I could still hear her scream.

I could still feel the weight of her broken body.

I could see the hatred in her eyes.

What was I, without her?

What was my charm, my pride, my very self, worth, if she was broken because of me?

Nothing.

They were worth nothing.

They were the tools of the guy who failed her.

To save her, I had to become someone else.

Something else.

My hand trembled as I focused my mind and chose the shimmering word.

[YES]

The world exploded in pain.

It felt like my soul was being torn apart and put back together wrong.

The person I was, my memories and feelings, were all being crushed down and rebuilt into something new.

Something hard.

When it was over, I was still on my knees in the dark.

The crushing weight of sadness was gone.

In its place was a cold, empty clearness.

The guilt was still there, but it wasn't a weight anymore.

It was a fire.

It was my engine.

My System screen rebooted.

It was now a sharp, focused silver and black, like a soldier's helmet display.

A new quest appeared, taking up my entire vision.