Chương 41: The Architect

Lance threw himself at Grayson, pinning him to the ground with whatever strength he had left. His muscles were numb and his vision blurred, and yet he managed to move. The scientist stared at the boy, eyes brimming with euphoria, without a single word. He placed his hands on the boy's chin, forcing him to fix his gaze on the mechanical aberration at his back. The shard was now close to falling into the liquid.

The few fastenings still intact began to fray rapidly, forced apart by the boiling drops that gurgled inside the glass.

"Goghette, stop that thing!" Maliard shouted, pointing to the enormous Lambdite mineral on the verge of collapse. Jeanne nodded, sliding her hand along the edge of her frame. The jet of blood transformed immediately into a series of viscous cords. The moment the cords coiled around the mineral, a sensation invaded Jeanne's flesh.

"My entire body is burning… I feel like I am going to get sick." All her distress manifested on her face, which began to contort, drenched in perspiration. Maliard seized her cord, attempting to help her, but he, too, was dragged into that vortex of negativity. He fell to the ground, hands wrapped in burns as dark as coal. Not even blood managed to flow from that wound.

"Jeanne, let it go!" He shouted, but the girl could not release her grip, held as though in a kind of trance. Lance and Grayson had moved along the tangle of cables. For the first time in his life, the scientist had reacted, striking Lance full in the face. Lance's nose was bleeding while the scientist laughed softly.

"Is it not magnificent that with this power, even someone like me can find the strength to live?" He observed the violet ichor on his hands, almost moved by the sight.

"Grayson… You don't t realise what you are about to bring forth from that machine?" He murmured, wiping the reddish trickle with his fingertips. Grayson began removing his robe, exposing his worn and stained uniform beneath.

"A god, Lance… I am creating a god here." He smiled, massaging his temples as his body contorted desperately.

"I have gained the power to interact with the numbers of the world… In this dance of flows, I can see its song stirring the current." He fixed his gaze on the hole in the dome, bathing himself in the black drops raining from the thundering sky. Lance ground his teeth, drawing closer in a threatening manner.

"AND YOU THINK ERIKA WOULD BE CONTENT WITH THIS SQUALOR?!" He seized Grayson directly by the collar, slamming him against the wall. The smile only grew more evident. The scientist tightened his hand and brought his face close.

"This was her dream. I am simply improving upon it. She will return, and I will be here to welcome her…" Lance released his grip, looking downward. The tension drained entirely from his body.

"After all, science requires subjects and experiments to advance." He smiled so broadly his eyes narrowed to slits. Lance rose again, without looking at him.

"Do you truly not care about any of these people?" He murmured, abandoning his body completely to stillness.

"They are merely derivatives of the original equations. Numbers on paper, nothing more. Their light is excessive for this reality-" Lance's right fist struck his face with violence, hurling him into the rubble.

"That confirms it." He cracked his fingers, dripping with blood. He turned toward the scientist and staggered toward him.

"I will put back into your head everything you have lost!" Grayson rose, pulling a long, partly rusted, partly liquefied iron bar from the concrete.

"Why can't you understand? DO YOU WANT TO BE NOTHING MORE THAN A NUMBER IN THIS WRETCHED WORLD?!" He launched himself at him, striking his head violently with the bar. Lance took several steps backward, the ground beneath his feet darkening with blood.

"In this wretched world…" He immediately resumed walking toward him, pressing his hands hard together. Grayson gripped the bar even more firmly. The two hurled themselves at one another. Another blow shook the boy's head, but not enough to alter his fury. Lance seized Grayson by the neck and lifted him from the ground. The bar fell from his hand as his body was slammed into the floor by the sheer strength of the boy's arms. A thread of spittle shot from his mouth, and his throat was suddenly blocked.

"In this wretched world… Those two did everything they could for you!" Lance's grip tightened slightly, preventing Grayson from reacting. The smile did not extinguish; If anything, it grew stronger.

"I know that perfectly well… Which is precisely why I am doing this. They did not deserve to live the way they did." A white flash crossed the room, striking the wall near the control room with force. A pale blaze ignited the room completely.

"Damn it! Jeanne, hold on just a little longer, please." He pulled from his pocket a minute syringe, no larger than a finger. He struck it twice, stirring the violet liquid inside. He slid along the wall, but another gleam blinded him. A wall of flames blocked his path, cutting Lance and Grayson off from the other two entirely.

"It is too late…" He murmured sorrowfully, turning to look at his companion. Jeanne's hands were dripping with a mixture of blood and pale paint, her face contorted in an expression veiled with pain. Her whole body was trembling, faintly, but without cease.

"Maliard… I can't hold… For much longer…" She groaned, trying to mask the burning sensation, though her weak and erratic movements made it impossible. The scientist took hold of Lance and kicked him away, slamming him against the boiling cables. His entire back seemed to detach from his body. He leapt at the scientist again, seizing him by the head and driving a violent headbutt. Grayson staggered, sliding across the black dust. Another bolt of lightning struck between the two, releasing yet more white flames.

"We are not leaving here… Until you apologise to Erika." He swept the flames aside, advancing on him with his guard raised. Grayson rose, brushing the dust from himself. A spark extinguished itself on his shoulder.

"There will be no need for apologies, once the portal has opened…" He murmured, preparing to face the boy. Behind them, the Demiurge began to tremble furiously. A crack rang out above all other sounds, followed by a groan. Lance caught sight of Jeanne falling to the ground and the cord in her hands growing thinner.

"Finally…" Grayson smiled, watching the Lambdite spike collapse into the cylinder. Maliard's gaze filled with despair, powerless before that scene. All the Taumite sludge began to boil, becoming a nebulous, violet mixture. The walls cracked, followed by a pale fog matching the substance's colors. Everything began to illuminate itself with white, and into Lance and Grayson's ears came a distant sound: a melody.

"I hear them again… The banquet is beginning, Lance Klint." The boy stared at him from the ground, pressing his head with trembling hands and tears in his eyes. All the contents of the Demiurge condensed into a sphere as white as marble. Lance's eyes went wide, flooded with redness.

"The sphere from my dream?" His mind immediately associated that gleam, at times white, at times faintly violet, with those figures in the rain. A laugh resounded grimly in the crackling of the flames, suppressing every other sensation.

"See you at the banquet…" The scientist fixed Lance briefly before being engulfed by the light. His hand seemed almost to volatilise into the smoke. Lance took a step back, scraping desperately toward the edge of the crater.

"I do not want to… I don't want to touch it." That thought was almost an imperative that his body transmitted everywhere. A sticky sensation coiled around his shoulder, a thin, near-liquid ribbon.

"LANCE, OVER HERE!!" Within the flames, a figure was difficult to make out, yet the voice reached his ears clearly. He rose, gripping the cord and dragging himself toward it. The flames parted for an instant, perhaps by the wind, permitting him to see Maliard's face.

"You really are a bothersome man..." He smiled before feeling his foot lose its hold. The cord snapped, sending him sliding down the slopes again. His companion's face filled with terror as he watched Lance plunge into the bubble of light. The moment his back made contact with the light, he felt himself embraced by a sensation similar to water. The flames extinguished themselves again, freeing the view for his companions, paralysed with terror.

Maliard was forcibly dragging Jeanne out of the complex, the girl's hands completely wrapped in a reddish, sticky mixture." Is this the end?"

"I feel light… I cannot feel the air in my throat." He thought, following with his gaze the collapse of the complex. Debris floated alongside him, plummeting together with him into the depths of that hell. The last thing he saw was an iron bar striking him directly in the head. He lost consciousness for a moment.

"This is a worse problem than anticipated…" A male voice echoed in his mind. His throat was filled with strange granules, with a tremendously bitter taste. He awoke quickly, coughing the sand from his lips. His eyes focused on the panorama before him: an enormous expanse of white and black sand, decorated by a greyish sky and clouds resembling dancing shadows. Lance pushed himself upright, noticing how the sand had adhered to his forehead and mixed with his blood.

He clenched his fists and forced himself to stand with effort. He touched his neck, then his chest, sliding his fingers along the violet cicatrices, strangely still.

"My heart beats normally, and my wounds have remained…" He took a step, noticing how every movement weighed on him, and every breath was laboured. He looked out from the dune, taking in the entire scene.

"This is not a dream… This is Hel." He realised, watching the myriad of black filaments mixing with the clouds and the sand, periodically shaken by gusts of glacial wind. Into his nostrils came an unsettling mixture of smells: some metallic, others briny. Then, without warning, the nausea came, followed by a severe headache.

"What in the maiden's name is this stench?" He murmured, trying in every way to distract himself from that disgusting odour, something like a mixture of blood and urine, with a sweet aftertaste. A wave of memories struck his temples, making him groan." No, Damian, I… This was not supposed to happen… I love you… Breathe, please…" A weeping echoed in his memory: a female lament, broken with grief. For a second, a young boy with long black hair and yellowish eyes appeared before him.

The figure wore a long lab coat, tattered and covered in blood and cuts across the abdomen and neck, as though it had been devoured. The hole where the fangs were sunk pulsed with deep red.

"And who are you?" He asked, bewildered, stumbling in the water. The entire desert scene had vanished, replaced by a gloomy, lightless nocturnal sea. All shadows and tones of shade. A faint light allowed him to register something of what surrounded him.

"This is different… It almost looks like a bog." He murmured, struggling to move from where he stood. He took a few steps, but the darkness made it difficult to understand what awaited him ahead. He walked straight into something hard and cold with his face.

"What a blow…" He fell, clutching something in his arms. He made an effort to understand what he was holding and thought he felt something tickling his fingers. Then his eye caught the silhouette of a skull between his hands.

"Fuck!" He cried out, hurling it away and dragging himself through the water. He looked all around, registering what those shapes were.

"Are all of these statues?" He murmured, rising into the space not occupied by the effigies. Their forms were difficult to make out in the darkness, but they were unnatural and grotesque. An incessant melody shook the air and the surface of the bog, momentarily stunning the boy. A rivulet of blood began to run from his eye, disappearing into the dark water.

"Welcome, Lance." A voice called to him from beyond the statues. Then suddenly, a burning star materialised in the filamentous sky, burning away the darkness with a white light. The forest of statues revealed itself with forms still more disgusting than before. All the bodies began contracting, losing pieces and hissing faintly. They drew apart from one another, creating a long corridor.

"Grayson…" He recognised the voice, deciding to walk that unsettling path. In the distance, wrapped among the vestments of the statues, stood an enormous black stone table with two single places set. At the head of the table, a man covered in whitish cicatrices and a strange symbol on his neck, just above the sternum: perhaps signifying the number III.

"Please, take a seat." He smiled, pointing to the chair. Lance ground his teeth, slamming his palm hard between the silver-covered plates. Grayson's smile did not waver. It just became more detestable.

"Find a way to get us out of here!" Lance shouted, striking his fist against the table again. Grayson stopped smiling, finally gazing at Lance with a shard of attention.

"What makes you think I wish to leave? This place is the final frontier of my career!" He seized his shoulders, rising sharply and pulling him a little farther from the chair. He bent only to cough a couple of times"Can you not see this place is killing us both?!" He grabbed his burned uniform with force, pointing to the blood slowly soaking through the fabric. Grayson licked his lip, recognising the ferrous, sharp taste that was making its way into his throat.

He pulled away from Lance, raising his gaze toward the white globe in the sky, surrounded by countless rocky masses.

"It does not matter. In this world, one can observe true evolution. It does not matter how many will die. The new reality is being born here." His body began to tremble, exploding into a deranged laugh.

"The future I can construct will be worthy of this banquet. All the crimes committed in the name of enlightenment will be able to find their end." Lance pulled back further, feeling a gush of nausea wash over his face.

"I could not understand it, neither the why nor the how, but now it is different. I have understood all those emotions in their futility, obstacles to the foundations of this kingdom." He looked at his necklace, miraculously intact after everything.

"And yet I sense that this is not the truth. This situation is nothing more than one possible variable in the calculation that lays the foundations of this world." He let the chain fall into the water, letting it slowly vanish.

"All errors have a purpose in this, but I cannot reach it. With this hellish place, I will foresee the construction of a paradise!" He turned, tears in his eyes mixed with blood. Lance fixed him with a grimace, a pot of many emotions.

"Join me… I know you wish to help everyone." He extended his hand. Lance stared at it for a moment, lingering on the hand covered in cicatrices and light.

"You want to kill all those people? For this?" He asked, his tone flat and stripped of every form of regard for the man before him.

"Would you prefer to die for the people dear to you? That strikes me as merely selfish and pointless. Heroic impulses are for those who can afford them, not people like you and me." He smiled, withdrawing his hand slowly. The cicatrices flashed for an instant before going dark.

"You and I are not heroes. We are poor models of human beings who believe they can do something. You, however, are even more defective than I am." The entire world began to tremble furiously. The darkness dissolved, and the sand began to flow like a storm on a grey day. The two stared at each other for an instant: Grayson smiling, Lance wrapped in an aura of anguish. Everywhere, the enormous space where Lance had first arrived expanded outward: the grey and glacial desert.

"It is starting… This place wants no life such as ours. It wants no errors." A gigantic flash of light, resembling a column of white, covered the horizon completely behind the scientist.

"What have you done?" He murmured, staring at the gigantic silhouette slowly emerging from the light. First an arm, then a leg, and finally the skeleton of something resembling a wing. From that distance, Lance had the impression of staring at the Dielmon's monolith. The light extinguished itself, revealing the figure in full.

"And what is that…" He threw himself to the ground, feeling his heart hammering at a frantic pace. His fingers began to tremble. What had emerged from the light was a woman, or something very close to one. Her arms were wrapped in a strip of light resembling glass, while the rest of her body, beyond its silhouette, was entirely indistinguishable. Lance's attention was pulled entirely toward one detail: fixed on the skeleton of the wing covered in light and glass. An enormous drape of a yellowish colour."

I have already seen that." The memory of Arden Ring struck him fully, as painful as if someone had hit him with an iron bar. That yellowish cloak was impressed in his mind, yet he could not associate it with the colossal vision before his gaze.

"What you see now is the mother of existence. She who plays the organ of life… A Goddess." Everything behind Grayson began to be engulfed in a luminous, transparent mire, as though it were a tangible mass of air. The entire desert was silently swallowed by it. Grayson and Lance stared as the mass bore down toward them. The scientist turned toward him, smiling faintly.

"See you on the other side…" Everything in the boy's sight was swept away by the mass, leaving him in a dark abyss. Everything around him had vanished into that void. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences." Here again?" He tried to speak, but the words flowed inside his head. From his mouth flew dense whitish bubbles. This time, the darkness was silent, and he was not sinking, simply suspended in nothing." It is cold, and I feel nothing but myself."

His body emanated a strange gleam, insufficient to illuminate the dark but strong enough to let him glimpse his own hands." How in the devil did I end up in this situation…" He raised his gaze, finding only a most grim mass of black." I only wanted to live a quiet life and find my sister…" These thoughts began roaming through his mind, striking repeatedly in every direction, isolating any other idea. He grabbed his own cheeks, trying to slap them, with no result. He felt his muscles shake his head.

"I surrendered once already. It is pointless to blame NOIR or Monica. It was my choice to come here…" He tried to straighten himself, noticing that his body was free to move. Then, without warning, his heart began to burn, as though an incision had been made in it. His entire body began to tremble, and yet Lance remained completely impassive.

"It doesn't hurt?" He touched his chest with trembling fingers, noticing how strongly it was beating. The beats began to replace his thoughts, echoing through the void. A sphere of white, mixed with black, shot from his body." It is identical to the first time I learned to control the Frequency." He grazed it with his finger, this time feeling a faint electric discharge. Everything around him began to fill with identical clusters. The darkness was crossed by that globular mass of light.

Lance studied them carefully, noticing how within each one something could be glimpsed. Two figures in conversation, wrapped in the flames of a ruined city." Are these someone's memories?" He tried to swim toward one of them, stopping immediately. His ankle was pulled downward with force, away from the white spheres. He looked down quickly, noticing a mass of women, identical to the one that had emerged from the column, intent on dragging him down." Damn it!"

He tried to strike one with his free leg, noticing that its consistency was similar to glass. All the shards drove themselves into his skin, coating him like armour. His strength began abandoning him along with his vision, obscured by the hands of those hundreds of luminescent figures. A burning sensation crossed his chest, followed by numbness throughout his entire body Something faint passed through his eardrum, again and again.

"I am sorry, dear… This is the only way I have to keep it from arriving." He awoke sharply, blocked by dozens of beams and wreckage. With all his strength, he moved them aside. He got back on his feet, covering his throat from the smoke and dust. He seized the edge of the collapsed building that had fallen on him. He leaned his head beyond the edge and stopped immediately.

"What…" His entire face went blank. The luminous brown drained from his eyes, followed by the colour of his skin. His pale lips began to tremble faintly.

"WHAT IS THIS PLACE?!" He cried out with tears in his eyes, staring at the city enveloped in white flames and black ash. Rivers of whitish liquid, mixed with blood, carried the blackened bodies of thousands of people, or what remained of them. In the distance, near the sea, an enormous cross of black stone. Lance fixed his gaze on it intently, watching its constant movements, like a heartbeat. A revolting sensation struck his body, making him vomit over the edge.

He stretched out on the ground, his breathing weak and accelerated.

"Is this my death?" He murmured, staring at the dark sky crossed by grim white flashes. He gathered his strength, limping toward the exit. He tore a piece from his suit and tied it around his mouth. The smell of burnt flesh and urine was intolerable, and the dark, sweet aroma made the atmosphere no better whatsoever Perhaps from nausea, or perhaps from resignation, Lance's legs began to buckle more and more with every step. His gaze tried to ignore the horribly mutilated bodies, but his senses did not make it easy.

The beating of the cross began to echo through the air, constant and slow.

"I need to find a way out…" He drifted ever closer to the bay. The entire area was pervaded by a sense of familiarity that was far too unsettling, but he refused entirely to yield to his concerns.

"Just a nightmare… This is only a nightmare." He repeated to himself, hoping to convince himself, until his gaze encountered the skeleton of a structure. It was similar to a school, now adorned by a constant breeze of black sand, that completely annihilated the forest nearby. Lance remembered vaguely what was beyond the grass and trees, and slowly felt his guts start to tremble. Some torn pages flew into the air, like seagulls"This… Cannot be…" He stared desperately at the black tower, wrapped in flames.

The oaks were completely reduced to columns of black charcoal. The walls were shattered by an enormous mass of molten iron. At his feet, held in place by a greenish gate, was a sign nearly illegible. Lance fell to his knees after reading the name: " RUTHER."

"So this truly is Bayork…" He smiled, staring at the sky and the dozens of columns of smoke. For all his attempts to convince himself otherwise, he had failed miserably.

"Then it is true… No matter how strong your convictions, in the end, even they collapse." He rose to his feet, steadying himself on his stomach with difficulty. He laughed and laughed, holding back the nausea from flowing past his smile and his tears.

"No matter how hard you try… Reality is reality. You cannot change it." He held his own head, letting his laugh resonate through the bowels of that city's body. The beating of the cross began to shake even the ground beneath his feet, followed by a violent scream of pure pain. Lance stopped to listen as it echoed through the smoke, smiling still more.

"Is he broken too now? I would like to help him…" He smiled, striking the wall behind him squarely. The bricks flew away, shattering the few remaining fragments of the trees.

"But perhaps this is right… This is the condemnation of conviction." The tears stained the asphalt beneath his feet, evaporating quickly under his own gaze. He fixed the sky, incapable of stopping the weeping.

"What is this? The future? Must everything end like this? What will become of the others... Of Jude?" The smile spread across his face, followed by a faint laugh.

"It is true… I am disgusting." He fixed his bloodied palm, crying still more. Another cry, unlike anything Lance had ever heard, shattered his despair. The earth began to crack, followed by the complete collapse of the sky. The air before him began to transform into shards, as though all of reality were destroying itself. Another laugh spread into the now-empty space, occupied only by the white shards of that nightmare." It is already collapsing? That girl must be desperate to bring that world back here."

Into Lance's ears came dozens of voices, some female, some male. A primordial terror took hold of his flesh, worse even than anything he had felt against Malcolm. Every hair on his body stood up, while a burning sensation spread to every capillary." Do not be afraid. I only wish to verify something." The shards reflected a tremendously tall figure, covered in a dark fog, its hair perpetually obstructed by black mire. The only things visible were its white flanks and its arms, covered in strange black scales.

"Who are you…" He tried to form the question, but all the shards exploded. The pale hand closed around his neck, slamming him against the figure behind. A glacial shiver crossed his body more than once.

"There are names that must not be spoken… I am one of them." The hand began to slide through Lance's garments, resting on his heart. Its voice was now far more feminine than the mass of sounds had suggested. A spark of pain crossed the boy's body, and he began to cry out. The figure slid its fingers inside his lips, preventing him from making any sound whatsoever.

"Do you think existence has any value outside of its boundaries? The creature brought its bloodied fingers back to its own lips, wrapping them with a tongue as black as a serpent's. Lance felt a warmth pass through his body.

"I have waited a long time for you… Albedo." It whispered in his ear, biting it gently a moment later. All the darkness shattered, sending Lance plunging downward, toward a white light. He lost his sight, then found himself on cold concrete. Across his body had appeared numerous violet cicatrices, even on his face.

"We will meet again when you remember everything… For now, forget this too." The last words, before waking. His lungs expanded, hungry for fresh air. The smell of dust and mould was better then wather stench the Hel had to offer. He felt the hard and rough surface of the facility scratching at his skin.

"HE IS BREATHING!" Cried a figure, kneeling at his side. Her chestnut hair completely dishevelled and dirty, her hands lacerated. Another man sat down beside him, feeling at his neck.

"The heartbeat is irregular…" He murmured anxiously, his eyes wide and exhausted at once. He lifted Lance's wrist, noticing that his watch had been destroyed. Their faces shifted rapidly into contorted forms, shrouded in black. His heart began thundering in his chest, sending him lurching upward. Maliard stared at him with concern. On Lance's face, a trickle of tears and a grim smile. He got up, with eyes devoid of anything, gazing into a distant void.

"Is this another nightmare?" He asked, rummaging through his pockets. The weeping grew more desperate still. Jeanne tried to rise, but Maliard stopped her. Lance drew a small cube from his pocket. It expanded quickly, revealing its form as a revolver. He released the handle and pressed it against his temple, smiling.

"Show me something else now…" He whispered, trying to pull the trigger. The pistol fell to the ground along with a few drops of blood. Maliard struck him before he could press it.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!" He seized him by the collar, but quickly registered what he was holding. His companion's face was scored with a vein of madness. Lance pushed him away, retrieved the pistol from the ground, and this time levelled it at him.

"So this time then… Is this my torment?" He smiled, unable to stop the tears on his face. Maliard fixed him with severity, preparing to draw a cylinder. He pressed the trigger, but no bullet touched the floor.

"It is empty…" He laughed, falling to the ground, pulled by something. A gentle fragrance, mixed with smoke, calmed his senses for a moment. His face was covered by strands of hair. His muscles contracted, shaken by a lightning bolt of pain.

"Please… Give him back… You are not Lance…" A weeping, followed by a cold touch, kept him conscious through that torment. He felt something run along his back, followed by a grip still worse than the pain. The sobs reached his ears until he was finally drawn away. Jeanne looked at his face with glistening eyes, holding his head between her fingers. The cicatrices had gone, leaving only the tears on his skin. Her own eyes grew wetter still, a fracture crossing her face.

Jeanne threw herself over him, embracing him as he wept.

"I am sorry…" He sobbed, looking at Maliard. The young man let out a sigh, followed by a smile.

"This is the third time you have come back… Should I prepare myself for a fourth, before long?" Lance laughed, gently stroking Jeanne, still pressed against him and intent on weeping.

"You can play the emotionally fragile nurse afterward, Goghette." Maliard smiled, gesturing toward Lance's face, completely drained of colour. The girl registered this, letting out a small cry and getting back on her feet. A jet of icy wind extinguished the flames, followed by a faint laugh. The air hit the trio, sweeping away the dust"It pains me to interrupt such a touching moment, but Lance and I have a discussion to end." A figure emerged from the crater, wrapped in a long, burned, perforated gown.

On his forehead, a pair of long, dark horns, engraved with a series of numbers and formulas. His purple eyes were wrapped in a glow of the same color. His body was now more muscular and defined, decorated with his long, loose silver hair.

"But you all are making all the calculations way worse than they really are…" He fixed the hole in the roof, channeling his attention towards the moon. The clouds had dispersed after the singularity, leaving the sky clear. He grabbed a rock from the ground, squeezing it between his index finger and thumb.

"It means I'll end everything here." The debris disappeared, leaving a tiny dot in its place. Suddenly, everything began to get sucked towards him, compacting and being shredded.

"Are we fucking serious right now?!" Maliard sighed, lowering Compulsion to the ground.

"It was an old theory of the Institute concerning the existence of stars capable of absorbing even light. I've always laughed at it, but now that I think about it, it doesn't seem so impossible. Denying the existence of something just because you are incapable of observing it is limiting." He let go of the black void, letting his destructive aura soar through the air.

"It is incomplete, but creating a similar imitation is not complex. Once a mass is compressed to such an extent, all the gravitational tissue is punctured. Since I originated it from something tiny, I constantly have to renew it with my skill, but the destructive potential is definitely interesting." He smiled, and around him, the Demiurge white lines were drawn, which took the shape of a large cube. Lance grabbed Maliard and Jeanne with his hands, firmly planting his foot in the crack in the wall.

The pain in his bones was excruciating, so much so that it felt like they were peeling off his skin.

"Once I stop holding the star at bay, its activity will intensify for about a minute before detonating. If you survived, it means it regarded you as a decently successful experiment." Grayson smiled, shining a white light on the cube before fading away. Behind him remained only the silhouette of the cube's frame, as if all the contents had been erased.

"LANCE, DO YOU WANT TO KILL YOURSELF AGAIN?!" Maliard shouted, noticing the overload regaining possession of his flesh.

"If I leave… We all die." He muttered, gnashing his teeth. Behind them, the whole complex was plummeting inside that black body. Maliard gritted his teeth, holding himself and Lance to the wall." Shit… I have no ideas this time." Lance thought, however, his gaze lit up when he saw Jeanne bite her index finger again. Her cheeks swelled before a whitish mass splashed across Lance. The boy's face briefly abandoned its grimace of pain, becoming confused and embarrassed, but he felt his grip grow stronger." Is it glue?"

He tried to smell it while pushing his leg deeper and deeper. Behind his back, Jeanne was apologizing, yet Lance remained too busy figuring out what that substance was. Maliard removed his glove, grabbing it with his other hand. All his fingers began to glow with a black light, followed by faint smoke.

"If it's composed of Frequencies… I can destroy it!" All the smoke piled up in front of his fingers, as if it were a nail.

"Sorry, the sound might pierce your eardrums!" Maliard aimed for the globe in front of them, intent on devouring everything left in the crater, from the cockpit to the severed remains of the cables." Stornieren: Schwarzer!" The shot splashed, mowing the gravity well. Everything around them began to be sucked in more forcefully, until it collapsed. A cry-like sound was released into the air, followed by an explosion. The dome shattered, releasing the remains throughout the field.

Jeanne and Maliard landed in the snow, while Lance remained stuck to one of the columns.

"Great work to both of you." Maliard made his debut, shooting at the white ties that immobilized Lance. He fell into the snow, still covered in sticky paint." It tastes like pastries…" He thought as he tried to get it off his lips and nose. Jeanne tried to approach, but decided to turn and kneel on the ground, sobbing and with the tips of her ears flushed.

"What's up, Jeanne? Am I really that bad?" He asked, pointing his slimy finger at his face, splashing dozens of small drops through the air.

"I doubt this is the case…" Maliard muttered, massaging his nose. Compulsion had already returned to his arm, firm and tight. Lance stared at him curiously for a few seconds.

"Jeanne Goghette is a Kontrolle. She used her frequency to produce the paint that now covers you." Lance moved his hands, trying to get rid of it.

"I imagine he could do this with a mixture of her bodily fluids…" Maliard took a drop, rubbing it between his fingers and then wiping it off with some snow.

"I don't think it changes much with the liquid used. It could be saliva, mucus, sweat, blood, and…" Maliard's speech broke when he saw Jeanne lying on the ground, crying.

"It's over for me… I'm a shameful person." Jeanne muttered in a faint voice, her expression completely dull." Did I say something bad? I was just complimenting her talent." Maliard scratched his chin, trying in every way to understand what had happened. Jeanne began to sob even more.

"Don't worry! It doesn't taste bad!" Lance tried to console her, looking at Maliard, confused. Jeanne grabbed both of his shoulders, plunging Lance into the snow.

"Why w-would you e-eat it!" Some excuses tried to surface, but the boy was getting slammed repeatedly into the white and cold grass." Thanks to Lance's stupidity, I won't have to worry about my embarrassment." Maliard proudly nodded, while Jeanne was now starting to cry even more, right beside the immobile Lance. A mechanical beat roused them from their emotions. They raised their eyes, watching a great winged vessel above their heads. Its hull was vaguely oval, with squared edges.

The bronze tones mixed with dark iron made it invisible in the dark. Its two great mechanical wings beat and turned gears and pistons several times before coming to rest on the ground. From the cockpit emerged a figure dressed in a black suit similar to Jeanne's and Maliard's.

"You took your time, Monica…" Maliard murmured, pointing to the disaster behind him.

"No one told me there was a risk of a singularity…" She replied, raising a finger toward the sky, now calm and quiet. Her attention was immediately drawn toward the pair of young people on the ground.

"Maliard… Why is Jeanne crying, and why is Lance covered in that strange substance?" Like a feline, she appeared behind the two, scrutinising them closely.

"We had some complications…" Lance answered, heading toward the vessel. He observed for a moment the name engraved in the iron: " CICINDELLA."

"How can Maverick come up with these absurd names?" He thought, climbing to the upper floor of the airship.

"Come on! We can talk about it afterward. If it is Lancy's fault, I will give him an exemplary punishment!" Monica shot Lance a sharp glance before escorting Jeanne inside. The boy followed, despondent, his hair stuck together." Am I a victim of some kind of favoritism here?" The small vessel took flight, cutting rapidly across the summit of the mountain.

"Will they not see us?" Lance asked, seated at the back of the upper floor. A small hatch allowed communication with the deck below.

"All NOIR's vessels are equipped with a distorter similar to the one produced by Dielmon. Not a soul will see us!" Monica answered, banking sharply toward Bayork. In the distance, an enormous cloud, dark and charged with white lightning, filled the horizon.

"Can any of you tell me where that singularity is coming from?" Monica asked, her blond hair emerging from the hatch. Maliard and Lance looked at each other and nodded.

"That thing is Grayson Dirac." They answered in unison, watching the cloud send out more and more lightning.