Chương 49: CHAPTER 48 – Distorted Past

"I did the right thing, saving Maliard…" He smiled, sinking steadily deeper into the stormy sea. Lance contemplated the moon's reflection on the crests of the waves at the surface, watching it grow dimmer and paler. As he sank, a trail of blood followed him slowly, dispersing into the current.

"It would be too much to ask for another rescue." He laughed to himself, closing his eyelids. His body was wrapped in the cold, calming sensation of the ocean when his back struck something.

"The seabed? Impossible." His throat gasped for air. He drew a deep breath, expanding and contracting his chest several times.

"Why am I speaking underwater?!" He exclaimed, coughing out the last traces of water from his body. He looked around, finding himself in an expanse of white sand, surrounded by dozens of statues and wooden ruins wrapped in algae.

"I genuinely cannot bear finding myself in places like this anymore…" He murmured, staring at the sky full of golden stars in faint motion. He took a first step across the sand, immediately slipping. He touched his side, feeling something granular sticking to his fingers.

"WHAT IN THE MAIDEN IS THIS NOW?!" His eye fell on the enormous mass of sand that was slowly flowing through his body like a swarm of tiny insects. He tried to scratch it away, managing only to slide his fingertips across the substance.

"Stay still, please." A voice called to him from his side. Other hands were now working on his wound. Lance stared in bewilderment at the figure partially submerged in the sand.

"I have seen you before…" Lance began studying the silhouette of the young boy who had emerged from the desert. A child dressed in a lab coat, torn and covered in reddish stains. His face was covered in sand, except for a small portion of his right eye, faintly golden. Other white patches covered his shoulder, throat, and left arm. The child did not answer, remaining focused on his work. Lance looked around him, widening his eyes at the horizon.

In the distance, almost invisible, there was a figure mantled in a white gleam. The boy could make out her nude body and her features: she was slender, as pale as the sand at his feet, and incredibly tall. Sharpening his gaze, he saw something move at the level of her sides. A pair of wings rose into the air, embracing her completely. Their feathers were divided into three distinct stripes of colours: snow, charcoal, and blood.

"What is that thing?" Lance whispered, and suddenly her eyes crossed his." She is beautiful..." Her sharp face emanated an air of gentleness and quiet, but the feature that held the boy's attention most was her eyes. Those thin, mild, glassy mirrors were lit by two different lights: one olive-coloured, the other golden. Her face decorated itself with a smile, her hands extending toward him as though to embrace him. From her wrists, chains slid down, meeting the sand at her feet without a sound.

She fixed them for a moment, with some kind of puerile disappointment, before smiling again. A vortex of sand enveloped her, making her disappear along with her gleam. Lance touched his own face, only to realise he was crying.

"Why does seeing her make me so sad?" He asked the boy busy working with the sand, receiving nothing in return but the sound of grains sliding against one another.

"Is it him? Has Lachesi chosen that man?" A voice behind him began to speak, almost forcing Lance to turn.

"I imagine so? He seems so young, though…" A woman's voice, with a heavy and laboured tone, answered faintly. Lance managed to turn and bring into focus the two silhouettes wrapped in haze. The young boy slipped into the sand, groaning. One was a tall, slender man with long tobacco-coloured hair. The second was a tall and sturdy woman with long, slightly bluish hair, like a mane of flames.

"Unfortunately, yes, dear. Truly a pity, but this is her will…" The man answered, bringing something between his fingers to his lips.

"But he is too young! Look at him!" She pointed directly at him, unaware of whether Lance was watching.

"You said the same thing about those two, and yet they have not disappointed us. It is we who have failed." The woman stamped her foot on the ground in a manner entirely too similar to Monica's.

"In any case, he has more potential than you and I put together, so have faith in him. For the record, he is watching us right now, so try not to make a scene." Their faces were fixed on Lance's, unable to distinguish them through the thin, opaque veil of haze and smoke. The woman waved energetically at him before turning away and covering her face from the embarrassment.

"In any case, Lachesi will keep him alive. It will be his decision how to use it." The man walked away, marching toward the horizon of the vision.

"CHRISS, WAIT!!!" A shrill cry rose from the woman, who chased after him, stumbling more than once.

"Hey…" Lance whispered, reaching his hand toward the ever-smaller and more diminished portal of haze.

"At least you…" He grazed a fold of that dense, cold air with his fingers before everything snapped shut before his poor, weary, salt-stung eyes. He bowed his head, staring at his hands covered in sand.

"Give me some answers…" A gust of cold wind washed the grime from his face as it mussed his hair. The young boy lifted his head, fixing him with his single eye.

"I have finished. In a little while, this place will die, and you will return up there." Lance gently laid his hands over the boy's, covered in clumps of sand and a few drops of blood.

"I know you want answers, but I cannot give them to you. Big sister does not want me to speak with you." He shifted his head slightly to the left, catching sight of a bare figure with pale skin and covered in cicatrices. Her head was bowed against her shoulder, motionless in what appeared to be a long, grim weeping.

"Eve?" Lance could not help but recognise the horror that figure with the long white hair had brought him, and yet seeing her trembling and sobbing could not help but transmit to him a sense of sadness and anguish." She can cry?"

"I know you cannot say much, but thank you for…" Lance interrupted himself when he saw the young boy return to the sand and vanish among the dunes. He turned his gaze back to Eve, who was slowly meeting the same fate. He looked at his own palm, noticing it too was collapsing and becoming thin white grains. His eyes immediately lost their strength and closed, sending him sliding to the ground.

"Did you happen to have a happy moment?" Grayson smiled, pulling Lance away from his memory. The boy smiled, snapping the fingers of the arm. A drop of dark, violet-tinged tar condensed at its tip, immediately becoming a pair of circular spectacles with a black frame.

"Do those also belong to your arsenal?" He asked, restoring the skin that had been torn from his shoulder and arm. Lance shook his head distractedly, putting them on.

"It seems the relic on my arm recognises my habit of wearing glasses." He smiled, adjusting them on the bridge of his nose. The cloak tied to his dark limb billowed in the wind, while the gleam emanating from his veins grew more intense.

"There are still a few hours until sunrise… The Demiurge remains active even when I am not directly powering it. Do you think you can last until dawn?" The scientist smiled, taking his first step.

"Not exactly…" His body vanished from sight, followed by a violent jet of air and dust. He materialised directly below him, closing his iron-clad fist.

"But I do not need all that time to make you reason!" Grayson's body was launched into the air by the boy's uppercut, generating a small crater beneath his feet." The barrier has been completely pierced?! Not even Maliard managed it without that black light." A shadow loomed over his body the moment he tried to arrest his flight. His gaze settled on the black arm wielded by Lance. His eyes could see it clearly, but his mind was incapable of establishing or accepting what they were seeing.

"The number of that thing is…" Lance's knuckles crashed down on his face with tremendous ferocity, driving him directly into the ground in a violent impact.

"... Monstrous!" He rose from the hollow formed by his own body, lifting his twisted, bloodied arms. A white beam began flowing through them, yet Grayson's gaze grew more attentive." My numbers have been distorted?" The regeneration was slowly returning bones to their place, at a pace far removed from the single instant that had once sufficed to reconstruct even vanished tissue.

"You certainly are tenacious… That impact was considerably stronger than the one on the mountain." Lance landed on one of the heaps of rubble, lowering his centre of gravity as he fixed himself. Grayson smiled, flexing his arm several times.

"With this, I can see the Frequency flowing through the air with perfect clarity." Reflected in the boy's pupils were thousands of coloured filaments dancing through the night. Around the scientist, the sea of numbers had grown steadily narrower and more concentrated, like a shroud." His Frequency is superior to Malcolm's, but there is no control, no refinement…" He descended from his position, resuming his walk toward him.

"Lance…" Grayson murmured, pointing his finger at him. Lance halted his pace, stopping a few metres away. The scientist's horns and the boy's arm resounded in the dim light of that spectral atmosphere.

"You and I are both people without talent, but between us, there is also a substantial difference." He snapped his hand shut with a crack. In the distance, among the leaves and the mud of what few mountains remained, a white light began rising from the earth.

"People like us NEED MORE THAN A SINGLE ACE UP THEIR SLEEVE!" The pale bolt burned everything in its path, dissolving the rock and scorching every remaining patch of earth and grass in the clearing. In barely an instant, the burst of energy and the scientist's palm made contact. A jet of sparks branched through the surroundings, generating an enormous empty furrow where Lance had been standing. Grayson smiled, breathing faintly.

"A connection of that kind was arduous, but the result is satisfying…" He turned his back, and a hiss brought him back to focus on the furrow.

"You are right…" Lance coughed, dispelling the smoke from his face. The iron on his arm was still wrapped in those white sparks and coated in halos of vapour." He destroyed the numbers?!" Grayson's dart, born of the entanglement, had simply been distorted to the point of vanishing on contact with that black iron.

"You were wrong about one thing, however." He leapt across the furrow, resuming his walk toward the scientist. A smile appeared across his pale-skinned face. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Aside from being completely without talent…" Lance launched himself at the scientist, appearing behind him the moment his foot touched the ground. Grayson tried to turn but was seized by Lance's arm.

"I AM ALSO A COMPLETE AND STUBBORN IDIOT!" With force, he pressed the man's body into the ground, dragging him along in his frenzied run. Grayson's face was kept permanently pressed against rock and earth as Lance continued running toward the debris.

"AND THIS…" He lifted the scientist from the earth, arresting his charge with a violent brake. The ground fractured again as he prepared to rotate his entire body.

"... IS MY ACE AGAINST YOU!!" With all the accumulated force, Lance hurled Grayson away at an unthinkable speed. The gleam of his monstrous characteristics vanished amid the landslide of rock and concrete. Lance bounced once, recovering his composure. He stared at his arm for a moment, rotating his wrist several times. Beneath the knuckles, extremely fine filaments could be seen inscribed in his flesh.

"So this is Lachesi … Bluette Oudin's relic." He shook out his body, finding space to flex his muscles and press his hand against his side.

"The overload is fading, and the regeneration has surpassed its limits…" His fingers passed through his white skin, decorated by those unsettling black veins. No wound or scar remained inscribed in the flesh.

"Keeping it active is exhausting…" He pressed his chest, drawing a deep breath. The heap of rubble exploded, sending heavy blocks of rock into the air. Grayson re-emerged, gripping two beams of pure light in his hands, and with even more scratches than before across the few garments that remained." That blow should have at least stunned him…" Lance's black arm moved by reflex, cleaving the first burst of energy. Its two halves exploded at his back, sending up a burst of heat.

Lachesis began shining with a black and violet light, pointing directly at the second luminous mass wielded by Grayson.

"Vanish…" The energy freed itself from the scientist, sliding along the ground as though curving directly toward Lance. In a fraction of a second, the black light and the pale light collided. All the gleam vanished, leaving only faint sparks in the air around Lance." Origin …" From those faint sparks appeared two heavy blocks of iron. The first struck Lance squarely, while the second was caught by him and crushed in his grip." Ideal!"

Grayson began running at Lance, wielding a staff of square form, wrapped in a swarm of numbers and symbols. Lance managed to react, but the scientist's blow was faster regardless. The ideal shape impacted against his body, shattering under the frightened gaze of the scientist. Grayson smiled faintly through the bluish shards dissolving in the air." He has destroyed the perfect geometry too?" The absolute faith of Grayson Dirac in his own calculations and data, for the first time, began to crack.

Lance's blow sank into his stomach. His entire arm rotated, as though trying to drill through his flesh and organs." Salve …" A white flash erupted from his fingertips, burning Grayson's abdomen completely and making him stagger a few paces away.

"I will not let you regenerate!" Lance launched himself immediately at him, closing the distance in an instant. The scientist's palm raised itself before his face, still falling to the ground." Shift!" Lance found himself in the air, dozens of metres above the surface. Several bolts fired up from the ground toward him. Lachesi began emanating that darkness again, exploding a single projectile against the volley of shots. The moment the dark halo dissipated, Grayson appeared behind him.

His arm was covered in negative mass, preparing to impact.

"Free teleportation?!" Lance reacted almost immediately, making the relic collide with Grayson's fist. A violent shockwave shook even the ground below, and Maliard was left as a spectator of that battle." That armour is Lachesi, without a doubt." He covered his face from the second shockwave that erupted from the sky. His gaze concentrated on the silhouette of the iron fused to his companion's arm.

"So the relic form is not simply a ranged weapon…" Lance and Grayson struck each other again, and this time, Lance plummeted to the ground. He tore at the earth to arrest his fall when, without warning, he found himself covered by an enormous shadow. A gigantic mass of rock and earth was plunging from the sky.

"Let us see what this relic can do!" He raised his palm toward the sky. All the Frequency around him began to distort and channel into a vortex around his body. A white sphere, surrounded by a violet and black halo, began forming a few centimetres from his hand." Salve!" The light became a black and violet beam, erupting violently toward the sky. All the debris seemed to disappear inside the dark bolt.

All the energy released itself in the sky, gleaming as brightly as the moon in an eruption of white and violet light. Lance clicked his tongue, clenching his fist. The veins across his body began to pulse faintly, followed by a strange form of illumination.

"I have not yet grown accustomed to this…" He sighed, brushing off the dust raining from the sky as though it were a shower.

"You certainly enjoy changing my data mid-calculation." Grayson smiled, materialising at his side. Lance returned it, relaxing and rolling his shoulders back several times.

"Did you not say your numbers could do far more than this? Show me." He answered, setting himself back on guard. Grayson's eyes gleamed, then vanished entirely, leaving a block of rock in their place.

"With pleasure…" His fist collided again with Lachesi, shattering the ground beneath their feet. Both were launched backward, launching themselves the moment their bodies found footing again. A series of bluish cylinders blocked Lance, caught off guard by that sudden obstruction. This time, Grayson's blow impacted directly on his face, dropping his torso. Lance's arms went limp while his legs remained the only thing keeping his body upright.

"I told you…" Then, in a blink, Grayson's face was seized by the powerful grip of the boy. Lance reopened his eyes, smiling with only a simple cut on his forehead and his nose.

"... TO SHOW ME!" In a flash, he struck the scientist's face with his own head, stunning him for an instant. A series of black and white sparks burst from the impact. A second violent headbutt struck the scientist, sending him sliding to the ground. Lance wiped the blood from his face, moving closer to take hold of him.

"Finally…" Grayson smiled, snapping his free hand around Lance's." Am I getting pulled?"

"I have recovered a little strength." He released his grip, sending Lance flying into the rubble and the ground. He bounced several times against the earth, tearing away rock." Kneel!" His body fell to the ground, forced to its knees by the weight of gravity. Grayson laughed, staring directly into Lance's eyes.

"I have come to understand the value of this affliction…" Lance's body sank even further into the ground, leaving a furrow where his knees had been. He tried to rise, managing only to stumble and stagger.

"Do not think of moving. An ordinary human being would already be dead by this point." Lance returned to the ground, feeling his bones creak furiously.

"At this rate…" Maliard tried to rise, pointing his arm at the two of them. Something, however, brought him to slowly halt his attempt to help the boy. Somehow, Lance had gotten back to his feet, trembling under the weight of that force. Grayson fixed him in silence, losing his smile. The boy took his first step, crushing the rock beneath him.

"Your attempts are tiring me…" He murmured, pressing his hand even harder. The gravity grew so intense that it compacted the very ground itself, creating a difference in level between him and Lance. The boy kept walking, leaving a trail of footprints behind him.

"I told you…" Lance raised his head, looking at Grayson directly in the face. His lips were covered by a thin rivulet of blood, and yet they were curved in a smile.

"That I would make you…" At that point, Lance was a few paces from the scientist, the scientist frozen in position, perhaps by pride or by fear." This gravity should have already reduced him to pulp... How can he be withstanding it?!" He too began to feel the weight of his own ability, shuddering at the thought that this boy could sustain it. Lance seized his throat directly, gripping it with force.

"PAY FOR EVERYTHING!!" Lachesi struck Grayson squarely in the face, driving its metallic scales into his features. All the weight that had kept them immobile vanished, freeing Lance's knee to strike him violently in the chest. The scientist spat blood and saliva before pushing both himself and Lance in opposite directions. The boy crashed directly into the ruins on the coast, under Maliard's stunned gaze.

"Are you not taking a rather long rest?" The boy smiled, rising from the ground with a leap. Maliard sighed, shaking his head and returning his look. His gauntlet emanated a boiling atmosphere, as though it were a cube of molten iron.

"First you die, then you come back and break your promise…" He managed to get back to his feet, leaning on a post that had emerged from the ground after the impact.

"Do you not think I deserve a rest after you had me fighting all this time?!" A violent slap almost sent Lance face-first into the ground. He turned to retort but met Maliard's smile.

"How do you feel?" He asked, releasing his grip as Lance ran his hand along the black arm.

"It is very tiring, but it does not seem to affect my Frequency …" He answered, returning his gaze to the dark, pulsing veins." The form Lachesi has taken is different from Bluette's? It almost seems as though it has adapted to his body." Maliard studied curiously the rings inlaid in his flesh and the heavy, blackish scales.

"Do you know why Monica told you not to use that weapon?" He asked, pointing to his hand. Lance shook his head in silence, immediately fixing his gaze on the man before him.

"I know in general that Lachesi is harmful to my life in a different way from the overload."

"It feeds on your life. The more you use it, the more your body will be consumed…" He answered flatly, pressing Compulsion tight against his arm with a grimace of pain.

"Maliard…" Lance murmured, letting his arms slide along his sides. Maliard stared at him in silence as he took his first step.

"How much time do we have?" At that question, he smiled faintly. He fixed Lance with a flame in his eyes, almost brightening.

"The relic will be operational again in around ten minutes… Do you think you can manage?" He answered, sitting as a faint flow of water began running across the leather and iron, releasing whitish vapour.

"If I keep feeding it with Vergehen, it is more than sufficient!" He smiled, stretching out his legs and arms as he walked toward Grayson, fully regenerated and with his energy ever-growing.

"Try not to let it go to your head!" Maliard exclaimed, tossing a pebble at his back. Lance caught it mid-air as he turned, answering.

"I will be careful." In that moment, Maliard had a vision. As Lance turned to resume his march, a figure began to materialise. A slight and slender boy was replicating Lance's movements. His eyes were a deep blue, while his skin and hair were snow-white. In every way, those two appeared to be brothers." Why are you so similar to him?" Maliard sighed, keeping the stream of water flowing over the gauntlet. The vision vanished the moment Lance launched himself at Grayson again, smiling.