Chương 92: CHAPTER 90 – Buried in Ashes

The beast tore a violent spasm from its chest, whipping the long, rough blade left and right, stained with dark plates and with a tip broken into several parts. The shape of that great sword was like a thorn, with a guard identical to a rapier's. It lunged at the boy, closing the distance in a few seconds." Lachesi, release!" Lance's blade emerged once more from the bracelet, clashing against the beast's in a sea of sparks. The dune exploded from the impact, hurling the two apart.

They tumbled across the sand, with Elise still anchored to his back.

"I'll be quick. Take cover here." She nodded as the beast's distorted face emerged from the sand. The gears on his sword began to spin and snap, welding the blade's guard to the iron itself, enlarging it and making the edge gleam with a violet light. A cloud of steam rose when the process finished, wrapping Lance's face. The sword fell at his feet, lifting the finest grains of sand. It was massive, just longer than its wielder, with two points.

"I have to thank Lachesi for bringing it back…" Lance and the creature sized each other up before vanishing. Their weapons crossed, raising a violent shockwave. Both held them with a single hand while the other prepared to strike again. Lance slid beneath the creature, violently severing its leg. He was drenched in violet fluid as a deafening scream echoed across the horizon. The boy clicked his tongue, violently rotating his hips and arm to scythe across the creature's back.

Gloriousus pierced the rotting flesh, separating the beast from its legs. It collapsed into the sand, thrashing and contorting as it slammed its blade violently against the ground. Lance watched it with a grimace, then immediately went to Elise, stretched out on the sand and almost motionless. Her face was pale, but to the touch it burned enough to hurt his hand. Lance saw her gasping and at once pulled his coat from the black bracelet.

The moment the sleeve was visible, the creature rose from the sand, lifting its blade above the boy's head.

"Disappear!" Lance raised his left arm, holding back the violent impact. The surrounding sand was blasted away while the beast hissed and spat at him endlessly. His skin stiffened, becoming covered in black and reddish scales. He kicked away its leg, making the beast fall onto him, and an instant later struck it violently.

"Just like Laure! If I harden only the affected area, I can increase the impact without losing too much speed." He struck it a second time, making it vomit bones and phalanges. With a shout, Lance raised his knuckles a third time, hurling them swiftly onto the beast's mask. It flew between the dunes, leaving behind a trail of opalescent violet liquid. Lance looked at his hand, completely intact.

"I still can't use Karmesin simultaneously with the rest of Vergehen's techniques, but it's a decent result!" He smiled, pulling the silver flask from his coat. He brought it gently to her lips, pouring out drops of the slightly dark liquid. The woman smiled, managing to stand, trembling.

"Stop and rest. I'll carry you." Lance lifted her onto his shoulder, her lips still moist with coffee. Elise's hair slid over his nape and shoulder, sending a faint shiver through him.

"What was…That drink you gave me? I feel stronger." She smiled, a single drop slipping from her chin and landing directly on Lance's neck. The boy shook off the sensation and smiled, putting the flask back in his pocket.

"Coffee… It's a liquid made from beans imported from a warmer island south of Andimica. Normally it's bitter, but I gave you the portion I'd prepared for my friend! I hoped the sugar would help you." Elise smiled, resting all her weight on his back. His palms strained, trying to handle her legs gently.

"I'd never had it… It has such a pleasant aftertaste, almost toasted. It makes you feel at home." Her breath, a mix of coffee and her perfume, spread over his ear, making him smile.

"When we get out of here, I'll take you to drink an even better one!" His steps filled with vigour, swiftly cutting through the white sand. She let out a small laugh, lightly pinching the back of his neck.

"I'm counting on it… It's a promise." The boy nodded, accelerating more and more with her on his shoulders. Soon his passage was marked by a thin, pale trail, mixed with the grim trembling of the grains beneath the dark, gloomy sky. The cubes of clouds had distorted into strange dancing filaments, a mix of greyish, sorrowful strings.

"Hey, Lance… What was that thing?" Elise asked while the boy continued his run toward the horizon. He shook his head, hopping over small crests of pale sand. His brow furrowed, only managing to sigh.

"It's only a theory, but I think it's the guardian of this relic. Like a watchdog for this desert." Elise looked at the boy's arm, now that the sleeve was torn, noticing every detail of the black bracelet anchored firmly to his flesh.

"Is that a relic too? It has a rather unsettling 'aura.'" Lance gave a quick nod, smiling with half-closed eyes.

"She's Lachesi, a sentient relic that chose me as her wielder. I don't really understand how she works, honestly. It hurts to use her because she devours the energy of anything near her, but she's saved me far too many times. Between us, it really does seem like she's cheating." Elise stared at it, confused, almost trying to stroke that silent weapon.

"Sentient? But shouldn't it be inanimate? And do you also have a parallel dimension?" Lance thought briefly, raising his nose upward as he usually did, never stopping his nimble legs. He laughed softly, shaking his head.

"Nothing like that, or rather, nothing I can control. No one has yet figured out how it works. To answer briefly… It's simply Lachesi who chooses what or how to evolve. I only have to give her my blood, and she activates. Relics like the one we're in are just a conduit. On first use, they carve out a space in Hel and then act as a key for all future activations. Most likely Abbondius's Black Mirror follows the same logic. All the things absorbed should be here, maybe even the way back."

Elise looked at the sky, now foaming with new geometric shapes.

"So it really exists." She murmured, followed by a nod from Lance. In the distance, chilling howls spread, and the boy felt compelled to quicken his pace as much as possible. Hours or minutes, it was hard to tell how much had passed, but their faces brightened as soon as they saw ruins stretching across a hollow between the dunes. The plain held white and greenish columns, along with the remains of what seemed to be a villa of never-before-seen architecture.

It was a large, verdant space where bluish and purplish plants had mysteriously taken root. Lance slid down the edge of the dune, arriving in that peculiar field. Even the air there was somehow pure and normal. Elise immediately felt revived.

"Civilisation in Hel?" Lance knelt, touching the soft, strangely swollen flowers. Their scent was faint, yet strangely exotic and sweet. Elise brought one to her nose and sneezed.

"I don't think they're good for me…" She murmured, trying to wipe the mucus from her hand, only to find it stuck to her face. Lance laughed heartily, immediately handing her a handkerchief and turning his gaze elsewhere. Before him stood a heavy block of marble, decorated with a relief of twisted greenish forms: a woman was depicted there, hands immersed in a pool and a smiling face.

"This stuff is ancient, far too ancient." Lance thought, stroking its extraordinarily smooth surface. A shiver caught his nape, forcing him to move elsewhere. Moving wasn't difficult. The sand seemed to have vanished, turning into incredibly solid ground. He stomped the rock, hearing dull, heavy thuds.

"Do the ruins really extend this deep?" The idea of digging abandoned him quickly as he continued wandering among the columns and slabs. Before him were the remains of great stepped platforms, their steps carved with peculiar interwoven motifs. Behind him, a disturbing, guttural cry in the night. The plain was extraordinary, something perfectly excavated by the diameter of a sphere.

"Elise! I'm going to check towards the centre. Please shout if you see anything strange!" A couple of claps were enough to make him smile in satisfaction. He relaxed his shoulders, carefully examining every single find. The flowers were coated in a film of ancient, indecipherable Frequency, identical to that on every fragment. As he wandered, that citrusy, sweet scent from the crushed bulbs intoxicated him." It seems to be a temple, terribly large… I really need to stop talking to myself, honestly."

He gave himself a light tap on the forehead, spotting a much larger, strangely luminous slab. He ran toward it, catching his reflection in the smooth surface." Wasn't this also in the church?" Confused, he circled the glass stele, trying to understand the image from those remains of various colours. In white and yellow glass, a woman was depicted in a very long white dress, with a lock of golden hair falling over her breast.

Her face was shattered, yet so similar to the woman carved on the slab: thin lips, a pointed nose, slightly hollow cheeks. Before her, holding her hand, was a man with a thick moustache and a gentle smile. The rest of his face was gashed away, leaving only his body, dressed in an elegant black tunic with reddish edges, to decorate the stained glass.

"It's a wedding, but between whom?" He kept wandering around until he found himself face-first in the sand. Without realising it, he had tripped over what seemed to be a pointed rock jutting from the ground. Lance looked at it more closely, immediately losing his confused expression. He dug his hands beneath the grains, pulling with all his strength. Gradually the rock revealed itself to be a hand; soon after, a head and an arm emerged.

"This isn't a statue…" A strange nausea wrapped him as he tried to understand what, or who, it was. It was a woman with short hair, barely able to cover her pierced nape. Her face was contorted in pain, with a downturned nose and long, thin lips. She wore the remains of an iron armour, bearing a crest depicting a sun with three points and three curves. From her mouth and eyes, a dark, now solidified slime seemed to have oozed. In her arms, still dirty with sand, was a skeleton wrapped in bandages.

Its face was covered, but the few phalanges slipping over her side quickly made him understand that the person had been dead for a long time. His attention was drawn to a black gem, dark and polished almost as much as Hel itself, set into her forehead. Lachesi began to vibrate and heat on his arm. He reached his finger toward her face, brushing it.

"Does she want… to take it for herself?" He thought, watching the bracelet stir beneath his sleeve. Without further hesitation, he grazed the glossy surface with the tip of his nail, and everything went dark immediately. The first sense to awaken was smell, flooded with the acrid odour of smoke. The second was hearing, shaken by echoing screams and the crackling of flames. His palate was invaded by the grim aftertaste of ash.

His eyes snapped open, forcing him to gaze at a sky wrapped in a veil of dense black smoke. Dark columns rose around him, pillars of the night vault. He pressed his palm to the ground, feeling the cold marble jolt him with a discharge of sensation. He got up with difficulty, silently watching the city before him being consumed by flames.

"Where am I?! Where the hell is Lachesi?" He now realised the lightness on his arm as a dark silhouette pierced the clouds: a flying machine of oval shape, with four pairs of mechanical wings and powerful reddish flames supporting its metal skeleton. It opened fire on the base of the structure where he stood, raising violent blazes. Silently, it vanished again into the sky.

"What is this temple?" Lance whispered to himself, getting back to his feet and climbing over the column blocking his way to the colossal white and green staircase, decorated with circular, sinuous motifs. Lance stared in disbelief at the building before him: a mass of marble and gold, with spiral columns as green as the forests. The roof had a great sharp point, like a spearhead, with a curvilinear portal as the entrance, framed by the two rows of columns supporting the pediment.

"The same motifs from the plain!" He lowered his head to look at the marks on the stairs, slowly making his way to the entrance without heeding the continuous explosions behind him. This isn't Hel! My breath is healthy, and for some reason I can't use Vergehen…" However hard he tried, his finger refused to emit even the faintest light from its tip. With every step he felt the earth tremble until he heard shouts break out at the top.

"You're a filthy dog, Sebastian!" A female voice, charged with tension and hatred, was immediately extinguished by the sound of burning air. A beam of green light opened a hole in the smoke, briefly revealing the full moon. Lance rushed to the spot, feeling the hairs on his body stand on end. A new beam of light passed beside him, completely melting the marble.

"I thought you understood my cause. I thought I could count on you… But no! You're a filthy dog like all of them!" A violent greenish explosion blocked his vision as he quickly approached the cries. At the foot of the mausoleum, wrapped in smoke and ruins, were a man and a woman. She shouldered a gigantic black mirror, its edges wrapped in greenish metal. Her hair was light with emerald tips, and she wore armour pierced by numerous rock splinters, with sharp pauldrons of wavy pikes.

"The woman from the statue!" Lance took cover behind the remains of a column, now looking at the man standing below her, a few metres away. The ground beneath his feet was burning, yet he did not move a step. His very long black hair fell over the white wolf's fur on his shoulders, the only garment on his muscular torso. His trousers were double-layered, loose and worn, covered with strange scales of polished rock. The fire highlighted his violet pupils and his dead face, now abandoned by life.

He moved his foot, immediately angering the woman.

"Stop it, Lotte… Please." A series of gleaming spines burst from the ground, piercing her through and through. She groaned, spitting blood but never calming the rage on her pale face.

"All this land, these people, is made of filth who profited from my lady!" Sebastian clenched his fists, pressing his bare soles into the scorching ground.

"Ten years… This massacre has lasted ten years. How many families have you extinguished in the name of your vengeance? How many inhabitants of Helos have been buried under the blows of Termìe and Baroque? I'm tired! Tired of seeing people suffer." A tear began to form beneath his eye"This night will mark the end of this war. This evening will be the dawn of a new generation." Lotte stared at him, bursting into laughter from the depths of her stomach. Sebastian remained there, staring at her, motionless.

"As if I'd stomach this comedy of yours! We were chosen! We are Gods! Only we can lead this little herd of servants and ungrateful whores!" She swept away the spines holding her in place, raising her bloodied hand. An unsettling breeze flowed into her palm, then stopped abruptly. She watched her arm fall to the ground as a gigantic obsidian blade sheared the corner of the pediment behind her. Sebastian stared at her, trembling, weeping copiously.

"I never would have done this. I loved you, and I loved the Princess too…" All his muscles began to tense and contract as he walked with difficulty. Lotte had knelt, clutching her shoulder.

"... BUT YOU RENOUNCED YOUR HUMANITY! HOW CAN YOU LEAD OR HELP IF YOU'VE BEEN REDUCED TO LESS THAN A BEAST! YOU DEVOURED YOUR OWN HEART!" His shout shook the entire city, cracking the rock and opening chasms between the flames. Columns of black rock, sharpened, rose toward the sky. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"No one will follow you any longer in your suicide, Lotte Helos. Killing you now is my punishment for not reaching out to you when I could. If I could die here to save you, I would. But now… I am speaking to a shell of the woman I loved, a cracked doll." He turned his gaze toward the horizon, where a strange luminous mass was dancing.

"Baroque is finished too." A gigantic spear of golden light plunged from the sky, tearing through the night and releasing an aurora of golden flashes that completely swallowed his sight, along with the horizon. Soon after, a tremendous gust of wind extinguished the weaker flames and scattered those already grown, lifting tongues of fire above the kingdom of Helos.

"That Lumiere must have stopped that thing… That demon won't stop me from saving what little remains of these people." Lotte stared at him, snarling, now feral in her manner as she lost more and more blood. With every step, the shards on her fingers accumulated, lengthening and sharpening.

"With Termìe… You've fallen low, with the wretched blood of the Jaeger." Now he stood before her, holding a lance of white rock between his fingers. Their gazes met, and his, once so full of strength and regret, was now extinguished, not unlike that of a soldier freshly dead in the mud.

"The whole world has fallen low." Lotte closed her eyes, letting herself be impaled in silence by his pike. The rock shattered in her flesh, and Sebastian let the lady fall, laying her on the ground.

"If you must pray, do it now. The infection will soon turn your body to stone, and everything you touch." He turned, adjusting his fur and sauntering toward the hell below. He passed Lance, who was silenced by the scene. The boy saw his face, no longer that of a man in whom life flowed. He saw him vanish, wrapped in smoke. A sense of pity and anguish enveloped him, almost forcing him to follow the bloody footprints of that woman.

"I was a fool, and even my death will be pitiful…" Lance followed her, watching as she staggered desperately beyond the temple entrance. She had removed her armour, revealing her glossy skin covered in a strange white limestone. The interior of the mausoleum was made of pure gold and white marble, with enormous columns supporting female statues, each holding its own sun in its arms as if it were their offspring.

The roof was open, and a series of wavy pikes protruded with difficulty from the great complex at the centre, like a gigantic flower of black and green rock. Among its petals lay a golden coffin, decorated with a banner depicting a sun.

"But I loved you. I did everything to give you some relief." Manifesting incredible strength for a body so corroded by limestone and blood, she managed to lift the coffin and force it open. Lance looked around, only now noticing the same metal set into the columns.

"This place is a cemetery…" A certain disgust passed through him as he watched Lotte up close. Her hands greedily rummaged among the jewels and strangely vital flowers. Slowly and carefully, she smiled as she lifted the embalmed body of what seemed to be a woman. Her face was veiled and still anointed with strange, viscous substances. A rivulet of black drool slid from Lotte's lips, staining the corpse.

"But now… We are finally reunited." She smiled, slowly raising her arm, still composed of flesh and blood. Her body was slowly turning to rock, and even her green eyes were growing heavy. She uncovered her forehead, revealing a gem set just below her hairline. She pressed her finger and laboriously lowered the body, brushing her lips against the dead woman's face.

"I love you, Alisse…" Still smiling, she struck the gem on her forehead, cracking it and causing thick black slime to flow from her eyes, now stone. Outside, the mirror resting on the steps began to vibrate and crack. It rose into the air, wrapping everything in green light. In an instant, the colour of emeralds swallowed everything, accompanied only by the sound of shattering glass. Lance was in a white void, suspended in nothing, with a completely naked woman above him, sighing and weeping.

He immediately recognised the wings and the bright colours of those feathers, but everything turned black far too quickly.

"You again, huh? Why are you always suffering?" His vomit spilled onto the sand, his body bent and battered by the rapid change of sensations. He shook his head, trying to calm himself, immediately searching for Elise.

"How much time has passed?!" He slipped among the flowers, staggering as he asked himself too much.

"Fuck... This madness is only growing. Was that the Lost Epoch? Or something even worse. Lotte and Sebastian... Were those two Metas just like me and the others?" Elise saw him leap, pale, among the ruins, almost terrified, as he came toward her.

"Elise… Did something happen?" he murmured, panting and clutching his chest. The woman stared at him, confused, dropping the flowers and rushing to help him. He was cold to the touch, enough to give her chills.

"Lance, you called me a few minutes ago…" Lance's eyes widened as he slowly sat among the flowers. Elise followed, lying down beside him. Lance looked at her, smiling, then hid his face in his hands.

"I saw something… Maybe it's because of Hel. It's making my hallucinations worse." The boy massaged his forehead with his index fingers while she watched him, stroking his shoulder.

"If it makes you happy, even though I'm afraid, I'm glad you're with me." Lance turned to look at her, lying smiling among the colourful flowers. Her blonde hair rested among the stems, and her bluish eyes were strangely hypnotic.

"Elise… Do you know if the forbidden scriptures mention a god with four wings, all coloured?" The girl brought a finger to her lips, shaking her head. Lance nodded silently, lifting his head toward the sky.

"Hey, do you want to give up on staying here?" Lance lay down completely, leaving only his shoulders against the remains of the column.

"What do you mean? Of course I want to leave this desert!" She huffed, and he laughed, shaking his head.

"I meant the cathedral… It might be difficult, but I could ask some people I know to take you in, or even recruit you directly with me. Do you still want to live like this?" Her ears perked up, almost as if they'd caught an alarm. She thought for a moment, closing her eyes and rocking on the ground.

"It's not a bad idea, but I think I can still be of help. I want to investigate Termìe's past and welcome all the lost souls here with me, no matter how hard it is. As you said, I can still believe." Lance nodded, sitting up and brushing the sand from himself.

"Well said, Elise. I agree with you. I'll do my best to help as many people as you want!" He pounded a fist against his chest, but something in the air made him turn toward the edge of the crater. He moved his hand to Lachesi, slowly stretching his fingers. A beam of light illuminated the plain green, only to be promptly split by Lance's blade, smoking and burning.

"So you too are a disgusting scrap who defiles the Goddess. What a pitiful existence." Abbondius appeared, gripping the black shard above his shoulder and with a long black mantle tied around his body. A wave of burning rage enveloped Lance, making him grind his teeth. Elise immediately hid behind him, trembling and clutching his hips.

"Did you think I was going to die here? Instead, you do me the favour of bringing your shitty face here. What a joy to be able to skin you sooner than expected!" A long, sharp grin stretched across his face as he chuckled. Elise let go, murmuring his name as she backed away.

"A demon…" Abbondius smiled, charging the next shot with the shard. Lance dashed to the side, kicking up sand and shooting upward. The beam of light spread through the air, only to be immediately cut apart by his blade. He returned to the ground, appearing before Abbondius. The shockwave swept away the dunes, but the priest had vanished.

"You're more troublesome than expected." Lance spun around sharply, cleaving the air with all his strength. Abbondius grabbed his shoulder, trying to hurl him away, but Lance simply turned, impassive.

"Wrong choice." He whispered with a smile, raising the blade and delivering a powerful slash. The desert split in two as Abbondius raised a new weapon beneath the light of Hel. Lance turned immediately, grabbing the weapon with his hand, losing his index and middle fingers. A cloud of grains rose into the sky, and the first to emerge was the boy, wrapped in a black and white discharge.

"Diabolical in every aspect. I knew there was something abnormal about you." Abbondius emerged from the dust, his arms equipped with two long silver blades, like the arms of a cross, directly mounted on his wrists. The metal gleamed with a white glow, vibrating slightly.

"You carry three relics on your body… And none of them will stop you from dying." Lance smiled, his right eye red and shot with blood. Without a word, he raised the blade and gave a nod.

"Dodge." A beam of Frequency grazed his shoulder, tearing away the skin. He retreated to the side, widening the distance between them. His flesh began to regenerate, pervaded by a golden light. Lance stared at him, still smiling, never pointing a finger.

"He's fast and terribly dangerous, but he can't win against my faith…" For some reason, Abbondius found himself staring at Lance's back without having even moved his head. His body went rigid for an instant, realising only now what had happened. Lance turned, cracking the fingers of his left hand with that malicious grin.

"Did he break my neck?" It had happened too quickly, too fast even for his mind to grasp. He grabbed his head, setting it back on his shoulders, panting heavily. Lance turned, pulling his revolver from Lachesi.

"I didn't expect you to regenerate… A real pity for you." The mantle around him tightened, irradiating his veins with a yellowish hue. His eyes turned very pale, and his muscles swelled. Lance stared at him with a smile, aiming. Both vanished, unleashing numerous explosions among the dunes. The boy skidded, leaving trails of flames and electricity behind as he kept firing. With every pull of the trigger, new holes opened, and new howls drew closer.

"Is that really Lance?" Elise crouched, watching that same boy obtain the same look as a ghost. Abbondius's blades carved the air, aimed at Lance's head as they hissed. Lance laughed as the metal shaved tiny strips of flesh from his chin, preparing to transform his relic once again. Without warning, Hel lit up violet, detonating a beam of blackish light. The sand was completely blasted away, along with the clouds in the sky. Abbondius appeared from the mantle spread on the ground, catching the weapons in mid-air.

A shadow suddenly loomed over him, making the air sizzle.

"Got you…" Lance smiled, his dark arm wrapped in a dense white light. Abbondius smiled, raising the black shard above him. From a distance, a disgusting, guttural cry covered the sound of the explosion. A colossal cloud of ash, dust, and flame stained the sky, lifting a gigantic wave of white sand. Even Elise had to take refuge behind the ruins.

"Be a good dog for your father!" Abbondius smiled as Lance stared with bloodshot eyes at the corpse of the beast at his feet. Its bones were clenched around the black relic. The creature's face was gasping, trying to pull the crystal toward itself. He raised his foot, crushing it definitively.

"Don't you know mercy, boy?" He smiled, watching Lance smeared in violet slime. The boy gave no sign; he simply appeared before him with a closed fist. Just before the spark of Vergehen could make contact, Lance deflected it to the side, sweeping away an entire portion of the desert and uncovering the armour and rock beneath.

"Interesting. So you understand the innocence of others." He grinned, revealing from his mantle a terrified girl covered in scratches and bruises. Abbondius hurled her at him, forcing Lance to catch her, his face livid.

"I need to recover the ritual's vessel, and this one won't do…" He explained, appearing atop a small mountain of sand a few metres away. Lance was beginning to seethe, clenching his fists so tightly that gashes opened.

"I'll kill you!" He snarled ferociously, frightening Agnes behind him, who clung to his leg almost unconsciously.

"Once the ritual is complete, I will open a passage to where the holy goddess rests. I will be her flesh and spirit, and I will reign over every world in her name!" He foamed as he spoke, rejoicing to the point of trembling. He caught his breath after a long laugh.

"But to do that, I must create a stable vessel. Elise is here for that reason." Lance pointed the revolver directly at his face, but Abbondius wagged his finger, grinning with all his teeth showing.

"If you do that, you'll rot here, and in that case I'd still have the alternative…" The boy lowered the weapon without taking his furious eyes off that foul figure.

"Which is? If I smash your skull, I doubt you'll come back." Abbondius grabbed his mantle, lifting it so Lance could see it clearly. The outside was glossy and black; inside, it was lined with luxurious silk as red as blood. Strange distortions occasionally formed within, like ripples in water.

"The mantle allows me to travel to a piece I left outside. Once outside, I could also use the other girl who came with you." Just hearing those words made Lance turn pale. The surrounding sand began to vibrate, rising from the ground.

"A pretty girl, and with enough blood to be used for the ritual. I'll hang her naked on the cross to drain her. I'll feed her only the ground-up remains of the dead, then pierce her heart through and shower Elise with her blood!" Lance's eyes widened as he raised his palm to the sky. The sky darkened as the clouds gathered above him. On his skin and face, he felt dozens of hands caressing him while whispers urged him on. Abbondius put away his weapons, smiling." Lachesi... D evour everything…"

The relic blazed, detonating a black ray into the sky. From his fingers to his chest, everything was covered in scales as black as night and sharp as an assassin's blade. His eyes turned golden as the blood in his body flowed from his pores, trying to bind to the metal. From the sky, a deluge of black slime began. Lance stared at him vacantly, raising his arm.

"Look… Even this hell weeps for you." Abbondius's shoulder fell to the ground along with his arm. With no time even to react, his leg was torn away as well, without the use of a blade. He collapsed into the sand, golden blood gushing from his wounds. Lance's foot pierced his chest, devastating his ribcage and spine.

"Even your blood is miserable gold, deplorable!" He seized Abbondius by the neck and hurled him like a doll across the entire desert. He caught him in the air, grabbed his one remaining leg, and slammed him down in a mix of black and yellow rain.

"Incredible! This demon is the King of Every Heresy!" The Father smiled as Lance's blows shredded what little remained of his bones and muscles. He was a skeleton held together by golden plates and relics of the kingdom of Termìe. Lance raised his fist, channelling all the accumulated Frequency into a black maul. Hel thundered as the sand thickened.

"I will pray to every god in existence to ensure that I can tear you apart again…" An emerald-green glow struck him, sweeping Abbondius away and completely charring part of the desert. In the distance, the remains of the beast had reanimated, wrapped in a verdant aura. Its face was now a mask shaped like the sun, and its sword a colossal mountain of iron and bone with a wavy guard and a triangular, squared blade.

"Excellent! I can vanish!" Abbondius regenerated with difficulty, losing the gold in his veins. Lance emerged from the smoke, completely unharmed, a thin white forelock slightly covering his forehead. He turned immediately, watching the beast with a snarl.

"All the sand you see is the remains of its victims. I wonder which monster will come out alive." Lance turned, grinding his teeth at the sight of Elise's head slowly vanishing into the mantle.

"YOU'RE A WORM, ABBONDIUS! A BASTARD DOG!" Elise vanished completely as his figure grew smaller. With a smile, he brought his index finger to his forehead.

"True strength is not for conquering… BUT FOR ENDURING! ENDURING THE IMMENSE HATRED FOR ONESELF TO COMPLETE THE WILL OF THE GODDESS!" Lance stared at him, pale-faced, blood spraying from his eyes in crimson tears. In the distance, the beast advanced, carving furrows with its blade.

"When I get out of here… I will bathe in your blood, Abbondius!" His voice thundered through Hel, shaking the entire desert and even halting the creature. Agnes behind him was terrified, stained with sweat and worse. Lance looked at her, grabbed her, and carried her in a flash among the ruins.

"Stay here. Cover your ears and close your eyes." He laid her down while she kept clinging to him, delirious and crying.

"Don't go! That thing is a monster; you'll die!" Lance saw her eyes smeared with tears, then looked at his arm, now far from that of a human being. He nodded, slashing his left wrist with his nail. The blood gushed out before him, stopping before touching the ground and beginning to fuse with the metal, extending his armour over part of his face into a mask of glossy red and black.

"This place is making me mad..."

"The same goes for me…" Lachesi fused with the liquid, vibrating softly as the creature studied him from the top of the crater. His blade extended from his palm, immediately activating the mechanism on the guard. The heavy block of iron was wrapped in Lachesi's Frequency, crashing heavily to the ground. Beneath the rain, a thought was born in his head.

"I too am a monster." He smiled, vanishing and crossing blades with the beast beneath the lightning of that hell.