Deriliams couldn't die.

They could get hurt, bleed, get parts blown to pieces, but not die.

The concept of Death wasn't engraved on Their existence. And so, being above it made Them impossible to kill.

For that, Cardomos’ Embodiment and sacrifice hadn’t killed, only harmed, Andras. But, that gave them several seconds while the Deriliam recovered.

It wasn’t His flesh that they needed, after all.

“Frenese.” She lightly patted the Devil’s sides, close to his mouth. “I need you to take me to the center, where the Chained Man is.”

“There’s a spatial distortion there.” He said. “But you already know that.”

Velvet smiled. “Just as close as you can, I’ll take it from there.”

…

Creftalia wiped the glass bottles clean. Not because they were dirty, but because doing so counted as doing something, and, doing something meant that nothing else could currently be asked from her.

Not that anyone was waiting for her to do something, busy as they were searching for Dianthus. And it wasn’t like she could offer any help, being a novice mage and all that. Even Winter had disappeared hours ago to who-knows-wher-

Bang!

The door slammed open, a metallic, bloody smell coming from the gross, multi-limbed silhouette on its umbral.

Crash!

The bottle on Creftalias’ hands fell down, breaking into a million pieces as she shrieked, jumping backwards.

“Creftalia, don’t shout. It’s me.” The monster said.

She didn’t listen, retreating to the ends of the lab. But, there was only one exit, and not really that much space to hide… maybe she could get into a cauldron? She did fit in them.

As she lunged towards one, a hand grabbed her by the clothes, pulling her back and raising her into the air.

“Noo! Don’t eat me! I don’t know what I did wrong, but I’m sorry!”

“Creftalia.”

“Waaa!”

Silence followed, as she first flapped her arms around, before curling into a ball in the air. The monster wasn’t eating her. Huh, weird.

Maybe it had eaten all her companions first, and now it was full, planning to store her up before consumption, like she did with her snacks…

“I don’t want to end like a cupcake…”

“I think you’ll be more like a frozen sausage.”

“A sausage… no…”

“Or a slug.”

“Not a slug!” The weight of the accusation made her turn around in shock to face the monster. It had released its previous victim on the ground when it went after her, but the fact that it had three arms was still…

No, not three arms. It was grabbing an amputated arm, it wasn’t from the main body. And it wasn’t an it, but a she. A she still covered in blood, wherever it was hers or from someone else, she didn’t know.

“Winter!” When did she get back? And why did she come for her in that state?!

That’s when she noticed the arm still moving, the perfectly manicured, long red nails trying to claw at Winter. The skin had a very good care too, almost like porcelain. It was probably from a noble. A noble that fought Winter and lost.

Then, the body…

“Prepare the materials to contain this arm before the Luacae arrive.”

“W-what materials?” Nervously, she eyed the aggressive, amputated, only restrained because of Winter’s grip, arm, afraid of coming a single centimeter closer.

For a mage bodypart, to continue working after death… it was from at least a family head, which had two open Escas!

“What materials?” Winter looked back at her, parroting her question.

After a long silence, it dawned on her. She was the Remembrance mage here, she was the one supposed to know which materials were needed!

“Hands… aggressive hands are from the Wrath Paradigm… to temporarily restrain them I… we… you need to nail them down with electric scorpion’s stings onto a metallic surface.” Creftalia looked to the sides, locating the materials. “I’ll get them ready.”

Free from Winter’s grip, she skittered throughout the lab, opening and closing drawers. “Is the mage dead?”

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Winter turned to look at the corpse. “Yes, but the brain is mostly intact, so the memories-”

“Not that one!” Of course she knew that the corpse was, well, a corpse! “The hand one!”

“Oh.” Winter looked down, as if she didn’t remember if the mage she just ripped that arm from was dead or not. “She got away… I think.”

Creftalia pressed her lips, but didn’t press the issue, continuing to gather all the things and moving towards one of the tables when she was done.

“I will hold the arm still, and you nail it down.”

“I can’t.” Creftalia took a step back after setting the materials on the table, hearing Winter sigh and open her mouth, probably to tell her that she could very much use a hammer. “Don’t… don’t make me do it.”

“You can’t keep doing this forever.” Winter said, but she also didn’t push the issue further, stepping forward and grabbing the hammer.

Winter didn’t need time to prepare, for using weapons was her speciality. Soon, the first hit went through, the wet noise of flesh breaking down, the curling, spasmodic movements of the fingers, the blood-

Creftalia stopped looking, eyes setting on the corpse next to the door.

A mage she had seen previously, another family head, only his upper half remaining. Bite wounds covered that middle zone, going as deep as to appear inside the body, through flesh, organs and bones.

Even his face had been bitten, part of his cheek missing, showing his jaw. And yet, his eyes were crystal clear, blinking and staring at her.

Creftalia closed her own eyes.

No. He wasn’t looking at her. She imagined that. Her scheduled purification date was close, so imagining things was normal. Yes.

It was simply because of the blood smell. She was simply overwhelmed by it. Yes.

And the noise of Winter nailing down the arm.

Even so, she didn’t open her eyes back. It was better that way, not having to see it. She wouldn’t be able to forget if she did, after all.

Unlike the Knowledge Paradigm, which was part Apathy, part Greed, the Reminiscence only shared the Greed side, the other one being Grief. She couldn’t simply ignore the disgusting moments like Velvet did. No, her Paradigm forced her to cling onto those feelings.

Forever.

“... Lia.”

“Creftalia. It’s done.”

She opened her eyes, meeting Winter’s. And then she furrowed her nose. “Aren’t the Luacae coming?”

“Yes, we need one of their heads to access the memories.”

“Then…?”

“Shortly, the head they are bringing is delicate. We will wait for them at the entrance.”

“No! Then go take a shower!”

Winter squinted slightly, dried blood still on her face, on her clothes, on her skin, on her long, white hair. “There is no time for that…”

“You… as the right hand of the Queen, you need to be presentable!”

Hitting where she knew it hurted, Creftalia saw Winter flinch back, as if she, a novice mage, just slapped a mage with Two Escas, her face twisting in panic before disappearing through the door, whose frame she had kicked down not long ago.

At least take the corpse with you… Shaking the towel she was using to clean the bottles, she covered his face.

“You were probably awful in life… but all of us are.” And mages left no soul after death, so saying something like ‘Maybe next life it’ll be better’ was useless.

The Luacae… Dianthus’ mother is one of them. But she can’t come here. She was forbidden to meet his son, due to Dianthus’ own wishes, and the Queen’s own orders.

Creftalia didn’t know the reason behind that, and, the time she asked Dianthus, he took her outside to spar for several hours.

She never asked again.

…

Frenese ran across the void, chains parting to ease his way, closing after him to slow the chasing Devils.

The dream was always bigger than she thought it was, even with the chains helping with finding the way to the center. But they weren’t too far away, since Frenese had avoided the other Devils before, moving closer to the Chained Man.

Lothrigern had changed from bothering but avoiding Andras to outright attacking Him, slowing His recovery. Velvet saw some sort of floating green gas, followed by a burning smell without fire, but didn’t look deeper.

Two Devils were approaching them, faster than Frenese, even with the chains help.

I can’t let them get too close to me or the center… Even when falling like cards under Lothrigern, each Devil could kill Velvet in an instant, in different and creative ways that she didn’t want to find out. So, she needed some way to slow them for real.

“Throw me!” Frenese didn’t need to be told twice, digging his claws on the void to twist his body around, tossing her with the same strength that he faced the first Devil that arrived.

His three mouths opened in a silent snap, fangs showing and drool dripping down, his hell starting to manifest under him. Like a train, he lunged himself against the Devil, who, unable to slow down or stop in time, collided against him.

Velvet rolled down, using her arms to cover her head and folding her legs, hitting the ground with force, one or two ribs cracking. But that was a small price to pay to get enough safe distance from her pursuers.

With a cough, she pushed herself up first using the void under her, and then her legs, tumbling the last steps before coming almost face to face with the Chained Man.

Then she fell back into her knees, as if she was mirroring his position, also forced to kneel down under the chains.

“Being always like this must suck.” She laughed, tasting the blood on her mouth.

She pressed her hands and forehead against the area surrounding the Chained Man, an invisible force pushing back. It wasn’t like a solid wall, but like the river currents, preventing her from swimming against their wishes.

That push wasn’t from any sort of spell or formation, but from the Chained Man’s real size, the spatial distortion used as a way to compress his body down. A body so colossal, it could’ve never fit inside Andras’ prison. Without Him employing some tricks like this one.

But that meant that she didn’t even need to reach the normal one, since, by touching the spatial distortion, she had already reached him.

With a push, her arms sank into the void, losing their sense of touch, of pain and of temperature, as she blindly gripped onto something, whatever she could reach.

“Someday I’ll come back for the whole of you, I promise. But for now, I can only take a piece.” She pressed, feeling her arms become chains, wrapping with the ones outside the compressed space, using all their combined strength to pull.

Velvet didn’t know if she had managed to grab something, but, for now, she could only have faith.