Chapter 143: Last Stand

He didn't have the time or luxury to read through the stats he gained, but a quick glance told him had levelled up to 5. A new quest rang out, this one in his mind, rather than as a notification.

-

[Main Quest: "Lady of a starving Star" (Chain <3>)

Condition: After making it through the treacherous mansion, the individual has finally reached the last lady of the court. This final foe stands between you and the shattering of the crimson sun. Do not falter. Break apart this long forgotten vestige and bring a bit of peace to those who lost companions to it.

Reward: Variable.]

-

The text sounded in his ears, and he knew all of it in a moment. The howls from the servants assaulted his senses next, all of them roaring as one. From the throne, the woman wheezed as her finger lowered, but her eyes never left Mercury. They burned with malice, fury, and desperate hunger. He knew she wanted to reclaim the pieces he stole from their nexus.

Mercury had perhaps finally fulfilled part of his name. He'd become a thief, taking what belonged to someone else. He didn't feel bad about it, either. Looking into those sunken, black and red eyes, there was nothing left but hatred and a need to consume.

Whoever this person had once been, the crimson sun burned out any humanity in them. Perhaps she'd forsaken it by choice, perhaps it had been taken, it didn't matter. Her blood-smeared face had no laugh lines. This woman knew cruelty above all.

Staring her down, Mercury didn't buckle. Perhaps, some time ago, he would have been afraid. If he had been newly reincarnated, he would have almost certainly backed down. But he wasn't. Steve had long since grown to be more.

He stepped forward, and the servants descended. But he had not come alone.

Within a moment of the howl, Mercury's party moved in to help. Ruah created shields and threw spikes of ice. Juno disappeared in flashes of mist, distracting the servants. Jirluc used a hooked spear to entangle them, throwing the servants sideways and into Larash's traps.

One of the servants approached Mercury, but he was unperturbed. He smoothed the ripples of his mind, and felt calm wash over him. Of course, he left certain types, still feeling the anger and grim determination burn in his heart, but as he burnt even the last wisps of fear away, Mercury compressed his mind.

The rijn he created now was no longer a forging hammer. It had become heavier, grander, and stronger. It smashed into the servant like a wrecking ball, taking the creature off its feet and sending it spiraling through the air, landing in a spot of rubble.

Black-red eyes locked with purple ones, and Mercury could feel reality lurch around him.

Up turned to down, and right to left. The shades of crimson leaking through the window turned dark and malicious, formless tendrils suddenly reaching out for him. The monster wearing human skin turned beautiful, and Mercury could feel affection try to take hold of him.

"Joke's on you, bitch. I'm gay," he said, the effects crumbling against his mind. The monster turned hideous again, the malicious sunlight grabbing onto him. But Mercury didn't break eye contact once. He stepped forward, the Dream of Starvation clicking against the stone floor as it appeared from sparks.

As he walked, the world began to twist more and more. A sense of wrong pushed against his head, trying to twist his thoughts, but could not find purchase. Finally, once he got within just a few meters of the crumbling throne, the creature on it roared.

Her screech was shrill and loud, and Mercury could feel a trickle of blood brush against his fur from his ears. He gritted his teeth as the world spun some more. Except, it just didn't stop spinning.

The stone floor twisted to be a ceiling, spinning into a cascade of red, a waterfall of crimson malice as it vanished beneath his feet. Instead, he found the sound of steel against stone muffled, his paws now touching down on a thick sheet of ember ash.

No longer was he in a crumbling house at all. The mansion had disappeared, and so had all the sounds of fighting around him. It was silent, entirely.

Mercury found himself on the ashen fields, except they were even more lifeless. There was no rain of ash, no movement at all except the sky. The crimson sun was much closer, big enough to blanket almost the entire firmament, and he could see ripples travelling across its surface.

All around him, there was nothing. Even the ash beneath his feet felt dead, crumbling away to dust as he stepped on it. In a world painted crimson, Mercury alone was left facing the last lady.

Before him, her figure shifted. Nails twisted into jagged claws, her lips splitting her face wide and revealing rows upon rows of fangs. Her black eyes burned crimson, the sun reflecting in them.

And Mercury? He found himself just as he always did in his dreamscape.

She had apparently dragged him into his . This was a place where desire made power, where she wasn't constricted by her atrophied muscles, and her failing bones.

In truth, Mercury had been dragged onto her battlefield. The malevolent star in the sky rained down light that sapped his strength and battered against his will. Yet, all of it seemed to fade as he took a single, deep of the rotting air.

It smelled horrendous. Clotting blood mixed with the aroma of rot, for a combination repulsive enough to almost make him lurch.

Yet, for his purposes, the quality of the air didn't matter this time. He drew it in nonetheless, then held it for a handful moments, and let it out. Time seemed to slow for him as he performed this one act, and he felt the golden veil crack around him. Ihn'ar had cleared his mind, and his warded off the sickening influence.

Somehow the facsimile of a woman had not reacted yet. Perhaps she was waiting for him to be tired out by her red patron, but it was not happening. Since she was waiting for him so politely, Mercury decided to step forward, yet the moment his paw touched the floor again, the creature lunged.

Her form blurred as she darted towards him, Mercury's eyes barely keeping up, yet he understood. He saw her muscles ripple for a moment, bulging in her shoulder and arm, and he countered. Lowering himself closer to the ground, he raised a claw to redirect her slash, letting it brush aside.

She followed up by smashing her other arm downwards, coming at him from above, which Mercury dodged with a sidestep and a push from his rijn. His mind was already split, ystirs working to analyze her movements, and his other zejyn maintaining the compression.

Somehow, as the blow struck the ground hard enough it shook, Mercury found time to draw another . He felt the sun try to sap him, to take his power away, yet it found itself not his master. The second time he was hit by the smell, it already felt familiar, like a distant companion.

As he breathed out, the woman screeched and brought her right hand to bear again. She spun on her clawed feet, attempting to backhand his face, yet Mercury shifted back a little, his legs bending to allow the movement. His weight was transferred onto his back legs, as he raised his front up.

Instead of parrying, he accelerated her movement, his claws piercing her forearm and sending her off balance with the extra speed. Mercury's second arm struck out at her in that moment, leaving a small cut on her calf.

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The ash danced as they moved. It flew into the air for moments before fizzling to nothing, disintegrated by the hateful sun. The last lady twisted her body, stopping her swipe and screeched again, the noise stunning Mercury for a moment. Her claw dashed forward, sneaking a gash across his cheek and snout, crimson drops staining the floor.

Her own black blood was dripping onto the floor as well, burning holes into the dead ash. Seeing it felt strangely wrong, as though spectating the moment a stranger was lowered into a coffin.

Shaking off the distracting thoughts, Mercury took another . He activated for brief moments to conserve stamina as he lunged forward, crashing into the woman's ribs, before turning his head and sinking his teeth into her biceps with a .

Screaming, she shook her arm so fast it blurred again, sending Mercury off it and crashing into the floor. The light of the sun didn't wait for a second chance, and solidified light suddenly grabbed his ankles, leaving him shackled.

Immediately, Mercury felt roar. It had been yelling, granting him power as he was dragged into a realm he didn't want to be, but with two chains layered onto each other, the Skill refused.

As another blow came for Mercury's head, his strained his muscles past their limits, using the effects still inherited form . Now though, they were magnified manyfold, the chains holding him buckling and then breaking, shattering the light and sending red sparks flying.

His mind solidified, his rijn forming a shield, and slowing down the attack, as Mercury away. The monster missed.

Its form kept twisting as they thought, becoming more efficient, more deadly. Desire became shape, in this place, and its hunger only grew as the fight drew on. Mercury felt ripples in his heart, of anger, of hate, and he crushed them. His emotions were a target for the enemy as well, yet kept them as calm as the heart of a storm.

Using the short moment the creature morphed, Mercury began to spin some . He took another , and the stench of decay was now palpable. It faded into the background, no longer a distant companion, and more a familiar face.

The web he spun crashed into the woman not a second later, and she had torn it apart even fast than that. Tiny pieces of silk clung to her skin, yet she simply ignored them. They were a small and insidious killer.

Mercury couldn't even find it in himself to smile as he evaded another few blows. The sun seemed to grow darker in the sky above as the two down below, one cat, one monster, exchanged blows.

Cuts appeared on both their bodies, drops of red and black blood mixing in the dead ash below. Mercury was distantly aware of his muscles working, and even overworking themselves, yet he felt no pain or discomfort. There was a heat blooming in his body he knew came from , as his stamina roiled in time with his breath.

He burnt mana to block attacks, or strike out faster than he ever should be able to. To turn on a dime as he pushed his muscles beyond themselves, to duck and bob and weave.

The creature he faced also ever shifted, her form barely recognizable anymore. Her limbs had turned sharp and dangerous, claws extending and retracting with her swipes. Her tongue would lash out at him, laced in acidic spittle, and singe his skin. Sometimes, when he attacked, her body would contort unreasonably, and then her limbs would smash into him with more weight than they should be able to.

Yet, Mercury knew he was winning, for now. The thread accumulated on her, small pieces of silk slowly driving the ravenous creature mindless. Its crimson patron, the star in the sky, was feeding it power, but it could not sustain its mind.

And even though he knew all of that, stretched himself past what should be possible, and seemed to be gaining an advantage, Mercury felt as though things were wrong.

The air had become too still, the light too dark, then too bright. He wasn't granted the luxury of gazing at the sky, yet he could feel the change in the air. He tasted it, the rot, the smell of blood, travelled upwards.

But he was occupied. Mercury smoothed over the worry in his head, drawing back a state of calm and immersing himself further in his ihn'ar. He wasn't trained in combat, yet somehow, the strange state of understanding seemed perfectly suited for it. If he lost it, he would die.

Standing on a razor's edge, he danced through the clouds of ash, stretching as far as it could go. He turned a slash from above to the side with his rijn, and snuck a blow to the thigh through, watching as the muscles shrunk a little, only to regenerate moments later. Bits of clung to where he had cut, slowing down the creature's assault.

He ducked under a sideways swing, jumped over a lash from its tongue and slashed it's stomach with , leaving a thin, black gash. Then, he rolled aside from a stomp, and used to quickly jump out of range of the claw coming at him from below.

The monster reacted immediately, lunging at him again, and slashing towards where he would land, yet her aim was thrown off. was slowing her thoughts, worsening her predictions, and Mercury evaded with a skillful use of and his own rijn to push him aside.

Taking a deep , his eyes narrowed further, mana boiling in his veins as he went on the offensive again. With his dodge, he was to the side and behind the last lady, jumping on her back and tearing a deep line with the Dream of Starvation. The monster screamed and shook, but the claws only dug themselves in deeper. A half second passed like that, filled with the monster's screams, until Mercury's luck finally ran out.

All colour vanished for a moment, leaving the world in black and white, as a crushing presence descended from above. The crimson sun had been gathering its power, and now all of it struck down on Mercury like a thunderbolt.

He felt that roared against this, again his confinement, yet he could not move a finger's width. The last lady shook him off with a frown, now that he could no longer hold on, and its maw widened in what he could only guess was a grin.

With bloodshot eyes, the lady lurched at him, dragging her bloodied body through the ash, the only other sound that of her blood dripping onto the floor. Mercury was lying, prone, struggling against his inability to move. It felt as though every bit of his body was trapped in a vice, clamping him down and holding him tight. There was no room to even wiggle.

Panic bubbled up in him, but had it settled down. He sunk deeper into ihn'ar, searching for anything to help him. To stop from hyperventilating, he drew another deep , the ability struggling against his confinement. Yet, it couldn't break through. Rather than him drawing breath at all, the air rushed into his lungs by itself.

It was a small consolation as he watched death walk towards him. The last lady's maw stretched open even further, he fangs growing large enough to pierce him all the way through. His mind raced, desperately searching for a way out, looking at the air for something, anything to save him.

And where there was nothing, something responded.

He saw ethereal threads resting in the gaps in space. He saw that the ash on the floor had none struck around it, and the flakes that did touch the strings disintegrated. He grasped the nothingness that hung so heavy in the air here.

had made him familiar with the air of this place, and now he grasped the gaps in between it, the ever far stretching . The place where there were no tring, the anchors for the Dreamweave itself.

And then, as he pierced the second veil, as the dream once more was stripped of another layer before his eyes, Mercury saw the threads around himself. He was wrapped in them, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, in strange knots and patterns he couldn't discern. But he didn't have to. He simply asked the to shift a little, and the faint strings ripped.

Suddenly free, Mercury's mind focused on the lady again, her maw closing around him, and it raced. took his thoughts far beyond what they should be capable of. reinforced it to hold, as roared with the essence of freedom and .

His mind was in two zeyjn, both of them feverishly searching for a combination, for anything to save him, and he knew he needed a shield.

He reached out to the threads, to the thousands that were around him, grabbed them with his mind and wove, faster than he ever should have. He knew what he needed, knew what he had to make, strung them together as he understood it all. The thing he made was something he knew so well, something he had seen so many days.

He it up, visualizing the tiniest details, and guided the strings to form a shape.

Then, his time was over, and the monster's jaws slammed shut. Well, they tried to. What stood between Mercury and certain death was something so ordinary it had no place in this dead hellscape. A thick stack of paper, high enough to wrench the lady's jaw apart, stood stacked in her mouth.

Immediately, the threads dulled in Mercury's eyes, and a headache beyond any other hit him, but worked its magic. pitched in, he felt, having just defied death, and Mercury lashed out once more.

His whipped through the air, tearing monstrously thick skin from skin and shedding black blood. With all his mind behind it, Mercury attempted to cut what stood before him.

With the crimson sun spent of energy, nothing was there to knit its flesh anymore. The skin resisted for a moment, then buckled, gave in, and was sliced open. His strike extended, past the creature's body as Mercury twisted, drawing a silver line through the air, then through the sky.

He had seen the fabric of this dream, seen the threads coalesce, and while he was blind to them now, he remembered. He carved through the of this place, the strike going far past the tip of his Dream of Starvation. It was a gash that ran across the crimson sun, and the malevolent star's luck finally ran out.

The lady's body crumbled, blood gushing forth as though from a fountain as her stomach was cut in twain.

A silver line arced across the sky, through the crimson sun, splitting it in two as well.

The deed was done.

[Killed the Last Lady.]

[Killed the Crimson Sun.]

And the dream crumbled around him.