‘Carefully’ was not a word found in Cer’s vocabulary.

Her pace did not slow down despite Frost’s warning, though it did not mean she ignored her. Rather, it was because Cer did not feel any changes brought upon her by her Heightened Emotional State.

Still, Frost kept close enough where it would be impossible to miss her Corruption window.

Following her into the foot of her ruined village revealed branching pathways used by horses. Beneath the gravel and the weeds hid a cobblestone path. It led deeper towards the village, the other directions to others and one of the destroyed neighboring human-controlled towns.

Cer instead walked off the beaten path.

“Our Sanctuary was kept a secret from a lot of people. Triplets – no, four children with red eyes were too much of a treasure to let people know about. Red eyes meant that you had a special power. Not always though, and those kinds of people were always sold exclusively to insane clients. Take me for example. I didn’t have any powers until I received Serum S. Res was always loved, and Ber was always the strongest.”

The mystery of the red eyes was not known by Nav nor Lailah. Anna on the other hand, mentioned that red eyes could be linked in some way to Sinder, or the Facility of the Old World.

There was a warning like that, wasn’t there? About people’s eyes turning red. Or was it gold? Does Michaela know anything about that?

“None. Michaela was not involved in the Facility itself. That was up to the role of the Apostles. Lailah, however, recalls that iterations of the Captured Star – did not all have red eyes. Only the Captured Star itself did. It was the Captured Star with the consciousness of ‘Her’. The warning you are thinking of refers to how those with golden eyes must never interact with the Captured Star.”

Then is it an inheritance of the Light? It might be better to call it a repressed trait, maybe. Everyone has a piece of the Light in the end.

“Possibly. It would explain why the Triplets, Raoul and Revy were able to integrate Serum S into their bodies. Angels were, after all, born from that Light through the Arbiter. It would make sense that beings with more Light will be able to receive the blood of an Angel.”

Yeah… Otherwise, they end up dying miserably.

Indeed. This was the theory Frost had of the red eyes, though there were Demons and races that possessed such eyes too, albeit it was incomparable to what the Triplets possessed. It was their eyes that Puritas protected.

But was it Puritas that wanted the red eyes in the first place? No one had an inkling of an idea why, aside from perhaps creating far more powerful Impuritas. It would explain why they were explicitly targeted by them.

“Raoul got into more trouble than me.” Cer resumed as they finally reached the first homes of her village. “He was collected one day, only to come back a week later with a bag of severed hands. An entire region of Grandis was destroyed by a Demi-human child. Can you believe it? I couldn’t either.”

It was nothing spectacular; just mud, sticks and leaves thrown together as revealed by the Interrogating Clock. Piles of dirt transformed into these humble structures that were far too small to fit a family of more than four, and too fragile to withstand the powerful winds of Grandis.

Yet they persevered like the lotus in a bog.

The flames consumed those homes in an instant like the waves of a tsunami. Memories fueled the fires. Pictures, stuffed teddy bears, the flowers – the people themselves; they were all reduced to ashes as an Order of Puritas invaded, carrying the bloody scrolls that condemned them for a crime they never committed.

Cer however, stopped by the edge of a shallow stream. The ripples hid the cavernous depths. Beneath the edge of the brook were rapids that had swallowed many.

“I still, to this day, don’t know if it was ever true. But I couldn’t be prouder of my big brother. He and I used to be close. I’ve swam in this river before.” She dipped her tail into it.

Again, not a single ripple formed, and the surface calmed when her reflection appeared.

“Once because I was an idiot. Another because I stole bread from a town upstream. The bloodied me, with my hands tied and tail chopped, came back stuffed in a bag right here. Raoul found me. You can picture what happened to that town next.” Cer savored the memory with a melancholic smile.

Though she must have been traumatized and scared, she looked fondly at it because she remembered the warmth of her brother.

“He’d come to save me every time I was in trouble. I wasn’t the smartest person in the village. Raoul blamed himself sometimes because it was no secret that he was the leader of the Solemn Paw. People wanted him dead. If not him, then us.”

Cer brought them past the homes towards a single, standout hut in the middle of the village. It was their home. That pile of mud used to house the Blue Dahlia and a pampered Res. Cer too, but she remembered more of her nights spent in the wilderness, or with Raoul.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“That’s how they get you. That’s how the world works. People that aren’t involved will be dragged in into the fucked-up maelstrom. Then it just spreads like a disease, pulling everyone in until we’re all just one collective of hatred. It’s how I see the world outside of the Nexus. Someone, somewhere for some reason will want you dead. There’s no other way to cut it.”

If Raoul was not home, then she would not be able to sleep in the same home as Res. To her mother, Cer was another imposter like Ber. However, Cer could be loved. That love was something Frost struggled to call ‘love’ at all, but they both knew that the Blue Dahlia carried an illness that made it impossible for her to tell her daughters apart.

“My way of breaking out of it was to chase after the moon. I ran as much as I could on some nights. It was never enough to reach it. The childish Cer really believed she could reach it one day… And because of Serum G, I did too for decades.”

She tapped on Frost’s Interrogating Clock, asking her to view the memories of where their home sat. At first Frost thought they’d see the destruction of the village from another angle.

“Still. I want to see if maybe mother had something on her mind. Please. Frost.”

To their shock, the residual Nex showed them a different scene. The blue of the moon was cast overhead, the red of the flames nowhere to be seen. A serine air surrounded them. The memory was heavily fragmented, revealing cracks where the flames of a separate event contested it.

But in this forgotten shard of memories, they saw a Cer holding the hand of the Blue Dahlia; a woman with an appearance that was like the incarnation of the moon itself. A spotlight seemed to follow where she walked and emitted a spectral glow.

She smiled as any mother would towards their own child, and the tiny, bruised, and bandaged Cer’s eyes watered as if she had been waiting for this day for a long time.

Cer narrated over the silent memory.

“Once a year mom would remember me. On the night of a full moon, around this time of the year, she’d take me up to the mountains to watch the stars and the moon. She wasn’t a Wolf like us, but I never questioned why she did it.”

It was one of Cer’s fondest memories and was one of the reasons why she was so infatuated with the moon.

Because it reminded her of those rare moments of love. She turned to the mountain ranges as sparks formed on her teeth.

“Asteraceae grew there. Nothing like the lotus in swamps. But they blossom in the night despite that. The Asteraceae that grow on those mountains blossom once a year under the light of a full moon. I think we’ll be able to see it soon.”

Cer grinned, pulling Frost away from that world of light and plunging them into the dark memories of that destructive night.

“Frost. People can’t turn their eyes away from this kind of stuff.”

“It’s impossible to ignore it.” Frost finally spoke, abhorred by the scenery.

Even Hell seemed to be a better place than what had occurred that night.

“A part of the reason why I am how I am is because it’s hard to forget about me. The Jester that causes trouble. The Moon that can’t get her act together. You will remember their mistakes more than what they achieved. To mom, I had to look like a withering flower in hopes of one day receiving her love. The same goes with me and Raoul.”

Cer’s eyes then narrowed.

Her ears twitched as the sound of a distant crackle.

Something was drawing near.

“But it goes deeper than that. The urge to want to be eaten… Ah… Heh.” Her calm demeanor broke down, giving way to a Cer that wore a maniacal expression.

Concern immediately overcame Frost as she drew near, hoping that her immediate presence would help soothe Cer’s immense Nex generation.

“Calm down. Listen to me Cer, you are not going to Corrupt here. Listen to my voice. Look at me.”

“I am calm.” Cer peered into Frost’s eyes, the glimmer of light proving that Frost’s worries were unneeded. “It’s just funny. So fucking funny that in this world, the act of wanting to be eaten can’t just be the childish need for attention.”

Trees in the distance were uprooted by a blue ball of light. It illuminated the dark woodlands, casting long shadows along the way as the specter rushed straight towards them.

“It needs to come from a hell so fucked up that you want to bury it forever.”

Frost could feel the air vibrate as strands of Cer’s hair began to float. Static formed on every blade of grass as the familiar scent of chlorine assaulted her senses.

“But I can’t do that. I’m not a wolf that runs with their tail tucked between their legs, no matter how fucked it is. Stealing and sticking where my nose didn’t belong wasn’t why I was beaten to near death. Why my jaw had to be ripped off.”

Cer activated her Ultracharged Field to combat the rising electrical presence. However, the two identical sparks of blue electricity intertwined as though they came from the same source.

They both knew what was coming before the warning could appear. There was only one other entity in Grandis that possessed that electric power. The glimmer in her eyes burned brightly, assuring Frost that she was still in control of her emotions.

Rather, Cer had tamed them further.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck Cer’s field.

“It’s here! Cer – Snap out of it and get ready to fight!” Frost warned, instantly retrieving De Jure from her back. “Close your ears!”

The entity was still a fair distance away, its core body concealed by the haze of static. Frost took aim and tracked it perfectly. Just as she was about to fire a bullet at the confirmed enemy –

*Bang*

“What – Cer –!?”

“– I’m sorry Frost, but that thing needs to be put down with my own two hands!”

Cer had struck De Jure, causing Frost to miss. It blew open a hole into the canopies, shining moonlight down at them. Blood instantly trickled down from Cer’s ears, having burst from the gunshot.

“Frost… Let me deal with this myself! I came all the way here after thirty years of doing this shit! Don’t take the glory away from me! Just keep me healed and let me beat that part of me back to where it belongs!”

Cer did not beg. She demanded. Galvanic blood soon trickled down her cheeks, then her neck, and then her arms. Her hands clutched onto Frost’s wrists, her eyes burning with nothing but a maniacal desire to destroy that trauma – the shadow behind Cer’s yearning to be eaten.

Relentless barrages of electric balls were cancelled out by Cer’s Ultracharged Field as she desperately waited for Frost’s answer.

No.

This should have left her lips.

She had seen what had happened to people who tried to shoulder such trauma alone.

Corruption seemed all but inevitable.

But why is that light shining so brightly then?

Frost’s judgement was the most rational one. But in her heart, she sensed that this was necessary for Cer.

She needed to confront this figurative shadow, not during Corruption, but as she was now.

And so, after a vexed exhale, Frost returned an agreeing gaze, but not without a warning.

“Don’t trip or fall, or I’m stepping straight in. Cer… Please don’t Corrupt. I’ve had enough of watching my friends lose themselves.”

“I thought you knew me better than that.” Cer grinned, assuming a sprinter’s position with her hands stretched far above her head.

At the same time, Frost retired her De Jure and pulled out a more sinister looking weapon from her Dimensional Storage.

It was a Standard Talon.