Death doesn’t care about you. I don’t mean that in the metaphorical sense, but very literally.

I’ve met the Hound of the Withered Moon, you see. Saw the dog of the Final End and the bringer of the Gravechill themselves. I’ll tell you this much, if neutral and indifferent could be distilled into a single entity, they would be it.

Functionally, they’re more like an admin rather than anything else. Interested in processing your death and going over the details of your demise. When it manifests through one of its Scions, an externalized reality comes with it—a high level Concept manifestation that can’t be achieved until you’re over Lv. 250 or so. There, you’ll usually find yourself trapped in one of their many frozen rivers, heading for a last drop into a deep abyss.

There… well, there, I don’t know what to tell you. Could be anything. All I know is that crossing over means not coming back. Not unless the Hound decides to offer you a boon. Ultimately, everything that dies and will die are heading for a final rendezvous with the Hound, and when a Fictional’s end comes, you’ll be going down into the dark.

As for us Trespassers… well, that’s where things get interesting. If there’s something that does interest the dog, it is the prospect of actually claiming one of us for its abyss. Apparently, it can’t keep us in any way even if we do die. Part of my bargain meeting the Hound is offering it means of experimentation—had a Scion’s spirit transplanted into me to serve as a Class.

So far, being a Death Mage has been pretty fun, but someday, I might have to pay the dog his due. But today’s not that day yet, and if the rules continue to apply, I might just last longer than the lifespan of stars back in our old world…

-The Trespasser’s Compendium Archive Entry: The Hound of the Withered Moon

II-52

Three in Ruin

The scythe was in Wei’s hand before he even finished turning. He cut distance—felt his blow ring off something impossibly hard, and charged his father physically instead.

William Yu, deprived of Class and power as he was, was almost still before the lightning bolt that became his son. Wei arrived, his teeth bared in a vicious snarl. He wrapped a hand around his father’s neck, lifting him in a crushing choke. William winced, but did nothing to fight back otherwise.

“Enough,” Mepheleon’s voice thundered in Wei’s mind. “Release him, boy. I can heal whatever harm you inflict, but if you kill him, well, then he goes back to being nothing. The Hound cannot claim a Trespasser for you to abuse. Yet.”

Wei didn’t hear the Harbinger—couldn’t hear anything at that moment. His father was here—he didn’t deserve to be here. Here in the place of his greatest sin. It was his fault they died, it was his fault! All of it! His fingers grew tighter. A series of pops shivered down his digits, indicating hairline fractures spreading along his father’s neck.

Then, another force pulled him back. A weak force he could have resisted at any other time, but something he utterly collapsed under. Wei choked out a grunt of surprise as his mother—Wei Jing Quan—pinched him by the tip of his ear and pulled him away. Wei dropped his father, craned in his head as to not pit his strength against her’s. “Mother!”

“I was talking to him,” she snarled. “Have you taken leave of all your good habits with my death? Were all my lessons lost so easily.”

“No—I—”

She released him and pointed a finger down on the ground. “Stay. Do not move.” Wei opened his mouth to argue, but a single glare from his mother made his bladder weaken and dread spike. He almost forgot that look—and now treasured seeing it again.

“Your son obeys,” Wei muttered.

She stopped off, not giving him another word. With three quick strides, the Matriarch of the Drowned Sky Sect closed distance between her and her former lover — and murder. William Yu was rubbing his throat when he lifted his head and clenched his jaw. His expression didn’t look much different from Wei’s. “Jing Quan,” he said, a voice as small as Wei ever heard.

Wei Jing Quan didn’t reply. Not immediately. For a few heartbeats, all she did was glare. Glare as her eyes misted with tears of hurt and rage. That just made William Yu sigh. “I don’t have a good reason. If that’s what you’re looking for from me, I don’t. I’m… I’m a piece of shit. I know that. But you never really knew me. I was… I wasn’t who I told you. I had—-there was another life—”

A whip crack sounded through the air, and William’s head snapped backward, a twirling arc of blood spraying out from his broken nose. Though the impact was heavy, and he was nothing more than mortal at present, William remained standing and bit back a cry of pain. “I deserve that. That and more.”

“I must have been a fool,” Wei Jing Quan began. She took a step closer, until her face was close to his. She spoke again, her voice trembling with hurt: “I must have been the blindest woman in all Evernest to think that this was love, that you were mine, and I was yours and there were no secrets between us. I must have been a fool to realize that this story of ours was too fine, too sweet. That the odds of an equal emerging without any history to cement a sect by my side was too much to be coincidence. I must have been.”

“Don’t do that,” William breathed. “You know I hate it when you do that.”

“I don’t! I don’t! I don’t know you!” This—this was as rageful and uncontrolled as Wei ever saw his mother. She was on the verge of tears, yet refused to let them fall. Across from her, William turned away, unable to meet her face. “You… all our years, all we have given each other. It was all a lie!”

“The fuck it is,” William said under his breath. A look outrage spread across Wei Jing Quan, but he finally found the strength to meet her gaze again. “Everything we did during my time here, all the years. That was real. That was real to me too. I wasn’t supposed to—the job was just to secure the world. I was going to tell—”

The Matriarch of the Drowned Sky Sect didn’t slap William. No. She struck him with her fist, and he shot a good ten meters off the trail, tumbling through paddies and kicking vegetation and water into the air. Wei took an involuntary step forward as his stomach continued doing flips. Cutting and beating his father himself had felt fine, but watching this happen between his parents…

He was ashamed to admit that he was on the verge of vomiting.

Wei Jing Quan glared down at her shaking fist until it steadied. The fact of her own weakness ignited a new fury in her, and she turned to gaze at Wei. Their eyes met briefly, but both turned away, neither willing to acknowledge what just happened. Slowly, a cough sounded from the nearby field, and William rose. He clenched his chest and staggered to his feet as waterfalls of blood spilled down from his chin.

Wei’s mother had broken something in him with that punch. William’s organs were ruptured and oozing red inside his body, but even so, he looked more frustrated than pained. A second thereafter, a gust of dark wind washed through him, and all the wounds afflicting his person faded. Mid-stride, he went from a mortally wounded man to walking without issue.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The young master looked up into the sky and strained his Omniscience. He wasn’t sure where the Hound was or what game they were playing. He only knew that this was their reality to mold, and they were doing this to engender other ends.

“Ah. What a quaint little home you have. Little wonder it hurt so much for you to lose this place.” Mepheleon’s voice whispered across Wei’s mind, and the boy’s hairs rose to a stand.

“Harbinger,” Wei breathed. Now, a coldness welled up inside him. He didn’t want the Harbinger to see this, to see his past or how vulnerable he was. This shouldn’t be for anyone but Wei and his family. “Why are you here?”

“Oh, don’t mind me. I’ve seen worse family spats than this. I’m just along for the ride thanks to my vessel bringing me in. Don’t be embarrassed. Do not judge. Also, you should get whatever weight is pressing down on your chest off soon. The Hound is not likely going to grant you another visitation anytime soon after this ends. It’s quite the favor I brought for you.”

“You? All this was because of you?”

“Well, yes. In major part. Now, I do know that I’m not the most trustworthy of monsters, but do understand that I’m doing what I can so that the princess can have a bit more time with her mother and you can get closure from your traumas so we can focus on the task at hand?”

“Earth.”

“Yes. But before that, seeing you positioned to inflict a little lesson on all my wayward Sinners who have been making deals behind my back, and oh-so-sloppily so. The Collectress thinks she has the means to bring down the Dying Queen. Ha! And the Princes and Dukes. After the Inheritors little display, they believe I am weakened. Some have eyes on the throne. Some are trying to position themselves right of the coming war. So many plots and schemes. But so few of them see my true instrument in motion.”

Wei’s mind twisted. Instinct guided him to reply. “Me? I am your instrument?”

“Quite so. You are mine, and the Hounds, and the Lodge’s, and ultimately, you must be your own. You have to be. Otherwise, well, what kind of life is that? Being someone else’s blade, someone else's dog. What a miserable time, wouldn’t you say, my lad?”

The young master no longer knew how to respond. Just then, his mother blurred and sent his father flying even further, this time. Mepheleon’s presence grew fainter as the Harbinger grunted. “I actually felt that blow. She folded every rib he had inward. And this is also getting him… excited? Oh dear?”

Resisting [Mental Horror] with Aspect of (Ambition)

Wei forcibly made himself forget the implications behind those words. “Harbinger, I am lost. I do not understand what you are doing, why I’ve been granted this moment—”

“The Scion is not the Collectress’s instrument. No, he is actually mine. And neither of them know it yet. To begin with: if you were lost, I would have used him to reclaim your System from whichever Inheritor took it from you, and then performed the same bargain with the Hound afterward. In this regard, you weren’t essential, merely… preferred.”

“And what bargain are we making with the Hound?”

“The delivery of actual beings into his Abyss, the processing of Trespassers and access to the greater architecture of everyone’s final end, of course. In the Vault hidden within Earth lies functions and rules that govern the very structure of our Fathoms. It has been sealed from us for so long, but… you’ve met Asaru, haven’t you? Spoken with him directly?”

The young master went quiet for a beat. “Have you?”

“Oh, no. I got Illthene. Entirely different giant serpent. Much less charming, I’m afraid. Hers is the purview of creation and design, even if Asaru is the chief creator behind each of our Systems. Despite this, I’m sure your Antediluvian has explained to you what your goal is.”

“Vaguely.”

“Hm. Vaguely indeed. You’ve received knowledge of the Broken Samsara?”

“Yes.” Now Wei’s interest was fully claimed. Even with his mother venting her post-death rage into the undying form of his father, he found a separate branch of conversation growing. “You have knowledge of its truth? The realms that were?”

Mepheleon let out a laugh. “Absolutely bloody not. The Antediluvians talk like priests trying to justify themselves after being caught shagging a particularly black goat. There are things they want to admit to us, but can’t quite admit to even themselves, I would say. All that reluctance makes our conversations rather stilted. But I do know that: Without your System, the Vault will not open, and somehow, some way, Earth exists as the origination for the Fathoms.”

Wei wanted to ask the Harbinger more, but he was assailed by the horrific sight of his mother actually weeping again. Something inside him churned in despair.

“Go to her, boy,” Mepheleon said with a sigh, his own tone slightly muted. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your lout of a father alive in case you wish to torture and skin him later yourself. Your mother is a different deal. Do not let this moment go. Take it from me. I wish I could have bid mine farewell before my first death.”

The young master didn’t need any heeding regardless. Wei closed in on his mother, unsure what he could help her, what comfort he could give. In all his life, he’d never seen her like this, but looking at her wretched state, and the naked misery playing across her face—the realization that she actually, truly loved his father settled like venom creeping through his veins.

He brushed her back as she shuddered, glaring blankly into the distance where she’d launched her former love. Once more, the Trespasser got up from where he lay, a deep palm-shaped depression in his chest instilling a wheezing quality to his voice. “Ow. Fuck.” But still, he got back up, and with a sickening series of pops and a swirl of miasmic darkness, he was mended again. Mended and hale enough to approach Wei and his mother. As he approached, Wei Jing Quan all but collapsed against her son, and Wei bared his teeth at his father.

But the boy’s fury couldn’t fully flare, because he saw the tears running as clean trails between rivulets of blood down his father’s face. This was hell for the man as well. A hell he deserved, but for every bit of pain he endured, Wei’s mother got the worst of it.

“I’m not going to say I’m sorry,” William said. He coughed another globule of blood as he came to a stop a few steps away from Wei and his mother. He shrugged helplessly, and there was a pathetic ineptitude to the action. “There’s nothing that can make right what I did. I know that. I’d let you break and brutalize me if it would do anything, but all I’m doing is hurting you in the end.”

He looked to the rest of the sect and caught their hateful glares as well. He met each of their eyes before finally looking down and blinking. “I didn’t want things to turn out like this. I didn’t think—”

“You killed her,” Wei muttered, the words escaping him, though they seared his very heart to say. “You didn’t think. You acted in the end. You were always… always someone else’s dog more than you were my father, my patriarch, her husband. Whatever truth you wore on the surface, the flesh of you is all lies beneath. You—-you ruined my life. You took everything from me.” Wei looked at mother again, and far from the facade of strength she once bore, now her spirit was as if a wilted flower. “I hate you.”

The admission was the purest, easiest thing for Wei to say. “I hate you. I hate you more I can possibly express… But why can’t I just… just hate you enough? Why does it hurt when she strikes you? I want to kill you, but I don’t think I could survive it—I… I hate you so much, but if Bishop hadn’t saved you from me, I don’t know if… if…”

And then there were three before the mountain hold of the Drowned Sky Sect.

The son turned orphan.

The father turned slave.

The mother, bound to return to the dark.

Three that were in ruin compared to who they were.

It didn’t matter about Wei’s power. It didn’t matter about his mastery or how great the foes he bested. None of it mattered. A part of him was lost, and lost eternal. He could be as powerful as he wanted, but he would never truly be whole again. The chance for true joy will never be known.

“W-would it help you if I just finished myself?” William asked. Even now, the statement was half a deflection before it ever became serious.

Wei’s mother spoke in return. “I wish… I wish you weren’t. I wish that… that you simply ceased to be. But I can’t.” She looked up at her son, and with a heartbreaking smile, caressed his face again. “But I can’t. Not with what you have given me. Not with what still remains of me.”

And in the end, it was this honest admission that brought William Yu down. Not her blows. Not every wound he suffered and healed from. Just the true horror of what he wrought. He collapsed, knees sinking into the dirt. Slowly, he began to sob as well.

But even that wasn’t enough for Wei. It was never going to be enough. Never.

What a wretched fate it was, to be human.