Lady Iellaya couldn’t control her own mouth. Despite the fact that she made serious efforts to close it again and again as she drifted down from the battlements to the ground below, it remained open. Her will seemed to be split into two portions, the primal mind and the thinking mind. She continued to release a mixture of shock and terrible grief in the form of a keening wail. The primal mind was slowly collapsing as she looked at Abiodun’s body. Landing on the ground, she took several staggering steps forward to his side.

There had been a moment when the Nether King attacked that Lady Iellaya had felt a bit of existential dread; even while relying on Randidly Ghosthound to take care of some of the load, they had been very close to being overwhelmed by that attack. They simply weren’t the same tier of existence as the Nether King. Some quick calculations had informed her that even with Randidly’s impressive resilience, it would not be enough.

They would be overwhelmed. They would die.

Yet, at that moment where the Great Rift was rolling swiftly forward and the stone ground beneath them was cracking, there had been an inexplicable sense of comfort that touched upon Lady Iellaya. The weirdest certainty that everything would be okay had been there when she needed it. With that certainty, she had found the resolve to continue. Her image had held against the Nether King.

Now it was clear that the sudden bit of space she had sensed wasn’t a coincidence. Someone had forcibly inserted their body in order to buy a little bit of time for her camp. Even as that terrible noise ground against her senses, she had noticed the slight effect that individual had.

And who else could it have been but Abiodun? The man who had been her first and strongest supporter. The man who she had, ages ago, told that she would conquer the world for him. And he had believed her. The man who would know when he needed, more than anyone else could ever hope to rival.

Why did I send you away? Why didn’t I think about your safety when the Nether King’s attack came? That primal mind inside of Lady Iellaya continued breaking as she arrived at his side and kneeled beside him. His stony exterior was cracked revealing internal organs that were reduced to a soup-like mixture. With trembling hands, she reached down to lift him up off the cracked ground. The Great Rift loomed ominously above them, shedding no light on their final moment together.

Abiodun’s eyelids fluttered. Of course, Lady Iellaya knew why she had not thought about Abiodun in those chaotic moments. He should have been away from the battlefield and retrieving the representative of the Xyrt Brigade. There had been so much distance to cover to fulfill the important mission that would finally give her an advantage over Lord Miln. So why was he here…?

Yet before Lady Iellaya could ask the question, Abiodun stirred again. Even as his stone body cracked and oozed far too much blood for Lady Iellaya to doubt how this would end, his eyes focused immediately on her. A smile slowly stretched across his face, revealing shattered teeth. “I’m glad… I made it back. It’s selfish but… even if you no longer need me by your side… I wanted… to see you. At least for me, you always were…”

“Of course I still need you,” Lady Iellaya leaned forward, the words tumbling out of her throat and across her tongue faster than she could speak them. Her hands were trembling as her instincts screamed for her to tightly grip hip, yet she forcefully restrained herself from worsening his wounds. “You were always my-”

“If you had truly needed me… you wouldn’t have sent me away,” Abiodun spoke with a gentle bleakness that left Lady Iellaya unable to reply. There was a dark finality there that was so large that Lady Iellaya didn’t dare to face it. Not when her emotions were already so chaotic. And sure, she had grown in strength recently and she had sacrificed so much to reach this point, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t need him.

“Your wounds…” Lady Iellaya licked her lips. “If Randidly comes down quickly-”

“Even now… you cannot lie to me, my Queen…” That strange, bleak smile remained on Abiodun’s face. It filled her will dread.

Lady Iellaya pressed her lips together and looked at Abiodun’s broken limbs. It was honestly a miracle that he had managed to receive only these injuries after enduring the Nether King’s attack. It was because his body could only block a small portion, and hadn’t attempted to spread itself out and cover an entire fort like they had. Yet that small portion became just enough for them to endure.

And the thought of losing Abiodun filled Lady Iellaya with fear.

At the same time, another part of Lady Iellaya whispered that what she was feeling now was just sentimentality. With her current power, how could Abiodun truly be of use to her? Losing him would actually change very little of her capability.

Some things aren’t all about capability, Lady Iellaya bit her lip hard enough that she tasted the coppery tang of her blood. It’s about the promise I made to the people who follow me. And this is a failure. I failed to protect my greatest supporter...

As she was engaged in this inner struggle, Abiodun spoke again. “...yes, exactly. You see it too. How your future… should be much brighter than this. You need to move on from me. But still… My Queen… Hey… do you… remember… that first day we met…?”

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There were tears in Lady Iellaya’s eyes. This couldn’t be happening. She was sobbing, her voice once more slipping out of her mouth before she could control it. So she could only nod to Abiodun’s question.

So many lives had been sacrificed to raise Lady Iellaya while her world was in the vast gap of time of the Third Calamity, where energy was extremely difficult to find. At some point, there weren’t enough villagers to sustain her any longer. As a teenager, she had led her few remaining tribe members in a crusade against Abiodun’s tribe in order to plunder enough energy to grow.

It had been a civil affair, all things considered. They had picked champions. It was simply the way of there world. All understood this. If they did not fight, both would die. At least they would save one village. So the fourteen-year-old Iellaya had stood opposite a forty-six-year-old Abiodun in a circular sand arena. Right before the match started, Iellaya had perfunctorily made attempts to press her unruly feathers down so they didn’t stick up in every direction.

Abiodun had smirked.

They had fought without pulling their punches. Their blows were aimed to maim and tear.

Iellaya had won, even though she was half as tall and one-tenth as heavy as Abiodun. Abiodun had laid, injured in a much less serious way than he was now, and had looked up in wonder at this feathered young girl. Then he opened his mouth to speak.

“You… what are your plans…?”

“I’m going to conquer the world, obviously.”

A simple exchange. Immediately afterward, Abiodun had pledged himself to her and teenager Iellaya had used the techniques she had learned from her parents to make Abiodun’s potential a part of her own.

“Of course I remember,” Lady Iellaya sighed. She wanted to rub the tears from her cheeks, but she didn’t dare take her hands away from Abiodun’s shoulders. He seemed so frail. If she let go for even a second, he would vanish.

“I couldn’t fulfill my promise… but that doesn’t mean you can’t still fulfill yours.” Abiodun’s eyes closed. “Conquer it all, my Queen. If it’s you… then definitely…”

Abiodun died in Lady Iellaya’s arms and she was thinking about his promise he made that night. It was later after he had donated his potential to her and Abiodun gave her the maps his tribe had gathered on the movements of surrounding groups. He had called her Lady Iellaya for the first time and she had paused and rubbed her chin while looking down at the spread out maps with a furrowed brow.

“By the way, Abiodun… how big is the world?”

For a second, he had stared at her. Then he had laughed and laughed and laughed, slapping his hand against his knee. Seemingly helpless, he had eventually answered while still chuckling. “...big. But I promise that I’ll show it to you. I’ll lead you forward and you will conquer it. Until there is nothing that can threaten you.”

“Threaten US, Abiodun. We are one now, after all.”

A part of her died as Abiodun died. That was the promise they made. That was the price she now paid.

When Lady Iellaya lowered Abiodun’s body to the ground, she had gone silent; her wail had finally stopped. Not because of her own Willpower finally managing to overpower her grief, but because she now felt like she was being strangled by a vast guilt that pressed warm and cloying against her windpipe. A strange sense of dark certainty filled her, growing stronger with every breath she took.

“This is my fault,” Lady Iellaya managed to whisper. That much was immediately clear. She had felt invincible after Randidly had made the change to her Class. The power of her image had improved so much that she had gotten sloppy with her attention to detail. She fought aggressively with no thought on how dangerous her actions were. Despite Lord Miln’s obvious confidence, Lady Iellaya had taken no precautions against his arrogant certainty.

That was a mistake.

Abiodun had paid the price for that mistake.

Now her greatest pillar of support was gone.

The guilt seemed to be eating at the edges of her brain, slowly stealing away the brain cells that could think about anything but any of the numerous ways that Lady Iellaya could have prevented this if she had just pulled her head out of her own ass. The precautions that she could have taken came easily to her now. Even though it was too late and punishing herself accomplished nothing, that vast smothering guilt seemed to want her to simply sit and think, over and over again, what she could have done differently.

It wanted her to simply live in that guilt, never moving from this spot, allowing the world to pass her by as she continued to mourn. Perhaps until the moment she found release in the embrace of death.

Yet the bright noises and impacts from the battle happening over in front of Aether Headquarters slowly drew Lady Iellaya’s gaze upward. With a grim detachment, she forced her body to stand. Her Perception shot forward, examining the distant battlefield.

Ultimately, she was at fault for failing to realize the danger. She had been drunk on her newfound power and had ignored the risks. Yet the architect of this disaster still was walking around, fighting against Nether Heralds across the battlefield. Lord Miln, the Supreme Commander who cared so little for his subordinates that he was willing to sacrifice the lives of the whole battlefront in order to achieve the merits he desperately craved.

I might be just as merit obsessed as you… Lady Iellaya bared her teeth and allowed her rage to rapidly build. Even without even using her image, she felt like she current possessed titanicly large wings that could drown the world in darkness. Her rage urged her to do it. But I can learn to be better. You… it is clear it’s too late for you. Thank you for this lesson. You’re welcome for me ensuring that you don’t ever get the chance to play with the lives of others again.

Lady Iellaya slowly began to walk forward with heavy steps. In her numbed and grieving state, she didn’t much pay attention to the world around her. But even she couldn’t miss the darkness swirling around her. Or the fact that it felt like something was attached to her back and she was steadily dragging it forward to that battlefield.

It was shaped like wings, but Lady Iellaya knew that she was carrying a blade. She continued forward without looking back.