--This chapter is written using Ellie's POV--
I woke up from a nightmare.
My heart throbbed with sorrow and guilt as I struggled to breathe. The air my lungs so desperately claid burned within my chest.
Before I could make sense of what I had heard, the mories slipped away. The feelings, however, were too strong. They lingered even when creation itself tried to shake them off .
I couldn't recall anything other than a familiar voice.
A voice I knew, even if I didn't rember it.
A voice that felt so dear to ...
I knew it hadn't tried to hurt .
Yet, one word overpowered every other thought in my mind.
"Unfair".
It hamred my head with a feeling so overwhelming that tears flowed down my face.
I wanted to rebel against it. I needed to.
Even if deep down, I knew there was nothing I could do.
But I wouldn't accept this acceptance either.
Even if it was aningless resistance, I forced my eyes to open and faced reality.
I saw Anna standing before .
I couldn't help but admire how tall and imposing she looked from where I lay.
As she held her sword stuck to the ground, she projected forward a barrier made of bright yellow hexagonal tiles using the [Mana Shield] skill that Miwen had shared with us.
Ellie: "H-How long was I out for?"
I recognized Bea's soft, pillowy thighs; however, my muscles were too numb and unresponsive for
to turn my head and see her.
I caught a vision of George after the barrier, reaching for the ball he'd thrown.
The fact that it hadn't disintegrated ant he had not used as much energy as when he hit Anna.
He held back, looking to fulfill his promise to spare .
Judging by the pace of his casual stroll, only a couple of seconds had passed since I lost consciousness.
Bea: "The only thing that matters is that you're awake now... C'mon. We're getting out of here."
Before standing up, I reached for my bow on the ground.
It felt heavy. Just holding it was enough to tilt my balance, and a soft grunt escaped my lips.
Ellie: "...What about Anna?"
Her [Mana Shield] was holding back Ceres and Alexis, but it wouldn't last long.
Without Bea and
to keep her busy, Ceres converged the static electricity of several screens into a single spiral that floated near the ceiling.
The spiral sent a crackling, blinding spear of blue lightning crashing against Anna's barrier.
The cracks increased, forcing Anna to sacrifice more mana to repair them.
Her high defense had made the [Mana Shield] absurdly strong, but it was only a matter of ti before Ceres' lightning or Alexis' insects made their way inside.
Worse yet, George had just recovered his baseball...
Anna: "Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."
Another lie.
Even as her body trembled, scorched from the lightning, bleeding from bite marks, and exposed to its raw skin, she had no intention of letting them get a step closer to us.
No matter what it ant for her...
Bea: "...I was hoping it wouldn't co to this, but... I don't suppose I have a choice now. Just promise to keep this a secret..."
While Anna stood her ground, shouting for us to run, Bea placed three monster cores on the floor.
She then took a vial of dark, rainbow-colored liquid from her pocket and poured its contents over the spheres.
The liquid began to feast on the cores, growing and twisting until a humanoid shape rose from it.
The goo writhed, shifting its appearance to Elizabeth and then to Cassandra, seemingly unable to stabilize as one of them.
Eventually, it malford into a twisted being that resembled a mix of both girls and neither at the sa ti.
Ellie: "Bea... What is this?"
I had to press against my chest to force the words out.
Bea: "Fufu...I had so many mories from them, how could I not experint a little? For now, let's just call it our ticket out and forget it ever existed..."
The sludge dragged itself out of Anna's barrier, leaving puddles behind as it moved towards the three executives, its left arm extending into a curved blade.
It stood by Ceres' lightning, pulling it towards itself with magnetic force.
The magic swirled around the creature, turning purple before returning to its caster.
Ceres pulled a monitor to stop it, but the beam it launched was too strong, and the impact shattered the monitor against her face in a spray of glass and sparks.
George ran towards it, using his Gift to propel himself forward faster than ever before.
The thing only took a single step to the side to avoid him.
In the blink of an eye, without any excess, the creature filled George's arm with a thousand cuts.
Even Alexis' insects were swallowed by the creature's body. Their mana turned into fuel for its cores as their bodies dissolved inside it.
Bea sighed, saying this was yet another failure.
She complained that this thing couldn't even compare to the current Cassandra and Elizabeth, even though she had used mories of their pri selves.
However, as we fled the fifth floor, I looked back and...
All I could see was the haunting image of a monster holding back three AOTG executives while it struggled to maintain its shape.
Bea: "What do you think, Anna? Can you destroy the ground?"
Thanks to Alexis' poisonous bugs, every dozen steps left Bea gasping for air.
She didn't say a word, but I could tell she was using her staff as a walking stick.
Even when she struggled to keep her consciousness, she ca up with a great idea to hasten our escape, but unfortunately...
Anna: "I don't think I can. The ceilings and walls are all reinforced with her screens. It takes
all I've got to break one, and that's with a proper strike. Stomping or stabbing the ground is... Sorry..."
Almost as if to mock us, the screens shifted around, creating a maze of black walls brimming with AOTG troops.
Ceres did her best to hide the stairs from us, but despite her trying to overload our brains with images and sounds, Bea wasn't distracted and guided us to the exit.
Though it wasn't easy.
The wide floors had been warped into tight corridors where soldiers waited at every sharp turn.
Anna couldn't dodge their blades as she forced her way forward.
With our skin torn open and scorched, the bullets that once grazed us now pierced straight through.
I couldn't even protect Anna's back properly.
Every ti I pulled the string, pain tore through my shoulder and drained what little strength I had left.
Most of my arrows wavered, missing their mark.
The ones that hit took too long, giving the AOTG the chance they needed to hurt the girls and inflict even more debuffs on us.
There was no end in sight.
Anna and Bea were silent, dragging their bodies forward through the pain.
The mont we reached the third floor, every screen lit up with Ceres' face.
Ceres: "Going so soon? I guess you don't care enough to save the hostages?"
...The AOTG had captured two Alpha Team mbers before Piper recruited Miwen.
We'd always assud Ceres knew where they were.
If she was telling the truth… this could be our only chance to get them back.
But…
Ellie: "I don't trust her..."
She left us with that sa irritating smile before vanishing from the screens.
A second later, bright, colorful arrows flooded them, all pointing back to the fourth floor.
Bea: "Hah... Even if they are real... Huff... She just wants to slow us down... We're in no condition to..."
I felt the sa way as Bea.
Ceres couldn't be trusted.
This had to be a lie, and even if it wasn't, going back was suicide.
We'd just be risking ourselves and the hostage...
Anna: "I know. But..."
For a mont, Anna stopped, and we walked past her.
She turned her back to us and stepped toward the stairs.
Anna: "I... At least one victory. I want to deny her at least one victory..."
She was facing the ground, her fists trembling as tears of frustration ran down her face.
...It wasn't worth it.
We couldn't guarantee the hostage's life...
And yet....
Bea: "You don't wanna co back to him empty-handed, right?"
Anna: "...You don't have to co with ."
...And still, my heart sided with her, even as my mind scread to turn back.
Ellie: "Too late for that..."
We took a deep breath and returned to the fourth floor, once again, facing the AOTG through a redesigned maze.
We fought hard, giving it everything we still had, no matter how little it was.
The arrows took us all the way to the end of the floor, where an entire squad waited for us.
Bea had to spend almost all of her remaining magic to deal with them quickly, and even then, she needed Anna and
to finish the last two.
Past the guards were only screens.
Anna had to remove them one by one while I covered her, lightning tearing through her every ti.
Eventually, she removed enough for us to enter the secret room.
The putrid sll that filled it could only an bad news, but nothing could have prepared us for what we saw there.
As Ceres promised, she had the two hostages.
But one of them wasn't...
????: "He... Never told... them... Anything..."
We were too late to save the two.
Even this, Ceres denied us.
However, even if it was a single person...
It was worth it.
Just so that we didn't sacrifice ourselves for nothing...
Anna: "...Bea!?"
I only heard her body collapsing onto the ground; my head wasn't turning fast enough.
Her skin had grown cold, she was trembling too much, and couldn't walk.
The surviving mber of Alpha Team, a woman called Mikaela, also couldn't walk. Her injuries were almost as bad as ours, and she lost consciousness as soon as we freed her from the shackles.
We had no option but to carry them out.
Anna refused to let
carry Mikaela, wrapping Bea's and Mikaela's clothes around her neck to carry both girls out.
Bea began to save her magic for our battles, to help Anna push forward.
This ant we had no protection against Ceres' sensory overload anymore.
We ran as fast as we could to the exit, but Ceres had a new tactic prepared.
Instead of TVs, she used phones to get in our way.
They were small and agile, Anna couldn't destroy them as easily, and I had trouble getting them before they hit Anna.
These phones had less power than the screens, but now that Anna was carrying the other two, the damage was three tis bigger.
And unlike Anna, Bea had almost no defense.
I didn't fare much better, either.
Eventually, I stopped feeling my legs.
They had been burned too deeply.
Anna didn't think twice before grabbing .
She carried
on her shoulder, and all I could ask was that she let
face backwards, so that I could continue covering her back.
At the sa ti, I kept us still with my magic since Bea was nearing the end of her mana.
Only half-awake, Bea mumbled the directions, and with every corridor looking the sa, we couldn't tell whether we were making progress or not.
Still, Anna found the stairs to the second floor.
She only had to rip through one more layer of screen.
Only one more lightning discharge.
She collapsed onto the ground.
I scread her na.
She didn't answer.
Her legs, shaking, slowly raised her body again.
She ripped screens from the maze walls. Electricity surged through all four of us.
But it wasn't for nothing.
Anna threw the screens against the AOTG soldiers, knocking out multiple at once.
The only cost was her own body.
And ours...
Before we could reach the first floor, I saw a soldier lining up a shot at Anna.
Another aid straight at .
I couldn't stop the two of them.
I wasn't sure if I could even hit the one I aid for...
But I could see the paths their bullets would take.
One would tear through Anna's back, and she wouldn't get up again.
The other would punch through my eye and into my skull.
I had to choose.
So I chose Anna.
As for myself...
I used all of my mana, keeping just enough to avoid mana depletion, to cover my right eye.
It wasn't enough.
My vision burst red. Half the world turned black.
Anna: "Ellie... Did sothing-"
I could still feel it.
The bullet, buried in the hollow socket of my eye.
I was lucky...
It didn't go deeper.
Ellie: "It's... nothing... We are almost... there..."
Anna had suffered much more, without complaining once.
Her body had been stabbed, cut, burned, poisoned....
Her steps made squelching sounds as she walked through puddles of her own blood.
I didn't have the courage to tell her that I had lost an eye.
It felt small compared to what she had been through.
But she knew.
I could barely hit anything.
My depth perception was ssy. I had to rely on my hearing to find my targets, and I couldn't even confirm a hit half the ti.
All I could do was shoot desperately, hoping it would hit sothing.
Anna and I pushed ourselves past all of our limits.
When we saw the doors that led to the exit, our eyes brimd with relief.
She wasted no ti, running faster than before and charging at the doors, opening them with her own body.
A beautiful blue sky greeted us.
It resembled Licia's blue hair, as she...
As she stood with Claire, before both of them were launched towards Ceres' building.
Before the dust could settle, while debris still fell around us, Apollo flew from Licia's shoulder, softly landing atop my head.
Erik: "I see. Ceres has failed again..."
Cold sweat ran down my face.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
It had to be a nightmare.
Angelica, Marin, and Celly lay on the ground, unconscious.
Mia was nowhere to be seen.
Claire and Licia fell from the building at our side, all of them bleeding.
Anna: "Ellie... Take them and run..."
Even though she could barely breathe anymore, Anna pushed Bea and Mikaela on , sending
a couple of feet away while she lifted her sword and faced Erik.
I grabbed the girls and crawled away, pretending I could ignore the sound of her sword breaking.
I didn't get far.
Erik had thrown sothing at .
He threw Anna.
I didn't have the strength to get her off.
Nor the others.
My bow was just within sight, yet it was too far to reach.
Even if I could, I didn't have the strength to pull its string anymore.
The best I could do was push myself forward to reach a single arrow.
As I felt Erik walking closer to , I tried to lift the arrow in defiance.
But I couldn't muster even that little.
Once he stood before , I used the last of my mana to launch the arrow from my hand, hoping that I could activate my Gift.
I felt sorry for Miwen, but I didn't have a choice.
I prepared myself to cast a world-ending plague on Erik.
Sothing I knew would kill him in a second, even if it would cost so many other lives.
...I waited a second.
My Gift didn't activate.
Erik: "You're out of luck."
He stepped on my hand, breaking my fingers.
The mana depletion kicked in, and I began to lose consciousness.
Erik held
by the neck, suffocating .
Apollo tried pecking Erik's arm, but he didn't feel a thing.
Even the sparrow that always helped where we needed it most had exhausted itself.
??????: "I wouldn't be so sure about that."
Before my eye had closed, I heard a familiar voice in the distance.
Even though I felt like I knew who it belonged to, without seeing, I couldn't be sure...
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