Chapter 118: Where Life Lies

Darkness invaded Amy Ulysses’s vision in an instant.

Had the spark gone out?

No. Such a thought never even arose in the young man’s mind. Having walked the knife-edge between life and death, he had no time to consider matters too far ahead. All he could see was the present—only life and death.

Thus, the young Glory-Bearer felt no alarm. He was delighted instead.

This was a turning point! More than that, it was an opportunity!

He could not be certain whether the enemy would lose focus for even a moment because of this abrupt change, but with the situation already as dire as it could possibly be, he had to seize every possibility, no matter how slight, at any cost—even if it led not to triumph, but to death.

Because the weak have never possessed the luxury of choice.

An opportunity vanished in the blink of an eye. Should one wait forever for the next ear of wheat, rounder and fuller than the last, or seize the one before one’s eyes? Amy had never hesitated over such a question.

“—Vestyasolin.”

He answered with action. Flaming radiance illuminated the darkness and the void. The sword that had once cleaved through darkness and chaos tore open the dark canopy once more after several thousand years of silence. Reflected in those crimson eyes filled with astonishment, it pierced straight through the body of the man who ranked among the Dark Nobles.

There was no scream, no wail. Light and darkness mingled together, smearing the world into a swath of chaos.

The young man did not open his eyes, nor did he stop to confirm the result. After delivering that simple, decisive strike, he immediately withdrew, causing the attack from behind to fall upon empty air. The sweeping blow that severed the atmosphere at the waist merely lifted the black hem of his coat. It did not even graze him, allowing him to depart at leisure.

To be perfectly honest, it was not that he had lacked the opportunity to kill the Dark Noble who had pursued him like a rabid hound, nor was it that he could not have taken advantage of the opening just now to fight the two of them at once and annihilate them both. It was simply that… beyond venting his displeasure, what meaning would such slaughter have?

Had he possessed sufficient time, he would not have minded indulging his small desire for revenge.

But the time remaining to him was already running out.

—The spark had gone out.

This matter had little to do with him in itself, but it was closely connected to the enemy’s movements.

If his guess was correct, Pandora—Edgar had by now returned to dust. After the spark was extinguished, that tiny girl, so chilling yet so innocent, should have found herself free to act. She might not immediately advance in his direction, but… he could not foolishly ignore that possibility.

After all, the Nascent Flame burned within his body. It was both the key to awakening the spark and the path by which he would meet his death.

Pandora would never let him go.

Only his death could bring peace of mind to her—and to the entire Chaos Cult.

But who would ever wish for their enemy to feel at ease? Give him a break! Enemies were like water and fire, like light and darkness: irreconcilable. If you did not defeat them, they would come to defeat you. If you did not destroy them, they would certainly destroy you in turn. And you expected compromise to win you the right to survive?

Please—stop dreaming.

Therefore, he could not die.

Bearing the hopes of all Hermetica upon his shoulders, he could not die.

The wind roared behind him. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the young Glory-Bearer threw off every enemy at his back. Yet for some reason, he could still feel the shadow of death following close behind.

Could it be her?

The image of that tiny, perfect girl—something too flawless to belong to the human world—flashed through his mind. Amy pressed his lips together. That previous strike, even if it had not killed the Dark Noble, had grievously wounded him. And although the strange skeleton possessed an exceptionally peculiar ability and could place considerable pressure on Amy in a real battle, it was absolutely incapable of giving him such a powerful premonition of death.

This was as though his body itself were instinctively afraid—afraid of the future that was approaching, afraid of the death that was approaching, afraid of the fate that was approaching.

There was no escape.

Perhaps even the premonition of death could not be escaped.

Ultimately, the reason his premonition of death had repeatedly created miracles was that, relying on his “immortality,” he could seize the one-in-a-hundred, one-in-a-thousand, one-in-ten-thousand, or even one-in-ten-million chance hidden within the impossible.

But Pandora was different. Though he had never truly encountered her, he had nevertheless developed a definite understanding: the moment he met her, he would have absolutely no chance of surviving.

She was an enemy who must never be encountered.

The young man understood this. But the very nature of fate lay in its resistance to human will.

At a fork in the road of darkness, the figure of a black-haired, black-eyed girl appeared abruptly, like a ghost. For some reason, even within that dense, impenetrable darkness, her form and features remained perfectly clear.

There was neither malice nor murderous intent in her expression. She merely blinked in curiosity, then spoke in a voice as ethereal as a skylark’s song:

“You are not Ulysses. Who are you?”

“I’m Amy.”

The bewildered Glory-Bearer could only answer with that.

“Then, Amy, would you become mine?”

At some point, the small, perfect girl had appeared behind the young man. Straining to rise onto her toes, she gently laid her slender, delicate fingers—fine and clear as white jade—against his neck. Then she softly exhaled and said:

“I need you.”

Amy Ulysses’s body stiffened ever so slightly. He did not turn around.

“If… well, I mean, if…” he said through clenched teeth, “what if I say no?”

“Why would you say no?”

Pandora tilted her head. Her black eyes, brilliant as a starry night, seemed to fill with question marks. In the next instant, crystalline tears moistened her lashes. She tugged at his coat and asked in a timid, almost unbelievable voice:

“Am I really so unpleasant?”

“…”

Amy truly wanted to say yes. But considering that she could kill him at any moment, he maintained a rather delicate silence while constantly thinking of a way to escape.

Continuing to stall was not a solution.

If he had not witnessed this girl, a figure of distinction even among the Dark Nobles, disembowel Edgar while wearing an innocent smile, the young man might genuinely have continued chatting with her in all seriousness to buy time. He might even have earnestly considered her proposal. It was not impossible.

Perhaps it was precisely because he knew her true nature that he would not place his hopes of survival in the enemy’s mercy. Whether innocent or guileless, these qualities were innate to the girl. Yet beneath that fragile exterior, they concealed a cruelty beyond all expectation.

It was like the country children who sometimes gathered together to dismember frogs without the slightest pity, or who, when alone, crushed ants to death one by one. Children who had not yet encountered the cruelty of the world were often regarded as incarnations of truth, goodness, and beauty. In reality, however, they possessed no normal understanding of good and evil. They lacked empathy, could not comprehend the weight of death, and had even less respect for life than they should have.

To them, perhaps, the difference between death and sleep lay only in its duration.

Without a doubt, Pandora was such a child—a child who would never grow up, who felt no guilt whatsoever when taking a person’s life, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Sniff…”

The little girl fought to keep her tears from spilling over. The sound of her sobbing was enough to move any man. Even Amy Ulysses, who knew her true nature, felt a trace of reluctance in his heart.

Yet before he could offer a word of comfort, sudden, excruciating pain transformed his expression.

With a sharp ripping sound, his waist was torn open by an immense force. Blood stained vast expanses of darkness red. Then his vision tilted, its center rising as the position of his head leveled forward, and he crashed heavily to the ground.

Had he been cut in half?

Whether from the pain or some other cause, he opened his eyes wide.

A moment later, the girl’s tear-choked voice reached him again.

“Amy, will you stay with me?”

She crouched down and gazed at him with those huge, tear-filled eyes, as though looking at a homeless puppy. She showed not the slightest awareness that she was the one who had harmed him.

“Please? Will you?”

The young man merely fell silent.

At this point, nothing he said would have any meaning.

Wait, then. Wait for the premonition of death to activate.

Amy gently closed his eyes and quietly awaited the arrival of fate.

As his blood continued to drain away, his consciousness gradually blurred. Darkness descended inevitably upon his mind. Yet strangely enough… the premonition of death did not activate.

Amy Ulysses did not die.

—He was dreaming.

In his dream, he crossed a dense darkness as unknowable as the deep sea and arrived before an abandoned palace. Its entire structure had been built from pale-green bricks and stones, as though some strange vegetation were growing through it. The palace was unexpectedly crude: only broken walls covered in long stretches of incomprehensible, mysterious symbols, and a pitch-black door fastened shut with three heavy chains remained.

Beyond the door seethed chaos, oppression, and despair.

It was a black door.

Merely looking at it made the mind tense. Merely looking at it made the thoughts confused. Merely looking at it made the body slow to act.

This was not a realm where humans should set foot. It was a realm whose very name was taboo.

The young Glory-Bearer stopped before the door. Reason told him that this was not something a mortal could touch, that the act of touching it alone would summon misfortune, madness, and hysterical disorder.

And yet, at the same time, his instincts were guiding him—guiding him to push open the sealed door.

What lay behind it? There had to be something behind it.

Frowning, the young man stopped three paces away. Then he suddenly sensed something strange and instinctively turned his head.

The writhing darkness behind him was scattering to either side, as though it had encountered its natural enemy—or welcomed its sovereign. The little girl, whose tear marks had not yet dried, crossed the layers of space between them in one step, then two, then three, and arrived before him.

“I found you.”

A smile suddenly blossomed across her face, pure as a blooming lily.

“Amy.”

She spoke his name with intimate affection.

Faced with the girl so close before him—faced with Pandora at arm’s length—the young Glory-Bearer instinctively retreated a step. His body staggered, and he dropped onto the ground.

“Don’t leave me all alone.”

Her exquisite face drew near. Amy could even feel her warm, damp breath and the faint orchid fragrance emanating from her body.

“Will you?”

The young man did not answer. From the corner of his eye, he glanced at the black door against his back. His gaze then came to rest upon a sentence engraved upon its surface.

It was written in a language he had never studied or even encountered before. And yet, incredibly, the moment he saw it, he was deeply drawn to it.

Then, unconsciously, he read aloud:

“In the eternal city of R’lyeh, Cthulhu, who lies sleeping, awaits you in dreams—”

In the next instant, the three chains began to tremble violently, pounding out a heart-shaking rhythm. The unknowable black door shuddered fiercely, opening a tiny crack so narrow it could scarcely be seen.

Then… black-violet tentacles, thick as the roots of an ancient tree, wound their way out from within.

Before Amy could react, they had already seized all four of his limbs, wrapping around him tightly like a spider capturing its prey.

And then…

They pulled him back. The sudden change left the young man dazed for a fleeting moment. He could only widen his eyes. Before he had time to feel surprise, boundless darkness swallowed everything.