Chapter 50: The One Who Devours

Mio

The Marrow Key pulsed once in Mio’s palm.

Then the air split open.

A door materialized two feet from the bed. Plain marble wood, etched with geometric lines. Gaian’s mark.

Nana’s mouth hung open. “What the f—”

“Language.”

“You were thinking it too!”

She was. Mio turned the key over in her hand. The teeth matched the keyhole perfectly. Of course they did.

“Stay here,” she said.

Nana pouted. She hadn’t done that since elementary.

Mio slid the key into the lock. Turned it. The click came from too far away. She pulled the door open. Darkness first, then shapes.

“Don’t close it on me, Nana.”

Her sister giggled from behind her. “Okaaay.”

Mio stepped through.

Bones.

She stood in the ribcage of something that had never been human. The bones arched overhead like cathedral vaulting, each rib thicker than she was tall.

Gaps between them showed void and distant shapes. More skeletons out there. Dozens of them scattered across a darkness that had no floor and no horizon.

Green-white veins threaded through the bone. Gaian’s signature, the same color as her mark.

Mio looked at her own arm. Smooth black glass. Still hers, somehow.

A graveyard of dead titans.

Her heartbeat filled the silence. Too loud. Like the void was listening.

Finally home.

Mio’s stomach turned. She did not like hearing that. She did not like that the hunger sounded relieved.

“Someone finally came!”

The voice came from below. Mio looked down.

A woman stood at the base of the nearest rib, barely visible against the pale bone. Short. Nana’s height, and that was counting the high heels.

Hair deep purple, pulled into an upside-down knot with strands escaping. Skin like old ivory.

Her eyes were violet. The whites were charcoal black.

Three hundred thousand bloom. Mori had two hundred. If they ever threw down, Mio’s money was on the one in heels.

“Oh my gods.” The woman’s hands flew to her cheeks. “I didn’t think it would happen. I’ve been polishing the stones here for weeks.”

She scrambled up the bone ridge, heels clicking against ancient calcium. When she reached Mio, she grabbed both her hands and squeezed.

“You must be M-Mio. Tamei Mio!”

“…Yes?”

“Oh, this is wonderful, this is—” She straightened up, smoothing down her coat. “I’m Ivory. Caretaker of the Marrow, keeper of the repository, general maintenance… person.” She puffed out her chest. “Pleased to meet you.”

Then her eyes drifted to Mio’s right arm. The obsidian arm. Can’s arm.

“Mio-san! You have… you have—”

She cupped her mouth. Stepped back.

“Can’t say. Sorry.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“What’s the big deal?”

“Disregard it please!”

Mio raised the arm toward Ivory’s face. Ivory backed up. Kept backing up. Sweat beaded at her hairline.

“Mio-san, please be mindful of… of your hazardous belongings.”

The woman’s hands were shaking. She pulled them behind her back, then remembered herself.

“Right! Right. Assessment first.”

[Appraisal]

Mio’s skin prickled. The woman’s eyes unfocused for half a second.

“Wow. You’re still a baby.”

“Excuse me?”

“No worries!” She waved both hands. “The One Who Devours didn’t exactly say how strong you had to be before reaching here. Say again, how did you get the Marrow Key?”

“From a lootbox.”

The woman was seconds from a panic attack. Or genuine disbelief. The eye twitch said both.

“Okay.” She nodded rapidly. “That’s okay.”

“Come, come. I’ll show you around!” She spun on her heel. “Because that’s my job.”

She was walking now, heels finding purchase on bone that should have been slippery. Mio followed.

“The One Who Devours has prepared so much for you, Mio-san. Ability upgrades! We have paths for Spark, Vitalize, Rupture—all scalable with Reservoir investment.”

She barely took a breath.

“Equipment synthesis from the remains here. Stat augmentation if you’re willing to—”

Ivory paused.

Reached into her coat.

Pulled out a bundle of notes held together by what looked like a hair tie. Half of them spilled onto the bone floor. She glanced down at them, squinted at her own handwriting, and kept talking.

“—willing to undergo the refinement process, which I’ll explain later, but MOST importantly—”

She spun around, walking backward now, arms spread wide.

“Incursion seeds!”

“Incursion seeds?”

“The One Who Devours really, really, really wants you to get strong, Mio-san.” Ivory’s voice dropped on the title. Her hands had started shaking again. “Here are incursion seeds. Crush one and a portal opens to whatever you set the parameters to!”

“Parameters?”

“Yes! Basically… uhh…”

More fumbling. More notes. One drifted past Mio’s face and she caught a glimpse of the handwriting. English, technically.

This was worse than the calligraphy from Ezra’s letter. At least then she could pretend to understand.

“Oh!” Ivory found whatever she was looking for. “You can adjust the type. Incursion grade, incursion ecosystem. For example, swarms or nested, or—”

“Hold on.”

Ivory stopped. Blinked.

“Yes, Mio-san?”

Mio’s brain was frying. Custom dungeons. Farmable incursions. Ability upgrades. A shop that ran on the same resource she needed to survive.

“Onee-san, this place is CRAZY.”

Nana’s voice. From behind her.

Mio turned. Her sister stood right behind her, white hair glowing against the void. Snow white hair. Brittle arms. Blank round eyes. Creepy smug face.

Definitely still her sister.

Ivory screamed.

“A GHOST!”

Mio couldn’t blame her.

Nana screamed and spun around. “WHAT? WHERE?”

Then Mio screamed.

“That’s my sister. Nana, what’d I say? Did the door shut behind you?”

A loud click echoed in the void.

“Oops.”

Mio and Nana looked to the pale woman for advice. She had none.

“Mio-san, out of the way.” Ivory stepped forward, palm raised. The lines on her skin were starting to glow.

“I shall get rid of the ghost for you! It is my duty to protect the Marrow and its occupants!”

[Void Cannon]

Nana tugged at her collar. “My throat’s getting all dry. Bleh.”

The glow brightened. Something in the air started pulling toward Ivory’s palm.

Her sister’s eyes went wide. She scrambled behind Mio. “Onee-san, is this midget a bad guy?”

“No! Ivory, that’s my sister.”

“Eh?”

“Three girls? There should only be two,” a voice sang.

The glowing died instantly. Ivory hit the floor, forehead to bone.

“O’ Great Devourer, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how this monster got into the Marrow. Please spare me.” Tears hit the bone. Her face stayed planted. “Behold! Gaian, She Who Hungers Eternal!”

But Mio remembered that voice.

Gaian descended, toes testing the bony floor, then everything else followed.

White flowers in dark hair. That living gown of foliage, blooming and rotting in the same breath. Mio had seen her once before. Had hoped never to again.

Gaian rolled her eyes. Then turned to the sisters, and for the first time, Mio met her gaze.

She felt Nana’s head bury into her back.

“Was starting to think you wouldn’t make it, Tamei Mio.”

Her obsidian eyes drifted to the arm. Then to the white-haired girl.

“But you definitely made it interesting.”

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