Chapter 121: Goodbye

Ishiki and Filch were frozen as they stared up at the breaking sky above them.

Under their gaze… the false illusion that had always acted like a sky above Aethelburg shattered.

The starless black sky without a moon soon peeled away like burnt paper, revealing the terrible truth underneath.

There in the starless, dark sky hung, the Crimson Moon.

It was the only thing glowing in the sky, bathing the while world with its malevolent red light. Under the red light… every corner of the ancient city felt like it was covered in blood.

Ishiki’s eyes widened with realization… ’Holy hell.’

It wasn’t mid night… it was morning.

In Aethelburg the artificial sun started burning when the Crimson Moon shone bright outside of the city parameters.

If it was morning… Then why was it so dark? Why was the angel’s heart not burning?

He suddenly felt an inexplicable coldness seep into his heart as he slowly tilted his head to look at the artificial star that was visible from everywhere in the whole capital.

Even if it was not burning… it should have been a dim, cooling orb. But instead it was a platform to something else entirely.

Ishiki squinted his against the crimson glow and focused. he saw that there was a dark silhouette sitting on the angel’s heart that looked like a circular core.

Besides the figure, a massive greatsword, dark as the void itself, was plunged deep into the artificial star.

“What is that?” Ishiki whispered, his voice trembling.

Filch who was as shocked as Ishiki was answered in a weary tone. “I… I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”

A strange multi-colored energy was leaking from the wound in the heart, where the tip of the blade had pierced it. It flowed upward, defying gravity and then spiraling into the body of the figure sitting there.

RUMBLE.

The ground lurched violently beneath them and sent a tremor. It was as if the Island was screaming.

“What is he doing?” Filch asked as he steadied himself. “Ishiki? You… You know something?”

There was no reply. Then he turned around slowly and found that Ishiki was already running towards the main street of the Inner ring.

“Ishiki! Wait!” Filch’s voice faded behind him, but Ishiki didn’t stop.

At this moment, Ishiki’s mind was filled with only one thing and that was about the truth.

What was happening here? And if he was correct and all the people were illusions then they would also be gone, because the illusion on the sky had already vanished.

And among other thoughts there was a single thought that burned brighter than any other.

’Mom… Please be alright.’

As soon as Ishiki turned onto the main street his worst fears were confirmed and to the point, that it gave him despair that bordered on madness.

He tore through the streets of the Secondary Ring—Running towards the obsidian gates that will let him into the Outer ring.

As he blurred past the city… he saw that it was in utter chaos. People were pouring out of their houses, staring up at the Crimson Moon and the dying sun.

“Oh great Angel, please save us once more.”

“Praise the Angel.”

“Please kill the Evil once more, oh eternally sleeping Angel.”

People muttered all kinds of prayers for the Angel who had supposedly saved this place centuries ago.

’How foolish…’

In the face of death and destruction… even the nobles and the merchants all were looking at the single figure which Ishiki determined was a player that had made it to the Inner ring.

But why had the bastard did something like that? Who was he? There were a myriad of questions but they didn’t matter right now.

Around him… everything was changing. The people suddenly started glowing out of nowhere. A faint, ethereal blue light was emanating from their bodies, pulsing in time with the tremors shaking the ground.

“What now…” Ishiki gritted his teeth, but he didn’t stop.

He summoned the artifact [Eye of Ruin], The monocle materialized in his hand, and he jammed it against his eye as he ran. The world shifted instantly as the crimson light faded into grayscale.

And Ishiki saw the roots of energy beneath the ground of Aethelburg. The root like structure of the blue energy that spread under the whole island was slowly receding back.

Realization dawned on Ishiki, at first he thought that all of these energy lines were connected to the Emperor of… but he was wrong.

They were all connected to the Heart or the Sun.

“No,” Ishiki gasped, his lungs burning. “No, no, no.”

He reached the Obsidian Gates separating the two walls. The guards stood there, frozen like statues. Their armor was intact, but their bodies inside were incandescent with blue light. They didn’t even move as Ishiki shoved the heavy gates open and sprinted through.

The outer ring was worse.

Ishiki sprinted through the streets… and saw what sent a sense of Deja vu, through his mind.

People were glowing and then turning into motes of light… the further he got from the sun the worse the situation got.

The despair gripping his heart only grew heavier with each step… his heart was getting colder and colder.

He saw Nina in the distance, near the market square. She was weeping as she hugged her parents tightly. But her arms were passing through them.

Her father looked at her with a sad smile, and then his face shattered into light. Her mother followed a second later.

Nina was left hugging empty air, glowing faintly before her. Only she was left behind, she was a Player and Players were real.

But her parents… they were part of the simulation it seems.

“Mom!” Ishiki screamed, turning the corner onto his street.

He skidded to a halt in front of the small, run-down house in the Outer Ring where he had lived for the past year. The door was closed.

His body trembled visibly as he stood in front of it… looking at the handle with terror in his eyes. The terror was not that of death… but of loosing something precious again.

His hand trembled as he reached for the handle. It felt cold and unreliable.

He threw the door open.

“Mom!?”

Silence answered him.

“Mom! Where are you?!”

He rushed down the narrow hallway, his boots thumping on the wooden floorboards. He burst into the kitchen, it was empty.

The into the living room, but it was empty as well. His heart was beating so fast that it seemed that it was about to burst.

“Please,” he sobbed, tearing open the door to her bedroom. “Please be here. Please, I beg the God or whatever it is.”

He entered into the bedroom slowly and froze.

She was standing in the corridor by the back door, looking out at the Crimson Moon outside.

She turned at the sound of the door bursting open.

“Ishiki?”

She looked exactly as he remembered. Her warm blue eyes, the worry lines etched around her mouth as she looked at him with a smile.

But the only difference was that… she was glowing.

Faint, beautiful streaks of blue light were drifting off her shoulders like steam. Her hands, clasped in front of her, were already translucent at the fingertips.

“Mom…” Ishiki fell to his knees. The strength left his legs completely… he felt a wave of darkest despair consume his heart.

“Oh, honey,” she said softly. She didn’t look scared. She looked sad, but still… peaceful. “You look so tired. Have you been running?”

She slowly walked away from the door. “Where were you for last three days? I was so worried.”

“Mom, you’re…” He couldn’t say it. He crawled forward and wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her stomach.

He expected to pass through her. He expected her to be cold mist but, miraculously… she felt warm.

She felt like his mother.

“I know,” she whispered, her hand stroking his hair. It felt so real. “I think… I think I always knew, somewhere deep down. That this wasn’t quite right.”

She paused and then added. “I know now… I am just an illusion made from your memories.”

“No,” Ishiki sobbed, clutching her tighter as if he could physically hold her together. “Don’t go. Please… not again. Please not again.”

He had already lost her once… he didn’t wanted to loose her again. She was the only reason he tried so hard to survive until now. Even if he knew deep Inside his heart that…

That his mother was already dead.

“Shh, it’s okay,” she soothed him, rocking him gently. “You’re safe. That’s all that matters. You’re safe, and you’re so strong.”

“I’m not!” Ishiki cried, looking up at her with tear-blurred eyes. “I’m weak! I can’t save anyone! I couldn’t save Ren, and I couldn’t even save you!”

She smiled, and a tear of pure blue light rolled down her cheek. “You didn’t need to save me, Ishiki. You don’t have to carry that weight.”

“But… But… I am so useless!”

“No… you are not,” she said simply. “And that’s okay… You don’t need to be. I am just glad that you are alive. You don’t need to be someone strong… I will always love you however you are.”

She looked down at her hands. They were fading faster now, the blue light intensifying. Her legs were turning into mist.

“Mom…”

“Listen to me, Ishiki,” she said, her voice growing fainter, echoing slightly as if coming from a great distance. She cupped his face with hands that were barely there.

“You have a long way to go. This world… it’s scary and cruel. But it’s a beautiful world.”

Her body was dissolving now. The blue light swirled around them, warm and blinding.

“Live, Ishiki, for me. For your Dad.” she whispered, leaning down to kiss his forehead. Her lips felt like a breeze. “Don’t let this world turn you cold.”

Ishiki didn’t know what to say to that… he hated him. He absolutely hated that scum of an old man. But he didn’t dare say it in front of his mother.

She pulled back, her form almost entirely gone. Just a silhouette of light remained.

“Oh, and Ishiki?”

He looked up, tears streaming down his face.

The last of the blue particles of her body, formed a smile.

“Happy Birthday.”

The figure of his mother… burst into a cloud of million blue stars that swirled around him for one heartbeat, warm and loving, before shooting upward into the sky, joining the river of souls flowing back to where they belonged.

Ishiki knelt alone in the empty hallway, his arms embracing nothing but the cold night air.

“Mom…”

He was alone… once again. He had lost his mother once again and with a finality.

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