NOVEL NEXT Vol.12, Ch.363 – Love Me to Bits and Pieces (1)
The familiar platinum hair, floating in the air – it was marred with the blood of her enemies. A sword was frozen in mid swing, cleaving someone in half. Her sorrowful eyes were filled with tears that dribbled down a crimson-stained face, completing the somber scene of a girl in tragedy.
Time had halted as I stood there and stared, recalling this bitter memory of the time when everything changed. Eryn was never supposed to be an Electi. It was by some strange turn of fate that the Goddess of Life, Cielle, took pity on her situation and bestowed that power onto her. And a strange device created by Lamps had sent both of their existences spiraling into another cycle. It shifted the trajectory of the life I was supposed to have, a single ripple cascading into a torrent of changes.
This event had triggered an error in the Architect’s plans, forcing him to prematurely take command once again. Conditions were reset, annoyances removed, and the whole project moved to Earth. But still, we had managed to survive. By Eryn’s will, we returned and joined up again, and now, we stood against the Architect, out of the dark and aware of his end goal.
“Don’t you want to save her?” Cielle beckoned me. “While time is stopped and her fate is still up in the air, don’t you want to fix a seemingly impossible moment of destiny?”
My eyes probably betrayed my emotions. Of course, I wanted to save Eryn. That was a given. She had sacrificed so much for me. And even when she had the chance for a moment of peace, she gave it up protecting me and giving me the power to move forward.
Cielle approached. She looked nothing at all like Eryn. She was cold and indifferent, giving off a tone that she didn’t care for anything else but her current task. The short bob of blond hair framed her face neatly. The business suit that she wore and the clipboard in her hand made it seem like she was simply here to run errands for a boss. But somehow, I could tell. Eryn’s passion for Claude at that moment had struck a chord within her. She saw the passion she once used to hold for the Architect, and it made her want to lend a hand.
Cielle had blessed Eryn instead of creating another apostle in her image, breaking away from the Architect’s control. And the result of that had all led up to this.
“You have the power now to do so. You hold the Essence of Life, the one power that he did not take back. But if you give it up, she can rejoin you again.”
“Trickery,” I said immediately, “What makes you think that I’ll just hand over this power? Showing me an illusion like this to make my resolve falter isn’t going to work!”
“It is no trick. The one that we all call “The Architect” can make it happen. You have seen it for yourself. Companions reincarnated, time and time again. He has the ability to let you choose, to live your life however you wish if you want. To live your ‘best’ life. It is a desire that everyone seeks, to be fully happy.”
I relaxed my stance. Cielle was not telling a lie. I had seen it for myself. The many lives that the Apostle Claude had experienced. Their memories had been unlocked within me. I could tap into each one of them, drawing from their experiences.
“And what determines what is the ‘best life’ for me? All this time, I’ve been playing the fool for his grand scheme, a puppet made to walk and talk a certain way. Forced to kill my companions while under his control, all so that he could become some all-powerful being.”
I pointed my knife at Cielle with determination.
“I may have lost people. I may have ended up where I am due to a complicated turn of fate, but you know what? Fighting back for a change may be the ‘best’ version of myself. If I got everything that I wanted, then there will be nothing left to appreciate.”
I swung my knife at Cielle, who blocked with her clipboard. It seemed like I would slice right through it, but my knife stopped dead. I followed up with left cross into her abdomen, feeling her small frame buckle from the impact.
But then, her head popped straight up at me, eyes emitting nothing – no pain, no bitterness, completely devoid of emotion. The clipboard in her hand cracked across my face, sending me back a few steps.
“Heh, figures it wouldn’t be that easy. The Architect chose quite the interesting companions….”
I shook off the minor damage from our exchange. It hardly put a dent in my health points, but it still stung, nonetheless.
Cielle, on the other hand, looked completely unfazed, like she didn’t even feel the weight of life anymore. With a snap of her fingers, she beckoned time to unfreeze. My attention flipped over to the army as motion returned to them.
But then I noticed that their eyes had turned away from Eryn and towards us. Immediately, they started charging forward.
“Oh, what the f-, not this shit again!”
The last thing I needed to do was draw upon my Grim Reaper self, like how it had been against the Purnesian army. Cielle just smirked at me, obviously responsible for animating them. On this world, I was on their stage. As a result, Cielle could likely control everyone here, their ‘lives’ as mere puppetry in her hands.
“How come you have the same power as Lamps did?!”
As I cut down a few of the troops, Cielle sauntered away from the battlefield and yelled out to me.
“Do you mean that ‘Will of Yaldabaoth’ trick he had up his sleeve? That merely bestowed power to a willing participant, fueling their desires. Don’t you notice a difference here?”
I hadn’t expected Cielle to blurt out such details, but something in the corner of my eye caught my attention. The soldiers that I had cut down began to move on their own, searching for the cleaved pieces of their bodies and reattaching them.
Like zombies comically clicking limbs and torsos back into place, they got up again and rejoined the fight.
I was not amused. Being on the receiving end of undying opponents was too troublesome for me to laugh at the ridiculousness. All I could manage to do was to continue cutting down my foes, hoping to reach Cielle and stop the puppet master.
“It’s useless, you know. Even if you target me, I have an infinite number of bodies to jump into. You kill one, and I’ll appear as another. You will be fighting for all of eternity, against a foe that never meets an end. That is the power of one who weaves Life into all around her.”
Surely, it seemed like the crowd never thinned out for long. Hardly any time passed before the fallen had gotten up again. In desperation, I racked my brain to figure out something to do. My mana subconsciously flared up and sent waves of purple wind all around, cutting the soldiers into cubes of mincemeat.
However, even that failed as I watched the piles of flesh reform and somehow revert to human form again.
“Even that is a no-go, huh?”
Endlessly stalling me here in this place would be a victory for the Architect. If there was no one to stop him from his progress, then it would be a satisfactory outcome. As expected, the Architect was prepared for our face-off.
Minutes rolled by. With the purple wind cutting through my opponents with ease, I was slowly cutting the distance between Cielle and me. Even if she said it was pointless, I still had to try. It was the only way forward. I had to push on, even with the doubts thrown at me.
And after who knew how long, she was finally within range. Her clipboard flew out at me again, but that had only worked as a surprise attack before. I saw lines where the flat tool was at its weakest, and with a single strike, the clipboard shattered in her hands.
“Gotcha!” I yelled as the knife came down and struck her front. Not being specialized in combat, her body itself was fairly weak compared to her companions. She didn’t even look surprised as her body was split in half diagonally. Blood spewed out like every other body, but it hardly fazed me anymore. I didn’t feel remorseful at slaying puppets that looked like humans.
But even with the puppet master down temporarily, the rest of the army didn’t slow down. I kept fighting the rest as I stood around the fallen body of Cielle. Scanning the surroundings of any changes in mana, I anxiously awaited to see who she would pop up as next.
I didn’t have to wait for long at all.
A glimmering sword broke through my vision. I brought my knife up to meet its blow, struggling to hold back the strength behind the thin arms that unleashed it.
Platinum hair and fiery red eyes. Eryn had joined in the battle, but I knew instantly that it was Cielle in her body once again. Pushing off from the attack, I backed up and noticed that the army had formed a ring around us, no longer participating.
I turned to Cielle, sighing as I could feel what was coming.
A cold, indifferent expression was on Eryn’s face, a nihilist vibe that nothing mattered anymore. Her lips opened to bring forth the sentence that she had decided.
“Imagine killing your beloved over and over again, for all of eternity. Imagine being given that role, watching them die until… nothing… matters… anymore…”
Cielle raised her sword at me, asking for me to do my worst.
“But now, neither one of us can die, right? We both hold that power. Feel free to love me to bits and pieces, Claude. Down to every piece of flesh and bone. I’ll keep coming back, no matter what you do to me. I’ll always be here for you, now and forever. Just like how Eryn wanted.”
Hearing this twisted logic, I simply sighed.
“Yare yare daze…”
But then, I glared at her sharply, composing myself. I had been waiting for this moment to come.