Chapter 43: The Arrival of the Saintess [1]

"Liren... we’re running away with Alice.... leaving Elara behind."

{Okay}

The admission left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He hated how those words sounded, even inside his own head.

If the vision Alice saw was true--if the aberration was really nothing but a walking explosion--what choice did he have?

He’d gone over it again and again, turning over every possibility, every angle.

They all led to the same conclusion.

There was no path forward that didn’t end in blood.

This fight was beyond them.

Earlier, he’d told himself he couldn’t let Elara die--that her death would trigger one of the bad endings, and the story would spiral into ruin without her.

That was still true.

But what good was preventing a bad ending if he died in the process?

If he died here, there would be no ending at all.

He had to be realistic about it.

He couldn’t save everyone.

That kind of thinking was a luxury for the strong--not for someone like him.

He would save anyone if he had the power, but otherwise... he’d always prioritize his own survival over anyone else’s.... unless the person was close to him.

There was technically another option, of course.

To stay behind and face the aberration while Elara ran back to the palace for help.

She was much faster than he was.

Her agility stat was the highest among all the playable characters in the Eclipsed Realm.

Even now, injured and exhausted, she was still moving like water around the aberrations’ attacks.

If anyone could make it back to the palace and return with reinforcements, it was her.

But that meant trusting her to come back and standing alone against a monster that had already nearly killed him a dozen times.

He didn’t think he could do that.

It wasn’t that he doubted her ability. It was that he doubted his own---

Whether he could survive long enough for her to return before the explosion.

The only reason he was still alive right now was that Elara had been drawing the aberration’s attention from the start--keeping most of its focus on herself while dodging and weaving with that swordswoman’s grace she always carried.

If she left, all of that focus on the aberration would turn to him alone.

And that would be just plain suicide.

He doubted he would even last ten seconds.

He looked towards her and was about to call out when he noticed she was looking at him too.

When their gazes met, he saw something flash behind her eyes that almost looked like determination.

She had also made her choice.

She raised her hand, and a pale magic circle bloomed above her palm.

The magic circle rotated, and a thick wall of ice erupted from the ground between them and the aberration... it was far denser than any she’d cast before.

The effort of forcing the essence drained the little color that remained on her face.

She ran toward him as her torn gown whipped behind her.

She grabbed Alice and pressed the girl into Mikael’s arms.

"Mikael." She said in a heavy voice. "I need you to take Alice with you."

"...."

"As the princess of the Valerion Empire, I’m ordering you." She said in an authoritative voice. "Take my sister and run."

Alice’s eyes went wide. "No! Big Sis, no!"

"Alice—"

"I’m not leaving you!" The girl’s voice cracked as tears streamed down her face. "I won’t! I won’t leave you to die again!"

"Alice, listen to me—"

"No! You can’t make me! I won’t go! I won’t—"

The girl thrashed with surprising strength, her small fists pounding against Mikael’s chest as her legs kicked wildly.

Her golden eyes blazed with sharp light as she fought with everything she had.

He understood her fear, her refusal.

But Elara had already made her choice, and she also knew that someone had to stay behind; she couldn’t save everyone.

Someone had to sacrifice.

And Elara had decided it would be her.... unlike him, who prioritized his safety.

’Self-sacrificing to the bitter end.’ Mikael thought in admiration, buried beneath the frustration knotting tight in his chest. ’That’s who she is.’

Even in the game, she had always chosen to shoulder her impossible burdens alone.

Every route, every fight, every hopeless moment.... she had taken the heaviest weight onto herself and acted like it was nothing.

Like she wasn’t allowed to need anyone.

And now she was doing it again.

Except this wasn’t a game.

There was no reset, no save point, no player watching from the other side of the screen to undo a bad choice.

Mikael’s lips parted to say something.... maybe some kind of reassurance that he would be back with help before the explosion.

An empty promise or maybe an apology.

But the words never formed.

Suddenly, he froze as he looked past her shoulder.

All the tentacles that had been lashing out at them moments ago now hung limp and motionless at its sides.

The aberration’s elongated body stood perfectly still at the center of the ruined clearing, its hollow eye sockets weeping black ichor, fixed on the sky above.

The air itself seemed to thicken with a pressure that made his ears ache.

"What the hec--"

The question trailed off as his gaze dropped to the creature’s stomach.

Its stomach was expanding.

Its skin stretched taut over the swelling mass beneath as the dark shapes writhing just under the surface began to move with renewed, frantic energy.

The creature’s bulging belly swelled outward like a balloon filling with water, and the grey flesh split along the thinned seams where it could no longer contain the pressure.

Through those cracks leaked a sickly green light and pus.

Mikael’s stomach clenched with instinctive dread as Alice slipped from his grasp.

She hit the ground hard, but she did not seem to notice the impact, her golden eyes fixed, locked on the expanding stomach, as what little color remained in her face drained away completely.

"Too early" She whispered "This is too early. It wasn’t supposed to happen yet."

Elara had gone rigid, her hand frozen halfway to Alice’s shoulder as she stared at the swollen belly, and for the first time, he saw fear in her eyes.

They didn’t have time to run.

Even if he grabbed Alice and sprinted, even if Elara sprinted with all her might, it wouldn’t be enough.

Alice was still on the ground, her small body trembling.

Elara was reaching for her as her lips formed words that Mikael couldn’t hear over the roaring in his ears.

His own legs were frozen as his mind raced through a dozen impossible escape plans and finding.... nothing.

Suddenly, a figure appeared between them in a blur of white and green.

A tall man with sharp features and pointed ears that marked him as an elf, wearing a white robe of the Church of Nature Mother that billowed behind him.

His hair was the color of spring leaves, and his eyes were a deep, ancient hazel.

A long sword hung at his hip, its hilt wrapped in white leather and its pommel set with a single emerald.

He drew the blade in one fluid motion as it sang when it left its sheath, the sound resonating through the air around them.

The elf raised the blade high, its blade reflecting the twin moonlight, and slashed it downwards, meters away from the aberration.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the world itself seemed to split.

A brilliant arc of silver light erupted from the blade, expanding outward like a crescent moon carved from pure essence.

It sliced through the invisible threads of essence that connected the creature to the bomb growing inside its belly.

The silver light passed through the swollen stomach without leaving a mark, but Mikael felt the snap of something vital being severed, as if the force holding the explosion together had shattered.

The aberration let out a scream as it started to crumble into dust.

The elf sheathed his sword with a soft click and turned towards them.

His hazel eyes swept over the three of them before settling on Alice, and for a brief moment, something like relief and recognition flickered behind that ancient gaze.

He crossed the distance with slow, deliberate steps and stopped before Alice.

Elara stepped forward immediately, positioning herself between him and her sister.

The elf ignored her entirely as he lowered himself to one knee.

"I have finally found you.... Saintess."

*****