Chapter 1087 - Taming the Wall - True Ruins - Back to the Future
Chapter 1087: Chapter 1087 - Taming the Wall - True Ruins - Back to the Future
Around them, the guards moved with silent, fast efficiency.
Hana and Kira practically shoved the three remaining pristine Double-Contract potions into Ren’s hands, entirely bypassing any ceremony or lingering. It was the kind of rapid, unceremonious handoff that only happens when the ceiling is about to collapse.
Mako and Shizu worked in tandem with their earth-aspected beasts, rapidly sweeping up the loose crystals, the scattered artifact fragments, and the rest of the chamber’s harvested materials. They were moving at a breakneck pace, but they were meticulous. Leaving priceless resources behind for the ancient horrors currently chewing their way down the stairs was the kind of amateur mistake this squad simply did not make.
Mayo, however, still had the silver, wind-aspected egg from the guardian.
She had both arms wrapped tightly around it, pressing it against her chest. Her posture screamed attachment; she had clearly decided this baby was hers to carry, and she was going to force Ren to verbally demand it if he wanted it back.
Ren didn’t ask. He took one look at her stubborn stance and let her keep it for now... But any use would need prior full purification since it was still almost half corrupted.
Instead, he reached out, his fingers wrapping firmly around Liora’s hand. It was a small, grounding gesture amidst the chaos. He pulled, and they bolted for the stairs.
The rest of the group surged after them.
Sirius ran too.
He kept his pace with the Vanguard group, his boots were slamming steadily against the ancient stone, but his mind was spinning violently against his skull.
The physical world was blurring past him now, but the implications of what was happening were getting clear and hitting him faster than he could consciously process all of them.
He also caught the surrounding environmental clues left behind as they sprinted.
He recognized the empty pedestals flashing by in the dim light... A very recognisable image for him, as they were even in the same order, but with an important detail missing if this was to be compared with the ruins that took his wife. He noted the distinct lack of a massive, three-cores door.
So this was not the main ruin...
He read the archaic architecture but only from memory and not at Ren’s level of detail; this wasn’t a transitional hallway or chamber... At least that much he knew from the lack of a second door. This was the final chamber of the ruins, nearly identical to the one he had fought so desperately to reach. Except, the main door for the 3 cores was missing.
’Wait...’
If this was the final chamber of the new ruin, the last one he explored, and he was here so far down, physically running alongside them...
His chest heaved. His lungs expanded, pulling in the damp, stale air, burning with the undeniable fire of living tissue demanding oxygen.
The light he had seen in his final memory...
The blinding beam that had appeared behind Lykea’s image. It hadn’t been any array, it hadn’t been a lethal strike.
It had been the crystallizing beam.
He had been turned to solid crystal.
And somehow, impossibly, maybe this boy that was in front of him at that moment had brought him back.
Sirius’s mind did exactly what his daughter Luna’s mind did whenever a massive, world-shattering revelation hit without warning.
It showed its true way of thinking... The questions swarmed, multiplying faster than he could organize them. The internal storm was violently intense, a furious, chaotic energy he had learned from Lykea, but he locked it all down behind a flawlessly stoic expression just like Luna.
He was a man who had spent his entire life mastering the art of an unreadable face.
’Maybe we JUST need to put back the heart!?’ his mind screamed. ’Slamming a heart back into a statue actually BRINGS A HUMAN BEING BACK TO LIFE?!’
While running, he cast a sharp glance at the girl clutching the silver egg to her chest. Something about the sharp curve of her jaw, the specific way she carried herself... it tickled the back of his memory. It was the deeply unsettling familiarity of recognizing the ghost of a child hiding in the face of a fully grown adult. A child you hadn’t been around to watch grow up.
"Was I crystallized?" Sirius demanded. His voice was blunt, cutting through the heavy sounds of their boots on the stairs. "Did you bring me back by shoving my crystal heart into my statue?"
Mayo let out a sharp, breathy laugh.
It wasn’t a mocking sound. It was the hysterical, entirely genuine laugh of someone who knew her next words were going to break his reality even further, and there was absolutely no way to cushion the blow.
"Oh, yeah... You were solid glass. We could literally see right through you," Mayo called back over her shoulder, not breaking her stride. "But no, that was just step one. You don’t reverse a full-body crystallization just by plugging a heart back in like some easy puzzle. It takes a hell of a lot more than that..."
Sirius stared at the back of her head.
’So it was not that simple, BUT STILL, it was done! And THAT means...’
The implications hit him in a devastating, cascading avalanche. Each realization violently kicked open the door to the next before he could even brace himself.
If he had been reversed... if a statue could become flesh again... who else could be saved?
’LYKEA... COULD LYKEA BE...?!’
He swallowed hard. If he had woken up at the bottom of a ruined cavern, surrounded by unknown seasoned fighters... how much time had actually passed? What had happened to his city? To his family?
’DAYS? WEEKS?’
He looked at Mayo’s adult profile again. A cold, suffocating dread seized his newly beating heart.
’YEARS?! DON’T TELL ME IT’S BEEN YEARS!’
"Luna," Sirius breathed.
The name tore its way out of his throat. It carried a ragged, desperate urgency that completely shattered his stoic mask. It wasn’t a question; it was a plea.