Chapter 764 (2/2)

“Can you kill me, child? Doubtful.” The Weaver sounded amused.

Alta snorted. “Burn for me.”

Randidly felt as the strange resonator device amplified the vicious heat of the ash in Alta’s chest. For a second, he thought that a huge area around them would be burnt away. But he was surprised that as that vision of ash exploded outwards, a chilling blast erupted from the Weaver.

It chuckled by clicking its fangs together in amusement. “There is balance in all things, child. Where there is light, there is darkness. Although you refuse to acknowledge it, we are one and the same. We both seek to break out of this cage. Why do you hate me?”

“Because you killed my family! I watched them suffer and die because of you!” Alta bellowed. The resonator in her chest began to spin more rapidly. The air around her distorted. Her clothes began to smoke and smolder.

“Don’t hate me. Hate the Progenitor that stranded us in this broken land.”

“WHY DO I NEED TO HATE ONLY ONE THING?!?” Alta roared as her body burst into flames. That heat was enough to melt the ground beneath her. Randidly’s consciousness swam through it like a fish in water, twirling around Alta’s head. With an even gaze, he followed the vicious thorns that wrapped even more tightly around her soul as the image of ash exploded outwards.

The wave of heat was impressive, and even the Weaver faltered in the face of it. Although it was producing an image of Frigid Ash to counter it perfectly, the cold image was being slowly overwhelmed. Hissing, the Weaver slowly retreated.

“Do you think killing me will accomplish anything?” The Weaver spat out. “These last hundreds of years, I haven’t had to even lift a spinner; all of you follow the paths I have created. So deep are my plans that-”

“-you don’t matter,” Alta said, with a surprising amount of chilling hatred for the fake she was a walking torch. “It’s true. Your death will mean nothing. But that is because everything means nothing. This is an empty world. Your words won't stop me.”

“The Progenitor-”

“Killing you will make me feel good. Even if it’s just for a moment,” Alta interrupted. She was smiling, but the heat warped the air so her smile seemed to wiggle like a blind earthworm. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

In a wave of force, the flames blasted outward and ripped through the Weaver’s image. The Weaver’s body followed quickly afterward, incinerated in the speed it took one to blink.

After that powerful display, the Ashen Image that had seized Alta departed; with a groan, she collapsed to her knees. The flesh around the resonator in her chest was softly sizzling as it burnt her skin.

The naked girl sat and stared numbly at the ash that was the big bad guy she had chased for her entire life. Then she began to cry.

Randidly reached out and brushed her hair. He remembered how exhilarating it had been in those moments where the Creature had been reduced to nothing but scattered memories. But afterward, he felt so… hollow. His great foe had died, but not really. And now, he faced directly the larger threat that the System posed to Earth.

By slaying the Creature, he hadn’t accomplished anything. And that lack of satisfaction ate at him. Even now. Especially now, because he was aware that the Creature still existed in some form, waiting for him to let his guard down.

Which was followed by the second realization: although it was a hollow gesture, Randidly and Alta couldn’t have proceeded without making it.

That was the thing about life. Toward the end, everything began to feel like work. There were no easy answers, just a list of things to do tomorrow.

Randidly detected Creta hurrying over to investigate the commotion and flowed away. This was just one story developing in his Soulskill. Karma dictated there would be two more, so Randidly followed his instincts toward the second.