Chapter 55: Chapter 55: Collapse

Just a moment ago, Alice had been there. But now she was gone. Disappeared, in an instant, as unceremonious and abrupt as death could be.

I breathed shallow, labored breaths, my body quivering and sprawled out on the snow.

Was this it?

After all our toil, all our sacrifices, was this the end of the death games?

The supposed game-master, Alice, was dead. What now? Could we finally go back to the real world? Were we free?

I waited for something to happen. For the world around us to fade away. Or for me to wake up on the mountain trail back in my hometown. Or for a portal to open, leading back into the real world.

But there was only the night wind that blew and blew.

I looked to the empty space where Alice once was. Then I lifted my eyes to 6E12. He hovered, silently, expressionlessly.

[HP: 4540 / 6E12]

What now?

6E12 shot me a glance with his remaining, uninjured eye, then left me behind. He lifted a hand at another building of the Combat Institute. A blast of shadows shot out, and the building disappeared.

He resumed his rampage. Where there were buildings of the Institute, he erased them. As people fled, he erased them as well. It no longer felt like a battle or even a war. It was an apocalypse unfolding before me. There was no point in fighting against the inevitable.

I squatted and watched 6E12 as he demolished the world. Once he had utterly razed the Combat Institute to the ground, he moved on to the rest of the city. He destroyed the Town Hall. Several other guilds. Even the Trader's Guild, who had once opposed the Combat Institute. I could scarcely guess at his motive.

The darkness and cold made me drowsy. I wanted to sleep. Perhaps I could die in my dreams, without knowing or feeling anything. If everyone else was going to die, I might as well.

I closed my eyes. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to find some small measure of comfort in the darkness. The screams and shouts in the town blended with the wind, sounding so faint and distant.

We had come so far, all of this town, through all our struggles and battles. We had all endured pain and fear; we had clawed out for ourselves an existence, a life in this little town. We wanted shelter, so we made our homes here. We earned ourselves warm meals. We had found jobs we were passionate about. And we dared to be happy, to feel like we belong, even to love those that fought by our side.

But it'd all end tonight.

Is it lonely where you are, Becky? It's alright. We'll come for you soon.

Footsteps crunched in the snow at my side. I opened my eyes to see 6E12 standing there.

"Were you a member of the Combat Institute?" he asked coldly.

"Yeah," I replied, without much thought.

"What division?"

"Logistics."

"Before Fink caught me, they were building an underground bunker," he said. "Do you know where it is?"

"Yeah."

"Show me."

"What will you do there?" I asked.

He didn't give an answer.

I watched fresh snow pepper down. "Kill them?"

"Yeah. That what I'm thinking"

He said it half-heartedly, as if he were just pondering out loud about plans for an evening alone.

"Find it yourself," I said.

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6E12 stood by my side, silent, as though what I said had hurt him. He simply walked away, without a word. I watched him search through the dark, desolate campus, examining crater after crater. Deciding that I had nothing much to lose, I trailed behind him.

It didn't take much time before he found the bunker entrance some distance away, at the northeastern corner of the campus. The entrance was a sliding metal door horizontally upon the ground itself, leading down into the bowels of the earth. Countless shoe-prints stamped the snow around it, all leading in. A lone guard stood outside, without a weapon in hand.

"Is this it?" he asked me.

"These people have nothing to do with Fink," I muttered. "What's the point? What are you planning to do after this? You kill them, then what?" I doubted I had any chance of convincing him.

He continued forward toward the entrance without heeding my words. The guard shouted at him to stop, but of course he didn't. It was a voice that sounded familiar. Then I realized; it was Professor Phoenixcourt.

I wondered if I should shout at him to run away. But what use would that be? If 6E12 wanted him dead, he had no chance of surviving.

The professor bent down and traced a glowing glyph in the snow. Thin pillars of light sprang up in a ring around the bunker entrance, like bars of a cage, walling 6E12 off.

6E12 walked up. He touched a finger to one of the pillars. Arcs of lightning burst out at the site of contact, but it did nothing to stop him. He simply held the pillar in his grasp, for a moment, and it disappeared.

"That's my professor," I implored 6E12. "Please just let him go. He's on our side."

6E12 craned his head around to look at me. "Which department does he work for?"

"Research," I said. "Nothing to do with Fink. I swear."

"...Sophia?" Phoenixcourt said. So he had recognized me.

I wanted to tell him this wasn't my fault, and at the same time, I wanted to apologize for everything. But how meaningless would those words be in the midst of all this destruction?

My throat tightened. "Professor…please, I –"

"Have you no esteem for me?" the professor interrupted, his voice cold and stern. "That you'd beg for my life, in front of an enemy. Far be it from me! To run, while my students desperately pray for a protector!" He turned to face 6E12. "I know who you are, monster. As long as I still draw breath, you will not touch a single soul under my care."

6E12 furrowed his brows. "Tch." He aimed his palm at Professor Phoenixcourt and began forming an orb of darkness.

"Radiant dipole," the professor recited. "Yggrasil's diseased topology. Thou Nine Maidens of the measureless sky, sacrifice the accursed singularities upon thy altar, and blot all potency with blood. Mana Void!"

A massive gray dome, larger than a house, suddenly manifested around 6E12 and myself. It was translucent, seemingly immaterial, and glowed with a quiet, pulsating aura. The shadow in 6E12's palm dissipated. I sensed a stillness, a heaviness that weighed me down.

"Area-of-effect Silence debuff," 6E12 mused. "Impressive for someone in Silver. How long does it last?"

The dome dissipated after nine seconds. That was all the professor was capable of. I couldn't blame him; the spell was already better than anything I could manage.

The wisps of shadows re-ignited in 6E12's palm and he aimed toward Phoenixcourt once again.

"You're his student, right?" 6E12 asked me. "I'll let you say your goodbyes."

I stepped in front of 6E12, blocking Phoenixcourt from him.

"Shut up," I hissed. "Is this how you repay me? I set you free, and you…you destroy everything I care about? You're worse than Fink!"

By the wildness flashing in his eyes, I could tell I hit a nerve.

"Say that again," 6E12 growled in a low voice. "Say that again, and I'll –"

A blast of purple energy erupted beside us, sending me crashing back into the frozen ground. From the blast, a spearman emerged, and he pierced 6E12 in the flank. Time seemed to pause as the spearman hung mid-stride in the air. Thin arcs of electricity wisped from the spear into 6E12. The world seemed to darken, if only just for an instant.

A shockwave exploded from the spear-tip. It launched 6E12 back like a ragdoll.

The spearman who had just arrived – it was Hei.

As 6E12 tumbled to a stop, Hei conjured his Schwarzschild Trident, that immaterial weapon colored the deepest black and outlined in the brightest white. He hurled it at 6E12 and skewered him through the chest.

Dozens of yards away, stretched out on the ground, 6E12 let out a shill, crazed laugh.

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