"Answer me!"
Half of the man's face was completely dissolved, the carbonized flesh curling back hideously. Yet, in his single remaining eye, that spine-chilling, martyr-like fanaticism still burned.
"Have you forgotten our ideals?! Those young faces ground up like cheap consumables by the Sanctum in these endless conflicts!"
The man roared hysterically, blood mixed with scorched saliva spraying through his shattered teeth, splattering across Erika's deathly pale face.
"This isn't your personal game! Erika!!"
The air was thick with the acrid stench of forcibly ionized ozone, mixing with the sickly sweetness of blood from the man's wounds, and the putrid stench of something rotting rapidly in the abyss.
Erika gasped heavily, taking in massive, ragged breaths. The edges of his vision were already beginning to blacken.
Bzzzt... Bzzzt...
The piercing sound of electrical overload was infinitely magnified in the dead space. By Erika's feet, thick black cables suddenly began to twitch and thrash nervously, like dying black snakes.
Ferocious red-black energy surged madly inside the conduits like boiling, viscous liquid. Accompanied by a teeth-grinding cracking sound, the surfaces of several overwhelmed conduits were forcibly ruptured. Dark red arcs of electricity, mixed with the sap of energy, danced and cracked violently in the air, exuding a spine-chilling aura of destruction.
Bzzzt... Bzzzt...
That viscous, twisted red-black energy finally flowed along the veins of countless pipes to its end—merging into the massive black matrix that represented the "end of all things."
And at the center of that end.
Clear in Erika's bloodshot eyes was the reflection of that scene—
A petite body, firmly impaled and suspended by those raging cables and energy. She was right there, silently, desperately bearing the entire weight of something capable of tearing apart the whole old world.
"This is the weight of truth, Erika."
The man's voice sounded amidst the popping of electrical sparks, smooth, even carrying a sigh of exhaustion. He didn't turn around, just quietly watched the girl in the matrix.
"It is already over."
The man slowly turned around, looking down from above at Erika, who was trembling from exhaustion.
"None of our blood will have flowed in vain." There was no anger in his tone, only a cold statement of fact. "For your ridiculous personal feelings, are you going to let the whole world continue to rot in this dungeon?"
[WARNING. Energy depleted. Sanctum Purification Sequence locked.]
[Survival probability: 0.03%. Conclusion: Futile struggle.]
Sssshk—!!!
Without warning. Several streaks of ultra-pure golden light, carrying an absolute will of purification, brushed past Erika's cheek and shoulder in an instant like the rapiers of Death.
"Gah—!"
Even just being grazed by the aftershock felt as if a heavy sledgehammer had brutally shattered his ribcage. A massive mouthful of black blood, laced with fragments of internal organs, spewed wildly from his mouth, splattering onto the freezing steel deck and emitting a teeth-grinding, corrosive hiss.
Every nerve ending in his entire body was screaming in alarm. The soul-tearing agony was a cruel reminder: after barely managing that pathetic evasive maneuver, the last dregs of energy within him had run completely dry.
[DETECTED. Genetic chain collapse. Physical shell damage at critical threshold. Repair... Failed.]
[High-dimensional energy reaction surging. WARNING: If this sequence is forcibly engaged, mutation... Irreversible.]
"I shall become the first spark!"
The man didn't waver in the slightest from that missed strike. He raised his intact right hand, aiming his palm steadily and mercilessly at the blood-soaked boy kneeling on one knee.
"This is the final chance. Stand down, and you are still one of us. Your sacrifice and mine will forge the cornerstone of the new world."
Erika stared dead into the man's eyes.
He didn't look at that grand blueprint of a new world. For the last time, his peripheral vision crossed those raging cables, sweeping over that petite body trembling in agony within the red-black energy.
Using that right hand—still constantly oozing crystalline fragments and bloody viscera—he took aim at the man, just as steadily.
His mouth pulled into a tragic, blood-stained smile.
"Who exactly..." he bit through the blood froth in his mouth, his voice hoarse yet carrying an obsession ready to be ground to dust, "...is this future even meant for."
The next second.
Countless points of golden light representing absolute purification violently collided with the impure, twisted, entirely inhumane ferocious energy erupting from Erika's hand!
BOOM—!!!!
Blinding, intense light instantly swallowed the entire space. A massive shockwave, accompanied by thick smoke that tore the roof off the dome, rocketed into the sky. In the deafening roar of the explosion, Erika was violently thrown back like a torn ragdoll by the raging energy storm, plummeting straight down into the endless, pitch-black abyssal fault behind him.
His vision plunged into absolute darkness.
[WARNING. Physical structure has sustained catastrophic damage.]
[WARNING. Pain receptors overloaded.]
[WARNING. Vital signs depleted beyond 89%.]
[WARNING. Logic chain severed.]
[Conclusion: Survival probability: Zero.]
Accompanied by the endless sensation of falling, those glaring red warning characters gradually blurred and flickered deep within his fading consciousness, ultimately dissolving into dead silence.
That voice echoed once more. Only three incredibly brief words remained, yet they seemed to herald some sort of grim reboot:
[Until next time.]