All This is for Her

Goren laughed and let his power loose on him. He could feel the blood in his veins getting excited every minute. If it was a couple of years ago, it would have hurt him to see someone else in pain, but a lot of things have changed since then. He clasped his fist together and relished seeing V double over and collapse on the floor.

"It's working perfectly!" He realized, looking at his own hands. "Just like dad said it would." But the exhaustion from using the power hit him and Goren sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, hair falling over his face.

"What do they even want from me?" He raised an eyebrow as he studied both Miwen and V on the floor. He strode over to the man and picked out his knife and… a bluetooth.

He shifted the hair around his ear and pulled the device out before putting it on his own ear and connecting it. "Hello?"

"Hello?" A response came immediately. It was another male voice. "Why do you sound so raspy? What's happening?" Mitchell asked in concern. He was trying to figure out things on his own too and he didn't want to hear that V was also facing troubles.

"Hey man, just informing that the owner of this bluetooth dropped this on the way," Goren said casually, his beady eyes fixated on the two people on the floor.

"Where is the owner?" Mitchell asked from the other side. "Are you a roomboy or something?"

"Aye, sir, I am. I don't know where the owner is, may I deliver this to you?"

A few seconds of silence came from the other side before Mitchell sensed something was wrong. "Yes, I'm here at the terrace of the building."

Goren raised an eyebrow. What's a man doing on the terrace? "Aye, sir. I will be there in a second."

Mitchell disconnected before removing the bluetooth and crushing it under his feet. "Fuck," he turned around and strode back towards the staircase to go to the terrace. "If that isn't the roomboy, then it must be someone who beat V. Why is this happening?" Mitchell scolded himself in frustration. Before he turned to the terrace staircase, he decided to check on Hazel.

Without thinking, he went inside the women's washroom and without trouble, found her bent over the sink having a panic attack.

She looked up at him, her hair all messy. "I'm sorry, I haven't done something like this before and I'm totally losing it…"

Mitchell just stood next to her and hugged her tight. Hazel took in a sharp breath as Mitchell gripped her in his arms strongly. "I'm just glad you're safe."

Hazel sighed and looked up at him with concern. In the past one hour, he had clearly gone through a lot of stress too. "What happened to the other two?"

Mitchell bit his lip and looked away, not having the courage to look her in the eye. "If my instincts are right, V came inside the building to cover for Miwen and got caught."

"What?" Hazel breathed in shock. "Where… who?"

Mitchell pulled her out of the washroom. "Prepare yourself, we are going to find out now."

"Mitchell…" Hazel hesitated to follow. "You can go alone, I don't want to hinder this mission further."

Mitchell turned back to look at her, her hand still in his. So he squeezed it tight to give her reassurance. "I can't do this without you, Hazel. I can't do it without any of you, not alone. At least for Tiara, we need to figure this out."

Hazel found herself smiling at his stubbornness again. "You really do love your sister, don't you?"

"I'm doing this for her, so that she doesn't have to suffer more."

Hazel nodded. "I'll come. Just tell me what to do," she said finally and decided that she had to be stronger. Everyone else was struggling, and she had no excuse to slack.

...…

In the face of death, nothing made sense.

Especially to Percy. His eyes were open and his hands and legs were moving but he didn't know how long he would last. He wanted to get to Karmet and take him down but he kept sending more and more monsters out of thin air just so that Percy wouldn't reach him.

It was crazy.

It was senseless.

Percy felt himself losing energy.

[You HP has dropped considerably. Refill Health with a Potion]

He sighed inside his head as he stabbed yet another creature and it disintegrated, adding XP points to his level bar. At this rate, he could reach level 5 in less than an hour. But he didn't know whether his time was running out or not. Without Tiara under his sight, their connection might be strained.

"Please, let this stop… just take us back into the real world," he wished badly. But there was no hint of the ground collapsing or him opening his eyes back in the studio flat. His right knee started to feel like jelly. He had run out of potions too, having used all of them to keep going and buy Tiara time.

He had seen her go inside the monster's mouth after getting healed by a potion, so he figured that she was doing something in there. But time just ticked and ticked and nothing seemed to be happening. He caught a glance of Karmet standing on one end, watching.

Nakano was on the other end watching too. For a second, Percy felt like they both were the same person.

He cursed and put all his energy into the next monster. But midway, his sword dropped and he gasped as he fell down face first into the snow.

A screen popped up in front of him that showed his completely empty HP bar.

Realisation struck him and he tried to get up. "No, no, no," he whimpered. "Please, no!" His vision started to become blurry as he grasped for something. He tried to pick up his sword but another monster crushed it. He felt the monster step down on him and he whimpered once more before his vision went black.

.

.

.

All over the dream system, screens popped up, all of them said the same thing over and over again and it was like a blanket of silence had fallen upon the entire Kingdom of Zirlock.

[Prince Hao Yuan of Zirlock has died]