Punishment For Peeking

"Royal Crystal: Pandemonia Kingdom!" shouted Astria, squeezing her eyes shut, refusing to die by looking into the green light.

The crystals exploded around the area, alerting the room beside it, which housed the Black Knight. The explosions were enough to affect Bryan's fight with the Black Knight. The Slayer cursed as he slipped from the wall, nearly getting his head chopped off by his opponent.

"Oh? What's wrong? Can't handle a shaky battlefield?" taunted the Black Knight, purposefully stabbing her blade into the cave so the nearby rooms would get affected.

"Tch..." was the only thing Bryan could muster at that point as he established communications with Duncan via the Barren Pillars' Emblem.

'Oi! Stop creating earthquakes before you collapse the entire area!'

'Sorry, Slayer Verna. But that wasn't me... It was the Crystal Princess, and we are both using the final stages of our Orginal Spell...'

'Copy that, come out alive, alright? Or Mav is going to kill me-'

Back to Duncan and the Ankou, the two guys were prepared to release the actual Frame.

As Astria blocked the wave of Elemental Energy, she opened her eyes in time to see a horrific sight. There he was, the boy known as the First Seat Dementor Pillar of the Arks, with his scythe pointed to his right side... He was ready to unleash the most powerful move that he knew.

Astria nearly cried as she witnessed hundreds of wooden planks, Sotobas, to be exact, appearing behind the child. Each grave marker had inscriptions, but the Crystal Princess was too afraid to care.

As the hundreds of Sotobas moved to aim toward Astria, the poor girl saw an overlapping image of a skull on top of Duncan's figure. Then, with a simple gesture of carrying the scythe, Duncan released the Sotobas to destroy Astria.

And it would've worked if she hadn't been protected by someone else. But unfortunately, the crystals she threw up were not her usual standard as they could match Duncan's Elemental Power output, which Astria couldn't do during the entire fight.

"Damn it! Reaper! Whatever you wanted to pull off earlier, do it now before she gets the chance to strike us again!" yelled Duncan, as the onslaught of Sotobas started to fade out.

"Yes, my lord," said the Ankou, as he threw out a spell of his past.

"Open the door of truth and reveal the secrets within. This is where you'll meet your end, and this is where I take your soul... For I am the Grim Reaper. And I shall show you the terrible truth about Duncan, the boy who lacks emotion. This is his tale, not the one before."

"Death is by your side, Astria Faust," announced the Ankou, appearing before the poor girl in his proper form.

Astria Faust felt a bolt of terror strike her spine as the actual Grim Reaper stood in front of her, holding up his scythe and ready to reap her soul. The Ankou wore the same outfit as Duncan when he was unleashing his Frames, but there was a grey sash around the Reaper's waist.

The mirage of the Ankou was of a middle-aged man with scars running along his porcelain skin. As he inched closer, the Reaper fumbled with some lockets by his side while the other hand held his death instrument. The blow finally came, but it wasn't what Astria had expected.

For Duncan and the Ankou, what came next was quick and straightforward. The crystals around the area shatter all at once, vanishing into dust to reveal Astria stabbing herself in the head with a broken crystal. But for the Crystal Princess, it was a different scene and outcome.

Astria woke up to see herself strapped onto a stone table, her limbs tied down with metal chains, and her head spun in agony. She tried to scream but to no avail. Her sight was different from before as if everything had been greyed out.

Had she become colorblind? No... This isn't occurring in real-time... This was... These were Duncan's true memories! The Crystal Princess was experiencing Duncan's tortured past within the confines of the Infinite Experiment in Albion. Astria started to freak out as sharp objects invaded the body.

After a moment, Astria felt two metal things sticking onto the sides of her head. Then, before she could register the item, the Crystal Princess was sent into a world of torment as bolts of electricity were sent into her head. The pain felt so real... Yet she knew it was only a memory.

This pain continued for what seemed like forever before the scene changed, showing a room full of other kids chained up to the walls. Some were vomiting, some were limbless, and others were barely clinging to life. But most of them were devoid of life.