Chapter 16C: Array of Infinite Emptiness

I noticed a few patrons of the underworld standing in the black inferno, balking at the irony that they themselves would die in the same way they killed so many others. Even Hayatama sprinted down the stairs to his stand and reached his bodyguard. This guard activated a power which summoned an incandescent sphere that then appeared to warp them out of existence. I felt nothing even as I watched this enemy escape with his life. I felt nothing even as I watched the Array devour everyone I had ever known. Every face I had ever passed in the street now contorted with sorrow and surrendered their soul to the scarlet scourge which scoured this shore. They all lived as vivacious individuals with their own hopes and dreams, each with their own heroes and lovers, but they died as a collection of cattle for the currency in their souls. I imagine some stared into the sky with their final breaths and lamented the wasted effort. Some surely searched their faith for any sign that this served as anything other than an object lesson in futility.

But in the end, I did not watch my victims as they died, though this was in no way a plot to quell a crying conscience. I had cast aside my conscience when I first stepped upon this path. Instead, I wasted the last of their lives looking into the eyes of the infinitely-ephemeral Aeliana. She had died in my arms, using her death to catalyze the reaction which would give to me the power to save myself – the power which should have saved us both. I could sense small sums of quintessence rain upon my soul as if quiet voices boarded rooms in that shadowed hallway locked in my mind. I received a power which would forge a web of energy, but I dismissed it and pressed my lips upon her forehead. I acquired a power which could completely drain the stamina from anyone I touch, but I had never felt so powerless. Tears surfaced in my eyes even as I gained the power to launch myself into motion at a very high speed. I dropped to my knees in the shallows with her body in my arms, even as I stole the power to levitate any object near me.

The searing flames silenced the screams which scattered the shore. One by one, they all fell silent, and I passively devoured additional souls. I heard bodies fall upon the beach like hail from the sky on a stormy night. The stars burned brighter than ever before as they watched me kneel at the edge of this dying world. The last power I received was that of the healer who could restore any condition with just his touch, almost as if fate itself stated as a consolation that nothing else could have saved Aeliana. I had lost her. Even if I used every drop of quintessence to heal her injury and the sickness inside her, it would not change a thing. Bones City had fallen silent, and countless corpses covered the coast. The lost cries and final screams echoed across the starlit sky.

As ethereal smoke lifted from the shore, I held Aeliana in the shallow waves and begged the sky for answers. My aching muscles and tired lungs burned as if I had run halfway around the world. I cried for Aeliana and struggled to say some final words of farewell, but my raspy voice cried out in the form of nonsense. I felt more afraid than ever before, even though I had already lost the only thing that meant anything to me. When I set her into the sea and stood upright, I saw the lava illuminate the horizon like a sunset in a faraway world. It cast shadows across the bodies and ashes of the city I had destroyed in vain. They burned as the cost for the future for which we fought and failed, so both their lives and our dream faded like a sandcastle carried away in pieces by the sea. I had nothing left but the silhouette she seared into my eyes by burning brighter than the stars in the sky.

I don’t know how much time I wasted standing in the shallows, staring at the simulated sunset beside a field of ashes. Seconds and minutes passed with each dancing wave. Even as my sickness sought to strike me down and steal my life, I found myself begging for time to reverse so that I could hold her just once more. I could kill everyone left in this hopeless world just to hear her whisper words of love one last time. A part of me wanted to ask fate if it intended all along to bring us together just to tear us apart, but I knew it would never answer. So I narrowed my eyes and turned my back to the sunset. I dismissed the bodies which littered the shore. I crouched again and held her hand in mine with tears in my eyes which distorted all the world except for her.

I held her in my arms and swore to her then that I love her beyond death, and since she died I swore to somehow see her again even if I had to shatter the glass between life and death. I told her to know more than anything that we would meet again; I would transcend space and time just to reach out my hand, but she said nothing in return except for a deafening silence. The conscience I conquered and the crimes I committed amounted to nothing in the end. I had nothing to show at the end of all things except for the body of my lover locked in my dying arms. It was all I could do to delude myself into believing I could somehow have her back.

I only had a single shot left to salvage her soul, but I had wasted too much time; it was at this point statistically similar to slinging a stone into space to strike a star in the sky. But since I still had a chance to find the one person with the power to save her, I could not permit the plague to paralyze my body any longer than I already had. I activated my stolen power and cured myself of the sickness which sought to suppress me. I stood upright without exhaustion or a painful twinge, and then I hoisted her body onto the ashes in case it was the vessel through which I could reclaim her soul.

I then activated a second power – a new one which simply strengthened my stamina so I could sprint across the smoldering sand. I threw myself to run across the open cemetery borne of my merciless avarice. And as I ran, I scoured the sand for signs or tracks of the only person who could have survived the black inferno. Even as endless voices echoed in my head, I listened closely for a sign of a survivor. My victims had nothing left to give me that I had not already taken.

Please note: There is still one more part to the chapter after this!