76. Birth

While the world reeled from the announcement of Broken Sword's death—echoing across the Waking World and the Dream Realm alike—the Cathedral stood in quiet peace.

Strangely enough, it was filled with laughter.

Akame and the others sat in a loose circle, casually chewing on chunks of roasted spider meat—the remnants of their brutal battle with the Spider Matriarch. The meat crackled faintly in the firelight, filling the Cathedral with an oddly comforting scent, almost like home... if home smelled of charred arachnid and existential dread.

Laughter echoed off the ancient stone walls, mingling with the scent of roasted flesh. They shared stories—bizarre, deranged tales that only made sense to those who had seen the Dream Realm peel away sanity one memory at a time.

Some were absurd. Others disturbing. And somehow, all of them were funny now.

"Alright, alright," Lucas said, holding up a hand. "I've got one. So, there I was—half-drowned, hallucinating, and elbow-deep in the Dark Sea. And then I see this school of fish. Innocent-looking, tiny, glittery things. Kinda cute, actually."

"Lucas," Elizabeth said flatly. "Nothing in the Dream Realm is cute."

"Exactly!" Lucas pointed at her. "Because when I tried to catch one for lunch, the whole swarm merged into this massive floating fish blob. Had a thousand eyes. None of them blinked. It was a Fallen Demon and it also whispered in bubbles."

"Whispered what?" Akame asked.

Lucas deadpanned. "'You are what you eat.' Then it lunged at me and tried to breathe me in. I don't even know how that works biologically."

Elizabeth cackled.

Akame groaned. "Did it succeed?"

Lucas shuddered. "I still burp seawater sometimes. I think it got a piece of me."

They all laughed. A raw, unfiltered kind of laughter that could only come after too many brushes with death.

But Akame's voice cut in next, soft and strangely chipper, in a way that only made what she said more unnerving.

"I got trapped in a ruin once. It was beneath the Catatombs. Found it entirely by mistake, it was when I was running away from the Immortal skeleton army of a Lord. A Fallen Tyrant.

The walls bled when you touched them. Not metaphorically. Literal bleeding stone. I thought it was bad until I found the first mirror."

Lucas squinted. "A mirror?"

"Yeah." Akame took another bite of spider meat like she was describing the weather. "They were all over. Reflecting...everything and nothing. I could see me. Each mirror showed me a version of myself. One where I never entered the Dream Realm. One where I was rich. Married. Safe. Then another where I died screaming. And another one where I was with Murphy."

"That's sweet."

She nodded solemnly. "And every time I looked away, the mirrors moved closer. One even licked my face."

Lucas gagged. "Why do all our stories involve perversion?"

"You're not ready for the one with the mimic grandmother," she muttered darkly.

"But the worst part?" Akame continued, voice light but eyes a little too distant now. "The ruin wouldn't let me leave until I picked one of the versions of me to replace. I had to kill her. In the mirror. With my bare hands."

Silence fell for a moment.

Elizabeth blinked. "...So which one did you kill?"

Akame gave a bright, too-wide smile. "The one who looked the happiest. I figured she had the most to lose."

Everyone stared.

Then Lucas whistled. "Damn. That's... pragmatic."

Elizabeth nodded. "That's so f—ked up it makes sense."

And so the laughter returned—choked, stuttering, almost deranged.

And so it continued—story after story, equal parts comedy and nightmare.

"So, Elizabeth," Lucas asked, licking grease off his fingers as he leaned back, his legs stretched out near the fire. "How did you fuse with the Serpent?"

The question hung lightly in the air—casual, almost playful.

But the reaction wasn't.

Akame flinched. Just a twitch—but sharp, involuntary. As if the words themselves struck something she wasn't ready to face.

Elizabeth didn't hesitate. Her voice was calm. Controlled.

"It's because I earned my Aspect Legacy."

Lucas blinked. "Aspect Legacy!?" His eyes widened. "Damn, you could start a Legacy Clan now. That's insanely rare. How did you get it?"

But before Elizabeth could respond, Akame's expression changed completely.

The colour drained from her face. Her mouth opened slightly, as if the air had turned to ice in her lungs.

Akame whispered, "Elizabeth…" her voice trembling now—not with fear, but sorrow. Her hand had gone limp, the half-eaten skewer of roasted spider meat forgotten on the cracked stone floor.

Elizabeth merely raised an eyebrow. "What?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. "It's not like I wanted to. But that was the requirement."

Lucas furrowed his brows. "What… requirement?"

Elizabeth's eyes gleamed faintly with that same serpentine amber glow that had flickered during battle. Her voice was casual. Flat, even.

"To get the Aspect Legacy. I had to carry and give birth to a Nightmare creature… or as Murphy called them, a corrupted creature." She shrugged. "That was the price. So, I paid it."

Silence fell over the group like a suffocating fog.

Even the crackling fire in the cathedral hearth seemed to hush.

Akame stared at her. Not blinking. Not breathing. Her lips moved as if to say something—but no words came. She simply looked shattered.

"You… gave birth to a Nightmare Creature?" Lucas asked, his voice hoarse, disbelieving.

"I wouldn't call it that," Elizabeth said, poking a piece of charred meat with her blade tip. "It wasn't entirely a Nightmare creature—not yet. It was more of an egg."

She looked up, eyes glowing faintly. A smile tugged at her lips—thin, cold, and wrong.

"I left myself in the Coral Labyrinth. Bounded. Let them have their way with me."

Let them have their way with me.

The words rang out like a death bell in the cathedral's hollow stillness.

Akame looked away sharply, her knuckles whitening around her sword hilt.

Even the fire seemed to draw back.

"You—" Lucas began, his voice cracking. "You carried that thing…? For how long?"

"Seventy days," Elizabeth replied, as if she were recalling how long she'd spent in a library. "Then I pushed it out of my womb. Really a wondrous experience, something at the height of creation—my own body giving birth to something greater than me."

She paused, casually stretching her arms.

"Although," she added, her tone still disturbingly matter-of-fact, "it did take a chunk of my soul with it. Dropped my saturation to about 20%. Nearly passed out. But hey—"

She raised a hand and summoned the spectral image of her Serpent Aspect—majestic, writhing, divine and terrible in its presence.

"I got this."

Akame covered her mouth with both hands. Her eyes were wide, glistening with tears she didn't understand. "You were fifteen…" she whispered.

Elizabeth turned to her slowly. Her expression didn't waver, but something flickered beneath her eyes—annoyance? Pity?

"Yes," she said. "And I survived. That's more than most can say."

No one laughed.

No one moved.

Even the fire offered no warmth anymore.

Only the wind stirred through the cathedral's broken windows, whispering through bloodstained stone.

Murphy's gaze dropped to the floor. Lucas leaned forward, elbows on knees, face buried in his hands. The others stared at Elizabeth like she was both a miracle and a curse. An embodiment of survival—and the price of it.

For once, even in their madness, they all looked at Elizabeth not with camaraderie, or awe, or fear…

But with a quiet, distant grief.

Like watching a comrade walk into fire and never come back out the same.

And deep down, not one of them was sure whether the one who returned… was still human.