Re:Animated, Reliving Life in Another World From Zero

by Tall-Gothic-Guy

A Necromancer is easy to describe, but what people rarely ever know about them is that Death is their final wish above everything else. To return to dust and Rest in Peace in the Afterlife. Give a Death Mage the Curse of 'Return by Death', however, then Emurdol Viandegroc will eventually realize that dying in another world is easier said than done. (Graphic and Mature content)

12. The Shade

Darkness. Stillness. Silence.

Fulfill all three conditions and you open a passage for the Reaper into your midst. It is, however, unlikely for the apparition to be present when you are a good person. Because a good person does not automatically assume that just because someone has a terrifying appearance, it immediately means that the person is a worker of evil. If you happen to be such a person, you are not a good person.

Mother will kill only a bad person, she will never do anything to a good person.

Rem is not a good person.

She sees her son as only a threat when he never wished to be, hiding her malicious thoughts behind a mask of politeness and professionalism. She pretended in front of him. Her son abominated such a thing. Despite all the efforts and things he's done to exert his harmlessness, she was stubborn. Come the night when she attacked him the first time, it took so much of her nonexistent self-restraint just to pardon that felony out of her son's goodness and mercy as well as the suggestion of Viandegroc, she even had to make it all seem like a dream so the maid doesn't get the trouble of being punished for such an unruly action when she is questioned. Despite being lectured and set straight by her kin, she has not learned.

It drove her son to leave, for her sakes at that. And even when he had, the maid still does not wish to give him the rest he deserved after all the things he did for the Order, for the ones who hated him, for the ones who loved him, for everyone back in Pandemonium. Her actions and continued stubbornness led him to the loss of his voice. It despaired him the next morning, turning his desire for his passage to the Afterlife as an honorable departure into an escape. A thought that strayed from the Order of the Serpent's Ideology.

And when she thought it couldn't get any worse, her son was now in Satella's company in the process of saving that maid again. The person who complicated everything to the worst.

Rem's crimes are insurmountable. Satella's crimes are insurmountable. But the glaring individual who has done worse is the former.

So she dies tonight, just like the ones before.

She had been there, in the halls of the mansion, leaving no signs of her presence and never once seen by any of its inhabitants. Not even the two Spirits were ever the wiser. The Reaper looked from the shadows, watching when the guilty maid wept over her actions, lamenting what they had led to her son and crying on her kin's shoulder, but she isn't swayed. She is past the point of forgiveness. She is irredeemable. She is not worthy of the life given to her. It must be relinquished in reparation for what she's done.

Like the times she had done to other guilty people before, her life will end without the slightest hint of it coming.

It will not be with a sickle to behead, nor a neck snap, nor a structured accident. Just a simple prickle from one of the worst poisons to ever exist in her arsenal.

Her son's blood had tinges of toxins, a side-effect from one of his many experimentations and due to special circumstances. A recipe that cannot be replicated by regular means. Not only that, it carried the will of its owner too. With tiny clumps of mana filling each blood cell, it held the slightest trace of Emurdol's emotions. Her son despised the maid despite his efforts to save her, the reason why the latter still lived is because of his own good will. Take away that good will and let only the emotions of loathing take over, the only outcome for that girl is death. The one thing he wanted for himself, in her place.

For someone like HER….

There is no breaking point capable of pushing an Unresting Soul like her to the limit that was ever so effective than THAT.

And now, she stood at the bedside of her target, her skull looking down while the blue pinpoints in her void-like sockets glared at Rem's sleeping face. She watched, like a statue. Unmoving and fixed in place, looming over the harvest before she sets herself to the Reaping. She waited for a certain amount of time. When, exactly? Not even she would know. She's going at her own pace. There is no hurry here. The night's still young.

The room was dark, but a Soul is never impeded by such ocular limits. The window with the curtains swept aside to show the night sky still isn't enough to let the moonlight illuminate the room as it only shined the interloping assassin in its pale blue light, failing to overpower the robes of eternal darkness she wore. Time passes and the angle of the light moved upwards and to the left, slowly.

At the passage of a whole hour, Rem's sleeping face that contained its own natural beauty finally became a stunning image, made divine by the enshrining glows of the Dragon's eye peeking from the sky and through the window.

She wants the Dragon to see it. All of it. And now's her cue.

In delicate movements, one clawed thumb and index finger reached up to her skull and plucked out a tiny black needle held in-between her canines. As long as two inches, made entirely out of sharpened bone, straight from the carcass of a witchbeast, and dipped in the blood that ran through her prisoner's veins. That little girl's blood signature, genetic coding and DNA is long overwritten, turning her into what is essentially her son's clone of a different form. What toxin existed in Emurdol's blood, it now belongs to her. Even if inferior in potency, it's still poison and her son's spite will make it worse.

She neared it to the side of the neck opposite to her and gave her pristine skin a rough scratch. She does not have to prick the skin, unless she risks the target waking up from the pain and seeing what she was doing to her, even if sleeping and tired from weeping. Poisons from the Order of the Serpent are very special, no one Above-World could hope to match their concoctions, and her son is someone who likes to meet the standards of his seasoned seniors, herself being his first role-model. Poisoning via bloodstream, consumption, breathing or fluid contact is considered inferior and simple. Poisoning via touch is the epitome of Poisoncraft. Even if the flesh didn't break, even if it wasn't breathed in, even if heavily protected, it will put down your target at some point whether today or tomorrow, incurable unless you deem it so.

Emurdol's poison mixtures may not have reached the highest standards but its potency will speak for its effectiveness. How it is easily controlled is another determinable mark in the criteria, and he earned the praise of his evaluators when he added his own blood and mana into the mix that made it very pliable according to his emotions towards his target as well as his personal aptitude in blood magic.

Mother applauded him when he managed the feat, and she applauded him even more for giving her such wonderful tools for her second line of work aside from being the Guardian who took care of his wellbeing and helped him walk.

Reintegrating the needle to the roof of her jaws, she left the scene and disappeared into the night.

Come morning or the day after, the maid will no longer breathe and her son is free of another lying cur in his midst.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

Viandegroc integrated himself to Emurdol's vessel, the sensations of Life flowing all over him in a way that's not unlike what he experienced in that damn Witch's domain. His heart began to beat in a regular pace compared to before he was conscious, his lungs now pacing up alongside it, making the insides of his chest come alive as it rose and fell.

The sensations of a soft mattress supporting his back, he sighed pleasantly as soon as he was able to get a long deep breath. Living is indeed supreme. His brother's tall structure and heavily-experimented frame made all the distinctions plain compared to his own body in the domain that had been young, short and yet to be modified by his own volition.

Opening his eyes and quickly twisting to the side, he covered his face with his armored right hand and turned away from the blinding light that happened to be the sun blasting through the open windows of Emurdol's borrowed quarters.

"Tsk." He clicked his teeth. They never remember much, do they?

He's sure to meet some company later, maybe in the form of a white-haired half-elf throwing herself at him, crying and exclaiming gladness for his recovery.

As much as a recovery could be when he just came out of the most annoying tea party hosted by the most annoying woman he ever met. A Witch of all things. What's worse than a regular Witch is a Witch who acts like a human. At least Brother was not taken away by Envy, instead comforted by Satella, who he still doesn't trust unlike Sally but it's better than seeing the Little Boy he was fond of crying with the Court incapable of giving him any consolation because they were all corrupt scum who do not have any idea of being a real human anymore.

Viandegroc can only hope that he finds the will to live again, but that's easier said than done. The man's emotions are very deep. He's not so easily broken but the circumstances of being in another world sure done him in. He was finally able to gain the trust of the Above-World, made the Order of the Serpent better than ever, he wanted to settle down….and now he's put back to where he started in this world Satella forced him to.

"Tsk." He could have growled, but Emurdol's throat is still damaged so he just sighed.

If he can venture further with what he can do in the living world, indulge in what a Priest of the Serpent usually does in his spare time, maybe he can make Brother's homecoming a little more welcoming than it should. As far as he knows, the Mansion no longer has any reason to have any distrust on him anymore…..especially that little bitch.

The nearby village definitely trusts him now too, considering Brother just saved their children from a cold death in the hands of Gluttony's spawn, as what Greed had said to have originated from as opposed to the common belief that Satella was the one responsible. From the looks of it, he's likely no longer seen as a threat anymore. These factors won't be enough to put Emurdol's mind at ease, however. His heart's still broken, in despair. Mother isn't even here to coax him out. Even if Satella managed to bring him out of his down mood, would he even be willing to come back to the Living World?

He sighed. Too many things to think about, and lying on his side facing away from the sun isn't going to give him any clues as to what to do yet.

Rising to sit on his rear, Brother's stumps keeping him steady alongside one hand before he stretched his stiff back that had been lying down for a whole four days. Delicious crackles rolling across his back and joints, including his neck as he rolled it, he snapped his fingers and the skeleton that had been sitting in the corner since Emurdol first left the mansion became mobile again, circling the bed till it sat beside him.

The blueprints already in mind, he grabbed the bony shoulder and morphed its entire frame into something that's not unlike Mother's, with the pelvic area reshaping like clay so it can comfortably hold his stumps. Unnecessary components were quickly detached in the process, arms, neck and skull falling off their places, landing on either the bed or the floors, making a light landing or a heavy thud.

Undressing his robes and pants, leaving him in his undergarments, the skeleton effortlessly picked him up under the arms and secured him perfectly into its frame, the ribcage closing around his chest and tightening just enough to feel like armor. Standing up on his skeletal feet, finding balance very easily, and testing the spine's flexibility with a few stretches, finding it decent, he wore back his pants and robes, leaving the front open to reveal his pale chest and muscled abdomen.

He yawned, stretching once more before walking out of his room, leaving it open so it will indicate his awake state. He's hungry, and maybe a little thirsty. No. wrong words. He's very thirsty. If he remembers right, Brother never actually drank anything since leaving the Mansion.

He pursed his lips. He'll be drinking a whole well for today once he reaches the kitchen.

He looked at his right hand, still armored and locked around the wand, the glow now a dim light compared to when he was inside the Court, tracking down the owner of the vessel alongside the others, he willed his spirit to fill into the prosthetic, the bones inside the gauntlet clicking before finally uncurled its clawed fingers—

They curled once again, and his body propelled itself against the wall to evade a vicious blade of wind coming for him. The wall and a crystal lamp took his place, a long laceration on the cement and the cleanly bisected lamp shattering on the floors.

"So you decided to wake up now?" A cold murderous voice asked from the hallway.

Green eyes became green hellfire in his sockets, his wand following the same notion as he faced the one who threw that attack. Emurdol knew two people who can manipulate wind, Viandegroc already found out who did it by the mana signature in the air. He knew this would be an attack to prevent him from carrying out the execution he promised if he ever bypasses the borders of the witchbeast forest but he did not expect the kind of look Ram's eyes had. They were wet….she's in grief, as if there was a loss she suffered. Something…invaluable.

"What happened?" He demanded, moving away from the wall and keeping himself ready for another dodge.

"You don't know?" Ram snapped harshly, a strong emphasis put in the word.

Viandegroc kept staring, fixing the fiery glare of green on her petite form brewing with wind mana. "Been sleeping, finding Brother's Soul lost in darkness."

Pink eyes narrowed at his answer, her fists tightening even further. She saw blood leak right through the gaps of her fingers. "And did you find him?"

He steadied the grip on his wand. "Easy said than done to bring him back. He grieves. He despairs. The wound is fresh. The damages your little sister has done will not go awa—"

"REM IS DEAD!" Everywhere around her, nothing but lacerated cement and bisected furniture, from paintings and wallpaper to chandeliers and doors. Her outburst created an eruption, and it shook the floor so much that he could feel it from his skeletal feet. The others will surely be awakened from this.

His aura of hostility was snuffed out like a candle as soon as the information was finally absorbed into his brain. His wide eyes lost their fiery light, his wand did the same, and his mouth gaped at what he heard.

The girl is dead? How?

"Did….did you do it? Was it you…?" Ram's strong, composed and haughty voice was nowhere to be seen anymore. It cracked, sobbed, and she's doing everything she can to let out the words, still devastated by the loss of her dearly beloved sister. "Did you….take Rem from me?"

It clicked. It immediately clicked. It dawned to him why the girl died.

The conclusion was actually obvious. If it cannot be him, then there is only one.

It was Mama.

Brother was merciful compared to her; he would spare if he can help it, holding firmly to the Order's principle that taking the life of another human being is the last resort for it holds no merit to your pursuit for knowledge and wisdom. Mama may have been once a Priest of the Serpent, one of the strongest in her generation and a firm upholder to their culture and conduct, but she's dead. Principles or any code of ethics don't mean anything to her now. If she discovers a potential killer out for her son's head, she won't settle for just one person. She'll include the target's friends, connections, family. Young, old, not even an infant is free from her wrath. If someone dares to take away her only family, she will return the courtesy preemptively.

Emurdol does not always agree with her actions. They carry consequences, what comeuppance she deserved sometimes ended up happening to him. And he absolutely abhors the murdering of innocents. He holds her reins, and to keep the lives of people who hated him safe from his Mother's sickles, he must ground out the order that she will not kill anyone without his permission.

But in a position where her son isn't here to stop her, Mama has all the freedom to do as she wished.

And this was the result.

"Was it you?"

He shook.

His teeth gritted.

His breathing was sharp, shuddering.

"Answer Ram."

Mama…..how could you….?

"Did you kill Rem?"

He lowered his head, his white hair draping over his distressed features.

He began to retreat, his legs taking one step back. After a dozen seconds, he took another.

He began to sweat. He began to weep. He began to salivate.

Ram looked at his movements tearfully, her tears beginning to worsen and the red haze flowing over her vision. His erratic reactions were all the answers she needed, "….how could you….?"

Blood.

Blood.

Blood.

He's bleeding, and it was not from any external sources, including Ram's wind blades. She hasn't even thrown the second shot.

"….why….?"

He refuse to answer. He cannot answer. What could he say that could dissuade her from killing him either way?

He failed. He failed Brother. He failed himself. Viandegroc had all the power to persuade Mama from getting out of line, the second person that she would ever trust and listen to in the Living World, and he failed. He should have known. He should have seen it coming. He should have woken up sooner, delay seeking Brother's soul later and have the residents prepare for it. But he didn't.

He doomed Brother's future.

"Ram knows she's responsible…..Ram knows she did this to you…..Ram knows it's all her fault…." Her voice cracked at first, then it began to harden, freezing solid as her anger coated her words with every fiber of her hatred. The next volley of her words indicated her breaking point, "But Rem was remorseful! She regretted what she's done! She repented! She wept! She lamented over your sacrifices! She despaired when you came back bloody and unconscious! She stands by your door everyday hoping you'll wake up even though you'd kill her by then!"

She's even forgetting that he's not the boy that Rem was waiting for. He is just a substitute of the vessel's owner, here to mobilize his flesh and carry out tasks in his stead. He has no place in anyone's heart. What power does he even have to answer her words?

"….she's willing to pay the price…and heartlessly, you took away Rem's life as your fee…." The magic around her began to intensify, and a lethal twister began swirling around her, creating lacerations on everything near her, "….you…are…evil, Ser…Rem was all Ram had, ever since the Witch Cult came and took away our parents, our homes…..Rem's the only family Ram has…Ram cannot live without Rem… Ram would willingly threw away her life for Rem if she must…..and you took her away from me…"

His eyes wept blood. His ears bled. His nose released blood. His saliva became red. His pores secreted blood. His robes were beginning to redden, soaking in the lifeblood escaping him for the crime he's done, as if her words were like knives of cold steel, handing him the punishment he deserved.

Though Emurdol knew no fear, he is still a human. Viandegroc never saw him fearing anything ever again when he earned his eyes back, but after living through the lifetime he lived inside the wand, he knew what he feared the most in his heart aside from being immortal:

Emurdol feared being labeled as irredeemably, unambiguously, and unarguably Evil. Priests of the Serpent are above temptation. That's why they have never been corrupted. When all other organizations have members that fell from grace due to their greed and vanity, those of the Order knew better. He diligently upheld every principle he knew to be worthy of the title as the Ideal Necromagus. Pettiness is beneath him. For every life he took, it was for the good of all things. He killed Scum that terrorized the land. He executed the irredeemable when others hesitate because of their stupid morals. He took the lives of those beyond any help. The things he's done that were questionable by the standards of the Above-World, it was all for the sake of good. He'd be damned if it were otherwise.

And Viandegroc sent it all to ruin. He caused a sin to fall on Brother's shoulders. No matter how heinous a crime was done against him, he would never separate someone from their family unless they truly deserved to die, irredeemable and unworthy of the bond between their flesh and blood. Rem does not deserve to die. He saw it for himself. She truly regretted her sins, Ram seconded it.

But Mama killed her. She sent her son to hell, and Viandegroc let it happen.

Ram will not trust him anymore. This mansion will not trust him anymore. The village will do the same once they hear of this, especially Emilia. He's now a legitimate threat to this land.

He sharply twisted around for an escape—

Ram's wind blade came flying towards him—

THE DARKNESS HERALDS NOTHINGNESS, AND NOTHINGNESS HERALDS THE SHADE.

OH COME THE SHADE AND SEND THIS WORLD ASUNDER.

IN DESPAIR INCITE ALTERATION. IN ANGER HAIL DESTRUCTION. IN JOY DELIVER CREATION.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

The first to come was darkness. Pure darkness that transcended all creation. The bright morning was forced back into the dark of night, a devouring evening that left nothing for all who are awake to see. Lamps and candles were rendered puny, eaten away by the terrifying blackness as if it were alive and hungered for all things that give light.

The second was the screaming. The voice of the elderly, the young, the woman, the man, the infant, the child, the adult. They wailed in pain and relief, despair and joy, outrage and happiness. The screams of the Dead filled the darkness, taking away every sound in creation to make way for the choral of unrest.

And the third to conclude the prologue was the trembling. The ground shook. The walls shook. The roofs shook. The air shook. The human body shook. The organs shook. Everything shook. Everything in existence became one in being and trembled together like a rattle.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

And then everything was whole again.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

The Reaper and the Bowel Hunter froze, subjected to the darkness that overpowered what the cave already provided, the amalgamation of screams that muffled the sound of steel clashing against each other and the rattling. Even though it felt like it went on for a whole minute, the strange sensation on their bones left them thinking it only happened for a second. Even Mother, who is fleshless, felt it.

It was enough to put their entire conflict into a ceasefire. Elsa stopped for it being strange. Mother stopped because it was the signal of a catastrophe about to happen.

And that catastrophe happened in the form of an earthquake. The cavern shook and the ribcage scaffolding cracked immediately. Chunks of dirt and debris began to fall from the ceiling, fissures were immediately forming on the dirt ground, opening the pit to the center of the earth. There was the rumble behind the mass of dirt above their heads and what it was arrived to their location 3 seconds later, a thunderclap.

"Was that thunder?"

Mother immediately disappeared and ran to the exit, not intending to be buried alive in a confined space where mana is completely scarce.

The Bowel Hunter immediately took action, scooping up Meili's broken form in her arms, earning pained cries as if moving alone was excruciating agony for the little girl but she ignored it and bolted after the speeding form of the cloaked skeleton without any time wasted, her speeds matching to outpace the wind itself. She will not allow it the chance to clog the exit point and bury them both here once it gets out first.

Finding easy footing on the dirt ground despite the shaking earth, she was able to see the escaping skeleton as soon as she reached the straight path of the artificial cave that led to the exit, light-eating cloak fluttering behind it as its metal boots kicked up dirt as if it were water. Elsa readied her throwing knives in one hand, dodging any debris or shattering piece of enlarged bone about to come down on her, she flicked her weapons towards its back, only for all 8 lethal projectiles to be swatted aside with a single swing of its right sickle, its entire arm's joints bent impossibly in the process.

Frustration formed on her brow. She's already been killed three times now; mutilated, cut to pieces and bisected in half. Any effort against her opponent were rendered inefficient due to the impregnable defenses provided by 4 blade-wielding hands moving as if each one had a mind of its own. Direct attacks were replied with vicious slices of the sickles. Sneak attacks were thwarted by krises quick to deflect them before a counterattack. Brute force tactics were easily outdone by the skeleton's superior physical prowess. Finesse is rendered useless against something prone to changing the tune of its movements whenever it liked, rhyme or reason lasting for only 4 seconds before breaking.

The pillar of light coming from the exit was in sight, the sounds of a typhoon roaring from it as well as an endless cascade of mud, branches and fallen leaves overflowing to flood the cave, and the skeleton sped up even further towards it, Elsa coming close behind it in a competition to be the first to escape. She could hear the cave behind her falling apart, caving in and returning everything to its proper design as dense ground.

As soon as the skeleton was directly beneath the cascade of dirty water and driftwood, it shot like a bullet straight upwards, the overflow cutting off for an instant due to her presence in the way. Elsa made sure she took advantage of it, holding Meili close to herself in the tightest death grip she could manage, provoking even more screams of pain that threatened to overpower the sound of the storm, and jumped vertically through the tunnel of mud, piercing through the heavy mud and breaching out to the surface world in a frustrated cry.

And she met the fury of 3 tornadoes that's barely several hundred meters away, barely aware of the sickles coming to scissor her head from behind as soon as she landed back to the ground.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

A nearby tornado took away millions of roof fragments, destroying the garden adorning the yard of the Roswaal Manor with its strong presence. The giant fissure that opened from the bottom right of the property's boundaries stretched diagonally to the other side, splitting the mansion caught in the center in half, revealed a ravine to the unknown. The thunderstorm sent a merciless fury down on everything beneath it, from the witchbeast forest to the nearby villages. Every raindrop stung every skin it touched, every flash of lightning is accompanied by a lightning strike to the earth, and every tree is toppled by the monstrous winds that threatened to send anyone who is outside of a confined space flying.

Yet the two people stood at opposite edges of the split mansion at the first floor hallway were barely touched by the elements.

Ram was protected by her barrier of wind magic, a twister shield repelling whatever harm every catastrophe nearby brought from touching her. Her composure was locked, frozen in a cold glare, barely fazed by the happenings that could have been compared to godlike power. The tears continued to flow from her scarlet orbs, the pain of her loss furthering her hate towards the murderer.

The murderer was never the same when the wind blade opened the flesh on his back, tearing him from left waist to right shoulder. It did not bisect him completely, however. It made a crack on the surface of a certain enclosure, and the strong demand for the inhabitant's release made the hard walls brittle.

When weakness was seen, the Shade took advantage of it and broke out into the Living World.

When the screaming darkness that shook the world disappeared, the Horror took Viandegroc's place.

Mop-like hair floated as if it were underwater, crowning the large head that contained void-like eyes, a loose jaw threatening to come off lined with sharp teeth and containing a long red tongue, red saliva leaking to the floors without trouble despite the violent winds. Its long neck connected to an emaciated chest, ribcage showing through the dead-pale skin and everything else below the sunken abdomen was only a dark wispy cloud. It kept itself from flopping to the ground with its arms as long as a grown man's leg firmly planted to the floors, the spider-like fingers ending in black claws punctured into the floor like a hot knife through butter.

Ram had seen this monstrosity in an illusion back at the gazebo days ago, but seeing it for the second time, she did not have the inclination to believe that he's pulling the same stunt the second time.

All this were all real, from the catastrophe around them…..to the death of her little sister. If it all had been otherwise, she would gladly accept it with open arms. By then, she'd go back to Rem's room and see her just in time to witness her yawning cutely and rubbing her eyes.

"FULA!"

There is no assurance that such a thing is could ever happen. There is no indication here that all this had to be some kind of sick joke. It's all actually happening. And there is nothing changing it.

The result of her attack was not the same. Instead of cutting his lanky chest open, he swatted it aside as if it were a crumpled ball of paper, redirecting its trajectory to the wall and sending the chopped pieces down the ravine below along with the flooding waters flowing from the yard.

"You dare not accept your fate, murderer?" The grief in her voice was gone. Her heart's now encased in ice, unfeeling and single-minded towards her vengeance.

The ground he punctured with his claws cracked even further, the want to clench his fist showing through but strongly held it down with a heavy heart. His head lowered down, the brow above his black eyes furrowed deep in grief and guilt.

"Weeeeeell, isn't this an interesting development?"

A thunderclap resonated in sync to his surprise at the sudden arrival of a familiar drawl. Though physical barriers partially don't impede him anymore, the voice would have managed to break through the roaring winds, violent rains and into his normal human ears anyway.

Not needing to look up to see, there was the master of the manor, afloat in the air with each of his hands carrying quadruple orbs of red, green, blue and yellow as he glared at the pale monstrosity. He, too, was shielded by a similar but stronger wind barrier, barely touched by the catastrophes happening everywhere around him, emphasized by his large cloak's and hair's lack of wild swishing.

"I've been making my regular rounds around the halls and Iiiiii come to hear the cries of despair and grief before suddenly, the eeeeeeend of the world has begun." His clownish face expressed nothing, his usual whimsical smiles and amused gleams completely nonexistent, emotionless as the elder sister standing on the edge across the Horror, but the cold fury hidden deep within his mismatched eyes was impossible to miss. "But it seeeeeems you are responsible for this, Ser Eeeeeemurdol….."

"Lord Roswaal, please do not interfere." Ram demanded without looking away from him. "This thing will earn Ram's wrath and Ram alone."

"Oooooh." Roswaal's delicate eyebrow rose up in mock wonder, "Since when did yooooou ever grew the audacity to commaaaaaaand your master?"

"He murdered my sister."

"And Iiiii have been angered by the death of my deeeeaaar retainer…."

Shaking his head mournfully, the Shade raised its claws up to the air, and suddenly the tornado nearby sucked up boulders from the fractured earth and flung them towards the trio's general location. Ram immediately threw another blade of wind at him while Roswaal easily decimated the incoming rocks with his balls of great magic. With a downward slash of the black claws at the end of his fingers, he sent back a shockwave that matched an explosion and dispersed her attack, making her form slide backwards despite the barrier around her.

"Hm!" Roswaal flicked his wrist, taking advantage of the Horror's distraction.

And a giant plate of the hallway floor beneath the Shade flipped at a 90 degree angle, slamming against his bony back and sending him off the edge, falling down into the flooding abyss.

"Al Dona!"

Roswaal wasn't satisfied with just water. He sent down a flood of earth as well, surging from all directions except the half of the hallway Ram occupied in. From trees to concrete, they cascaded down the ravine, intending to bury him down there with them. With a clawing gesture of his gloved hands, aiming towards each separate half of the split earth, he put his hands together in clasped fingers.

With a powerful quake, the ravine closed with a resounding rumble, crushing the Shade inside and burying him there. The magically-influenced movement of the earth caused both halves of the mansion to crumble and crack, some of the cement cracking off and falling to the flooding earth as well as causing a minor tsunami.

Suddenly, the waters began gathering to a singularity at the mansion yards. Everything from rain to flood conglomerated there, swirling together like a whirlpool on ground soil. It reached the point where the thunderstorm's rains practically stopped, the entire world sucked dry as every single drop was pulled to the single point, and the whirlpool rose high. Higher and higher.

The progressing concentration of power eventually brought the creation of the Waterspout.

"My, myyyyy….." Roswaal's intrigue was genuine as he eyed the rarely-ever-seen catastrophe began to intensify further when it already had. "Face the Sword Saint….and you might last looooonger than a whole ten minutes!"

With a sword-like swing of his entire left arm vertically upwards, a gigantic wind blade flies towards the assaulting water twister and destroyed its perpetual momentum, splitting the spinning water pillar into a giant cascade falling from the heavens.

The entire section of the ground found at the right side of the mansion where the Archmage happened to be floating above of erupted like a volcano that carried pent-up pressure for so long, sending dirt, mud, stone, tree and root into the air. Soon, there was a rain of earth as well when the raindrops of the super typhoon returned with a furious vengeance.

"Lord Roswaal!" Ram's eyes went wide when the noble was lost in the eruption of earth, barely hearing herself from the roar of the storm, holding her hand up to shield her face from the elements when her barrier could no longer be held up by her very limited mana.

And she thought fast when she felt the shift of mana in the air, quickly diving into the shaking and flooding hallway to take cover from the explosion of earth and water, courtesy of Roswaal whose wind barrier is the most durable and long-lasting compared to hers, leaving him perfectly unscathed in the aftermath before he chanted a widespread blast of wind from his body to disperse the eruption around him, and the clouds. The nearby twisters went away with it as well.

As quick as it was sent away, it came roaring back with an apparent stubbornness in its vibe, intent on delivering hell to the Mathers Domain. The winds began to pick up, whirling violently, the small drizzles quickly became a full deluge, and the rumble of a thunder almost sounded like snickering, as if ridiculing his attempt at fighting back. It's almost as if the catastrophes themselves were alive.

Considering who he was up against and how it was a ridiculously sunny and clear sky when he looked out the window, that would not be a stretch of an assumption.

"Stopping the apocalypse is not a walk in the park, it seems." The Lord commented grimly, readying the element of fire on his hands. Then he heard the ground shatter behind him, accompanied by the sound of struggling. The sound barely managed to reach his ears through the rising storm. "Tenacious man, you are, aren't you, Ser Emurdol?" He asked rhetorically, his form rotating around in a slow revolution. He looked down on the Horror clawing out of a newly-created fissure that stretched only a few meters on the soil, the growing puddles flowing towards the new opening.

With only its wispy tail of black smoke still within the hole, the Shade's pale and bony upper body strangely unmarred by dirt and injuries, he shot a vicious dark-eyed glare towards Roswaal. Despite being exposed in the open, the violent weather didn't seem to faze him or his floating hair for even a little. The rumbling in the black clouds began creating thunderclaps and flashes of bright light, indicating the high possibility of something closest to the sky getting hit by lightning. Specifically, himself.

The Lord quickly took the hint and slowly lowered to the ground, keeping the wind barrier intact and the contained conflagrations in his hands.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, white came in his vision as well as a surge of heat from beside him for the briefest instant, an accompanying explosion deafening Roswaal's ears. For taking his attention away from his enemy for the briefest of moments due to a lightning strike happening just right beside him, the Shade was already at his face, giant mouth agape to bite his entire upper body off.

Roswaal's foot shot straight towards the collarbone showing through the white skin like an arrow. The bone didn't snap apart despite the power behind it to snap 4 trees in half, it was enough to knock the Horror back and that gave him enough time to fly back upwards and threw the contained flames in his hands.

"GOA!" The Archmage of the Kingdom of Lugunica emulated the Holy Dragon's fire, a powerful stream of flames escaping out of his hands like a flood of pure red, yellow and orange. The sea of flames fought against the deluge, loud hissing and steam emitting from even the slightest contact. The destruction swept everything in front of him like an incinerating tsunami, controlling its direction from ever touching the mansion. Water boiled. The air became hot. The dark clouds' flashing and rumbling of thunder and lightning became even more erratic. The number of twisters present escalated from 3 to 14. The strengthening winds made the mansion tilt sideways. The shaking ground reached catastrophic magnitudes, destroying the luckily unoccupied half of the split building.

Then came darkness.

Darkness not from the release of the Shade into the Living World, but from the release of the Shade's wrath in the form of a steadily-rising wall of water just barely a distance away from the back of the mansion. The Horror was there by the foot of the aquatic wall, its lanky arms raised up high and screaming a monstrous cacophony of voices. The Lord immediately guessed what the Shade intended. It was not to extinguish the sea of flames, it was to destroy the entire Mathers domain.

And Roswaal L. Mathers smiled.

His hands brewing greatly with the magic of earth and fire, the former to manipulate the very soil and divert the cascade to another direction while the former to freeze it at the right moment, he taunted the Shade with open arms. There was no longer any caution in his every expression. He was completely open to the inevitable.

The Lord was ecstatic, "YES! Lay unto me all your fury, O Great and Powerful Necromancer! Emurdol Viandegroc! Show it to me! Show me if you got what it takes to overpower the Court Mage of the Kingdom of Lugunica! Show that you can equal my MIGHT!"

The Shade's screams resounded all over. Overpowering the storm. Overpowering Roswaal's cry. Overpowering the thunderclaps. Overpowering everything. His wispy tail now became a dark shroud, covering a large entirety of the ground in a half-circle beneath him, devouring the sea of flames as they tried to consume him in their indiscriminate onslaught.

"That Is Enough!"

And then came the blistering cold of a white winter.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

The wall of water was frozen solid. The dark skies became still and silent, sending down a soft hail. The entire ground was coated in a thick layer of snow. The mansion's tilting architecture was stilled in an icy encasement, the interior perfectly intact with its occupants. The catastrophes of the outlying areas have been silenced too, the tornadoes and the earth-shattering earthquake gone and still.

Roswaal and the Shade stood in gaping shock of the Great Spirit's presence in-between them, crossing his little arms while a predatory scowl adorned his usually cute face. His tail swished in a slow and ominous fashion, his entire form shrouded with all the stolen mana in the vicinity, including the Lord's.

"You Both Will Cease And Stand Down." He told them in a reverberating and powerful voice, his voice as chilly as the current condition of the environment around them. "You Two Sure Like To Cause A Lot Of Noise And Trouble When Under A Lot Of Stress, Especially You, Viandegroc. Suddenly Warping Every Lick Of Mana In The World To Yourself And Causing These Disasters To Happen All At Once, It's As If You Wanted To Destroy The World By Blocking Off Od Lugna From Existence In A Fit Of A Tantrum."

The Shade didn't dare reply as he kept his dark gaze on the angered Spirit, unclenching his closed hands ending in claws and gently laying them down on the snow-covered ground, strangely not sinking into the 4 meter depth despite his enlarged form.

"If It Wasn't For My Daughter's Pleas To Not Be Rough On The Two Of You While I Make You Stop, You Two Would Have Been Nothing But Icicles. That Includes You, Viandegroc. I'd Like To See You Try And Counter My Magic With The Monstrosity You've Become."

He was not afraid to challenge the Spirit through his mind by daring him to test the power of the Order of the Serpent's Ultimate Art if he's so inclined to say something like that, never moving a muscle as he did.

Puck narrowed his eyes but did not mention about the Shade's audacity. "While You Two Have Been Messing Up The Entire Mansion With Your Scuffle, I'd Like To Tell You The Good News The Elder Sister's Been Trying To Tell You Both After Asking What Betty Diagnosed From The Little Sister."

The Shade's swaying hair froze, as if time had stopped. The word 'good news' was enough to draw him to full cooperation and he activated his many senses to hear whatever it is, not intending to miss a single syllable that ever came out of Puck's maw.

Sensing his compliance, the Spirit finally conveyed the news, "The Little Sister Is Still Alive."

If the Shade's mouth haven't been hanging since his arrival, it would have definitely fallen off his skull and landed on the snow, sinking to the bottom in utter disbelief. Despite the Shade's efforts of perceiving what was said, receiving the information with every senses he has that no other being in the Living World could have all at once, he still refused to believe it.

Puck read his doubt and clarified, "She Was Poisoned, But Her Organs Refused To Die Out Completely, Especially Her Heart And Mind. Her Breathing Moved Like A Snail And Her Heart Pulsed Every Few Minutes. The Same Condition You Had When You Were In Comatose. However, Betty Said That It's Not Likely To Last."

The Shade's mind ran at the speed of light.

Death by poison. Mother does not carry poison. She must have used something else. She won't use environmental substances, stock methods seen as beneath her despite her being as an Unresting Soul. Symptoms indicated that it can only be traced to the kind of toxin Emurdol had in his blood. How she managed to get a sample of it despite Emurdol never giving her any, he can't be sure.

But this was a turning point. This was a ray of hope that was luckily present in Mother's method of assassination.

The girl can be saved.

"If You Have A Way To Save The Girl, Then You Better Get Going. The Elder Sister's Expecting It. Lia's Expecting It. Looking Through Your Mind….It Seems You Do Have A Way, Don't You….Viandegroc? But What's The Point Of That Now? How Can You Fix The Damages When You Already Fractured This World To Pieces?"

…..

…..…..…..

…..…..…..…..…..

Several moments of Puck and the Shade staring at each other past, unreadable gaze meeting unreadable gaze, seeming to last for several minutes as they held themselves like that but realistically 23 seconds, the latter finally uttered words in his monstrous form, the eldritch voice speaking in the most hopeful tone it ever carried.

"If I clean up after myself, then nothing can stop me from doing what I must."

With a purpose, the Horror raised its claws up to the air.

As sudden as his movements were when he had been as still as a corpse since the Spirit began speaking to him, the effects were equally immediate.

The world was rendered to nothing but Pure Darkness.

FROM THE NOTHINGNESS CAME THE SHADE, AND THE SHADE RETURNS TO IT.

WITH THE PRICE OF MY LIFE, UNDO WHAT HAS BEEN DONE.

REGRET BE REALIZED. JOY BE HAD. HATRED BE QUELLED.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

And then everything was whole again.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

Viandegroc stood stiffly in the hallway, holding his wand in a tight grip inside his clawed gauntlets as he faced Ram. The latter stood there, the barrier that was circled around her form disappearing instantaneously. Her face contained complete and utter shock, crimson eyes questioning at just what the hell happened. The mansion should have been encased in ice, split in half and one brick away from demolishing itself completely due to the multiple catastrophes attacking the Mathers domain. She was supposed to be at Rem's bedside, holding her hand and tenderly whispering her words of encouragement to hang on while the Great Spirit went to convey the wonderful news to the people fighting outside.

And now, she was swept away with a gigantic wave of déjà vu as she stood there, wondering why was she feeling despair and fury for a moment before it disappeared like a forgotten dream.

They were at the point before the Priest had turned his back on the maid and feigned an attempt to escape, just so she could get provoked into attacking him with a spell and complete the release of the Shade by breaking his flesh.

Instead of the proceedings repeating itself, a deviation occurred. Viandegroc collapsed on his skeletal knees and vomited an entire liter of blood to the floors, easily melting the carpet and the stone. Instead of being colored red, his lifeblood was nearing tinges of black, as if it had died and dried up inside him. His skin became even paler, pale enough that his muscles could almost be seen right through it. He's visibly thinning at a rapid rate too, his robes starting to look too big for his lanky form, his bones becoming even more apparent through his skin, as if he was deprived of food for more than a month.

Ram finally broke out of her confusion when he began deteriorating in front of her and turned tail, sprinting back to where she came from, hurrying to her still-alive little sister. Along the way, she ran past Emilia who was running at a hurried pace to the opposite direction.

Eventually, after a few flights of stairs, she reached Emurdol, who was still heaving and coughing pools of black blood on the floors beneath him. She would have been glad and happy for his waking up but his extremely withered state brought her only horror.

"Oh no! Emurdol, are you alright!?" She hurried, kneeling beside him as she held his elbow and rubbed his back vigorously, the glow of healing magic making its work on his unknown condition.

Puck floated just in front of his bowed head, his little paw holding his chin in exaggerated examination, "Well, looks like all that godlike power has a price, doesn't it?"

[Don't fucking remind me, Fay!]

Despite the derisive reply snapped back at him, the Spirit's eyes went wide as he focused on who was speaking to him. His feline lips extended to a glad smirk, "Well, looks like you decided to come back after all."

"What are you talking about, Puck?" Emilia asked in distress, not pointing her eyes away from the Priest. "Don't just float there, help me!"

"NO!"

"HEEP!" Emilia was the only one who yelped from the horrifying voice that roared inside her head, her eyes panning in all directions to find who that was.

Hacking his mouth, he spat out a large hunk of blood to the floors once more before he pointed his blood-shot eyes towards the direction of the servant quarters, fighting to keep himself from collapsing to the floors.

"Don't you dare waste your magic on me!" He shook off the pale hand that was holding his bicep, his skeletal feet easily rising up due to having no muscles on them suffering any damages but his upper body failed to keep up. Even the lightest of movements felt like he's rustling needles inside his body. "KKKhhkk!" He choked through gritted teeth, the blood spilling from his nose and lips. "Rem! I must save the Little Sister!"

"But you're—"

"I DON'T CARE!" The scream would have deafened Emilia if it came from an external source instead of coming from her head, even though it felt like her ears rang from his outburst. "She's the first priority, not me!" He created choking sounds in every little movement as he struggled to make his body keep up with the steady walks of his skeletal feet, trying to keep it steady and not tilt his center of balance. Emilia stayed by his side, holding him up as he practically jogged towards the stairs. "We must hurry! I can't run like this!"

"Okay! Hold on!" Emilia told grimly before she wrapped her hands around his waist and easily lifted him up from the ground, running at a surprisingly speedy pace towards the stairs, taking two steps at a time to be quick. If the situation wasn't so precarious, he would have been baffled at how Emilia's tiny little arms could actually carry him even with his withering state.

It took more than a minute before an open door was in sight at the end of the hallway. Emilia barely broke a sweat and her voice was still even when she entered in, the Priest under her grasp with Puck behind her. "I got him over!"

"Oooh." Roswaal quirked an eyebrow at their arrival.

"You!" Ram turned a hard glare on him.

"Just get me over there!" The eldritch voice was heard by everyone in the room. Spitting out another hunk of blood to the floors, he turned his bloodshot eyes to the poisoned woman at the bed, seeming to have passed on to the afterlife by the looks of it but everyone in the room knew that was not the case yet. "I can save her! Let me attend to her now!"

"Okay!" Emilia quickly brought him over, only to be impeded by Ram.

"Wait!" She only got shoved aside and hitting her back against the wall when the Priest was able to reach her with his armored hand that still managed to hold on to the wand despite his condition, sending her a sensation of her bones being twisted before it stopped.

"You took your time to be here, I suppose." The other Spirit, Beatrice remarked grouchily, her hands glowing as they aimed towards Rem's kidney and chest area, "Don't make Betty clean up after you, in fact!"

"You're not exempted from this fucking mess!" He screamed before Emilia set him down to kneel before the bedside, his free hand laying on the little sister's abdomen, "You're helping me! No questions asked! Now move your hands!"

"Ow, in fact!" Beatrice yelped and held her hands, stinging from his slap. "You don't have to hit—"

"SHUT UP!" Angry green eyes burned hellfire as the Priest glared at the Spirit's annoying attitude, silencing her immediately, "You're disrupting my focus!"

Keeping his waist above the level of the bed with the assist of his right hand and Emilia who kept him steady, he sent out a wave of mana to course over Rem's body starting from Rem's belly. What he found made him sneer once more, the sharp teeth showing from his raised hackles.

It was his blood that's making these symptoms occur, slow breathing and heartbeat as well as failing organs. His suspicions were immediately clear. Mother has taken the toxins straight from the girl he bit that night. He would have noticed if she took it from his body otherwise. The fact that she very likely took the child prisoner, as Mother is not one to touch innocents, proved another suspicion. The little girl was the one who orchestrated that mess with the witchbeasts. Even with his toxins flowing through that little one's veins, Mother would not dare lay a claw on her so long as she's innocent.

"Well? What do you see, I wonder?" Beatrice asked, crossing her little arms on her chest.

"It was Mother." He exposed grimly, his green eyes hardening. "She did this. She took revenge when I wasn't able to control her."

"Ooooooh…." Roswaal's eyes widened in realization, a mirthless smile crossing his lips as he held his chin. "….so thiiiis was the consequence she warned me about…."

"Bad timing though." Puck added, "She struck before Emurdol woke up. She only gave us a three-day deadline."

"Which could oooonly mean she struck at midnight."

"All that doesn't matter!" The elder sister screamed, turning her eyes from Roswaal and the Spirit to the Priest. "Can you save her!? Can you still save Rem!?"

"Yes I can." He told honestly, rising up to his feet and fought against the pain of his upper body's movements. Turning to the people behind him, he spoke in a commanding tone, "This will require every single person in this room's cooperation. You want her to live? You listen, without question."

Ram no longer had any patience nor pride to speak of anymore, concerned only with saving her sister's life. "Ram will! Just say it! What do we have to do!?"

He turned to her, "Medicinal herbs. Anything that can heal wounds or replenish mana. Bring it over."

"Right." She quickly ran out the door and headed to the cabinets.

He turned to Roswaal and Puck, "You two. Act as dispensers of mana. The others as well as I will be needing it more than you."

"No objeeeections."

"Will do."

He turned to Emilia, "Emilia. Take off her clothes. All of it. Quickly."

"Okay."

He turned to Beatrice, "You shall—"

"Heal the Little Sister's heart and kidneys, I wonder?"

He nodded. He moved to assist in undressing the girl. Instead of trying to have it unworn like Emilia was trying to do, he ripped the nightdress to shreds to save time as he exposed the petite but attractive pale figure hidden beneath. What negated the enticing sight were the black veins marring her pale skin, especially near and around her extremities. She wore no undergarments, and that made everything look sickening.

Roswaal chuckled. "Out of coooontext, this would have looked criiiiminal."

"Yeah. Good thing the Elder Sister ain't here to see this."

Sneering over their comments, he brought his wand over and hovered it above Rem's bare chest. Before he continues, he turned to Beatrice and Emilia. "Beatrice, try to stabilize the heart. Emilia, heal the kidneys."

"Fine, in fact." Grumpily, she agreed. "But I don't think this Little Girl here would know how to repair internal organs."

"Ye-yes. I don't think my level of skill is enough for that."

"Don't worry, Lia." Puck floated over her shoulder, always willing to lend a hand to his daughter. "I'll guide you through."

"Good." The Priest pursed his lips, his wand glowing green. "I'm going to force her heart to pulse, and I want you to keep it from shutting down and rotting from the toxins."

"How will you keep the toxins from going to her head, I wonder?"

"I don't have to. But I'm going to control the potency of that poison. It's going to make her flail or convulse so watch out for her limbs." He turned to Emilia while Beatrice readied her hands. "Emilia. Make sure the kidneys stay intact. It's going to destroy itself while it's cleaning the blood on her system so make sure that doesn't happen."

"Yessir."
"Yessir."

The pair saluted comically.

"Ready now." He hovered his glowing wand in a spiral going inwards before heading back outwards and repeating the process. The poisonous blood is now circulated, filtering it away from Rem's own blood. "Begin on my mark." The healers readied their hands on their respective places, glowing in blue healing mana. "Now."

"Hm!"
"Ha!"

A pulse came from the heart, sending clean and unclean blood into the body. The Priest carefully filtered the toxins in one of the heart's chambers. Eyes glowing bright green, he carefully vacuumed the foreign elements that were tainting her other organs without trying to shut them down and put them to the heart.

Another pulse, a fresh batch of blood. He kept the toxins back while the batch continued their course throughout her body, supplying blood to her other essential organs and taking the toxins along with them, magic directing their course to the healed kidneys.

"Roswaal. Open a cut on her wrist." He ordered to the Lord watching the proceedings behind him.

"Excuuuse me." Carefully taking the naked girl's hand, he traced his index finger across the wrist, the help of wind magic easily opening the flesh but no blood leaked out, much to Roswaal's bafflement. "She doesn't bleed."

"A vessel. I need a vessel. A container. Quickly."

"Oh deeaar, wherever can I fiiiind one?"

"Ram brought some!" The elder Sister exclaimed from the doorway, a basin full of jarred herbs in her hand. She turned her eyes to her little sister and gasped in shock of the numerous black veins visible on the delicate flesh. "Rem!"

"Bring one here. Now!"

Ram regained her composure and hurried over, setting down the basin of herbs to the floor carefully before she passed an empty bowl to his outstretched hand. Placing it to the floor beneath Rem's hand that had a cut on its wrist hanging from the bed, his spiraling wand changed its course, tracing a line over to her waist before waving it towards the arm.

The black veins followed after his hand, down on the bicep, to the forearm and out the slit cut, the black liquid dripping to the bowl. Ram pursed her lips at the thought of such substances running all over her sister's body.

"That's even less than 1% of everything." There was a grudging tone lining the eldritch voice, cursing the meager progress he's making despite the assistance of two healers. "Ram. Go to the kitchen and prepare a feast. Everything in the pantry, ready it to the room next to this."

The elder sister frowned quickly for such strange demands that does not seem to correlate to the situation. "Why?"

"Because I need to eat." He answered, moving to repeat the extraction.

Ram sputtered heatedly, "W-why would you eat at a moment like this!?"

"I'm hungry, thirsty, and exhausted! I need them!"

"You think you're the one who needs the most assistance!? Look at Rem! She's a priority more valuable than your sto—"

A sharp snap erupted in the room, and Ram recoiled from the second blow to her cheek, red and stinging from the Priest's backhand. He stood tall with a blinding green eyed glare, looming over the small maid as his raised hackles exposed sharp gritting teeth.

"I LOST 65 FUCKING YEARS OF MY LIFESPAN JUST TO PUT EVERYTHING I'VE DESTROYED BACK TOGETHER! MY IMMUNE SYSTEM IS DYING! MY HEALTH IS DETERIORATING! AND I COULD BARELY THINK STRAIGHT! IF I DON'T EAT, I CANNOT FUNCTION MY MAGIC PROPERLY! YOU WANT YOUR LITTLE SISTER TO LIVE, YOU SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH AND DO AS I SAY!"

Ram fixed a hard glare on him as she held her cheek, tasting copper from inside her mouth.

"Go, Ram." Roswaal ordered sternly. "Do as he says."

Without a word, she bolted out the door and disappeared to do her task.

Turning back to the comatose girl with a mad glare on his face, the eyes still glowing bright to match a bonfire, he spiraled his wand over the girl's chest again.

"That was so mean, Emurdol." Emilia reproached coldly, not taking her eyes away from her work on Rem's kidneys.

"Focus, Emilia." He snapped harshly, eliciting a flinch from her. "Lose your focus and the kidneys will crack."

That was enough to put her head back into the situation, curling her fingers as her healing magic was diligently healing even the slightest rot on the organs she's handling alongside Puck.

"It'd be a surprise if the Elder Sister treats you any nicely even if you managed to save this girl, I suppose."

"Shut up and work." He snapped at Beatrice, making another pulse from Rem's heart. "This is an operation, not a fucking tea party."

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

4 hours have passed since the beginning of the operation. The Priest was now well-fed, and the poisons in Rem's body have now lessened, carefully contained with the Priests blood magic while the worst of it is bled out into the bowl that's now containing a small depth of liquid. The girl is still breathing in the slowest of paces and her heartbeat containing long intervals before a pulse, but she's in a safer condition compared to before.

The rejuvenation elixir in his hand, the cap pulled off before he smelled its pleasant aroma, he nodded to Ram who held her little sister's head and the latter tilted Rem's head slightly up, opening the mouth and he poured a small drop of the purple liquid into the gap between her lips.

Putting the cap back on, Roswaal quickly took it off his hands before the Priest readied his now-free left hand and wand.

The most powerful healing liquid in Pandemonium reacted to the patient's condition and did its work. Then Rem's heart pulsed. Another. Then another. A rhythm was occurring, but it was not normal. It was causing stress to the organ.

His wand steadied the pace, waving it in a spiral according to the speed he desired for the organ while his other hand directed the blood to flow towards Rem's brain. Ram watched her little sister's chest rise and fall, breathing at last. Relief flooded her heart and tears ran from her eyes.

"The poison is still in her system, but it's not fatal anymore." The Priest informed, now directing the toxins filtered in the kidneys to course towards the slit wrist, dripping into the bowl and adding to the contents. "The elixir will create new white blood cells to clean her system but it can only do so much before it gets overpowered."

"Why not just make her drink the whole thing, I wonder?"

"Yeah. Just do it in small doses so you don't choke her in the process."

Emila was sent away to rest, objecting when told to despite her condition: sweating and about to collapse for the continuous effort of healing that lasted for a whole 2 and a half hours. Beatrice and Puck were left to handle everything by themselves, having more tenacious fortitudes compared to the half-elf.

"This is the only one I have." He told, directing the flow of Rem's blood so the white blood cells would know where to focus more and purge a large chunk of poisons in the process. "I have to replicate it before I make her consume the whole thing."

"Judging from these ingreeeeedients you have Ram bring for you…" Roswaal gestured to the basin of herbs and medicinal liquids lying on the floor, untouched since being brought over. "...it is stiiiiill an incomplete project, isn't it?"

"Unfortunately." He grudgingly shook his head, sneering. "I have no choice but to begin working on it as soon as possible, otherwise the aftereffects will be permanent on her mind."

"Aftereffects?" Ram parroted with a frown, worried.

"I'm not looking forward to seeing it happen." The eldritch voice was hard and cold, emphasizing the sincerity of his statement. He didn't seem keen in telling her what the aftereffects were. "Once I clear out maybe an additional 23% of the toxins, I can begin. That will give me 6 hours of work before they worsen again."

"And where does that leave us?" Puck asked, sitting atop Rem's waist while his paws glowed a healing white.

"Don't tell Betty and Bubby are just going to remain here forever, in fact!" Beatrice ranted from her place, her wide forehead sweaty as she forced her limping arms to remain extended towards the girl's chest.

"You two are going to remain here and watch over the girl while I work."

"Grr, in fact!"

"Oh dear."

"Roswaal." He called the Lord over.

"Ooooon it." He placed his gloved hands on the Priest's shoulders, massaging him through the gaps of his bone armor while a refreshing surge of mana is steadily filling up his draining mana core. Despite having his energies used for somebody else for more than 5 dozen times, the Lord is not in the least exhausted. "Hoooow is everybody on their work?"

"Betty is exhausted being this man's underling, I suppose! It is demeaning for a great and noble being like Betty, in fact!"

"I'm a little bushed but I can go for a couple more hours."

"Hmm." Roswaal nodded in acknowledgement. The former was never any tired. She's just being bipolar, complaining when she isn't even making any move of stopping. Instead, she's doing very diligently in the operation since it started. He turned to the Priest, "How about you, Ser Eeeeemurdol?"

"The food can make me last for likely a day."

"A day!?" Beatrice could not believe the limit he was having her work on. "Do you suppose Betty can last that long as much as you do, I wonder!?"

A pale hand grabbed her forehead with a smack and an energizing surge of mana is pumped into her core. As the hand was drawn away before she could slap it off, she then proceeded to stabilize not just the heart but other organs as well, doing magnificently in the process. Her unique butterfly eyes were practically burning from the invigorating energies coursing through her system.

"Aren't you persuuuuaaaasive, Ser?" Roswaal chuckled, still massaging him even though he's no longer passing him anymore mana.

"Can I have some of that too, Emurdol?" Puck requested, already draining it from the Priest with a cheeky feline smirk.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

Bocco fruit. A little pebble that when eaten can replenish a healthy dose of mana and energy to a person under mana-burn. A strange addition to his ingredients.

The elixirs of mana and healing in Pandemonium were made from the extracts of mystical beasts. Some of the greater mixtures and the high-tiered rejuvenation were directly taken from the beautiful and crystal-clear springs that were rumored to have been directly touched by the Seraphim that made it extremely capable of bringing a fatally-injured man back to complete health as well as regrow lost limbs and organs.

Emurdol has literally thousands of those extracts put in thousands of containers and stuffed in the Void. Priests of the Serpent have many expertise to learn before they earn the right to meet the Above-World, and one among them is alchemy. It's where ones individual knowledge of Poisons would thrive in. Either through self-learn or under someone's tutelage, he learned the recipes of healing elixirs from minor to rejuvenation.

And in the process, he developed his toxins to the point that it cannot be cured by any elixir except rejuvenation, which is a very rare possession to have. If Emurdol ever faces an enemy who happened to have such an immense stock of healing materials in their disposal, the odds would be in his favor before the fight even starts.

And that person happened to be William the Valet, otherwise known as the Supreme Corruption of Pride. Killing him liberated an entire state from his deranged drive to help.

The Priest never knew that such a forethought would lead him to this point, where a rejuvenation mixture was actually needed and Emurdol's own blood would put him in a harsh predicament. Maybe he should have invested more time into his alchemy before he was apparently forced into this world.

But dwelling on should-haves is not his hobby. Right now, he must focus. He already left the room and went back to the empty servant room he ate from, readied his instruments on the table as he pulled them out of the Void while the ingredients Ram brought is sitting on the floor beside his feet.

Trial and error would only waste precious time, but being smart in regards to trial and error can make the time he's got for himself well-spent.

And that's why he's got 5 skeletons in the room with him, born from the dust he kept in his bag, each one carrying the same instructions but having different recipes to create. Instead of one result in each trial, there will be six yielded.

Ingenuity is an essential quality in order to be ordained a remarkable Priest. Your education and Ideology may be given to you in order to be wise but you are never taught anything in order to be strong, only guided and nudged to the right direction. You are a human, and humans are strong and wonderful beings, therefore you teach yourself how to be strong by your own design.

Emurdol's concept of strong is based on the use of one's mind, and that's why he made it this far after all the things he's done in Pandemonium. Blades and bones can only do so much without a strategy.

More than 4 hours have passed, and his progress reaching somewhere between 49% to 59%, he worked with mechanical efficiency that made him equal to the minions hard at work around him, without rest and without frustration, Emotion Suppression at play. The bocco fruit may have created a large leap from the 39% block he was stuck from in regards to the replication but there is just something missing from it all. The tiny fruit only replenished vigor, and the more than half of the ingredients Ram brought are still untested. The ones tested are only useful in a poison recipe and mending minor wounds.

A mixture of a healing elixir and mushed paste of bocco fruit, topped by an extract from the immortal heart of the Undying Bear. With a series of procedures followed up, a sample is poured into a glass tube. The color was an unfortunate dull yellow. Just to be sure, he took a small whiff from it and was immediately disappointed.

Not the one.

"Fuck." He may not have a voice anymore but some words can still be said without it.

Carefully placing the tube in the case alongside the other failures, he turned away from the table and rested his face to his left hand, releasing the lock of his emotions and letting his exhaustion hit him.

This is getting nowhere for him despite his advancing progress. He jumped over one block, only to be obstructed by an even taller one. That's not any better. The skeletons are still working on theirs but he's only expecting disappointment from them, about to meet the same obstruction as him.

If he fails this…..Rem's identity will no longer exist. She will remain the same. Her personality will be intact. Her usual diligence will remain unchanged. Her unique everything will be just like how Ram knew her to be…..but her foundation will be gone.

What he's done to the Seventh Child cannot be done to that Maid.

But how can he stop it? How can he remove all of his blood running through the girl's system without killing her?

"Emurdol?"

He raised his head slightly, just enough to see the Dear Girl peeking from the open door through his bangs before mashing his face back to his palm.

"You and your fellows are reeaally hard at work, aren't you all?" She commented with an encouraging smile, looking over the skeletons in their respective places of the room.

He clicked his tongue in displeasure at the irony of it, "We're still halfway, and we're stuck."

"Still." She persisted in seeing the good side of things. "It just means you've done some work for Rem."

"That does not always mean it's a good thing." He snapped, his skeletal right hand clenching tightly, cracking and breaking apart from the pressure. "If nothing helpful comes out of it, I might as well be wasting my fucking time."

Her face twisted in a scowl, "Come now. Don't be so pessimistic."

"I am not." His skeletal foot stomped the ground, the ivory cracking from the amount of force put into it. The skeletons around them worked without caring of what's happening with their master behind them. "I'm being realistic here. Do not ever lump me in the same level as you idiots who do not see things carefully and rationally compared to me."

The last thing he wanted to happen in this room is useless conversation, and this girl's only wasting both their times.

Then he heard her footsteps come close. Raising his head up, wondering what more does she want, only for his green eyes to meet a small blue crystal in her palms held out to him.

"What is it?"

"It's a blank mana crystal infused with my mana. Water mana, specifically. I don't know if it's going to help you but this is all I can do to help if I'm too tired to contribute."

He took a deep breath through his nose and blew it out through his mouth. She could have given him this sooner instead of yammering about 'contributions'. It's one thing to want to contribute, it's another thing about being direct. She was not being direct at first, and that pisses him off.

He repaired his skeletal hand and held out an open palm, which she placed the crystal on. "I'll put it to good use."

Then her cheer returned to her face for his sincerity, "Please do." She said before leaving.

He watched her long silver hair trail behind her form until it was truly gone before looking at the blue stone in his hand.

"Hmph."

He knows what she was thinking. Since water mana has the property of healing, she might think that its components could help as an ingredient to the elixir. He shook his head, unamused. Only if she could manipulate her mana like it was an arm just like him. Spirit Mages like her needed assistance in that regard. Besides, what is he going to do with the stone? Grind it into dust with the mortar and pestle? Even if it does not explode like he thinks it would, how can the mana do what he wants it to do? Can it even respond to his blood or the toxins?

"Tsk." He mashed his face to his palm again.

If only he can solidify his own mana without any of his biological anatomy being part of it.

….

…..…..

…..…..…..…..

Beneath the palm holding his face, his brow furrowed in thought. Raising his head up, maintaining the shining light on his eyes, he looked at the blue crystal on his hand. A blank, overwritten by the Dear Girl's water mana.

…..

…

…..what if he's doing this the wrong way?

He rose up to his feet, and looked over the instruments on the table, then down on the ingredients he haven't used, then up to the ingredients he have used on another table, then to the potion containing that miraculous purple liquid, and finally back to the stone in his hand.

He is dealing with poison here, not gruesome wounds. To deal with poison, he needs antivenin. His toxins were made to spread its influence as soon as he wills it, and he remembers very well that he was already prepared in case he wishes to undo the effects. But to do so, he must will it along with a cast of blood magic. In order to will it, he needs mana. Mana that carried his will. But that mana flows through his blood. He cannot mix his blood in the mixture or it would defeat the purpose once consumed otherwise. But if he was to solidify his mana the same way the Dear Girl has…..

…..

…..…..

…..…..…..

His mouth moved to speak it as he had thought of it, [Antidote.]

The Emurdol Venom…..now has a cure…..

And it was all thanks to this Dear Girl giving him a piece of mana stone infused with her own personal energies just because she wanted to help.

Practically moving at the speed of light even though his legs wasn't of Mother's build, he was springing down the hallway chasing after Emilia's walking form, the mana stone thrown into the Void. When the latter heard the loud footsteps coming behind her and turned around to see what it was, she yelped before two hands, one of flesh and the other of ivory, grabbed her shoulders, up close to the Priest's wide green eyes.

"Wh-what!?"

"Can mana be solidified aside from using mana stones?"

"Huh? U-um, no. It's hard but it's not impossible, I-I mean, Roswaal's a great magician but Puck said even he can't do it. Beatrice might be able to—"

He released her and ran to Rem's room, practically breaking the door open with his shoulder when he twisted the knob and was in time to see Beatrice jolt from her place besides the girl's comatose form. Roswaal, Puck and Ram looked at him with wide eyes for his unexpected barging.

"Ah! What're you—"

Without any further confirmation that she's still there doing diligently in stabilizing Rem's condition, he whisked her off the bed, placing her carefully on his bone-covered shoulder and running back to the borrowed room-turned-alchemy room. She flailed with her arms and legs the whole way.

"Agh! What are you doing to Betty, I wonder!? Let go, in fact! Do you want to be blown to the wall—"

Midway through her angry yelling, the Priest had already brought her to the room and set her down to the chair he formerly used, cutting off her sentence.

She fussily slapped off the hands holding her before she glared at him, "Now why have you bro—"

"Can you crystallize mana, even if borrowed?"

"Could you let Betty finish what she's trying to tell you!?"

"Irrelevant."

"Irrelevant!?" Her voice had a rise in pitch in incredulousness.

"Nonessential to the Operation."

"Then why did you bring Betty here!? Grrr!" Her face was literally turning red as an apple from her anger, "Oh, the temptation to blast you out of this mansion, I suppose!"

He knelt down to one knee, his skeletal fist resting against the floor, his eyes now level with hers. He watched her intently, saying nothing and waiting for her to calm down. She continued to fume, glaring at him for dozens of seconds before she deflated, just slightly. As the skeletons continued on their work despite the heated exchange going on behind them, she finally asked, "What do you want, I wonder?"

"Can you crystal—"

"Betty heard you the first time." She interrupted, "Why do you want Betty to do it?"

He brought up his left hand, making a small light of green to emanate from his fingers. "The poison reacts to my mana. I can easily direct all toxins out of her body, but her blood is tainted with it. If I attempt it, she dies of blood loss."

Beatrice remained silent and still, listening carefully.

"My solution would be the elixir. Replicating that rejuvenation mixture is still a hurdle for me." He gestured to the glass tubes at the table next to the instruments behind her, which she turned to look at, "Too many failures despite the new ingredients. Even the bocco fruit isn't enough. My only alternative is to use my blood."

Her fascination immediately died, turning to him with a disgusted look for his said alternative, "Disgusting, in fact. Why?"

"I know blood magic. My every blood cell has clumps of mana that I could manipulate like an arm. It's even compatible for other people to be transfused to without complications, human or not. If I were to give her even a small amount to her veins…."

"You would be able to purge her entire body of the toxins." Beatrice inferred.

He nodded.

She looked at him steadily. "What's stopping you, in fact?"

He pursed his lips lightly, "My blood is the toxin."

She recoiled even further, the disgust becoming even more apparent on her face. "And Betty thought your bodily makeup is already monstrous."

"I'm still human…" He firmly pointed out, having no debate on the fact. "…and I made my body this way, just like the rest of my people had."

Beatrice hummed, crossing her arms and pondering over the absorbed information. Returning to the crux of this conversation, she said, "By crystallizing your mana, you can use it as a tangible component for your elixir without ever using your blood."

He nodded in confirmation, "If you can make it brittle, that would be very helpful. The mortar and pestle will be enough to grind it into powder."

"You say these things as if Betty will actually do what you say."

He held a long-suffering look, "And what is stopping you?"

She made a haughty look, "Why should Betty help you?"

"You ask me that even after all the effort you've done for the girl?"

Then her face colored red, "Because you forced Betty to it!"

"And you didn't even stop despite multiple opportunities." He rose up to his feet, his lips curling in a wry grimace, "You even stayed there for a whole 8 hours."

"Only because Bubby insisted!" She stubbornly objected, crossing her arms and looking away. "It's not like Betty would do it for anybody's sake, I suppose. Much less for you."

"Do this and become an accomplice in the girl's full recovery. I am certain Puck will be proud for your assistance in creating the antivenin." He leaned his upper body downwards, his gaze perfectly leveled to Beatrice's butterfly irises. His form is impressively bent into a 50 degree angle, not even losing his balance. "Refuse and I will mention the inaction you've done by being stubborn to the others when you could have changed the outcome by cooperating. I mention this to Emilia, she will be cross with you as well as everybody else. What do you think your precious little Bubby will think of you once I do?"

She shook on the chair with gritted teeth and a grumble, her impressive hair drills vibrating as they hung. "Forcing Betty to stabilize the girl's heart against her will and now you blackmail her? You are despicable, I suppose!"

He was about to mention the fact that she was already stabilizing the girl before he even arrived to Rem's room the first time but held his tongue, avoiding a time-wasting argument, "Just do it before her symptoms relapses and force all of us through another 8 hours of the operation again."

Her eyes widened at the prospect of more work for her to do at Rem's bedside, so she grumbled even further, cheeks puffing in indignance before submitting. "Get it over with. Don't expect Betty to help you next time."

"I expect Betty to fail upholding her own words." He retorted before righting his posture and kneeling down again, both his hands, ivory and flesh, held out in a cupping gesture before Beatrice. Closing his eyes, suppressing his emotions and allowing pure focus to settle in his mind, green energy began glowing from his palms like the smoke of incense.

Beatrice held out her hands towards the energies as if warming her hands over the fire, and the green necromantic energies seeped into her digits, coursing through her arms and filling her mana core with invigorating energy.

Controlling her form from twitching, she chanted in a light voice, "Minya."

The sound of the Priest's borrowed mana solidifying filled the air before the crystal emerged from the space above Beatrice's tiny hands. The conjured rock was a ball of rugged texture, colored a swampy green and its core slightly pulsing with light.

When its size was enough to match the size of her head, she finally stopped the spell. "This should be enough, I suppose." She prompted, taking the green crystal in her little hands, slightly weighed down by its unexpected heaviness.

Opening his eyes, he took only a second to marvel at what their collaboration bore fruit to before his skeletal hand took it from underneath, careful not to break it as he relieved Beatrice from it. Snapping the fingers of his free hand, one skeleton paused in its work and walked over with a mortar and pestle in its ivory hands. Placing it on the ground before its Master, it took the green rock carefully before the Priest snipped off a small chunk of it with relative ease using his bony fingers and placing it on the container.

Taking the pestle and holding the mortar against the floor to keep it steady, he crushed and grinded the crystal into fine powder, the green particles shining invitingly from any light present in the dark room, the morning failing to enter thanks to the closed curtains. Deeming the grains tiny enough to go through the bloodstream without trouble, he stood up with the mortar in hand and set to work on the new recipe on the table.

Beatrice stood up from the chair and watched him work in a mechanical and professional fashion, his eyes glowing green with determination and hope. After a few short minutes, he now has access to the first batch of the antivenin, green-blue liquid put in a simple tube. Standard ingredients for a healing elixir as a base, a single drop from the rejuvenation liquid for the regeneration factor, and a pinch of his solidified mana granules to make it easy to direct and manipulate.

For the moment of truth.

Cutting his thumb from the sharpened jaws of his attending skeleton, he let a full drop of blood land on his palm. With careful precision, his skeletal hand holding the tube poured the tiniest drip to land on the splatter. Handing the tube to Beatrice to hold, he held his open hand and looked at his palm intensely, eyes glowing even brighter than before as he held his breath. The Spirit also held her breath, not knowing what should happen to entail either a success or a failure but she looked at his palm very closely, eyes narrowed.

Moments pass.

…..

..…...

…..…..…..

And then at the passing of a whole minute, when Beatrice was about to call it a failure, a black puddle moved away from the red splatter, as if it was trying to escape. Green eyes and butterfly irises watched the foreign element with great scrutiny. It fled, fled, fled, reaching the very edge of his palm and eventually….it dripped to the floor, staining the carpet black and doomed to dry.

He turned to Beatrice with the most enthused look on his face and nodded. "We did it." His victorious smile was infectious, but the Spirit held it down. "Congratulations, Beatrice. You are officially the co-creator of the antivenin to the Emurdol Venom."

"Hmph." She tried to look proud and composed, crossing her arms and looking away, but her blushing cheeks are saying something else. "Now we won't have to go through another 8 hours of that ordeal again. Now do you have something to say to Betty, I wonder?"

He nodded sincerely, wiping his palm to his robes before clapping his hands in a rhythm followed by a courteous bow of the deepest respect. Beatrice felt her mana core being transfused with just a tiny bit of his invigorating mana. "Thank you so much, Beatrice. You will be properly rewarded when this is over."

"If you plan to, then you must tell Betty all about your magic." She told, turning around to face the skeletons still hard at work, working tirelessly to achieve a result despite the conclusion that happened. "Despite Betty's vast knowledge, this sort of magicry is unheard of, I suppose."

"It shall be done." He took the tube from her hands in polite movements and headed back to the table, "You may go and tell the good news. I will need a few more minutes to create a full vial of this."

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

The potion was now in his hand, green-blue liquid swishing as he swirled the contents in preparation. Rem's naked body lay on the bed, pale and barely moving once again. Her limbs were elevated, held by all the residents of the mansion. Ram held her right hand tightly and hovered the wrist over the same bowl earlier. Beatrice and Puck held her left hand, another bowel beneath the wrist. Roswaal held her left foot from the sheets while Emilia held the right, bowls placed beneath the ankles.

Pulling the cap off the cylindrical vial, he held her chin with a thumb to open her mouth before carefully and meticulously poured the contents in the opening, emptying the container. The skeleton that was standing behind him took the bottle and passed him the wand.

With his eyes glowing bright green, he repeated the procedure: swirling the wand above her bare chest, drawing another pulse from her heart and blood is sent flowing through her body. This time, he prevented the flow from going through her limbs, making sure she doesn't bleed out. The antivenin will do the rest from there, attacking the toxins polluting her blood and forcing them out of the body via the new cuts on her wrists and ankles.

Several minutes pass, with him repeating the same motion with mechanical repetition, tireless and focused with all his diligence.

And then, hope.

"It's pouring….it's pouring…" Ram muttered hopefully, tears running down her face as she watched the black liquid flow from the cut and into the bowl.

"There's some here too. Looks like Emurdol's antidote's working like a charm." Puck commented.

"With Betty's help, in fact." Beatrice reminded, stroking her thumb across the vein to quicken the flow of the venom on her end.

"It seeeeeems this operation is officially a success." Roswaal remarked with a happy tone in his drawl, turning to the half-elf, "Doooon't you think, Lady Emilia?"

"Yes!" She nodded with a bright smile on her face, watching as the leg she held now began to drip black blood. "Rem's going to be alright, right, Emurdol?"

A light nod from the Priest was all she received, still maintaining the spiraling motions of his wand.

The proceedings lasted for a whole 42 minutes, each bowl rising in depth little by little before the last of the toxins finally left her body. The Priest laid a hand on Rem's abdomen and sent out a diagnostic wave with his mana. Nodding for her clean state, organs now weakened but healable, he snapped his fingers before the skeleton passed him a healing elixir and pouring it into the girl's mouth again. A second later, the cuts on her wrists and ankles began closing.

"With this, her damaged cells, nerves and organs will restore themselves overnight." He informed, the eldritch voice neutral and professional as he moved away from the bed and had his skeleton as well as an extra one waiting by the door gather the bowls of collected venom before pouring it all into one large bowl. "Her breathing and heartbeat will return to normal at any moment. She will also wake up hungry, thirsty and likely ill so I suggest a meal prepared beforehand."

"Okey-dokie!" Emilia was happy to help in any way she can, walking out the door with a skip in her step. "Come on, Puck, Beatrice. Let's make a feast worthy of a queen!"

"Coming. Let's go, Betty." The Cat flew over the bed, beckoning the cute humanoid Spirit over. "Let's watch Lia mix the salt and pepper together!"

"Yes, Bubby~!" Beatrice practically glided as she went around the bed and out the door, following after Emilia.

Ram turned to the Priest, "Rem is now saved?" She asked, just to be sure with her ears for the last time.

He nodded, not meeting her crimson eyes as he took the blanket tossed on the corner and threw it over Rem's body to keep her warm once the fever sets in. "She'll live."

The elder sister practically sagged from the immense relief coursing through her whole body, her head resting on the bed and muttering her gratitude but refusing to let them be heard by him. Moments after, she eventually lost her consciousness, 8 hours of accumulated stress now taking their toll as she sat with her legs folded to the side on the floor, leaning against the edge of the mattress with her grip on Rem's hand unyielding.

He kept his gaze on her once she was no longer staring at him, only looking away once he knew she was asleep and turning to the large bowl of extracted venom held out to him by two skeletons. Carefully, he placed his hands beneath the vessel and slowly raised it up, taking it from his construct's hands and tipping to his direction, before he placed his lips on the rim.

Then he drank it, 4 liters worth of potent venom steadily going down his throat in steady and unhurried gulps, interjected by a single moment to take a breath before back to drinking. He made sure he didn't spill a drop, taking his time and ignoring the slightly unfamiliar taste. The Emurdol Venom is supposed to be tasteless in times in times of tampering food and drink. This obviously contributed from coursing through Rem's body. And she truly doesn't taste like a human, despite how human she looks.

When the last of it was drunk down to the pit in his stomach, he carelessly let the bowl slip off his hands and shatter to small sharp pieces on the ground, not a single trace of venom left. None of the sleeping room occupants were awakened by its wincing sound. After a few seconds, he let out a loud burp and he sighed pleasantly.

He turned to the Archmage crossing his arms and smiling as he leant against the wall, not minding the fact that his mana is being siphoned by the Priest to the latter's core. "I am going to address the culprit of this incident…." He turned to face the wall, or rather, at a certain person held prisoner by the same culprit. "…and the other victim of this venom."

Roswaal only offered a nod of acknowledgement, offering no objection. "May I ask sooomething?" He held up a finger, "Since Ram's return from the forest with Rem, she has told me of a certain 'Viandegroc', an entity that has possessed that body of yours in the midst of the rescue effort. When you fought me in that terrifying form to this very moment where you stood before me having saved one of my staff from death, which of the two controls the body? Is it the stranger Viandegroc, or the Necromancer Emurdol Viandegroc?"

The Priest fixed an unreadable stare at the clown, still as a corpse, and he held himself like that for a whole two minutes, with Roswaal maintaining a leveled gaze back at him before the latter decided not to answer and walked out the door, followed close behind by his bony entourage.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

For the umpteenth time, Meili wondered how she was still alive. Since falling off of Elsa's arms when the latter was suddenly beheaded upon breaching the surface and into the catastrophic climate, taking a rough landing back to the earth that shattered her shoulder and cracked her ribs, she had been knocked unconscious, only to wake up when a fallen tree landed on her right hand and decimated it.

Her voice was parched from her recent screaming and crying, despair and desperation cruelly ravaging her heart and mind when she was left all alone in the storm. Her captor wasn't there. Elsa wasn't there. They are likely swept away by the storm, ravaged thoroughly by the tornado that was circling around her pinned form at a thankfully safe distance. The fact that not one of the two came back to get her likely indicated their fate.

At this point, she had lost all hope, weeping and sobbing, pitying the circumstance she got herself into. She got caught during her job. She got Elsa killed. Serious consequences await her once she returns to Mother. She wished for her death. She wanted her misery to stop. She wanted all this suffering she got herself shoved into to end. She doesn't care how her life will be snuffed out. From internal bleeding, from diseases accumulated due to infection, from being mauled by a wild animal, or even saved. She'll be satisfied with whatever, so long as it ends quickly.

And then she felt the earth tremble once more.

….a rhythmic tremble, as if a giant was strolling along the forest floors she was trapped and left to die in. It was coming closer.

Using what little strength she had left, deprived of food and water for so long, even if the pain and agony on her body had miraculously started fading half an hour ago, she had no power to move any part of her body except her eyes.

And she recognized what she saw.

Large and rocky fists, stomping the ground in each step of its stride as it carried its top-heavy anatomy towards its destination. A Rock Golem, the same ones she's seen amidst her delirium when she was 'rescued' that night.

This being was not alone, and she saw the one who was likely going to bring the end she wanted.

Though his attire was different compared to the light-eating robes before, blue and casual, the same type men would use when going to sleep, his pale hair and skin could not be mistaken for somebody else. The bones coating his upper body and the bony wand hanging from his waist sash made it all too clear who he was. He was, however, a lot lankier compared to their last sight of each other. His cheek bones are showing through his face.

His gaze was impassive and unreadable, his green eyes glowing gently and his hands, with his right literally made out of bone, were open and hung beside him. When his skeletal feet are just a meter away from her face, he knelt to one knee, the impression of his legs the sleeves of his pants gave exposed what was likely beneath, and a horrifying sound breached into her mind.

"How pitiful."

Terror grabbed her heart with a vice-like grip, tight and unyielding. Despite her already-pathetic state, there was still room for fear when she already had her fill of pain.

"Forsaken and forgotten. Now you are left to die alone in this lonely forest where even the witchbeasts would not venture through in fear of the Reaper. It must have been so cruel, wasn't it?"

Though the terrorizing Voice continued to send wave after wave of dread to her heart, she felt herself finding an underlying comfort in it. It wasn't speaking in an emotionless tone, instead it was a warm and fatherly quality, comforting a hurting daughter and wanting to soothe her pain with all he can.

As if to prove that theory, a skeletal hand laid its fingers on her head, combing her light blue hair before the bony palm patted her head very gently. The softest touch she ever received after 4 grueling days suffering under the watch of the skeletal menace, even Elsa's rescue rough effort was in no way gentle. This hand gave her all the comfort she's been asking for since then, and it put her at immense ease.

"But worry not, for I will not abandon you. As the bearer of my blood, you will no longer suffer under anyone's hand anymore except mine. What life you have led before, whatever pain you suffered from that life, you will not face it again. "

She was starting to get drawn to this loving and fatherly tone. All the pain in her body and mind was disappearing. The warmth of the Voice heated her heart, bringing her ease as the bitter cold of the coming dusk in the damp forest hastened her hypothermia. She wanted to reach out with a hand and hold someone else's own. Specifically, this man's. But she was too weak, too broken to move.

The ivory hand rested against her temple, the bony thumb moving stray locks of her bangs away from her face. She felt the end arriving. Her consciousness was dying. She felt the burden of being in a broken body pulled off her shoulders, and the relief pushed her closer and closer to the inviting arms of eternal Sleep.

"Go." The Voice gently urged her. "Go to sleep now. Set aside all your pains and worries and rest. Close your eyes and know that I will be here with you and will never leave you to suffer alone ever again. So long as the bond that binds our souls together is held sacred, you will forever be under my protection."

Before the sweet embrace of peace washed over her and her final breath is taken away, she heard one last intonation from the Voice.

"Perish and let the Dragon know your Soul, Daughter."