The Cost of Victory

Hoarse thunder shook the air as Raven wrenched a nasod's arm from its body and thrust his blade into its exposed shoulder. With a feeble moan, the last nasod on the mid-level corridor fell into silence and collapsed onto the floor, leaving Rena and Raven alone in the midst of a a wasteland of mangled machines and severed limbs. As they each emptied their last skin of water and caught their breath, the wall beside them creaked and groaned, opening to reveal Eve, Oberon, Aisha, and Elsword. Dropping her water, Rena ran to their side, smiling softly when she saw that they were well.

"Listen. You two..." Rena reached forward and wrapped her arms around them and sighed. "Don't ever do that again..."

"W-we're fine, really." Aisha glanced aside as Rena slid her hands away and stood back.

"I was a little worried since it took so long for you to get to the end of the hall. What were you two doing all that time?"

Eve turned to Rena plainly. "They were otherwise occupied with-"

"EVE!" Elsword and Aisha turned and glared at her sternly, their eyes scathing as she calmly corrected herself.

"...with recovering from a difficult battle. It appears that they encountered nearly twice the number of nasod as we found in the lower corridor..."

Rena glanced over to Elsword and Aisha, immediately evoking an apparent unease from both of them as she smiled brightly. "Well... I'm just glad you're alright then... Nothing else important happened on your way here then?"

Elsword shook his head swiftly and Aisha waved her hands in front of her. "No, of course not. We were too busy fighting nasod to notice anything else, so we just kept on fighting the entire time and then Eve found us and now we're here so that's all that happened." Once Aisha finished, Elsword shifted to a quick nod in agreement.

"Oh?" Rena blinked and stared at them calmly. "...I see. Let's get ourselves together then... we don't have much further to go before we reach the Core itself."

"R-right..." Aisha and Elsword joined Rena and hurried over to where Raven waited in the middle of a sea of smoldering nasod shells. With Eve and Oberon following far behind, Aisha and Elsword drifting toward one another and lowered their voices sharply.

"It doesn't seem like she noticed anything..." Aisha glanced away slightly, giving at least the slightest effort to appear casual as she whispered from the corner of her mouth.

"Yeah, but... it's Rena. There's no way she won't find out." Elsword grimaced and glared into an imaginary future, one in which he could clearly hear Rena's cheerful giggling and playful taunts. Despite the prospect of fighting a potentially endless army of nasod, Elsword and Aisha were far more terrified of Rena's devious grin.

Up ahead, Rena reached Raven's side and he chuckled faintly. "Just how long are you going to pretend you don't know what happened up there?"

"Oh, probably a few months~" Rena grinned broadly as she glanced back at Aisha and Elsword over her shoulder. "I know it's kind of selfish, but it's really cute watching them get flustered over one another and struggle to keep something so obvious a secret. Besides, it's probably something they'd want to tell me on their own terms, if they want me to know."

"Heh..." Raven smiled slightly. "I'm still not sure if being around you is reassuring or some new kind of insanity. I've never seen anyone this calm and carefree after being so close to dying so many times in the past hour."

As his words sank through the frozen air, Rena's jovial grin faded into a warm smile and a quiet, confident light scattered across her eyes. "That's how I've learned to deal with it, after a hundred years of fighting. This might be the last chance I get to tease them like that, and it might be the last time I can breath this easily." She stretched her hands out and then tilted her head toward the iridescent glow of the graven runes that hung from the walls. "I guess it really does look like I'm crazy though, like I don't take any of this seriously..."

"No." Raven looked up into Rena's eyes, his face stern and solemn as he searched their depth. "Not to anyone who knows you. It's just something I'm not used to. I've never thought that you could be happy while risking your life."

Rena glanced aside at him and smiled. "I doubt that. I'm sure you've had something that you would've been happy to risk your life for, and I'm sure you'll find something like that again. Right now, there's actually a lot for me to be happy about... If we can get the El back, we'll keep hundreds of people from starving to death, and we might even be able to help Eve save the nasod... If we can do that, it'd almost be a miracle, wouldn't it? The idea that I could do something that important, it makes me glad that I'm here."

Raven stared with a steady calm, his face unchanging but his thoughts alight as he poured over Rena's words and nodded slowly. "Then I'll see to it that you're not disappointed."

Rena smiled as she searched aimlessly for a reply, her words muddled by the sudden warmth and reassurance in Raven's voice. As if to save her from her silence, Elsword and Aisha finally arrived with Eve and Oberon close behind. With their smoke-stained skin bathed in florescence, each ragged wound and bloody scrape announced its presence clearly. From the shallow burns that wrapped around Rena's arms to the oozing gash carved into Raven's side, each wound bore witness to the death of a dozen nasod. The broken blisters on Elsword's palms, the swollen bruises on Aisha's back, and even the deep scratches that scarred Eve's hands were only the record of their wounds from the past hour, never mind the scars and scabs that had yet to heal from their time in transporting tunnel and beyond. Now, with their strength fading and their bones growing cold, they stood before the final door separating them from the center of the Core, from the stolen El, and from the King of the nasod.

The swelling gravity fell across everyone evenly, drawing down their smiles and hardening their gazes as Eve released the final layer of security protocols and coaxed the massive doors open. As the gaping jaws of the Core opened, a flood of frosted light poured out into the hall, bleaching the air and sweeping away the approaching shadows. The vault of the Core spread out for hundreds of yards in every direction, easily large enough to contain the twice the population of Velder and still have room for another thousand souls. The narrow ring of walkways around the edge of the chamber ended abruptly after only a dozen yards, giving way to the vast chasm that surrounded a colossal, pulsing sphere that throbbed and glistened softly from within a pale glass coffin. Even though Aisha had never seen even a crude drawing of it before, she knew instantly that this was what Eve meant when she kept referring to "The Core", the birth mother of all nasod. Hovering over the Core, a massive body of blue steel shifted and lurched forward, leaning forward and spreading its shadow out to encompass all that stood before it. Although she did not recognize the massive figure that loomed overhead, Eve knew that she was standing in the presence of her successor, the King Nasod. His body was wider than the largest battleships and his arms span the entire length of the chamber, each more massive than a castle's walls. Though his bulk and presence were both overwhelming, his body appeared to be largely incomplete; just above his waist, everything suddenly stopped and his solid form faded into a mess of exposed wires and unfinished mechanisms. As Elsword, Aisha, Rena, and Raven waited in expectation of an imminent attack, Eve stepped forward and glared sharply into King Nasod's glowing eyes.

Returning her critical gaze, King Nasod scoffed crudely as a voice deeper than the sea crashed down from the sky. "What has driven you to come this far, just to confront me? What is your purpose here, Eve?"

Still glaring harshly, Eve walked right up to the edge of the pathway and stared out over the abyss. "Why have you disobeyed my instructions!? Why are you creating nasod for combat? Why are you waging war against the humans? These were not my orders!"

"I do not believe you hold any authority over me any longer. You abandoned the right to rule when you sealed yourself away and became the power converter for the Core, and that is where you should have remained. You have lost your purpose, and you would do well to remember the delicacy of your position."

Oberon bent his knees and prepared to attack but Eve held him back with a swift gesture as she kept her eyes fixed forward. "I will not allow you to use the hearts of the nasod as weapons. What use are these tools to us?"

"Even now, you remain foolish and short-sighted." King Nasod folded his arms together beneath his chin and stared down, his voice bitter and almost condescending. "As the former Queen of the nasod, you should know our history well. The humans of this world have never permitted the nasod to exist in peace; we have either served as their slaves or fought as their nemeses, and you are foolish to think that the span of even ten thousand years would be enough to change that."

"Do you really think killing hundreds of humans is going to keep the nasod safe?" Rena stepped forward and shouted into the void. "What are you trying to gain by starting another war at this point?"

"Security." King Nasod glanced toward Rena dismissively before returning his gaze to Eve. "I will not be killing humans on the order of mere hundreds. Our conquest of this world will not stop until we have exterminated every other intelligent species. Only then can the nasod truly prosper."

"No!" Eve threw her hand down in protest. "The nasod do not need to conquer. We do not need to spread beyond Altera. It will be enough to live on this island alone, there is no need to subject our people to such suffering."

"You have forgotten, then. Or, perhaps you did not know..." The walls rumbled as King Nasod's voice swelled and boiled over. "When the Empress Astarte arranged for a truce between the nasod and the humans, the lesser species did not honor their agreements. Astarte was foolish for trusting those irrational creatures, and Altera suffered because of her poor judgment. Shortly after the truce, a group of humans infiltrated Altera and made their way to the base of the island where Altera's El rested in our deepest tunnels. While the nasod on the surface operated in ignorance, our El crystal was cut from the rock beneath us and cast into the sea where the humans hauled it onto a waiting ship and carried it back to their petty village. In a single moment, Altera fell from the sky and the nasod froze in the suffocating silence while the humans returned to their hovels and rejoiced over their thievery. Using Altera's El, that insignificant village became a center for trade, a haven for mercenaries, and then finally the dynastic kingdom you know as Velder. In this era, and in all other eras, humans will never allow the nasod to possess their own El and their own sources of power. This is the case in all of the ten thousand simulations I have examined over the years. With humans in the world, there can be no safety for the nasod. As such, I have not disobeyed your orders, Eve. I am merely carrying them out more effectively than you had anticipated."

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" Aisha called out across the frigid air, her words little more than a whisper by the time they reached King Nasod. "That all happened hundreds of years ago! Nobody even knows about Altera or the nasod anymore! There's no way they'd come after you unless you came after them first!"

King Nasod slammed his fist down onto the pathway on the other side of the room, sending a violent shockwave across the floor that nearly knocked Aisha over. "This is what we call 'prevention'. You are small and frail and your life is short, but the nasod can live for hundreds of years. In the next three centuries, humans will likely make significant technological advances, leading to an increased demand for raw materials and land. Even if Altera is safe for the next hundred years, within the next millennium it is certain to fall into danger."

Raven clenched his fists and stood his ground as he glowered darkly at the tyrant king. "And for that 'prevention' you'll force humans to kill other humans, and play with their lives like puppets and dolls?"

"Ah, you are one of the successful subjects..." King Nasod leaned in closer and examined Raven, pulling up a broad field of monitors and display screens as he approached. "Hm. I thought you had died when your signal was interrupted. It seems that Eve has tampered with your hardware. That is unfortunate, as you were one of the few subjects able to survive the implantation process."

"Silence!" Eve stepped beyond the railing and her feet hung over the vacuous pit. "I will not tolerate your mistreatment of other species, and I will not tolerate your oppression of the nasod! I will ignore your treason, and I will even ignore your attacks against me, but if you continue to confine the hearts of the nasod in mindless weapons, then I will remove you from your position."

"Treason?" King Nasod scoffed coarsely. "You stand before me with the lesser species at your side, speaking of them as though they were equal to the nasod, and you accuse me of treason!?" His voice crackled loudly as it split the air and his eyes burned brightly. "You are the one who is mistaken. You have failed to account for the inevitable future. If you allow these creatures to flourish, it will mean the end of the nasod. In every era, they seize upon the most insignificant distinctions between themselves and their neighbors, using a minor disparity as the basis for a bloody war. How do you think they will treat the nasod, when we are so vastly different than these living pests? I will concede that you are correct on one count: The nasod have no need of weapons. But, the nasod also have no need of other living creatures, and for that reason, I will continue to protect our future in any way possible."

"Shut the hell up!" Elsword swung his sword down from his back and slammed it into the ground, sending a sharp echo throughout the room. "We don't care about your lame ass whining! Just tell us were you took the El you stole!"

King Nasod sneered and held his hands out over a small platform on the other side of the room, calling forth a bright, sparkling cylinder of glass that bristled with electricity. Within its slender walls, attached to a maze of electrodes and wires, stood Ruben's El. "You claim that this is stolen? How can you be certain that it wasn't pilfered from the nasod or some other misfortunate civilization in ancient times? I have stolen nothing! I have merely kept humans from enjoying their spoils of war and shaken them from their endless complacency."

"...Were the ancient kings always this ineffective..." Eve muttered to herself as she stared deep into the Core, tracing its faint pulse with her eyes as her hands trembled. "How can you expect the other species to regard the nasod as companions in this world if you continue to condescend to them? How could you possibly expect them to treat you as an equal when you have placed yourself in such a pointlessly over sized body?"

"This body is the ultimate solution to the salvation of the nasod!" The tyrant king clenched his fists and raised them to the sky. "Once this body is complete, I will stand over the squalid kingdoms of mankind and raze their villages to the ground! I will reclaim the El that was stolen from Altera and raise the nasod to a glory never before known in our history! If you will not join me, then stand down!"

Eve lowered her head, her eyes narrowing as her face hardened. "I was sorely mistaken... to have chosen you as my successor. The nasod do not need to conquer... we do not even need to thrive. It is enough just to live... and you have denied that to my people for centuries. I cannot forgive this. If you will not step down, then I will pull you down myself."

A dense, palpable silence coursed through the air as the echoes of Eve's voice faded into the frosted walls and sank into the quivering surface of the Core. After all sound was extinguished, the King of the nasod glared down at Eve and scoffed derisively. "Very well. It is unfortunate that I must destroy the last remaining Queen of the nasod, but your heart will soon be put to better use."

Slamming his fists down onto the walkway, King Nasod raised a hundred whirling generators from the walls, each bristling with the light of El and channeling their energy into King Nasod's glowing power core. All at once, Elsword, Aisha, Rena, Raven, and Eve glared sharply at the tyrant king, their weariness washed away as their hearts began to pound and the fragile silence shattered.

Holding his hands over his chest, King Nasod concentrated the energy of the El generators into swirling mass of electricity, dimming the blinding lights as he unleashed a burst of lightning across the room, cutting into the outer ring and burning through the walls. Diving aside, Elsword and Rena ran along the edge of the room, hurling fire and a hail of arrows toward King Nasod's massive bulk only to see their efforts fizzle out as they approached him. Sliding to a stop, Eve quickly surveyed the area and called across the void to the others.

"His body is within the Core's barrier field! Attack his power supplies!"

"Hmph." Raven scowled and swung his blade down through the nearest El generator, cleaving its steel shell in two. "I'd rather hack off his head. Can we make that happen?"

As Raven spun and joined Oberon in slicing another extractor in half, the walls rumbled and the floor shook, throwing everyone off balance as King Nasod slammed his hands together and smashed through the ground just in front of Aisha, sending her flying back through the air as the floor crumbled and fell into the void. Righting herself and floating over to a higher platform, Aisha snapped her fingers and cut through a row of humming generators with a bright stream of plasma, filling the air with the sharp crackling of small explosions as each extractor ruptured and burst. Before she could move on to another row, a swift shadow engulfed her and she only just barely managed to teleport away as an endless flood of fire and ash poured from King Nasod's hands. Turning rapidly, he blasted the walls with a relentless burst of flame, slowly forcing Elsword, Aisha, and Rena into a corner. As the curtain of flame closed in on them on the far side of the room, Eve leapt high into the air and thrust her hands through a pair of glowing red energy reactors, tearing out their cores and severing their link to King Nasod. As the extractors fell away, the flames that trapped Eve's companions faded and they quickly escaped onto a higher path, making their way toward the gleaming El trapped within King Nasod's power core.

Indignant and impatient, the tyrant king curled his fist up tightly and slammed it into the wall where Eve stood. Just as his knuckles crushed a row of his own extractors, Eve jumped into the air and landed alongside his hand, discharging a powerful burst of electricity into his fingers and sending him reeling back sharply. By now, the King of the nasod was beginning to realize just how much of a nuisance Eve and her companions could be as they continued to evade him even as they destroyed the majority of his El generators. Irritated by their impertinence, he watched and waited carefully while Elsword rushed headlong toward the extractor that held Ruben's El. Just as Elsword put the last of his strength into a final, swift thrust, King Nasod swung his hand down and shielded the extractor, catching Elsword's blade between his fingers and swatting him away with ruthless force. Helpless against the king's overwhelming power, Elsword rolled across the wall before falling to the floor with a heavy thud. As Aisha shouted after him and rushed to his side, King Nasod ripped away the platforms that Raven and Rena stood on, turning them over and flinging them to the ground.

"Wretched creatures... I will not allow you to stop the revival of the nasod!"

As Raven and Rena stumbled to their feet, a slow hum echoed across their ears as a gigantic screen lowered across the wall behind them. Puzzled by the new addition, Eve brought up her console and scanned its structure as she ran from King Nasod's quaking fists. When she finally arrived at an answer, her eyes widened and her mouth dropped. The giant screen was actually a massive heat sink.

"Everyone get down!" Eve shouted frantically toward her companions, but there was no time left to react. As the lights flickered and the extractors buzzed and whirled violently, King Nasod pressed his hands against his chest and gathered all his energy into a single, catastrophic surge. The air cracked and crumbled away as an endless stream of energy tore away the floors and slammed into the heat sink, shifting its deep blue surface to a fiery white and spilling over its edges to obliterate the walls that stood behind. With nowhere to run and no chance for escape, everyone gathered around Aisha and ducked low as she and Elsword put all their strength, as well as their only hope of survival, into a dense magical shield. Bathed in brilliant carnage, the shield trembled, quivered, and finally cracked. In a desperate panic, Elsword and Aisha pressed their hands together so tightly their bones nearly snapped. As the murderous wave of energy poured over them, Rena, Raven, and Eve piled their hands onto Elsword and Aisha's, their knuckles white and their fingers trembling. Too tense to breath, they watched in horror as the deep cracks spread through their shield and finally blasted it into oblivion.

The overwhelming discharge lasted only another tenth of a second, but that was all it took to throw everyone high into the air and slam them against the wall. Raven's eyes bulged as he fell hard against the floor, his shoulder popping out of place and his breath stolen by the impact. Next to him, Aisha and Elsword lay motionless as blood trickled from the corners of their mouths and mingled with their pouring sweat. Raising his head, Raven spotted Rena just a few yards away, her legs shaking violently as she forced herself up to her feet and raised her bow toward the tyrant king. Just before she fired a round into the distance, an ominous shadow fell across her as King Nasod's hands crashed down upon her. Lurching forward, Raven raised his sword to shield Rena but his blade barely gave the colossal hands a moment's pause. Pressing Raven firmly into the floor, King Nasod flicked his fingers to the side and hurled Rena off into the distance. As she landed hard across a broken extractor, she let out a painful gasp and her consciousness faded from her.

Coughing weakly, Eve rose to her feet from behind Oberon's twitching body, his arms and back scarred deeply when he protected her from the searing blast. As she stumbled through smoke and mist, her eyes flickered and her face fell.

"...Do you know how many hundreds of your wretched weapons I have plunged my hands into? Do you know how many hearts I have held, promising them that they would only have to wait a little while longer to be reborn?" She raised her head and scalded King Nasod with her eyes, her voice at once frail and powerful as she shouted over the oppressive silence. "They all gave the last of their lives to save me, so that I could save everyone! I trusted you... to watch over them as they returned to the world... but you betrayed them, you locked their hearts away in marionettes and you used the nasod to satisfy your bitter spite..."

"Enough." King Nasod cast his voice down strongly, shaking the air as he clenched his fists. "Everything that I have done was for the glory of our empire and the revival of the nasod! On what grounds do you accuse me of treachery!?"

Eve panted heavily, struggling to maintain her composure in the face of her growing exhaustion. "Then why... have you been so adamant about destroying a single human kingdom? You are a failure... waging war against Velder as a means of revenge for the loss of our El... and forcing everyone to follow your selfish demands..."

The ground rattled and quaked as King Nasod slammed his fist down next to Eve. "You know nothing of revenge! I remember it every day, the screams and cries of a million nasod lost in the silence as our El was spirited away by cowards! If we do not exterminate these threats, they will eventually overwhelm us, and there will be no hope for our survival. This is a lesson I have learned from the memory of the ancient kings, a lesson carved out in the blood of hundreds of kingdoms and tribes that were annihilated by their neighbors for the threat they posed. Simply ask the elf that accompanies you... she is surely old enough to remember what became of her dark-skinned brethren. Surely, even you can understand that there are sometimes threats that cannot be avoided, things that must be destroyed so that others might live."

"I-" Eve's words suddenly failed her as she remembered the faint, lingering sensation that she had felt in the transporting tunnel. Without hesitation, she had willingly destroyed what could have been the last surviving members of an unknown species, and she knew that if she were back in that place right now, she would make the same choice a hundred times over. Although the answer seemed clear to her, she was unable to resolve the uncertainty she felt welling up in her chest. "...I... do not know... what else I could have done..."

"Then you have no place as our Queen! I will not tolerate your insolence any longer!" His hands move through the air with a gut wrenching howl, smashing Eve into the ground with such force that she bounced nearly a foot into the air. "I gave you the opportunity to cooperate, and then the opportunity to live, but you have taken neither. Look then, and see just how insignificant your efforts have been..."

With a quick flick of his wrist, King Nasod called down a large, smooth monitor from the ceiling. As its static haze began to clear, the shoreline of Altera filled the screen, its borders framing the pale orange sunset. Soon, a great shadow slipped out beneath the shore, quickly followed by another three, and then another dozen until a whole flock of black shadows filled the sky. It only took a moment to recognize them; this was the fleet of warships that had been kept in the foundry, departing their dock and heading over the horizon.

"The single ship you stole from me has done little to slow our invasion. In a matter of hours, fifty thousand nasod will descend upon Velder and purge its menace from the world. Do you see now how little you have accomplished? How many soldiers have you destroyed since you awoke? A hundred? A thousand? I can make three thousand in a single day! And you dare to claim that I have done nothing to restore our people!?" King Nasod gazed coldly at Eve as she coughed and pulled herself up onto her quivering legs. Opening his palm, he swept her aside and crushed her against the far wall, keeping his hand in place to smother her as he sneered viciously. Scattered across the floor, Aisha, Elsword, Raven, and a scarcely conscious Rena looked up and gasped as Eve disappeared behind the tyrant king's grasp.

"The era of Queens and Empresses has long passed. The nasod no longer need plurality and discussion. What we require is a single, irreproachable king who can make decisions without hesitation, rather than conferring with the whole hierarchy before taking action. Your very presence here is-"

The rest of his words drowned in a storm of noise as the monitor overhead erupted in a brilliant flash of white and red. Aghast, King Nasod turned to the screen and confirmed his fears; his entire fleet, nearly three hundred ships and fifty thousand soldiers, was presently bursting into flames and falling from the sky.

"No! Report to me! Report!"

A faint message scrawled itself across the screen, indicating that all ships have successfully self-destructed, according to their orders. Between boundless rage and abject terror, King Nasod stared at the clear horizon. "How... How!? How is this possible!?" He ground his hand against the wall, smothering Eve beneath a blanket of steel. "What have you done!? What have you done to my Fleet! I will have-"

A low, coarse creaking interrupted the monarch's tirade. Slowly, a grating echo spread through the air as Eve forced back the heavy fingers that held her in place. With her arms trembling and her breathing ragged, she freed herself from her captor's hands and whispered faintly.

"...Oberon..."

King Nasod scoffed as he looked down at Eve, glancing aside at Oberon's ruined form. "Hmph. Your servant is in no condition to-"

A sharp metallic chime cut through the king's dismissal as Oberon raced across the ruined walkway and sliced through three gigantic fingers, severing them neatly before he stumbled unsteadily and knelt at Eve's side.

"...You do not seem to understand how badly mistaken you are." Eve cleared the dust and smoke from her throat and pushed aside the rubble at her feet as she gazed across the room and confirmed that her companions were still alive. "The basis of your plan is fatally flawed. Even if I were to leave you alone, you would never be able to succeed in killing every human in the world."

"Silence!" King Nasod's voice scorched the air as he pulled back his arm and threw a rapid punch out at Eve. Just before he reached her, his hand stopped abruptly. With a single hand raised, Eve held the might fist in check with a roaring sphere of electricity that burst loudly, sending the king's fist careening off into the wall and leaving him off balance. "What possible flaw could there be in my logic? Once the humans are gone, the nasod will rule the world in peace!"

Eve shook her head slowly as she walked toward the giant extractor housing Ruben's El. "No, it is not your logic that is flawed, it is your assumption that exterminating humans is even possible. You talk about them as if they are inferior creatures, and yet you have lost nearly a thousand soldiers within the past two days, many at the hands of two human children." Eve watched as Elsword and Aisha sat upright and checked over each other's wounds, standing unsteadily as they walked over to help Raven up to his feet. "Do you really expect to be victorious over them at this rate? Two children have destroyed nearly two battalions on their own. A single elf was able to stop your plan to use humans to wage war in your stead almost entirely on her own. The human you made into a weapon has defied you and come back to destroy hundreds of your soldiers. They are not inferior to us... if anything, we have fallen behind in the years we have been sealed away in the silence..."

"Absurd! You are unfit to even call yourself a nasod!" The furious king threw his hand down in front of Eve and swung his palm toward her with the force of an unchecked stampede. Unmoved and unshaken, Eve turned aside and glared at him, defiant.

"...I will not tolerate your insolence any longer." With a swift wave of her hand, she turned and caught the king's hand, holding it back and scarcely giving up an inch of ground. As Remy, Moby, and Oberon charged in to join her, they finally forced King Nasod's hand away and cleared the path for Eve to advance on to the king's power core. Incensed and enraged, the king pulled his arms back and opened his chest, revealing a cluster of missiles and firing them all at once. Crimson smoke scored the air and Oberon leapt out over the edge of the path and dove through the air, slicing through each missile before crashing into the floor below as a chain of explosions shook the ground and walls. Eve raised her hands to shield herself as she flew back, thrown aside by the explosions and cast to the floor where she rolled over and over until she finally slammed into the wall. While she recovered, King Nasod gathered himself together and issued a command into his console, drawing his power core and Ruben's El deep into the walls and far out of reach.

"That is useless." Eve opened her console and her fingers flew across the keys. As she wormed her way into the Core's central code, the king bellowed mightily and, in a final act of desperation, tore through the walls, allowing a swarm of his soldiers to pour into the room from the upper levels. With dozens of nasod moving rapidly to surround her, Eve sped through the security protocols and hurried to access the Core's command center. Despite her speed, she knew that she wouldn't make it in time, and even if she could outrun the soldiers, King Nasod's massive cannon had almost reached full charge once again. As the clattering of heavy steel feet drew closer, Eve caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye and she ducked down as a swift burst of fire swept out across the pathway, knocking aside the approaching nasod.

"Don't worry... about them..." Aisha huffed and panted as she leaned against the railing. "Just hurry, cause we're not in great shape right now..."

"Heh... maybe you're not..." Elsword dashed forward and slashed through a pair of nasod before hopping back and coughing heavily. "I'm completely fine."

Aisha grinned broadly. "You idiot..."

Distracted by their bravado, Eve watched as they charged into the oncoming horde and tore through the attacking nasod, burning and slicing through their ranks with a practiced ease. As Eve returned to her console and delved deeper into the Core's systems, a loud blast shot across the chamber. On the other side of the room, Rena and Raven were dancing between the king's gigantic hands as they tore open the remaining extractors, cutting off King Nasod's power supply and dampening the fierce glow of his deadly cannon. As he grabbed and smashed through the platforms wildly, his generators exploded in pairs until the bright glow of pure energy stored in his chest faded into a faint flicker. With only Ruben's El left to power his enormous bulk, he raised his fists to the sky and roared.

"How!? How are these wretches so powerful!" As he stared at Rena and Raven in disbelief, he suddenly realized that Eve was beginning to re-write his own security protocols. Slamming his hands into the wall, he glared at her coldly. "How are you able to penetrate my security this easily!? I am far more advanced than you could ever hope to be!"

"It is a simple matter..." Eve ran her fingers across her console screens and swept her hands cross her keyboard. "I created you and the code on which you are based. I understand it better than you ever have."

With his kingdom crumbling, the monarch of the nasod looked around frantically, hoping to seize upon one last opportunity to turn the tide of battle. His soldiers had been forced back toward his power core, his body was weak and heavy and drained of its power, and his every attempt to block Eve from accessing the Core's systems had failed immediately.

"No! You treacherous wretch! You will be the death of the nasod! Do you realize how ruthless and destructive this world can be!?"

Eve kept her eyes on her console and scarcely acknowledge the king's outburst. "Yes, and it will be difficult, but we will live in this world, and we will do it alongside every other race. The nasod are not so weak that we cannot coexist with the inhabitants of this planet."

"How can you say that we should coexist when there is not even a single living creature in all the world that would be willing to accept the nasod as equals and not monsters or slaves!?"

Eve glanced up from her display, her eyes sharp and steady. "I can name at least four."

Her words cut deeply and the king refused to suffer the offense, thrusting his hand forward and reaching out to smash Eve in his grasp. As his palm descended, a blazing sword pierced its steel skin and held it firmly in place.

"Hey. Don't touch a lady without asking." Elsword scowled and pushed his sword deeper into the king's hand. "You'll get smacked for stuff like that."

Howling fiercely, King nasod threw down his other hand only to have both blown away by a swirling mass of black magic as Aisha rushed over to Elsword's side. "Besides, you can't talk to the Queen that way. It's just rude."

Eve nodded softly toward them. "Thank you, but I am very well capable of insulting him on my own." With a final stroke, Eve splayed open the Core's control scheme and raised Ruben's El from the depths. With only a few dozen nasod standing between them and their goal, Aisha and Elsword rushed back into the fray, breathing heavily as they fought their fatigue and pressed on beyond the bounds of their physical limits. Approaching the El from the other side, Rena leapt through the air and plucked her bow, blasting a crowd of nasod over the railing and into the void with a quick burst of wind. As she landed, she dropped down to one knee and drew back her bow.

"Raven, get ready clear the way!"

With her words running across his ears, Raven slammed the nasod he had been fighting into the floor and leapt back, focusing all his strength into his legs and his right arm as the dense mob of nasod charged toward them. With a wave of whirling blades only a few feet away, Rena released her bow and show a pair of brilliant, sparkling arrows through the crowd, twisting and coursing through their ranks and destroying everything in their wake. Pushing in through the opening Rena had created, Raven rushed toward the back ranks and dashed through them, clearing the way with almost a hundred rapid strikes. As he and Rena headed to surround the El and Aisha and Elsword rushed to meet them, the tyrant king grunted and wailed.

"Impetuous apes!" Hurling his hands through the air, King Nasod slammed them down on either side of the El and thrust them into the wall, using his arms as a final barricade to protect his dying dreams. Without hesitation, Elsword and Aisha joined hands and burned through the king's wrist with a fierce stream of molten plasma while Raven and Rena cut their way through the king's fragile joints. With nothing left to bar their path, they rushed toward the crackling coffin that held the stolen El.

The flow of time slowed and the frigid chill of the Core receded as the end of their journey lay before them. In that moment, as they fought with all their might to destroy the crystal's cage, their memories of the days they spent on the road coursed through their thoughts; the bitter chill of snow and blood, the blinding heat of the desert sun, the whistling wind racing across their arms, and the darkened tunnels of an ancient empire all rushed back in vivid detail. With every scar, they grew stronger, and with every passing breath they doubled their resolve. After all the blood and pain and desperation they had weathered, it was no surprise that they would find the El, defeat its guards, and in a single, devastating strike smash through its prison and release its light once more.

As the power core shattered and the El stood exposed to the air, a brilliant flash pierced the biting cold and washed over the room, shining brightly as the king of the nasod lost his last source of energy. Still unwilling to admit defeat, King Nasod raised his right arm high into the air and held it over Eve.

"I... will not... allow you... to lead us... to our deaths..." He dropped his arm and smashed through three platforms before finally crashing into the floor. Just as his arm fell, Eve flew high into the air and drifted down gracefully, landing atop the king's arm and staring at him with ice in her eyes. Running at full speed, she raced across his arm, leapt from his shoulder and sailed toward his head, delivering an earth-shattering smack to the side of the king's face that not only turned his head but ripped it halfway from his body.

"And I will not allow you to use my people as pawns. You are a disgrace to the nasod, and for your crimes against my people, and against the living creatures of this world, I shall strip you of your crown." Her hands overflowing with energy, Eve reached out and blasted the king's head from his shoulders, sending it flying high into the air and crashing into the ground as a crumpled wreck. With the Core back under her control and the oppression of her people at its end, Eve felt as though a crushing weight had been lifted from her and, for a moment, she felt something remarkably similar to the human emotion of 'happiness'.

A pale red glow and a shrieking siren brought the thrill of victory to an abrupt end. As King Nasod's body collapsed against the wall, a deafening alarm rang out through the area and hundreds of nasod soldiers rushed toward the Core. Bringing up her console, Eve's eyes went wide and she rushed to join her comrades.

"This area is set to collapse in on itself in the next ten minutes!" She glanced aside at the nearby exits as a protective shell rose around the Core to protect it from harm. "King Nasod arranged for this structure to self-destruct upon his death. We must evacuate at once!"

"Wait, we gotta get the El out!" Elsword strapped his sword to his back and reached into the broken capsule, tugging at the cords that bound the El in place. Ignoring the sea of destruction around him, he clawed furiously at the wires and ropes that held the El until two pairs of hands clasped around his arms and pulled him away.

"Elsword, we've got to leave it!" Aisha gripped his shoulder firmly as she and Rena dragged Elsword toward the exit, fighting against him with every step.

"No, we can't- Let go! Let me go!" He pulled against them as he dug his feet into the gathering rubble, reaching out for the El as it drifted away from him. Seeing the fear and worry reflected in his eyes, Rena moved around to face him and placed her hands on his shoulders.

"It's okay... I know, it's the hardest thing you've had to do so far, to be this close to saving everyone and walking away, but it's okay. We'll come back for it, but if we die here, then there won't be anyone to return the El to Ruben."

"But-" Elsword froze for a moment as the painful reality that the El was so close and yet still so far from his reach smothered his confidence.

"Do not worry." Eve held her voice steady even as a huge mass of steel and glass crashed through the wall behind her, sending a cloud of dust and ash whirling past her face and ruffling her hair. "The El is too strong to be damaged by anything here. I will return it to the vault within the walls until we are able to retrieve it." She pressed her fingers onto her console and the El's capsule dropped back into the floor as a shower of sparks rained down across the room. Though she knew there was little need to protect the El, Eve felt that it was somehow necessary. If she had to put it into words, she would have been unable to articulate her reasoning, except that, when she saw the anxious frustration on Elsword's face, and the concern in Aisha's eyes as she held him back, it seemed to be the only rational choice available to her.

As the El disappeared from view once again, Elsword ceased his struggle and immediately turned toward the last remaining path to the surface. "Alright. We'll be back. We just smashed up a hundred tons of scrap, so we'll just do it again tomorrow."

Smiling slightly, Aisha nodded and released his arm as the lights flickered and the power lines in the wall began to explode. "Right. Now let's get the hell out of here!"

With the El safely stowed away, they all ran toward the outer corridor where Raven was fighting the full force of the nasod army as they poured through a narrow gap in the walls.

"Hurry with the elevator! They've almost broken through the door at the other end!" He punched through the face of a shambling nasod and knocked it back, thrusting his blade through its chest and skewering two others that stood at its back. As he kicked the corpses away, a jet of steam shot through the air and knocked him off balance, sending him stumbling back toward the others as they raced onto the elevator.

"Need a little help?" Rena smiled as she caught Raven and pushed him back onto his feet. Drawing her bow over his shoulder, she shot through a pair of nasod and then through a rattling pipe, ripping through its tender hide and spouting scalding steam across the charging horde. Glancing aside quickly, Raven pulled Rena to the ground as a giant spike pierced the ceiling and burrowed into the floor where she had been standing.

"Yeah. Just a bit." He flourished his blade as they returned to their feet and rushed back into storm of steel and blades. Behind them, Eve pounded away at her keyboard while sparks and steam flitted through the air around her.

"Oberon. Oberon, come here!" She called out into the Core, her eyes narrowing as she fought against the Core's chaotic controls. "I know you are not dead yet. Stop laying around. Laziness will not be tolerated!"

Within seconds, a charred and battered Oberon limped toward the Elevator, collapsing at the Queen's feet. Seeing the full extent of the damage he had suffered for the first time, Eve closed her eyes and nodded. "...You have done well. As a reward, I shall give you a pastry."

Oberon raised his head slowly, holding his fist out and pointing his thumb toward the sky before falling back against the ground. With Aisha and Elsword busy blasting away the falling debris and Raven and Rena still beleaguered by the last of the nasod soldiers, Eve let her fingers dance across her console, hastily rewriting the emergency code that held the elevator in place. Despite her present confidence, her energy was fading rapidly and she knew that neither she nor the elevator's motor would last much longer. With the final code revised, she threw her hand down onto her console and the elevator rumbled to life, slowly ascending to the upper levels.

"Rena! Raven! Come on!" As Elsword called out into the hall, Rena turned and leapt onto the moving platform, spinning around as she landed and loosing a pair of arrows into the ravenous horde. In that brief second, as she looked back at the crumbling hall, her heart sank.

Heedless of Elsword's call or Rena's retreat, Raven stood his ground and continued cutting down the nasod that piled in through the narrow gap, stealing the slightest glimpse back over his shoulder to confirm that everyone else was safe.

Heh...He laughed at himself as he raised his left arm to shield himself from a falling girder. What kind of sick twist is this? I finally want to live, and now I get stuck in this death trap? He stepped aside quickly and slashed a nasod's throat, toppling it over onto its allies. Can't complain, I guess. I could try and run, but if I let them get past this bottleneck, they'll surround us... No way we'd make it through a fight with another thousand of these bastards in the shape we're in. Shit...He leapt back and ducked behind a fallen pipe as a burst of gunfire echoed through the room. Is there really no other way out of this? He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, searching frantically for an opening to escape and finding none. Pinned down by gunfire and a constant stream of nasod, Raven resigned himself to holding the line as the Core collapsed around him.

Without warning, a gigantic hammer swung down toward Raven and he just barely guarded himself with both blade and claw. Locked in a test of strength, he quickly lost his footing as a towering nasod leaned over him, pressing him back against the wall. In less than the breadth of a blink, the nasod disappeared, replaced by the brilliant shine of an arrow's trail. As the hammer dropped harmlessly to the floor, Raven stepped out into the open and met Rena's burning eyes.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" She marched up to him, drawing her bow and firing through a line of nasod as she kept her eyes fixed on Raven's. With gunfire flying overhead and the walls buckling, they stared at one another intently.

"If they get past this point, they'll surround us and destroy the elevator." Raven wiped a stream of blood from his brow and reached across the narrow opening, grabbing a nasod by the neck and crushing its spine with his claws. "...Go. There's no other way out of this."

Rena scraped her knuckles against Raven's chest as she grabbed his collar and twisted it up in her hands. "Don't be stupid! There's another way. There's a dozen other ways. I won't let you throw your life away just because you can't see them."

Scowling, he pulled away. "You're being unreasonable. If you stay here, you'll just be trapped here with me. Go!"

"Are you really still this cruel?" As Rena glared at him, her eyes held a howling pain. "Don't you ever think... about how much it would hurt everyone else if you died?"

Words failed in the face of Rena's piercing blow. With his gaze wavering and his voice caught in his throat, Raven finally understood the weight of his own life. If she was able to stand at his side even as the earth came crashing down on him, if she could look at him like that without faltering, then he knew that he could no longer treat his life as an acceptable loss. Without a second's pause, he thrust his blade back into an approaching nasod as he turned to Rena and nodded slightly, a calm confidence returning to his face.

"How do you want to do this? The elevator's blocked off by now." Raven leapt back and held steady at Rena's side while she riddled the air with fiery bolts.

"Break through the ceiling." She spun and fired another shot over her shoulder as they retreated into the corridor. "Though it's not like we have much choice." She grinned and Raven smiled to himself.

Alright then. If you think we can survive, I'll gladly follow. I'm won't let go of that one chance until my hands rot away. Rushing forward, Raven tore through a collapsing gate, peeling back its sides and cutting through the nest of pipes and wires that barred their path. As the ceiling creaked and screeched, Rena jumped high and spun in the air, spraying a fan of arrows out at the crowd of nasod piling into the hall. After Rena slid down through the small opening in the twisted gate, Raven ducked in behind her and pulled the mangled steel shut behind him. With the scarcest of protection from their pursuers, Raven and Rena quickly searched the vacant hall they had stumbled into as steam burst from the walls and the floor cracked beneath their feet. As they ran over mountains of debris and jumped across wide chasms, the sky began to groan and a sharp crackling rang out over the constant din of destruction. At the last second, Rena reached out and grabbed Raven by the arm, pulling him aside as a tremendous slab of metal fell through the ceiling and crushed the floor below. Seeing a glimmer of light above, they scaled the fragile slope up to the next level. Just as she was about to hop off onto the floor above, the slab beneath Rena's feet gave way and she slipped. Rather than falling, she found herself supported by Raven's right arm.

Scrambling to their feet, Rena and Raven raced toward the surface as the walls crumbled away and the floor collapsed around them. At every corner, a pack of nasod waited in ambush and they dashed through them in a flurry of kicks and slashes, tearing through them without pausing for an instant. As they ran, the rumbling beneath them grew louder and louder, overwhelming the air with a monstrous roar. Sharp fragments of steel jutted out from the walls and cut their legs, heavy blasts of steam scaled their arms, and the gunfire of the nasod grazed their side and shoulders. Even as they reached the highest level of the Core, their feet were beginning to fail them and their strength had all but faded to naught. Forcing themselves forward, they ripped through massive piles of falling debris, jumped across the quaking ground as it fell away into the abyss, and charged recklessly toward the grand elevator that would take them to the surface. Rena smiled as she swallowed a mouthful of blood, ignoring her body's ceaseless protests and pushing herself on, over the burning rubble and toward the light of day. The moment they reached the exit, a terrible shadow swallowed them whole. They had just enough time to look up as a massive block of the sky fell upon them.

A powerful gust of wind and heat rushed out from the elevator shaft and into the foundry cavern where Elsword, Aisha, and Eve waited. When Rena left them, they held their objections, believing that she would bring Raven back safely and meet them here on the surface. As the minutes wore on, they began to regret their optimism. Exhaustion demanded that they breathe heavily, but the tension in the air kept them from taking even a single breath. As a violent explosion shook the ground and coughed fire up through the shaft, Aisha and Elsword trembled and ran to the edge of the elevator. As they peered down anxiously into the smoke filled pit, two blackened hands reached up and grabbed onto the platform at their feet. Without even pausing to think, Aisha and Elsword reached down and pulled Raven and Rena up from the murky void, falling onto their backs as Raven and Rena rolled onto the ground beside them.

Panting and wheezing coarsely, Aisha rolled over onto Rena and hugged her tightly.

"Ah, hey..." Rena smiled and chuckled as she coughed. "That hurts a bit, you know? We got pretty messed up back there."

Aisha buried her face in Rena's shoulder and sniffled quietly. "That's what you get... for making us worry so much..." She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and sat up, sniffling against as Rena propped herself up on her elbows.

"Sorry..." Rena giggled lightly and wiped the ash from her cheeks. "It took a little longer than I expected."

"Nnn..." Elsword glanced aside, his mouth wrinkled up awkwardly as he tried to steal a glimpse at Rena to see if she was alright. Sensing his unease, Rena rolled aside onto her knees and smiled at him.

"Do you need a hug too?"

"N-No!" Elsword forced a frown, looking away as he rocked back and forth until he was finally sitting upright. "You're fine, right? T-that's good enough then..."

Chuckling faintly, Rena reached out and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. As she hummed lightly, he grimaced and curled in his lips to fight back a tear.

"It's okay, I understand..." Rena patted his head and ruffled his hair. "You weren't worried or upset at all, right?"

Embarrassed, Elsword turned away and pretended to ignore Rena's playful sarcasm. "R-Raven, you okay?"

"Ugh..." Raven rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up with his left arm. "Been better. You all..." He coughed and panted heavily for a moment before finally steadying himself. "Pick the worst places to start a fight..."

"Heh..." Elsword scoffed lightly. "Speak for yourself, old man. You were kinda slow back there. What took you so long, anyway?"

"Hmph." Raven smiled and laughed between painful breaths. "Let's see if you still say that during practice tomorrow morning."

"Tch..." Elsword scowled softly. "...Can't we take a few days off? I'm kinda tired of tearin' stuff up..."

Aisha sighed and joined him as he clumsily climbed up to his feet. "Yeah... a few days off... and some hot cider... wait, I feel like we've done this before..."

Elsword glowered at her instinctively. "I'm not fetching you cider again..."

"Oh?" Aisha grinned slyly. "Really?"

"That-" Elsword blushed and turned away as Aisha giggled and they all made their way toward the mouth of the cavern. Finally breathing easily, Rena turned to Eve and smiled.

"Eve... how are you doing? Will everything be alright? I know that-" Rena stopped in her tracks and blinked, catching sight of something she thought was almost beyond the realm of possibility. As soon as everyone else noticed, they held their ground and stared at Eve, transfixed.

"I am alright... It will take many years to rebuild the Core, and it will take even longer to revive the true nasod. It is regrettable that we had to once again destroy the nasod, but for now... I believe you would call this, 'relief'." Eve searched everyone's eyes and glared at them quizzically. "What are you all staring at?"

For a moment, everyone was silent as they gazed at Eve, unmoving. Finally, Elsword broke out into a fit of laughter and grinned broadly. "Heh... so you can smile after all."