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A distant crack echoed through the vast cavity of Belobog's Underworld. Dan Heng didn't flinch. From his vantage point atop the mountain of debris—once homes and shops, now just another scar of the Long Night—he tracked the sound to its source. A fissure spreading along the ceiling, nearly half a kilometer above.
Up above, the azure light emanating from his World Cleansing dragon cast eerie shadows across the ruins below. It began to coil instinctively as a chunk of rock broke free, plummeting toward a group of evacuees crossing the exposed area. With a fluid motion, more thought than action, he sent the ethereal beast to stop it. The debris shattered into harmless dust that glittered as it descended.
Cheers rose from the survivors, their voices thin and distant. Dan didn't acknowledge them. His focus remained unwavering on the ceiling and the countless lives still moving beneath it.
A disturbance in the air—footsteps approaching the base of his rubble mountain. He didn't need to look to recognize the uneven gait, the slight drag of one foot still compensating for recent injuries.
"How are things looking up there?" Xander's voice carried upward, oddly calm despite everything.
Dan didn't shift his gaze from the ceiling. "The tremors have actually stopped. I've just been dealing with loose debris from sections weakened during the quake."
As if on cue, another substantial chunk broke free, plummeting toward an empty stretch of pathway. Dan directed the dragon in turn, intercepting it with a controlled blast that reduced the threat to glittering particles.
More cheers erupted from below. From the corner of his eye, Dan noticed Xander climbing the rubble pile, his movements careful but determined. The prosthetic arm Serval had repaired caught the azure light as he navigated the treacherous terrain.
"At this rate, you'll win the throne for Belobog's favorite guardian before Cocolia even falls," Xander remarked, finally reaching the summit and standing beside Dan.
Dan felt his lips tighten into a frown. The comment scraped against something raw within him.
Xander noticed immediately. "Sorry," he said, tone shifting. "That was thoughtless. I know this transformation isn't—"
"This isn't some costume I put on," Dan cut him off. His form flickered, scales rippling with suppressed tension. "It's a legacy I never wanted. Please, don't romanticize it."
Silence settled between them, broken only by distant sounds of evacuation below and the occasional groan of settling structures.
"You know March is going to interrogate you for days when this is over," Xander finally said, changing course. "She's been collecting evidence of your 'secret powers' in that mental scrapbook of hers. I can already hear her: 'I knew it, Dan Heng! Everyone thought I was crazy, but I was right! You had secret powers all along!"
Despite himself, Dan sighed, the sound carrying a hint of reluctant amusement. "She'll want pictures. Probably give this form some ridiculous name."
Xander's soft chuckle seemed to ease some of the tension between them.
"What about you?" Dan asked, briefly glancing at his companion. "You looked half-dead when you collapsed. Even your Stellaron couldn't keep you conscious."
The question seemed to catch Xander off guard. He blinked, running his human hand through grayed-white hair that had been dark just days ago.
"I actually feel unexpectedly revitalized," he admitted. "Serval and Clara, bless their hearts, tended to me for hours, and—" He stopped abruptly, color rising in his cheeks. "Sorry. What I mean is, becoming a Pathstrider of Preservation has created this... unexpected symbiosis with my condition. The Stellaron already accelerates my body's regeneration, but Qlipoth's protective energy acts like a containment field that focuses that power. They amplify each other—the Path's shields fortify my body while the Stellaron repairs it with remarkable efficiency." He flexed his human hand, examining it with mild wonder. "Plus, before I even arrived back from the Herta Space Station, I managed to… 'tame' it, for the lack of a better word. We've reached an understanding."
Imbibitor Lunae's ethereal form flickered as he raised an eyebrow, momentarily distracted from the ceiling. "You tamed a Stellaron? How is that even possible?"
"I forced it to experience the full spectrum of human emotion," Xander said with an unexpected casualness, as if discussing a minor technical achievement rather than something unprecedented. "Now it talks and acts like a prepubescent child learning about the world. Still fixated on destruction, but at least it's directed destruction. It serves me now, not Nanook."
Dan stared at him for a long moment, scales rippling with disbelief. Then he shook his head, a short, sharp motion. "By this point, I shouldn't be surprised. Only you would attempt something so fundamentally insane and somehow succeed." His luminous eyes narrowed. "Actually, don't tell me any more. If we start discussing how exactly you went about this and the implications of sharing your consciousness with a Stellaron, we'll be here all day, and there's a ceiling trying to kill people."
His ethereal dragon shifted slightly to intercept a smaller piece of falling debris without conscious effort. "You're no regular Pathstrider of Preservation," he observed, returning to the previous topic. "I can sense it. With every minute that passed while you saved people down here, the connection between you and the Path deepened."
Xander fell silent, watching as Dan's dragon extended again to neutralize another threat. When he spoke, his voice had lost its earlier levity.
"I can't understand what this transformation costs you," he said quietly, "but I know sacrifice when I see it. Thank you—for what you're doing for these people."
Dan didn't respond, but the silent acknowledgment hung between them.
"Looking at you now," Xander continued after a moment, "it reminds me of the Dan Heng I read about before coming here. Always distant. Controlled. Cataloging worlds and artifacts for the Express' data bank without getting emotionally involved." He gestured to Dan's current form.
"Why bring that up now?" Dan asked warily.
"Because that's who you look like right now," Xander said simply. "But the Dan I've gotten to know these past days isn't just that. You've shown more passion than I expected. You've had emotional outbursts that have taken me by surprise. Sorry if that sounds unfair or just like a complete mischaracterization."
Dan watched another section of the ceiling, checking for instability. "It's of no worries. Your words do carry truth in them. I've been more... emotional than usual," he finally acknowledged. "It's unsettling."
When Xander didn't immediately respond, Dan continued, the words emerging as if pulled from somewhere deep and carefully guarded. "You're an anomaly, Xander. A walking contradiction I can't reconcile."
Another chunk of debris then broke free. Dan dispatched it with barely a thought, Imaginary energy in the form of water flaring out.
"When you first boarded the Express, I saw another stray Himeko had collected," he admitted. "I accepted your presence because I remembered how she and Welt accepted mine—no invasive questions, no demands for my history. Basic courtesy dictated I offer the same."
Xander remained silent, allowing Dan to continue at his own pace.
"But you—" Dan shook his head slightly, scales shimmering with the motion. "You exist in extremes. People encounter you and either reject you outright or become inexplicably devoted. Your very presence demands a reaction. It forces people around to confront truths they'd rather ignore."
The confession hung in the air between them, unexpected even to Dan himself.
"In just one week, you've somehow dismantled defenses I built over many, many years. You've forged bonds between us—March, you, me—that defy any explanation I can come up with." Dan's voice lowered. "Even those who walk the Path of the Trailblaze don't typically commit themselves so completely, so quickly. There's usually a progression—time spent building trust, understanding one another. No reasonable person repeatedly risks their life for strangers they've known for days. Yet here we stand. That's your real strength. This... gravitational pull that demands we either orbit or collide."
The man in question stood motionless beside him, absorbing the words. The silence stretched until Dan wondered if he'd said too much.
"Ever since… ever since what happened to my father, back when I was fifteen," Xander finally responded, his voice barely audible, "It's made me keep everyone but a single few at an arm's length. Only one dear friend managed to break through by sheer persistence. I… I remained close to my parents, but I can even admit that, at times, I felt like doing so just because blood and honor demanded it."
He looked down at his hands—one flesh, one mechanical. "Being torn from my world, joining the Express, meeting you and March... something changed. Like a dam breaking after years of pressure."
Xander's golden eyes reflected the azure light of Dan's transformed state. "What's been days for you has been months for me. The Simulated Universe stretched my perception of time. I endured endless fighting, dying, resurrecting, all to master powers I never asked for. I pushed beyond human limits because a false sense of control over what I could do in this strange place was all I had, or so I thought."
Dan noticed a brief shadow cross his companion's face, something hidden behind his words.
"During the worst times in those simulations, when isolation became unbearable and I considered to… Anyways, I'd manifest versions of you and March," Xander admitted. "Initially, I'd ignore them because they were, at the time, a reminder of connections I couldn't afford to have, would not have. But I kept summoning you in subsequent runs. Your presence, even fabricated, anchored me when nothing else did."
He looked directly at Dan now. "That's why I'm drawn to you both, why I will always keep being drawn. In my broken reality, you became my anchors—the only stars I could navigate by to find my way home."
Dan had no response. The honesty left him wordless.
Xander cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with what he'd revealed. "We need to talk logistics," he said, tone shifting to something more practical. "I'm heading to the Overworld to confront Cocolia. You should stay here."
Dan understood immediately. "You think the Engine will cause more tremors and need someone to protect the people down here."
"Exactly. The furnace core works, but the evacuation efforts are painfully slow. We can't risk another collapse."
"I don't like this," Dan said, his form tensing slightly. "Not just because of this form. Facing Cocolia without me puts you and March at unnecessary risk."
"We don't have many options."
"What about after? Assuming you stop Cocolia. What's your plan for containing the Stellaron?"
Xander hesitated. "Best case scenario, Welt or Himeko break through the Legion's blockade in time to help us properly seal it."
"And if they don't?"
The man remained silent, but his eyes said enough.
"You're thinking of absorbing it yourself," Dan said, voice hardening. "That's not a solution, Xander. That's a death wish. You have no idea what would happen."
"It's a last resort," the man insisted. "Plus, I'm not the same as before. I just told you: my connection with my Stellaron has changed—there's a slight possibility it would work. I've already talked it through with Welt and Himeko. I even consulted it with Herta's dolls during my last run in the Simulated Universe."
"No. We find another way. Your life isn't something to gamble with."
Xander ran his hand through his gray-white hair. "This is taking us nowhere and we'll spend hours if we continue with this conversation. I get it, okay? I won't do it. Let's focus on the immediate problem. Before we even get to the Stellaron, we have to neutralize Cocolia and that machine. The Engine of Creation isn't some small obstacle."
"It was designed to reshape entire landscapes based on what Bronya's shared with us," Dan acknowledged reluctantly. "Even with your new abilities and March's shields, one wrong move against something that powerful..."
"Would be fatal. I know."
They fell into silence, the weight of what lay ahead settling between them.
"I have a plan."
"Oh?"
"You're not going to like it."
"...This is exactly why you're impossible."
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The Chronicle of the Journey to Everwinter
As recorded by the Architects of Belobog
In the year of the Great Reconciliation
Chapter XXXI: The March to Judgment
1 - Seven were chosen for the undertaking: Gepard Landau, who knew the path; Natasha, Healer of Wildfire; Seele, called Babochka; Bronya, daughter of the Supreme Guardian; Serval Landau, who had knowledge of the Stellaron's nature; March the Seventh, whose loyalty could not be questioned; and the Champion, Alexander, who bore the paradox within him.
2 - The company debated long on matters of strategy and formation, each one contributing according to their knowledge and skill. Though the fullness of their counsel is not recorded here, for such plans are not written in full during times of war, lest they fall into the hands of enemies. It is known only that they prepared themselves for great battle, and each one understood the peril that lay ahead.
3 - Having traversed the hidden ways beneath the earth, they emerged at the threshold of the Corridor of Fading Echoes, where the bones of ancient wars lay frozen in time. There did Sampo Koski, he who is called the Rat, make his farewell unto them, saying, "Thus far have I brought you, and no further shall I go."
4 - Gepard Landau was wroth at these words and questioned him, "Do you abandon us now, in our hour of need?" But Alexander spoke without anger, asking only, "What is the true reason you depart?" Then Sampo answered, speaking of scripts and debts and consequences beyond mortal reckoning, saying, "I have moved far beyond what was written for me, and there are prices I cannot pay should I venture further." And though his words were veiled in the manner of those who serve hidden masters, Alexander perceived their meaning and was satisfied.
5 - Before his departure, Sampo bestowed upon them a final gift: four vessels of brass containing potent concoctions, saying, "These strike with greater force than what came before. Use them when hope seems lost." The Champion thanked him from the depths of his heart, and Sampo was moved by this gratitude, unaccustomed as he was to sincerity. Thus did he vanish as smoke upon the wind, and the company knew him not again in that place.
6 - They proceeded through the Corridor in solemn procession, where great wheels of the Ancients jutted from the snow like ribs of fallen gods. Gepard led them forth, for he had walked this path once before with the fallen Supreme Guardian at his side, when Belobog's hope yet burned bright, and he knew each stone and each treacherous place.
7 - Now it is recorded that the company regarded the Champion with new eyes, for they had witnessed him manifest the power of the Amber Lord in the depths of the Underworld when all seemed lost. Some whispered he was sent by Qlipoth himself, a divine instrument forged for this very hour. Others spoke of him as one touched by sacred purpose, chosen to deliver Belobog from its doom. And though they meant well in their reverence, their words and their regard created a chasm between them, as if he stood upon one side of a great divide and they upon the other. Only March the Seventh treated him as before, with simple friendship unmarred by awe, and Serval alone seemed to perceive the weight such regard placed upon mortal shoulders.
8 - When they had journeyed some distance into the Corridor, Alexander spoke to the company, saying, "I would go aside for a moment, to meditate upon what is to come. Grant me this time alone." The company agreed and made camp in a sheltered place among the ruins. Alexander withdrew a short distance, seeking solitude among the frozen monuments of the ancients.
9 - The chroniclers record that as he knelt in the snow, perspiration appeared upon his brow despite the bitter cold, and his hands trembled—even the hand of metal and wire—as if bearing a weight too great for mortal shoulders to carry. His breathing became labored, though he exerted himself not, and his countenance grew troubled as one who wrestles with spirits unseen by mortal eyes.
10 - What transpired in that place, the Architects cannot say with certainty, for only three bore witness: Serval, who had followed him without his notice and watched from afar; the frozen tundra itself, ancient and knowing; and three, powers beyond mortal understanding.
11- It's only known and recorded thus: He fell upon his knees in the snow, and wept.
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Minutes Earlier:
Sampo stopped at the edge of the hidden path, where frost-covered stone gave way to open tundra. The Corridor of Fading Echoes stretched ahead, ancient gears half-buried in snow marking the northern approach to Everwinter Hill.
"This is where we part ways, friends." Sampo's usual grin held an edge of genuine regret.
Gepard stepped forward, jaw tight. "You're abandoning us now? After everything?"
"Abandoning?" Sampo pressed a hand to his chest in mock offense. "I've helped plenty already. Got the Space Anchor working, guided everyone through the secret routes, even provided those lovely serums that kept our dear Xander here from completely falling apart during his heroics." He gestured at the group. "I'd say Sampo Koski has more than fulfilled his obligations."
March crossed her arms. "That's not—"
Xander raised his prosthetic hand, cutting her off. The mechanical fingers caught the pale light. "What's the real reason?"
Sampo's smile faltered. Something unreadable flickered across his face—calculation, maybe, or genuine conflict. "Let's just say I've already moved considerably off-script. Any further, and I'll have... consequences to pay that even the great Sampo Koski can't charm his way out of."
The emphasis on "script" wasn't lost on him.
"I understand." Xander extended his flesh hand. "Thank you. From the bottom of my heart."
Sampo's expression softened as he clasped the man's hand. "Don't get sentimental on me now." He pulled a compact metal suitcase from his coat with his other hand. "Final gift. Four bombs with a special concoction inside. Similar to what I used to knock you all out when we first met, but these pack a nastier punch. Won't just put someone to sleep—they'll do some real damage to anyone caught in the blast radius."
"Nasty how?"
"Let's say they affect more than consciousness. Respiratory distress, neurological disruption, that sort of fun." Sampo winked. "Use them wisely."
Before anyone could respond, wind swirled around Sampo's form. Snow kicked up in a vortex, and when it settled, he'd vanished.
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Present:
The Corridor of Fading Echoes lived up to its name. Enormous rusted gears jutted from snowdrifts like the bones of some mechanical leviathan. Frozen buildings lined the path, their facades cracked and listing. Every step crunched through ice that had formed over seven centuries of abandonment.
Gepard led from the front, his replacement shield strapped across his back. His boots left deep prints in the snow as he navigated the path he'd walked once before with Cocolia at his side.
Xander walked just behind him, March at his side. Her bow rested across her shoulders, and she hummed something under her breath—probably to mask her nerves. Natasha followed them, her medical bag secured to her hip. Then Seele and Bronya, moving in tandem despite their different fighting styles. Serval brought up the rear.
He felt the weight of their gazes. All of them except March's.
It had started in the Underworld, after he'd manifested Qlipoth's power to save them from the cave-in. Gepard spoke to him with a deference that hadn't been there before, as if addressing someone whose station he could no longer quite measure. Natasha watched him with an intensity that suggested she feared he might vanish if she looked away. Even Seele, sharp-edged and skeptical by nature, kept a certain careful distance now.
Bronya had stopped using his name entirely. Just "Champion," delivered with a formality that created a wall between them where conversation used to be. Her expression when she looked at him cycled through something he couldn't quite read—confusion, maybe, or the struggle to reconcile conflicting ideas she didn't have words for.
Only March treated him the same. Still cracking jokes, still taking photos, still looking at him the way she always had—with that blend of trust and fierce protectiveness that reminded him of siblings who'd been through hell together.
And Serval... he wasn't sure about her. Her gaze on his back felt different from the others. Less like reverence, more like concern—the specific kind that came from watching someone die fifty-five times and knowing they were walking toward something that might finally make it permanent.
He couldn't turn around to check. The conversation they'd had sat between them like exposed bone. He'd confessed things he'd never told anyone, and she'd absorbed them without flinching. He didn't know how to navigate what came after that.
Still, the distance between him and the rest of the group felt like a chasm. Excluding the Landau rockstar and the Astral Express, he felt as if though everyone else had placed him on a pedestal he never asked for or wanted. Sent by Qlipoth. Chosen for this. Blessed.
The words made his skin crawl.
I don't deserve that. I'm not what you think I am.
Xander kept his eyes forward, tracking the cracked stone beneath the snow. The Stellaron's presence pulsed ahead—sick and golden, a corrupted heartbeat just a few kilometers distant. His own Stellaron responded to it, a low thrum beneath his ribs that never quite went away.
They'd discussed strategy earlier. Formation, contingencies, what to do if things didn't go according to their first plan and Cocolia activated the Engine of Creation. The conversation had been clinical, efficient. No one questioned his tactical input anymore. They just... accepted it. Trusted it implicitly.
That trust felt like a noose.
"We should make camp soon," Gepard said, his voice carrying back through the frozen air. "Last minute checks before the final approach."
The group murmured agreement. They found a sheltered spot among the ruins—a cluster of ancient walls that blocked the worst of the wind. Natasha immediately began checking supplies. Bronya and Serval spoke in low tones about the Engine's probable location. March started setting up her camera to document their surroundings, seemingly unbothered. He knew better.
Xander stood apart from them all, staring at the path ahead. The weight in his chest had grown heavier with each step. Not the Stellaron—something else. Something that made his breathing uneven and his prosthetic hand tremble.
He needed space. Air. Silence.
"I'm going to scout ahead," he said. The words came out rougher than intended. "Just a bit. I'll be back."
March looked up from her camera. "Want company?"
"No." Too sharp. He softened his tone. "I need a moment. To... think."
Gepard frowned but nodded. "Okay… but please, don't go too far. We move out in thirty minutes."
Xander walked away from camp, following the curve of a massive gear half-buried in ice. The ancient metal groaned in the wind. He kept walking until the voices behind him faded, until the ruins rose high enough to block him from view.
Only then did he stop.
He sank to one knee, then the other. The snow soaked through his pants, cold and wet, but he barely felt it. His vision tunneled, focused on nothing—just the white expanse, the gray sky, the golden throb of corruption kilometers ahead.
His hands were shaking. Both of them—flesh and metal.
"You know, for someone who claims to be fine, you're doing a terrible job of selling it."
Sebastian materialized beside him, hands in his pockets. He looked exactly as he had the last time they'd spoken—jeans, denim jacket, those black-framed glasses that always sat slightly crooked on his nose.
I'm so tired of seeing your face.
"Wow. And here I thought we were friends. What'd I do to deserve that?"
Nothing. Xander's jaw clenched. That's the problem. You didn't do anything. You're not even real. You're just my screwed-up brain conjuring my best friend because apparently I can't handle my own emotions without creating imaginary support.
His prosthetic hand dug deeper into the snow. The Stellaron whispers to me—calmer now, acting like some prepubescent child struggling to understand emotions but still hungry for destruction underneath. Then, there's that man lurking in the back of my head, seizing control when I get desperate enough or stopping my hand when I want things to end, making me feel like an alien in my own body. And then there's you — another presence I can't shut out.
He shook his head.
Even after everything, after all these years, I'm still that same messed-up kid who can't deal with his own fears.
Sebastian was quiet for a moment. Then: "Maybe. Or maybe you're just human."
I don't have time for this. Xander's breathing grew uneven. I need you to leave.
"Can't do that." Sebastian settled more comfortably into his crouch. "You know the deal. I'm here until you stop spiraling and can actually focus on what needs doing."
I am focused! Xander nodded toward the golden pulse ahead, toward Everwinter Hill. On that. On what I have to do.
"You're locked onto Cocolia and the mission, sure." Sebastian's voice went quieter. "But you're staring at that hill because part of you is finally accepting you might actually die up there, and the unknown of what comes after is eating at you."
Xander's prosthetic fingers curled into a fist.
Sebastian continued, his tone careful now. "When they crashed into you back in that intersection on Dallas, you woke up on Herta Space Station. But this time might be different. Hell, purgatory, just darkness, you don't know what waits on the other side. That fear's got you bubbling hot underneath, and beneath even that is everyone you've never faced, everything you've left unsaid with the people who mattered most. That's why I'm here."
What could you possibly do to help?
"Maybe help you find some peace with what you're carrying before you walk toward the unknown."
Xander's breathing hitched, stopped entirely for a heartbeat, then restarted in shallow bursts.
"It's okay." Sebastian's hand moved toward his shoulder but stopped short—couldn't actually touch. "I'm with you. You're not alone in this."
Xander stared at the snow beneath his knees. His mind raced, fragments of thought colliding.
It wasn't supposed to be this hard.
The Vagrants. In the game, they'd been background flavor. Minor antagonists at most. Here, they'd nearly destroyed what little hope the Underworld had left. He had been compelled to fight through their corruption, their territory, and their brutal grip on desperate people.
Svarog. In the original story, the Trailblazer had faced the ancient robot with a full team. March, Dan Heng, Seele, Bronya, Natasha—all of them together. Xander had stood alone in that crater, using Chronosurge until his lungs screamed and his vision grayed, barely surviving if not for the man in the mask and Pascal's intervention.
What had come to be known as The Long Night of Solace from the common folk. That hadn't been in the game at all. A quarter of the Underworld buried alive because Cocolia had snapped worse and earlier than she should have. Thousands dead. An entirely new catastrophe.
Everything's been harder. Worse. More dangerous.
"You're seeing the pattern." Sebastian's voice broke through his thoughts.
He pressed his flesh hand against his sternum, against the cross beneath his shirt.
In the game, the Trailblazer fought Cocolia at the top of the Engine of Creation. And she impaled them with the Lance of the Preservation, straight through their chest.
The image rose unbidden—crystal clear, playing behind his eyes. The Trailblazer climbing that massive metal hand, wind howling, Dan Heng's spear giving them purchase for the final scramble. Reaching the top to find Cocolia transformed, beautiful and terrible. The lance driving through ribs and flesh and out the other side.
The story never explained how they survived that. Xander's hands trembled harder. Just—heroic moment, don't think about it, next scene they're fine. Stellaron regeneration, maybe. Qlipoth's blessing. Some combination that let them heal from a wound that should have killed them instantly.
Sebastian watched him work through it, silent.
But if everything else has been harder... Xander's breathing quickened. Sweat broke across his forehead despite the freezing air. If every fight has been worse, if the threats have been amplified, if Cocolia's had even more time to be corrupted by that thing...
His voice dropped to barely a whisper. If it happened in the game, why wouldn't it happen to me? And if it does—if that lance goes through my chest—what makes me think I'll survive it when nothing else has been easier?
"You don't know that you won't," Sebastian offered quietly.
I don't know that I will. The best-case scenario hasn't happened once since I got here. Not once! Why would it start now? You really think I believe I'll be able to end it as quickly as I told Bronya?
He looked toward Everwinter Hill, toward that sick golden pulse that called to the Stellaron in his chest.
Given everything that's happened and how the universe seems determined to make me bleed for every inch of progress... I need to accept that winning might mean not walking away from it.
"Are you at peace with that?"
No. The word came immediate, honest. But I might not have a choice.
Sebastian leaned closer, his voice cutting through the spiral. "We already know what you're afraid of. The unknown waiting on the other side and dying with everything still locked inside you. The question is whether you're going to keep running from it or finally face it."
What?
"You've spent over 10 years outsmarting this—achievement, control, careful distance from anyone who gets too close. It worked when you could convince yourself you had time." Sebastian's expression shifted, understanding mixed with something almost sad. "But now you're walking toward something that might take that time away, and suddenly all those people you've been running from, all those words you never said—they're not abstract anymore. They're urgent."
Xander's throat closed.
"You've carried it alone so long you think that's strength," Sebastian continued quietly. "But it's a cage. And you're about to walk into a fight where that weight could drag you down when you need to be light."
I don't—
"You do." His voice went softer. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. You just won't let yourself look because looking means admitting you've been running away from the people who made you who you are. Stop running from them, Alex. You want peace before the unknown? Then face what you've been avoiding. Not me. Them. The ones you've never let yourself truly look at because you're too afraid of what you'll find when you do."
I can't—
"You can. And you need to." His tone gentled. "Because otherwise you're going to walk toward that hill carrying all of this, and when that moment comes—when death is staring you down—you'll be carrying the weight of everyone you never faced, and everything you never said. That hesitation could be the difference between walking away and bleeding out."
Silence stretched between them.
"You want to survive what's coming?" Sebastian asked quietly. "Then say the things you've buried."
The air thickened. Something shifted in Xander's chest—tension breaking, a dam cracking open.
"Say it," Sebastian urged. "Who are you afraid to face?"
My mother. The thought came unbidden. My father. Summer.
"Then stop making them ghosts," Sebastian said. "Bring them here. Let them help you voice what you've kept silent."
The snow swirled in patterns that defied the wind. Shapes began to form in the white—soft outlines becoming faces, memories taking substance.
Mary appeared first, hands folded in her lap the way they'd been during every difficult conversation. Napoleon stood beside her, strong and whole, the way he'd looked before violence had broken him. Summer materialized behind them, patient and sad and carrying the weight of things they'd both known but never named.
"They're already here," Sebastian said quietly. "They've always been here. You just wouldn't let them speak."
Mary watched him with those eyes that had seen everything and loved him anyway. "You keep remembering me like this. Still trying to decide if I noticed what was happening to you."
Xander swallowed hard. "You saw everything. I know you did."
"Of course I did." Mary's gaze never wavered. "A mother always does. You think hiding your hurt was love, but it was fear. We both know that."
Her gaze held steady in the hymn of snow. "You keep wondering if part of you resents me. For closing myself off after what happened to your father. For retreating into prayer when you needed a mother who could be your strength."
Mom—
"You keep replaying those years," she said. "You've always wondered, deep within, if I should have taken my education more seriously when I was young. Or about how I should have prepared for the worst instead of hoping everything would be fine. You think if I had, maybe I could have helped provide and taken some of the burden off you instead of letting you carry it all alone. You know I used faith as the only bridge I had left to reach you after everything fell apart. Not because I genuinely wanted to teach you about God in those moments, but because it was the only thing I had that still made sense to me. And you've always known it left you with more questions than answers. My negligence and unpreparedness made you doubt instead of giving you the peace you needed."
The protest was upon his lips before he even knew what he was doing. "How could I blame you for that? You talk as if it was all your fault, but that's not true. You want to know what I remember most from those earlier years after dad got shot?" His voice came rough, choked. "Those nights when you'd say you weren't hungry. That you'd already eaten. But you hadn't. I knew you hadn't."
Mary's eyes glistened but she didn't look away.
"You gave us your food," Xander continued, words tumbling out faster now. "During the worst times, when we barely had anything and I was still struggling to make ends meet. You'd lie and say you were fine so dad and I could eat. You washed my clothes when I came home bloody from fights. Cleaned my wounds. Took care of father and the house and everything while I was out there trying to—"
A knot formed in his throat. He paused, the act of swallowing even painful.
Even in what you think was weakness, you were stronger than anyone I've ever known. I could never have asked for a better mother. Never!
"I'm the one who failed. I've been nothing but a poor excuse for a son." His voice cracked. "I watched you waste away for months and told myself it was strength."
"It was," she said simply. "You already know that. You just never let it count as love because you turned it into another debt to repay." Her expression softened. "That's why you're making me appear now. To finally admit there were no debts. Only love, imperfect and human. And you've never forgiven yourself for not believing it mattered."
"I wanted to protect you," he whispered. "From what I had become. I didn't want you to think you somehow failed me in any way after I went and…"
Why couldn't he breathe right? Breathe!
"My actions that night weren't your fault, mother. The responsibility is mine, and mine alone."
"Son… you protected me by carrying everything alone," Mary said. "But that protection became your prison. You can let it go now."
How could I…?
"Because you loved me. You continue to love me. You protected me when I was weak, and survived through struggle and became the man I always hoped you'd be even when the path there nearly destroyed you."
Before her form dissolved, he felt her walk towards him, bestowing a loving kiss upon his brown.
"You were a child, Alexander. My child. And you were never meant to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Forgive yourself for not being able to save me from the pain," Mary said. "For not being able to fix everything. You did the best you could, you strived for the best. That's enough in my eyes and your father's. It's always been enough. You just need to let yourself believe it."
Her form dissolved like watercolor bleeding into paper.
Napoleon's voice came quiet but firm.
"You still replay that night and wonder if I knew what you'd done."
Xander's breath shook. "You didn't have to say it. I always knew you did."
Napoleon nodded once—confirmation without judgment. "You saw it in my eyes every time I looked at you afterward. The knowledge and the understanding of what you'd done and why. The shame I carried—not of you, but of myself. That my son had been driven to murder and I hadn't seen it coming, hadn't stopped it, hadn't been strong enough to protect you from becoming what that night made you."
"I buried it," Napoleon continued. "Let it stay unspoken. I thought if we never acknowledged it, maybe it would hurt less. But you know that silence was just another failure. Another way I couldn't be the father you needed when it mattered most."
Wrong. You were the father I needed. Xander's thoughts came raw, unbidden. You were broken and struggling and you still taught me everything that mattered. How to stand up. How to fight. How to protect the people I love even when it costs everything.
His prosthetic hand clenched. "Yes, part of me wishes things had been different. I wish you hadn't gotten shot, and that I hadn't had to grow up so fast. But that's just grief. It isn't resentment. I grieve for what could have been. It doesn't change what was—that you were the best man I knew and I'd do it all again. All the therapy and the carrying of your body in my arms to doctors so they could ease your pain!"
"Then let it go," Napoleon said quietly. "The guilt you carry for surviving when I got broken. Let go of the feeling that you owe me something for being forced to sacrifice your childhood. You don't. You never did."
I don't know if I can.
"Start by admitting you loved me despite everything," his father replied. "Not because I was strong in your eyes and was made broken, or because I provided for you and your mother. But because I was yours, and that was enough."
The figure dissolved into snow and wind.
Summer stepped forward at last. She looked exactly as she had the last time they'd spoken—beautiful, patient, carrying the weight of understanding that had always existed between them but had never quite been voiced.
"You already know what I'm going to say," she began. "We both do."
Xander's jaw tightened. "That you deserved better?"
"That we were both running from things we couldn't face," Summer corrected. "I was afraid to push you. You were afraid of being pushed. It made us perfect for each other in all the worst ways."
"You knew about Lina," Summer said quietly. "My younger sister. I told you about her early on, remember? How she was quiet, withdrawn. How everyone thought she was handling things until the day she locked herself in the bathroom with a bottle of pills and didn't come out."
His throat tightened. He remembered. That conversation in his apartment, Summer curled against him on the couch, voice going distant as she talked about finding her sister's body when she was sixteen.
"After she died, I swore I'd never push someone again," she continued. "Never make anyone feel cornered or pressured. Because in my head, that's what killed her—people pushing too hard, demanding too much, not giving her the space she needed to breathe."
She looked down. "So when I saw you closing off, shutting down, I told myself space was what you needed. That giving you room to process things on your own was love."
Summer—
"You recognized the pattern," she said, cutting him off gently. "Didn't you? You saw how I backed off whenever you started to withdraw. How I never probed, never demanded explanations, never pushed for the deep emotional connection most women want. And you knew why."
Xander's breathing hitched.
"That's why you chose me," Summer said, and there was no bitterness in her voice, just acknowledgment. "Out of all the women you'd been with, I was the only one who wouldn't force you to look too closely at what scared you, or demand you open up or share your demons or let me in past those walls you'd built."
She stepped closer. "I thought I was helping. Thought I was giving you the kind of support you needed. But I was just protecting myself from failing someone else the way I failed Lina. And you chose someone who would let you keep running because you weren't ready to stop."
"We enabled each other," Summer said softly. "I needed someone I couldn't fail, and you needed someone who wouldn't make you face yourself. It felt like love because it was comfortable. But comfort isn't always what we need."
I cared about you, Xander managed. I did.
"I know. And I cared about you." Summer's expression softened. "But caring isn't the same as being brave enough to fight for someone. And neither of us was brave enough for that."
She reached toward him, then stopped, hand hovering in the space between them. "I hope someday you let someone try. Someone braver than I was and who'll love you enough to drag you into the light even when you're kicking and screaming against it."
"Thank you," Xander whispered. "For being what I needed when I needed it, even if it wasn't what I should have had."
Summer smiled—sad, knowing, full of recognition. "Take care of yourself, Alexander. And when you find someone who makes you want to stop running... don't let your fear win."
Then she was gone, dissolved into snow and memory.
Silence settled over the frozen landscape.
Then—smaller footsteps. The crunch of a child's weight in fresh powder.
Xander turned slowly.
The little girl stood just beyond reach. Eight years old, dark hair plastered against her face, eyes too wide and too knowing. Joaquín's daughter, exactly as she'd looked that night in the rain-soaked alley when she'd called for her daddy and found only a monster standing over his broken body.
Xander stared at the girl. His hands trembled—flesh and metal both.
"I need to tell you something," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "Something I've never said out loud and admitted even though deep down… I knew to be true."
The girl watched him silently, waiting.
"I don't regret killing your father."
The words hung in the frozen air like a confession and a condemnation rolled into one.
"I know I should," Xander continued, his voice growing stronger even as it shook. "I know that's what I'm supposed to feel. Remorse. Guilt for taking a life. My faith and values call me to forgive transgressions. But when I think about him... about what he did..."
His prosthetic hand clenched into a fist. "He shot my father nine times. Nine times. And you know what the most pathetic part is? He couldn't even kill him. All of that, and even he couldn't accomplish that much."
The rage that had lived in him for fifteen years poured out now, unchecked. "Your father was a coward. A weak, pathetic coward who used a gun because someone finally stood up to him. Because, maybe, for once in his miserable life, he faced someone stronger in character than him. And his bruised ego couldn't handle that."
Xander looked at her directly, forcing himself not to look away. "He couldn't fight with his fists. Couldn't face my father like a man. Had to pull a gun in front of his crew because he was too weak to do anything else. And I'm supposed to forgive that? Supposed to just accept that he tried to rob me of my father and move on like it doesn't matter?"
The girl's expression didn't change. Just kept watching him with those dark, knowing eyes that saw everything and judged nothing.
And something in Xander shattered.
He sank lower into the snow, shoulders curling inward.
"But you... you didn't choose any of this, did you?"
Tears cut through the sweat freezing on his face. "You didn't choose to be born to a man like that. You didn't choose his actions, or make him shoot an innocent man. You were just... just a child, a little girl who probably loved her dad, no matter what kind of monster he was to the rest of the world."
His flesh hand reached toward her, trying to bridge the distance even though he knew he couldn't actually touch. "And I... I took him from you and beat him to death while you watched. And to make matters worse, I then proceeded to leave in that alley with his blood on the ground and rain pouring down and… I ran. Like a coward."
The words spilled over each other in their desperation to escape. "I never tried to find out what happened to you. I never tried to help or make any of it right. Even when my actions that day became the spark for the death of other innocent people caught in the crossfire. And I did nothing about it."
His voice broke completely. "I convinced myself I'd taken justice into my own hands and that there was no other option because the police were corrupt, because the system had failed, because someone had to answer for what was done. But all those excuses... they don't change what I did to you."
Xander looked at her through his tears, forcing himself to hold her gaze. "If I had the courage to kill your father with my bare hands, I should have had the same strength to look at you in the eyes after the fact."
His whole body shook. "I'm no better than him. Ultimately, no matter what higher moral ground I've tried to hold myself to, I'm just as pathetic. Just as lowly. I took your father and then I left you to suffer the consequences alone because I was too scared to face what I'd become."
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. And I know... I know this doesn't make up for it. Defeating Cocolia won't make it right. I can't undo what I've done and balance the scales to earn your forgiveness or fix what I broke. But maybe..."
He looked past her, toward Everwinter Hill where the golden pulse still throbbed. "Maybe if I save that little white-haired girl… Save all those children in the Underworld who've been abandoned and left to suffer just like I abandoned you… Maybe I can do something right for once before I go. Maybe I can tell myself I did try… for you. So that somewhere, somehow, one less child has to grow up alone because of choices they never made."
The girl looked at him for a long moment. Then her features began to blur, shift, transform.
Dark hair lightened, turned white. Her simple clothes morphed into a red overcoat with white fur trim and brass buttons. But the eyes stayed the same—wide, trusting, carrying the weight of every choice he'd made and every consequence he'd tried to run from.
Clara.
The image held for a heartbeat—Joaquín's daughter and Clara merged into one being, symbol of every child he'd failed and every child he could still save.
Then she smiled. Just slightly.
And faded like frost burning away under morning sun.
The ghosts dissolved. Sebastian, Mary, Napoleon, Summer—they turned to mist and vanished on the wind. The little girl disappeared last, her smile lingering like an afterimage before it too was swallowed by the frozen air.
Xander knelt alone in the snow. He stayed there, for just a little while, contemplating many things.
Finally, after some time, he slowly pushed himself to his feet. His hands had stopped shaking. The sweat on his face began to freeze, forming tiny crystals along his jawline.
He turned.
Serval stood among the ruins some twenty feet back, watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read. How long had she been there? How much had she seen?
Her blue eyes met his, and in that moment, Xander realized he didn't care. Let her have seen it all—the breakdown, the tears, the confrontation with ghosts only he could see. Let her know exactly what kind of broken mess stood before her.
He was done running from the truth.
————————
The fracture split Jarilo-VI's frozen wasteland like a wound that refused to heal. Kilometers of shattered ice and stone stretched before them, the earth itself torn open by the Engine of Creation's devastating strike. Wind screamed across the desolation, carrying snow that stung exposed skin and turned the air white with fury.
The Engine stood sentinel over the destruction it had wrought. Even from a distance, Xander could see how the massive construct had changed. Corrosion spread across its marble plates like disease, dark veins of corruption threading through what had once been pristine white. One massive fist remained raised toward the gray sky, frozen mid-strike as if awaiting the command to fall again. The construct looked ancient despite being operational mere hours ago, as though centuries of rot had compressed themselves into moments.
"Formation," he called out.
They shifted positions as they'd discussed during their journey. March moved to his right, her bow already manifested, ice crystals forming in the air around her fingertips. Gepard took his left, shield at the ready despite knowing Earthwork was gone forever. Behind them, Seele crouched low, her scythe gleaming blue in the perpetual twilight. Bronya stood further back, her rifle steady in trembling hands. Natasha and Serval held the rear, the healer's cannon humming to life while electricity crackled across Serval's guitar strings.
The wind died as they approached ground zero.
The sudden silence pressed against Xander's ears worse than any storm. His boots crunched through fresh snow, each step carrying them closer to the figure hovering inches above the frozen ground. Dark energy rippled from the form in waves, distorting the air like heat shimmer reversed—cold made visible, reaching out with spectral fingers.
Xander forced himself to look directly at what Cocolia had become.
Nothing remained of the woman who'd ruled Belobog. The crystalline structures that had begun consuming her body during the Engine's awakening had completed their terrible work. Her form existed as a fusion of cosmic horror and corrupted flesh—skin replaced by swirling nebulae held within translucent armor, limbs elongated and wrapped in jagged ice that pulsed with sickly golden light. The Lance of Preservation floated beside her, its tip now black as void, drinking in what little light reached this cursed place. Orbiting crystal shards spun around her body in hypnotic patterns, each one sharp enough to cut reality itself.
Where her face should have been, only darkness dwelt. A void in the shape of a skull, featureless save for two points of burning gold rimmed with red that served as eyes. No mouth. No nose. Nothing human left to recognize.
Beside him, March sucked in a sharp breath. Gepard's knuckles whitened on his shield's grip. Even Seele, who'd faced fragmentum horrors her entire life, took an involuntary step backward.
Only Xander kept his gaze steady, his own Stellaron pulsing in answer to the creature before them. He felt Belobog's Stellaron inside the corrupted form, tasted its satisfaction in the air like copper and ash. It recognized him. Hungered for him.
"Mother?"
Bronya's voice cracked across the terrible silence.
The thing that wore Cocolia's name turned its attention to her. Those burning eyes fixed on Bronya with an intensity that made the air between them shimmer. For three heartbeats, nothing moved. Snow hung suspended in the dead air. Even the wind held its breath.
Then Cocolia began to laugh.
The sound started low, a rumbling that vibrated through the frozen ground and up through their boots. It built quickly, spiraling into manic heights that belonged to someone who'd spent too long staring into an abyss and finally understood the cosmic joke. The laughter echoed across the wasteland, bouncing off ice walls and fragmentum rifts, multiplying until it surrounded them from every direction.
It was the laughter of someone who'd found irony so profound that sanity itself became the punchline.
"Bronya." Xander's voice cut through the madness. "That's not your mother speaking."
He could feel it deep in his chest where his own Stellaron lived. The resonance between them sang with clarity—Belobog's Stellaron had devoured what remained of Cocolia Rand. To his senses, no trace of the woman's will survived inside that corrupted shell. Only the cosmic parasite remained, wearing her memories like a stolen coat.
"No." Bronya broke formation, her legs carrying her forward before conscious thought could intervene. "No, she's still—"
Seele lunged, fingers grasping for Bronya's coat, but the heir to Belobog twisted away. Her boots pounded across the ice as she ran toward the hovering figure.
Gepard moved to intercept but Xander caught his arm. The captain's face twisted with anguish as he watched Bronya sprint toward her doom, knowing he couldn't reach her in time.
"Mother, please!" Bronya stopped ten meters from Cocolia, close enough to see her reflection in those burning eyes. "Is it you? The woman who raised me? Who taught me in the halls of Qlipoth Fort when I was small?" Her voice climbed higher, desperation bleeding through every syllable. "Answer me! Tell me why!"
The wind picked up again, weaker now, uncertain.
"Why did you abandon the Underworld? Thousands died! Children starved! The people you swore to protect suffered while you sealed them away like garbage!" Bronya's hands shook as she gestured toward the devastation around them. "And the Engine—Alisa Rand built it to help Belobog rebuild! To create, not destroy! Why would you turn it against our own people?"
Tears froze on her cheeks as soon as they fell.
"Were you so concerned and afraid of our future that you decided to listen to it? If it was so, why not tell me? I'm your daughter! Your heir! Whatever the Stellaron promised you, whatever lies it whispered—you taught me that Belobog comes first! That we serve, we protect, we preserve!"
She stepped closer, voice breaking. "You went against every word, every creed, everything you raised me to believe! What am I supposed to do with that? As the next Supreme Guardian..." She shook her head violently. "No. Not as Supreme Guardian. As Bronya Rand. Your daughter. I'm owed an explanation!"
Silence stretched between them like a wound.
Xander summoned Neuromorphic Armament, the blade manifesting in his remaining hand with familiar weight. He kept his eyes locked on Cocolia's featureless face, watching for the slightest movement.
"March," he whispered.
The girl nodded, already drawing her bowstring back, ice forming along the arrow's shaft.
A change rippled through the air. The wind died completely, leaving only stillness so profound Xander could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. The orbiting crystals around Cocolia slowed their rotation. The dark energy emanating from her form pulled inward, condensing.
Hope flared in Bronya's eyes. Her lips parted to speak again.
"Pathetic."
The word dripped from the void like poison. Not Cocolia's voice—something older, colder, speaking through dead vocal cords with harmonics that hurt to hear. Multiple tones layered over each other, adult and child, male and female, all speaking in perfect unison.
"You stand before me weeping like the child you are, demanding answers as though you deserve them. As though your tiny mortal suffering matters in the face of eternity." The burning eyes narrowed. "I could have never raised such a weak thing. Sentimental. Soft. Your illusion… it disgusts me."
A massive lance of ice materialized beside Cocolia, easily three meters long and sharp as hatred itself. Black veins pulsed through its translucent length.
"You want an explanation, you so called daughter of mine?" The word twisted into mockery. "Here is your answer."
The lance launched.
"Shield!" March's finger-gun pose snapped up, translucent barrier erupting in front of Gepard just as—
Seele blurred into quantum motion, her form fracturing into afterimages as she grabbed Bronya and yanked her backward. They materialized behind Gepard's position in a flash of blue light as—
Gepard slammed his shield into the frozen ground with both hands. The barrier expanded outward, layered hexagons of crystalline energy forming a wall between them and death.
The ice lance struck with the force of an artillery shell.
The impact reverberated across Everwinter Hill like a thunderclap, the sound rolling across kilometers of frozen wasteland. Cracks spiderwebbed through Gepard's barrier but held. The lance shattered against the shield's surface, shards of corrupted ice spinning away to embed themselves in the ground.
Then silence.
Bronya knelt behind Gepard, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Her mind struggled to process what had just happened, thoughts moving too slow to catch up with reality. Her mother. Her own mother. Had tried to kill her. Not as a threat. Not as a warning. An execution attempt delivered with casual malice.
Xander walked forward through the settling snow and ice particles.
His movements carried the same calm inevitability as a falling blade. Each step placed with perfect precision, his prosthetic arm hanging at his side while Neuromorphic Armament gleamed in his flesh hand. His eyes had begun to glow, golden light pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
Cocolia's burning gaze shifted to track him. The void-skull tilted slightly, something like anticipation radiating from that empty face.
"You." Multiple voices spoke as one, harmonics scraping against sanity. "The punishment I envisioned for you has doubled. You dare manifest the illusion of my child's face to speak with me? You dare use her image as a weapon?" The Lance of Preservation spun lazily beside her, its blackened tip pointing toward Xander. "I will answer your cruelty with obliteration so complete that not even the memory of your existence will survive."
Xander met Bronya's eyes as he passed her position. Something flickered in his expression—regret, or perhaps apology. His gaze held hers for a single heartbeat before he looked away.
"Wait!" Bronya struggled to her feet. "Please, just—"
He shook his head without turning around. The motion carried finality like a closing door.
"Xander, I'm begging you—"
The world drained of color.
Monochrome flooded across Everwinter Hill as Xander activated Chronosurge. Time dilated around him, stretching each microsecond into subjective eternity. The falling snow hung suspended in mid-air. Seele's quantum afterimages froze in place. Gepard's mouth opened on a shout that would take minutes to complete in this slowed reality.
Xander blurred forward, his body moving at speeds that left scorched footprints in the ice.
Five meters. Four. Three.
His Stellaron sang in his chest, golden energy flooding through his veins as power built for the killing strike. He'd promised Bronya it would be swift. Painless. One clean cut delivered faster than pain could register, faster than the corrupted Stellaron could react. Mercy, delivered at the speed of thought.
Two meters.
Something's wrong.
The realization hit him like ice water in his veins. Cocolia's form—still moving. Not frozen like everything else should be in Chronosurge's effect. Her head turned fractionally, tracking his approach despite time itself being shackled around them.
One meter.
Their eyes met.
Deep within Cocolia's corrupted body, he felt it. Belobog's Stellaron pulsed in perfect synchronization with his own. The same rhythm. The same frequency. Matching him beat for beat, resonating like twin tuning forks struck by the same hand.
Understanding crystallized in the frozen instant between heartbeats.
Xander quadrupled his acceleration, pushing Chronosurge past safe limits. His muscles screamed in protest. Blood vessels in his eyes burst from the strain. He had to end this now, before—
Cocolia accelerated to match him.
An ice lance materialized in her elongated hand, the weapon forming between one microsecond and the next. She brought it up in a flowing parry that intercepted Neuromorphic Armament mid-strike. Metal rang against ice in the slowed time, the sound stretched into a deep bass note that vibrated through Xander's bones.
Impossible.
The void-skull tilted. Within that featureless darkness, something smiled. Not with lips or teeth—the concept of a smile made manifest in ways that hurt to perceive. A white crescent appeared in the void where a mouth should be, voidless and terrible.
"Did you think this power was only of your own making?" The Stellaron spoke through Cocolia's mouth, voices intertwined. "Did you imagine yourself special? Unique?"
She moved.
Faster than thought. Faster than instinct. Matching his Chronosurge with her own twisted version.
Xander raised Neuromorphic Armament, willing it to transform into a shield, but time moved differently now. The weapon shifted too slowly, caught between forms as—
Cocolia's ice lance swept across his prosthetic arm. The blade severed cleanly through the mechanical limb's connection point, sparks erupting in slow-motion cascades. The prosthetic tumbled away, rotating through the air with lazy grace.
She reversed her grip.
The lance came back across his chest in a horizontal slash. Xander felt the blade part his combat attire, slice through muscle and bone, open him from shoulder to hip in one perfect cut. No pain yet—Chronosurge suppressed his nervous system too efficiently—but he felt the separation, the wrongness of his body existing in two pieces held together only by will and stubborn refusal to fall.
Color flooded back into the world.
Chronosurge released its hold on time. Sound crashed over them—Bronya's scream, Gepard's shout. Pain detonated across Xander's chest as every severed nerve ending reported its damage simultaneously. His legs buckled and he began to fall, blood spraying from the horrific wound in arterial pulses.
Cocolia floated before him, the void-smile still etched across her featureless face. She raised the blood-slicked ice lance high, preparing for a second strike.
"The abomination who would be savior." Multiple voices spoke in perfect harmony. "Let me show you what true power looks like."
The lance descended toward his neck.