The air was thick with smoke and ash, the ground split like shattered glass, and debris still smoldered from where ancient stone once stood. Eliza coughed violently, crimson blood spilling from her mouth as she knelt in the ruins of what was once the expedition site. Her body trembled. One arm remained, the other—gone. Torn away like the limb of a doll during a child's tantrum.
She wasn't in the hospital anymore. Not in the comforting sterility of white sheets and beeping monitors. Now, she knelt in a battlefield that looked like two gods had clashed. And they had. Or at least, one had made sure it looked that way.
The ruin was unrecognizable. Once lined with cryptic symbols and eerie statues, it had been reduced to a wasteland. Blackened pillars jutted out like ribs from the earth, skeletal remnants of ancient architecture. The walls had collapsed. Even the ceiling was no more. A crimson mist curled around the edges, whispering with each gust of wind.
Her companions were scattered across the debris like discarded toys. Motionless. Some lay half-buried in rubble, others sprawled with their limbs bent at unnatural angles. There was no sign of breathing. No sign of life. Just silence. The kind that screamed louder than anything else.
Eliza dragged herself forward, every inch of movement sending knives through her nerves. She reached Harper—her Harper—whose once-rosy skin had been burned to the bone. The scent of char and blood clung to her body. Her face was no longer recognizable, and yet Eliza knew it was her.
Her breath hitched. Her fingers trembled as she pulled Harper close, brushing aside ash-stained strands of hair. Eliza kissed her forehead gently, and a faint blue glow slipped from her lips into Harper's skin—a fragile hope, the last drop of her lifelong fighting qi.
Behind her, a voice scoffed.
"Hmm. She is dying. Sharing your fighting qi won't save her."
The voice was soft, even childish in tone. But the weight it carried made the ground quake. Eliza didn't turn. Her gaze stayed fixed on Harper.
She pressed her friend's head against her shoulder, whispering, "I know."
Then she stood. Shaking. Bleeding. Barely holding herself together.
And faced the source of all this devastation.
Hovering just above the shattered terrain was the devil child. No older than eight by appearance. Porcelain skin. Eyes like hollow pits filled with fire. A smirk that belonged on no child's face.
Eliza pointed at him, fury coursing through her like wildfire. "What is all this for?"
The devil child chuckled, tilting his head. "Still asking questions you don't want answers to. Fine. It's for you."
He spread his arms as if presenting a grand stage. "Your ambitions, Eliza. Your endless selfish pursuit. You abandoned who you were. You turned away from your humanity for answers—answers no mortal deserves. This destruction is your reflection."
"You—" she began, voice trembling with rage.
"You are no different from your mother," the devil child continued, voice dropping to a whisper. "Stubborn. Blindingly driven. She died crawling toward a truth no one asked her to seek. And now, you walk the same road."
Eliza's eyes widened. A piece of her heart snapped. "You knew her."
He leaned forward slightly. "I did more than know her."
That was all it took.
Eliza lunged at him, but her body gave out mid-step. She collapsed, gasping.
The devil child extended his hand lazily, and a scarlet flame sparked to life. "Enough theatrics."
The flame flew toward her with unnatural speed, exploding upon impact.
Her body shattered into fragments, flesh torn from bone, limbs flung like paper through the air. There was no scream. Only the sound of breaking.
But death was not her release.
Moments later, her leg—what remained of it—twitched. Flesh oozed from the rocks, drawn like water by invisible threads. Her body reassembled, piece by grotesque piece, until Eliza sat whole once again.
Breathing. Alive.
Unharmed.
Her hands—restored. Her wounds—gone. But the pain? The memories? Those remained.
She looked around, heart hammering. Harper. The mercenaries. Still dead. Still broken.
She turned her gaze upward. And there he was.
The devil child.
Hovering in the air like a god amused by his creation.
He extended his hand again. This time not with fire, but force.
Eliza's body lifted against her will, suspended just beneath him.
He floated down until their eyes met, lifting her chin with a single finger—never touching her, yet moving her.
"I expected this to be like the last time. Like your mother," he said softly. "But you've been disappointing. No curiosity. No resistance. Just grief."
Eliza bit her tongue. Every inch of her trembled with humiliation. With rage.
"Why do you keep bringing me back?" she whispered.
He smiled. "Because I like watching you break."
Then, his tone shifted—low, cruel, honest. "Because deep down, you know I'm right. You didn't come here to protect your team. You came to find out about your mother. Everything else was secondary. Your crew? Disposable. Even Harper. The truth matters more to you than they ever did."
Her eyes welled up, but she didn't blink. Didn't speak.
"Let me remind you," he said, and with a single swipe of his finger, the air split.
Ripping open space like a curtain, he pulled her through it.
A new battlefield.
A fresh sky.
Eliza fell from the rift like a meteor, crashing into the earth with a sickening crunch. Her skull cracked against a jagged stone. Blood poured down her temple, mixing with the dust.
Her limbs refused to move. Her vision blurred.
Above her, the devil child's voice boomed like thunder.
"Get up, mortal. Don't you want to know how your mother really died?"
She tried. God, she tried. Her arm twitched. Her fingers dug into the ground. But consciousness slipped away like a tide.
And as her eyes shut, she heard him sigh in disappointment.
"Eliza... you were supposed to be fun."
Time passed.
Or maybe it didn't.
Eliza's breath returned, faint but steady. Her body remained where it fell, bleeding out slowly like a discarded ragdoll.
The devil child stood above her once again, not smiling this time.
Just watching.
When her eyes flickered open, she saw his silhouette against the darkened sky.
"I'll give you a choice," he said.
Her mind snapped alert, focusing through the pain.
"You can keep chasing your mother's shadow and watch every friend you ever had die because of it. Again. And again. Or…"
He held up one hand. A small flame burned in his palm. Within it, faint silhouettes moved—Harper, Ivana, the others—lifelike, almost real.
"You can die. Truly. By your own hand. Right now. And I'll bring them all back."
Eliza's heart stopped.
He let the silence linger.
"I don't want your soul," he added. "I don't need it. This isn't a trick. I just want to see what matters more to you. Your crusade? Or their lives?"
She didn't speak.
He moved closer, kneeling to her level, his voice suddenly quiet.
"You spent five years digging through the world's filth to find answers. Five years chasing ghosts. What did you find, Eliza? Nothing but graves."
Eliza looked at her bloodied hands.
Her lips trembled. "If I… if I do it…"
"They wake up," he said. "Alive. Unharmed. No memory of this. You? Gone. A single trade. For once—be the unselfish one."
Eliza stared at the dagger he laid before her feet.
And in her silence, tears slipped down her cheeks. Indeed she was one who was always too ambitious, using her wealth and power to get everything she wants done but there seemed to be a new way to it.
After spending years searching for an answer, she finally found someone who did but it also made her realize that she has forgotten her former self, no wonder that vision in the hospital, all this was like a mirror that had been rebuilt from sand
She looked toward Harper's broken body.
Then back at the blade.
Her hand moved.
Slowly.
She picked it up. It felt cold and real
Eliza inhaled, gripped the hilt, and plunged it into her chest—right through the heart.
A gasp escaped her lips as blood poured down her shirt.
She fell forward. Eyes wide, Still alive for just a second longer.
Then—still.
The devil child stood silently, blinking as if confused.
Then—smiled.
"Interesting…"
He walked toward her lifeless body and knelt beside it, staring into her glassy eyes.
"You really did it."
He looked at her companions.
Then snapped his fingers and warm light poured out of the sky illuminating the surrounding.