Chương 174: 87 - TAKE THE WORLD WITH YOU

He stared at the "You died" screen in his living room for a long time. At least a couple of hours… Whoever designed the screen likely just thought it was atmospheric to design it with a black background and bloody red letters. They could've never predicted the pain that it would cause one day. The words meant nothing on their own, but to him, it meant the end of the world. It wasn't just his blood. It was everyone's blood. Everyone's staunched progress dripped directly from the words to his hands.

T'balt Ferrier couldn't get the images to leave his head. A bright blue-eyed girl's muffled screams, a gunshot, those terrible words, "never tell me what I've done," and that smile. That wicked smile that could take a stroll through hell and emerge stronger than when it entered. His hands were shaking. The blood was clean from the fresh iteration, but he could still see it. And suddenly he felt like he couldn't control them and their tremors.

He needed to calm himself down, so he got his notebook and tried to draw a picture of her face, as he remembered it. Bright and grinning, full and curious. But at every turn, every angle, every corner, his hands fought him back until he closed the book in frustration.

"A pack of cigarettes." The convenience store clerk looked at him dubiously as he did all people who walked into his store in the dead of the night. Most of them were suspicious in some way, but he couldn't make out what kind of suspicion this young man dressed in black carried.

"Which ones?"

"It doesn't matter." Tyene Demue rested lazily on her couch, Corlander's couch. She was staring off into space as she often did. Watching the same movies over and over again was getting tiresome so close together. She used to take so much enjoyment out of watching Vienna's eyes flash and widen at every explosion on the screen. But even that was beginning to dull, so she would often get lost in a mindless daydream. Doing anything else felt too pointless to try. It would just be reset.

"Is something the matter, Lady Tyene?" Vienna asked.

"Hm? Oh, just problems that are too big to figure out. So I'm not gonna worry about it. But… how about we watch something else this time?"

"Oh. I'm sorry if my choice in movies displeased you. If you like, I can leave you alone."

"No. None of that. Just need a change up… how about… something smutty. Like Fifty Shades."

"What does smutty mean?" Uriel Grace… or rather, that was a name he couldn't apply to himself yet. At this point, it was still just a moniker to hide his true self behind pages of philosophy that had lost its point. Damian Siva rested in the dark of his prison cell. When the lights were out, the entire prison went as dark as a deep dive in a pool of oil. It was what he woke up to every Zero Day, a darkness simulating the death he just experienced.

Occasionally, a guard with a flashlight strolled around to make sure the prisoners were only sleeping, but they never came near his cell. So they were like distant fireflies on a moonless night. He wondered if he should even bother leaving the prison this time or if he should stay and serve out his time until it was time to do it again. He had long since grown sick of this darkness. It led to loops of pleasure and pain, darkness and light, death and rebirth. When would it end?

He mumbled the names to himself again, "The Prophet, The Colossus, The Magician, The Indomitable…"

"Shut up down there. I'm trying to sleep." Monan Ryker sat patiently in the tattoo artist's chair, letting the white noise and buzz on his neck drift him into calmness. Despite it all, he still made a point to get that number every single life, no matter what happened. Even if he shot, he would write it in his own blood to make sure it forever stayed drilled in his head. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. 11, 761.

A group of soldiers congregated on a roof, overlooking a convenience store. They wore black and silver armor that covered everything: arms, legs, faces. Not even their individual skin tones could be made out underneath it. There were 5 of them, each specially trained and veterans of countless battles, far before the first utterance of the words Zero Day. They watched a young man take a drag of a cigarette until one of them asked their leader, "What do we do?"

"Verify the situation. Watch for how he acquires the False God loot, and then we act."

"Understood, ma'am." It had only taken a few days this time. T'balt didn't even bother to go out looking. Monan was sitting on his couch when he returned from Corlander's, drinking another beer out of his fridge.

"Yo, so what do you got in store for me this time?" T'balt stared at him and took a drag off his cigarette.

"Still tastes like dry dirt."

"You died," the screen said. This time he didn't wait for a single second. He jumped in his car and took off straight for the city. He was mumbling to himself.

"I'm not gonna let you drive me crazy… I will find something. You fuckin hear me… I WILL KILL SOMETHING YOU LOVE!!" He pulled over. The words burst through him without any control, and he felt himself nearly black out. Idle on the side of the road, he took a deep breath and contemplated. What did Monan love… torment. He could play Uriel's game and try to ignore him and go on living. But he knew he couldn't… what was living? How was he going to face Ellie again? Or anyone, knowing what he knew.

He would have to look them in the eye, pretending as if nothing happened in a vain effort to save them from something. No. While Monan existed… anyone around him would be subject to fate worse than death. The only life he envisioned further was alone… And he knew himself. He couldn't live alone. He had to force Monan to stop. He had to threaten him with a pain he had never felt, but what that could've been was a mystery to him. He remembered his daughter. He remembered Acelin. And then he remembered something else…

They weren't always Redeemers. They had lives… families… before any of this ever happened. The glass of his passenger side window shattered into tiny pieces. Some small device was shot into and actively filled the car with smoke. It burned his eyes with a strange chemical smell. By instinct, T'balt threw himself out of the car and onto the lonely midnight road. He couldn't see anyone around, but that thing was still spraying that smoke in his car like a broken water hose.

He went to investigate it when something suddenly appeared behind him. Then five somethings appeared, all aiming down the sights of semi-automatic rifles. T'balt bawked at them. As soon as one dared to step closer, he attacked, kicking them down. The others then pounced, not electing to gun him down but to neutralize him with tasers. When he stopped seizing and kicking, they handcuffed him and brought him to his knees.

He couldn't tell who they were, but by their equipment, they were some hi-tech military unit, like something out of a cyberpunk novel. Their armor was sleek and mobile, yet still looked like it could block any small weapons fire. The fact that they couldn't be told apart by their outfits told him this wasn't just some rag-tag military team either. This was a strike force. He could only tell the difference between the men and the women by the movements of their hips.

Otherwise, they were all the same height, likely coordinated due to the armor. But there were three men and two women. It was one of the women standing in front of him now. But any expression or intention was hidden under a silver mask, and even that was partially concealed by a large hood. Based on body language alone, she looked to be contemplating whether to deal with this situation here or to take T'balt somewhere else.

"Who the fuck are you? If Monan sent you, I swear to God…"

"Calm down." The voice was modulated to sound much deeper than humanly possible.

"Don't struggle. My soldiers won't hesitate to put you down if you try anything."

"You're joking…" T'balt started to laugh. He laughed very hard, for a very long time. And when he ran out of breath, he kept laughing. Because what was a bigger joke than death? The soldiers glanced around at each other, each of them tightening under their armor. To them, the situation had just evolved from contained to volatile. One never knew what someone out of their mind would do. Then, without warning, T'balt chomped down on his tongue, biting it nearly in two.

The blood drooled out of his mouth as the man holding him down went, "What the fuck?" Even with his hands behind his back, he sprang to his feet and charged wildly at the man.

"Wait, don't!" The modulated voice failed to stop the soldier from protecting his own life. The bullet went straight through his head, and he went to the ground smiling. Monan woke up at the rooftop bar. This time, though, he was confused. It wasn't his death that had caused the reset, which meant one of the other Redeemers was throwing a fit, considering it wasn't even half past Zero Day, but the middle of the night. When the bartender offered him a couple of drinks, he just put his head down.

Sam walked up behind him, blonde hair, clean look, never missed a day of work in his life. But he looked concerned.

"I didn't think you even drank that much."

"I'm just recovering for a little bit."

"You alright?" Sam tried to ask his friend, but the man just closed his eyes like he desperately wanted to drift to sleep. When he asked a second time, Monan got up without a word and left. Sam figured the man was probably just going to take a dump or something. But after an hour of waiting, he realized that he'd been ditched.

"Jeez, the last time I go out of my way to make that guy feel better." He undid the top button of his shirt and called a ride, waiting on the bottom floor of the club. Though he wasn't the only one down there, he was calling an early end to his night. A stranger sat on the ground, hiding himself in a dark hoodie. But Sam had a few drinks in him already, and his social mood hadn't depleted.

"Hope you don't have as shitty friends as I do." The stranger looked up at him.

"I remember you."