Chương 286: Chapter 285 - The End of a Transaction

"You are asking the wrong keeper," Mercyros explained gently.

"I hold authority over commerce, not over origins or beginnings. There are fundamental laws woven into reality that even I am completely incapable of reading."

"Tell me what you know," Lucid demanded, his grip tightening on the energy shaft.

"You cannot return to a place that your personal fate no longer recognizes," Mercyros revealed flatly.

"Your biological and spiritual identity has shifted so entirely that the world you came from would reject your presence as a foreign anomaly." Lucid processed the words in complete silence. He felt a heavy, cold weight settle deep inside his chest.

"I have fulfilled my end of our bargain," Mercyros concluded softly. Lucid stepped forward without a single moment of hesitation. He surged his internal reserves, unleashing a wild, terrifying wave of raw crimson power that flooded the white room with blinding light. Aurelia screamed and ran directly toward him in a futile attempt to physically block his path.

"Please stop!" she sobbed desperately.

"Think about this! I guided you through this domain! I truly believed you were going to save him!" Lucid extended his left arm and struck her shoulder with a quick, controlled push. The blow lacked lethal intent, but the sheer kinetic force knocked her off her feet, causing her to skid heavily across the smooth white floor. She quickly scrambled back onto her knees and crawled back toward the kneeling deity.

"Go now," Mercyros whispered to her, his voice brimming with deep affection.

"You are finally free, my child." As Aurelia wept beside him, her physical appearance began to shift rapidly. The magical illusion concealing her true form dissolved, revealing the distinct attire and features that Lucid had recognized during his early journey. Lucid continued his deliberate advance, taking slow, heavy steps toward his target. She paused briefly to adjust the worn strap resting across her bruised shoulders.

She pulled her cap down lower over her forehead, shielding er eyes from the harsh glare of his crimson aura.

"He is going to do it," Aurelia shook uncontrollably, her voice trembling with absolute terror.

"He is really going to kill you." Mercyros looked up at her, his initial surprise quickly giving way to a soft, peaceful expression.

"Trade is the fundamental exchange of value," Mercyros stated quietly, his words echoing with absolute clarity.

"Faith is the fundamental exchange of hope. As long as mankind continues to invest in tomorrow, neither concept shall ever truly die from this universe." He looked down.

"I can't be traded for death... little one." He looked twords Lucid.

"I will simply transfer, like how values are bought. He felt much more weaker now.

"And sold..." Lucid stopped his advance, standing merely a single step away from the dying Monolith. He raised the massive crimson spear high into the air, holding it firmly with both hands. He gritted his teeth tightly as a sudden wave of reluctance washed over his mind. He recognized that he wasn't executing this act entirely out of his own free will. He was choosing to walk down a predetermined script that had been meticulously laid out for him by that wretched cult.

Yet he held the quiet conviction that a simple script could never fully determine the ultimate outcome of his character. Lucid stopped.

'No,' he thought.

'What good is killing? Everything out here revolves around killing. Why do I even have to Mercyros? This is exactly what they want?' Mercyros had hurt the citizens of Port Vexis. He'd acted out of his own selfishness. He'd frozen countless people, stealing their identities from them. He exhaled. Mercyros waited. And waited. Until nothing came. He opened his eyes. A hand was extended toward him. He looked at Lucid's outstretched hand. It looked bright. Too innocent for the circumstances. He looked shocked.

Even Aurelia beside him seemed startled.

"Let's leave it up to," Lucid said.

"Wild luck." Mercyros regarded him strangely, as though the phrase itself defied comprehension. In the Scattered Realms, everything attached itself to a thread. Every object, every living being, everything remained predetermined, except apparently him. He finally understood this as he activated his Chain of Heart, perceiving the threads clearly around them. He saw Mercyros's threads flying wildly through the void matter, scattered as though they'd already been severed. He was dying.

"Where are we," Mercyros asked.

"Space," Lucid said.

"The hidden fabric beneath dark matter and cosmic constitution."

"But how will you go about this?"

"Everything has been predetermined," Lucid said.

"Child," Mercyros murmured, something almost fond bleeding into his tone despite everything. Lucid reached for his vest and pulled out a deck of cards.

"Merchant's Gambit," he said.

"If I lose," he continued, "you can kill me. You can take Aurelia and continue your hollow years of existence, with one promise attached." Mercyros looked amused despite his weakened state.

"And that is?"

"You don't get to interfere with the citizens of Vex anymore."

"Very well."

"And if I win?" Lucid stood. Alice whispered urgently in his ear. He didn't listen to her. The threads of fate were disconnected from one another in this space, disconnected from the grand weave spanning across the entire Scattered Realms. Which meant that in this single white void, this single endless expanse, the outcome depended entirely on these two singular individuals. Free from Mother Fate. Free from Vide. Free from whatever book, scroll, or grimoire, whatever prophecy had planned for them.

And Lucid intended to bet everything on a simple card game, one he'd played before he'd ever arrived in Port Vexis. They sat down on the white floor. Mercyros looked golden and hurt, thin trails of blood visible at the corners of his lips.

"If I win, then I get to decide what happens next," Lucid said.

"And that is?"

"I'll take your place," Lucid said.

"You can be free." Mercyros looked at him, not with shock exactly, but with something closer to slow, careful processing.

"This is no transaction," he said finally.

"You're giving yourself up entirely." Lucid met Mercyros's eyes in that instant.

"I'm done running away," he said.

"If I shall die or be sealed here today, then let it be for the betterment of the people out there."

"You will die." Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Stop with this nobility," Lucid said.

"You too, Mercyros."

"But I won't," Mercyros said.

"I will simply—" He stopped. A tear slid down his cheek unexpectedly.

"It's like she's calling me," he murmured.

"Who," Lucid blurted. Mercyros looked at him for a long moment.

"Fine," he said finally. They played. Lucid slid a card across the deck between them. Aurelia hugged Mercyros' side, her voice urgent and low.

"Please listen," she said.

"You don't have to give him everything. Walk away with me instead. All you have to do is win."

"I led him to you," she added.

"Please let this be for nothing," she pleaded. The game unfolded slowly, methodically. Lucid drew a pair early, discarded, redrew, building toward something that felt promising. He watched Mercyros's expression carefully, searching for any tell that might betray whether the Monolith was playing to lose deliberately. He found none. If anything, Mercyros seemed to be trying, genuinely trying, his golden eyes narrowing with focus as he arranged his own hand. Round after round passed.

Lucid built toward a flush, four cards of matching suit sitting in his palm, needing only one more to complete it. He discarded his weakest card and drew again. A mismatch. The flush collapsed into nothing. He tried again the next round, building toward a full house instead, a pair and three of a kind combined. He held two pairs steady, needing only the third matching card to complete the set. The draw came up empty.

Mercyros, meanwhile, seemed to draw with almost accidental precision, cards falling into place around him with the ease of someone barely trying, someone whose fate simply bent in his favor despite the chaos surrounding them both.

'This isn't fair,' Lucid thought grimly, watching another promising hand dissolve into scattered, unconnected cards.

'Even luck itself seems to favor him.' Round after round continued. Lucid's hands kept falling apart at the final moment, close but never quite complete. A straight missing its final card. Three of a kind that needed just one more match. Each attempt dissolved into failure with almost mocking consistency. Finally, on what felt like the twentieth exchange, Mercyros laid down his final hand. A royal flush, complete and undeniable, five cards in perfect sequential order, all matching suits. Mercyros had won.

Suddenly threads of pure gold bound around Lucid's wrists, tightening with inescapable finality. Alice yelled within his mind, anguish bleeding through every syllable.

"You fool, my love, what have you done!" Lucid smiled despite the binding threads.

"I'm choosing not to be a slave," he said quietly.

"To whom? To what!" Alice demanded.

"Elara. Vide. And—" Suddenly he started coughing, a mouthful of blood spilling from his lips onto the white floor beneath him. Mercyros stood before him now, studying him with an expression that mixed exhaustion and reluctant admiration.

"Well done, mortal," he said.

"You've chosen an action that's questionable, and remarkably one of the most stupid options I've had the pleasure of witnessing in my entire immortal lifetime." Aurelia looked at Lucid and pointed urgently toward something behind him, though he couldn't quite process what she meant in the moment. Mercyros summoned the blade he'd used earlier, holding it steady at his side, preparing himself to end the lamb that was Lucid, kneeling bound before him. Lucid looked at the blade steadily and closed his eyes.

Perhaps this was the worst way he could go out after everything, after this entire journey through the Scattered Realms. But he'd exhausted every single option available to reach Earth again. This time, he refused to be betrayed or led toward his end like some coward accepting whatever fate others decided for him. He would choose his own ending. He wouldn't have to endure a conclusion imposed upon him by someone else's design.

The cries of Alice faded into the background as Lucid rested his eyes, accepting whatever came next. Until an image settled behind his closed lids. Aika. A deep-rooted anger suddenly turned into frustration, then sorrow. That he was enough. That he was sorry he wasn't enough for them. That he wanted to be enough for himself. That he could be worthy of the woman he—'Just get it over with,' he thought, pushing the memory aside before it could fully form. He looked up at Mercyros.

The Monolith stood perfectly still, blade raised, hesitating. Suddenly Mercyros turned the blade on himself instead, piercing his own body with it. Divine blood spilled outward, the weapon punching cleanly through his stomach and out his back.

"This is what I choose," Mercyros said, his voice carrying quiet, unshakeable conviction.

"Liberation." Lucid's eyes went wide with sudden horror.

"No, no, no, no, why, why, why," he stammered. Mercyros looked at Lucid. In that final moment, the Monolith uttered something significant.

"Caducus Celestia. The false image this domain represents lies there. Seek the answer on our behalf and—" He tilted his head back, accepting whatever came next.

"Never place your trust in those who claim sovereign divinity."

"I'm sorry, Mercyros," Lucid breathed softly, his voice barely audible over the hum of the energetic spear still lodged in the dying god's body.

"I really am." Lucid watched as the deity committed suicide before him, golden light fracturing outward from the wound, scattering into countless motes that drifted upward and dissolved entirely into the white expanse surrounding them both. The threads binding his wrists loosened slowly, gold fading to nothing as whatever mechanism had enforced the wager's terms recognized its conclusion.

Aurelia rushed forward, catching Mercyros's collapsing form before it could hit the ground, her hands trembling as she cradled what remained of him.

"You didn't have to," she whispered, tears streaming freely down her face now.

"You didn't have to choose this."

"I did," Mercyros said, his voice growing fainter with each word.

"I've chosen this for longer than you realize. I simply needed someone to finally understand why." His eyes found Lucid's one final time.

"Thank you," he said.

"For giving me the choice, even when you tried to take it from yourself instead." Then his form dissolved entirely, golden light scattering into the void until nothing remained but empty space where a god had once stood. Lucid remained kneeling on the white floor, staring at the spot where Mercyros had vanished, the weight of everything that had just transpired settling heavily against his chest.

'I didn't win,' he thought numbly.

'I lost the game entirely. And somehow that ended up being exactly what he wanted all along.' Alice's voice returned within his mind, quieter now, grief-stricken but no longer accusatory.

"He planned this," she said softly. The white void shattered completely. In less than a second, the localized space collapsed in on itself, folding like heavy paper under intense kinetic force. Lucid stood in the settling dust of the realigned reality. His chest heaved as he stared down at his bloodstained hands. He had moved through the domain with terrifying efficiency, cutting down a god with calculated precision. The entire ordeal felt like marching a single step closer to his own inevitable end.

A sudden, sharp vibration rattled the vault of his mind. The noise was deeply uncomfortable, ringing through his skull like high frequency glass grinding against cold metal. It bypassed his physical ears entirely, addressing his core consciousness directly. [Your thread of fate is woven into another being] [The Monolith of Trade and Commerce] [Fate Essence Absorbed: █▒▒] [Your path shines brighter] The words resonated with absolute singularity.

It felt chillingly personal, as if an unseen indifferent voice was leaning directly over his shoulder, marking off entries on a ledger meant solely for him. He had felt a similar phenomenon once before, the exact moment Neptune essence had unravelled into his veins, but this notification felt far more deliberate and invasive. [The Lyre of Transaction recalls its origin] [The Lyre of Transaction: Mythologized >>> Timeless] [You have gained an Enlightened Trait, under the Heavenly Legacy.] Trait: [Chrono Stasis] Description: Time itself has become bound to the wielder's will. The flow of moments around them can be restrained, causing existence to fall into a state of absolute stillness. Those caught within its influence are unable to move, think, or act, as their very progression through time is halted. Trait Rank: S Attribute: The wielder of this trait possesses authority over the stagnation of time.

Grants: Strong Temporal Perception, Moderate Temporal Resistance, and High time Impostion Passive: [Locked] The monotonous voice faded into complete silence. It left behind two distinct, heavy weight signatures settling directly into his soul bound inventory. They were two divine relics claimed from the carcass of a fallen god.

'Lyre of Transaction,' Lucid thought, his jaw clenching tightly as he tried to process the lingering static inside his head. He did not understand the full scope of what he had just inherited. He lacked the mental state to care right now. He would inspect the traits later. Right now, he needed to breathe. The surrounding world suddenly collapsed in on itself entirely. The floor beneath his boots dissolved into absolute nothingness, leaving him trapped inside a dark, infinite void.

The celestial domain had completely collapsed following the death of its ruler. The remaining survivors were plummeting through the empty air toward their ultimate end. The sudden loss of gravity forced Lucid to adapt his physical balance instantly. Lucid adjusted his vision and tracked the environment. He looked upward and saw a person suspended in the air far above him. It was the dark haired woman he had seen in a certain citadel. Her physical form looked hollow and rigid.

She acted as a mere vessel holding a dense, fate essence rather than a human soul. Lucid recognized her, the one from the square, the one from the beach. But the entity residing inside her flesh was entirely foreign. The monolith of commerce had replaced her humanity with his own will. Lucid looked away quickly. He did not want to carry on this anymore. Lucid looked downward into the pitch black space below him. He saw three distinct figures falling rapidly.

One was a swordsman with blue hair and lightweight armor plates. Beside him fell a young woman with sharp facial features and pale skin covered in slight red stains. Below them was a pale girl clad in dark, ruined robes. Lucid recognized the pale girl in the dark robes immediately. She was the fanatic cultist who had caused so much suffering. A quiet voice echoed through the dark air near his shoulder.

"It is me, Lucid," the voice whispered softly.

"Can you hear me, that space just now." Lucid did not listen to the distraction. Raw fury surged through his veins, overriding every sense of physical fatigue. The sight of the pale robes triggered a deeply buried, horrific memory. He remembered the dark pit from his past. He remembered the exact place where the deranged women had torn at his guts. The memory flooded his vision with absolute clarity, blocking out the collapsing void around him.

He saw the women crawling on top of each other, their bodies contorting as they cannibalized one another in the dark filth. He remembered the suffocating weight of the specific woman who had straddled him. He remembered remaining completely powerless on the cold stone floor while she dug her filthy nails deep into his exposed flesh. The anger boiled over into a violent physical manifestation. The Divine Wrath passive trait activated deep within his core.

His blood temperature spiked instantly, sending a wave of hot crimson energy radiating from his skin. His muscles expanded, flooding with unnatural strength and brutal adrenaline. He bent his knees against the empty atmosphere and pushed off with tremendous force. He dove straight down through the darkness like a falling meteor. He accelerated rapidly, closing the physical gap between himself and the pale girl within a fraction of a second.

He reached out and gripped the throat of the falling cultist with a crushing, unforgiving hold. The girl was completely unconscious, her body limp and defenseless in the air. Lucid twisted his wrist violently, snapping her neck with an immediate, sickening crack that echoed through the empty space.