Chương 26: De Draad Breekt Daar Hij Zwakst Ist

The strange dark mass, like a drop of oil and faintly transparent in places, began to spin on the tip of his index finger. It was no larger than Malcolm's fist, but Lance knew the potential of that creation well enough. He didn't even dare study it directly, understanding perfectly what that sphere was capable of.

"I imagine you remember this, don't you? It's a part of my ability… Verstoring." He rolled it between his fingers, moving it now into the space between the two of them. Its oily, slick surface seemed to rotate at great speed.

"What you see is only the smallest fraction of my Calamity." He explained, snapping his fingers to make the black globe vanish. He looked at his fingers, then fixed his gaze on Lance before beginning to speak again.

"Do you know what all people have in common, Lance Klint?" He asked, keeping his nefarious, oppressive aura sealed tightly around himself. Lance found himself struck dumb, unable to think in a situation like this. He still held his blade in hand, but doubted it would be of any use against him. Malcolm waited, and seeing his interlocutor linger in answering, sighed.

"It's the need to survive. All people live in the shadow of their own fragility, subjected at every moment of their lives to forces they cannot even foresee." He took a step forward, trying to close the distance between himself and Lance.

"Everyone aims at self-preservation, at a desperate effort to avoid the cataclysm for as long as possible." Lance took a step back, moving away from him.

"Medicine, science, society, and laws are only attempts to buy time, but in the end, there is no escaping it." He smiled, letting his long black hair sway across his shoulders, the darkness in his eyes seeming almost to swallow the faint violet light rising at Lance's back.

"Everything yields before it. Whether a heart attack, an accident, or a natural disaster, death will always reach man." He pointed at his own neck, opening it just enough to reveal the black tattoo in the rough shape of a vortex with a skull at its centre.

"I have lived through one of the greatest catastrophes in the history of humanity. I have watched entire platoons be torn apart by magic and esotericism, entire towns swept away faster than I can recount it, and none of it ever brought my heart to weeping." The symbol seemed to shift on his skin as he walked.

"You're insane at your core!" Lance accused, pointing the blade toward him, holding back the tremors shaking his legs.

"I? Certainly. After all, I crave the Calamity with every part of my soul. With these hands, I have broken hundreds of lives, smiling every time." Malcolm recounted his deeds with something close to joy, half-closing his eyes.

"Destruction permeates everything. History is nothing but a child welcomed into its arms. Every Epoch has collapsed, rebuilding itself only to destroy itself again, and even then, men learn nothing." He began to laugh, leaning slightly backward.

"Before this force… There are no heroes, only demons capable of becoming servants." He laughed a little more and stopped abruptly. Now he was looking Lance directly in the face, pointing a finger at him. The young man had surrendered entirely to that terrifying presence, doing nothing but keeping his guard up. Lance wanted to dash, to pierce the flesh between the eyes with the blade and rip away his brain. That sensation grew stronger until he felt a profound disgust." What is this?

This is different from the emotion I felt with Laure or Roman..."

"You… Are not so different from me, in the end." He began, tracing Lance's silhouette in the air with his finger.

"I am a demon who craves destruction, but you violate every single principle of humanity." A grin appeared on his blank face as he pronounced those words.

"You try to load onto your shoulders as much suffering and madness as possible, simply so that others don't have to bear it." He brought his hand to his mouth, hiding his lips, before revealing another grin.

"Man is prone to idiocy, and you are an excellent example. Man is made to be destroyed and to destroy, until something more powerful than himself sweeps him away for good." He stopped speaking, fixing his gaze on the boy, wrapped in an air of desolation.

"That's not what life is, Malcolm…" He replied, his voice faint and thin. He found the strength to look him directly in the eyes. Malcolm tilted his head to one side, keeping that grin locked in place.

"Misery and pain are common to all, that's true... But it's equally true that we all fight every day, looking for a way to get past them. It may be something futile, but it lets us lay the foundations for a tomorrow." He forced his foot forward toward him, this time holding his limbs steady.

"The Calamity may well arrive, but it will be from those ruins that people draw the strength to build something better!" They found themselves a few metres apart, wrapped in that faint violet light. Malcolm stayed silent, smiling faintly, letting his arms fall limp at his sides.

"Well then, Lance... Show me how long you can resist destruction." He smiled, disappearing from his sight. He reappeared at his back, his entire hand wrapped in dark, gleaming oil. Lance sidestepped, watching the dark mass shoot against the wall like a slash. The wall was split by what appeared in every way to be a black radiance. The rock had almost ceased to exist, corrupted and gone, leaving behind only a furrow. Another slash aimed at his neck, forcing him to bend toward the floor.

Again, the wall disappeared, swathed in black bolts. Malcolm smiled, preparing to strike Lance again while he was off balance. A black sphere appeared in his palm. Lance's eyes widened, and he channelled his Frequency into his legs. He leapt a split second before the sphere could connect, driving Malcolm's hand into the ground. A violent series of cracks spread across the floor, breaking it apart and separating it as it had at Arden Ring.

Slabs of stone shot outward with force, embedding themselves everywhere, even in the crystal, which lost its luminosity. The destruction spread until the ground collapsed entirely into a chasm. The darkness of that abyss was less intense than the aura coating his hands, which moved like blades. From the dust, a bullet emerged and tore through everything between it and Malcolm. He didn't move, waiting for the impact with a smile.

When it arrived within centimetres of his face, it exploded, dissolving in a cloud of black smoke.

"That won't work. You've already tried that." He noted, turning his head slightly and watching Lance sidelong. The young man had rested the revolver on Lachesi to avoid burning himself on the overheated barrel. His gaze was blurred through the dirty lenses of his glasses. Malcolm began walking toward him, drawing from his belt a serrated knife, an old military model, still coated in rust, its blade blunted.

"Why do you resist? Can't you see it's futile?" He asked, appearing before him. The edges of their weapons met, pushing their owners back.

"He's not a Starken. How can he have this much strength!?" He thought, channelling as much force as possible into his fingers in an attempt to overpower him. He finally noticed his opponent waver and moved to take advantage. With a gesture of brutal vigour, he lifted both of Malcolm's arms, throwing him off balance. He prepared to drive the iron into his chest, but an icy wind passed through him. Malcolm's blade had become considerably longer, wrapped in the same black cloth that had earlier permeated his hands.

He smiled, using his centre of gravity to spin with the weapon." Verghen!" Lance called out, circulating all his energy through his torso and twisting it out of the path of the blow. A black flow struck the crystal at his back, making it vanish completely from the room, leaving them both in a faint light, overwhelmed by sparks in the air. He retreated from the shadow advancing through the darkness, the only light source in that blind space. A reddish gleam accompanied his step, illuminating his arms.

"You're faster, and you instinctively avoid my ability..." He began, stopping in the dark. Lance watched him from a measured distance, now holding only his blade.

"... But you remain, in every respect, the same as you were nine years ago." He explained, moving a cluster of black spheres along his wrist to his shoulder, where they evaporated.

"Why did you kill that woman?" Lance cut across his explanation, ignoring his preaching, drawing his attention. Malcolm smiled, keeping his face fixed on the rust-covered blade.

"Necessity. Every victim you see here was necessary." He replied, cleaning his knife on his own skin, without deigning to turn his eyes toward him, who was pallid with fury.

"FOR WHAT?!! FOR WHAT HAVE YOU SLAUGHTERED SO MANY LIVES?!!" Desperate, his eyes burning with flames, he turned on him, a few paces away, staring at the columns of crystal that had survived the attack.

"Those you killed a short while ago were creatures born to extract Lambdite in this place. They fulfilled their purpose. It's a mineral very difficult to extract by conventional methods." He pointed at the crystal remains, noticing the small cairn at his feet, covered in dust but still intact. He laughed through his teeth, pointing the blade toward that small grave.

"Did you do that? What a waste." The black light began to channel along the tip, aiming at that last spark of light in the darkness.

"Stop… stop… Stop!" He shouted, running toward him, but Malcolm's Calamity was faster. The beam tore apart everything it contacted, leaving only a series of cracks and holes.

"Boy… You really fail at being a human being." His words made Lance tremble, enough to freeze him in the dust.

"Those people you erected a grave for, would they have done the same? If it were you in their place, are you certain they would have searched for you in the middle of this earth?" He advanced, climbing the debris that separated him from the boy.

"I'll tell you... No, they would not have given you the slightest thought. They would have run away weeping, driven to madness."

"This is the people you go to such lengths for. They're no different from selfish, wretched animals." Lance was trembling, incapable of moving a millimetre, powerless before Malcolm.

"Are you willing to go this far simply to mask your true nature? You've reduced yourself to playing the martyr so that others can't see what you really are, isn't that right, Alpha?" Malcolm struck him brutally in the stomach, driving his fist into his abdomen with superhuman force. Lance could no longer think, unable even to use his ability. His head was spinning, confused and incapable of accepting the words being thrown at him.

"I know you, Alpha. You're a weak boy who would do anything for a girl even weaker than yourself. It doesn't matter if you change your name…" He seized his face, only to hit it with the plastic handle of the knife.

"You will always be a selfish person, incapable of living on your own, forever at the mercy of the first person in difficulty." He shoved his face into the dust, shattering the stone slab they were both standing on. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"No matter how hard you try, other people only matter to you because of your sister. You love no one else... Not even yourself." He stamped on him several times, driving him further and further into the floor. Lance resisted, pressing with all his strength to rise, stretched out on the ground like a dog.

"Don't you dare speak… Like that… About Jude…" He murmured between breaths, straining to break free from Malcolm's grip. He looked at him, pitifully desperate to get loose. Even in that moment, he had managed to say his sister's name, which made Malcolm click his tongue.

"You may have shattered yourself years ago… But you've been incapable of finding new pieces. You are a bland and deplorable skeleton that still breathes!" For the first time, Malcolm manifested an emotion on his dark, unnatural face: contempt, the kind one feels looking at a criminal or an incompetent begging for scraps. He kicked him violently away, sending him rolling through the slabs and cracks. His mind would allow him nothing except calculating the weight of those words.

"He's lying. He's lying. He knows nothing about Jude or me." In his confusion, he was spitting blood, capable only of producing reassurances.

"There's no point running. The Calamity arrives in the most varied of forms. Truth is one of its cruellest manifestations… You have no idea how many lives I've watched people shatter under the weight of certain truths." He descended, bending to seize him and haul him from the ground.

"The question I wanted to put to you was this... Are you truly a disgusting martyr, or simply a rotten egoist? Come on, answer me." He flung him to the other side, onto the few crystals still anchored to the walls, near the hole left by his ability.

"If you are truly a martyr, then you'll have to prove it to me…" He walked toward Lance, gripping the blade in his hands, scraping the rust from the iron with his nails, turning his gaze back to him, still terrified.

"How many people will you be capable of saving… Before you lose yourself?" That was Malcolm's final question, standing over him with the knife pointed at his throat. Lance rose, seizing the blade with both hands. A long, steady stream of blood fell between them as he gasped, drooling and weeping. Malcolm didn't move, only letting the blade rest between Lance's hands.

"I… Will save anyone who asks it of me, even if I end up hurting myself in the process…" He didn't have time to finish, and he felt an otherworldly cold tear through his tendons. Malcolm severed both his hands in a single, lightning movement. Lance fell again into the dust, shaking and writhing.

"I wonder if you have any other way to help people now." He smiled, looking at the pitiful figure at his feet, thrashing and bleeding.

"You only have this vision because of your abilities. Once deprived of them, you'll revert to being a selfish person with the single objective of surviving." He turned and moved away from that revolting image. He was a few steps from the entrance when a powerful presence hit him from behind.

"MALCOLM!!! I'LL KILL YOU!! I'LL MAKE SURE TO SPILL YOUR GUTS!!" He had risen to his feet, hair filthy with blood and dirt. One of his hands had regenerated, while the other continued to bleed. He could barely hold himself upright on his legs, yet the fury in his eyes and in his words did not waver for an instant, accompanied by that grim golden flash.

"Good. That's the look I know. Let's see how many piles of corpses you'll need before you become a hero." He replied, disappearing into the corridor, followed by a bright red gleam.

"Get ready, we will see each other soon enough... If you want to save this city, of course." He slid to the floor, staining the stump of his hand with dirt and crystal splinters. The chamber was still trembling, shaken by their confrontation. Malcolm's words continued to echo in his head, rattling through every part of him." That monster and I are not alike." He murmured, dragging himself toward one of the slabs that had risen from the ground.

His nails were beginning to split from the effort, but he kept pulling himself toward that handhold.

"I need to pull myself together… I need to… I need to find a way back." He got himself upright, using Gladiolus as a prop to keep from sliding, and ran his tongue along his lips, immediately catching the metallic taste on his palate. Disgusted, he spat the reddish saliva onto the ground and forced himself to walk toward some other exit. He spotted one behind the rubble. Blocked, but with some effort, Lance would have been able to squeeze through.

"C'mon... Let's go..." His eyes were struggling to stay open, and the cracked lenses of his glasses were not helping. He took them off and slipped them into his pocket.

"I'm not a selfish person. I only wanted to help others."

"I like to see people smile. Is that wrong?" His mind had fractured on those words, leaving him at the mercy of doubt.

"Am... I... A bad person?" Those were his last words before he lost consciousness and collapsed into the crevice. His limp body struck the walls before coming to rest after a metre or two on a ledge. The hours passed quickly. His watch began to tremble, blinking with a reddish light. The syringe-shaped symbol lit up on the screen, followed by the groans of the unconscious Lance.

"The emergency dose? I'll never get used to how much it hurts." His hand had regenerated, leaving no trace of its previous wounds. His body was covered in blood and thick dust.

"Is this one of the tunnel's chasms?" No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see the bottom even with his ability. He spotted another passage to his right, smaller but with the same beams and lanterns. A roar like an explosion finally pulled him completely awake. A mass of debris and dust fell like a waterfall into the cavity, vanishing into the abyss. The entire cave had collapsed. Lance stared blankly at his watch until he took in the time.

"I've been down here for almost five hours! Fortune has been kind to me." He exclaimed with what remained of his voice, setting off into the darkness. His body was repaired, no trace of the previous fights, yet his step and his strength were slowly leaving him. He had been defeated." I lost... I really lost against him..." He dragged himself along, trailing his hand across the reddish wall. He slipped and fell face-first onto a wooden beam. It was so rotten it snapped the moment Lance tried to rise.

"Damn it." He rolled his exhausted body over, keeping his gaze on the empty, dark ceiling. In that darkness, lit only by the feeble glow of the spent watch, he was alone, abandoned even by himself, or so he thought.

"You disgust me, Lance…" The moment he opened his eyelids, he found Eve before him, the female shape that inhabited his mind. Her long white dress and her hair were spread across the ground, completely immune to the dust and filth. She knelt beside him, watching him through the dark veil.

"You are entirely unworthy of assuming the mantle of protector." She stroked his cheek with her fingers, washing his face in a strand of snow-white hair heavy with a nauseating smell of blood and ash. Her touch was cold and disturbing, the same as a corpse's. Lance seized her hand and released it a moment later, out of weakness and fear.

"Don't resist. I'm only trying to comfort you." She stroked his hair, aware that he could not resist.

"How many people do you think you've killed?" Eve asked, lifting his face with both hands and bringing it close to the veil. For some reason, her breath carried the metallic taste of blood, mixed with a faintly sweet aroma.

"Every monster you promise to eliminate was once only human. I know you understand this well." She uncovered herself down to the lips, a dull red. Even her skin was a bleak pale colour, resembling wax.

"Your crimes will always outweigh your brazen acts of kindness. The scales will always tip toward the needle of sin and never toward you, whether you like it or not." She bit his lip delicately, tightening her grip on his neck. Lance became blank, abandoned to her mercy, too exhausted to express terror or rebellion.

"But you needn't worry about that… Let me help you." She smiled. A pitiless grin distorted her dead lips, stained by the boy's blood.

"I will take back Jude… I will save Damian. Yes, I'm certain that this time it will go better…" She seized him with her full strength, lifting him to her chest. The woman towered over Lance.

"So give yourself to me… Then you won't have to risk breaking apart like this." At those words, Lance Klint seemed to wake, pushing Eve away with force. Her dress shivered under the strength of the push, but she didn't seem surprised.

"Leave me alone! I don't care about you or Damian. I don't care who you are!" He stumbled backward, gasping harder than before, clenching his fists between his hands. Eve laughed, letting her face disappear again beneath the dark veil.

"Oh, Lance… I can't wait to watch your flame go out and return to the ash from which you came." Those were her words before he woke up, in the same position where everything had begun. He quickly felt his lips, rubbing his fingers together to make sure there was no blood. He resumed levering himself with his blade and set off again through the dark corridors.

"I… won't let anyone die. I won't tolerate giving him the victory." He murmured, Malcolm's image fixed in his mind, busy mocking him. He stopped, working at his watch in search of any aid to orient himself. He managed to pull up a map of the underground tunnels in what little power remained in the device. A violet hologram lit the surrounding area, drawing in the air a complex of passages and galleries connected to a series of enormous caverns.

"I remember the way I followed with Maliard... But what is this?" An anomaly caught his attention, just under his icon on the map." Five hundred metres further down… There are different galleries, and this one here runs directly under the Institute." Before he could zoom in on the anomalous underground chamber, the hologram switched off, abandoning him in the dark of the tunnel." It'll take me a while to get back… But tomorrow I'll make sure this operation comes to a close."

The promise echoed in the darkness, broken by the violet flash between his hands. He was carefully holding one of Maverick's torches, keeping it above his head as he walked." Damian… I've heard that name before." He began to turn the name murmured by Eve over in his mind. It had already appeared in his visions, spoken by a woman on her deathbed. Shaken by those doubts, he kept walking and walking, taking each fork according to his memory." Those two chambers… I'll keep the information to myself.

I could even visit the one under the Institute. It might have answers." That was his plan. He began climbing a very long staircase, struggling for air due to the lack of space. He had been in that passage for some hours; on the surface, dinnertime had probably come and gone.

"I'm thirsty, and I'm exhausted." He complained deliriously before a familiar place appeared before him. He remembered the stones and the footprints on the ground at the exit of the fork." This is the tunnel I walked with the others!" He exulted with quiet satisfaction, recovering the energy to get out quickly. He remembered the grave and stopped for a moment to look back.

"Don't hate me… I hope someone keeps remembering you out here." That prayer left Lance's lips before he turned back to cut through the darkness toward home.