I’d never wanted her to sacrifice so much, but it was too late. I couldn’t let her use the arcane eyes any more than this.
“Greed, take twenty percent!”
“Finish it, Fate!”
The black scythe absorbed my power and transformed into a weapon with three blades. I channeled everything I had into the Deadly Inferno attack aimed directly at Shin.
“Guh…”
I sundered Shin’s body in half, and he fell in a heap. As red ichor gushed forth, his lower body crumbled into nothing—an effect of Deadly Inferno. I used this tech-art to completely devour Shin, but no metallic voice rang in my head, which meant I hadn’t succeeded in killing the superorganism. Shin’s upper half still lived. I had at least denied him the greater part of his power. The red monsters that charged toward us suddenly collapsed into crimson ash. Shin himself crawled along the ground, desperate to escape.
“I can’t wait…for another part of myself to awaken… I’ve come so far… Help me, Micuria. I’m going to fail…again.”
He sounded like a child begging a parent. But I knew that name. Micuria was the researcher I had encountered on the spiritual plane, a friend of Kairos.
When I saw Shin like this, my grip on the scythe slackened.
“Do it, Fate,” said Greed.
“You’re kind, I know,” said Eris. “But this thing cannot be allowed to live. Do it for me, because I don’t have the power to finish him myself. I’m sorry. There’s no other way.”
With Greed and Eris urging me on, I focused on following the flow of Shin’s magical energy. His core seemed to reside in his head, even though when I’d sliced him in half earlier, it had been in his stomach. Looking more closely, I understood that his core could move around within his body. This was how he’d survived the Deadly Inferno attack. Now that I knew, I wouldn’t let him do so again.
“Greed, take twenty percent.”
“Finish him off this time, Fate. It’s dangerous to let your stats fall any further than this.”
I once again initiated the weapon’s Second Level technique. Power flowed from me into the weapon, transforming it.
“Dammit…” Shin muttered as the core inside of him darted around, seeking somewhere safe to hide.
It was all too easy now. Destroying Shin’s core was nothing compared to the hell I’d gone through in my battle with Myne.
“It ends here!” I shouted.
I swung the scythe. Once its cursed blade connected, death was inescapable.
The high-pitched clang of metal against metal rang out. Something had stopped the Deadly Inferno attack, but it wasn’t Shin. It was the man I never wanted to face.
“Sorry Fate, but we’ve come too far for it to end like this.”
“Dad…”
His black spear had blocked my scythe with ease, and with a grin, he pushed it back at me.
“Looks like I made it just in time,” he said. “I owe him a favor for giving me this spear, but more importantly, I need him to open the Door.”
“You’ll join forces with something like Shin just for that? Why, Dad…?”
I glared at him. Then I heard a thud as Eris collapsed behind me.
“Eris?!”
“Ah, I forgot to mention,” said my father. “I put her to sleep. Those eyes are a real pain.”
“Dad, what are you trying to do?”
With his spear pointed at me, my father pulled out a red stone. It was the Philosopher’s Stone that he’d stolen from the kingdom’s research facilities—a piece of Shin. “I’ve been taking care of this thing’s energy,” he said to Shin. “Won’t you join me?”
“That’s not who I am,” said Shin. “Not anymore. I’ll lose myself if I join your ranks. You’ll turn me into a tool.”
“Then at the very least, what you wish will be granted. There is no other choice.”
Shin nodded.
“That’s how things are, Fate. We’ll have to put this battle on hold for now.”
“Dad…”
“Don’t give me that look. Let me tell you the truth: No matter what happens here, whether you fail or you succeed, Libra will not change. He intends to destroy everything, both this subterranean city and Hausen above.”
“He told me he wouldn’t intervene if I could prevent the Door from opening.”
“And you really believe him? His whole reason for being is the destruction of those who create imbalance in the world. And we’re all here, right now, in this one place. He isn’t the sort of person to let such a chance slip from his fingers.” My father pointed up. “You can feel that, can’t you? An unfathomable power covers this area.”
I concentrated and felt an energy expanding well above the surface, high in the sky.
“What… What is that?”
“That’s been up there this whole time, but its power was cloaked. Now that it’s begun to move, we can sense it. So what will you do, Fate? Waste time fighting me, or return to the surface to protect your people?”
“I…”
I transformed Greed into the black sword and pointed the blade at my father.
“That’s what you want? I don’t mind. If it’s what you desire, I’ll fight with you until the very end.”
“Fate, you can’t!”
The voice came from Roxy as she suddenly stepped between me and my father. Snow was with her as well, and she seemed to have reverted to her usual self.
“Now’s not the time for that!” Roxy said. “We have to return aboveground.”
“But if we do…the Door will…”
“Your citizens are up there, Fay!”
Snow had informed Roxy of the crisis that awaited Hausen, and she’d come to me as soon as she could. In my depleted state, I was at a disadvantage if I tried to challenge my father. Regardless, any battle would take too long. We’d be incinerated or annihilated by whatever was floating up there in the sky. I sheathed my sword.
“That’s a good lad,” my father said. “I forgot to mention: Laine’s here too. She wants to see you. I’ll see that she doesn’t come to any harm. Now go.”
“Fay! Hurry!”
It irritated me that I wouldn’t be able to destroy Shin once and for all. I was practically letting them open the Door to Distant Lands.
As we rushed toward the surface, Roxy tried to cheer me up. “Try not to worry. After all, you accomplished what you came here to do, didn’t you?”
“You mean Myne?”
“I do, and I’m happy it worked out. I don’t know what will happen when the Door opens all the way, but in this moment, protecting the living is more important than preserving the dead. No one besides you can do that. We have to focus on protecting the people of Hausen.”
“Roxy…you’re right. We have to hurry!”
“Let’s go!”
We retraced our steps with great haste as we headed for the surface. As we did so, the earth beneath us trembled with the force of an earthquake. What was happening on the surface?