Level Up Legacy

Chapter 1436: Blood. Screams. Tears.

Golden sigils floated around them. They answered to his call, vibrated on his touch, and yearned for a command. In stark contrast, the darkness within Lusica was tearing him at the seams, crying to be unleashed.

"Leave me!" Lusica howled. "Abandon me like you did before!"

Arthur was silent as he saw the man’s soul being shredded to pieces. He waited for the crucial moment to intervene, and it arrived once the darkness paused its torture. His spiritual energy pushed inward, infiltrating Lusica’s soul.

And then, the two of them lost consciousness.

A moment later, Arthur opened his eyes. The two of them were no longer in the cave, but in a brick-layered room filled with books, training equipment, and scattered belongings. On the bed nailed to the wall was Lusica, clutching his head.

"Please," he muttered. "Please make the voices stop, Seika."

Lusica went back and forth, in a poor attempt to remove the voices from his head. Arthur watched, his heart feeling like a knife was twisting within it. A second later, the door was pushed open. Lux came into the room and passed through Arthur.

"I heard about what happened," Lux said to his friend. The blond man was radiating with light, while Lusica seemed to devour any that dared touch him. "It wasn’t your fault, Lusica. I’ll get you out of here."

Arthur knew that he was bearing witness to the life that Lusica lived without him. Their souls touched, and it allowed him to see the deepest scars that his knight had. At the same time, Lusica was experiencing Arthur’s worst moments.

In order to witness vulnerability, Arthur needed to reveal his own.

"Lux..." Lusica raised his head. Blood and darkness intertwining on his face. His eyes were shaky, and his lips were trembling. "You saw it too, right?"

"I wasn’t there—"

"I mean the epiphany!" Lusica interrupted. "You saw who I was and how I lived. I was something... but now I’m nothing. I lost control today. I hurt others."

"It happened before, but it wasn’t you," Lux reassured his friend. "You cannot keep thinking about a world that was erased. You told me, didn’t you? That the Seika of Living Beings erased that timeline."

"He did... He did... But why did he?"

Lux was silent.

A commotion rose outside.

Knights rushed into the room.

Light exploded from the blond man.

Arthur witnessed the two cut a sorry figure to escape. The knights rushed after them, hunting them down until days turned to weeks. Whatever Lusica committed, it was no trivial crime.

The fact that Arthur didn’t witness the crime itself meant Lusica had no recollection of it. Arthur instead witnessed the two friends becoming fugitives. Their relationship was tested numerous times, in life and death, in hunger and thirst, and in times where the loneliness became too much.

Lusica was becoming a shell of a man. He retained his sanity, but he was a corrupted human — one touched by Nameless and his powers. He couldn’t sleep as the voice of the Nameless kept calling for him to commit heinous things.

In one night, Lusica found himself standing above Lux, robes having been tainted with blood. Again, he had no recollection of what happened. Lux survived, but Lusica decided that he couldn’t be with his friend again.

In the end, he ran away.

Lusica ran from his friend, society, the world, and himself. He sought all methods to let the voices stop. He jumped from atop a cliff and sat beneath a waterfall. Witches and alchemists became his friends as he sought moments of sleep.

But nothing worked.

And in the despair, a memory of golden light tore at him. It wasn’t the nightmare that tore him apart, but the fact that it could be stopped. Lusica began seeking ways to find Arthur, the Seika of Living Beings. He met others who had the epiphany, but no one knew how to reach him.

In the end, Lusica was no longer a man.

He was a monster, seeking a broken dream of blissful sleep and silence. His feet roamed the land as the darkness began not only tearing his mind, but his flesh. His form was broken, breached by black tar.

A blur of memories ensued.

Blood.

Screams.

Tears.

Then, a final image.

Lux carrying a sword of light. His eyes were filled with tears and pity as he stared at his turned-monster friend. Light shone and darkness howled. The two tore each other apart, until both fell dead in a desolate valley.

Two friends — one ending.

Arthur was back in the cave.

He was on his knees.

Tears filled his eyes.

Lusica was staring at him, but he was no longer howling. His eyes were clear and questioning. The two men stared at each other for a long time. Both witnessed the deepest scars they had, but no one said a word about them.

"Please, let me make it right," Arthur said as he reached out. His golden hand was losing its structure. "Let me share the burden that you carried."

Lusica remained silent as he stared at the hand offered. Then, he looked at his own.

Dark.

Formless.

Uncertain.

"And if you abandon me again?"

"I never abandoned any of you. That’s why I sent memories across timelines," Arthur admitted. "I wanted what I had to remain. You were all precious to me."

"As what?"

"As friends."

Lusica clenched his fist.

Then exhaled.

His form was breaking.

His voice was cracking.

And then, he reached out toward Arthur.

"This time," he said, "I want to kill Nameless myself."

"Then you will have to work hard to harness this power," Arthur answered with a smile. Golden light exploded as their hands intertwined. The darkness receded against the light.

Lusica grunted.

Arthur knew it was going to be a painful process. His soul would be shattered and rebuilt, after rooting out the black seed that had infiltrated it. However, Arthur was there to guide him through it. He would make sure... that Lusica would be a new man, but the same he knew.

Golden light erupted in every direction. The mountain became a beacon of light within the Infra-Layer. Every seeker turned in the direction of the light. However, no one could approach.

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