Chapter 4: Invite all lords to Return to Void

Ethan Greaves' eyes went bloodshot. He sprinted back like a man possessed. "Damn it! Damn it!" he roared, cursing at the top of his lungs. Behind him, the glowing sphere kept shrinking, little by little. Ethan did not spare it a glance. Even though he knew Ivy Spears had been dead for twenty years. "What are you doing? Move! Get out!" Ivy Spears' voice cracked with fury when she saw him running back. "Are you trying to die in here?" Ethan reached her in a few strides. He grabbed the tentacle wrapped around her ankle and tore at it with all his strength. The slick, sticky feel made his stomach turn. No matter how hard he pulled, the tentacle did not budge an inch. And from Ivy Spears' abdomen, what seeped out was not blood, but thin strands of red light. She had weakened to the edge of collapse. She could not even hold on to the cleaver anymore. With a sharp clatter, it slipped from her fingers and hit the floor. Ethan snatched it up and brought it down in a single chop. The blade struck the tentacle, and he finally realized it was armored. Hard scales had grown over it like plated mail. The cleaver bounced uselessly, and the recoil jolted up his arm so violently that pain shot through him. The skin between his thumb and forefinger split open, and blood spilled. "Go," Ivy Spears told him. Ethan turned his head. The glowing sphere was gone. "We can't," he said. "There's no way out." "You…" Ivy Spears looked ready to explode. "Why? What do you get out of this?" Ethan lifted his gaze toward the darkness ahead. "Peace of mind." He knew it better than anyone. Staying would not save her. She was already so weak she could not even keep a cleaver in her grip. She was a pioneer, pure to the bone. So pure that even after twenty years of death, she had held herself together on sheer conviction, doing everything she could to suppress the Demon Soul in this Demon Realm. So pure that even as a stranger, she was willing to give everything just to push Ethan out of the dark. Watching him hack again and again, Ivy Spears smiled bitterly. "You'll die here with me," she said softly. "They'll swallow you. Tear you apart. Even your bones will be ground into dust." "Yeah," Ethan answered. "Your soul will melt into the Demon Realm," she went on. "You'll suffer until you become their nourishment." "Yeah." "Your parents will grieve. Your friends will hurt." "Yeah." Ivy Spears stared at his mangled, blood-slick hands and let out a long breath. "I'm sorry… I don't think I can protect you anymore." "It's fine." Ethan looked up at her, his eyes startlingly clear. "It really is." Ivy Spears froze. She stared at the boy in front of her as if something had struck her in the mind. "You're really not afraid?" "I'm terrified." Ethan tossed aside the cleaver, its edge already ruined, and sat on the floor facing the dark. More and more tentacles crept along the carriage like vines. The crimson glow flickered, and within that red light, twisted, horrifying Demon Soul figures drifted closer and closer. His voice stayed calm anyway. "But I'm more afraid that, years from now, I'll think of you again and again. I'll wake up from nightmares, and I'll spend the rest of my life uneasy." He glanced down at his bloody palms. "You know how it is. I'm young. I get impulsive. When my blood runs hot, some stupid hero complex flares up… even though I'm no hero." Ivy Spears turned her face away, looking behind her. Something in her eyes hardened into decision. Ethan kept talking under his breath, as if the words were the only thing holding him together. "When I was little, my parents disappeared. My uncle raised me. My uncle and aunt treated me well. If there were new clothes, I wore them first, and when they got old or didn't fit, they went to my little brother and sister. If there was good food, they saved it for me while my brother and sister watched, drooling. They were always careful, always afraid I'd feel wronged, afraid I'd feel like I was living under someone else's roof." "Your aunt was the greater one," Ivy Spears said. "Yeah." Ethan gave a small, crooked smile. "Growing up, whenever I fought with my brother and sister, my uncle and aunt always took my side. Even when I was wrong, they still found a way to justify it. That had to be spoiling me." Cold, pallid faces drew nearer. Their features were warped and broken, enough to make a heart seize. A wave of chill rolled in. Ethan seemed to have lost fear entirely. "My uncle was a low-ranking constable at the yamen. He worked himself to the bone. Once I scrubbed his back for him, and it was nothing but scars. There were even bits of shrapnel still lodged in his shoulder that never got taken out." Ethan bared his teeth in a grin. "He spoiled me, sure, but he always told me this: a man has to live with responsibility. If your heart holds no shame, you can sleep soundly." Ivy Spears watched him, dazed, as if she had forgotten how to breathe. "Have you ever met a man named Simon Looske?" she asked. Ethan shook his head. "He should be forty-five by now…" Ivy Spears fell silent for a moment. "But you resemble him. You're the same kind of pure." Ethan blinked. "Your lover?" Ivy Spears neither confirmed nor denied it. "He used to say something to me all the time." "What?" "'I never believe the long night will come, because the torch is already in my hands.'" Ethan did not understand it, not really, but it hit him like thunder. "If you make it out," Ivy Spears said, her voice turning thin, "if you ever meet him… tell him I'm sorry." She clenched her fist and forced herself to turn, each movement heavy with strain. "Try again," she said. Ethan stared at her, startled. Then Ivy Spears' eyes flared, sharp as a blade. She shoved Ethan back into the seats. Her braided pigtails whipped as she pressed her hands together. In an instant, her eyes turned a violent crimson. Scarlet liquid poured from her body and spread through the carriage, surging like madly growing vines, like magma after a volcano's eruption. What shocked Ethan most was the change in her presence. It turned cold, sinister. A nameless wind swept the carriage, and the air filled with thick, metallic bloodstink. Those "things" sensed it. Chaos erupted at once. "Ivy Spears, you've lost your mind!" "Don't forget you're a Spirit Body too! You can't sacrifice us!" The man in jacket stumbled back several steps. His eyes bulged, caught completely off guard. "You're… sacrificing your own soul to force open the Gate of Sacrifice?" "Madwoman! You're going to drag us down with you?" "You'll suffer Utter Annihilation of Spirit!" Curses, shrieks, snarls, and wailing piled together into a deafening uproar. Ivy Spears' lips curved into a cool, distant smile. "I can feel it," she murmured. "That fear, crawling up from the depths of your souls…" "So good…" Her hands remained clasped, both thumbs aligned. She began to chant under her breath. "Upon Veyra's land, sun and moon shine without end! Let lofty vows become song, to soothe my mountains and rivers!" She lifted her head. Several arcs of radiant light burst from her body, and within those rainbows of light, faces appeared, twisted and struggling. The scarlet, viscous liquid snapped inward, gathering and hardening. It hovered behind Ivy Spears and became a crimson door. She gently twisted the handle. "Human Pioneer, priestess Ivy Spears, Invite all lords to Return to Void!" It sounded like a hostess greeting guests, wearing a polite smile as she welcomed them in.