It is a fucking Soul Weapon ?!? WHAT?

  Nia smiled and looked down upon her.

  We are fucked! A Soul Weapon? Here? With someone like her? But only High Exorcists can even think of forging them. How? How did this... this piece of shit…

  “You have no clue, Lera,” Nia summarized calmly. “About anything that matters.”

  She spoke without raising her voice, yet every word carried weight.

  “You only ever chased the people you deemed more worthy. Cal, who was a better Vicar than you ever could be. Corf, who pulled you from the ruins of Eskia, a place that should still be guarding your kind, had you not failed to recognize the first Possessed. Ace Mei, your mentor for almost Ten Thousands, who taught you how one might find purpose.” Nia’s smile did not fade.

  “And yet you found the wrong one.”

  She glanced at Lera, then back to her exposed skin, her expression warming, almost fond. “You are a fool. Tragic. A victim of circumstance, perhaps, innocent by certain measures. I can imagine the arguments.”

  Her eyes hardened.

  “But not innocent by my measures.”

  After a glance at her Guilt, Nia looked at her light skin again, pondering. "You tortured me. Perhaps rightfully so under normal circumstance. After all, I was a Possessed. But not her. She wasn’t and yet you tore into her."

  My fault... An innocent woman...

  The ground beneath Nia's feet shifted slightly with each step, the air growing heavier, warmer. Lera barely registered the movement. Nia spoke as if discussing something mundane, tracing idle patterns along the length of her hairpin.

  "Your Radiant Order does not have a clue, either. And that is why I will end it. And you will help me. Or you will suffer and help me anyway."

  Stopping in her tracks, Nia looked back at the Seed in the distance, then at her Guilt and focused it for a long time. "I was so lucky. The emptiness we encountered saved me. Someone in that abyss saved me and I am grateful forever to who… woke me up from my nightmare, in the end. Forgive me that pun...”

  In her fading mind, her fading personality, Lera found some sense, sense that told her how fucked she was. Still, something prevailed, some memories beyond the Guilt that Nia used to attack her last bits of identity.

  I still fought you... the Nightmares. I still protected my unit for some time…

  But not in the end.

  I was an Exorcist, but that path of mine has ended. I was a hero... could have been a hero.

  Now I am nothing.

  I am just guilty of bringing pain and darkness to everyone... I am trash.

  She is right.

  When those thoughts passed her mind, Lera knew she had lost.

  A moemnt of anguish passed, then another, until a smile crept onto Nia's face, warm and full of genuine joy.

  “You understand now, don’t you?” she asked softly. “Good. You learn quickly. Introspection is a powerful thing.”

  She laughed, the sound hollow, stripped of warmth.

  “I learned something too. From you. I learned about my Guilt. The abyss helped me see it clearly: my true nature.” Her eyes gleamed, their colors complementing each other. “Guilt. Suffering. And more. Most importantly, how to gain the upper hand in any situation. How to seize power. How to command.”

  The air around her rippled. Her irises shimmered grey, an aura flaring outward in slow pulses of blue and red. Heat rolled across the plain in waves, prickling Lera’s skin and drawing sweat down her temples despite the cold crystal encasing her.

  “That is my path to the Truth,” Nia said. “Taking what I want. Power over Lucidity. Over Nightmares. Over Guilt. Gaining what I desire. What I deem just.”

  She exhaled slowly. “I was weak when I arrived. Helpless. Without the abyss that struck us, I would never have seen that. That is why I cherish what you fear. Even though it is alien, I welcome it. I make it mine.”

  Lera’s stomach twisted. She wanted to retch, to scream, to move. Nia was no longer comprehensible.

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  She was not merely a Possessed.

  She felt like a Lucid again, yet at the same time vastly beyond . Not only wielding a Soul Weapon, but radiating an aura disturbingly similar to Corf’s. To Ace Mei’s.

  What the fuck have I done…

  Her thoughts scattered, flailing uselessly as she lay in the dirt, encased in black crystal. She no longer tried to tear away the cold, agonizing stones. She only tried to form a sound. Any sound that might reach Nia.

  Pity… mercy…

  The Guilt flooded her veins, overwhelming her like the raging torrents along the Shattered Coast, the kind that swallowed villages whole and left nothing behind.

  “There is something else I want to show you,” Nia said softly. “A gift.”

  She regarded Lera with something close to gratitude. “I am thankful you revealed my shortcomings. Thankful you helped create this Deepest, the very thing you fought so... heroically. It rose from the hidden depths of my mind. From everything I ran from, everything that still found me anyway.”

  Her fingers brushed the alien metal of her hairpin. “Because of you, I changed! So let me repay the favor.”

  The air around her darkened. The mist coiling through her hair thickened, drawn inward toward the hairpin.

  No.

  Toward her Soul Weapon.

  The artifact pulsed once.

  “There are some friends I want to remind you of,” Nia continued. “Friends who will keep you company for the rest of your days in our Dream.”

  Her voice was neutral now, matter-of-fact. “And I will make sure those days never end. I have learned something important: The Dream itself is eternal. Only its contents change.”

  She stepped aside.

  “So here they are. Be reunited with them.”

  The mist parted.

  Two figures emerged.

  The first took the shape of a woman, young and beautiful, her form muddied with unrealized potential. Potential that would never be fulfilled becuse Lera had been the worst leader conceivable. Hatred clung to the figure like a second skin, fixed entirely on Lera. Her eyes were hollow, abyssal, the same void that stared out from the Guilt standing beside Nia. When she looked at Lera, it felt as if hands tore directly into her flesh.

  The second was a man, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, his mane tinted red, his body familiar in every line. His eyes were just as empty.

  When he spoke, the sound shattered something inside her.

  Insults poured from the mouth she had once kissed. From the lips that had given her comfort. That had once made her feel like she belonged, even as the lesser Vicar. Insults that echoed in her Inner World, robbing her of any respite and silence that could have been.

  “What's the matter?” Nia asked brightly, covering her lips in feigned surprise. “Do you know them?”

  She tilted her head.

  “Do you remember what you did?”

  The figures took a step closer.

  “You betrayed them,” Nia said. “It is your fault they woke. Both of them. Just as it is your fault that Locu woke.”

  She watched Lera closely.

  “I think I will let them have some fun with you. Forever, of course.”

  The shapes moved forward.

  They circled Lera slowly, greedily, examining the body she had fortified through years of training, now encased in crystal. Hands traced the jagged surface. Hollow eyes lingered. Then they began to claw at her soul, to pierce and shred with deliberate intent.

  "You woke us... You betrayed us… You made those people wake, innocent, just arrived. You gave them up… you slaughtered them as you slaughtered your Hunters. They died because you are weak. A bad leader... because you are at fault… IT IS YOUR FAULT!"

  There was only pain, only spasming pain as they dug into her. into all she was. And in the distance, Lera still saw Nia. There were silver tears in her eyes but her mouth was twisted in quiet disgust, her red eye flickering slightly.

  “Looks like they are enjoying themselves,” Nia said, her voice trembling. As if she had hoped for another outcome. “I think that is what you owe them.”

  She watched without flinching, her tears now thinning and neutrality returning.

  “Make no mistake. This does not end when you break. It ends when the debt is paid. And debts like this do not expire.”

  Then, Nia said the most terrible thing. Her voice was quivering, tears forming again, tears of understanding. And her words were pure, so putridly pure Lera gagged.

  “I am truly sorry."

  Nia raised her hand slightly, shaking off her emotions.

  “I could command them,” she said. “Every movement they make. Every breath they take. But I am not doing that right now. I hope you understand: I only called them up from within you, within your soul. What they do now is on you, not on me. I merely gave them the opportunity to act.”

  Her smile returned, but it was cold, just a mask.

  “They act by your own judgment," she whispered.

  Then, Nia turned and pointed toward the wall of blade-like pillars, beyond which Immesh’s camp waited.

  “Now, let us go back.”

  Naturally, Lera could not move, could not think, could hardly breathe.

  The spectres… The Guilts representing Ai and Cal and... Locu... dragged her onward.

  Nia snapped her fingers.

  The Guilts froze mid-motion.

  “I think I have other plans for you two,” Nia said thoughtfully. “You can judge her later.”

  She pointed toward the Seed.

  “Go. Guard it for me. I want to examine it properly once we return.”

  The Deepest hesitated for a heartbeat. Then they turned and obeyed, walking away without protest.

  “As for you,” she said, pointing at her own Nightmare, “we are going to free Uda.”

  A genuine smile crossed her face. “After that, we will return. I will learn what I can about that Seed you sacrificed your people and your integrity for. You should be grateful I will be bringing you along.”

  After a pause, Nia looked into the distance. Not towards the Seed, not towards the spikes, not towards the crumbling walls her Nightmare had shaped. But to something beyond. Far away. Her voice almost longing. “And then I will look for the one who brought the abyss that saved me. There is so much I wish to say to them.”

  Lera did not rise.

  The weight of her terror crushed her flat against the ground. Even with the Guilts retreating, the feeling itself remained, pressing down like a thousand stones.

  Defeated, she tried to crawl. Her arms shook. Her strength failed. She collapsed, her own mind turning inward, devouring itself.

  Nia pointed again. Toward Immesh’s camp.

  “Come,” she said. “I want Uda to have her chance at revenge as well. She will refuse, knowing her. ” Her eyes softened, briefly. “But I will make the offer. I owe her that. I owe her everything.”

  Behind Lera, something moved. Nia's Guilt approached. Its presence smothered the last fragments of Lera's sanity. It seized her wrists and began dragging her across the ground toward the path Nia had chosen.

  Stone tore into her uncovered skin. Purple blood spilled freely.

  Each wound sealed almost instantly, flesh knitting together under the forced mercy of the horrors Nia had torn from Lera’s own soul.

  Only one truth remained.

  my fault. my fault. my fault. my fault. my fault.