Eliza blinked, struggling to piece together where she was. Moments ago, she’d been locked in mortal combat against Faker—and now she stood in a vast, ruined throne room. Rows of fallen knights lay scattered like broken toys, their rusted armor sunk into long-dried pools of blood. A suffocating air of decay permeated the chamber, its walls cracked by time.

  “Where am I?” she demanded, her voice edged with confusion.

  Arthur sighed, motioning languidly toward the blood-soaked throne at the chamber’s center. “The world of my subconscious… or maybe a memory I can never escape. This is where I failed, and where I died.”

  Eliza’s gaze swept over the carnage. “What a sad scene,” she said quietly, a chill rippling through her.

  Arthur’s eyes gleamed with mingled amusement and regret. “He said the same,” he murmured. “Sad indeed. That blade, that Faker wields? It’s my daughter—her ego crystallized. She was the one who killed me, but that’s an old tale.”

  Though the words rattled her, Eliza forced herself to focus. “Can I really win?” she asked, her tone subdued. Doubt threatened to creep in, but she held it back with sheer will.

  Arthur’s features hardened. “By breaking Excalibur, you’ve awakened my true power—stronger than just ‘releasing’ the artifact. But it comes at a cost. Our souls will be bound until your dying breath.”

  Eliza didn’t hesitate. “I don’t care about the cost. I accept.”

  A dark smile curved his lips. “Excellent. I’d hoped to test you by killing you a few hundred times first, but sadly, there’s no time for that.”

  “Sadly?” Eliza echoed.

  He shrugged. “I’m impatient. I want Faker dead, so consider this a trial run. The real test can wait.”

  Rising from the throne in one smooth movement, Arthur seized Excalibur. Despite his lazy grace, lethal intent radiated from him. He raised the sword, then brought it down in a savage arc.

  “Goodbye,” he said softly.

  An all-consuming light flared at the blade’s tip—raw, ancient power that swallowed the darkness in an instant. Everything vanished in its radiance: the corpses, the broken walls, even Arthur himself. Eliza stood transfixed, feeling her very essence burn away before she could draw breath or scream. For an impossible moment, she sensed nothing but awe—pure, exalting awe—at the sheer majesty of Excalibur’s true form.

  Then, like a fading dream, the throne room blinked out of existence. Reality snapped back, and Eliza found herself once more on the battlefield, still battered and bleeding—but with a new power thrumming through her veins, and Arthur’s voice echoing in her mind.

  Eliza reappeared on the battlefield, facing Faker—still monstrous, still cloaked in raven feathers and shadow. Not a second had passed from his perspective, yet in her eyes, everything had changed. She felt Arthur’s presence like a steady pulse within her, an overwhelming power she could unleash once at the cost of the rest of her energy. She only had one chance, one attack.

  Faker’s countless eyes glowered from the darkness. “I’ve been thinking,” he mused, voice dripping with malice. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

  Eliza leveled a cold stare at him, her shattered Excalibur still clutched in her remaining hand. “No. I’ve never been on any missions that involved you.”

  Faker paused, seemingly lost in his thoughts. Suddenly, his body lurched, bones cracking as his skeleton began to emerge from the mass of flesh and shadow. Piece by piece, sinew, and skin knitted over the bony frame, forming a new humanlike shape. Meanwhile, the remains of his old body twisted into a hulking monstrosity—a towering, winged creature with draconic scales and a single blazing red eye.

  Eliza’s pulse quickened at the sight. The abomination dragged itself toward her on six limbs, black feathers rippling across its form like living darkness. Just standing near it drained her, each breath heavier than the last. But she gripped the broken Excalibur, refusing to yield.

  Across the room, the newly re-formed Faker inspected a grotesque array of shifting faces on his hand—like puppets cycling through countless victims. “No… not this one… not that one,” he muttered, jaw tight with frustration. “She looks so familiar, why can’t I remember? Just one face out of tens of millions…”

  Eliza hardly spared him a glance; the monster commanded her full attention. It lunged, claws raking at the ground with unnatural speed. She dodged, but brushing against the feathers left her feeling weak, as though her energy was being siphoned away.

  The beast roared, a blend of dragon’s roar and something far darker. Another claw strike came, quicker this time. Eliza side-stepped, Excalibur’s faint glow clashing with the life-stealing aura. She deflected the blow, then slashed at its flank—only to have her strike wane under that oppressive drain.

  “You’re nothing but a shadow of yourself,” she spat, forcing herself forward for another attack. The creature bellowed in rage and leaped, six limbs crashing down in a wave of darkness. Eliza rolled free but felt her strength ebbing faster every second she stayed near it. Her breath labored, yet she refused to back down.

  Faker stood off to the side, cycling through faces with his puppet hand. Each one blurred into the next, his irritation palpable.

  “Why can’t I remember you?!” he snarled, eyes flitting over countless phantom visages. “This shouldn’t be so hard!”

  Seizing his distraction, Eliza lunged. Broken Excalibur flashed in her grip, its light piercing the monster’s chest. Feathers sizzled where the blade struck, and the abomination howled, staggering back in a plume of black smoke. Faker’s features twisted with fury as his creation faltered.

  “Enough of this!” he roared, commanding the hulking shadow to renew its attack. But Eliza was faster. A final burst of energy propelled her fist into the creature’s single red eye, shattering it in a flare of brilliance. The beast screeched, collapsing in on itself as stolen life-force bled away.

  “Damn it, quit being annoying when I’m trying to think,” Faker spat, snapping his fingers in annoyance.

  Eliza stood panting, barely clinging to consciousness. The shadow’s remains convulsed, warping into a woman in obsidian armor. Blonde hair spilled down her back, but her face was a swirling void of darkness.

  “Another failure,” Faker muttered, pacing restlessly behind the new figure. “Why can’t I ever get it right? Mordred deserves a proper body. Not this.” He flicked his hand, still shuffling through distorted faces. “Come on, just one memory,” he growled, fixated on the puzzle of Eliza’s identity.

  Without warning, the faceless warrior summoned a pitch-black blade and charged. Eliza ducked aside, stone shattering where the sword struck. She’s fast, Eliza realized, grimacing as she spun upright.

  The woman lunged again, movements precise and unnervingly fluid. Eliza crouched beneath the arcing blade, then drove a punch into her chest—only to feel her fist sink into twisting shadows. The faceless soldier countered instantly, the black sword grazing Eliza’s shoulder. Pain flared, yet Eliza refused to fall back, her gaze locked on this new threat.

  Faker’s voice tore through the haze of Eliza’s exhaustion. “I don’t have time for this!” he snarled, waving a dismissive hand at the faceless woman. “Just kill her already!”

  But Eliza didn’t dodge the next blow. Instead, she caught the void-like warrior’s wrist, halting the sword mid-swing. The figure strained, dark energy rippling beneath her armor, yet Eliza held fast. With a savage cry, she drove her fist into the black void where its face should have been.

  A violent shudder coursed through the faceless woman as the strike connected. Her features distorted, flickering like a broken illusion. Not missing a beat, Eliza slammed her knee into the figure’s midsection and followed with a final, crushing punch to the head. The void shattered in an eruption of shadows, scattering into the air.

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  Eliza stumbled back, gasping for breath. Her limb trembled, on the verge of collapse. Even so, she sensed a twisted glee radiating from Faker. He stood with his puppet hand raised, a malignant spark of realization lighting his many eyes.

  “Finally,” he purred. “How could I have forgotten this one? It was such a good memory.”

  The puppet that had been shifting through countless faces morphed one last time, bones cracking, flesh contorting. Horrified, Eliza recognized the familiar shape that emerged: her mother, perfectly replicated right down to the gentle smile. Yet something was horribly wrong about it—the warmth she once knew replaced by a cold, predatory gleam.

  “That annoying woman bumped into me at the store,” Faker drawled through the puppet’s mouth, his tone drenched in sadistic pleasure. “So I decided to have some fun and steal her body. The look on your father’s face—when I… bit it off—was priceless.”

  Eliza’s world tilted. The ground seemed to fall away beneath her feet. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, as the puppet twisted its stolen features into a sick parody of kindness.

  Faker relished the moment. “Let’s recreate that scene, shall we?” he sneered, his free hand morphing into a second puppet—a miniature version of himself.

  Eliza stood frozen, raw anguish fueling her rage. Faker was doing more than taunting her—he was ripping open her deepest wounds and mocking her parents’ final moments as if it were mere entertainment.

  The puppet mimicking her mother stumbled forward, nudging the Faker puppet. Chips spilled from his grasp in slow motion, an absurd recreation of what must have happened that night. Eliza’s heart thundered, every second stretching into an eternity of dread as she watched.

  “Oh no,” Faker intoned in a mock-innocent voice, the mother puppet’s head swiveling toward him. “Look what you’ve done, bumping into me like that. How rude.”

  A writhing maggot slithered from the Faker puppet’s hand, disappearing into the mother’s hollow torso. Her form contorted grotesquely, flickering into Faker’s likeness and then reverting to her mother’s gentle features—twisted and wrong.

  “That is act one,” Faker said with chilling glee. “Truly a fun story, isn’t it?”

  Eliza’s stomach churned. She could hardly breathe as horror and rage warred inside her. That night, she thought, her voice trembling. “It was you… You’re the reason—”

  “Obviously,” Faker replied, voice mocking. “But please, stay seated. We have an entire play to get through.”

  Something in Eliza snapped. The images of her mother, her father, her own stolen childhood whirled in her mind. With a guttural roar, she lunged. Excalibur’s broken blade flared with desperate light as she swung at Faker again and again, each stroke seeking vengeance.

  But he was too fast. He danced out of reach with an eerie, mocking grace, humming in faux contemplation. “Now, how did act two go again?” he mused, as though recalling lines from a children’s play.

  Eliza’s swings grew frantic, her breaths ragged. Faker sidestepped every blow, twisting away with a smug grin.

  “Come now, Slayer,” he teased. “Surely, you’re not tiring on me yet? We’ve barely started! I have so many more memories to share—so many scenes to reenact!”

  Eliza’s eyes stung with unshed tears, not of grief but burning rage. She refused to let this monster continue desecrating her memories. Excalibur’s broken hilt pulsed in her grip, its fractured light mirroring the fury in her heart.

  Across the battlefield, Faker’s puppetry descended into a sick parody of her mother’s likeness, jerking through the motions of a twisted show. He conjured puppet after puppet—of terrified civilians, of a mother and child—only to have the “mother” puppet’s hand morph into a cartoonish beast that grotesquely beheaded them. Each horrific chomp shot another jolt of anger through Eliza’s veins, her breath ragged with disgust.

  “You bastard!” she screamed, voice cracking under the weight of her fury. “Stop it! Stop it!”

  She unleashed a scorching breath of fire, but Faker slipped aside with a grin, as though the flames were nothing more than a warm breeze.

  “Oh, Slayer,” he mocked, voice dark with amusement. “The fun has only just begun.”

  Eliza charged, slashing wildly with the broken Excalibur. Though each strike flared with desperate, furious light, Faker dodged easily, laughing while he played out his vile puppet show.

  “That’s act two,” he mused, tapping his chin in mock recollection. “Now, how did act three go…?”

  His smile widened, as though he’d stumbled on a newfound delight. Eliza’s vision blurred red, her mind reeling with rage, but she kept swinging, the blade pulsing brighter with each attempt. Still, Faker danced out of reach, never losing his mocking composure.

  “If I had the time,” he said, sidestepping another blow, “I’d collect your tears in a cup. What a shame.”

  “Let’s see how you handle the next act, shall we?” he taunted.

  A twisted parody of her father’s final moments played out before Eliza’s eyes. Faker controlled two puppets—one shaped like her mother, the other like her father—making them kiss in a grotesque mimicry of affection. Then the father puppet recoiled, noticing blood dripping from the mother’s hands.

  Eliza’s stomach clenched. “Stop it…” she whispered, voice quivering with fury and revulsion.

  She couldn’t tear her gaze away as a tendril sprouted from the mother puppet’s back, lashing out to slice off the father’s arm in one swift motion. Exaggerated crimson spurted across the tiny stage, driving Eliza’s rage higher. She gripped Excalibur’s hilt until her knuckles whitened.

  Faker narrating made it worse. “Isn’t it poetic?” he murmured, pushing the father puppet to run in futility. The mother puppet’s mouth split open, revealing jagged teeth. It lunged, biting off the puppet’s head in one savage snap.

  “You bastard!” Eliza roared. “Stop it! Stop it!”

  Her head pounded with pain. She kept swinging, each blow missing him by inches. The puppet show shifted into a final torment, her “mother” puppet approached a smaller figure—an imitation of Eliza’s younger self.

  “Mom, I had a nightmare,” the child puppet whimpered.

  Faker’s twisted grin widened. “Do you remember what happens next, Eliza?”

  The puppet mother’s face split down the center, teeth sprouting where kindness used to be. In a swift merge of flesh and shadow, Faker let his own body dissolve into the puppet, warping it into a towering nightmare—rotting skin stretched over impossibly long limbs, each finger ending in hooked claws. A tendril-like tongue slithered from its gaping maw.

  Eliza’s breath caught, her fury condensing into a single point of focus. She could feel Arthur’s power beneath the surface, waiting—hungry. One chance. One strike. She locked eyes with the horror, her voice trembling with resolve.

  “Keep laughing,” she vowed silently. “I’ll end this play on my terms.”

  Faker’s mocking voice rang out once more, a knife of cruel glee through the tension.

  “Do you remember this scene? Can you cry for me like you did that night?”

  The monstrous puppet lumbered forward—long, hooked claws scraping the ground, its distorted form calling forth every nightmare Eliza had ever known. She froze, heart pounding as memories of that horrific evening flooded back. Her hands trembled, but not from fear. Rage—searing, unstoppable rage—ignited within her.

  “No,” she whispered, eyes brimming with fury. “No more.”

  Faker advanced, still mimicking the beast from her past, feeding off her terror. But this time, the fear fueling Eliza swiftly transformed into something more potent, the power Arthur had granted her. It pulsed beneath her skin, a live current begging to be unleashed.

  “Do you feel it, Eliza?” Faker taunted, his voice a jagged snarl. “That helplessness? Just like that night—”

  “That night doesn’t define me,” she spat, her voice cracking with raw emotion. The broken Excalibur flared in her grip, the flicker of its light intensifying alongside her wrath. “You don’t define me!”

  She raised her voice in a roar of defiance that rattled the surrounding walls. “Show me how that night ended, Faker! The moment you were obliterated—by this very blade!”

  Excalibur’s broken shards glowed. Before Faker could respond, the blade rematerialized in a blinding flash of power, far brighter and purer than ever before. It illuminated every grotesque inch of Faker’s twisted illusions, banishing shadows that had clung so tenaciously to the battlefield.

  Faker’s smirk faltered. His ear abruptly fell off, morphing into a grim puppet of Alexander Jones. The pathetic figure squirmed, trying to escape the sword’s brilliant glow.

  “Here’s the finale,” Eliza said, steady and sure. “Just like that night.”

  She brought Excalibur down in a controlled, devastating arc. An overwhelming surge of light flooded the chamber, consuming Faker’s monstrous puppet, his macabre stage, and every trace of darkness he’d woven. When the brilliance receded, only a mangled half-puppet of Alexander Jones remained, feebly crawling across the floor.

  Eliza strode over and ended it with one decisive stomp. Silence fell, the oppressive darkness lifted, and her heart pounded with the victory she had fought so hard for.

  Meanwhile lounging on a warm beach, Faker tipped back a coconut drink, a lazy smirk playing on his lips. “What a pain… I lost,” he said, voice carrying on the ocean breeze. “Oh well. There’s always next time.”

  His hands warped into tiny puppets—one an exaggerated version of himself, the other a mock Alexander Jones wielding a toy Excalibur. He let the miniature Jones cut down his puppet-self, amused by the twisted irony. Then, with a low chuckle, he dropped them and reclined again, content in the knowledge his grand theater was far from over.

  Back on the ruined battlefield, Eliza sank to her knees, Excalibur returning to its shattered state as her adrenaline finally ebbed. She felt a fleeting surge of triumphant joy, knowing she had faced her darkest terror and prevailed—even if Faker was still alive somewhere else. Exhaustion claimed her, and she collapsed, consciousness fading.

  When her eyes opened again, she found herself in a vast library, towering shelves of ancient tomes looming in every direction. The Bookkeeper’s calm voice echoed through the hushed air.

  “Good morning, Eliza,” he said softly. “You did quite well.”