As the layers upon layers of the array deteriorated, the tone emitted by the music box also turned more calming and soothing, engulfing the atmosphere with sadness and grief. The faint weeping sound resonated with the lovely voice of the mysterious singer, showing her inner emotions, containing reluctance and sorrow.
Once every last bit of defence crumbled, along with the extinguishing of the blazing desire for hope and success, the giant hand gradually advanced towards the couple, who were embracing each other, readied to relapse into the worriless sleep, waiting to reborn together, forever and ever.
Even under the pressure of the approaching death, Ocelia Coruscare remained unwavering and continued to savour the moment of fulfilment, welcoming the weary body of her love, rubbing his silver hair gently, avoiding the abrupt actions that might hurt him.
Enjoying the moment, Forus Ander faintly smiled before using his remaining strength to grab Ocelia's hands and place them on her lap before weakly rose from the ground, sitting cross-legged. Ocelia tried to help him but got rejected by Forus, so she could only worryingly watched her partner painstakingly raised his only hand.
Forus looked around the world, engraving the vision of the world into his memory for the last time before he used his remaining hand to did the unexpected thing.
Using his last hand, he forced his fingers into the eye socket, before exerting all of his power to grab the sphere of sky-like colour, causing pain to run through his body multiple times. Although the pain was immense, Forus didn't even sweat or show any sight of distress. His unreadably pale face withstood tearful agony of losing his vision and both of his eyes, not complaining or lamenting.
With the endless resolution, he exhausted his brain and used it to command his last hand that held the bluish eye to throw the eye at the incoming grip of the death, not caring about the consequence from overusing his mind and brain.
The blood that supposed to gush out from his eye socket didn't come out. Instead, the horrifying roots of the spiritual seed rushed out to occupy its place, forcefully taken another part of his body, preventing him from using his sorcery spells and potions to regrow his lost organs. The bulb popped out of his left eye, blossoming into a pale flower that sucked the leaking blood into itself, turning them into its fruitful nutrient.
The flower twisted and turned, violently spawning leaves and branches, rushing out from the eye socket into the dull, emotionless world. They rushed towards the loose eye and tried their best to take it back. Every bit of Forus would help them absorb his power to become stronger and resisted the suppression from the grey soul and the Death Aura.
The flower immediately activated its defence and started to madly rushed towards the dark hand once it noticed the hand's presence, using its roots to try to bind the hand and absorb its vitality. However, the bulbs that touched the dark fingers would turn into a pile of dark mass that merged with the fingers, becoming a part of the higher being.
After sensing the formidable might of the mysterious hand, the flower began to utilise its sorcery supplied its creator had left as the back-up plan. The enhanced roots began to rapidly grow with the help of the wooden element, turning spiky and tougher, being able to put up a fight with the hand for a moment before turning into dust again.
However, because of its massive numbers, the roots of the flower managed to create a stalemate, indirectly buying time for Forus and Ocelia to live for a little longer. The last gamble that he was confident was this move. The plan was the desperate attempt for survival, filling with lots of assumptions that would kill them if they were correct.
Firstly, Forus risked that the sorceress that planted the seed into his eye was not the godly third-ranked sorcerer and also not a sorcerer trained in the space-related study. With the separation between the world and the pocket dimension, as well as the protection from the Fleeting Emotions Ruin, the creator of the seed would have no way to communicate with the bulbs and telling it to suicide itself to kill him.
Secondly, he also assumed that the seed would have the back-up source of power that would help it in its struggle. As the sorceress was probably at the stage of the second-ranked sorcerer, her scheme would run deep and have many layers of protection to ensure its success.
Thirdly, he gambled that the seed wouldn't have the semi-conscious to control itself and acted according to the situation, as it had never demonstrated such ability even when he was scheming against Ocelia at the Steel Cauldron.
Finally, he further assumed that the sorceress didn't want to kill him with the seed and by herself, as she was the type that would care for her disciples. From the moment that Forus had severely injured the righteous girl, she would develop the gigantic shadow of his silhouette that would suppress her wills power and determination, forcefully stalled her sorcery cultivation progress and distracting her concentration.
If the sorceress cared about her disciple, she would also care about her future, leading to her being unable to kill him, as she needed him to help her disciple overcame the shadow by directly defeating him by herself.
Fortunately, the luck was on his side or maybe the misfortune didn't want him and his partner to rest yet.
The struggling between the flower and the hand slowly lost its balance of power as the flower gradually depleted its source of energy left by its creator, but the black hand didn't show any visible sight of tiredness or wariness, as if it had infinite energy to spare and was toying with the spiritual flower.
Once the flower acknowledged its defeat, it immediately commanded its roots to retreat, disregarding the casualty and forcefully rushed into Forus' eye socket, hiding from the monster of the night. If it couldn't defeat the monstrosity, it would burrow inside its host and used him as the shield.
However, the black hand extended itself forwards, accompanying its movement, space trembled, creating countless small cracks that led towards the darkness of the void. The darkness rapidly poured out from the rifts, letting the tentacles to rush out of the void freely, binding the roots and pulling the flower out from its hiding shelter.
Sensing the pain akin to getting his body ripped apart, Forus casually placed his hand on the flower and grabbed it tightly, uprooting it out from his eye socket with all his might. Using the battle between the fingers of wickedness and the magical roots, Forus decisively disregarded his safety and decided to eliminate the threat that hovered above his soul for a long time.
Finally, realising that its demise was near, the seed decided to abandon all of its occupied territories and disconnected the flower and the roots from its core, fleeing into the deeper part of his conscious and soul. The remaining inefficient parts began to gather at both of Forus' eye sockets, growing into the wood that would hinder his effort at recovering his eyes.
Although Forus would be able to get rid of them if he continued to focus his sorcery energy into his eyes, he wouldn't be able to use them in this mysterious realm where he and his loved would face the bringers of death all the time, increasing the risk of the couple's mistakes that might end their life.
After Forus could confirm that he had dealt an extraordinary blow to the spiritual seed, he laughed loudly without any restained, feeling relieved and genuinely pleased. However, his series of laughter got interrupted by the sudden coughing, causing him to fall onto the ground, losing all of his strength from over exhausting himself.
Fortunately, Ocelia had been waiting for her dear in case he fell onto the ground and successfully caught him from hitting the dirty ground, laying him on her lap, looking into his hollowed eyes without any hints of disgust. Her hand caressed his silver hair as she observed his old, wrinkled facial expression.
Although Forus had lost the pair of sky-like eyes that had previously attracted her and the handsome face that would charm the pure maidens, the love and care that Ocelia had for him still didn't diminish and kept going up as the moment passed.
"You can rest now, my dear. Thank you for everything. It is time for your love to pay you back." Her soft voice echoed the world of light as she gently placed Forus onto the ground that she had covered it with her torn robe before she set her gaze at the mysterious hand.
The hand also finally finished absorbing the spiritual flower and its roots, silently travelling towards the two instead of the icy bonfire. It wished to taste the core of the flower that would be much more delicious than the shoot itself.
Forus could only hear the faint sound of chanting that Ocelia sang, using last bit of her flaming sorcery to summon the leaning tower once more. Most of the tower was empty without any fire spirits as they had already died from the previous battles and struggles. Only some of the fire spirits from the fifth floor, and the sixth floor remained, not counting the ultimate peak of the seventh floor.
The higher the floor, the lower the number of fire spirits as they would become more concentrated and individually stronger than the previous level. The power of the ones on the fifth and sixth floor was akin to the various stages of the third-layered sorcerer apprentices.
With their numbers and total control from Ocelia, she would be able to drag the stalemate for a long time to prolong their struggle. She needed to buy as much time as possible to let her partner rest and gained some of his strength back.
Like before, the fire spirits, under the manipulation of Ocelia, arranged themselves in the patterns that would hold the frontline as long as possible. The fire spirits, disregarding their life, jumped towards the hand and used their self-destruction to force the hand back slightly.
Using their sheer numbers, they managed to push the hand back at the cost of depleting their numbers and exhausting their creator, Ocelia. She quietly panted as her head started to feel dizzy. The mental burden of commanding the fire spirits to create complex formation and using their suicides with the highest effectiveness was very tiring.
At first, there were only the sweats, dripping onto the ground every time she shook her body. After a while, Ocelia would occasionally cough out blood, faintly trembling as her body began to give in. Despite the heavy burden, Ocelia didn't complain and noiselessly endured it all, repaying her fated one with her blood and tears.
Time ticked by, before long, Forus slowly raised his remaining hand, before using it to help him stood up from the ground, trying to find where Ocelia was positioning using his ears. His actions caused the trembling Ocelia to let out a smile as she extended her hand to him, feeling the warmth in his touch that sent the carefree sensation throughout her body.
Suddenly, Ocelia instinctively closed her eyes as something pieced into her eyes, blinding her for a moment. The ray of glowing particles illuminated the world from its dark phase, leading the world from the dark age into the hopeful one.
The dark hand shook as the world trembled, seemingly not welcoming the existence of the monstrous beasts, yelling for the creatures of darkness to scram.
As the world rejected their presence, the music box slowly faded its melody away, and the singer abruptly stopped her song, disappearing into the void along with the several eyes that gradually closed, merging with the nothingness that disappeared when invaded by the light.
Looking at the endless whiteness that casually came into existence, radiating from the dizzy limitless height of the sky, Ocelia Coruscare and Forus Ander silently embraced each other, enjoying the satisfaction of being able to survive the crisis.
Together, they lived.
