—Earlier...
Marrow exited the mossy farmhouse, pondering about the recent events and what he'd seen. That Blacklight, as she had chosen to name herself, would be a great ally even if she was just another Returned, but she wasn't. And any other druid below the rank of Father wouldn't have noticed what he had. It's not like he was particularly talented or that he had trained more than others.
As with many things in his life, it was due to his bloodline. Marrow could feel a connection with a type of mana that no other druid even knew about. One very different from all the other affinities, beyond the teachings of the dogma. He had been scared at first when he started noticing in his childhood. In people, in animals, in random spots of the world...
Then, when he got to puberty, he understood what it truly was. A secret element, a 5th pillar of creation that the other druids knew nothing about.
When he told his mother as a child about the mysterious element he could feel, she forced him to make a Core oath to never reveal it to anyone. Marrow had never felt so betrayed in his life. He had sought help, understanding, maybe just comfort, but his mother had looked at him like he was diseased or insane. The only thing she cared about was their status.
He had to leave that home behind after that. Thankfully, the Hunter's Circle greeted him with open arms, once again, thanks to his bloodline. His mother wasn't a descendant of the First Saint like he was, so she couldn't do anything about it. It had been years since the last time he saw her, not that he cared at all at this point. He didn't need the embrace of a mother who only wanted him in her life for her own benefit.
Marrow had met a woman who would love him for who he was, not for his ancestor. He had Jackie now.
She didn't care about his bloodline at all, never treated him any differently for it. She was always so direct, so uncaring about his status. Her refreshing attitude had made him fall head over heels for her in a matter of weeks. The feeling of knowing there was one person in his life who would always see the real man in him filled his heart with the warmth of a thousand suns.
The day he asked her to marry him had been the happiest in his life. The indignant cries of his would-be sycophants had been the cherry on top. They had been married for almost a year now; they should have been planning their anniversary at home.
But they had taken her from him.
There would be rivers of blood covering the entire valley if Jaqueline Dupont had lost a single hair of her gorgeous golden hair. The Hunter's Circle be damned. The whole world be damned.
If Jaqueline Dupont was taken from him, Marrow would become the true scourge of this Strife. He would erase any legacy of his bloodline as he destroyed that of everyone else. Death would walk with him until he reached the prison of the Goddess, then he would ask her to send it all to the hells and be done with it.
He shook his head, pushing the dark thoughts away. Marrow felt ashamed of thinking like that. It was unbecoming of a druid. Besides, Jackie would be sad if he became the dark thing that appeared in his nightmares. The fear of losing her, his true tether to the world of man, was omnipresent, but that's what love meant to him.
Is it even real love if you don't destroy everything after being robbed of it?
Marrow's opinion on the matter was clear.
His mind went back to the strange Returned that used resurrection magic on Sister Cloud. He was deeply regretful of what he had done to her. She was one, if not his only real friend in the world. Besides his wife, of course. Not that there had been anything romantic between them, Cloud had never been interested in him that way, and Marrow was glad for it.
He was also really happy that she had become such quick friends with Jackie, sharing her earthling interests, accompanying her in her studies, and making sure she was safe when his duties with the Path of the Grave occupied him. Marrow had been worried that his wife would feel lonely and isolated in Vorath City. It was already bad enough for Returned to find their place, but for her, as the woman who had stolen the heart of the First Saint descendant, the favorite to become the next Cycle Saint, it had become impossible to fit anywhere.
The rotting radicals had made sure that she wouldn't have friends anywhere. She was shunned wherever she went in Vorath, to the extent that the fear of Marrow's retaliation would allow, though sometimes it went farther than that.
Then they had finally dared to kidnap her. Marrow had been a fool, believing that the problem would solve itself with time. He'd wanted to believe that the order that had given him a home away from his mother and allowed him the chance to meet the love of his life was a positive force in the world, but he'd blinded himself to the truth.
There was a rot, deep and putrid, in the roots of Vorath City. The Hunter's Circle had been contaminated and eaten from the inside out. If it had reached the point of no return or not, he didn't care anymore.
He should have tracked those who made his wife cry and feasted on their souls until not even memories remained of their pitiful existence.
The druid shook his head again. His thoughts kept betraying him, unable to focus on anything but his fury and shame for Jackie's predicament.
But there it was again, that gnawing feeling at the back of his mind. Sister Cloud had used her Mind Fog technique on him to suppress something he shouldn't have known. Rude, but yet again, he had killed her that same morning, so he didn't have much room for complaining.
He only had a small lack of clarity in the last few minutes, so it had to be something said in conversation. Probably by Blacklight.
The Returned that exuded the 5th foundational element that only Marrow could see. One that felt infinitely chaotic yet absolutely still, a lack and an abundance of everything and nothing at the same time. A total conceptual contradiction that defied all logic and dogmatic teachings of any of the druidic Circles or Paths.
Dark mana.
How or why it was so strongly present in Blacklight, he didn't know. Or maybe he had known until recently. Was that the reason why Cloud had fogged his memories? But she couldn't see or know of dark mana, he was sure of it. So then why...?
"Hello, Brother Marrow. I see you have failed in your mission." Interrupted him a voice coming from behind.
Marrow snapped into fighting mode in an exhalation. His right hand got rigid and sharpened into a long point, transforming into a bone lance as he wielded his bone sword in the left. There was no thought, just instinct, as he struck with the intention to kill.
Only air received his deathly blows. Whoever had talked to him was gone.
His eyes darted under his ivory mask, but found no trace of the interloper.
"Don't be so hasty. If I wanted a fight, trust me, you'd know it." Said the invisible person with a giggle. Marrow couldn't tell if they were a man or a woman; their voice was distorted.
Intangibility and sound manipulation. Pneuma affinity. That meant Path of Breath, like Sister Cloud.
He knew how to deal with that.
Marrow closed his eyes and ignored all sounds, focusing on his sense of smell. The myriad scents of the forest, the fruit farm, the animals, the soil, the air... he navigated through them, like a beast finds its way in the wilderness.
His nose caught something that didn't belong.
No doubts allowed, he pierced a spot in the empty air with a mighty thrust of his bone lance arm.
The air rippled a fraction of a second before his attack met its target, and the scent shifted places.
This person was fast. Faster than Cloud. A three ringer? There were no three ringers left in the Path of Breath; they had all been killed along with Cloud's parents.
So who was this?
"Your reputation precedes you, oh mighty Saintborne." Said the voice jokingly, now coming from all around him just as the scent was, impossible to pin down. "You managed to scratch me. I'm actually bleeding! I'm very impressed, really. No wonder they are so obsessed with making you the next Cycle Saint. You are gonna be a true beast one day."
"Who are you? Are you with the radicals?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. I play by my own rules in a game that you don't even know you are playing." The mysterious person giggled again, like they were telling the funniest joke whose punchline only they knew.
"Enough riddles! Where is my wife?!"
"I'm here to tell you exactly that."
Marrow was a little taken aback by that for a moment, but he wouldn't say no to any crumb of information.
"Where did the radicals take her?"
"She's being held by the last survivor of the Path of Hives in her ancestral home. Poor thing. She's almost as foolish as you two. Try not to be too harsh on the poor girl, she's just a little misguided."
"Sister Jelly? Since when is she involved with the radicals? Never mind that, how do I know you are not lying?"
"You don't. But why don't you just follow the scent of honey that Brother Moss carried with him? I know you noticed before. With that nose of yours, you shouldn't have any problem."
"Why are you helping me? Who are you? Are you trying to lead me to my death?"
There was another laugh, followed by an oppressive feeling over his aura. Crushing, heavy, and relentless. The aura pushing on his own was so overwhelming that Marrow could barely stand on his feet without falling to his knees, fighting with all his might as he felt his eyes cry blood from the sheer effort.
An aura so strong couldn't belong to a mere two or three ringer. Not even his four ring masters in the order had felt so unbelievably powerful.
"If I wanted you dead, you would already be." Said the voice, much lower and stern, before returning to a jovial light tone. "As to who I am..."
The voice paused, lifting the pressure from him. Marrow recovered his breath as he felt the wetness coming from his eyes, ears, and mouth. He could have been destroyed in an instant if this person, or whatever they were, really wanted.
"I'm just a snake in the garden." The voice said, laughing melodiously.
The presence disappeared completely, leaving no trace, not even the slightest of scents or aura imprint in the air.
Such a level of control... they could have hidden themselves completely whenever they wanted. Was I being tested by releasing just a little of their scent? It smelled really strange, like nothing I've experienced before.
Whether he was still being observed or not, he had no way of knowing at his current level of power. This garden snake, as they had called themselves, was someone Marrow wasn't eager to make a foe of anytime soon.
"Hold on, Jackie, I'm coming." He muttered, deciding to follow his one clue to find his wife.
———————
At the top of a tree, a figure gave the parting Marrow a knowing smile, observing him as she left the farm's ruins.
"Go to your love, little king. It's always fun seeing any of you struggle in vain against the inevitable. Though I had expected him to be at the altar, I wonder what took him all the way here?" Wondered the interloper, floating in the air, light as a breeze.
Their entire body was black smoke, dark as starless night, with just a pair of glowing yellow eyes and a mouth's silhouette floating inside.
The shadow coiled around the trees, curious about what was in the farm that had changed the narrative expected.
Inside, the snake in the garden, as they had presented themselves to Marrow, saw two things that weren't possible.
The first one was a clearly alive Sister Cloud. Marrow didn't kill her.
Has he given up on his wife? This makes no sense; he knows perfectly well that the Core oath will make him kill her if he didn't kill his target. Why would he spare Cloud? Is he trying to find a loophole? This goes against his character. Did he awaken somehow? No, that can't be it, how could he...?
Then the shadow saw the other person inside and everything else in the world lost meaning.
It was her.
It was HER.
HER. HER. HER. HER. HER. HER. HER.
SHE WAS HERE.
How dare you come back, you bitch. How can you possibly be here again? We killed you. They all died to kill you. I gave up EVERYTHING to kill you. How could you be here again after all the sacrifices? All that we had to do? All I've had to do ever since is keep this going? Was that all for nothing?
Have you come back to finish the job? Is this truly the end? Why else would you come back now, of all times?
I can't stop her on my own, even now. But do I even want to anymore? I'm so tired... and so alone... Maybe I should just give up? I could finally sleep. She could consume my anima, like she did the others. We could all be reunited, at last... I could know true peace...
A face appeared in the mind of the dark smoke, blurred after so long, the details lost to time, pain, and loneliness. Someone loved. Someone lost. Someone sacrificed. All in the name of a lie. All to protect what she had wanted to destroy.
But why would you play among your creations instead of just being done with it? Were you so bored in your time out that now that you are back, you want to torment us and have your fun first? I guess I can understand that feeling now...
Time and isolation were bad companions for someone with no goal. A little madness was to be understood, maybe even embraced. But boredom? Nothing could keep you away from it. That was the real horror of eternity. At some point, everyone breaks. Was SHE back to make fun of how things had turned out? Of the way the one that had survived had ended up becoming the demiurge instead?
No, there's something I'm not seeing. My hate is blinding my reason.
The shadow kept their distance as Sister Cloud and the Creator spoke with each other, drinking in their conversation. But their bright yellow eyes in the dark smoke never lifted from the enemy.
Every word, every movement, every exhalation, every inch of her avatar, her disgusting mockery of their existence. All the details were obsessively saved in memory.
Silent observation followed the battle against the local monsters and the subsequent fight against the druid whose name the shadow didn't even try to remember. He was boring, so why bother? Just a filler character for what should have been a pretty entertaining situation, if a tad mundane and overdone at this point.
But SHE had changed the narrative. Just like always.
The shadow paid attention to the fight that ensued, all the way until they left.
The dark cloud descended to the ground as their form changed back into a humanoid one. It had been quite a while since they took physical form, so the legs took a few seconds longer than they should've to solidify.
Once the humanoid shape coalesced on the charred mark where the ruined farm once stood, wearing a black leather tunic and a demonic mask with long, curved horns and a wicked half grin, half sob, crafted in golden ichor, they spoke in astonishment.
"That was... pathetic. The saddest spectacle I've seen in millennia. Why is Her avatar so goddamn weak? Did She restart from the beginning? Is that how She managed to come back? And what's up with that strange mana signature I felt the whole time? That can't be right. That's Her, right...?" The shadow asked, not expecting anything to answer.
How else would someone in this world be wearing Her face? The face of the enemy that haunted every dream to be had ever since the moment solitude became reality.
"So Blacklight, huh? And you say you are from the future of this world. Is that actually possible? How very..." A big smile appeared on the face under the mask. "... amusing. Is this just a coincidence, or is this part of a bigger plot? Am I being deceived or maybe... this is my chance to have some real fun."
The snake in the garden laughed maniacally, both out of madness and pure glee.
"If this is the way that you want to play before the end, that's fine. Wanna be a little hero this time? Sure. I'm game. Then I'll be your villain."
If she wasn't Her, then it was just unfortunate facial randomness. Some entertainment could be had out of tormenting someone with Her face.
But in the slight chance that this Blacklight really was Her?
Then this truly was the last Cycle.
"Welcome to the end of the world. One way or another, we are all going into the hungry void together. If nothing we do truly matters, then let's enjoy this lie of a life one last time."
