Chapter 189: It Was All Over

Words : 1552 Updated : Oct 14th, 2025

It was Chelsea grovelling in a pool of her own tears from across the room — except her tears were replaced by bright red relentlessly flowing streams of blood as she clawed her hands forward, her fingers blistering and tearing against the ground. Victor involuntarily shuddered in his position at the sight and froze — not that anyone could notice as much as he seemed to just stand in the darkness, seemingly unmoving. It was like a bolt of lightning, served by the cruel grace of reality, had struck him from above, causing layers of Immersion to almost shatter once more again. Victor felt something inside of him get torn under the mask as he looked at the sight of Chelsea. Her expression couldn't be described simply by mere words, and her cries and loud moans had even less of a chance of comprehension. Chelsea's expression was warped as a anything that could be described as twisted. Blood streams rolled from her bloodshot eyes in place of tears and the look in her eyes was shattered and utterly broken. Her previously beautiful bright orange hair was dishevelled with considerable patches of it missing off her scalp, as if they had fallen off her head by themselves. Her contrasting appearance, from the beautiful, bright, and boisterous young girl Victor had memories of, even if short and non-particularly impactful, to the terrifying, aghast form of her current reaction, left a more severe scaring impact than most other experiences Victor would admit did to him. She clawed at the air and ground, her fingers clenching and gripping forward emptily towards the drying pool of black blood where Nicodemus had once bathed in, as if to reach out for something and hold it tightly. But whatever it was Chelsea so desperately wished she could reach and take back...it was gone. But the one who had taken it from her was still standing right there... All of a sudden, Chelsea's bloodshot eyes snapped at Victor, blood and tears mixed morbidly, making Victor jolt again on his spot. A red tint, deeper than any shade of blood or red filled her orange eyes, tainting those warm, soft and bright colours with a bestial like, inhumane gaze. "YOOUUUU!!" Chelsea raored. "YOU KILLED HIM!!" Her voice thundered through and seemed to make the whole chamber shudder and quake. But the thing was, it wasn't just the chamber they stood in. The whole of Dark Castle shook actually. But it aslo wasn't as a result of how exaggerated Chelsea's cry might have been. Now that Nicodemus was dead, Dark Castle which had been summoned as a Spell of his...was coming undone from the seams. It was crumbling. But none of this seemed to matter to those who were present in the chamber, including Victor at that moment. Chelsea's words — her wrath, her emotions...all of it shredded through him like carving knives, tearing him apart from inside 'Ah...' His lips parted under the cold mask, but then cut into a thin bitter smile no one could see. Victor's left hand trembled and twitched, and an implosion of emotions and sensations bombarded his heart as he suddenly felt the almost unrestrainable urge to squeeze his chest. Perhaps if he smiled and did so, whatever he was feeling — all that he was feeling... Maybe it would hurt less? 'So that's how it is?' But Victor didn't and held his hand down, the flat smile on his face under the mask growing constricted. If it was like thos, he decided then, he couldn't falter or go back now. Even in such a situation, he was still smiling. As the rest of the world seemed to shudder and collapse, it seemed to all become a back drop towards him, and Victor slowly turned his face and his mask moved towards Alexander who was equally frozen in place, gazing emptily at where served as Nicodemus's last moment with an indescribable gaze. "YOU KILLED HIM!! YOU KILLED NICOO!!" Chelsea's shouts and screams, as she was barely being restrained and held back by Trise who was equally in tears, fearful, but sane enough to recognise the gravity of the environment around them, resounded over like a backdrop to Alex. Then slowly, as if he felt the gaze, Alexander slowly moved to lock eyes with the Masked Stranger — Victor. Or at least, he believed too, it was hard to tell because of the terrifying Mask, but Alexander... currently wasn't thinking of that. There was an inexplicable emotions in those seemingly wide and blank empty blue eyes as they reflected the Masked stranger against their surface, almost as if to burn the image — immortalise the Stranger in all of his dark, sinister glory into his memory and aoul. By this point, the smile under Victor's mask vanished, replaced by a deep, and seething cold expression, devoid of all emotions and regard. Victor was no less unlike the terrifying Mask he wore — cold, deep, and unfathomable. Before anything else could happen as the two's gazes locked across from mid-air, a familiar dark voice that was like a low rumble from the earth resounded. "A Hero's farce." It was from Victor. No, the Masked stranger. As the familiar deep and heavy voice aloofly echoed like a dark ebbing of tide, all three of the cadets involuntarily had their attentions drawn to the mysterious stranger. His words seemingly spoke to no one in particular, but even Chelsea was forced to reing in her ranting in tears and listened. The stranger was gazing at Alexander, but none could really tell, as those empty, black slits seemed to look into 'all' their souls with distance. "Your cries mean nothing, your cheers all the same. All your efforts in the end shall all be crowned meaningless. Look around you, what do you see? Hope? Peace? A happy ending? Or is Death? Indeed, in the end none of it matters." He took a step backwards, sinking further into the dark as the ceiling collapsed, his cold voice ringing off the crumbling words hauntingly as he vanished. "Remember this," he said. "This is all because you were weak." The stranger sank into the darkness as his figure vanished along with his departing words, when a massive portion of the ceiling suddenly crashed into the ground where the stranger had been, drowning the cadets and the rest of the chamber in a thick rolling sea of dust clouds and scattering debris that sent them flying off their positions. A thunderous boom resounded upon impact, and at the same time, a powerful bright light, akin to a flash of lightning pierced through the air from above, incinerating the ever present darkness of the chamber. Alexander rolled against the ground before regaining his bearing and looked up, feeling light headed, only to wince immediately. 'It's bright...!' The portion of the ceiling which collapsed seemingly let in an influx of an endless wave of bright light, that to someone like Alex and the cadets who spent who knew how long adapting to the shifting ancient darkness all this time could only wince and hiss at the intruding radiance and its suddeness. But once he managed to ignore the pain and looked closely, he could vaguely make out the strange figure of a person standing high up in the air above the collapsed ceiling, their form seemingly at the center, radiating bright sparks and halos of light that completely drowned down the ancient darkness. Alexander's first instinct was to rise and defend himself, or run. Was it still another enemy? A monster? Or maybe it was the Masked stranger? Even after everything it still wasn't over now that Nico was dead...they still had to escape the Labyrinth, and the the Dungeon... And between them and that was a whole realm of Monsters waiting... Amidst his thoughts, slowly, the person up above slowly descended down against the ground, it was then Alex realised he could faintly make out the familiar boiling red sky of the desert above the collapsed ceiling. But what caught his dreary attention the most was the fluttering uniform of the mysterious person's clothes, and a familiar, welcomed academy Insignia entered his sights. The soft reassuring voice of a female entered his ears. "Everything is all right now." Alexander wanted to breath a deep sigh, but the moment he would, he felt he would most like pass out from everything he had been through. And just then, Alexander gazed at the figure standing over him like a god-sent, his eyes narrowing involuntarily at the bright light ensuing over every corner of the chamber. Finally, it was all over. And all of a sudden, the ancient halls of Dark Castle didn't seem so dark anymore. In fact, it had never been brighter... * * * [End of Terra Sanguis/Dark Castle Arc] —[End of Volume One: A Saga Of Heroes] [A/N: thank you all and those of you who have bared with me this far until the end of the First Volume, after a truly long and arduous journey ;⁠) ps. Please refer to the author's notes for more information.]

Chapter 189: It Was All Over

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