Aren’s mind drifted to Priscilla, in the milliseconds that passed as he slowly bled to death. He thought of their first meeting, where they both awkwardly wondered why neither one of them wanted to move on. Aren, who was bound to the Island of Beginnings because of his deteriorating mental and physical state, and Priscilla, a mysterious and seemingly powerless denizen, spent two months together and that time changed him fundamentally.

His mind inevitably returned to the crumbling ideal of finding her, even as it bled out of his system. He wanted to hold on to it, but it fell through his fingers like tiny particles of sand. He wanted to stand up and fight, but even a task as simple as breathing was becoming too difficult.

The idea of dying slowly became more and more attractive. Theta told him that if he never met the anomaly that the future would not change. If he died here, Aren wondered, would the AGMI still come after Aren? If he lost his [Revival of the Queen of Monsters] quest, could he be free and live a normal life — a normal, meaningless life?

Maybe that wasn’t so bad.

Then fury warmed up his freezing heart. How could that possibly not be a bad thing? There were things in the world that were worth dying for, and those who had something like that were probably both blessed and cursed. But Aren had something different. He had something worth living for! In fact, he was absolutely not allowed to die. How lucky those people must be if their dreams could be achieved through death!

A pulse of lightning surged through Aren’s body, stabilizing his slowing heart rate. It was weak, but it was there. His lightning reserves were at less than a quarter — probably at less than a fifth actually — and yet, his buffer kept weaving those strands of lightning energy, keeping him from death. It was not enough to stop his bleeding, and the faster his heart rate became, the faster he was hurtling towards death.

But it wasn’t giving up.

Aren thought of the strange nature of his class and skill-set. He thought of how it made him calm. He thought of how it turned the almost lifeless shell of what was once a human, then broken by pain and despair in real life, and turned it into an adventurer that made others want to stick with him and follow him. If it weren’t for Lightning Blade, Aren would be alone now, sitting in Leone and trying to figure out how to make a living — provided that he even wanted to log in, in the first place.

It was all thanks to that class, and the one who gave it to him, that Aren could make friends and feel as if life wasn’t terrible. Any happiness Aren felt since then was thanks to Priscilla — who, even after being annihilated by the end of the world, protected him and gave him something to live for.

Suddenly, Aren realized something and laughed weakly. If he had strength, he would’ve laughed so hard he would’ve probably passed out. But then, in that situation, he just laughed weakly, and tears filled his eyes.

“You finally figured it out,” he heard Camille’s voice, calling to him from beyond the boundary of his fading mind. “She broke the rules to give you the means to survive this world of monsters, and she gave you her blessing. Of course, she also gave you a weapon.”

Her tone was almost mocking — devoid of that fear and wariness she had of humans. Perhaps reading Aren’s mind all the time made her realize what a fool he was. And what a fool he was! How did he not realize this sooner?

Priscilla was not a quest giver. She did not send him on some useless game-generated quest. She was a denizen; one who was afraid of causing more issues for Aren, but nevertheless wanted to be saved. She was a generous, self-sacrificing person. If anything, Aren robbed her of the opportunity to die peacefully. Instead, Aren infected her with the deadliest disease — hope! Hope that, maybe just like Aren, she could have one good thing in her life.

All this time, Aren thought that Priscilla’s gift was incomplete. He thought that in order to find her — to fulfill both their wishes — he would have to find a lightning blade.

Only now did he realize that he had it this entire time.

It wasn’t just that, but the reason his skill-set was still pulsing lightning through his system, trying to bring him back from the brink of death, was because she was there with him, in a way. Through the [Automatic] tag of his [Lightning Manipulation] and the reason why he kept finding new ways to use his skills. Perhaps it was Leviathan’s doing as well, but not once did he even suspect that they both were helping him.

He cracked his right eye open and glanced at the crystallized black rose, which he held in his right hand. When did he even reach for it? It was like his body was more honest than he himself was.

He smiled at the description of the item, which the game showed him, and hugged the rose to his chest.

[Black Rose of the Exalt: A crystallized vestige of calamitous destiny. Forged in the Plane of Lightning, it acts as a unique conduit to its annihilating energies. This is a class-specific item. It is the core of a lightning blade*.*]

Aren often held this item but never before had he done so when his buffer was open. This time, with an open buffer, he felt like he was a circuit which was now complete. It was as if a missing part of himself had just awoken.

The water around him evaporated, becoming mist. The ground around him began to melt. Lightning surged through him with such potent force that Aren was lucky that he was deaf. But he felt the sonorous sound in his bones, more violently than even that dark creature’s roars. It reverberated not only in his body but in his soul as well.

He had never felt closer to Priscilla than he did at that moment. Even when they shared two months together, he did not feel her presence this strongly. Maybe it was because he missed her, but there was also another explanation.

The lightning flashed over the crystallized rose and it bloomed in his hands, petals coming to form a round hilt-guard, while the stem became thicker. Brilliant light and low, humming sound emitted from the fragment of lightning that shaped the blade, eerily similar to the sword Camille made for him.

The blood pouring from Aren’s wounds vaporized and tongues of electricity arced between torn flesh, not only cauterizing the wounds, but also slowly knitting them back together. Aren felt his reservoir of lightning energy quickly deplete, but so much was pouring back in that it wasn’t a net loss, but a net gain.

Aren felt his strength slowly return to him, and although his wounds were still a major concern — at moderate and critical, now, for his arm and neck respectively — he felt like he could fight. No, not just that. He was excited to fight.

[ Priscilla’s True Will activated. ]

Aren could not even be surprised anymore. He just perceived the notification as in a dead-pan manner. Until now, he thought he was always under the effect of that blessing — or a lesser version? — when his morale was high, but now it seemed as if he just fooled himself into having high morale.

This was different. This feeling was like Unity but even stronger.

[ Blade of the Exalt: This was the sword of the Exalt. Her Will lives on in all monsters that dare to defy fate itself, and this sword embodies that struggle and Her wishes. When She was banished from the world, only her sword and the hope enshrined within her heart remained behind.

It is an indestructible Artifact*.*

It is a key to unlocking the greater mysteries of a certain class.

It is lost on death. ]

Aren gripped the hilt tighter as he read and re-read the words materializing in his mind. Aren understood, in a way, that Priscilla entrusted him with her hopes and wishes. She gave him not only the means to survive in this world, but also to defy destiny. And some part of her hoped that, with this power, Aren would subvert the destiny that was in store for her.

“You knew,” Aren whispered, his words trailing off as the brilliant white and cyan light illuminated one side of his body, pulsing and causing his shadow to dance at his feet. “That’s why you were not helping me. You wanted me to come this far on my own.”

Only silence came to reply to Aren’s words, which were directed at both Leviathan and Camille.

In his heart, he uttered a quiet thank you. No words needed to be spoken out loud with those two entities. He never imagined he would say those two words to an AGMI. Not after everything that happened — and not just his recent accident. This society and age has been difficult for Aren and his family. Nothing ever seemed to go the way he wanted them to, but now, in a way, he was grateful for that struggle as well.

Under the effects of [ Priscilla’s True Will ] many things could be glimpsed under a different light. He felt more confident in himself, and things like fear, despair and sorrow were such distant concepts that Aren couldn’t really claim that he was in the eye of a storm anymore. It was just calm skies now. And, on the lines of such an analogy, the breeze felt like Priscilla stroking his hair again. The warmth was like their fingers interlocked together. The sound of the waves in the distance, and the electric hum of her sword, almost sounded like she was whispering to him.

The next words that resonated in his heart were: I will find you.

In terms of macros and aliases, it did not feel like the lightning blade had any. But there was something different about it. Aren could not explain it. To begin with, macros and aliases were player-defined functions. Aren never thought about where such an idea might have come from. It was easy to assume that it was a convenience that naturally arose, but what if — what if — it was not an original idea?

Aren took in a deep breath, very slowly. He felt the charge in the air molecules, as the extreme energy of his lightning blade knocked electrons off of their orbits just through its sheer, calamitous presence. His hairs were standing up and Aren was half-expecting a static discharge at some point in the near future which he would never forget.

Manipulating his buffer has never been so easy, and the lightning blade itself had its own calculation space for sequences, but it did not quite feel like a sub buffer. It felt like an extension of his own buffer, a part of him that was a part of her.

So, she used this sword, he thought to himself, unable to contain his smile. The happiness of just holding an object that was important to her was indescribable. He did not want to let her down, and now he felt like he couldn’t let her down.

He felt invincible. Even though he was missing an arm, and his head was nearly decapitated.

His eyes peered through the wall of fire in front of him, where he sensed the monstrous entity waiting for him. His [Arcane Predator] ability had passively gathered enough information about this creature that Aren began to understand something about it. Its origin, its one wish, and the reason it became a demon.

The death line shimmered into existence again as Aren exhaled the breath, lightning arcing between his lips.

Aren closed his eyes.

His perception of space changed, now, when he used [Flash]. He wasn’t just blindly going forward, but could now sense his surroundings from that same bird’s eye view sensation he had with an open buffer, but usable, for once, beyond simple situational awareness.

And the feeling of traveling through space itself was different. It wasn’t an instantaneous thing, but it rather felt like he was falling and floating at the same time — weightless and yet pulled towards his destination.

When Aren emerged from his [Flash], the lightning blade was already in mid-swing, and the energies pouring from its blade made such a powerful sound that it shattered several crystal formations overhead.

The monster stood right in front of him, and it was shrouded in shadows that rose off its form and evaporated under the incinerating heat of the lightning blade.

The impact of Aren’s lightning fragment and the beast’s elbow-blade produced such a massive pulse of infrared radiation that it caused the grass beneath them to shrivel up and die; and there was enough force in both blows to send each combatant stumbling back several steps.

Aren regarded the monster coldly — now even more monstrous than before. He realized that it had been holding back. To begin with, it was a spirit. It just happened to be possessing a body. Its true form and power were still a mystery, but Aren understood now that until then, it had only been using the power of its physical body.

Aren widened his stance slowly as the death line began to dance between them again, shifting and changing directions as the outcome of this duel and hunt became more and more unpredictable.

Then the death line settled on an outcome.