Chapter 148: Endure

  "Harrison... where are you going?"

  The voice was weak, punctuated by a wet, rattling cough that seemed to tear at the throat.

  The room was bathed in a soft, ethereal glow, the source hidden behind a veil of light that obscured the face of the woman sitting on the bed. The air smelled of bitter herbs and fading incense. She sat on sheets of the finest silk, her frame frail and trembling, like a flower wilting in winter.

  We could not see her face, but we could see her hair—a cascade of deep, midnight blue that spilled over her thin shoulders.

  Her hand, pale and translucent as porcelain, gripped Harrison’s hand with a desperation that defied her weakness. Her knuckles were white, her fingers cold.

  "Please..." she whispered.

  Standing by the bedside was a different man. This was not the broken, skeletal figure strapped to a general's back in the wasteland. This was Harrison in his prime. His shoulders were broad, his posture straight, radiating a careless, boundless vigor. He wore his adventurer’s leathers with pride, his hat tipped slightly to shadow his eyes.

  He squeezed her hand back, his grip warm and reassuring.

  "Please wait for me," Harrison said, his voice steady and full of a young man's promise. "I will come back. I promise."

  He reached out, his calloused fingers gently stroking the blue hair away from her unseen face.

  "And... when I do... you will be better," he vowed softly. "Then... me, you, and Linlin... we will go on a trip together. Far away from here."

  The woman’s hand slowly relaxed, sliding from his grip to rest heavily on her lap. She didn't speak again, but the silence in the room was louder than any scream.

  Harrison lingered for a second, then adjusted his hat. He turned his back on the light, on the silk, on the promise, and walked out the door.

  "Lei..."

  The name escaped Harrison’s lips as a dry, cracked whisper, barely audible over the roaring wind of the Zarateph wasteland.

  "What?"

  Zhu Lihua’s head snapped back slightly. She adjusted her grip on the unconscious man strapped to her back, feeling the sharp dig of his ribs against her spine. "Hey, Harrison... hang in there. Just... stay with us."

  She looked around frantically, scanning the devastation surrounding them. They were no longer in the open sands; this was—or had been—a forest. Now, it was a scorched wasteland, incinerated by the intense heat radiating from Tur'uga. Great trees stood like blackened, skeletal fingers reaching for the sky, their leaves turned to ash that coated the ground in grey snow. There was no shelter here, no oasis, only the oppressive heat and the cruel, blinding sun filtering through the haze. Neither time nor condition was on their side.

  "We have to keep moving!" Zhu shouted, her voice rough with dust.

  She and Yukari were running. Not the sprint of a battle, but the steady, grueling jog of survival. Around them, the refugees of Al-Sura were a scattered stream of misery, wagons creaking and children crying as they fled towards the horizon.

  THOOM.

  The ground jumped.

  Behind them, miles away but looming like a monolith, the Living Mountain walked.

  It was slow—agonizingly so. But its stride covered miles in minutes. It didn't rush; it simply arrived. It was an impending doom that refused to be outrun, a shadow that stretched longer with every passing second.

  "Where is that thing going?" Yukari gasped, matching Zhu’s pace. Her breathing was heavy, but some of her stamina had returned, the color flushing back into her pale cheeks. "It’s not just walking aimlessly... it’s heading towards Kah-Kamun?"

  Zhu looked ahead. In the far distance, the faint outline of the great city’s walls could be seen shimmering in the heat haze.

  "That would be bad," Zhu commented grimly, hoisting Harrison higher. "There are more than a million people living there. Not to mention any small villages that are still in the way."

  She looked back at the titan. "If it reaches the city... millions could be in danger. It won't just crush the walls; the shockwaves alone will level the districts."

  Yukari bit her lip, her hand drifting to the ring on her finger. The light in the gem was dim, but flickering.

  "Should... should I try to stop it again?" she asked, though her voice wavered with doubt.

  "No," Zhu answered instantly, firm and absolute. "You already tried. That thing is too big, and you're running on fumes. Leave it to the guys inside."

  Zhu wiped sweat from her brow, her eyes narrowing as she calculated their options.

  "We need to find another way. We need to regroup with the others in Kah-Kamun. Maybe find a way not to stop it, but to divert its path. Take away its main objective, whatever that is."

  She glanced over her shoulder at the limp form of Harrison. His head lolled with the rhythm of her running, his face gaunt and haunted even in sleep.

  "And... we also need to leave Harrison somewhere safe," Zhu said, her voice softening. "I can't fight with him like this. He’s... he’s too fragile."

  Yukari looked at the man. She saw the resemblance in his nose, the shape of his jaw—features she saw in the mirror every day. This was the legendary adventurer. The man who had abandoned her. The man who was now nothing more than a ghost in his own body.

  She nodded, unable to meet his closed eyes.

  "Understand," she said quietly.

  Deep Within Tur'uga

  The cavern was a symphony of destruction. The air was thick with the smell of ozone, pulverized crystal, and the metallic tang of blood.

  "Brother... hurry before I am gone... listen to me... to what I want to say..."

  The telepathic voice echoed in Raito's mind again, weaker this time, like a drowning man calling out from beneath the waves.

  "Okay, this is really annoying!" Raito shouted out loud, his eyes darting frantically across the empty space of the chamber. He sidestepped, his boots squeaking against the crystal floor as the air pressure shifted violently to his right. "Can't it wait?! There is an INVISIBLE chameleon machine in front of me! No, wait—up! Where?! Ah, I lost it!"

  He swung Koenka blindly, the black flames trailing in an arc that sliced through nothing but stale air.

  "My consciousness won't last while Silas keeps pumping its authority into me..." Tur'uga pleaded, the mental projection trembling with agony as the mechanical parasite on the beast's heart throbbed with virulent purple energy. "Please..."

  "Can't do that," Raito said, gritting his teeth as he backed away, keeping his sword raised in a defensive guard.

  "Why?" The voice of the ancient beast echoed with profound shock.

  "Because Yukari is not here," Raito answered, his eyes narrowing as he tracked a subtle displacement of dust motes near a shattered pillar. "If you want to tell someone... especially a confession regarding Harrison... it should be directly to her. Not me."

  He paused, lowering his center of gravity. "So just wait. I'll free you, and I'll make sure you come clean properly to her. Face to face. Got it?"

  "Brother... but—" Tur'uga whispered

  "No buts!"

  Raito's head snapped to his left. He barely had time to bring the flat of Koenka close to his body before a massive, invisible force slammed into him like a freight train.

  CRACK.

  Raito was sent flying across the room, tumbling head over heels until his back slammed hard into the cavern wall. The impact knocked the wind out of his lungs, spiderweb cracks forming in the crystal behind him.

  "Ow, ow, ow..." Raito groaned, peeling himself off the wall. He rubbed his ribs, his black aura flickering defensively. "Okay, that invisibility is really annoying."

  "I... I might be able to help," Tur'uga's voice chimed in.

  "How?" Raito asked, gasping for breath as he readied his stance again.

  "I will do something. Just strike it down while I do it," Tur'uga instructed, the voice fading in and out.

  "That's too vague! What do you mean by 'do something'?! Hey, hey!"

  Raito’s instincts flared. Another heavy strike was materializing right in front of him. With no time to dodge, he let his black flame roar to life. He gripped Koenka with both hands and thrust the blade downward, plunging it deep into the floor—or whatever passed for 'down' inside the beast's anatomy.

  FOOSH.

  The abyss-fire didn't just spread; it erupted. Thick, jagged tendrils of black flame shot out of the ground indiscriminately, turning the immediate area into a chaotic forest of cold, devouring fire.

  "Hey! Watch it!"

  Tanvir’s voice boomed over the crackle of the flames. The burly man had to abandon his assault on Silas’s dome to leap backward, narrowly avoiding a geyser of Raito’s black fire that scorched the hem of his coat.

  "Sorry!" Raito yelled back, scratching the back of his head and offering a hasty bow while keeping his eyes peeled. "This thing is really nimble!"

  Tanvir scowled, dusting off his coat before gesturing angrily at the glowing purple barrier surrounding Silas. "Yeah, well, and this thing is hard. Want to change targets?"

  "Nah, I'm good!" Raito called out, already moving as the air beside him rippled ominously.

  Tanvir sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of his years. "Why do I have to be here with that kid..."

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  He turned his attention back to the parasite god. His muscles coiled, veins popping along his neck and arms. "Haaaa!"

  With a frustrated scream, Tanvir swung his earth hammer in a full, devastating rotation.

  CLANG!

  The impact was deafening, sending a shockwave that rattled the teeth in Tanvir’s skull. But when the dust settled, the translucent purple dome remained flawless. Absolutely zero damage.

  From within the barrier, Silas tilted its metallic head. The singular red sensor pulsed with digital amusement.

  "If I may..." the machine's distorted voice mocked, smooth and condescending. "A supernova might do the trick."

  "In your dreams," Tanvir spat, refusing to back down. He gripped his hammer tighter, channeling even more elemental energy into the stone, hardening it until it gleamed like polished steel.

  "That is your mistake," Silas replied, the mechanical tentacles continuing to pump corruption into the beast's heart. "I don't dream."

  "Are you a machine or a jester?" Tanvir retorted, his chest heaving with frustrated exertion as he glared at the impenetrable shield. "You joke too much."

  "I am GOD," Silas replied simply, an absolute statement from an artificial mouth.

  Whoosh.

  Across the room, Raito threw himself into a desperate forward roll as invisible claws gouged the air where his torso had just been. He came up into a crouch, sweat stinging his eyes.

  If only Yukari were here, he thought, his eyes tracking the non-existent ripples in the cavern's gloom. She could probably freeze the entire room. Then... poof. The invisibility wouldn't matter. The mobility wouldn't be a problem. I really should have switched places with her.

  "Ready?" Tur'uga's voice echoed in Raito's mind, carrying a sudden, desperate weight.

  "Ready for what?!" Raito panicked, his eyes darting wildly.

  Suddenly, the world lurched.

  The horizon vanished. The entire colossal chamber tilted violently, shifting a terrifying ninety degrees in a heartbeat. The groan of stressed tectonic plates and stretching biological matter was deafening. Outside, unbeknownst to them, the Living Mountain was rearing up, standing fully on its massive hind legs.

  "No... definitely not ready!" Raito screamed as gravity betrayed them. The floor became a wall, and the wall became a deadly drop.

  "What is this—?!" Tanvir roared. He was thrown downward before he could even mount another strike against the dome, tumbling helplessly into the abyss of the tilted cavern, his heavy stone hammer slipping from his grasp.

  "Tch. Still have enough power to rebel," Silas noted with cold annoyance. The mechanical parasite didn't fall. Its metallic tendrils were anchored deep into the now-vertical wall of Tur'uga's pulsing heart, holding it suspended perfectly in place amidst the chaos.

  "Now, brother," Tur'uga commanded telepathicly.

  "Now what?!" Raito yelled, his stomach rising into his throat as he plummeted through the air, the wind rushing past his ears.

  But then, his Void-touched senses spiked.

  He felt it. A massive displacement of air. A heavy, predatory intent hurtling through the artificial gravity well right toward him. The invisible Chameleoroid was falling right on top of him.

  Ohhhhh!

  Raito’s eyes widened in sudden, brilliant realization. Without a floor to push off, without walls to cling to, the machine was just a piece of heavy metal in freefall. It had absolutely no mobility.

  "Take this!" Raito roared.

  He didn't fight the fall. He embraced it. Raito focused his abyssal energy, channeling the black flame entirely into Koenka. The fire didn't billow; it condensed, wrapping tightly around the crimson steel until it formed a razor-thin, hyper-dense edge of pure, cutting darkness.

  He twisted his body mid-air, utilizing every ounce of his core strength to swing Koenka in a brutal horizontal arc.

  The combined momentum of Raito's swing and the machine's terminal velocity was catastrophic.

  SHING.

  The blade met resistance for a fraction of a microsecond before slicing clean through. The invisibility cloak shattered like a mirror struck by a cannonball.

  The segmented, reptilian form of the Chameleoroid suddenly materialized in mid-air—severed perfectly into two distinct halves. A geyser of blue electricity and hydraulic fluid sprayed into the darkness.

  Sparks showered violently as the severed circuitry shorted out. A split second later, the two halves of the Chameleoroid exploded in a blinding flash of concussive light and fire, illuminating the falling boy in the belly of the beast.

  The world groaned, tectonic plates shifting within the beast's colossal frame as the mountain settled back onto all fours. The room shook violently once more, the artificial gravity snapping back to its original orientation with a sickening lurch.

  "Whoa!"

  Raito and Tanvir tumbled out of the air, crashing hard against the jagged crystal floor. They rolled, skidded, and finally ground to a halt amidst the scattered, smoldering debris of the Chameleoroid.

  Tanvir pushed himself up, spitting out a mouthful of ash. He wiped his bloody nose and looked over at the boy. "Did you do it, kid?"

  Raito groaned, using Koenka to push himself up to his knees. His muscles screamed in protest, but he managed a weak nod. "I... I think so."

  "Haha!" Tanvir barked a rough, triumphant laugh. He slammed his boot into the ground, and a fresh, even denser hammer of compacted stone materialized in his grip. He turned his fierce gaze toward the purple dome holding Silas.

  "Your guardian is done for. In pieces!" Tanvir roared at the machine. "Now it's only you!"

  Inside the barrier, the red sensor on Silas’s metallic face blinked slowly. It looked at the smoking wreckage of its creation, then back at the two men.

  "I see..." Silas’s distorted voice echoed through the cavern, chillingly calm. "I guess... my job here is done."

  The words hung in the air, heavy and laced with a terrifying, menacing finality.

  Raito and Tanvir looked at each other. The triumphant grin faded from the older man's face, replaced by a grim scowl.

  That doesn't sound good at all, they both thought, the silent agreement passing between them in a heartbeat.

  "Don't let it do anything!" Tanvir shouted.

  They didn't hesitate. They sprinted toward the machine simultaneously, kicking up clouds of crystal dust.

  "Use it!" Raito yelled.

  He channeled the last dregs of his abyssal energy, forcing the black flame entirely into the steel of Koenka. The blade turned as dark as a starless night. With a feral shout, Raito threw the sword like a javelin.

  The black blade screamed through the air, trailing a tail of devouring fire, and struck the exact center of the purple barrier.

  THUNK.

  Koenka didn't bounce off. The black flame ate at the protective energy just enough for the tip of the blade to bite into the barrier, sticking there like a stubborn nail.

  "Haaaaaa!"

  Tanvir was right behind it. He leapt into the air, drawing upon every ounce of elemental earth energy his body could muster. The cavern around them trembled as he funneled that raw, tectonic power into his hammer, making it impossibly heavy.

  He swung downward, bringing the flat of the stone hammer squarely down onto the pommel of Raito's embedded sword.

  Hammer and nail. Earth and Black Flame.

  The combined force was apocalyptic. The shockwave blew Raito off his feet, sending a gale-force wind through the chamber.

  CRASH.

  The impenetrable purple barrier shattered like cheap glass, exploding outward in a million fading shards of light.

  But Tanvir did not let up. The moment his boots touched the ground, he slammed his hand against the cavern floor. Massive shards of ambient crystal levitated around him. With a sharp twist of his wrist, he reshaped them into jagged, deadly spears.

  "Die!" Tanvir roared, launching the crystal spears directly at the exposed machine.

  SHLUCK. CRUNCH. SKREEE.

  The spears impaled Silas, pinning the metallic body to the fleshy wall behind the heart. Sparks erupted violently from the machine's joints, thick black oil weeping from the puncture wounds.

  "Too late," Silas hissed.

  The voice was heavily distorted now, a failing broadcast of static and grinding gears. The red eye flickered, dimming rapidly.

  "I'll see you soon... brother," Silas wheezed, the mechanical head drooping. "If... you are alive to see it."

  The machine let out a final, garbled, distorted laugh that sent shivers down Raito's spine. Then, with a pathetic fizzle of electricity, the red sensor went completely dark. The machine fell silent, its body slumping lifelessly against the crystal spears.

  With a sickening squelch, the invasive tendrils that had been pumping the purple corruption detached themselves from Tur'uga’s heart, sliding out of the pink flesh like dead snakes.

  Raito walked forward, his boots crunching on the broken barrier. He reached out and pulled Koenka free from the debris, the black flame dying down until the blade was its normal, crimson self. He slid it back into its scabbard with a sharp clack.

  "Did... we win?" Raito asked, his chest heaving as he stared at the sparking scrap metal.

  Tanvir stood still, his heavy breathing the only sound beside the thumping of the heart. He looked at the machine, then at the pulsing organ beneath it, and slowly shook his head.

  "No," Tanvir said, his voice grim, devoid of any victory. "I think we just lost."

  "What? But that was Silas! We killed it!" Raito pointed at the wreckage.

  Tanvir shook his head once more, his eyes narrowing. "I don't think... that was its main body. That was just a puppet. A conduit."

  Tanvir gripped his hammer tightly, looking around the cavern as the shadows seemed to grow longer. "We need to be ready for the worst."

  THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP.

  Behind them, the massive heart of Tur'uga beat.

  But the rhythm was wrong. It wasn't the slow, laborious thud of a mountain. It was frantic. Erratic. Faster and faster, until the cavern walls vibrated with a sickening, panicked tempo.

  The fleshy pink of the organ was suddenly overtaken by violent, pulsing veins of dark purple. The corruption Silas had injected wasn't bleeding out; without the machine acting as a regulator, the energy was running completely rampant.

  "Hey! Turtle! Tur'uga!" Raito called out, taking a cautious step back as the air in the room grew suffocatingly dense. "What is going on?!"

  "Turtle, answer us!" Tanvir demanded, raising his weapon.

  A roar tore through the telepathic space—not a thought, but a scream of pure, unadulterated agony that forced Raito to clap his hands over his ears.

  "I.... I CAN'T.... CONTROL MYSELF!" Tur'uga roared, the mental voice distorting into something monstrous and feral.

  The crystal veins lining the cavern walls began to glow with a blinding, toxic violet light.

  "MY VOID... ELEMENTAL... ENERGY... GOING... BERSERK..."

  The ground beneath their feet began to fracture, raw purple power bleeding up through the cracks like magma.

  "HELP... ME..."

  The plea was drowned out by another deafening, physical roar from the beast outside. The entire chamber began to warp and groan under the pressure of the localized, unstable Void energy.

  Tanvir and Raito stood back to back, looking around as the inside of the Living Mountain literally began to tear itself apart around them.

  "Help you?" Raito gritted his teeth, his eyes wide as the cavern walls began to close in. "How?!"

  A sharp, metallic hum drew their attention back to the pinned wreckage of Silas.

  The single red eye, previously completely dark, flickered violently. It lit up one last time, cutting through the purple haze of the room.

  "Oh, and to make this exciting," the machine’s voice box crackled, bypassing the destroyed speakers to emit a raw, agonizing frequency. "What happens next... it rhymes with boom."

  The machine let out a sputtering, mechanical laugh that dissolved into pure static. Then, with a final spark, it turned back off, the red eye dying completely.

  "Rhymes with boom," Raito repeated, his voice barely a whisper. The blood drained from his face as his eyes widened in horror. "No."

  Tanvir looked at Raito, his own weathered face tightening as the pieces clicked together. He looked at the frantic, expanding heart, the rampant violet energy, the sheer scale of the cavern, and finally, the colossal beast itself.

  "He turned it," Tanvir rasped, the horrifying reality settling like a stone in his stomach. "He turned this entire beast... into an explosive."

  The Quake Lord spun around, his eyes sweeping the chamber. "An explosive of compressed Void and raw Elemental Earth energy. It’s a walking bomb."

  "Hey... sorry to ask this, but..." Raito raised his voice, shouting into the telepathic link. "Can you move?!"

  "I..... can't...." Tur'uga’s mental voice wept, choked by the corrupting power. "I... can't... move...."

  "Tch!" Tanvir spat, slamming his hammer onto the crystal floor in pure rage. "All that previous movement. The marching. The destruction of the wasteland. It wasn't a mindless rampage. It was just to position this turtle right in the middle of the region!"

  Tanvir ran a hand over his bald head, panic finally cracking his stoic facade. "Before, we wanted the damn thing to stop. Now we want it to move! Great. Just great."

  THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.

  The heart behind them was practically vibrating now, the purple veins bulging, ready to burst. The ambient heat in the room skyrocketed, making the air shimmer and warp.

  "How long do we have, old man?!" Raito asked, trying to keep his footing as the floor trembled uncontrollably.

  "Why ask me?!" Tanvir yelled back, his composure fully shattered. "I'm not an overgrown turtle! But with the amount of Void and elemental energy this thing has pent up... when it goes, the entire Zarateph region will be gone. Completely. Turned to glass."

  "We need to buy time," Tanvir said, pacing like a caged tiger. "We have to slow down the heart. If we can drop its pulse, we delay the detonation."

  "How?!" Raito yelled.

  He stopped. His eyes darted toward the exit tunnel, then back to the heart. A frantic, desperate idea sparked in his mind.

  "Wait... I know just the person."

  Raito looked up at the ceiling, projecting his thoughts as loud as he could. "Tur'uga! Let us out! I'll bring the person we need to fix this!"

  "Okay..." The response was weak, a fading whisper against the roar of the unstable energy. "I'll... try..."

  "What is your plan, kid?!" Tanvir demanded, gripping Raito by the shoulder.

  "We need to slow down something living, right?" Raito said, his words spilling out in a rush. "How do we preserve food? Meat? Salt, and..."

  Tanvir’s eyes widened as he caught the train of thought. He completed the sentence. "...Low temperatures."

  He looked at Raito. "That hothead's girl."

  "Yes!" Raito barked a manic, breathless laugh. "Yukari is perfect! Hahaha!"

  Suddenly, the crystal floor beneath their feet vanished.

  It wasn't that the floor broke; gravity simply ceased to exist for them. Tanvir and Raito gasped as they were lifted off the ground, floating weightlessly in the center of the chamber.

  "What the—" Tanvir flailed, dropping his hammer, which also floated aimlessly. "How are we floating?!"

  They looked around, completely disoriented in the zero-gravity field created by the beast's internal magic.

  Then, they felt the pressure building. Not from the void energy, but from the very biological walls of the cavern contracting inward like a massive pair of lungs.

  "Sorry..." Tur'uga whispered.

  With a sound like a localized hurricane—the equivalent of a mountain-sized biological sneeze—Tur'uga contracted violently.

  A massive geyser of air and pressure shot up through the blowhole tunnels. Raito and Tanvir were caught in the updraft, launched upwards at terrifying speed, screaming as they were expelled from the belly of the beast.