Episode 181 - The Battle of Trust

Episode 181 - The Battle of Trust
The capsule pulsed, its waves of black light spreading outward, bending the twisted trees around it. My scar burned, as if resonating with the star's heartbeat.

Ness - The necklace… the queen. When we lived those illusions… Did the queen pass her power on to us? Because… That would explain the force with which we returned.

Luke's eyes widened, his voice trembling.

Luke - That means the queen wasn't chosen. If her power came from this star. And if our powers changed… then we're also bound to her.

Joe's flames sputtered, distorted by the energy waves.

Joe - Maybe this thing is the bridge. The forbidden bridge itself. Don't you think?

The ground trembled again, and from the capsule's radiance, shadows began to detach: shapes forming, stretching, watching. As if telling us we were wrong. Suddenly, a laugh quickly distracted us. We turned around quickly. From behind us, Mixxi began to approach, emerging from the shadows.

Joe - What the hell...?

The one standing before us was definitely Mixxi. I could feel her energy; I knew her mannerisms. But the figure that appeared wasn't her. It wasn't the same small, delicate nymph we had known, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. This was something else. In front of us stood a larger figure, perhaps our same height, with hands stained black, from fingernails to elbows. They had dark stains that looked like ink, like something corrupted.

His eyes were completely black, a deep, empty black.

Mixxi - Why are you looking at me like that? This? This is a small price to pay.

Ness - All this time... You manipulated us, you lied to us.

Mixxi - Yes, perhaps. But... It's for the greater good. I needed your powers, I needed you to get rid of the Shadow King so I could open the portal.

Tobias - The portal?

Mixxi - Obviously. Regum and Earth have been separated for a very long time. Always thinking, always believing that some are better than others, that we are different... When we are the same.

Luke - You're crazy...

Mixxi - No! All dimensions must merge into one: the realm of shadows, the dark realms, the realms of white magic, the gods, the humans, the Regumnians. Everyone must understand that they are finished and can be defeated by a διάβολος.

Joe - A what?

Mixxi smiled, a satisfied smile. He tilted his head and extended his hands upward. In the sky above us, an immense rift opened, something formless, a rift that seemed to reveal the other side of a galaxy. It was a space filled with stars and lights of different shapes and colors. Mixxi, or whatever he said he was, had an impossible smile on his face. It stretched from ear to ear, as if drawn in a cartoon. Eerie.

A ringing in my ears, along with an indescribable pain that shot through my leg, became present. Suddenly, my whole body ached again.

Ness - Stop! You're going to destroy everything, not just Regum, all the worlds.

Mixxi didn't even turn to look where we were, he just kept raising his arms higher, while the gap got bigger, and everything around us seemed to be pulled towards the gap in a way that didn't follow the laws of physics. The wind howled, though there was no wind, only the force of the rift, dragging leaves, branches, and even fragments of earth into the swirling void. My scar burned so fiercely I thought my leg would snap in two, each pulse synchronized with the gap widening above.

Luke - He’s shattering the balance!

Joe’s flames burned wildly, leaning toward the rift as if magnetized. He gritted his teeth, forcing them back.

Joe - If he succeeds, there will be no Regum, no Earth. He’ll destroy everything as we know it.

Tobias staggered forward, his voice strained.

Tobias - Mixxi, listen to yourself! You’re not merging worlds, you’re feeding them into something else.

Mixxi’s black eyes glowed, his voice resonated unnaturally, with tones that weren’t his. Not the ones we knew.

Mixxi - You still don't understand. This isn't destruction. This is liberation. The dibloid devours boundaries. It makes everything one.

Suddenly, a dull thud sounded behind us. When I turned around, Luke and Joe were on the ground, pinned down by a force heavier than both worlds combined. Behind them, a hypnotized figure, its face expressionless and its hand outstretched, held them. It held them with magic, with a force that made their entire bodies tremble just from trying to stay on their knees. Tobias and I stared at the figure behind them, a blank stare into the distance, a mark like a tattoo on his arm.

Tobias - You... Are you part of this?

We looked at each other.

Ness - Tobias, this... Now we're really screwed.

Facing us, against us, was one of the figures who had sown the most doubt in such a short time, the person who raised us in our first life and the person for whom we lost everything the first time. Luke, his hands behind his back as if they were tied, used all his strength to twist his head back. He opened his eyes and frowned, his expression a mixture of disappointment and pure anger. An anger I never thought I'd see on Luke's face.

Mixxi - Now do you understand? You're screwed.

Luke - Elowen! What are you...?

Elowen only moved a finger of his outstretched hand, enough power to slam Luke's face into the ground.

Luke - Not you. Not you! We sacrificed everything for you.

Mixxi - She can't hear you. It doesn't matter what you say.

Suddenly, a noise was heard again from further back, a dull thud that sounded like something very heavy had fallen. When we noticed him, Mercavian was behind us, his body heavy with gravity, his knees bent. His face looked older than he'd ever been. He looked at us, confused, then around, at the sky. He looked at Elowen.

Merc - El?

Elowen didn't even move, didn't even blinked. Mercavian approached slowly, walking around Elowen and standing in front of her, staring intently into her empty eyes, her expressionless face.

Merc - El, my love?

Mercavian stared at Elowen, stunned. He knew something was wrong, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Or perhaps he already knew and was simply struggling with the denial of what it all meant. Suddenly, the emptiness was filled again by Mixxi's intense laughter—not the sweet laughter we knew, but a macabre, dark, sinister laugh.

Mixxi - She's dead. I'm just using her body as my vessel now. I hope you can forgive me. I think she was important to you, but her body was mine from the start.

Mercavian staggered.

Merc - What... What are you talking about...? No. Not that...

Mercavian was breathing rapidly, agitated, scared for the first time. We watched as the stone man who would have sacrificed anyone for Elowen's life began to shed tears, tears from the heart, tears he could not control. He was hyperventilating, his entire world crumbling with a single sentence.

Merc - You're lying!

To be continued..