A scarlet fountain melted into a mad infestation of worms, they wriggled beneath the arm's skin as they consumed it voraciously.
Syllian calmly gazed at the incoming tide of worms rippling up the arm gripped in his hand.
Then, the dying boy flung it away.
And watched it be consumed by its predator.
The rain.
Syllian struggled to sit up but did so eventually.
He crawled to the edge of the shoulders, his fingertips stung mildly, but they weren't cold. They had a nice, comfortable warmth to them.
Peeking over the edge, he found Allen.
His right arm had been severed from the elbow, and the horde of worms were rapidly claiming their territory.
But, Allen-
-Allen was calm.
He stood peacefully, a soothing smile sat on his face while he gazed upwards.
Allen's brown irises radiated with uninhibited joy, they were sprung with inhumane life.
It was as if the worms weren't consuming him from the inside out.
He didn't cry.
Didn't beg.
Just smiled.
Syllian looked into his eyes carefully and finally noticed what he had missed before.
Lanner's death was carved into those eyes.
Then Syllian realised that he was wrong.
Allen had been begging all along.
He had been crying all along.
The boy...
Allen opened his mouth and uttered calmly.
"I'm glad you're safe."
...simply wanted to reunite with his brother.
But if that's all he wanted, then why did he go on for so long?
Why suffer for so long?
'Because of me?'
Allen was glad that he was safe, but why endure so much for something that stupid?
"Why?" Syllian asked him, confused and visibly shaken by Allen's erratic determination.
But, Allen just smiled.
And.
Fell back.
Slowly through the rain and misery.
Slowly through the neverending night.
And into the waters.
His night was over.
---
Syllian was left without answers.
None of it made sense.
Why did Lanner actually sacrifice himself to save Syllian?
Why did Allen go through so much to make sure Syllian was safe?
Why were the twins so twisted in their beliefs and goals?
Syllian shifted his head to Helen.
The person who could answer all of his questions was right there.
And the person herself was staring right back at him.
Syllian could feel the darkness pulling at him from all around, tempting him to sleep. But her gaze locked onto him mercilessly, the clanging of the chains wrapped around him kept him sound awake.
'I can't sleep yet.'
He still had two Trials to complete and many questions to ask.
If running this far up wasn't enough to complete the Third Trial, then Syllian had to run even further.
The only other location left to run to was the Mistress' raised right palm.
'One last climb.'
Syllian cast a bitter shadow over his face, "...Can I even make it?"
The boy didn't know if it was possible to take another step in this condition, let alone climb a forearm.
Doused from head to toe in sweat, blood, water; and tears, Syllian couldn't see the light on the other side.
There was only darkness in sight.
Helen grasped his hand.
She stood above while looking down at his eyes, She turned her gaze from his face to the palm reaching for the sky.
Her message was concise.
Syllian abided.
---
At some point along the climb, Syllian lost his hairband, he didn't remember when anymore.
His dark strands of hair clung to his face.
Syllian wasn't walking.
His knees scraped on the stone, amplifying the pain in his left thigh.
A trail of blood echoed behind him as Syllian dragged his body along the statue's collar.
He had to traverse from the left shoulder to the right shoulder, and walking wasn't an option-
Splash!
Puddles of water smashed into his face.
-so he crawled.
And crawled.
Crawled...
Crawl...
'Am I crawling...?'
Thud.
His head bumped into the statue and Syllian realised he made it to the elbow of the arm.
He didn't know when he made it, it all felt like one convoluted mess in his brain.
But he was happy that he did.
'Am I happy?'
Looking up at the dozen-metre-high climb he had to complete, Syllian mindlessly continued his journey.
His mind was roaming elsewhere, occupied by other thoughts to keep his brain awake.
Syllian trudged up as he clasped a section of the forearm.
The boy's ears no longer picked up on the noise below, but if they did, all they'd hear was-
PAH-! PAH-! PAH-!
-the furious assault of tentacles.
Waves of dark waters plunged into the cracks of the statue, slamming away the incoming bullets of rain.
Syllian was unaware of it all.
He simply pulled with one arm, supported himself with the other, and then pulled once more.
Pull, rest, repeat.
---
'Pull...'
He commanded his limbs to move and hoped that they did so.
"Hoo..."
He commanded his mouth to breathe and seriously hoped it did so.
"Pull..."
Syllian reached out, but his hands pulled at nothing.
He was trying to pull the air.
'Air?'
Looking up for the first time in what felt like years, Syllian's neck felt extremely stiff and uncomfortable, but he pulled it off in the end.
There it was.
The endless incoming body of water.
The horizon was rising.
And below, millions of tentacles invaded the world, reaching up and around the Mistress of The Night.
Syllian was almost halfway off of the end of one of the statue's fingers.
Almost lying over the edge.
"I- Did- It-"
He couldn't believe it.
Did he make it?
Him?
This wasn't a hallucination?
A dream?
While Syllian imagined every scenario...
A sadistic, devilish voice blew a voice into his ear.
Lingering, and echoing through his body.
Almost as if it was trying to seduce him.
[Third Trial Complete]
'It's not a dream...'
Syllian's body collapsed, it was battered, broken and bleeding.
It was numb.
He felt numb.
All of this.
This whole journey.
Through thick and thin; through endless despair.
Just to escape a Trial of Ruin.
Clang...
But he hadn't escaped just yet.
Syllian ignited the flickering embers within him just enough to turn his body around.
There She stood.
Helen.
The Mistress of The Night.
The Caller, and Call of The Night.
The Night itself.
"You made it."
Her childish voice was gone, replacing it was a peaceful, lady-like tone befitting a Mistress.
It didn't sound overbearing or condescending.
It felt noble.
Syllian, though, wasn't so noble.
He cackled, bursting out a few mouthfuls of blood in the process.
"M-made it? Haa... You call this- Cough! -making it...?"
She held Her hands behind Her back, staring down at him with a neutral face. There were no smiles to be found on Her.
"Who are you? How are you not affected?"
Syllian held a grim smile on his face, but on the inside, he wondered, 'Who I am? Affected?'
"No matter what I attempted, you, a simple Human, somehow avoid it. You accomplished a feat befitting of a ########."
'Huh?'
The last word, the Net of Ruin didn't translate it.
'Is it keeping information away from me?'
Syllian had many questions he wanted to ask, so many mysteries he wanted answered.
Such as:
Why this place was always nighttime?
Why did that whirlpool appear?
Why did that specific Mutant fear the dark water and was even killed by it, but the others weren't?
What those tentacles were, and why did they have the same worms acting as weapons that were beneath the skin of those Mutants that attacked them during that siege?
Why was The Adler targeted, and why was The Adler traversing these waters in the first place?
But he couldn't get answers to all of them, he had no time left.
"W-who are- Cough! -you...?"
She twisted Her head to the side, raised one of Her fingers and pointed at Herself:
"Me? I thought you knew, you've stated it multiple times already."
Syllian spat out another mouthful of blood and then changed his question slightly.
"Which a-are you...?"
She was silent for a second, then, She took a step forward.
Something had changed, something within Her shifted; dangerously so.
Then another one, and another.
Until She stood right on top of him.
Her facial expression shifted into a stern, maddening figure.
She spat out of Her mouth:
"You know."
Then the Mistress of The Night paused, looked down at Herself, and returned to Her calm visage.
Almost as if Her previous actions hadn't occurred; it was as if She was unaware of Her anger, Her seething rage.
She then questioned him out loud-
"How did you avoid my Song? The others quickly fell to it, but you... You didn't."
'Song... Fell to it...'
Syllian immediately understood.
She had been using manipulation abilities all along, that much he knew, but now he knew why She was consistently focused on him.
Because he wasn't affected.
Perhaps because this was a Trial of Ruin?
Or was there another reason?
Then there was something else he was curious about:
"W-why did you- Argh!" A painful cough exploded out from his chest.
"Did you- Cough! -wait till now. Why not do this- Cough! -before?!"
She answered him with a very simple answer.
"It's impossible."
Impossible, for a being of Her scale to say something was impossible...
Syllian couldn't even start to imagine what this place actually was or if it even existed. There was a solid chance this was a fake creation of the Net of Ruin.
But everything was too mysterious, too convoluted.
Why create a Trial filled with mystery and questions that could never be answered?
"Answer me, what, who, are you?"
Syllian slowly raised his right arm in response, letting his sleeve fall down.
Beneath the sleeve of his tunic, a grey cloth appeared.
[First Trial]
[Return that which does not belong to you.]
He thought it meant putting this cloth on the statue's palm because it wore a grey blindfold too. But that was wrong.
The Third Trial didn't appear until it was possible for him to accomplish the Trial.
So the fact that he received the First Trial before the statue ever appeared meant he could have completed it on The Adler.
It belonged to Her, to Helen, all along.
That created another question, how did that Mutant steal it?
Syllian felt his throat suffocating him, it was too frustrating.
So many questions that he couldn't get answered.
The girl looked down at him; seemingly forgetting Her previous question.
Helen reached for it and untied it from his arm.
Clasping the grey cloth intimately, She slowly unfurled it, letting it flutter in the wind.
Then She, Helen, the Mistress of The Night, raised it to Her face.
Wrapping it around her eyes, the girl tied it gently at the back.
The blindfold had been returned to Her.
Then, the blindfolded girl looked up at the night sky and gently raised Her right palm.
It felt like a predetermined set of instructions was playing out before his eyes; it was meant to be.
It had to be.
The girl then muttered:
"Freedom..."
Then, the devil returned for the final time.
Whispering once more, beckoning once more;
Drawing Syllian into its embrace...
[First Trial Complete]
He warmly closed his eyes, allowing the world to swallow him into its darkness.
He fell...
And fell...
Until the night embraced him.
---
Down below.
Beneath an ocean of clashing tentacles.
A dead path of leaves lay undisturbed.
Flutter...
From above this path, the verdant trees drowning beneath the tentacles swayed slightly, allowing a few more leaves to join the pile beneath.
Swaying down, the luscious green leaves rested with the dead.
Until at some point, their life force drained away as they crinkled apart into grey, lifeless bodies.
On this day...
6 leaves entered the eternal embrace of The Night.
*****
[End of Volume One - The Night]