Still stuck to the wall and struggling, Farron muttered with increasing intensity, "No, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no." and strained against the pins with a manic strength, desiring more than anything to break free. But he was weak.
His metallic bonds intensified the feeling of ice in his veins and seemed to freeze him in place as blood flowed vigorously down the blades and his chest.
His heart pounded in his breast, a wild drum that echoed his desperate, silent plea to Life, to God or gods, to anything. He pleaded for Elise's life and freedom from this nightmare but was granted nothing.
Sweat mingled with dust and grime and soaked his robes as the salt in it stung the bloody flesh on his chest, the pain intensifying his resolve to break his bonds.
The swords slowly and barely gave under his mania, but it was too little. Their steely grip kept his helplessness at the forefront of his mind. The facade of power granted to him by magic that he held tightly before was now reduced to a distant hope in his desperate situation.
Elise was on her stomach in front of him, silent and still. Lao stepped over her back and grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked it up to reveal her face to Farron, who desperately screamed, "NO! NO! NO! NO, Y— I! NO!"
He stammered and stuttered, hoping for words to come to him that would convince the white reaper to leave, to leave her be. "I'LL SERVE! S—SERVE THE EMPIRE! YOU'RE BA-B-BAB-BABYLONIAN, RIGHT?!"
Lao used a racial slur for humanity, betraying Babylon's xenophobia, roaring, "YOU'LL SERVE ANYWAY, TITCHE! SILENT! YOU COST US A FUCKING LORD! DO YOU KNOW HOW RARE LORDS ARE?! YOU HAD A CHANCE! REMEMBER, TITCHE, EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE!"
To punctuate his words, he reached to his boot and drew a knife—"NO!"—and slit her throat.
Black blood spilled onto the dust covering the floor of the cave, and as it did, Lao yanked her head off her shoulders, tearing the rest of the flesh apart before swinging it by her brown hair towards his head, splitting both their skulls and killing him.
With that, he dissipated to ash, and his life was destroyed. No, it was more than his life. It was more than his body. It was more than his emotions. He was destroyed. All of him.
As of yet, there were three Farrons. The first was Farron as a child, optimistic, curious, and energetic. But this version of him did not last long. After a few years, he was gradually molded by the harshness the world treated him with into the second version of Farron, the version that died in the fire.
The version that died in the fire was calloused and cold. He was depressed, narcissistic, secluded, apathetic, tired of life, and entirely convinced of his own superiority. He was a detestable wretch by any measure.
But when he died in the fire and appeared in this world, the world named Koln, there was Elise. And she changed him. She changed him slowly but unrelentingly and helped him change himself.
Love is the singular most powerful emotion to exist, and he knew this to be true because he experienced its power personally.
Together, they fixed him. He was made to be healthy physically, emotionally, and socially. They rebuilt him into a man on the path of perfection. With time, he would have become a veritable Übermensch, an image of perfection.
But Life.
But Babylon.
But his failure.
Life, Babylon, and his own weakness lead to the destruction of the man they worked so hard to rebuild him into.
In the less than 24 hours that the event took place over, he was forcefully reconstructed into another version of himself, this version retaining only a portion of the new Farron and relapsing in other areas to become a horrible amalgamation of care and the lack of it.
And Farron knew it. He knew that what he was had been destroyed, but he wouldn't remake himself. Instead, the three responsible for his destruction became targets.
He cared for their destruction. An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; a life for a life. But cared for little, if anything, else.
He would destroy Babylon, and he would remake himself into whatever he had to in order to do it. He would destroy himself to get at Babylon and kill Life.
With time, simultaneously Apollonian and Dionysian forces would come to exist within him, a cold, calculating, methodical expression of vengeance and an ecstatic, burning, emotional expression.
Apollo, the Greek god of the sun, truth, light, and logic would take hold of his mind. Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, emotion, ecstasy, and madness would take hold of his body.
The Apollo within him would plan his route while the Dionysus within him would execute it. But these two gods would take time to form.
For now, he was broken. As Life remade his body again, the drug within him wore off, and he experienced the full force of reality's harsh hammer of truth.
Reality was that she was dead, and he felt that he may as well be. The same chorus of strings from beyond that belonged to Life sang in his ear, but he refused to pay any attention.
Life was not a dumb beast or an unadaptable program, so it stopped its words when it realized he was ignoring it.
Lao growled, "You're coming with us," and asked, "Will you cooperate, or will we have to kill you again?"
Farron did not deign to respond, numb as he was, and only lay on the ground where he was reformed. Tears streamed, but the energy to sob, or even move, was gone.
His lips trembled, but nothing came out of it. He did not intend to respond and simply lay there, vulnerable to whatever would come.
Lao asked, "Well?" When there was still no response, he growled and ordered, "Rolan, pick him up! We're getting out of here."