Chapter 233: Burst

Blood dripped into Eren’s eyelashes, stinging his left eye shut and blurring the rest of the world into a sickening smear of red and grey.

Through the haze, all he could see was Alice.

She knelt on the freezing stone directly in front of him, barely upright with her half shattered mask, her lips smeared with blood. She was trembling with exhaustion.

Yet behind the narrow eye-slits of that broken mask, her amber eyes weren’t trembling from the fear of dying.

It was terror. Pure, suffocating terror.

Because if she died here, the loops were over. There might be no second chance, no reset, no hidden path to take. If her life ended in this filthy crypt, the nightmare would march forward unchecked.

Violet would die again, as a mutated shell with no one left to save her.

"Don’t..." Eren’s voice was barely a rasp, a broken rattle scraping against the blood pooling in his throat. "Please... don’t..."

Silas tilted his head, a cruel smirk tugged at his lips. "Pardon? My hearing must be failing. You’ll have to project, little ghost. Speak louder."

Eren shut his eyes tight, his heart hammering like a frantic, dying bird.

Thump.

Thump.

A terrible darkness surged behind his closed eyelids, dragging him down into the memories he spent every waking second running from. The phantom scent of burning oil and copper. The deafening sound of a shattering glass window in the dead of night.

And a terrified, useless little boy standing barefoot in the middle of it all, paralyzed in the pooling blood of his own mother, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to save a damn thing.

’Not again... please, don’t remember it...’

Eren forced his eyes open, tears dripping through the blood caked on his face. He looked straight into the cold gaze of the lord holding the blade.

"Please," Eren choked out. The desperate plea tore from his chest, louder this time. "Leave her alone... take me. Just... leave her."

In the corner near the ruined sarcophagus, the Shadow Cat cub let out a sharp, frantic hiss.

"Please..." Eren begged, his fingers clawing weakly at the floor.

Silas chuckled in satisfaction that echoed off the ceiling. "Now that... that is truly the spirit. Hearing the phantom of Rujgard beg on his knees? The arrogant little monster who dismantled our greatest auction house in a single evening, reduced to groveling like a gutter dog in the dirt? My, this far better than simple execution."

Eren ground his teeth, his vision swimming as his right hand dragged forward, reaching desperately for the hatchet lying beside him.

CRUNCH.

Whisper’s boot slammed down Eren’s hand, grinding the knuckles with bone-snapping force.

Eren didn’t even scream. He only stared, paralyzed.

"Hey... idiot."

Eren slowly lifted his head.

Alice was looking straight at him. The amber fire in her eyes had softened into something heartbreakingly gentle.

She smiled. It was the smile of the Saintess. The bright, sorrowful warmth that players loved.

"Keep my Violet safe..." she whispered, her voice cracking softly. "Please..."

Before the final breath could leave her mouth, Silas shoved his rapier straight through her back, piercing through her spine, her heart, and bursting through the center of her chest in a gruesome spray of blood.

Blood spray hit Eren’s face.

He didn’t blink. He couldn’t.

Silas wrenched the rapier backward and Alice’s body tipped forward like a severed flower. Her knees gave out, her golden hair spilling across the dust, her cheek hitting the floor in front of Eren.

Blood pool expanded outward, soaking into the frayed cuffs of Eren’s trousers.

The exact same crimson. The exact same silence.

The crumbling walls of the crypt vanished, replaced by the high-rise apartment he lived in with his mother in his previous life. He was a terrified, powerless child standing barefoot in a spreading lake of blood, watching the only warmth in his world grow cold on the floorboards while he stood frozen, too weak to move, too weak to scream, too pathetic to change a single goddamn thing.

’No... no, no, no...’

His chest seized. His breath hitched in frantic, shallow, suffocating gasps. He wanted to reach out. He wanted to grab her, pull her into his arms, pour every drop of energy to run away, take her to a healer. He couldn’t let her die. He couldn’t watch another person bleed out at his feet.

Thump-thump.

THUMP-THUMP.

His pulse pounded against his eardrums, his vision tinting into a violent, suffocating red.

[Alert!]

[Host’s emotional state: Highly Unstable.]

[Warning: Extreme synaptic overdrive detected.]

[Advising host to suppress cognitive fluctuations immediately.]

The system windows flickered in his vision, but he didn’t see them. He didn’t hear the chime.

Behind him, Silas wiped the bloody rapier on the hem of his greatcoat, turning his back as he walked leisurely toward the unconscious Baron Kiliyan in the corner.

"Whisper," Silas called out over his shoulder, his voice as dry and indifferent as a clerk closing an invoice. "Inspect the girl’s features beneath the mask."

"Acknowledged," Whisper murmured.

Whisper took a step toward Alice.

THUMP-THUMP.

Eren’s heart rate spiked past human limits. The veins in his temples bulged black, the air in the chamber suddenly vibrating with a sound like tearing parchment.

[CRITICAL OVERRIDE!]

[Host suppression failed.]

[Unique Skill Activated: BURST.]

Eren’s eyes blew wide, the blue irises completely swallowed by an ink-black void ringed in crackling, purple fire.

Whisper’s boot reached for Alice’s shoulder—and stopped as a tug caught his left wrist.

Whisper paused, tilting his masked face downward. Eren was still kneeling. His head hadn’t turned. His gaze was still locked onto Alice’s unmoving face, his shoulders rigid and unmoving. Yet Eren’s crushed, bloody fingers were wrapped around Whisper’s wrist.

Whisper scoffed an irritated breath. He casually flexed his forearm, expecting the shattered bones in the boy’s hand to give way, yanking his arm backward with a sharp, dismissive tug.

The resistance vanished. Whisper stepped past him, turning toward Alice.

Then Whisper stopped.

Something was... different.

A draft was blowing against his left sleeve. An unnatural, weightless emptiness hung from his shoulder.

Whisper turned his head to the left. His pupils dilated into pinpricks of sheer, uncomprehending horror.

His left arm was gone.

From the middle of his bicep downward, the limb had vanished. The cut was so impossibly fast, so surgically clean, that the flesh hadn’t even realized it was severed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

A high, piercing shriek of pure, agonizing shock tore from Whisper’s throat, shattering the silence. The Lord of Information stumbled backward, clutching the spurting stump with his remaining hand, trembling violently as his back slammed into a pillar.

Ten feet away, Silas spun around. "What happened?!"

His breath caught in his throat.

Eren hadn’t moved from his knees.

He was still kneeling in the pool of Alice’s blood, the dark bangs falling over his face, hiding his eyes in shadow. He wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t panting.

He was holding a bloodied hatchet in his right hand, resting loosely against his knee, dripping with fresh blood.

And in his left hand, Eren was quietly holding Whisper’s severed arm.

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