Chapter 50
It begins (8)
Blood pooled and mixed with the black liquid, forming a festering puddle that spread outward like a cancer, soaking into the cracked earth beneath IAM's feet. The grotesque mixture crept slowly, sluggishly, as if even it mourned the destruction it had helped cause.
IAM's face was splattered with warm blood, droplets from Kon's torn heart still fresh on his cheeks. It clung to him like a curse, red beads drying into stains — but his expression remained blank. Empty. Hollow. In that moment, everything else faded.
No sound, no movement — just the wailing spawnling in the distance, shrieking its eternal death-cry, and the warped fog of IAM's thoughts spinning around him in silence. His mind and soul were not in his body anymore. They had detached, drifted elsewhere. What remained was a husk, breathing only because it had to.
And in the space where thought once resided — only questions remained.
WHY?
How did it happen?
How had it come to this?
Just moments ago, IAM had been speaking to them — laughing, walking, living. Now they were dead. Every single one.
Snatched.
Ripped away.
Like it meant nothing.
WHY?!
He hadn't even finished grieving one before the next had died. One death after another. The agony layered in jagged waves that crashed into his psyche without pause, each one splitting open deeper wounds than the last. His mind tried to hold it, to process it, but it couldn't.
The shock slamming against his skull, his head aching like it had cracked open, spilling thoughts and pain he couldn't control.
The thoughts overflowed, spilled out. He was drowning in it — in their voices, in their blood, in the stillness that followed.
Too sudden.
Too brutal.
Too real.
A Devil.
A nightmare beyond comprehension.
This was reality now.
And reality… was death.
WHY.
Death after death.
WHY?
He screamed inside, but no voice came. There was no one to answer him anyway. The world had gone deaf to his questions. There was no response. Only silence and the dying wail of the spawnling in the background.
IAM felt it then.
The fatigue. The endless exhaustion that had clung to him since the moment he arrived in this cursed world.
He was tired.
So, so tired.
Everything had been suffering. He had been squeezed, broken.
Under pressure.
—he cracked.
His knees trembled as his vision blurred.
It was too fast.
Too sudden.
Too violent.
Too vile.
Too disgusting.
Yes.
That was it.
A sense of disgust.
The weight of it climbed up his throat like bile.
And just as it reached his mouth, threatening to spill—
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKK!!"
A scream. A roar. A cry of pure mourning and rage tore through the air, slapping IAM back into the present like a bolt of lightning.
He blinked and slowly raised his head.
Mia.
Her face twisted into something unrecognizable — a contorted mask of pain, hatred, and despair. Her mouth was open in a scream that had nowhere else to go. Before he could react, she slammed into IAM, crashing into his side with brutal force.
They tumbled across the ground, rolling through the black liquid that painted everything in corruption. It soaked into IAM's hoodie, into Mia's skin, into their very souls.
When they stopped, Mia was already back on her feet. Her sword raised. Her chest heaving. Her body shaking.
"Stop fucking laying around and get the fuck up!"
Her voice cracked, but it carried fury — enough to keep IAM moving.
He groaned as he pushed himself up, his hands slick and trembling. Pain blossomed in his ribs and his left knee screamed in protest. His limbs felt like they were made of lead. But he forced himself upright.
Mia stood before the Devil, eyes locked, blade trembling in her grip. Not from fear — but from something deeper. Something older. Her whole body was shivering, betraying the storm within. She bit her lip until blood sprayed from the tear.
But her eyes never left the enemy.
They flashed with something else.
Resolution.
IAM could feel it. A strange energy wrapped itself around her — heavy, grounded, absolute.
He misunderstood it at first.
"Wait—don't use a Death Method," he croaked. His voice sounded broken, not his own.
She glanced at him. Her voice was calm. "I'm not afraid of death. But I'm not planning to die today. I hate this... I hate all of this. But I have to become a Master."
IAM blinked. Emotionless. Hollow.
"How?" he managed to ask.
Mia's gaze softened — just for a heartbeat — before hardening again.
"I've seen the path forward for nine years," she whispered. "I refused to walk it. I avoided it. I ran. From myself. From my burdens."
She looked down at her hands. They shook no longer.
"But now… now I must face it. A Devil. A monster. This time, I won't falter."
Her words were not just for him.
They were for herself. An oath made aloud.
"There are reasons we follow rules," she said. "Not just because we fear punishment or want reward. But because of something deeper. Something inside us. Our moral compass. Our belief in right and wrong."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
" The rules themselves that has no power, they can be broken."
"it is us who gives it power. "
And then IAM felt it.
A shift.
A vibration in the air — not one heard with ears, but with soul.
Chains snapping.
Footsteps on stone — deliberate, irreversible.
He could feel it. Through his Avien.
Something that can only be sensed by someone with an avien.
Mana.
Mana surged toward her, spiraling down into her core like a whirlpool of formless energy . There was no light show. No flashy display. Only change.
Her bob grew long and white — bone-pale like snow. Her wrinkles faded. Her face transformed. She looked 25 again. Like time had bowed before her and offered one final chance.
She let out a breath.
Then vanished.
IAM blinked.
She had moved.
No—teleported.
So fast she seemed to have teleported.
Mia appeared in front of the blood-soaked Deadline puppet, her blade already in motion. It fell like the end of a sentence. Like the final swing of a pendulum.
Like a full stop.
Her sword cleaved through the puppet's blackened skull and carved straight down through its twisted body, splitting it diagonally — from head to gut.
The creature didn't even scream. It convulsed. Each half writhed violently, twitching in agonizing spasms. And then — stillness.
The black liquid peeled off.
And Bryan's face did not remain.
It melted away, erased along with the rest of the abomination.
It was too late for him to die human.
IAM stood frozen. Witnessing the chasm between experience and mastery. Between the ordinary… and the impossible.
She looked like one of deaths servants. A reaper in mortal skin. But as the power faded, her body gave way.
She coughed—hard—and blood sprayed from her mouth. Her hands clutched her stomach. More red oozed between her fingers.
IAM moved, alarmed — but she raised a hand. "Stay."
Her voice was steady.
"My concept hasn't stabilized yet. My level's still adjusting. It's normal. This backlash was expected."
She winced. "But… it should be enough. Enough to help us escape."
Her eyes locked on the Devil.
And widened.
It was aiming.
IAM turned.
Multiple jets of black liquid were fired.
A volley.
The Devil fired — again and again — dozens of black projectiles straight toward IAM.
Mia reacted instantly.
She appeared in front of him in a blink, her blade dancing as she slashed each shot from the air. The liquid hissed and evaporated under the force of her strikes. IAM stood still — afraid to move, afraid to distract her.
But the Devil wouldn't relent. Noticing the unstable energy from Mia... It could not let it's meal go so easily.
It kept firing.
Again. Again.
More and more.
Mia gritted her teeth. Her swings slowed. Her breathing grew ragged. The backlash clawed at her bones. IAM could see her shaking.
Thirty seconds passed.
Too much.
She realized the truth.
She couldn't carry IAM and deflect the attacks. Not like this. Not in her unstable state.
She looked at him.
Should she…?
No.
No, she couldn't abandon him. She wouldn't.
"I'll go distract it. You run. I'll follow," she said.
IAM nodded, numb.
Mia turned.
"Alright, you ugly fuck," she snarled.
She ran.
The Devil saw her coming. The barrage ceased. It focused.
Mia surged forward.
But as she neared it—her past clawed into her vision.
A battlefield.
Nine holes in nine teammates' chests. From them bloomed white flowers — delicate, blood-stained petals. it's petals soon stained with more red.
She blinked.
A Devil.
Her trauma.
The truth she hid from the world and herself bubbled unpleasantly...
She didn't let herself sink.
But—
That nanosecond of hesitation was enough.
Something that no one expects to happen that had been in the background, loud but forgotten..
The spawnling—always screaming—fell silent.
It was so abrupt. So unnatural. IAM and Mia both glanced without thinking.
Just a glance.
It was nothing really..
... But in this moment it was everything.
The fleshy tentacles attached to the Devil sprang from the stillness, binding Mia midair. She gasped. She tried to break free.
She almost did.
But it was too late.
A blast of black liquid surged toward her.
She quickly defends against the immediate threat and all the black mass missed her head as it was a rule that could not be broken.
IAM's eyes widened.
He saw the Devil had shut the spawnling's mouth — with black liquid.
When?
Through the chaos? Through distraction?
Too cunning.
Mia screamed.
She was pulled toward the central maw. Teeth gnashed. They tore into her.
Just like her mother once did.
Her legs first.
Her life flashed in her eyes — terror-stricken eyes staring into death's abyss.
She remembered the flowers.
The corpses.
She remembered cradling her friend's body.
Rage contorted her face.
But.
Deep.. Into the depths of her soul what occupied her very core was not rage.... But fear.... The devil terrified her.. The thought of death hunged by her throat... She could barely breathe.
But that was OK, the fear of death was human.
What was wrong was the emotion she hid.
Relief.
A horrible, awful truth she had buried. That it hadn't been her. That someone else died, not her.
That she was alive.
That it was not her corpse that bloomed flowers.. She was glad that out of everyone she... She was still alive and that thought sickened her to no end, In her guilt she fought and contributed against the deadline creatures, but never against the devils... She couldn't.
Because she was afraid of death.
And in this moment, it overwhelmed her, she did not want to die... Why.. Had she not just abandoned IAM, why had she not retire sooner.
She did not want to die.
She did not want to be brave.
She wanted to live.
Wailing echoes through the room...
But it was not the spawnling...
It was akin to a baby pleading...
Begging.. Pathetically.
And in her panic, she wailed.
"IAM! IAM!! Please! Please help me! Don't let me die! Please... please I'm begging—"
Then the Devil bit down. A juicy crunch was heard.
Her waist was crushed.
Her cries became howls — primal, raw, broken.
IAM stood frozen.
She begged. Over and over.
Move.
Do something.
MOVE.
But.
Deep in his heart laid something that was forgotten but never left, instead it waited... Slowly growing...
A stone.
Fear.
It slowly grew into a boulder.
Move.
Breaking through his heart growing and spreading.
Move.
It overtakes his body... Turning him into a statue... A statue made of fear.
Do something.
Move.
Then—something broke loose.
Not tears.
Not screams.
Laughter.
Mad, deranged, broken laughter exploded from his throat.
Mia's cries stopped.
She stared.
He wasn't happy.
The tears down his face said otherwise.
But he laughed.
Because it was absurd.
Because it was insane.
IAM broke.
Mia looked on in shock, as she was eaten alive. The teeth digging into her chest with a wet crunch.
Finally IAM moves.
He turned.
And runs.
Mia watches.
Her face plain as her head was consumed and her arm is snapped off and falls to the ground.
A second passes by.
Then wailing begins.
The spawnling cried.
The Devil digested its meal slowly.
And the horrid dinner came to an end.