Lazy Salvation

'Calm down… It's not over yet… CALM DOWN…'

Blindstep would not endure. It could not. It fed upon the expansion of Hourvault, and even that fragile deceit could only purchase him a handful of moments… moments stolen from the very fabric of time, as though time itself were a beast he had briefly blinded, not slain. And what arrogance it was, to believe such a beast would remain deceived.

Ignoring the agony of his own heart being torn from him, he raised his hands. A magic circle bloomed into existence, trembling at the edges as he dragged forth the dregs of mana left within him.

He already knew that offering her his heart alone would never be enough. Primordial Blood was too singular, too willful… almost alive. It would never accept anyone but its original host.

So… this spell existed to force it to.

Its foundation lay in vampirification, an art Ashen had long since mastered through repetition and through failure… through the countless times he had tried to turn her, clinging to the desperate, foolish hope that it might work.

But those failures had not been meaningless. They had become the building blocks of this moment.

Now that he thought about it… nothing in the last three thousand loops had been futile. Every mistake, every corpse, every broken attempt—

All of it had led here.

Even the senseless massacres he had wrought upon vampires… those rivers of blood had not been wasted. They had drowned him in understanding, forced him to grasp, at last, the truth of Everlasting Conservation.

"Haaaah…."

His golden eyes shone in tandem with the pulses of the magic circle as he finally felt it saturate. That was his signal to chant.

"He—Iron-Blooded, and yet Fevered with Life… Cold-Blooded, and yet burning in defiance—

He who drowned within his own eternity, who sank into the endless recursion of time and did not perish…

He who, at every end, slipped from the grasp of death and returned, again and again, to mock it—

The Vampire who rewinds the world, who deceives even the omnipresence of Time—

Forget it as foreign, strip away its unworthiness, and declare this vessel… as Origin.

Unravel your doubt. Forsake your memory.

What you were—was always meant to become this.

Take root. Take form. Take will.

Make this flesh your sanctum, this heart your throne—

And know no other master.

New Primordial…

Be born… as though you had always been."

…

…

…

Badum—

A heartbeat.

And the moment he heard it, Ashen understood.

Badum—Badum—

…It was not meant for him.

The blood that had once belonged to him now flowed through her veins as though it had never known another master. It moved with belonging, as if history itself had been rewritten to accommodate it, and Ashen couldn't be happier about it.

Her body answered in kind, knitting, restoring, defying the cold insistence of death that still clung to her.

As Ashen watched the push and pull with bated breath, he finally saw her open her eyes. Despite that, he did not rejoice, and his eyes remained wide on her. He had reached this stage many times before, and he was only met with more gruesome deaths and more despair.

Within her, destruction and regeneration warred without end. Flesh died, then lived, then died again in an endless contradiction. And yet, through it all, Seraphine endured. Her lips parted, trembling, forcing sound through pain.

"Ashen… why are you so pale?"

Her hand rose gently and brushed against his cheek. Then it faltered.

Her gaze dropped to the hollow in his chest.

Silence broke.

"No… where—!?" Panic seized her voice.

"Here." Cough! His hand lifted weakly, finger trembling as it pointed… to her heart.

"Why… why… why…?" Each word dissolved further than the last, until they were no longer questions, but fragments of her broken voice. Her tears spilled freely.

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"You know I can't and won't live without you! This is meaningless!"

Cough.

Blood gathered in his throat, suffocating him, but he forced the words through it, each syllable dragging with supernatural effort.

"And I… will not let anyone take you from me… even if it is time ITSELF."

She teetered on the edge of collapse, of despair swallowing her whole.

"And who says… I will die?" he added, hastily, seeing her state. He couldn't let her give up now.

"But—! Your Origin Blood… it's inside me. I can feel it… How can you survive without it?"

A strained smile touched his lips.

"Well… have you forgotten… about our affinities?"

"Huh?"

"I won't die… because it's you who holds it now." His voice wavered, yet resolutely conveyed what he had to convey. "With our affinities… what is yours can still be considered mine."

a shuddering breath.

"…At least enough… to keep me alive in this miserable state."

She moved before thought could catch up, arms wrapping around him with desperate force.

"Thank you… thank you… thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou—!"

The words tumbled over each other frantically with unbound relief. The mere idea that he would live had eclipsed everything else, even her own return from death.

"Cough… c-cough…" He winced, though a faint amusement flickered through the pain. "Now, now… pull yourself together."

His voice softened, teasing despite the ruin of his body.

"Little Miss Primordial… all that power is yours now." A weak chuckle escaped him, immediately punished by another fit of coughing. "So… it's your turn… to be my knight in shining armor…"

She stilled.

And just like that, Seraphine recomposed herself with extraordinary self-control and looked at him, awaiting his next move with unshed tears.

"Alright… What do I do next… my prince?"

'Good.' Ashen felt relief flood his veins when he saw her composure.

"First… wear something." The first command was almost petty against the enormity of all else. "I don't want anyone else laying eyes on my woman."

She obeyed anyway.

He dragged his own trousers into place with unsteady hands, pausing only to draw a crimson dress from his HourVault, and tossed it toward her.

As he saw her dress, he continued, "The Blindstep is going to give away in the next few moments, and what I want you to do is simple. You will take us to the room where most of our loops ended."

A breath, shallow. "There, you will find a teleportation circle I prepared. Trigger it, and we will find ourselves in Esperra."

"I understand," she nodded twice, and right after she fully dressed, she moved and hugged his swaying body close to her, heedless of the blood staining her new dress.

Moments later, the world lost its monochrome color, and Seraphine didn't waste time, moving like a blur.

She went by the empty halls, she passed the place where the vampire corpses should have been, but where only their dust remained, then she finally reached the secluded room where Ashen had tried countless times to save her.

There, she found the magic circle.

Moving swiftly to its center with Ashen in tow, she unhesitatingly put her palm down and let mana flood it.

BOOOOOMMM—

But as she did, a catastrophic explosion tore through the castle.

In its wake, the upper half of the monolith simply vanished, ripped away with impunity and leaving the interior laid bare beneath the witnessing light of the sun.

Seraphine crouched down instinctively and pulled Ashen under her. But the latter didn't seem to even acknowledge the apocalyptic display before him.

All of his attention was honed on the sense granted by The Lethargy of Time.

The small dot, the culprit behind it all, was still stubbornly clinging to her, despite his giving her his heart.

But Ashen was smiling because he saw it… the small sphere of time was flickering back and forth, as if it couldn't decide whether its host had survived or not.

Then… when the cycle of death and rebirth ceased as Sanguine Evolution finally adapted to the damage, the stubborn sphere blinked for one last time and then… it melted and fused with the heart.

"..."

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM

"Hehehehe…. Hahahah HAHAHAHAAHA…."

"Please…Please…Please… hurry up…" Seraphine's voice trembled. Around them, the castle continued to come apart, layer by layer, while she poured mana into the circle with reckless abandon in a futile attempt to speed it up.

Between her desperation… and his madness—

The contrast was almost grotesque.

"Ashen! It must be those deranged Custodian Order fanatics! What do we do?!"

"Ah… my dear Sera…" His laughter softened, curling into delirious triumph. "They are too late."

A pause.

"It no longer matters."

With his words… the formation of the circle had completed abruptly, and whisked them away in the last moment.

The last thing they saw was a rapidly approaching blast of pure mana.

***

When they came to be, they were not in Esperra, but in a dilapidated ruin.

The duo was sure of it because they could still see the destroyed castle on the horizon.

"Seems like they always had countermeasures on their own, huh." Ashen nonchalantly remarked.

"Yes…" Seraphine nodded resignedly, then hugged him closer in a protective embrace.

They spent a couple of seconds basking in each other's warmth, and through it all, Ashen's smile did not recede as he saw her still alive and breathing.

Eventually, they heard the sound of steps. Someone was approaching. The sound multiplied, indicating that numerous individuals followed.

Finally, they saw their supposed enemies.

"What do we have here. If it isn't the Primordial Lord himself. How unbecoming for you to be seen sprawled in such a manner on these ruins."

The one who spoke was a man with dragon horns. Behind him stood a dozen men and women, and they came in all shapes and races.

Elves, wolfkin, tigerkin, foxkin, and even humans.

But what made Ashen snap out of his dazed joy and widen his eyes was the presence of a certain vampire. Regina.

"I thought I had killed you…"

"As if," she looked at him like he had uttered something truly incomprehensible.

"Now now… we have to give credit where it's due. After all… this man here… had conquered a loop forged by the mana of the Time God himself… even if he had to give up his Origin Blood for it." The man with dragon horns gestured for Regina to stand down as he eyed Seraphine interestingly.

"As far as I know… this should have been fundamentally impossible." His eyes shone with wonder.

"You should have drowned in mental illnesses… Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder… Survivor's Guilt… Derealization… Depersonalization Disorder… Affective Numbing… Emotional Blunting… Existential Despair…"

With each word he spoke, the man's eyes grew colder until he looked at Ashen as if he were looking at a broken marionette.

"But the way I see you now… you appear… intact?" His expression briefly twisted in stupefaction. "And most importantly of all… even with Lacrima Sanguis… you shouldn't have given up your Origin Blood under any circumstances… It's too precious, and its meaning is too great for such a sacrifice."

"So why…?"

"..."

"Leader," the fox woman with nine tails spoke softly, "what you spoke of… this man has them all, and more. He just knows how to hide them well."

"Oh," the dragon man's eyes widened.

"Then… What is your secret, former Primordial?"

Ashen dragged himself from Seraphine's embrace, looking at the group that was behind all of his and his love's torment.

"Hehehehe…"

He put a hand on his forehead as an absurd laugher tore away from his throat.

'Acting like I'm some alien when they are the ones with the otherworldly means… sigh… '

"...My secret… There's no secret."

He chose to enlighten them, though not without a faint, almost contemptuous pity for their ignorance.

"It's actually quite simple…"

"No matter what I have… no matter how I feel… I simply use it all to further my will."

He raised his hands like he wanted to embrace the world itself.

"Depression? I have depression! Anxiety? I have anxiety! Fear. Despair. Doubt. I have all of it!! …These demons WORK. FOR. ME!"

Then, softly… almost reverently:

"…And that is how I conquered the loop."