Chapter 83: Saint Hilarius Hospital (15)
How painful is it?
How crushing, humiliating, and soul-rending is it... to be a leader?
To be that entity the soldiers take shelter behind, the wall they hide behind when death roars in their faces.
To be the one upon whom they hang all their hopes, trusting that you are invincible, and that your mere presence among them is a guarantee of their survival.
To make them believe, even if they are cowards trembling at their own shadows, that they will never die as long as you stand before them.
To have them see you as their savior ruler in the darkest hours of hell.
Then... you fail.
You fail utterly, catastrophically, and absolutely.
You watch them being torn apart before your eyes.
You hear them screaming your name, begging you with tears of blood, reaching their severed hands toward you for salvation that will never come.
And you stand there, helpless, paralyzed, possessing nothing but the ability to watch as their bones are crushed and their blood is spilled upon the altar of your weakness.
On the third basement floor (B3), the Chimera Lab that had turned into a slaughterhouse, this pain was crushing the very being of "Valisera."
Aiden’s torn body, split open from chest to abdomen, his head completely crushed, was still hanging by his ankle from the Surgeon’s hydraulic clamp.
Drops of blood and entrails fell in a steady, horrifying rhythm: tick... tick... splash.
Valisera lay on the shattered floor.
Her bones were broken, and the superior elixir in her blood was struggling in vain to repair the catastrophic damage inflicted by the Surgeon’s attack.
But the physical pain was nothing.
It had completely faded before the tsunami of oppression that struck her mind.
She—the Silver Demon, the mistress of gravity and spacetime, the girl who mocked Kaiser Dravion and tore apart S-rank monsters with a snap of her fingers—now stood helpless, unable to protect the weakest and most cowardly member of her squad.
Aiden was not a dear friend; he was a pawn, an annoying insect. But he was her pawn.
He was under her protection. His death in such a horrific way, while screaming her name, was a clear declaration of her defeat.
Valisera bit her lower lip until she tore it completely.
She began to cry.
Yes, Valisera—who had never shed a single tear of sorrow in her life—cried bitterly.
Real tears, abundant and filled with molten anger and despair, washed the dust and blood from her pale cheeks.
Then... she screamed.
It was not a scream of physical pain.
It was a scream of overwhelming, primal, absolute rage! A scream of a beast forced to watch its kingdom burn.
She opened her mouth, and a terrifying roar erupted from her throat, a roar that made the very fabric of space tremble.
The air around her began to distort, twist, and boil!
Her human body started convulsing violently, as if trying to release something—energy, or an entity beyond what her flesh and bones could contain.
The veins in her neck and face bulged and turned black, and her skin began to crack, bleeding radiant purple light!
She was exploding from the inside out from the intensity of emotions her physical body could not withstand!
Even the dark cosmic entity—the ancient parasite residing within her skull, which had always mocked her... was terrified!
Stop! the entity screamed in her mind, its voice carrying genuine fear for the first time.
What are you doing, you madwoman?! Human emotions destroy Eitra pathways! Your body will be torn into atoms! Stop, or we will both die!
But Valisera did not stop.
She continued screaming and crying, her crimson eyes blazing with a fire that refused to extinguish, and the gravity around her began crushing the tiles into dust.
She was on the verge of completely destroying herself, of turning into a spacetime bomb that would erase the entire floor from existence.
But the Surgeon—the S-rank mechanical nightmare—was not programmed to wait.
Its laser lenses detected the insane surge in Eitra density.
"Threat exceeds acceptable threshold. Canceling dissection protocol. Activating immediate execution protocol."
The Surgeon launched forward at a speed exceeding sound, bypassing the chaotic waves of gravity emanating from her.
Before Valisera’s scream could reach its catastrophic peak, before she could unleash her destructive attack...
The Surgeon manifested behind her like a black specter.
One of its pointed steel spider-legs, powered by hydraulic pistons capable of piercing a nuclear submarine, thrust forward with brutal force.
Slaaaaaaaaaaash!
Cold steel pierced Valisera’s back!
It pierced her spine, tore through her organs, and emerged from the center of her abdomen, dripping hot crimson blood!
Her scream stopped abruptly.
Her crimson eyes widened, and her breath ceased.
The Surgeon was not satisfied with the stab.
It slowly lifted its steel leg upward, raising Valisera entirely into the air!
She hung from her abdomen on the sharp metal blade, just as Aiden had hung from his ankle.
Blood poured from the open wound in her abdomen like a waterfall, soaking her boots and falling onto the shattered tiles.
The scene was the pinnacle of despair.
The superior of gravity, crucified on scrap metal, bleeding her life into the air.
Valisera slowly lowered her head.
Blood flowed continuously from her lips. The superior elixir in her veins had completely run out; she had exhausted it repairing her previous wounds and in her final scream.
There was nothing left to heal her.
The bleeding was fatal.
She looked down at the drops of her blood mixing with Aiden’s blood.
It’s over... she whispered, her eyes beginning to lose their crimson glow.
She cried. Silent, warm, defeated tears slid down her face.
She had surrendered.
She raised her trembling hands, but they fell weakly at her sides.
She could no longer fold space.
She could no longer ignite fire.
She could not even breathe.
Cold darkness crept at the edges of her consciousness, welcoming her into nothingness.
The Surgeon directed its laser scalpel toward her hanging neck.
"Vital functions collapsing. Initiating decapitation to conclude the procedure."
But...
In that bare moment, when Valisera abandoned her will, and when her human body died...
The locks shattered.
The dark cosmic entity, which had been bound by her will and by the elixir of life, found the prison open.
This entity was not merely a random parasite seeking destruction.
It had spent years with her, feeding on her pride, sharing her sadism, merging with her soul until they had become a single complex being.
To witness its sadism, to see its "queen"—the one who had humiliated it time and again with her power—being slaughtered by a trivial machine and surrendering... was an insult its demonic pride could not forgive!
The laser scalpel stopped a millimeter away from her neck.
Not because the Surgeon stopped... but because the air itself solidified!
From Valisera’s nearly dead body, a black aura emerged... absolute darkness, devouring light, freezing time.
"You insignificant trash..."
The words did not come from Valisera’s lips.
Her voice had completely changed.
It was a dual voice, overlapping her cold feminine tone with a hoarse, deep, terrifying voice coming from the deepest abyss of the universe.
The Surgeon tried to pull back its steel leg, but it could not. The steel began to corrode, emitting a grinding screech!
Slowly, with a mechanical motion that did not belong to humans, Valisera raised her head.
The sight stopped the heart.
The right half of her face was covered in black shadows writhing like living smoke.
From the right side of her forehead... the flesh cracked, the skull fractured.
And a "horn" emerged.
A single horn, black as coal, rough and jagged, extending upward and backward like a miniature demonic crown, dripping glowing purple fluid!
Her eyes were no longer crimson.
The left eye remained a faint red, but the right eye... had turned into absolute black, with a purple pupil radiating annihilation.