The child’s fury only deepened. She sprang at him, tiny fists flailing, wild and desperate. Jared slipped aside with a whisper of boots on gravel; her blows struck empty air.
“Enough!” he snapped, brow furrowing. She froze, glare turning eerily calm. “You will pay for my parents’ blood…” she whispered.
Jared blinked. The words chilled him more than any blade. A prickle of danger washed over him, instinct screaming like a struck bell.
The girl whipped a dagger from her ragged coat and lunged, point aimed at his heart. Reflex took him. He twisted, caught her slender wrist, steel hovering inches from his chest.
“What are you doing?!” he thundered.
She answered with a cold, brittle laugh. “You stole their lives. I’ll take yours!”
Rage and sorrow collided within Jared. He stared into those grief-black eyes and felt a grim resolve settle over him.
Well… If mercy cannot reach her, then only finality remains…
Jared knelt, the valley wind tugging at his dust-stained cloak, and leveled his gaze with the child’s haunted eyes.
“Child, I can bring you to your parents,” he promised, voice low yet carrying the weight of an oath.
A spark of desperate hope broke across the child’s grime-streaked face.
“Really? Then hurry!” the youngster cried, bouncing on bare heels.
Jared’s reply was a single, somber nod. He rose, the sword flashing out.
A crescent of icy, steel-blue energy ripped from the blade and sped toward the child with impossible speed.
“N-No!” Sylvia’s cry split the air, raw and sharp. She had never believed Jared would truly strike.
Terror pinned her feet to the earth even as her hands flew up, far too slow to halt what was already done.
The arc of energy passed clean through the child’s slight torso, leaving no blood, only a ghostly shimmer that fizzled in the sunlight.
Wide-eyed, the child stared at Jared as though the world itself had betrayed her. Then, like a puppet whose strings were severed, she folded silently to the ground.
Jared lowered his sword, its humming edge subsiding.
“Your parents are waiting for you in hell,” he murmured. “I merely opened the door…”
Sylvia whirled toward him, shock and confusion crashing across her pale features. “J-Jared, how could you…”
He drew a long breath, the metallic aftertaste of violence still clinging to it. “Ms. Vale, I know you ached for that child, but hatred had already blinded her… Moments ago, she tried to end my life. In a land where the strong devour the weak, mercy is a luxury that drags its bearer to ruin.”
Silence settled between them. Sylvia’s lips pressed together as she acknowledged the harsh logic even as her heart rebelled.
In this alien wilderness, trust was brittle and saintly compassion an invitation to catastrophe.
“We should go. This valley has seen enough,” Jared said, catching Sylvia’s wrist. He turned, intent on leading her out beneath the crooked cliffs.
Right then, the ground convulsed beneath them.
Before they could flee, reality fractured anew; the sky splintered like glass, and the mountains folded inward on themselves.
“Damn it, again?!” Jared spat.
Words failed him, only exasperation clouded his eyes. The collapsing dream swallowed them whole, and both plunged into darkness.
When awareness returned, they floated, not on solid earth, but in a field of endless nothing whose color could only be called void.
Gazing into the swirling gray, Jared finally understood.
“Mr. Chance, where are we?” Sylvia whispered, bewildered by the boundless emptiness.
“It’s a trial,” Jared breathed. “All those shattered worlds were tests.”
Sylvia’s brow furrowed. “A trial?”
“Yes… It gauges whether we cling to saintly ideals. In this realm, letting morality shackle you means you will never reach the summit. Whoever built these ruins wants proof that we can cast aside misplaced mercy… Only by passing do we earn the right to reach the true ancient ruins.”
Otherwise, their erratic leaps from one illusion to the next would defy any sane explanation.
“Then what sort of trial awaits us this time?” Sylvia asked, steadying her resolve. She tilted her head, a silent question hanging between them.
“I have no idea,” Jared said with an indifferent shrug. “As soon as we see children, women, old men, anyone, we kill first and sort things out later.”
Sylvia’s mouth opened, closed, and nothing came out.
As their brief exchange faded, the air in front of them quivered. A stone gate rolled out of nothingness, a gray monolith of a gate that climbed toward infinity. It filled the void, blotting out everything else.
“Seems we have to get through that thing first,” Jared said, staring upward until his neck ached. He spoke without glancing back, his gaze welded to the colossal threshold.
