Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 129: Ch127. It’s you...

Chapter 129: Ch127. It’s you...

The path before them was clear, a corridor of stillness carved through the sea of Revenants. The creatures stood motionless on either side, their twisted forms illuminated by the eerie glow of their fractured cores. They did not growl, did not lunge.

Beyond the mass of monsters, the Last verse loomed above the world, a monolith that defied reason, reaching so far into the heavens that its peak was swallowed by the storm-choked clouds.

It was neither entirely of metal nor wholly of flesh, yet it pulsed as if alive. Its surface, a shifting lattice of dark steel and chitinous plating, shimmered with a dull luminescence, veins of unknown circuitry glowing faintly beneath the layers. The material was seamless, as though the structure had grown rather than been built, its foundations lost in a twisting web of roots, wires, and ancient stone.

It exhaled a deep, reverberating hum that resonated in their bones. Whispers rippled through the air, indistinct voices trapped within its walls, or perhaps emanating from another time, another world – or worlds.

Lights flickered across its surface. Some steady and artificial, others like bioluminescent creatures swimming beneath glass. The spire’s outer shell occasionally shifted, revealing swirling inscriptions that vanished the moment one tried to focus on them. Tendrils of lightning crawled up its length, not random but moving with intent, as if conducting some grand and unknowable ritual.

Above, at impossible heights, jagged spires branched outward like branches on a tree, or the fingers of a god grasping at the void.

Strange formations, part antenna and part crystalline growths, pulsed with energy, drawing in whispers from distant stars. Time itself seemed to warp in its presence. A step too close and shadows bent unnaturally, breaths lingered too long in the cold air, and echoes of footsteps arrived before the feet that made them.

And before the Last Verse, the Revenants watched Miles and Kurt as they walked, as if waiting for a command that never came.

Miles swallowed, his grip tightening on his scythe. This surely was unnatural.

Revenants were never still. They existed to devour, to destroy, to reproduce. Yet... There they stood, parting as if granting permission.

"Yeah. That’s not ominous at all." Kurt let out a low whistle.

"It’s a trap." Miles muttered. "It must be..."

"Oh, definitely." Kurt agreed. "But at least it’s a very polite one."

They exchanged a look. A silent agreement between their exchange.

There was no turning back now.

Step by step, they moved through the parted mass of Revenants. The air grew heavy, thick with unspoken killing intent. The creatures never turned to attack, but their unblinking gazes followed the duo as they passed, their gazes never turning away from them.

Every instinct in Miles screamed at him to run, to fight, to do anything but walk among the monstrosities, but he forced himself to keep walking, not taking his eyes off of them for a second.

And then, at the threshold of the spire, it happened.

The moment Kurt was about to reach the entrance of the spire, the Revenants moved. A wall of bodies slammed into place, cutting him off. The shift was instantaneous, brutal.

Kurt leaped back just in time to avoid being crushed between shifting limbs.

"Shit!" Kurt snarled, knives flashing to his hands as he spun, eyes darting for an opening.

"Kurt!" Miles wheeled around.

Kurt was already moving, trying to force his way through. But the Revenants did not strike out at him, they did not attack.

They only... Held him back. No matter which way he moved, the tide adjusted, blocking his every attempt.

Miles rushed toward him, but as he did, the air around him seemed to ripple. A force pressed against him, like unseen hands pushing him forward, away from Kurt, toward the spire.

"Miles! Don’t-"

Kurt’s voice was drowned out as the world blurred. One step became a hundred, the gravity twisted. Reality pulled him forward, past the threshold and into the unknown.

Then, only silence remained.

***

Miles stumbled forward, nearly falling to his knees as the sensation of movement ceased. He was... Inside. But something was wrong.

The interior of the spire was vast, yet impossibly narrow, stretching in every direction, and yet, pressing down upon him all at once.

Light pulsed along the walls, but no. Those were not walls, but something deeper, shifting with each breath.

A staircase spiraled upward, impossibly steep, leading to a destination he could not see. And Kurt was nowhere in sight.

"Shit!" Miles cursed under his breath.

He turned, expecting to see the entrance, expecting to see the Revenants blocking Kurt, but there was nothing. Just the endless spire stretching upward and downward, into infinity.

A voice whispered at the edge of hearing. Not words, but something else. Urging. Pulling.

Miles exhaled sharply. There was no choice now.

So, he started to climb.

***

Time did not exist in the ascent.

The stairs carried him upward faster than they should have. He barely felt the strain in his legs, barely noticing the motion of climbing.

The spire seemed to move around him, adjusting the pace, drawing him toward the top.

Minutes? Hours passed? He could not tell. But then...

A final step, and Miles crossed a threshold.

***

The summit of the spire was nothing like he had expected.

The floor beneath him was solid, smooth like polished obsidian. The space was open, stretching endlessly in every direction, as if the top of the tower existed outside the world itself.

And a figure stood before him.

The Oracle.

It was neither human nor machine, neither shadow nor light. Its form flickered, shifting between moments, between possibilities. It was a presence rather than a person.

Miles felt his breath catching in his throat. The air crackled around him, and every nerve in his body screamed in recognition as soon as the shifting form of the Oracle stopped flickering.

The Oracle tilted its head, and when it spoke, it was not a voice, but a thousand echoes layered atop one another, speaking from every moment in time at once.

However, there was a singular voice that overshadowed the others, and it was that voice that Miles heard speaking, when The Oracle opened its mouth.

"You have come."

Miles’ heart pounded. He took a step forward, eyes locked on the form before him. His mind raced, piecing together fragments, whispers, instincts he did not understand.

Then, realization struck him like a hammer to the chest as emotions that were not his flared in his mind like a wildfire.

His fingers trembled around his scythe, and he swallowed hard, his voice barely above a whisper.

"It’s you..."