Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 167: Ch165. [World Quest] (25) - The real story (6)

Chapter 167: Ch165. [World Quest] (25) - The real story (6)

Diego’s light flickered like a candle drowning in blood.

Miles dropped to his knees as soon as he got near his best friend, his little brother, catching his fall, the world narrowing to the boy’s trembling frame.

Dee’s hands were raised, still glowing faintly with the echo of his [Holy Light], but it was fading fast, the color bleeding out into nothingness.

"Hey, hey-Diego-" Miles grabbed his shoulders, but his hands came away slick. The boy’s clothes were soaked in red, torn, and seared where the stitched-eyed man had touched him.

"B-big bro..." Diego’s eyes fluttered open, and he smiled. It was a weak, cracked thing. "You made it."

"You’re going to be fine..." Miles lied, his voice hoarse. "We’ve got you. Just hold on."

The glow in his ring changed from blood-red to orange, Diego’s eyes turned towards it, and he chuckled amidst a coughing fit.

"You’re a... Terrible liar."

"He needs a healer! Mara, we need-" Sarissa stumbled to his side.

"I know!" Mara shouted from behind them, [Trifle] in the shape of a bow now, arrows infused with pure light punching through the monsters that still swarmed in the distance. "But we’re boxed in! I can’t hold this line forever!"

Miles barely heard her. He cradled Diego gently, his hand pressed to the boy’s back, trying to slow the bleeding.

"You’re going to be okay. You hear me? You’re a saint, right? Remember that? Use a miracle or some bullshit. Just... Do it.... Please."

Diego chuckled and coughed a mouthful of blood, his teeth reddish.

"I used it, I think I used all of it. It hurts... But it worked, right? I think... I scared it."

His eyes wandered toward the Dungeon Boss, still writhing in pain.

The thing had stilled, its bound form twitching. Its face, if it could be called that, was fixed on Diego, not with hate.

With... Awe. And fear.

"You did..." Sarissa said, kneeling beside him, brushing his hair back with trembling fingers. "You hurt it, Diego. No one else could’ve done that. You did more than enough."

"I don’t... Want to die." He said, his voice so small that for a second, he looked exactly like before.

Like the child he still was inside.

"You’re not going to." Miles said again, louder now, his hands shaking. "You’re not, you don’t get to. Not here, not like this." He hugged Dee with everything he had.

"You’re a terrible liar." Diego turned his gaze back to him. "But it’s... So warm... I’m not... Afraid... Anymore..."

"No. No, no-" Miles froze.

And then, Diego smiled one last time. His head tilted forward, his light going out.

Just like that.

Gone.

Miles didn’t scream, he didn’t cry.

He just froze.

Sarissa covered her mouth with one hand, her mask of pride and determination cracking once and for all, the other clenched so tightly around the hilt of her sword that her knuckles turned white. Her eyes burned, but no tears came.

Only heat, only pressure.

Only rage.

Behind them, Mara screamed, a raw, guttural thing.

"MOVE!"

The last wave hit her like a storm, but she didn’t retreat. [Trifle] shifted again, into a blade too big to wield, but she wielded it, cutting a brutal arc through the abominations. She fought like a woman possessed, refusing to let a single one through.

"Miles..." Sarissa whispered, voice trembling. "He’s gone."

"No."

"Miles..."

"No!"

Miles lowered Diego’s body gently.

Something had broken inside him, but something else rose in its place.

Something ancient. Something final.

"I won’t let him die for nothing." He looked at the thing in the center of the final floor, his eyes glowing black and red, and he saw something.

A heinous, greenish-black glow, twisting and churning inside the thing. Like a myriad of words in a language he was not yet familiar with.

His hand curled around the [Harbinger’s Scythe], the weapon pulsed in his grasp, almost eager, as if sensing the shape of what came next.

And above them, the final chains snapped.

When it did, something flickered atop of its head – or whatever it was – glitching for the briefest of moments, lasting only long enough so that they could read it.

[Lesser Demon: Aardvark – Son of the Crawling Chaos]

And the Dungeon Boss moved.

The last of its bindings exploded outward in a soundless shockwave, and the creature unfolded like an unspeakable flower. A great, twisting mass of limbs, wings, teeth, and fractured glass.

A body formed from architecture and agony, its every movement bending gravity, twisting space in its wake.

The monster reared up, howling not just with voice, but concept. Its screech stripped color from the air. It gazed down at them all like a cathedral of punishment given life.

"We end it." Sarissa stood, teeth bared.

Miles nodded but didn’t answer. He was already moving.

The ground cracked beneath his steps, not from weight but from intent. The [Harbinger’s Scythe] cut through the distortion in the air, arcs of light breaking the shadows that poured off the Dungeon Boss.

It responded, a dozen wings spreading, each feather an eye, each eye weeping blood and darkness.

It watched them.

And then it attacked.

One limb shot toward them, the size of a tower.

Miles vanished, appearing above it with a blur of motion, scythe raised. He slammed down with all the force he could muster, cutting through the limb with a spray of unreal ichor that hissed and boiled the air.

Sarissa was next, flanking left, her blade catching fire mid-swing as she slashed through a cascade of tendrils that had warped into glass-toothed serpents mid-flight.

"Let’s see how much a [Lesser Demon] can bleed." she whispered, and stabbed her blade into the nearest wound.

The Dungeon Boss screamed, but it didn’t slow.

It unfolded, reshaping the arena around it, turning distance into falsehood and direction into lies.

One moment, Sarissa was beside Miles.

The next, she was falling.

"No you don’t!" she snarled, diving even deeper into [Treasure’s Nature], blinking sideways into a new direction of space, reappearing beside one of the Dungeon Boss’s anchor-limbs.

She drove her blade in, twisting it deep.

Miles hit the core next, or what he thought was the core.

A burning, crystalline structure surrounded by chains inside the thing’s mouth-chest.

He reached for it, scythe slicing through the bonds, and something grabbed him.

A whisper. A memory. A moment.

"Miles Thorn..." The Boss spoke. Not aloud, but into him. "Would you trade your end... for his beginning?"

He hesitated.

The question slipped through his mind like oil.

And then he heard Diego’s voice again, faint and fading.

"I’ll... Wait... For you... In the light... Big bro..."

"No." Miles said. "I trade nothing. I choose everything... And I choose to end you."

He slammed his weapon into the core, the scythe’s blade sinking deep into the thing’s chest-mouth.

So deep that it reached even the storm of words inside whatever that aberration had for a soul.

And the Dungeon Boss roared.

It lashed out, launching him backwards. He hit the ground hard, skidding across stone, blood in his mouth.

Sarissa was already there, hauling him up.

"You good?"

"No." Miles coughed, standing. "Let’s finish this."

Together, they surged forward again.

Mara was still fighting on the outer rim, holding off what remained of the horde. Her coat was in tatters, one arm limp, but her eyes burned blue, her movements fluid as ever.

"You two better make it count!" She roared, driving a spear into a jawless beast.

Miles and Sarissa worked in perfect sync, one weaving momentum through carnage, the other delivering the final, focused blows with terrifying precision. The Dungeon Boss reshaped its form with every injury, bodies upon bodies, teeth upon teeth, but it couldn’t escape the pattern being carved into it.

It couldn’t escape them.

Sarissa heard a voice echo in her mind. Not the Dungeon Boss’s, not even the system’s. A different, unfamiliar, yet soothing one.

[A story is blooming within your soul]

A burst of light erupted from her, golden and wild, wrapping around her body like a crown of chaos. Her blade grew, forged from her untapped bond with Wonderland, with Cheshire, with herself.

She didn’t utter a word, leaping into the heart of the Boss’s exposed form, but her scream was enough to break the barriers of the concept of emotion.

Miles met her there, scythe behind his back, wind screaming around him.

He activated everything he had in store, and the same voice echoed in his mind.

[A story is blooming within your soul]

Time slowed.

He saw the swirling words clearer now, and then, he chose to strike it.

He and Sarissa struck as one.

Scythe and blade, chaos and clarity.

End and Beginning.

The Dungeon Boss wailed, its voice unraveling reality. As both blades buried deep inside the unknown words, its form collapsed, wings burning, eyes shattering, limbs turning to ash.

It died.

Not just physically.

It ceased to exist.