Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 56: Ch54. RE: [World Quest] (12) - Do it

Chapter 56: Ch54. RE: [World Quest] (12) - Do it

The battlefield was silent.

For the first time since the fight began, there was no laughter, no taunting, no smug amusement coming from Miles. Just the slow, unsettling sound of something shifting beneath his skin.

Sarissa took a cautious step back, her fingers tightening around her blade as she watched him. Something was wrong. The eerie glow in his mask’s eyes had vanished, replaced by something darker, something deeper.

Something hungry.

Then, the mask cracked.

Not a clean break. Not like something breaking in two. No, it split, from the mouth outward, the carved, stitched grin splitting apart as though something inside him was tearing its way free.

Sarissa barely had time to react before Miles began to change.

His body twisted.

His limbs stretched unnaturally, elongating at jagged angles, his fingers curling into clawed, spidery hands that barely resembled human anatomy anymore. His once-slender frame distorted, bulging, and withering in the same breath like something was trying to reshape him into something both too big and too thin for the space he occupied.

His coat frayed at the edges, growing longer, shifting in texture like decayed velvet, stained with splatters of something too dark to be just blood. His hat, the ever-present Mad Hatter’s hat, remained, but it too had warped, its fabric slithering like it was alive, bending in ways that made no sense.

Then came the face.

The remnants of the mask peeled away and underneath it... No.

No, that wasn’t Miles anymore.

Sarissa’s breath caught on her throat as she saw the nightmare beneath. His skin had lost all color, replaced by a mottled, cracked porcelain texture, like a doll that had been shattered and barely held together. His mouth was too wide, too jagged, the corners stretching unnaturally up his cheeks.

And his eyes... They were hollow. Empty black pits, wide and unblinking, as if staring straight into her soul.

The Mad Hatter had awakened.

A chill ran down Sarissa’s spine and she trembled, almost losing her cool, but she had no time to hesitate. The moment his transformation was finished, he moved.

Faster than before. Faster than anything she had ever seen.

One second, he stood several feet away. The next, he was behind her.

She barely twisted in time to block the strike, but the force of it sent her hurtling through the air, crashing through a half-collapsed building. Rubble and dust exploded around her, her ribs screaming in agony as she forced herself upright, coughing up blood.

However, he didn’t stop there.

The Hatter descended upon her, silent as death. No laughter, no taunts, just pure, raw, suffocating malice.

Sarissa’s instincts screamed at her to move, and she did, pushing back the pain that tried to force her body to stay still. She rolled to the side just as his elongated claws ripped through the debris where she had been lying, splitting the stone and metal apart like wet paper.

’He’s too fast.’ She thought, her vision blurry as the immeasurable pain brought tears to her eyes.

She barely had time to think before he attacked again, a blur of tattered coat and nightmarish limbs. She couldn’t keep up.

’I... I can’t...’

No.

’No, I can’t die like this.’

A roar tore from her throat as she ignited everything she had, her lips tinted red with her blood. [Wonderland’s Inferno] erupted, a wall of uncontrolled, chaotic fire that twisted and danced unnaturally, matching the very madness before her.

The flames surged forward, consuming the battlefield in an all-devouring storm of destruction. If he wanted her dead, he’d have to walk through hell to do it.

And he did.

The Hatter walked through the fire like it was nothing. His coat burned, his skin cracked and melted, but he did not stop.

Sarissa’s heart thundered against her ribs as she pushed herself further, forcing her flames to burn hotter, wilder, stronger. She weaved between her attacks, throwing everything she had at him.

And for a moment, even though just a mere moment, it worked.

’It worked.’ She saw it. A break in his movements, a flicker of hesitation. A moment where he staggered, the force of her power finally pressing him into a corner.

This was it. Sarissa lunged, her blade burning white-hot, to the point of melting down, but her flames coiled around it like a living thing, keeping it together against all logic.

She could end this. Now. But just before her strike landed, something changed.

A sudden, violent crack split the air, and the monstrous figure before her lurched.

The Hatter’s grotesque form twitched, shuddering unnaturally as if something else was pulling at it, forcing it to stop. His blackened, empty eyes widened, but not in pain.

It looked like... Interference.

Then, the voice came. But it wasn’t the Hatter’s voice.

"Do it." It was Miles.

Sarissa froze on her spot, sword in hand, her flames still burning like hell itself wrapped around her blade.

The figure before her convulsed, its clawed fingers twitching erratically. The voice had come from within.

Then, without warning, the mask fell away completely.

Not shattered. Not broken, not destroyed. Just, dismissed, disappearing into a whirlwind of black sparks. The monstrous form began to collapse inward, limbs retracting, skin cracking and peeling away like a shedding husk as the once exquisite coat too, vanished in black sparks.

Within seconds, all that remained was Miles...

His battered, broken broken, his real face, his actual, blurry face, bruised and pale under the stormy light.

He looked... Human. Not the monster that had just torn through reality. Not the immortal, untouchable being she had been fighting.

Just Miles.

His lips curled slightly, the faintest ghost of a smirk, one full of exhaustion, resignation, and something else.

Something final.

"Kill me, Sarissa." Her breath caught in her throat, her hands trembling as she raised her sword.

"No..." Sarissa shuddered, taking a step back. "No, this isn’t right."

The Hatter had been overwhelming, unstoppable. A force of pure destruction. But this? This wasn’t a battle. This was absolute surrender.

Miles looked up at her, his blurred expression unreadable. But there was no madness there. No tricks. No illusions.

Just the simple, undeniable truth.

"Kill me. Before he takes control again."