Spend King: She Left Me, So I Bought Everything
Chapter 60: Surgery by Paperclip & The Weaver’s Cry

Chapter 60: Surgery by Paperclip & The Weaver’s Cry

The cacophony of the divine clash – Mammon’s void-shredded contracts shrieking against Stapler Prime’s percussive barrage of administrative ordnance – was a physical pressure. Dust rained down from the flickering sky, alternating between blue lines and static voids.

Nishanth knelt beside Lilith, the blood-slick paperclip blade cold and terrifying in his mortal hand. Zara leaned against the folded-rubble bookshelf, her breath ragged but her eyes fiercely alert, her good hand maintaining pressure on the crude bandage just above Lilith’s collarbone. The dark ooze from Zara’s own stump had slowed to a thick seep under Lilith’s improvised tourniquet point, a grim testament to shared suffering.

Lilith lay on her back, her tunic ripped open to expose her sternum. The sight was grotesque. Nestled just below the hollow of her throat, fused to bone and skin with tendrils of sickly beige light, was the origami locket. It wasn’t merely resting there; it was embedded.

Intricate folds of impossibly strong, bureaucratic-grade paper formed a complex, geometric knot, pulsing rhythmically with the same dull, invasive light that seemed to leech the color from Lilith’s skin around it. Each pulse sent a visible tremor through her slight frame. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated with terror and pain, fixed on the blade in Nishanth’s hand.

"Get it out," Zara hissed, her voice strained but unwavering. "Before he remembers it’s there. Before he pulls." The implication was clear – Mammon could use this anchor, this backdoor into Lilith’s very being, at any moment. To possess her fully, to drain her life force, or simply to inflict agony as a distraction.

Nishanth swallowed, the taste of blood and dust thick in his mouth. His ribs screamed a protest with every shallow breath. He was no surgeon. He was a broken ex-god holding an unfolded paperclip. The locket pulsed again, and Lilith whimpered, a sound that cut through the battlefield noise straight to Nishanth’s core.

"Look at me, Lil," Nishanth said, forcing his voice to a low, steady calm he didn’t feel. He met her terrified gaze. "This isn’t Mammon. This is garbage. We’re taking out the trash. It’s gonna hurt. But it’s coming out." He saw a flicker of desperate trust beneath the fear. She gave the tiniest nod, squeezing her eyes shut, bracing.

He positioned the sharpened end of the paperclip against the edge of the locket, where the beige light seemed thinnest, where paper met flesh. He took a breath, ignored the tremor in his own hand, and pushed.

SCRITCH.

The sound was like tearing thick, wet cardboard. Lilith’s body arched off the ground, a silent scream tearing from her throat. The locket flared, the beige light intensifying, burning Nishanth’s eyes. The paper resisted like steel cable. He pushed harder, leveraging his weight, feeling the crude blade scrape against bone beneath the fused paper. Dark, viscous fluid, similar to what had leaked from Zara’s stump but streaked with beige light, welled around the intrusion point.

"Keep pressure!" Nishanth barked at Zara, his voice cracking. He wedged the blade deeper, probing for the locket’s core, its hinge, its weakness. He felt something give – not the locket, but a strand of the beige light fused to Lilith’s sternum. It snapped with a sound like a breaking rubber band. Lilith screamed for real this time, raw and agonized.

[ LILITH’S VITAL SIGNS: CRITICAL | PAIN LEVEL: MAXIMUM | RISK OF SHOCK: HIGH ]

[ ORIGAMI LOCKET INTEGRITY: 85% | MAMMON’S ANCHOR: STILL ACTIVE ]

Seraphina’s niece hadn’t moved from her crumpled position near Zara. She watched the surgery with wide, unblinking eyes that held less terror now, and more... profound sadness. The void-static flickering around her had changed. It wasn’t the hungry, chaotic darkness of Mammon, nor the focused purification of her white crane. It was a deep, swirling indigo, like bruised twilight. It resonated with Lilith’s pain, with the invasive wrongness of the locket.

She saw Zara’s pale face, slick with sweat, the constant tremor in the hand maintaining pressure. She saw the dark seep from the stump. The child crawled forward, small movements barely noticeable amidst the chaos. She stopped beside Zara’s injured arm. The indigo static around her intensified, humming with a low, resonant frequency.

"Too loud," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the battle. "Too sharp." Her small hand, still smudged with dust and a trace of her own blood from Mammon’s grip, reached out tentatively. Not towards the wound itself, but towards the air just above the crude, blood-soaked bandage on Zara’s stump.

Zara flinched instinctively. "Kid, don’t–"

But the child’s fingers touched the swirling, agitated void-energy leaking from Zara. It wasn’t a physical touch; it was an interaction of resonant forces. Where her indigo static met Zara’s turbulent void-darkness, something remarkable happened.

The chaotic, leaking energy calmed. The angry, spitting tendrils of darkness stilled, then began to... weave. Guided by the child’s indigo resonance, the void-energy coalesced not into a weapon, nor a chaotic mess, but into a complex, shimmering lattice.

It formed a phantom structure around the stump, not replacing the hand, but containing the energy, sealing the wound. The dark ooze stopped. The grinding, nauseating pain that had been Zara’s constant companion since the amputation lessened dramatically, replaced by a deep, cold numbness and a profound sense of... containment. The lattice glowed softly with contained void-light, held stable by the child’s indigo resonance.

Zara gasped, staring at the intricate, shimmering structure encapsulating her forearm. The relief was so profound it nearly buckled her knees. She looked at the child, truly looked at her. Not just as a victim, or a bargaining chip, but as... something new. "What... are you doing?" she breathed.

The child met her gaze, her eyes reflecting the swirling indigo and contained void-light. "Making... quiet," she whispered. "Making... safe." Her small face was strained, pale. Maintaining the lattice, calming Zara’s volatile energy, was clearly taking a toll. She swayed slightly, the indigo static flickering.

[ SERAPHINA’S NIECE: VOID-WEAVER CONFIRMED | POWER: VOID STABILIZATION / CONTAINMENT | STATUS: FATIGUING RAPIDLY ]

[ ZARA’S STUMP: VOID-LATTICE STABILIZED | PAIN REDUCED SIGNIFICANTLY | ENERGY LEAKAGE HALTED | PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT: PROFOUND RELIEF / DAZED WONDER ]

Nishanth was blind to the miracle beside him. His world was the paperclip blade, the fused locket, Lilith’s agonized gasps, and the thunderous duel shaking the foundations of reality. Sweat stung his eyes. He felt the blade scrape bone again, then catch. Not bone. A hinge. A tiny, complex fold deep within the origami knot, radiating intense beige light – the locket’s core, its anchor point to Lilith’s life force and, through her, to Mammon’s ghost.

"Got it," he grunted, his voice raw. He twisted the blade, leveraging it against the microscopic hinge. The beige light flared violently, burning his fingers. Lilith shrieked, her back arching impossibly high, her eyes rolling back. The pulse from the locket became frantic, hammering against Nishanth’s blade like a trapped heart.

Across the plaza, Mammon – currently manifesting a shield of swirling void-debentures to block a volley of Stapler Prime’s compliance subpoenas (physical, barbed projectiles) – suddenly staggered. His semi-corporeal form flickered. He clutched his chest – not where the locket was, but where Lilith’s heart would be. A snarl of pure, unfiltered rage contorted his obsidian-paper face. He felt the assault on his anchor.

"INSECT!" Mammon’s roar shook the paper sky, causing momentary rips in the lined reality. He abandoned his defensive posture, turning his burning gaze towards the triage site. "YOU DARE TOUCH MY LEDGER?!" He raised a hand, void-energy crackling, preparing to obliterate Nishanth, Lilith, Zara, and the child with a single contemptuous gesture.

"TARGETING PARAMETERS CONFIRMED: MAMMON DESIGNATION," Stapler Prime droned, seizing the distraction. Its photoreceptor blazed. "EXPLOITING VULNERABILITY: ANOMALOUS BIO-SIGNATURE DETECTED AT PRIMARY ANCHOR POINT. DEPLOYING COUNTERMEASURE: PAPERCUT PROTOCOL."

Stapler Prime didn’t fire another staple. Instead, its entire chassis vibrated, emitting a high-pitched, ultrasonic whine. The air shimmered. Thin, almost invisible lines of pure, concentrated bureaucratic negation radiated outwards from the god-machine, not towards Mammon directly, but towards the space around Lilith. They weren’t designed to cut flesh, but to sever connections, to invalidate bonds, to deliver conceptual papercuts to the fabric of magical and spiritual links.

The effect on the origami locket was instantaneous and catastrophic. The beige light flickered wildly, its connection to Mammon suddenly fraying, becoming... non-compliant. The locket itself seemed to weaken, its structural integrity compromised by the conceptual assault. The frantic pulsing stuttered.

[ MAMMON: DISTRACTED / ENRAGED | VOID-ATTACK DIVERTED BY STAPLER PRIME’S INTERVENTION ]

[ ORIGAMI LOCKET: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY WEAKENED (40%) | CONNECTION TO MAMMON SEVERELY DISRUPTED BY PAPERCUT PROTOCOL ]

[ NISHANTH’S WINDOW: OPEN - HINGE VULNERABLE ]

Nishanth saw his chance. Stapler Prime’s bizarre attack had bought him a sliver of time, weakening the locket’s defenses. Mammon was momentarily occupied, roaring at the god-machine. He ignored the burning in his fingers, the tremor in his arm, the raw terror in Lilith’s eyes. He focused every ounce of his mortal will, every shred of pain-fueled adrenaline, onto the tiny hinge caught on the tip of the paperclip blade.

With a roar that tore at his injured ribs, Nishanth wrenched the blade sideways and up.

SNAP-CRACKLE-HISS!

The sound was a combination of breaking glass, tearing paper, and discharging static. The tiny origami hinge shattered. The beige light surrounding the locket flared one last time, blindingly bright, then imploded with a soundless pop. The intricate paper knot unraveled instantly, dissolving into a puff of foul-smelling, beige-tinged ash that scattered on the chaotic wind.

Lilith’s body went rigid, then limp. A final, shuddering gasp escaped her lips, followed by absolute stillness. The unnatural pallor remained, but the invasive beige light was gone. Only angry red marks and a small, dark burn scar remained on her sternum where the locket had fused.

Nishanth dropped the paperclip blade, his hand shaking violently. He pressed trembling fingers to Lilith’s neck. For a heart-stopping moment, he felt nothing. Then, faint but steady, a pulse. Weak, thready, but there. She was alive. Unconscious, deeply traumatized, possibly scarred forever... but free of Mammon’s anchor.

He slumped back, gasping, the enormity of what he’d just done crashing over him. He’d performed battlefield surgery with an office supply on a demonic anchor and won. Mortal. Human. And somehow, still fighting.

[ LILITH: EXORCISED | PHYSICAL ANCHOR DESTROYED | STATUS: UNCONSCIOUS, STABLE BUT WEAK | VITAL SIGNS: LOW BUT PRESENT ]

[ MAMMON’S GHOST: BACKDOOR SEVERED | RAGE AMPLIFIED | VULNERABILITY EXPOSED ]

[ NISHANTH: MORTAL TRIUMPH | PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE: EXHAUSTED, DAZED, EMERGING RESOLVE ]

Zara let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, her gaze shifting from Lilith’s still form to the shimmering lattice on her own arm, then to the exhausted child beside her. The Void-Weaver’s eyes were drooping, the indigo static fading. The immediate threats were momentarily held at bay, but the war raged on, louder and more desperate than ever.

Mammon, denied his anchor and enraged beyond reason, turned his full, terrifying attention back towards Stapler Prime... and towards the fragile cluster of mortals who had dared defy him.

To be continued.....