Commerce Emperor

Chapter Sixty-Two: Heroes to the End

Chapter Sixty-Two: Heroes to the End

Flawed hands could not build a perfect world, because there was no such thing as perfection; only perspective.

Daltia and I had long understood that a universal consensus was impossible, since everyone had a different view of a perfect world; and most importantly, that someone’s vision could change with time and experience. Commerce was an endless quest for ever higher heights. There was always more money to make, more ideas to bring into reality, and more dreams to fulfill.

Daltia’s solution to the problem was to create a god that would do the impossible, in that the utopia could not precede the utopian. But in doing so, she had to create an entity with its own thoughts, feelings… and doubts.

For a being born of human will, that flaw had now become very visible. Thin black cracks spread on the Crown’s gilded perfection and spread across its length and many horns. Fissures on a wall were a sign of overwhelming pressure grinding down a structure, but the one seizing the false Artifact came from deep within.

“Impossible…” Daltia muttered under her breath in utter disbelief, her eyes wide. “The souls–”

“Those souls aren’t tools for anyone to wield, Daltia!” I interrupted her, my voice brimming with determination. “They are mortal beings and the purest expression of our will!”

I couldn’t tell whether the Crown was reverting back to the chaotic mass of souls from which it sprang forth or if I had simply induced a crisis of faith within this false god, but I knew that it was hesitating somehow. The false Artifact was reconsidering its purpose, granting me one last chance to convince it.

I had a final argument to make.

“Crown of Desire!” I declared. “Here is my final question!”

I gathered my breath and looked upon that purest expression of human will and flawed dreams, clothed in gold and light. I sensed the weight of its divine attention upon my shoulders, my very soul. My mark glowed through my glove like the heart of the sun as I uttered what might be my final words.

“How can you fulfill everyone’s dreams,” I asked. “When you don’t even have one yourself?!”

A thunderous shattering echoed across infinity.

I heard it within my head and bones, through the land and sky. The Crown’s immortal gleam dimmed for an instant, its shine fading into a sunset glow, its cracks radiating with crimson light. I expected the Artifact to break under the strain of its doubts and insecurities.

It did not.

The Crown did not shatter. It instead glowed brighter than before, its radiance overflowing with newfound purpose. My heart sank for a brief moment, as the thought of failure crossed my mind… until I noticed a telling detail.

The fog receded into the Artifact.

The mists overtaking the Shinkoku Empire flowed back to the mountain in minutes, swallowed back by their source. It blanketed the entire country one instant and disappeared the next, unveiling the forests, lakes, and cities that it used to obscure. I saw stars twinkle from across the sea and join with the Crown, and I only understood their true nature upon gazing at Mount Kazandu’s slopes.

The petrified demons were turning into light one by one, their very essence absorbed into the Crown of Desire.

All of these fiends sprang from the Devil Coins that made up the false Artifact. They returned back to their souls to become whole again, though the Crown’s cracks didn’t close in the slightest. Whatever it was trying to do couldn’t bury the doubts and rifts I’d left open. More stars arose from the depths of Mount Kazandu to join with the gleaming light above by the dozens until none remained.

Then the Crown roared.

Its droning cry resonated across the mountain with such loudness that it briefly silenced Neferoa’s song. The Artifact’s surface brightened so much that Daltia and I had to cover our eyes so as not to go blind. I could hardly see the Crown’s shape through my fingers, and I held my breath.

It ascended.

The Crown rose up into the sky with a final boom of thunder, surging through the clouds like a shooting star. Its radiance briefly filled the sky with a gilded glow that spanned the entire world for a vanishingly short instant; but its glow soon faded back into the azure without a trace. I saw the Crown’s gleam dim from that of a second sun to a distant twinkle in the heavens, and then nothing. My mark stopped burning on my hand, the danger having passed.

A short and tense silence followed this celestial event, with my mind struggling to understand its implications.

It…

It was gone.

The Crown of Desire was gone.

“What…” I gulped in confusion. “What happened?”

“It… it left.” Daltia’s voice broke with such bitter despair that I almost felt her own grief. “It discarded us, just like the Goddess did.”

She had lived to see two gods abandon mankind.

The Crown of Desire had left Pangeal, taking with it its followers and believers in a final rapture. How long would it take until it returned? Years? Centuries? Would it even choose to return to this flawed world in the first place, or would it seek to create new ones just like the Goddess?

The earth’s thundering roar silenced my thoughts.

Mount Kazandu thrummed beneath us, its stones vibrating from the boiling pressure within its magma-womb. Steam already arose from the very earth beneath us, and I’d brought enough geology skills to tell that those were only the early signs of an incoming eruption; one that would consume the caldera within which our allies were still trapped.

“Eris,” I said, clearing my throat. “Daltia Eris Belarra.”

She turned to look at me, and when she did I could neither find the playful Wanderer I’d fallen for nor the confident Devil of Greed she had always been. In their place stood a woman who had lived centuries only to see her dream crushed before her eyes. The deep grief and sorrow written all over her face tugged at my heartstrings. I couldn’t bear to see her in such despair, even if she was in many ways my opposite and greatest enemy.

So I offered her my hand, and with it, one last hope.

“Duty calls,” I said warmly. “Our friends need us.”

Daltia stared at my hand for a moment, biting her lips as the meaning of my words sank into her heart. Soraseo called Eris the best liar she had ever met, and even I struggled to read the emotions she hid behind that stone-faced expression. Yet when she turned away from me to glance at the mountain, I caught a glimpse of peaceful acceptance… and maybe a brief newfound sense of purpose.

“Yes,” she said with a sharp nod. “There is a tunnel to the east of the mountain for evacuation purposes. I’ll lead Miro and the others there.”

“How?” I asked.

Daltia answered me by disappearing in a puff of smoke.

I briefly froze in surprise at this turn of events, before quickly realizing I should have seen this moment coming; and its profound implications.

A familiar voice resonated through the loudspeakers. “Robin!”

“Marika!” My heart skipped a beat in my chest upon hearing my friend again free from the Crown’s delusions. “You’re well?”

“Well and kicking!” The Colmar began to move again by the will of its creators. “I’m diving down to the crater as close as I can!”

“Then follow my lead!” I said as I leaned on the deck to get a better view of the deck. “And let’s open the cargo door at my signal!”

We would leave with everyone or not at all.

They danced with death among the flames.

The Shadow had twisted into an even more monstrous shape, growing hundreds of stolen hands from their back like a grasping anemone. Arms with far too many joints lunged after Soraseo with immense speed, struck melting gold with the strength of thousands, and glared at her with baleful eyes encrusted on their palms. She had no other choice than to dodge and run amidst the ashes to avoid losing her weapon and life to the thief. Explosions rocked the area as Chronius’ explosive runestone knives pruned vast parts of the forest of limbs.

Slow but searing mounds of lava burst out at many points while gouts of steam hissed violently around the chamber. Molten rock collapsed on itself while temperatures rose inside the caldera, vomiting soot and ashes. A few corpses burned among them; the unlucky results of Lady Mersie’s attempts to temporarily slay the Shadow with well-placed knives. Her Assassin powers had proved as useless against the Demon Ancestor as other fiendish creatures, likely because their soul was hidden inside their mask rather than their body.

Soraseo saw her and Chronius struggling to avoid being grabbed by the Shadow, while Lord Rubenzo had vanished into the smoke to wait for his moment to strike; one that couldn’t come any sooner. As for Mirokald and the Spy, they were busy hurrying the hostages and her petrified brother into the tunnel.

Soraseo wished she could have helped them, but she had to use every ounce of focus to dodge and stay on the move.

Belgoroth had been fast, strong, overwhelming; an unstoppable inferno demolishing everything in its path. The Shadow was like water, their form ever shifting, their tactics adapting quickly to bypass any obstacle. Their main body had changed from that of a humanoid to a black feline with unnatural speed and too many legs that forced Soraseo to constantly stay on the move. Sometimes they turned into talons or hooves depending on the need to step around the terrain.

Only that foul adamantine mask remained unchanged through a thousand mutations.

Their moment came when a bright light filled the caldera. The Crown’s cursed fog glimmered like golden dust with a newborn sun’s brilliance and the Artifact’s vile power surged from above. For a brief instant, all fighters disengaged from each other for fear of a greater power.

Soraseo’s awareness and understanding of movement let her sense a shift through the blinding radiance. She detected the petrified Knot cultists and their demon allies vanishing one after another into nothingness, swallowed by their patron’s essence. She also felt another presence nearby lunging at the Shadow’s monstrous mass. They alone remained completely focused on the battle at hand and soon grazed the Demon Ancestor of Envy while their attention was distracted.

Rubenzo.

Only then did Soraseo understand how the Rogue had vanished from her sight. She recalled the Dreadwolf invisibility mantle which assisted in the defeat of Belgoroth. Either Robin lent Rubenzo their own or he had stolen the ability to vanish from sight from an actual beast. Whatever the case, he had chosen his moment well.

Soraseo had spent enough time in the presence of Belgoroth’s Berserk Flame or Blights to flinch at vile essence, but the sheer amount of miasma that flowed from the Shadow of Envy into Rubenzo sickened her. She felt the bitter pangs of a hunger that could never be satisfied deep within her soul, followed by the stings of countless jealous thoughts. She recalled how much she had envied her brother’s talent for poetry, how he would steal all of Mother’s attention from her, how she resented Lord Oboro for denying her martial glory on the battlefield, how Robin so simply purchased his mastery of the blade while she had to work for it, and all the thousand insults she had been forced to put up with her entire life.

All of these thoughts crossed her mind in an instant and vanished the next as Rubenzo stole the brunt of this malevolence. All the envy in the world flowed into him, and though he had sold his own to Robin to increase his resistance to that self-defeating emotion, it was still too much weight for a single human being to bear. He collapsed on his back amidst the stones and the ashes, his invisibility mantle sliding off his shoulders, his body twisting and steaming as all of mankind’s worth of jealousy devoured him from within. His predecessor as the Rogue roared in fury at becoming mortal once again.

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“Thief!” the Shadow shrieked with a hundred borrowed voices and a dozen mouths filled with grasping fingers. “Thief!”

Soraseo answered these cries with a swing of her blade. When the blinding light died down, she, Mersie, and Chronius all struck the Shadow from all sides.

They only had minutes to save Rubenzo from death, and that involved slaying the Shadow now while it was still vulnerable. Losing the connection to all of Pangeal’s worth of envy should have stripped them of their immortality; and with luck, killing them now would free all their victims.

Soraseo’s edge cut its way deep into the creature’s flesh and carved a path open to its core. Her wind-empowered sword opened a deep rift among the forest of hands, mouths, and limbs that the Shadow had become. A single human torso arose at the center, cradling a mask of soulforged adamantine. The Shadow glared back at the Heroes with a face both familiar and unsettling.

Erika.

Though they both had a shot at the heart, Chronius and Mersie hesitated, their hands gripping their daggers without throwing them. The false Erika immediately raised her arms at them, stretching them into long snakes. Mersie recovered quickly enough to dodge, but Chronius… Chronius was too shocked to avoid the fangs biting into his chest.

“This will hurt, old fool,” the Shadow said with Erika’s voice and their own malicious glee. “Like it hurt your daughter.”

Chronius opened his mouth to gasp, but no sound escaped his mouth. His body melded with the snake that grabbed him, his flesh united in an unholy communion with the Shadow. His Archer’s mark glowed brighter than the sun, perhaps trying to either resist the theft or separate from its host by force before his complete assimilation.

Realizing that she only had an instant to save her ally from certain death, whether by the Shadow or his own rebellious Class, Soraseo leaped over her enemy with her sword drawn. Even if it took a friend’s face, she would not waver.

A hand erupted from the ground below her.

Soraseo’s eyes widened in shock and horror, her heart skipping a beat. She had been fooled! The Shadow had dug one of their hands underground and used the quakes to hide its movements. She tried to twist in midair to dodge, but not even her power could save her.

Scaled fingers touched Soraseo’s ankle and stole her.

There were no words to describe the agony that followed. The terrifying and degrading experience of being truly and fully owned by another. Phantom fingers crawled their way into her most intimate parts, as a woman and a person, until her very flesh and bones were no longer hers to use. Her very mind unraveled within the Shadow’s grasp. She sensed eyes boring their way into her skull, flipping through the pages of her life, taking all her secrets and doubts until they truly knew her. Soraseo’s thoughts blurred with a rancid and malevolent presence until she forgot herself.

“I am going to wear you, princess,” the Shadow taunted Soraseo inside her head, mocking her with her own voice. “I will be a better sister to your brother, an empress that all will admire with a crown that shines brighter than the stars!”

She would have screamed if she had a mouth left; if she still owned a name. She found herself craving death as evil began to swallow her into itself, to add her face and silent soul to its vast collections of victims.

Then came a flash of gold.

The abominable union of flesh and spirit abruptly ended. A pair of hands dragged Soraseo out of the mountain of flesh that threatened to consume her utterly. She fell onto her back next to Chronius himself, who was spooked but alive. Lady Mersie stood near them, her eyes wide with shock. She seemed surprised she managed to drag her fellow Heroes out of the Shadow at all.

A glance at the Demon Ancestor told Soraseo why.

Half of the monster had turned into a statue of silver melded into the ground. The way their metal legs merged harmoniously with volcanic stone reminded Soraseo of Marika’s Artisan power, but she was nowhere to be seen. Eris was there though, sitting atop the monstrous blob of limbs, faces, and animal parts the Demon Ancestor of Envy had transformed into. The silver seemed to spread from her very fingers.

“You…” the Shadow hissed with too many mouths. “Why?"

“I’ve lost,” Eris said with a solemn tone, though Soraseo detected a hint of serene acceptance in her voice. “It’s time for us to go, Shamshir.”

“No!” the Shadow of Envy snarled in pitiful denial, but Soraseo knew that their fate was somehow already sealed. “There has to be a life for me somewhere! A blissful existence of eternal contentment, a perfect face that fits me! I just have to find it!”

“There is none,” Eris replied with deep sorrow, her hand touching the Shadow’s adamantine mask. “There was never hope for the likes of us.”

A mark glowed on her skin, gleaming like solid gold. A ghastly, skull-faced coin symbol appeared on Eris’ hand and caused the soulforged adamantine mask to shake in response.

Then it shattered to pieces.

The Shadow howled with a thousand voices, its body convulsing in the throes of death. The Demon Ancestor began to shed people by the dozens in seconds. Most turned to dust the moment they escaped the creature, likely because they had been stolen centuries ago; but at least they were freed from their torment. Others remained untouched by the cruel march of time, and when the Erika flowed out of the creature, Soraseo realized that the Shadow shed its victims in the order in which they acquired them.

“Please Daltia…” the abominable creature pleaded as it continued to shrink and shed its stolen victims. “I don’t want to go back to the darkness… I have so much left to experience…”

Their pleas went unanswered. When the Shadow finally shed the body of Lord Oboro—likely the last of their victims—they had shrunk into a pale, naked white corpse that soon collapsed onto the volcanic ground.

The Shadow had called the adamantine mask their face; a ghastly visage with stitched eyes and a mouth. They weren’t lying back then. That human’s monstrous head more than matched the features of the mask within which they bound their soul.

Soraseo’s power let her see movements and what guided them, and those could tell a story. The way those sunken eyes fit inside malformed sockets, or the absence of tongue pushing inside an underdeveloped mouth, the spot of scarred flesh between the legs… The Shadow had been born blind and mute, never knowing love, with only ears to listen and fingers to grasp.

They were born envious.

Eris watched as the Shadow drew its last breath with what could pass for pity, then immediately teleported next to Rubenzo. The Rogue had been convulsing to the point that he had broken a few bones, his skin seared red from the malevolent essence flowing through him; his own mark seemed to melt off his flesh around itself, its brightness a warning that it would soon abandon its host rather than be corrupted.

Eris bent slightly and lowered her head to whisper something into Rubenzo’s ear. Soraseo couldn’t hear anything over the tremors and bubbling lava, but her power let her read the movement of her lips.

“Sell me the connection and a coin,” Eris said. “Say yes.”

Rubenzo barely managed to blurt out a response, and gasped for air immediately after. His mangled body relaxed the moment he agreed to the deal, though his wounds did not heal. All the world’s envy flowed into a coin that teleported inside Eris’ palm and then crumbled to dust under the strain of its vile essence.

Impossible. Soraseo had spent enough time around Robin to learn how his ability worked. Eris shouldn’t have been able to conclude the trade without his intermediary. Unless…

She glanced at the Devil of Greed’s marble statue. Though it had cracked and collapsed under the strain of the rising quakes, its visage remained strangely familiar nonetheless.

Countless questions crossed Soraseo’s mind, but there was no time to ask them. Chronius rushed to his adoptive daughter’s side while Mersie wisely gathered the shattered remnants of the Shadow’s mask within which their soul and mark still dwelled. Soraseo herself moved to help Lord Oboro back to his feet. Her heart briefly melted with joy when she sensed his pulse and heard his breathing; swiftly followed by rising anxiety when a mighty earthquake shook the chamber and caused plumes of smoke to arise from the ground.

“The mountain is about to erupt!” Lady Mersie warned them in panic. “We need to go now!”

“Take everyone into the tunnel and follow after Miro,” Eris said softly, her tone strangely grim for her. “I will buy you time.”

Soraseo was about to ask how she intended to calm down a volcanowhen Eris slammed her hands onto the chamber’s ground. The earth beneath her swiftly turned into thick dark stone, as did the magma bursting out of it. The Wanderer waved her hand and caused small cones to open in some places that exhaled volcanic gasses through them. Soraseo quickly realized that she was trying to lower Mount Kazandu’s pressure to weaken and slow down the inevitable detonation.

“I cannot stop the eruption, but I can delay it,” Eris warned them. “I’ll give you as much time as I can and wander after you.”

“How are you–” Mersie quickly clenched her jaw as a stream of gas barely missed her face.

“Less words, more moving,” Eris said with a thin smile that echoed that mischievous smirk of her, but couldn’t truly hide the grief beneath. “Your ride awaits you outside.”

Soraseo was too aware of the stirring cries of the mountain below her to argue any further. She grabbed Lord Oboro, put his arm over her shoulder, and then walked with the others towards the tunnel Mirokald dug into the mountain. Mersie dragged a barely conscious Rubenzo while Chronius helped his daughter and other freed victims of the Shadow. Soraseo gave Eris one last glance over her shoulder as she closed the march.

Something told her that they wouldn’t see each other again.

“Soraseo…” Eris bit her lower lip. “Tell Robin–”

“Tell him yourself,” Soraseo replied sternly.

Eris’ tongue clicked in her mouth, followed by a scoff of resignation. “I suppose I must.”

There was nothing else to say.

Soraseo fled for her life inside the bowels of stone, with fire raging behind her.

The entire mountain ripened up.

Even from the relative safety of the Colmar’s deck, I found myself awed and terrified by the unfolding chaos. Yet thankfully localized tremors rippled from Mount Kazandu and knocked trees off its slopes. Cracks opened in the ground, draining away rivers and revealing caves underneath. Small landslides carried away cliffs and plants down. The Shinkoku Empire’s inhabitants had been wise enough to build their houses and cities away from the mountain, but open runestone quarries and mines were soon buried under tons of debris.

I couldn’t tell whether Daltia’s alteration of the leylines had worsened the eruption or if it would have happened on its own eventually, but I didn’t need geology skills to tell that this would become an unmitigated disaster. Mount Kazandu sat on rich veins of runestones that wouldn’t react well to these tremors.

I looked down and searched for a sign, any sign of our allies, my heart pounding in my chest. My hands gripped our ship’s arm rail upon noticing movement beneath.

There.

A hole.

Mirokald’s stonetusk charged out of a tunnel built on a relatively safe slope of the mountain, pulverizing stones and rocks unlucky enough to be in her way. Her yeti tamer rode on her back alongside a small cadre of women whom I did not recognize. I assumed they were the hostages.

Thank the Goddess that Mirokald could always find his way to safety!

“There, two degrees east!” I called out to Marika. “Pull down!”

“On it!” My friend replied over the loudspeakers.

For my part, I immediately left the deck behind and rushed into the cargo hold. Ravengarde and Beni were already opening the sliding doors to the outside. The sight of the latter being safe and sound again warmed my heart enough to hug him tightly. The poor kid gasped in surprise at the gesture, but gently returned it.

I guessed he had indeed become like a son to me.

“Let’s toss out everything we don’t need overboard, Beni,” I told him. “We’ll need all the space and speed we can get.”

A minute later, Beni turned our cannons to dust and we swiftly evacuated those through the cargo hold’s sliding doors. A greedy part of me wept at this loss of resources, but no one carried their gold into the afterlife.

Marika managed to pull down the Colmar close to Mirokald’s position. Our airship hovered slightly above the ground without truly landing, since we would likely need to flee in a hurry. Beni hardened the slopes leading into the hold with his Alchemist power in order to allow our Hunter’s stonetusk to walk on it.

“Come in!” I shouted in Shinkokan while guiding dozens of terrified hostages into the Colmar’s hold. I saw a hooded figure carrying an unconscious child in arms whom I recognized from portraits as Soraseo’s brother, quickly followed by more people. My heart briefly skipped a beat when I saw Chronius emerge from the tunnel with his daughter Erika—having last seen her as a face of the Shadow—and several other unfamiliar faces before exhaling in relief when Mersie dragged a wounded Rubenzo out of the tunnel. His mangled limbs and reddish skin gave me pause; but though he was clearly tethering on the edge between life and death, he was still breathing.

Our plan had been a success.

“The Shadow?” I asked Mersie.

“Dead,” she replied with a hand on a purse on her belt. From the pieces of adamantine sticking out of it, our plan had been a complete success. “The Crown?”

“Gone, at least for now.” And likely for good. “Where’s Sora–”

Another rumbling tremor interrupted me mid-sentence, followed by a flash of fire from the mountain’s tip. I dared look up and winced at the sight of lava bubbles dripping from the caldera’s outer layer. Plumes of smoke began to rise into the sky while the shockwaves grew more intense.

I feared the tunnel would collapse on everyone, but old cave systems that survived the test of time often showed immense resilience. Soraseo emerged from the hole with Lord Oboro in her arms, with clouds of smoke and ashes hot in pursuit. She leaped into the cargo hold in a single leap.

“I am the last,” Soraseo said while catching her breath; something rare enough to be noted. “Eris stayed behind to buy us time.”

Her wording almost brought a smile to my face, but another rumbling smothered my amusement easily enough. I turned to the loudspeakers. “Let’s go!”

The Colmar immediately veered away from the mountain and began to gather altitude. Eris could simply teleport to us when she decided to run back to safety.

If she wished to.

The thought wouldn’t leave my mind even as we closed the cargo hold’s sliding door and were carried into the sky by the Colmar. I took a look outside to see lava flow and globs of magma peter out of the caldera. Three volcanic vents opened along the mountain’s slope after a series of explosions that ejected immense quantities of rock and cinders into the air. Plumes of volcanic ash soon began to obscure the sun itself.

Soraseo looked at the unfolding disaster with a grim scowl. I might have been able to teleport the lava elsewhere the same way a contract with Roland allowed me to transport a Blight away, but the boy emperor was asleep and too few would recognize Soraseo’s ownership over her lands.

As it was, I could watch and hope for the best.

The Colmar began to move at full speed, with some of our passengers thrown to the ground by the sudden increase in velocity. I barely managed to stand on my feet by grabbing a porthole. Although we fled into the clouds, a terrible noise followed us. The mountain’s rumbling turned into a roar that would shake the entire island.

Mount Kazandu erupted in a flash of golden light.

I briefly thought that the Crown of Desire had returned to the world when a mighty light blanketed the Colmar. Mount Kazandu vomited an immense amount of matter into the air, enough to blind the sun itself; but no flaming rocks nor tons of asphyxiating ash flew down to earth to ravage the countryside and snipe our airship out of the sky.

The plume that arose from Mount Kazandu wasn’t black as coal, but as white as a dove’s feather.

I heard so many gasps around me as countless eyes looked at this miracle through the porthole. I was too entranced by the sight to count them. The sky was blanketed in white, its clouds overwhelmed with a rain of snowflakes and evaporating ice.

For a brief instant, I found myself back in Archfrost.

Back home.

“Is that…” Soraseo whispered in astonishment at my side. “Snow?”

“No,” I replied. “It’s a parting gift.”

For the first time in seven centuries, the Devil of Greed had used her power to save people.