Lackey's Seducing Survival Odyssey

Chapter 1830: The One Around Whom All Things Turn: Part-1

It wasn’t as though the Prophetess hadn’t considered this possibility. In fact, she had feared it from the very beginning. She had genuinely believed that the Dark One would emerge while she fought Aether, that it would awaken within him in the middle of her attempt to protect him.

She had even seen it in one of her visions.

And yet… he hadn’t come out.

She didn’t know why. She didn’t understand what had prevented it from happening, but a quiet relief had settled somewhere deep within her.

Because otherwise…

It would have been a one-sided massacre.

She remembered one of her visions. She remembered the sensation of watching herself being torn apart piece by piece, her body rendered helpless beneath something that should never have existed.

Just remembering it made a shiver run down her spine.

But now…

That thing had finally come out.

And the terrifying part was that it didn’t feel as though it had awakened.

It felt as though it had been waiting.

Her brows tightened beneath the shadow of the white hoodie as she stared at Aether, whose body remained impaled upon the enormous crucifix.

His hair moved gently despite the absence of any wind.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then his chin slowly lifted.

The brilliant white beam of light piercing through his forehead suddenly trembled.

Thu!

The beam violently shot out of his forehead, as though something from within his skull had forcefully rejected it.

Prophetess’s pupils contracted.

Then another beam was expelled.

Thu!

Then another.

Thu!

Thu!

Thu!

Thu!

Thud!

Every radiant beam that had pierced through Aether’s body was violently thrown away from him.

Aether’s body dropped.

Prophetess instinctively took another step backwards.

Aevum’s voice suddenly echoed inside her mind, “Fate… why do I suddenly feel something wrong with him? This presence… it isn’t merely different. Something about it feels fundamentally wrong.”

Prophetess didn’t answer.

She couldn’t.

Her entire attention had narrowed to the Thing lying before her.

Aether remained motionless for several seconds.

Then—

Twitch.

His shoulder twitched.

Twitch.

His hips jerked.

Twitch.

His legs violently spasmed.

Then—

!!!

He disappeared.

Prophetess’s eyes widened.

Aether reappeared, standing exactly where his body had been a moment earlier.

His entire body was still twitching.

His muscles jerked with violent, unnatural spasms, each movement accompanied by the sickening sensation of something inside his body trying to force itself into a shape it had never possessed before.

Then he disappeared again.

Twitch!

Left.

He vanished.

Twitch!

Right.

He appeared again.

His movements became impossible to follow.

Each appearance lasted barely long enough for his silhouette to register before his body spasmed and vanished again.

The sound of bones snapping echoed through the reality.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

Aether suddenly appeared directly before the Crucifix.

He stood perfectly still. Then his feet slowly left the floor.

Prophetess took another cautious step backwards.

Aether continued ascending until his body hovered exactly at the centre of the enormous crucifix, suspended in the same position where he had once been pinned.

For a moment, he remained completely motionless.

It almost looked as though he were waiting.

Waiting for someone to attack him.

Waiting for someone to try stopping him.

Or perhaps…

Mocking them.

Daring them to try~

The space surrounding Aether suddenly bent.

Not metaphorically.

The world itself seemed to distort around him, as though reality had become soft beneath an invisible pressure.

His skin began to twitch violently.

Then the darkness appeared.

A black whirlpool slowly formed around his body.

At first, it was nothing more than a thin veil of shadow.

Then it began to rotate.

Faster.

Deeper.

The darkness swallowed the surrounding light, twisting around Aether like a vortex descending into an abyss that had no bottom.

And then something began pouring from his skin.

A thick, black substance seeped from the pores across his body.

It emerged slowly at first, crawling over his skin in thin streams.

Then more came.

The substance spread across his shoulders, his chest, his back, his legs.

It moved with dreadful purpose.

Slowly.

Terrifyingly slowly!!

It covered him.

The floor beneath Prophetess’s feet gave a faint vibration.

Even the Crucifix began to groan.

The black substance thickened.

Layer after layer formed over Aether’s body, hardening into something far denser than ordinary metal.

The sound was almost imperceptible at first.

Click.

Then another.

Click.

Then hundreds.

The black surface continued to build itself around him, plates locking together with mechanical precision despite having no visible mechanism.

And slowly… An armour began to emerge.

It was the deepest black Prophetess had ever seen.

It did not merely absorb light.

It seemed to make the very concept of light feel insignificant.

The armour covered Aether’s entire body, forming around his torso, shoulders, legs, neck, and head. Strange symbols appeared across its surface, carved into the metal as though they had existed there since the beginning of time.

Scars.

Patterns.

Unfamiliar markings.

Fragments of shapes that resembled ancient wounds.

Everything appeared before her eyes.

One after another.

As though the armour itself were remembering something.

Histories upon histories.

Destructions upon destructions.

Wars that had been fought.

Deaths that had occurred.

A thousand forgotten endings seemed to crawl across its surface in the form of scars and symbols.

Then Prophetess noticed his left arm.

The arm that had been cut off.

A dark mist gathered around the severed section.

It curled.

Compressed.

Condensed.

Until it began taking the shape of fingers.

A hand emerged from the darkness.

Then a wrist.

Then an entire arm.

It was not flesh.

It was darkness given structure.

The newly formed hand slowly flexed.

Aether hovered in the centre of the Crucifix.

The enormous Crucifix suddenly brightened.

Its sacred light surged outward, filling the world with brilliant white radiance.

For the briefest moment, Prophetess thought it might purge the darkness.

Then the light touched the black armour.

And changed.

The corruption spread instantly.

Like an invisible disease racing through veins, blackness crawled through the brilliant white radiance.

The sacred glow flickered.

Once and… Twice.

Then its purity began to disappear.

Prophetess stared in disbelief.

“No…”

The Crucifix trembled.

Its brilliant light faded into a sickly pallor.

A crack appeared across its cross.

The pure white light that had once filled the world turned black.

It became a thick mist that poured from the Crucifix, spiralling around the armoured figure suspended before it.

The darkness circled Aether once.

Then violently exploded outward.

BOOMMM!!!

The shockwave tore through the world.

Prophetess’s robe snapped violently behind her, the fabric whipping through the air. The edges of her white garment blackened instantly, the corruption racing along the cloth as though an unseen wave had touched it.

She raised her arm and covered her face.

Dust and fragments swept past her.

Slowly, Prophetess lowered her arm.

The black-armoured figure was descending.

Aether’s feet touched the ground.

“Fate… This thing… feels different? And more violent than before.”

Aevum’s voice kept echoing inside the Prophetess’s mind. Yet she merely stood there, motionless, staring at the black-armoured figure before her.

Crack!

Suddenly, reality itself cracked open… right behind the black armour.

The fracture spread through the air like a spiderweb across invisible glass, revealing nothing beyond it but a depthless darkness.

Clang~ Clang~

A metallic sound echoed through the space.

The Prophetess’s eyes narrowed.

“What the…! Eternal Chains appeared? What did he do to violate the Law?” Aevum’s voice sounded shocked beyond belief.

And this time, the Prophetess answered without taking her eyes away from the figure.

“By coming.”

“What?”

Clang!!

A silver chain suddenly shot out from the void.

It moved so fast that the surrounding air seemed to split apart in its wake before it wrapped tightly around the black-armoured figure’s hand.

The figure merely turned his head.

He glanced at the chain around his wrist as though he were looking at nothing more than an insignificant insect that had landed upon him.

Then his fingers slowly closed around it.

THUCK!!

He yanked.

CRKKK!!

Something screamed from within the fractured reality.

The silver chain tore violently through the crack.

Then—

SNAP!

The chain came free.

The cracked reality immediately slammed shut.

“…”

“…”

The Prophetess stared.

Aevum stared.

Neither of them seemed capable of finding words.

The silver chain dangled from the black-armoured figure’s fist, still trembling faintly as though it somehow understood that it had been ripped from something it was never meant to leave.

Aevum finally spoke.

“…Yeah.”

There was an unusually long pause.

“I don’t think sealing him is definitely an option.”

It wasn’t as though they were exaggerating.

The Eternal Chains and the Eternal Prison were the very things that sealed beings like them. Things that stood beyond ordinary laws. Things that could bind entities who would otherwise treat worlds as fragile toys.

Those chains did not ask permission.

They did not negotiate.

They appeared when the Law itself deemed something worthy of punishment.

And this guy…

This fucking guy had just ripped one of the Eternal Chains apart after it had come to punish him.

The black mist leaking from the gaps of his armour suddenly began to recede.

It was pulled inward.

Every thread of darkness slowly crawled back beneath the black metal, vanishing into the armour as though the figure were deliberately forcing himself to restrain.

The remaining fracture behind him suddenly closed itself, as if they sensed… nothing wrong.

Prophetess’s lips twitched.

It was as though reality itself had hurried to pretend that nothing had happened.

The last strand of black mist disappeared into the armour.

Now there was nothing left.

Nothing but a figure clad entirely in black metal.

The armour was so dark that the surrounding light seemed to die against its surface.

There were no reflections or gleams.

Only two ice-blue eyes burned within the shadow of the helmet.

They slowly shifted toward the Prophetess.

The moment those eyes met hers, her skin prickled.

For the first time since he had appeared, the black-armoured figure spoke.

“Kill yourself…”

His voice was calm.

There was no anger in it.

No hatred or excitement.

Only an emotionless certainty that made the words far more frightening.

“Or… I’ll do it for you.”

The silver chain slowly slid through his fingers.

Clink.

He wrapped it around his knuckles.

“Decide.”

His head tilted ever so slightly.

“You have 22 seconds.”

The way he said it almost sounded generous.

As though he were offering her a choice rather than delivering a death sentence.

The Prophetess swallowed against her dry throat.

She felt the tension gathering in her fingers as they tightened around the wooden staff.

They were trembling.

She hated that.

She forced her shoulders straight and planted her feet firmly against the ground.

She would not step back.

Her gaze remained locked upon those two cold, ice-blue lights beneath the helmet.

“So… he decided to hide? Behind that fake face again?”

She gave a quiet, humourless laugh.

“Haha… I didn’t know he was such a co—”

CLANG!

The silver chain struck against his knuckles louder than before.

A warning?

The Prophetess turned silent for a second, choosing her words carefully, before continuing,

“27, This is not between us. I am talking to the one who is living now… The one who reached this far. If he chose this path… Then there is nothing left other than death itself.”

“…”

The Prophetess’s voice suddenly rose.

“Is that what you want?”

She pointed the staff toward him.

“Is that what all of you hoped for? Tell me!”

She took another step.

“Was all of this just so you could throw away everything that remained of him?!

Answer me!!”

BANG!

She slammed the staff into the ground.

White, razor-sharp spikes suddenly erupted from the ground, tearing through the ruined stone as they raced toward the black-armoured figure with terrifying speed.

SHCHK!!

Just before reaching him, one of the white spikes violently burst from the ground and stopped barely an inch away from his helmet.

The air exploded around its tip.

WHOOOM!

Yet the black-armoured figure did not react.

He didn’t move his head, raise his hand, or even acknowledge the weapon hovering before his face. He simply continued wrapping the silver chain around his knuckles with slow, deliberate movements, as though the attack had been nothing more than an insignificant interruption.

“…”

The Prophetess stared blankly at him.

“This changes nothing…”

Her voice was restrained, but the frustration underneath it was becoming increasingly difficult to conceal.

“This changes nothing. He cannot hide behind you anymore. He has to take responsibility for what he caused, and you know that just as well as I do.”

Clang…

Clang…

The only response was the metallic sound of the chain sliding around his knuckles.

“…”

A vein throbbed against the Prophetess’s forehead.

His complete indifference was beginning to wear down the last remnants of her patience. She had tried reasoning with him, threatening him, and forcing him to acknowledge the situation, yet the black-armoured figure continued behaving as though her words were nothing more than distant noise.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment and inhaled deeply, forcing herself to calm down before slowly shaking her head.

“So be it. I will—”

“Done… talking?”

The voice interrupted her.

The black-armoured figure had finally finished wrapping the chain around his knuckles.

He slowly clenched his fist.

Clink.

His head tilted slightly.

Then, beneath the darkness of his helmet, his lips curved into a faint smirk.

“Now…”

The air around him suddenly compressed.

“Run!”

In the next instant—

SHHHHKKK!!!

The silver chains exploded forward.

They crossed the distance between them so quickly that the Prophetess barely had time to react.

Her eyes widened.

“What—?!”

CRASH!!

The chains slammed directly into her body.

“…”

…””