Alma 134 A Reckoning In the Making

The thunderstorm itself, a byproduct of the Anima that'd be drawn to the phantoms' wills during the fight had shifted its allegiance to the person it'd considered the highest-ranking individual among the three of them: Reed.

Even though Reed's limit, the amount of Anima he could gather within himself, had shrunken considerably, his connection to it had not. If anything, it'd grown even stronger than before.

It was as if the somewhat faint and ambiguous connection had been cleared up.

"This feels pretty nice... Is this what you've been hogging to yourself?"

Reed felt like the Anima around had truly come alive if such a thing were even possible. Possibilities that hadn't been available to him before blossomed in front of his eyes.

He was being guided by Anima; it was whispering to Reed secrets that once been kept from him. Showing Reed the best methods to use it, a blessing that not even he had been granted by the Mark of Responsibility during his time as its owner.

The grand irony of it all would've caused him to laugh himself to death had he known what he'd unwittingly caused. For the Mark of Responsibility to have preferred Reed over him would've driven the miserable phantom to the edge of madness.

Reed coldly gazed at him and said, "I don't need you anymore. Begone from my sight while I still pity you, wretch."

"...They're going to die if you insist on continuing down this path, Reed. I hope you're ready to carry their deaths for the rest of your life. You, alone, can't stop what's about to happen. You need me!

The Eventide of Faith has already begun and you won't be able to stop it without my help!!"

Anima surged in seething waves around Reed in response to his emotions, but he hushed them with a gentle whisper. It wanted to attack the phantom of its own will, following its master's feelings akin to the word of God.

Even without shape, form, or meaning of its own, Anima still possessed something similar to... feelings. They were vague, faint, and disorderly, so only a few people had ever picked up on that hidden fact.

Contenders didn't know about them. Neither did Conquerors, well, most of them, anyway. To them, Anima was Anima. Ever-present, formless, and mindless. It was to be used. Nothing more.

But those with a deeper connection with Anima knew better. Although imperceptibly minuscule, they noticed subtle fluctuations in the ambient Anima around them.

That Anima, surprising, had preferences. It liked some Contenders and Conquerors more than others. In extremely high-level fights, that preference could even decide whether one would die in battle or emerge victoriously.

The mysterious sign of Anima liking an individual was referred to as a blessing, hence those were beloved by it were called Blessed. Only a few such Blessed existed though, the most famous of them were known... as the Four Sovereigns.

Other notable Blessed existed as well, but none of them possessed the same level of affinity with Anima as the four founding rulers of the continent. It was that connection that allowed the Four Sovereigns to progress as fast as they did back when they were nothing but piddling contenders more than four thousand years ago...

"What are you talking about?" said Reed with a skeptical expression, "I've already done what you said I needed to do to stop—"

"No, you fool... Wait, did you think that—" He cackled loudly and said, "Ohh, you poor idiot. You thought that your troubles are over because you've activated the Mark of Responsibility? I really do love your boundless optimism, Reed."

"But if you don't believe me, why don't ask her instead?" he said.

Reed turned toward the phantom who'd been silently observing them and said, "...Is it true?"

She did not respond.

"...Lacrima, tell me the truth. Is he right or not?"

"He's telling the truth. This world is in grave danger, boy. A dark cloud is looming over the future of this entire world and if you don't act..."

Here we go, again... Pulled in by the world and its goddamned problems... but that was what I signed for when I took up this power.

Reed stroked his chest and let out a deep sigh. He had to face this head-on.

No more running. Do it for her. Do it for them. Get it over with and be the hero they need.

"Explain yourselves, now. Keep it short and simple, you got it? I have neither the patience nor the time for cryptic bullshit, so speak 'English,' am I clear?"

In short, it was fate's reckoning. The fallout of the actions taken back during the Twilight War.

Irreparable damage had been inflicted upon the land in the North that Reed had not discovered. What he thought had been nothing more than a skin wound — an eternal scar — on the surface of the continent had turned out to be something much worse.

Reed had mistakenly cleaned only the surface layer of the wound. Had he properly purged the infectious miasma at the time, the current situation would have never developed the way it had now. He had made a fatal error.

It was the whole damn continent. It'd been rotting underneath the surface for the last two years, unbeknownst to anyone until now.

Deep within the bowels of the scar in the North, the festering wound had grown so bad underneath that it had almost penetrated the heart of the continent where Will of the World existed.

As the name implied, it was the Will of the World. The living essence of the continent that served as the power source for the Heavenly Barrier and safeguard for the world.

There was an ongoing fight on beneath the surface that the Chosen of Mulia had been fighting for the last two years. They'd tried everything to purge or at the very least, hold back the miasma from reaching the Will of the World.

At first, they'd achieved some success but with their limited resources and manpower, it eventually became an unsalvageable situation. Fighting Infested was on the battlefield was one thing, but preventing a poisonous Infection on a continental scale? That was an entirely different beast that they'd never handled before.

Not on this scale, at least. They'd purged the surface of the North once to destroy the effects of the miasma, but that only required a superficial cleansing. This was a far more complex and difficult infection.

If left untreated, it'd gnaw away at the foundations of the world until it collapsed in on itself. Even now, the effects of infection had begun to show across the world.

The symptoms had begun to manifest in mundane ways, but they would soon intensify and grow in magnitude.

It'd start off as innocently as, say, slightly hotter days. Perhaps, weeks of rainy weather coming in and out of season. Anomalous phenomena. 

The false stars above would begin to twinkle ominously as if to herald the beginning of the end. A mysterious sense of hopelessness and despair would pervade across the mortal world as a foreboding feeling of dread would continue to grow with each passing day until...

They completely lost hope. They gave up without even really knowing why.

Mulia's skies would turn a deep shade of crimson and natural life would begin to wither away until the lands became barren wastelands.

The Twilight Sun would fiercely struggle until the very end. Until the last mote of Hope disappeared and everything sunk into the deep black of Despair.

...And then, on the eve of the world's final day, the beautiful sun would fall below the horizon and never rise again.

This was the coming calamity that would befall the world. Why he had been so adamant on pressing Reed to finally move, to pick up his responsibilities once again.

But every time he had tried to reason with Reed and explain to him the coming disaster, he had been ignored. He had even been sealed in the depths of Reed's heart as a means of keeping him away.

It reached a boiling point for him. He could not idly sit by and wait as the world rotted into mush, all the while Reed continued to enjoy his escapist fantasy.

"You only have yourself to blame for this. I'm sure as hell not to blame. How many times have I tried to reach out to you, only for you to reinforce that bloody seal, huh?!"

Reed grit his teeth and said, "As if you care about the people on this continent, you damn hypocrite. Don't even think about coming at me using that angle! You... have no right!"

The fading phantom smirked and said, "That right, big hero? Well, let's see how you'll save the day this time without my help..."

His final, grating words stabbed into Reed's chest before he disappeared along with the storm. He was going to enjoy himself, no matter what happened now...

It was personal.

Chapter end