Lucid gritted his teeth, feeling Mercyros's throat still trapped within his grip, the pulse beneath his fingers growing weaker with each passing second.
"Yes. Do it, Lucid."
Alice's voice cut through his concentration, carrying an eagerness that unsettled him despite everything they had endured together.
"Sever his head. Do it."
"Bathe in his blood."
"I will be very pleased."
Her tone sounded frantic, almost desperate in its insistence but slow and measured, a quality he had rarely heard from her throughout their partnership.
Lucid swallowed, uncertain what to do. If he killed Mercyros now, he would only be fulfilling exactly what the cultists had wanted all along, completing whatever twisted prophecy their gospel had demanded of him.
He let go.
"You fool," Alice snapped within his mind, frustration evident. "Something pierced him already. He was already on his knees."
Mercyros stepped over him, his movements unsteady but deliberate, closing the distance between them with what remained of his strength.
"I don't want this, young man," he said, his voice carrying something raw and unguarded. "She is the reason we suffer."
"I see you as nothing more than a child of my own making," Mercyros continued.
Lucid moved suddenly, delivering an uppercut that connected solidly with Mercyros's jaw. The Monolith staggered sideways from the impact.
Mercyros stepped back, standing roughly three feet above Lucid in his current humanoid form. He wiped something from his lips.
Blood. Divine blood, golden and thick.
"I see that Neptune has given you her shard of will," he observed, studying Lucid with renewed interest despite his weakened state. "I see that you are also a Primordial."
"Tell me," he continued.
Lucid stood there, his body slowly healing itself through whatever mechanism Alice had provided him.
"Do you believe in a world where no one has to govern people's beliefs?" Mercyros asked. "A world where everyone is free to believe in whatever they choose?"
"You want to get with a freshly reincarnated girl," Lucid shot back flatly. "Shut up, creep."
Mercyros looked at him and glared, though the expression carried less anger than exhaustion. He sank to his knees again.
"I propose again," he said. "Take my remaining mandates. Take the authorities you already possess, and through the ring, you shall replace me entirely."
Lucid spat at him in response.
"You are making a mistake," Alice said within his mind, her voice carrying warning now rather than her earlier bloodlust.
Lucid couldn't bring himself to care about her warning at that moment.
Suddenly a pressure unlike anything he had experienced before pressed down around him as he sat on the shattered marble floor. Mercyros walked forward, intensifying whatever force he was generating, the air itself growing heavy and difficult to breathe.
Lucid struggled, one of his hands scraping against stone as he tried to push himself to the side, away from the mounting pressure.
"Then die," Mercyros said simply, his voice carrying finality.
Footsteps echoed through the chamber.
A woman wearing a dark coat approached, corruption visibly spreading through purple veins across her exposed skin, her condition clearly deteriorating. She stepped forward with an awkward limp, one hand clutching her shoulder protectively.
"Leave the boy," she said.
Mercyros stopped immediately. The pressure surrounding Lucid released, allowing him to breathe freely again.
Alice's voice returned, hurling a stream of unkind, possessive words that Lucid barely registered through his exhaustion.
"Lucid, do not be stupid," she said sharply.
He glanced toward the corner of his vision. The woman he had seen too many times now to mistake her involvement, the same figure connected to whatever scheme Pilt had been entangled in throughout this ordeal.
Suddenly Lucid found himself thrown by a gust of concentrated gravity, his body slamming through a nearby pillar with bone-jarring force.
He looked up and saw Pilt.
Pilt had caught him, arms wrapping around his frame to break the momentum of his flight through the chamber.
Pilt's attention shifted toward the woman and Mercyros standing alone together. His eyes widened with sudden recognition.
Lucid, still held securely by Pilt's arms, watched the exchange unfold.
"Take me," the woman said, addressing Mercyros directly. "Leave the young ones out of this. They are the future."
"You can have your solitude with her," she continued. "And she can take my place."
"But you are mortal," Mercyros replied, confusion evident in his tone.
"A mortal who owns ninety four percent of the Aureate corporation," she said, her voice carrying steady confidence despite her visibly deteriorating condition.
She looked back toward Pilt.
Suddenly Pilt burst forward, releasing his hold on Lucid and leaving him on the ground as he moved toward the woman.
Alice yelled within Lucid's mind. "No!"
Lucid stood up quickly, wrapping a chain around his wrist and throwing it forward. The chain caught Pilt, yanking him backward, initiating a struggle for control between them.
Lucid possessed superior physical strength in this exchange. He held Pilt easily despite his friend's evident desperation to break free.
"Dammit, let go, you fogged shit," Pilt said, clenching his teeth against the restraint.
"I can't predict," Lucid muttered, more to himself than to Pilt, uncertain what outcome any of his current choices might produce.
Seconds passed. Appendages, spindly and strange, began finding their way through cracks spreading across the floor beneath them.
Everyone present had entered what felt like the final stage of this confrontation once again.
Mercyros turned his attention toward the approaching woman, studying her deteriorating form with something resembling genuine sorrow.
"You would sacrifice yourself for him," he observed, his voice carrying quiet disbelief. "For a mortal boy who barely understands what he is asking you to surrender."
"He is not just a mortal boy to me," the woman replied, her voice steady despite the corruption visibly spreading further across her exposed skin with each passing moment. "And I have made my choice already. I made it the moment I decided to intervene in whatever transaction you two were attempting to complete."
Pilt struggled against Lucid's grip, desperation evident in every movement. "Let me go! She doesn't understand what she's offering!"
"She understands perfectly well," Lucid said, his voice carrying quiet authority despite his own exhaustion and confusion regarding the unfolding situation. "That's precisely why you need to stop struggling and let this play out."
'Why am I defending her decision,' Lucid wondered internally, even as he maintained his grip on Pilt's straining form. 'I barely understand what's actually happening here.'
Alice's voice returned, softer now, carrying something that sounded almost like resignation. "Because sometimes sacrifice carries weight that outside parties cannot fully judge or prevent. Even I recognize that much, despite my earlier insistence."
Mercyros studied the woman for a long moment, his expression shifting through several emotions that Lucid couldn't fully categorize from his current position.
"You understand this exchange is permanent," Mercyros said finally. "Once completed, there exists no mechanism for reversal. You would be bound to concepts of trade and commerce eternally, governing transactions across the Scattered Realms until another suitable replacement emerges to take your place, if such replacement ever does."
"I understand," the woman replied without hesitation.
"And you accept this fate willingly, despite everything it will cost you?"
"I accept it willingly," she confirmed. "Better this outcome than watching that boy destroy himself trying to protect something he cannot fully comprehend."
Pilt's struggling intensified at her words. "You don't get to make that choice for me!"
"I'm not making it for you," she said, turning to look directly at him despite the corruption visibly spreading across her features. "I'm making it for myself. There's a difference, even if you refuse to see it right now."
Mercyros extended his hand toward her slowly, golden light beginning to gather within his palm, the same formal script pattern that had characterized his earlier transaction with Lucid regarding the ring.
"Once we begin this exchange," he said, "there will be no interruption possible. The transfer occurs through mechanisms beyond mortal contract, beyond anything physical intervention could halt or reverse."
"I understand the terms," she said again, stepping closer despite her obvious physical deterioration, despite the corruption that seemed to be actively consuming her from within.
Lucid felt Pilt's struggling grow more frantic beneath his restraining grip.
"Lucid, do something," Pilt pleaded, his voice cracking with desperation that Lucid had rarely heard from his usually composed companion. "You have the authority now. You could stop this. You could take Mercyros's place instead and let her walk away."
Lucid considered the offer seriously, weighing the implications against everything he had witnessed and experienced since first encountering this domain.
"If I take his place," Lucid said slowly, thinking through the ramifications as he spoke, "I become bound the same way he was. Eternal servitude to concepts of trade and commerce, governing transactions I never asked to oversee, watching humanity struggle with systems I would be forced to maintain regardless of my personal judgment about their fairness or cruelty."
"But you could change things," Pilt insisted. "You could reshape the entire system from within, prevent the kind of exploitation we witnessed happening throughout Port Vexis."
'Could I,' Lucid wondered internally, genuinely considering the possibility despite the urgency of the moment. 'Or would I simply become another version of Mercyros, trapped by the same constraints regardless of my initial intentions?'
Alice's voice returned, quiet and thoughtful now. "The authority itself carries certain immutable properties, Lucid. Even if you took his place with the best intentions, the concept of commerce demands certain fundamental principles be maintained. You could reshape details, perhaps even significant aspects of implementation, but the core nature of what you would become remains fixed."
"Then it doesn't matter who takes the position," Lucid said aloud, releasing some of the tension from his grip on Pilt though not entirely relinquishing his hold. "Whether it's Mercyros, myself, or her, the fundamental constraints remain identical."
"Not entirely," the woman interjected, her voice carrying quiet conviction despite her weakening condition. "Different individuals bring different perspectives to how they interpret and enforce those constraints. Mercyros became cruel through centuries of isolation and disillusionment."
A moment of pause, the very air fell still.
"I intend to approach this differently."
Mercyros looked at her with something approaching genuine curiosity now, his earlier desperation replaced by quiet contemplation.
"You believe you can maintain compassion while governing something as fundamentally transactional as commerce itself?" he asked.
"I believe I can try," she replied simply. "That's more than you apparently managed throughout your tenure."
Mercyros's expression shifted into something resembling a bitter smile. "Perhaps. Or perhaps you'll discover the same disillusionment that consumed me, given sufficient time and exposure to humanity's endless capacity for exploitation and greed."
"Then I'll discover it," she said. "But I won't discover it by standing here arguing while this domain continues collapsing around us."
She stepped forward, closing the final distance between herself and Mercyros's outstretched hand.
Pilt's struggling reached its peak, his desperation evident in every strained movement against Lucid's restraining grip. "Please, don't do this. There has to be another way."
"Let me go you fogged shit." He yelled through clenched teeth.
The woman turned to look at him one final time, her expression carrying something complicated, affection mixed with resolve mixed with quiet sorrow.
"There isn't," she said softly. "Not one that doesn't cost something precious. This way, at least, the cost falls on someone who chooses it willingly."
She placed her hand within Mercyros's outstretched palm.