Chapter 84: Grik’s Past (Part 3)

I stood in the silent, freezing vault of the Labyrinth, my glowing red eyes locked on the stone floor as I recalled the absolute nightmare.

My pack sat entirely motionless around me, captivated by the horror of a world they had never seen.

"When the dead started climbing out of the walls," I continued, my voice a hollow rasp, "the fragile illusion of our modern, scientific world shattered completely. Absolute pandemonium broke out."

SCREEEAAAM!

"The technician who had triggered the trap lost his mind. He scrambled backward, slipping on the frost, and began screaming for his mother. The leader, Mark, yelled for us to run, but his voice cracked in pure panic. It was useless. The entrance was already blocked."

I clenched my brass fist, the gears whining softly in the quiet vault. Just thinking of those memories made me feel miserable.

"One of our porters, a deeply religious man, dropped to his freezing knees. He pressed his hands together and began frantically chanting scriptures. He prayed to God to save him from the demons. The dead did not care about his prayers."

THUD. SHLUCK.

"A frosted, gray hand reached out and grabbed him by the throat. It lifted him effortlessly off the ground, choking off his prayers. Another crew member, driven by pure adrenaline, swung his heavy steel ice axe with everything he had."

CRACK!

"The sharp pick of the axe buried itself deep into a dead climber’s neck. With a sickening wrench, he tore the head completely off. The frozen head rolled across the floor, its white eyes still staring."

Rolf leaned forward, his amber eyes wide. "Did it stop them?"

I shook my head slowly.

"No. The headless corpse simply reached out, its frozen fingers digging into the man’s heavy winter coat. It dragged him down into the dirt. Human weapons were entirely useless. We were fighting the supernatural with normal human strength, and it was pathetically ineffective."

SQUELCH. TEAR.

"They dragged my crew toward the center of the room. The bleeding altar seemed to call to them. The thick, steaming crimson sludge that poured from the obsidian block acted like a magnet. As the dead dragged the screaming men into the blood, their bodies began to sink into the floor. The altar was absorbing them."

Nyssa gasped, her hands flying to her mouth in horror. The others listened more intently.

"Anise and I were backed against the icy rock wall," I narrated, closing my eyes as the phantom chill of the Himalayas washed over me again.

"I pushed her behind me. I gripped my ice pick with both hands. I was terrified. But more than the terror, I felt a crushing, agonizing helplessness."

I opened my eyes, looking at my towering, dark green body and my heavy Vanguard Arm.

"You look at me now, and you see a Goblin Lord. You see a tactician with a C Grade core who can shatter iron with a single punch. But back then? I was just Robert. I had no System. I had no martial aura. I was just a normal human man, my muscles burning with cold and terror, fighting a losing battle to protect the only thing I loved."

SWISH! THWACK!

"I swung my ice pick wildly. I drove the spike straight into the chest of an advancing corpse. It did not even flinch. It did not bleed. It just kept reaching for Anise. I kicked its knee, trying to break the joint."

CRUNCH.

"The bone snapped, but the corpse simply dragged its broken leg forward, crawling over the rocks to get to us. They ignored my hits. They looked at me with dead, white eyes, almost mocking my desperate, pathetic efforts to survive."

"We were completely cornered," I whispered.

"Dozens of them formed a tight circle around us, cutting off any route to the exit. The smell of old dust and fresh blood was suffocating."

Kaelith’s silver eyes were narrowed, completely absorbed by the grim tactics of the memory.

"There was no escape route?"

"None," I confirmed.

"And Anise knew it. She sure did."

I took a deep, shuddering breath.

"She looked at the horde of the undead. Then she looked at me. The sheer panic in her eyes was suddenly gone. It was replaced by a strange, terrifying calm. A horrific realization settled over her. She knew we were both going to be torn apart if we stayed together."

"I told her to stay behind me. I yelled that I would find a way through. But she just shook her head."

...

"She looked right into my eyes and said, ’You have to live, Robert.’"

My voice cracked slightly.

"Then, she placed her heavy, gloved hands flat against my chest. And she shoved me."

SHOVE!

"It was not a normal push," I told them, my glowing eyes wide with the remembered shock.

"Anise was a slender woman. But the force that hit my chest was impossible. It felt like a massive kinetic blast. A wall of invisible energy struck me like a speeding truck."

"She used magic," Nyssa breathed in awe.

"On a world without mana."

"She did," I nodded.

"I flew backward, tumbling head over heels through the air. I sailed completely over the heads of the advancing undead."

CRASH!

"I landed hard on my back, skidding across the jagged rocks until I hit the edge of the cave entrance. The wind was knocked entirely out of my lungs. I scrambled onto my hands and knees, ignoring the agonizing pain in my ribs, and looked back into the chamber."

The vault was deathly quiet as my pack hung on my every word. As they say, a sad love story can make a grown man cry.

[A/N: Nobody said it!]

"I expected to see her running toward me. I expected her to follow me to the exit. But she did not. She turned her back to the door. She sprinted directly into the horde of the undead, heading straight for the bleeding obsidian altar in the exact center of the room."

"ANISE! NO!" I remembered screaming.

"My throat tore with the force of my shout. I tried to stand, trying to run back in to grab her, but my legs would not work. I was completely helpless."

"She reached the center. The blinding, blood red light of the altar consumed her silhouette. She stood right in front of the flowing crimson sludge, completely surrounded by the reaching, grabbing hands of the dead."

I clenched my brass fist against my side.

"Then, she raised her hands. She began to chant."

HUMMMMMM.

"It was a language I had never heard in my entire life. It did not sound human. It was deep, resonant, and it vibrated right into my teeth. The words seemed to warp the very air inside the cave. The moment she spoke, the dead stopped grabbing the crew. They all turned their vacant, white eyes toward her, screeching in sudden, terrified agony."

SKREEEEE!

"The crimson light from the runes flared to a blinding, impossible brightness. The entire mountain began to shake, not with an earthquake, but with the sheer pressure of whatever spell she was weaving."

A heavy, suffocating sorrow filled my chest.

"She looked over her shoulder," I whispered.

"Through the blinding crimson light, through the swirling dust and the reaching claws of the dead, she found my eyes one last time."

...

"She was crying. The tears froze on her cheeks. And through the chaos, I saw her lips move."

"She mouthed the words... ’I love you.’"

KRA-KOOOOOOM!

"The altar erupted. A massive, supernatural shockwave of pure white and bloody red energy exploded outward from her body. The force was absolutely immense."

WHOOSH!

"The shockwave hit me like a freight train. I was blasted violently backward, lifted completely off the cavern floor. I was thrown entirely out of the cave mouth, sailing helplessly into the howling, sub zero blizzard outside."

RUUUMBLE. CRASH!

"As I flew through the air, I watched the entire side of the mountain cave in. Millions of tons of solid ice and ancient rock collapsed inward. The sheer weight of the avalanche sealed the cave, the bleeding altar, the horde of the dead, and the woman I loved under a permanent, unbreakable tomb of stone."

"ANISE!"

"My scream was swallowed by the roaring wind. My head slammed brutally against a jagged spire of ice. The pain flashed white, and then... everything simply faded to absolute, silent black."

I stood there in the Labyrinth vault, the heavy silence of my own tragic ending hanging in the cold air.

Nyssa was openly weeping, her tears sliding down her luminous, olive skin.

Rolf had his head bowed, his golden eyes shut tight in deep, ancestral respect for a fallen warrior.

Kaelith stared at me, her pitch black eyes shimmering with a profound, quiet understanding of true loss.

Lysandra clutched her hands over her heart, her pink eyes wide with devastating sorrow.

I turned my back to my pack and looked at the stasis pod.

"That was the last time I saw her," I said quietly.