Read Novel Full Chapter 247: Metamorphisis
Chapter 247: Metamorphisis
"An endless agony. That is surviving. But if one can see the beauty in that agony, one unlocks the possibility of living."
"That’s a beautiful sentiment and all, but go die in a hole."
"Ah, how amusing you are, epigone."
***
Vale could still see, but he couldn’t process.
’Pain.’
’No flames.’
’No octagon.’
’Pain.’
That was all the line of thought he could manage.
His entire body felt as if it was basking in a tempered flame. Like he was a metal being buffeted by a blacksmith. A process of reforging into something stronger by folding what was there and tightening. Like all that was before had been condensed into his heart, and from his heart a new body was trying to break free.
There wasn’t a single moment he was freed from the pain.
It did not crest. It did not ebb. The agony was not a wave but a pressure. Like the slow, merciless tightening of a vise cranking tighter around his ribs, cracking them.
No, not cracking...
That pain would have been much too merciful, clean, and comprehensible.
This pain was subtler, more profane. They bent without bending, stretched without moving, as though some unseen geometry was rewriting them from within.
His skin followed.
It clung too tightly and yet not tight enough, as if it were being tailored by invisible hands that did not understand the shape they were meant to contain. It prickled, split, re-knit — again and again in grotesque, infinitesimal revisions. It felt like needles dragged slowly across every inch of him.
And his heart from which everything had burst...
His heart felt like a furnace. Like the flame that had been torching him before had been trapped within it, continuing the forging process.
He could not breathe.
Or perhaps he did breathe, but the act had lost all meaning.
Air entered, air left, and neither brought relief. His lungs burned with a cold fire, a paradox that scalded and froze in the same instant, leaving behind a hollow ache that only deepened with every futile inhale.
Time unraveled.
There was no sequence, no before or after — only a single, eternal moment stretched thin and taut until it threatened to snap. Seconds became vast, years became seconds.
And then... it stopped.
Euphoric pleasure emerged from beneath the agony. His body had evolved.
Vale’s eyes shot open.
***
Few knew the truth.
Delora, Patience as she was known now, was one of them.
She not only knew that there was a seventh Virtue named Diligence, but she also knew the ’why’ of the world.
’Why did that boy say a mean thing to his mother?’
’Why does a leaf fall?’
’Why do nations crumble?’
She knew the answer.
Sloth, Sloth, and Diligence.
Their power wasn’t absolute, but it might as well have been. Nothing slipped under their gaze. Nothing was untouched by their machinations.
Patience also knew who the true enemy was.
She also knew where they were hiding.
She also knew there was nothing she could do but follow along and play the pitiful piece on the game board.
’A pawn.’
That’s all she was in the grand scheme of things.
’But what was the name of that game she taught me...?’
Patience sat in a clock tower, overlooking the streets of Malakite as they drowned in a sea of fire. Off on the horizon, upon the walls, Pride stood with his sword drawn.
’Chess. That’s what it was!’
And in that game, a pawn could be promoted.
Patience looked to her side, as if she could see the far ends of the world.
Though the decision to promote the pawn and what it would become wasn’t up to her. Nor was her life in her hands. But the dutiful pawn she was, Patience played her part in setting the stage.
To her other side, down below, a burning woman called out for help as she held her dead baby in her hands.
Patience, the Hero of Virtue, didn’t move.
It was their fate to die here and today; why would she save something long for the grave?
Hundreds of burning people called out for Patience, but only a few spotted her through the thick clouds of smoke.
Once Malakite was gone, Patience would be free from her chain of obligation and become a specter. She’d be officially dead to the rest of the world.
To that end, nobody was allowed to see her escape.
Nobody was allowed to identify bodies.
Hence why she started the fires the moment Pride breached the gates.
This was all necessary for the unknown future’s past.
Patience’s stare hardened.
’I’ll come and greet you soon, our newest addition.’
But first, she needed to overcome the first trial of Despair.
The two hands on the clock clicked over and struck noon. Patience looked up at the sky, then stood.
Patience stretched and began pooling her Aether together, preparing to teleport herself to South Hela when a half-dead soldier, who’d fled from the fighting appeared behind her.
"M-miss Patience! Oh, thank the gods, you’re here, hero. Please—"
Delora snapped her fingers, sending the man back into the inferno below.
The soldier looked around in harrowing confusion as one of Pride’s minions chomped his head clean off.
’I truly am sorry, nameless man.’
But destiny doesn’t wait. It comes to you.
Delora focused, then snapped again.
The scenery changed. Before her lay a beautiful estuary. She was on a cliff, overlooking where it merged. Next to her was a small shack.
She walked up to it, knocked three times.
A man with tired eyes opened the door. Another Hero of Virtue thought to be dead and gone.
"It’s done, Delora?"
"Yes, Zeek."
"Very well. Let’s get started, shall we?"
"Yes, let’s bring about the end of the world in fantastic fashion."
Delora stepped into the shack.
Once there, the two waited for the game masters’ orders. Then, and only then, would the instruments of fate sing the world’s end in discordant harmony.