Lackey's Seducing Survival Odyssey

Chapter 1843: Death Comes in Many Ways…

Young Aether stood there like a statue, completely taken aback by the situation and… even more by Allen. The faint humming seemed to fade into the background, leaving only the sound of his own breathing and the dull, pulsing pain radiating from his wounded hip.

“Aether! Aether! AETHER!!” Jonathan’s shouting finally snapped him out of his entranced expression. Young Aether blinked several times, his unfocused eyes slowly settling on his friend as the world around him came rushing back into clarity.

Jonathan approached him with hurried steps, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and desperation.

“You really have Genome Beta?”

“…” Young Aether remained silent.

Jonathan waited for an answer that never came. A weak smile slowly formed across his face, but there was no happiness behind it.

“So you really did have her…” he whispered, his voice trembling slightly.

He shook his head, his expression becoming painfully betrayed.

“Why, man? Why the hell did you hide her from me? Did you really think you couldn’t trust me?”

“…” Young Aether lowered his head, his face becoming unreadable.

“Done talking?” the tailed mech-suit asked.

Its segmented mechanical tail shifted with a series of precise clicks, the tip rotating furiously through the air directly before Lily.

“N-No, no, NO!!”

Lily’s fearful cries snapped Young Aether’s attention toward her.

He looked at her trembling body, her terrified eyes, the way her breathing struggled to remain steady beneath the overwhelming presence of the machine. Her fear was not an illusion.

It was not something she needed to imitate.

And somehow, that frightened expression felt closer to his heart than it should have.

No.

Not the kind of feeling he usually faked to maintain his expression.

This felt intimate.

It was something buried deep inside him, something reaching outward from a place he had spent years sealing shut.

Honestly, he didn’t know how to express it… because perhaps he had never truly understood what this feeling was supposed to be in the first place.

He had worn a mask every single fucking time.

Whenever someone cried, he knew what expression to make. Whenever someone smiled, he knew how to smile back. Whenever someone suffered, he understood the appropriate words, the appropriate gestures, even the appropriate amount of sympathy.

He had learned emotions like someone studying a language without ever understanding its meaning.

But right now… Whatever he was feeling, he couldn’t understand himself.

Betrayed?

Lost?

Confused?

Fear?

His thoughts collided inside his head, each emotion overlapping the next until he could no longer separate one from another.

Nothing made sense!

Even after everything he had done to Gamma City, he had never once felt a genuine connection to the people there. Even when he had tried to reach the pregnant woman, he had not truly been trying to save her.

He simply did what a normal person would have done.

That was all.

Wasn’t it?

That was how a normal Aether would react.

A normal human being.

He had reacted exactly like one.

But right now…

Something was different.

Was he…

Becoming human again?

All because… Of the small wound?

His gaze slowly dropped toward his hip.

Blood had gathered along the edge of the injury.

He touched it.

His fingertips came away wet.

For a moment, he simply stared at the blood.

Yes.

It hurts.

It hurts like FUCKING HELL!!!

He had used to pain before.

Countless times.

But this pain felt different because, for the first time in a long while, he was actually aware of himself feeling it.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed the child with ice blue eyes standing behind Lily.

The child was staring at him and slowly curved into a faint smirk.

!!!

His entire body suddenly shuddered.

He immediately averted his eyes from Lily and turned toward Allen instead. His gaze settled upon the whitish-black armoured figure.

“Are you… really going to stand there and watch this?” Young Aether asked, his voice barely audible.

The words were quiet.

Yet somehow, they seemed to travel through the surrounding silence like a storm rolling across an ocean.

Allen did not move an inch. The visor remained fixed upon Aether, cold and unreadable.

“S-She is going to kill your daughter,” Young Aether said with an unreadable expression.

“Your own daughter, A-Allen. Are you… really going to just stand there and watch her die?”

Again, Allen gave him nothing.

Young Aether stared at him, desperately searching that expressionless visor for something… Anything!

There was no anger in Young Aether’s face.

There was no hatred either.

And, for the first time, Young Aether realised that he didn’t even know which mask he was supposed to wear anymore.

A Friend?

An Enemy?

A Saviour?

A Monster?

What should he choose?

Someone tell him.

Show him.

Teach him.

Please…

Teach him what kind of mask he was supposed to wear now.

But no.

There was no one who could teach him.

He had spent so long standing behind masks that he had forgotten what his own face looked like beneath them.

And now, when he finally needed someone to tell him what to feel, there was nobody.

He was alone.

Not the ordinary kind of loneliness that disappeared when someone entered the room.

This was something deeper.

A loneliness that remained even when surrounded by people.

A loneliness that had followed him through every city, every battle, every smile, and every identity he had created.

His breathing trembled.

He lowered his head, and his shoulders sank slightly beneath the weight of everything pressing against him.

For the first time… He felt… he wanted to die.

Yes.

Right now, more than anything else, he wanted to disappear.

He wanted to die and never… ever come back to this place again.

He wanted the pain to stop.

All the memories he had made with his friends…

He just wanted them to be protected.

Untouched.

Unbroken.

Even if he had to disappear from their lives completely to make that happen.

His fingers slowly tightened around the bloodied fabric near his wound, and the pain bit deeper into his palm.

For once, he didn’t know whether the pain in his body hurt more…

Or the pain inside his chest.

Just leave the only pure, non-fake happiness in his life.

Please!

But even after everything… he still didn’t understand why Allen had betrayed him, nor why he was standing there like a statue while his own daughter was about to be killed.

“Are you… going to betray her too?” he asked, desperately hoping Allen would say something, anything, to him.

Yet there was no sign of movement from the whitish-black suit.

“I-It’s Dad?” Lily muttered in shock when she realised that the enormous suit was her father.

Her trembling eyes widened behind the tears. “Dad… is that you?”

Again, there was no answer from Allen.

Lily’s face crumpled as she burst into tears.

“D-Dad… N-Noah… Noah, my little brother… d-died…” Her voice broke as she struggled to breathe. “Dad… he died… I… I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t protect him. I’m sorry, Dad… I failed. I failed to keep our promise… I should’ve left Uncle when you told me to… I should have obeyed your words… I’m sooo sorrryyyy…”

Her voice dragged into a broken sob as the pain of her brother’s death stabbed into her chest.

After all…

Her brother had died because of her actions.

The image of Noah laughing for the last time kept returning to her mind, again and again, like a curse she could neither escape nor silence.

If only she had done what her father told her…

This wouldn’t have happened.

All because of her.

She kept blaming herself for the death of her beloved little brother, crushing herself beneath guilt that she could no longer carry.

Yet Allen stood there motionlessly.

Young Aether frowned as he listened to Lily’s words.

‘Leave me? Why?’

The thought surfaced again, leaving him even more confused.

“Hmm… You still don’t seem to understand the situation,” the tailed mech-suit suddenly said in a cold, emotionless tone.

Its mechanical tail slowly withdrew from Lily’s forehead.

For a brief moment, everyone thought she had decided not to kill Lily after all.

But they were wrong.

The mech-suit abruptly seized Lily and shoved her forward.

“Argh!”

Lily stumbled across the floor as she finally stopped directly in front of Allen.

She slowly raised her head.

“D-Dad?”

Her eyes trembled violently as she looked up at the enormous armored figure standing before her.

The whitish-black armour made him look like an executioner waiting to deliver a sentence.

He raised his double-edged axe.

The pistons screamed with a sharp mechanical hiss as hydraulic pressure surged through the frame.

!!

Lily’s face instantly drained of colour.

For several seconds, she could only stare at the weapon raised above her.

“…Dad?”

Her voice barely escaped her throat.

She couldn’t believe it.

Her own father had raised his weapon against her.

The tailed mech-suit lifted one hand.

“Hand over Genome Beta.”

Her five fingers slowly spread before her.

Then one finger folded inward.

Then another.

She was counting.

Jonathan’s eyes widened.

“Are you nuts?” he shouted furiously. “You think threatening us with his family is going to work? If he doesn’t give a damn about them, then why the hell would we?”

His face twisted with anger as he pointed toward Allen.

“That motherfucker already betrayed us!”

He folded his arms and glanced toward Young Aether.

“So kill her. We don’t give a shit anymore… Isn’t that right, Aether?”

“…”

Young Aether remained silent.

Jonathan wasn’t entirely wrong.

If Allen truly didn’t give a damn about his own family, then why should they?

But before Young Aether could make sense of his own thoughts, the tailed mech-suit’s sharp tail suddenly shifted.

The mechanical appendage moved with terrifying precision, its segmented structure unfolding through the air before the sharpened tip stopped directly beside Sasha’s head.

Sasha’s face turned white with horror.

“N-No! NO! JON!! You fucking bastard!”

Jonathan’s eyes widened.

He immediately turned nearly 180, not only physically but also emotionally,

“H-Hey! Just hand her over!” His voice cracked with panic. “Aether! Please… at least do it for Sasha!”

Young Aether remained silent.

He didn’t move a single muscle.

His gaze stayed fixed on Allen’s visor, as though staring hard enough might somehow force an answer from the man hiding behind that expressionless armour.

Why?

Why were you doing this?

Why were you standing there?

Why were you letting this happen?

Yet Allen showed no hesitation. There was only pure indifference.

“A-Aether… please.”

Jonathan’s voice dropped into a desperate plea.

“Just give it to them, man! He’s gone fucking nuts!”

His breathing became ragged as he looked between Allen and Sasha.

“He’s going to kill his own family… Aether, please! And Sasha too… S-She’s the only one I have left.”

His voice trembled.

“Please… I-I can’t lose her as well.”

“Aether!”

The tailed mech-suit continued counting.

Another finger folded inward.

Only two remained.

Jonathan clenched the front of his collar so tightly that his knuckles turned pale.

“AETHER!! Even if you don’t care about Lily, at least do it for Sasha!”

Young Aether said nothing.

The final two fingers remained extended.

One folded inward.

Then the last.

“Please, Aether… she’s all I have left!” Jonathan begged.

The tailed mech-suit’s hand finally clenched into a fist.

At that exact moment, the massive axe shifted.

For one fraction of a second, Lily saw the reflection of its blade in her tear-filled eyes.

Then Allen swung.

The double-edged axe tore through the air without hesitation, descending toward his own daughter with merciless force.

“Da…d?” Lily mumbled in utter shock as she watched the weapon descend toward her face. For a second, everything seemed to slow within her eyes. She could see every movement of the massive blade, every reflection of light sliding across its edge, until, in the next instant, the weapon arrived directly before her forehead and sliced downward.

…Or so she thought.

“I’ll give her…”

Young Aether’s dead voice echoed at the last moment.

At that exact moment, the weapon stopped barely a few millimetres from Lily’s forehead.

SSHHH!!

The sudden halt forced the displaced air to gush forward with tremendous force, whipping through Lily’s hair and scattering the loose strands across her tear-stained face.

Chcuk!

The sheer force behind the stopped weapon still left its mark.

The skin on Lily’s forehead split slightly, forming a small cut from the pressure and momentum of the enormous blade.

“…”

For a moment, Lily didn’t react.

Then blood slowly seeped from the tiny wound, sliding down her forehead before pooling around her eyes. Through the crimson blur, she stared blankly at her father without blinking.

As if…

As if she simply couldn’t believe that her father had been about to kill her without mercy.

Why, Dad?

Was it because she hadn’t obeyed his words?

Was that the reason?

Was it because she was the reason Noah died?

Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, mixing with the blood already staining her face. Her broken gaze remained fixed upon the man who had once loved her more than anything.

Her lips parted.

But no words came out.

There was only silence.

Only those empty, broken eyes staring at the remains of the world she once believed was safe.

Meanwhile, Young Aether stared into Lily’s shattered eyes with his own lifeless gaze.

For some reason, his vision suddenly became misty.

Blurred.

Something inside his chest trembled violently.

He didn’t understand what it was.

He simply stood there, staring at her as though he had finally encountered something he had been searching for without knowing it.

His head moved slightly.

He nodded a few times, almost as though he were speaking to himself.

Then he raised his hand and attempted to open the portal.

“…”

Nothing happened.

Young Aether frowned.

He concentrated harder, directing his energy through the systems within his body as the space before him distorted faintly.

Still nothing.

Something inside him was violently disturbing his concentration.

His heartbeat accelerated.

His fingers trembled.

A strange pressure tightened around his chest, making every breath feel heavier than the last.

He ignored it.

He forced himself to focus.

“What are you waiting for?” the tailed mech-suit asked coldly.

Young Aether clenched his fist.

A sharp, stinging nerve pain shot through his body, causing his muscles to tense.

Sssshhhhnnn~

A white portal finally opened above the floor.

Something fell through it.

Thud!

“Ouch!”

A woman landed heavily on the ground.

She immediately looked left and right with a confused expression, trying to understand where she had been brought.

Then she saw Aether.

Her eyes widened.

But before she could say anything, her gaze moved past him.

Destroyed control systems.

The tailed mech-suit.

The enormous whitish-black mech-suit.

Her expression changed instantly.

The tailed mech-suit scanned the woman’s face. A thin lattice of light swept across her features as its internal recognition system compared her biometric data against its current database.

<>

Without hesitation, the mech-suit grabbed Lily and threw her toward Young Aether.

At the same time, its mechanical tail shot outward and wrapped tightly around Nova Kestral’s waist.

“Argh!”

Nova groaned as the tail constricted around her hips before violently pulling her across the floor.

She barely had time to react before the mech-suit struck her with a precise blow, knocking her unconscious.

Her body went limp.

Meanwhile, Young Aether barely managed to catch Lily with his one real hand.

The impact nearly knocked him off balance.

“Ugh!”

He stumbled backward and fell to the ground with Lily held against him.

“Are you alright, Lily….?” he asked.

But when he looked into her eyes, the words died inside him.

All he saw was a broken world.

His lips trembled.

His vision blurred again.

Something inside him twisted painfully, and for several seconds, he could only stare at her.

Then he nodded slowly, almost as though he had finally understood something.

His lips forced themselves into a faint smile.

“I-It’s alright…” he whispered.

His voice was soft, almost painfully gentle.

“Everything… will be alright.”

He slowly pushed himself upright, keeping Lily close against his body.

But Lily suddenly wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, clinging to him like a koala that had found the only solid thing left in a collapsing world.

She didn’t want to move.

She didn’t want to look back.

She didn’t want to believe what had just happened.

Her body trembled against him as tears continued slipping down her cheeks, while the blood flowing from the small wound on her forehead shimmered beneath the cold lights.

Jonathan shouted, “What about Sasha?! Hand her over as well!!”

The tailed mech-suit tilted her head slightly, almost as though the question amused her.

“One life for one life… that was the deal~”

“…”

Jonathan’s face turned pale.

Behind the tailed mech-suit, Allen slowly raised his double-edged axe. The weapon’s internal pistons hissed as its mechanisms locked into place. Blue particles began flowing violently along the arcs of the axe, gathering with an increasingly furious glow.

The air itself seemed to vibrate around the weapon.

Then Allen brought it down with full force.

BOOOOMMMMMM!!!

The entire floor shattered beneath the monstrous impact.

The force penetrated through the Tower as though its reinforced structure were nothing more than a brittle biscuit.

Cracks erupted across the metallic flooring, racing outward in every direction while structural supports buckled under the sudden pressure.

Before anyone could react, the floor beneath Young Aether and Jonathan collapsed.

“Wha—?!”

Both of them dropped into the opening along with chunks of broken flooring and debris.

“SASHAAAAAA!!!”

Jonathan’s scream echoed through the collapsing structure.

Meanwhile, Young Aether simply stared at Allen.

His expression remained blank.

The ground disappeared beneath him, and he fell into the darkness along with the debris.

Outside the Tower, the upper-floor windows suddenly shattered with a deafening burst.

SHATTER!

A furious wave of blue particle energy erupted from the upper levels, scattering through the building as the overwhelming force continued travelling downward.

But the destruction didn’t stop there.

The Tower itself could no longer contain the momentum.

SHATTER!

SHATTER!

SHATTER!

SHATTER!

SHATTER!!

One floor after another shattered in rapid succession, the destruction travelling downward like a violent chain reaction. Reinforced glass exploded outward, metal supports twisted under pressure, and clouds of dust poured from the ruptured floors.

By the time the momentum finally stopped, almost one-third of the Tower had been destroyed, leaving only a few damaged floors standing above the ruined section.

Allen stood silently at the edge of the enormous hole carved through the middle of the Tower.

His massive armoured figure remained completely still as he looked down into the darkness below.

Coldly.

Without hesitation.

Without a trace of emotion!