As Keqing struggled to breathe, her beautiful eyes now beginning to lose focus due to the lack of oxygen and the excruciating pain. She stared blankly at Charles, perhaps not truly seeing him, only seeing a blurry shape in the midst of her darkening vision.
However, her sixth sense that couldn't be turned off—the sense that had betrayed her—now screamed once more. It detected Charles's presence.
She turned her head slightly, her amethyst eyes now locked on Charles's fox mask. She saw him. An eyewitness. A spectator.
That gaze—a mixture of shock, despair, and a silent plea—was what finally broke Charles's paralysis.
The existential shock vanished in an instant, replaced by a cold wave of adrenaline and focused rage. It didn't matter how he could be here. What mattered was that he was here, and she was dying.
Charles no longer thought. He acted.
His right hand, the only arm he had left, moved in a blur. Sinner, his modified revolver, was now in his grip. Its metal, adorned with pale blue crack patterns, felt cold and heavy in his hand, an anchor amid this insane reality.
Die, you bastard.
BANG!
The gunshot was deafening, echoing among the burning ruins. The bullet shot out, not as a physical projectile, but as a thin trail of blue smoke that crossed the crater in the blink of an eye.
The madman, whose flaming fist was only inches from Keqing's head, didn't have time to react. The bullet hit him right in the back. It didn't push him. It didn't tear his flesh. It passed through him.
A silent explosion of blue energy, non-physically destructive, occurred inside his body, and the target's eyes would glaze over for a moment.
Suddenly, the madman screamed.
This wasn't a scream of physical pain. It was a scream of pure, unfiltered terror, a howl of a torn soul.
Instantly, his already chaotic mind was flooded with an endless cycle of his greatest regrets, worst failures, and every cruelty he had ever committed, all replayed at maximum intensity.
His eyes, previously glowing orange, now became dull and empty, staring at something that wasn't there.
Sinner's mental curse had activated.
"NO! GET OUT! GET OUT OF MY HEAD! GO AWAY!"
His grip on Keqing's neck released instantly.
Keqing fell sprawling to the ground, her limp body slamming into the debris with force. She coughed violently, gasping to fill her burning lungs with air, an excruciating pain radiating from her blistered neck.
The madman staggered back, his rapidly aging hands now clutching his own head, his body trembling violently.
Charles gave him no time to recover. He was already sliding down the steep crater slope, his boots shifting gravel and dust.
One more shot will shatter his mind forever. But I have to conserve. Three minutes is a long time in a fight.
He landed on the hot crater floor. The madman, sensing the new presence, turned to face him. His madness now warring against the artificial depression just injected into his brain.
"YOU!" he roared, now seeing Charles as the source of his new suffering. He ignored Keqing and charged at Charles.
Charles stood tall. One hand. A revolver. A severely wounded body. He knew he was outmatched in every physical way. He raised Sinner again.
BANG!
The second shot. The blue bullet pierced the man's chest once more.
"ARRGGHHH!" The man stumbled, the mental cycle now amplified, an unbearable despair bringing him to his knees.
However, he didn't fall.
Driven by his madness stronger than mere regret, he rose again, his eyes now red with tears and rage.
At this moment, Keqing, seeing the opening, acted.
With her last remaining strength, she hurled her sword like a lightning spear. The sword spun in the air, crackling with Electro energy, and embedded deep into the man's knee.
The man roared in pain as electricity paralyzed his leg. He staggered.
Charles saw the opening. He no longer shot. He dashed forward, ignoring the pain in his thigh, and used his only arm to grab the man's raised arm.
With a quick hip twist, he used the man's own momentum to slam him to the ground.
KRAK!
The man's back hit a bent steel rod protruding from the ruins. The rod impaled him, piercing through his body.
Yet, he still laughed, blood and foam spilling from his lips.
The man, now impaled, used his free hand to grab and clutch Charles's fox mask.
Charles knew he couldn't let his identity be exposed. He also knew he couldn't let this creature live. He had to end it.
He placed his free palm on the man's chest, right over his pounding heart. He stared straight into the man's eyes, now filled with madness and confusion.
"Your time is up."
He snapped his fingers.
BOOM!
A concentrated explosion erupted from his palm. The shockwave was so powerful at such close range that it obliterated the madman's entire upper body, turning it into a red mist and bone fragments.
The explosion also threw Charles backward, his already fragile body slamming hard into the crater wall.
His fox mask cracked in two and fell from his face.
Total silence enveloped the crater once more, now leaving only the crackle of fire and the whisper of wind.
Charles slumped to the ground, his body screaming in protest. His wounded left shoulder now bleeding profusely again, soaking his cloak.
He could taste the metallic tang of his own blood at the back of his throat. He coughed, exhausted and in pain.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
Across the smoky, death-scented crater, Keqing was struggling to rise. Her burned hood cloak now fully revealed her beautiful face, marred by soot, blood, and tears.
She stared at Charles—at his now unmasked face—with her widening amethyst eyes.
...
Time seemed to stop.
In the midst of the now silent crater, the only sounds were the soft crackle of flames licking the debris, the howl of icy wind through the ruins, and the faint tinkling—tik-tik-tik—of falling ceramic shards.
Charles's white fox mask, cracked from the final explosion, now shattered into pieces.
The last piece covering his right eye detached, falling silently into the pool of blood and ice below, then vanishing into the darkness.
His face was now exposed. Revealed.
Charles froze. His entire body, already screaming in pain, was now doused in the icy water of pure panic. He no longer felt his shattered shoulder or his leg pierced by the Golem's crystal. He no longer felt the biting cold. He only felt that gaze.
Across the smoky crater, Keqing, still sprawled weakly on a pile of debris, now stared straight at his face.
And in her amethyst eyes, Charles saw no confusion. He saw no gratitude for the help he had just given. He only saw...
A hatred!
A hatred so pure, so absolute, so ancient and deep, that it made his own hatred for the Raiden Shogun seem like a child's tantrum.
It was a hatred that had festered for centuries, waiting for the right moment to explode!
Keqing's beautiful eyes narrowed into two sharp blades. Her jaw clenched so tightly that the muscles in her cheeks bulged. Her pale, bloodied lips pressed into a thin, cruel line.
The air around her, previously smelling only of residual ozone and charred flesh, now crackled violently.
Purple lightning, far darker and more ferocious than what she had used before, began to writhe across her body, dancing like venomous snakes.
"You...," she hissed. Her voice was no longer that of a frightened girl, but the low growl of a wild beast that had finally found its long-hunted prey.
Purple lightning exploded from her body.
Charles didn't even have time to raise his revolver. He didn't have time to think.
Keqing vanished from her spot in a deafening flash of Electro. She no longer moved like a precise ballet dancer. She moved like a bullet, like a lightning slash itself, driven by infinite rage.
She reappeared right in front of Charles. Her sword, previously lying beside her, was now back in her hand, its blade screaming with pure Electro energy ready to tear apart. She thrust straight at Charles's heart.
Damn!
Charles, driven by pure survival instinct, threw himself to the side. He rolled over sharp concrete debris, the fragments tearing his cloak and scratching his skin.
Keqing's sword blade only grazed his side, but the exploding Electro energy from the sword burned his cloak and left a deep, scorched gash on his skin, sending a new wave of stinging pain.
"WHY?!" Keqing screamed. Her voice broke, hysterical, and filled with tears now streaming down her soot-covered cheeks.
She didn't wait for an answer. She attacked again. Her slashes now wild, brutal, no longer possessing the precision of a Yuheng, but the pure madness of someone whose heart had been shattered to pieces.
Her sword struck where Charles had rolled, pulverizing the concrete beneath into dust and gravel.
"Wait! Keqing! This isn't—" Charles tried to shout, raising his remaining hand in a gesture of surrender, trying to explain something he himself didn't understand.
"SHUT UP!" she roared.
She dashed again, her sword swinging horizontally, aiming for Charles's neck.
Charles was forced to snap his fingers. SNAP! A small explosion formed between them. It wasn't an explosion meant to harm, just a shockwave to push back.
The explosion made Keqing stagger back momentarily, but she used the momentum perfectly. She spun in the air, her feet landing on the slanted crater wall, then launched back at Charles like a purple panther.
"WHY?!" her new slash came from above, forcing the unfortunate Charles to roll in the opposite direction again, reopening his shoulder wound and making it bleed.
Charles's breath was gasping, the pain in his shoulder now unbearable, the metallic taste of his own blood filling his mouth. "I was just—"
"WHY?!"
Keqing's next attack was an uninterrupted storm of Electro slashes. Clang! Zraassh! Boom! She unleashed a barrage of Stellar Restoration, her sword blade merging with lightning flashes, attacking from all directions simultaneously.
Charles was now truly overwhelmed. He had only one hand. He couldn't parry. He could only dodge. He leaped back, rolled, using ruined pillars as emergency shields.
But Keqing destroyed everything. The concrete pillar shattered under her slash. The bent steel rods protruding from the ruins were cut like dry twigs.
"I'm trying to help you!" Charles shouted, his voice now filled with desperation and confusion.
"HELP?!" Keqing paused for a moment, her body trembling violently, tears and hatred warring on her beautiful face. "AFTER EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE TO ME?!"
Charles's mind was in chaos.
That moment of pause was a cruel trick. Keqing used Stellar Restoration again, throwing a lightning stiletto at the wall behind Charles. Before Charles could realize the deception, Keqing had teleported behind him.
She was too fast. Charles, with his severely wounded body and only one hand, could no longer dodge.
The final slash came, aimed straight at his unprotected back, a slash carrying the entire weight of unspoken hatred and sorrow.
Charles closed his eyes, bracing for the final pain that would end everything.
KRAK... KREEEKKK... BOOM!
Keqing's slash never landed.
Right between them, the crater wall made of ice and frozen earth exploded from within. Ice and rocks flew in all directions, forcing Keqing and Charles to shield their faces.
From the gaping hole that had just formed, a massive crystal arm—powered by a pulsating pale blue core—slammed into the ground.
A new Guardian Golem, drawn by the intense battle commotion, had arrived. And it wasn't alone.
Behind it, two more Golems crawled out from the tunnel they had just created, their cold blue eyes glowing in the darkness, scanning the destroyed battlefield.
The panic that had paralyzed Charles was now replaced by something else: an opportunity. A brutal and unexpected escape route.
Keqing, thrown to the side by the Golem's arrival explosion, quickly rose. Her amethyst eyes now split.
On one side, a new deadly threat. On the other, the man she hated more than anything in this world.
She made her choice in an instant.
She ignored the Golems. Her blazing eyes of hatred locked back on Charles.
To her, the threat from the ice Golems was nothing compared to the insult from the man standing before her!
She's crazy! She's going to get herself killed! Charles thought, unable to believe what he was seeing.
As the first Golem raised its fist the size of a carriage to crush everything in the crater, Charles waited no longer. He didn't have the luxury to fight.
He had to run!
He used his remaining strength, pushing his shattered body to rise and run. He ran limping, dragging his wounded leg, toward the dark and icy cold tunnel where the Golem had just emerged.
"DON'T RUN, COWARD!" Keqing screamed, her voice hoarse with rage. She began chasing him, ignoring the first Golem that now turned and directed its attack at her.
Charles kept running. He leaped into the dark tunnel, darkness immediately swallowing him. He ran a few steps, stumbling over uneven rocks, before finally glancing back one last time.
He saw Keqing's silhouette at the tunnel entrance, illuminated by the eerie blue light from the Golem now ready to attack her. Keqing's face, even from afar, was still distorted by hatred.
Amid the Golem's roar and the starting quake, Charles uttered one word.
"Sorry."
Then he turned and vanished into the darkness, leaving the Yuheng to face her fate alone amid the ice storm and her burning hatred.
...
In front of him, in the midst of the dark tunnel, a figure stood still.
She stood against the darkness. Her hair as white as freshly fallen snow, emanating a soft glow that pierced the tunnel's pitch blackness, creating a striking silhouette, as if she were the only source of light there.
It was a girl.
Her clothing was simple, a pale blue winter dress that was strangely perfectly clean, untouched by the tunnel's mud or dirt.
Though there was no gust of wind, Charles could feel a piercing cold from the girl's direction, as if the air around her froze.
Not the bone-chilling cold of Fontaine's ice. But a freezing silence, a suffocating emptiness, an absolute absence of emotion, as cold as the void between stars.
The girl wasn't breathing. Charles realized that after a few seconds. No white vapor puffed from her pale lips, unlike his own ragged breaths like a hunted animal.
When she noticed Charles's presence, the girl turned. Not with a startled movement, but with a slow and deliberate one, as if she had known Charles was there all along.
A thin smile, almost imperceptible, a small curve on her lips that didn't reach her eyes.
Her eyes—as blue as a glacier's core—stared at Charles with calm curiosity, as if observing a rare specimen.
"I suspected you would come this way," she said. Her voice was soft and melodious like the chime of ice bells, yet utterly without warmth, echoing strangely in the narrow tunnel.
Charles's remaining right hand moved in an instant, instinct taking over. Sinner, his revolver adorned with blue cracks, was now in his grip, its dark muzzle aimed straight at the girl's forehead.
His wounded arm trembled violently from holding the weapon's weight and the pain, but his aim remained steady.
The girl was utterly unaffected by the gun pointed at her.
She merely raised one thin eyebrow in amusement.
She even took one small step closer, not away, then placed a finger on her lips. "I don't want to fight," she said, her voice still calm. "Not with you."
"What are you doing here!?" Charles hissed, his voice hoarse, his narrowed eyes behind the cracked mask never leaving the figure.
The girl smiled again. "Me? I'm just waiting. Waiting for you." She tilted her head slightly. "Aren't you curious... about someone who gave you the System?"
The hand holding the revolver trembled more violently.
That question hit him harder than any Golem. He could only stand silent, his jaw clenching, his breath held.
The girl, Amelia, began walking slowly around Charles, who remained rooted in place, his revolver still raised but now hesitant.
Amelia observed Charles from every angle.
"You know," she said again, her melodious voice now filled with a strange melancholic tone.
She stopped right in front of Charles, so close that he could feel the cold aura emanating from her body. "We all are chess pawns on someone's game board, Chavendish. No, Charles. We're being played by unseen hands. Doesn't that make you... angry?"
She paused for a moment, before continuing in a lighter tone, as if merely discussing the weather. "I, frankly, am so sick of being a pawn. I won't accept it."
As she spoke, she raised her pale hand. The air beside her began to vibrate, then tear like silk fabric. Not an Abyssal portal that was purple and chaotic. This was a clean and stable rift, revealing a strange scenery beyond.
"Do you want to come along?" she asked, her smile now wider, a bit teasing.
Charles still hesitated, his brain spinning trying to comprehend this impossible situation.
Seeing his hesitation, Amelia's smile vanished, replaced by a serious expression. "It will be far more dangerous if you stay here," she said, her tone flat. "Look, you've brought a dangerous enemy. Behind you. She's emitting quite a terrifying killing aura."
Charles felt a bone-chilling cold down his spine, a cold he recognized. He turned back with a stiff movement.
At the tunnel's end, illuminated by the dim blue light from lumitoile and crackling purple glow, Keqing stood.
Her body now covered in blood. Her cloak torn in many places, burned, revealing burn wounds, deep gashes on her porcelain skin. Her beautiful purple hair now disheveled and sticky with blood and sweat.
She had defeated all three Golems.
Her amethyst eyes now blazed with hatred so pure, locked straight on Charles.
Cold sweat immediately soaked Charles's back.
She was no longer the Keqing he knew!
Keqing saw the portal. She saw Charles clenching his fist, but not yet moving. Instantly, she let out a roar and began running toward them, her sword infused with purple lightning in an instant.
"I'll wait for you there," Amelia said, before stepping leisurely into the portal and vanishing.
Charles didn't think long.
He leaped into the portal, glancing back one last time, only to see Keqing's hatred-filled eyes getting closer.
As Charles passed through the rift, the portal closed with a soft wussh sound, vanishing without a trace.
Keqing's lightning slash struck the stone wall where the portal had been, pulverizing the rock into dust.
She stopped, panting in the now silent tunnel.
At this moment, she turned, her sword slamming into the tunnel's ice wall, again, and again, and again. Each slash deafening, shattering the frozen underground silence of Fontaine.
...
A/N: Honestly, I almost forgot that the protagonist's hand is missing... why did I forget something so significant? Hopefully, I won't forget this in the next chapter...
Btw, I'm still expecting comments!
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