— When the Array Turned —
"Stop!"
In desperation, I bit into my fingertip and smeared my blood across the sigil etched into the Heavenly Cross.
I didn't stop to consider whether it would work.
There was no time left for certainty—only for a final gamble.
A surge of searing gold erupted from the cross, lancing straight toward the one-eyed Alrik.
He answered it with a lazy flick of his hand.
The light recoiled—violently—and slammed back into my chest.
Pain detonated inside me.
I spat blood as my vision fractured, my organs feeling as though they'd been crushed together by invisible jaws.
"Parlor tricks," he scoffed, his single eye filled with contempt.
"I was playing with these long before you—"
He stopped.
So did I.
The ground was trembling.
No—not the ground.
The cross.
It was vibrating violently in my grasp. Beneath us, something was stirring—scraping, pulling, straining upward, desperate to break through.
The first lance of golden light pierced the soil.
Then the second.
The third.
Until the seventy-second.
Seventy-two Chthonic Deities emerged—rising of their own accord.
"No... That's impossible."
Alrik staggered backward, his voice warping with disbelief.
"My Seventy-Two... my Array!"
He spun toward me.
For the first time, fear crossed his face—raw and unmistakable. Alongside it was something deeper.
Recognition.
"You're of the Meta Order," he snarled. "You are—!"
The scream dissolved into a roar.
Golden radiance—of the same origin as the Deities—erupted from his body, no longer controlled, no longer bound. It surged outward like a ruptured floodgate.
"I will not accept this—!"
The final cry cut short.
Light folded around him, cocooning his form, compressing—
Then tearing apart.
His body disintegrated before our eyes, breaking into countless drifting motes of gold that scattered and vanished into the frozen night air.
Total soul dissolution.
When the light faded, silence reclaimed the space.
Only seventy-two black stones remained, scattered across the ground—already draining of color, their presence collapsing into inert matter.
"Rhan! Rhan!"
Selene rushed to my side, her voice breaking as she caught me before I fell.
"You did it... You did it. Are you—are you alright?"
With her support, I forced myself upright, wiping the blood from my mouth.
"The Array..." I murmured.
"It's broken."
Yet my eyes remained fixed on the stones.
Why had my blood activated the breach?
Was I truly connected to the Meta Order?
Or was there something else—something I had yet to remember?
---
— The Bound —
"Over here—please!"
Clara's cry, ragged with panic, tore through the silence.
I turned—
Above the site where the Seventy-Two Chthonic Deity Array had once stood, figures were forming.
Women.
No—ghosts.
They hovered in the air, wreathed in a sickly green phosphorescence. Their eyes were hollow pits, packed with centuries of resentment, now fixed on me with a single, unified hatred.
"Run!" I shouted hoarsely at Selene and Clara.
"They've been devoured by grievance. There's nothing left but killing intent—go!"
"I won't!" Selene clutched my arm, stepped in front of me, and shouted at the advancing specters, her voice trembling but unyielding.
"What do you want from us? He's the one who freed you! Without him, you would've been enslaved by that monster forever!"
The ghosts advanced in silence.
Their malice thickened the air, pressing down on the lungs, making every breath an effort.
I pulled Selene back.
"They don't have reason anymore. They can't hear you. Go—both of you. I can handle this."
"But—"
"Trust me." I lowered my voice, forcing a confidence I didn't feel.
"You saw what happened to that old fiend. They're afraid of my blood. Go wait by the car. I'll be right behind you."
Selene hesitated, tears brimming, then finally nodded as Clara dragged her back.
Blood wards? A lie, of course.
My blood had broken the Array by chance. Against spirits forged from centuries of accumulated suffering, I had no certainty at all.
I simply couldn't let them die with me.
"What are you doing here?"
The voice came from above—cool, composed.
I looked up.
A woman in white descended slowly through the air. In her hand was an object I couldn't clearly see. With a gentle motion, she scattered points of soft light, falling like rain.
The green-lit figures shuddered in unison.
The ferocity drained from their eyes, replaced first by confusion—then awareness.
"We're... outside?"
"The underground palace... is it really gone?"
"So we don't have to... serve him anymore?"
They murmured to one another, their forms stabilizing, reshaping into how they'd once been in life—girls of seventeen or eighteen, dressed in old-fashioned clothes, faces unmarked by horror. Like young noblewomen waking from an endless nightmare.
Selene approached cautiously and tugged at my sleeve.
"Rhan... what is this?"
"The soul has returned to bind the spirit," I said quietly.
"Before, only the spirit remained—resentment without restraint. That's why they attacked indiscriminately. Now that the soul has been recalled, their minds have stabilized. They're... ordinary ghosts."
"Ordinary...?"
"When the soul governs the spirit, there's consciousness. Communication."
I turned to the woman in white.
"I know you. You stopped us at the village entrance. You were the one who saved Selene last night. It was you, wasn't it?"
She inclined her head slightly. Her features were delicate, but her eyes carried a fatigue shaped by long years.
"Yes. That night, I wanted you to leave. This place—once entered, few ever leave."
"Why can you move freely?" I asked, glancing at the newly released spirits.
She hesitated, then spoke.
"I was once bound like them, trapped in the underground palace. But days ago, a girl came. She dug up my bones. She held something in her hands, turned it over and over, muttering to herself. When she finished, she threw my bones beyond this clearing. That severed my bond to the Seventy-Two Array. I was freed."
Her gaze shifted to Selene.
"She didn't leave. She stayed several days. One night, she saw the palace... and what was inside it. That fear killed her."
"That streamer," Clara whispered. "Nyx."
The woman nodded.
"Last night, it was that newly dead spirit who tried to lure her here. I stopped her."
Selene bowed deeply in thanks. The woman shook her head.
"You lingered not just to save the living," I said. "You were protecting them too, weren't you?"
She fell silent.
"Yes. Each night I wandered the village, frightening visitors away. First, to protect the living. Second, to protect my sisters still trapped. Each new soul meant Alrik would consume an older one in exchange."
She smiled bitterly.
"I drove many away. Only you did not turn back."
I was about to speak when she suddenly stepped forward and knelt before me.
"Sir, Linda owes you a debt beyond repayment."
Behind her, seventy-one figures knelt as one, bowing low.
I rushed forward.
"Please—get up. I can't accept this—"
Her touch was icy, heavy—like gripping cold iron.
Linda remained upright on her knees, her voice soft but steady.
"You released us from a hell without end. Do you know what life in that palace was like?"
She untied her robe.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Beneath the white fabric was not an ethereal form, but a body crisscrossed with wounds—deep gashes, torn flesh, scars layered upon scars. Some still glowed with a dull, unnatural gold, as if the pain itself had been branded into her soul.
"Peachwood rods," she said calmly, as if speaking of someone else.
"Even after death, the pain returns every dawn."
"And me," a girl in pink lifted her sleeve, revealing a horrific rupture where flesh had been torn away.
"I pushed him once. He peeled the skin from my entire arm."
"Mine too..."
"So did I..."
One by one, they revealed their injuries.
Whipping. Burning. Rending. Piercing.
Each wound was a record of torture. Each inch of flesh, despair made visible.
Hell would have been kinder.
"You..." My throat tightened, words collapsing into uselessness.
"If I have the power one day, I swear I'll help you find rest. I'm... sorry."
"Please don't say that." Linda retied her robe, her expression gentle now.
"You've already given us what mattered most—dignity. At least now, we are no longer livestock. And pain... finally has an end."
Selene and Clara were both in tears. I turned away and wiped my eyes quietly.
The ghosts began to fade, dissolving like morning mist. The three of us stood with palms pressed together, offering silent prayers.
Only Linda remained.
"You're not leaving?" I asked.
She watched her sisters vanish, then spoke softly.
"Sir, I will never forget what you've done. I long to reenter the cycle... or find a place to rest."
She turned back to me.
"But there is still something unfinished."