Suddenly, the earth shook violently, yanking Leia back to a cruel reality without the slightest warning. The ground split open, and everything around her crumbled away moment by moment. The town transformed in an instant into pathetic ruins of broken walls and debris, impossible not to lament.
Years of hard-fought battles on blood-soaked fields had honed Leia’s instincts. She steadied her footing, her hand flying to the sword at her waist. She drew it with a flourish, spinning two long-forgotten sword flowers in the air.
The grip felt a little unfamiliar.
But it was enough for dealing with things like this.
The quake showed no signs of stopping. Instead, vicious cracks spiderwebbed out beneath Leia’s feet. From those pitch-black fissures crawled black, humanoid shapes formed from what looked like thick mud—things that could scarcely be called living creatures.
They wore no clothes and had no facial features, save for a single fanged maw splitting their twisted bodies. No… those gaping mouths were everywhere.
Leia shuddered—not out of fear, but from the instinctive revulsion anyone would feel toward something so repulsive.
Then, abruptly, eyes snapped open along the edges of those countless mouths—one, two… ten, until their entire forms were blanketed in bulging, differentiated eyeballs. They glared at Leia with savage intensity, as if peering straight into her soul.
“How disgusting.”
Where had Mitrice and Laer run off to? They wouldn’t be in any real danger, would they?
In a few swift strokes, Leia ended the fight, her blade slick with the monsters’ viscous fluids. The sticky black sludge only deepened the nausea churning in her gut.
She had never seen demonic beasts like these before.
And from the looks of it, they were only coming after her?
No…
She seemed to be the only one in this alley.
Gray cobblestones and looming black walls stretched before her. Leia gazed toward the alley’s seemingly endless terminus. Beyond that distant corner lay what felt like an inescapable labyrinth, trapping her within this forsaken town.
And…
“Awooooooo—!”
A punch that rent the heavens and a roar that devoured mountains and rivers furrowed Leia’s slender brows.
She looked up. A black monstrosity hundreds of times its original size rampaged through the air, demolishing everything in its path. Houses and walls disintegrated into ash with the barest motion; a casual swing of its fist unleashed shockwaves that rattled the entire town—its size unknown—adding suffocating pressure to the already oppressive atmosphere, leaving no room to even draw breath.
“Damnable thing.”
Leia murmured indifferently.
Even now, her emotions remained largely unchanged. Her face was as rigid as a corpse’s, her soul sealed away for a thousand years, devoid of any spark of life.
Death itself failed to stir fear in her heart.
“Then come at me, monster. Or should I say… Nightmare?”
“Shrieeeek—!”
So damn noisy. Couldn’t it stop bothering her?
Leia suddenly felt her body curling inward, as if mirroring some deeper truth.
No sun pierced the sky—it resembled the void after a volcanic cataclysm, awash in grays of black and white. Black rain pelted her slackening form, which seemed on the verge of dissolving into this monochrome world.
The Nightmare monster, like a tear in spacetime itself, laid waste to the town already crumbling under the relentless quake.
For a moment, she thought… it wasn’t such a big deal.
Whether she could defeat it or not was irrelevant. Victory or death—neither held meaning.
Her hands hung empty at her sides, grasping at nothing.
Sometimes she yearned for glittering treasures, other times for affection. Most often, she simply loved and poured out her heart.
But stripped of those things, what point was there? Existence equaled life, yet life was merely “existing”…
To own nothing was to lose nothing, and thus, no meaning could be found.
With a clatter, Leia’s sword slipped from her grasp and hit the ground. She lowered her head, her mind blank.
She simply stared into the void.
The Nightmare’s arm sprouted razor-sharp blades, keen enough to shred any armor. Leia saw no end coming for her; her golden hair dulled beneath the roiling black clouds, her vacant eyes losing all luster in tandem.
Wind…
Only endless wind, and the black rain.
“I won’t leave you… only…”
What was that sound?
It was unmistakably a girl’s voice—and if she wasn’t mistaken, one of those irresistibly cute types. Soft and sweet, like an angel capable of mending the most shattered soul.
“Riiip—!”
“Skreeeek—!”
Leia looked up. From beyond the clouds, a miracle descended like divine judgment: a silver-white beam of light speared through the Nightmare Giant like a blade. The creature clutched its chest with its bloated black arm, unleashing a gut-wrenching roar as black blood poured forth like a waterfall onto the ground below.
It had all happened far too suddenly.
The Nightmare Giant’s massive fist swung toward the light, but all it earned was a dazzling slash. The strike tore through vast swathes of clouds, carving an exaggerated scar across the Nightmare Giant’s skull.
That voice rang out once more:
“I, Xuefei, need to think of a way to help Leia…”
Was that Xuefei? Of course it was her. If that was really the case, then she could finally relax. No… it was precisely her arrival that made this scene so thrilling, wasn’t it?
Leia’s eyes regained their spark. She lifted her head and reached out with her slender arm toward the silver-white light in the sky, even though it was already drenched by the black rain.
Instinctively, the words slipped from her lips:
“Please… don’t… leave me.”
“Leia…”
The patter of rain, the monster’s roars, the cracking of walls, the howling winds…
All the noise assaulting her ears vanished the instant the Nightmare Giant disappeared.
No, it wasn’t that it had disappeared.
In her presence, nothing held any meaning—not the suffocating nightmare, nor the loathsome cacophony.
The silver light piercing the gloom converged before her like a spotlight. There stood a petite girl, descended like a heavenly god.
She was as beautiful as a celestial fairy, a being utterly beyond the mortal realm. And yet Leia knew she could clasp this existence tightly in her hands and never let go.
Not a single speck of filth from the black raindrops marred her silver-white tresses. With eyes like flawless rubies, clear and profound, she gazed at Leia with deep affection.
Then she stepped forward. Everywhere her dainty feet touched turned pristine white, and in their wake, lush lilies bloomed amid the shattered ruins—blossoming too within Leia’s heart.
In a daze, the two of them stood amid verdant leaves and endless fields of flowers, no longer trapped in the stifling alleyways of that oppressive town.
This was no longer a monochrome world.
Xuefei approached with a smile, clasping Leia’s outstretched hand. Their palms pressed together, and Leia felt the warmth radiating from her skin, drawing forth a smile born straight from the heart.
“Xuefei, Xuefei, heehee… my Xuefei.”
She buried her face in that soft, fragrant bosom. No moment had ever felt greater than this.
“Have you lost your way?”
“No way, Little Xuefei…”
“Do you remember? Back then, you held my hand just like this.”
“I remember, heehee. But none of that matters now.”
“It’s all right. This time, I won’t let go. Never again…”
“Mm. We made a promise, didn’t we?”
“We promised to stay by each other’s side every single day. A deal’s a deal.”
“And then…”
“Leia, it’s time to wake up from this nightmare.”
