"Why not just drop him? What has he done for you?"
The whispers had changed at some point, though Aaron wasn't sure when or how the shift happened.
They no longer screamed for murder or death—instead, they simply made cold and calculated remarks that sought to influence the boy's decision.
His fingers dripped with crimson blood, which trailed down along his arm and up his black coat, seeping into the fabric, as the harsh wind threatened to blow him away from the ledge.
"He brought you here without your permission, right? He's making you climb a mountain for his own research without any reward! Is there…"
The voices paused, but Aaron wasn't paying attention to them anyway, fully focused on keeping his grip on the other man's hand and trying to pull them both up to safety.
"You can't die if you want to save me."
He froze, breath suspended in his lungs while the venomous words rang mercilessly through his head.
It was an illusion, a lie, something so wrong and false that his mind rejected it outright, recoiling as though the mere act of acknowledgment would tear him apart from within.
And yet, he couldn't ignore it.
Without a flaw, Eleanor's voice echoed through his skull, digging away at his composure like nothing else could.
"I-I need to…"
His lip twitched, his hold on the cliff face finally wavering while he looked down, towards the dangling man whose life depended solely on the boy's trembling fingers, clenched tightly around his wrist.
"Let him go, Aaron, and you can find what you need! The power of the statue can revive me! All you have to do is let him go, and we can finally meet again!"
The blond-haired boy didn't think about how the whispers knew his memories, nor how Eleanor could be talking to him, his mind in too much turmoil to care.
There was no response from Penelope, the Naelith, or even the deity who watched the situation unfold—whether their voices had been silenced or they remained silent by choice.
"Once you let him go, we can finally reunite!"
Each word was like a sweet candy presented to a child, the truth of the voice hidden behind a mask of magic and witchcraft.
Aaron's left hand, holding onto the man, wavered for a moment, his grip loosening ever so slightly as he heard the cool, serene whispers once again.
"Just let him go, Aaron! There is no time to hesitate! Make the right choice!"
Aaron's entire body stiffened, the urgent commands pulsing through his veins like a foreign heartbeat forcing its rhythm over his own.
A memory from months ago found its way back to the surface, the very same words the whispers were now repeating, coming from Eleanor's mouth.
As he recalled her serene voice, there was no illusion or deceit, just the past resurfacing like a long-buried melody he could never truly forget.
"Whether you're glum or not doesn't matter. It's your actions that define you, and I'm sure that no matter the situation, you'll always make the right choice."
His eyes clouded over as he stared down at the silver-haired elder dangling over the endless drop below.
"I'll always make the right choice, eh? Then if I survive and don't drop him, then that would work too, right?"
Gritting his teeth and pushing all his mana into his metallic calf, he dug the limb into the rockface and released the hand that had been holding onto the cliff's edge.
Feeling the gravity around him warp, and his body begin to tilt upside down, he shouted with all his might while summoning his sword to his hand.
『Piercing Droplet』
The wind ceased, the pressure dropped, and the miasma vanished.
A certain type of empty stillness enveloped the mountain at seven thousand meters up, yet, only a moment later, a civilian walking near the base of the range felt a cool rain fall upon their shoulders.
High up, beyond the clouds, Ocean's Bane shot out of Aaron's hand like a bullet, flying straight towards the cave just barely visible from his spot below the ledge.
The blade, in all its intricate beauty, tore through the cavern entrance, passing the corpses of all the previous victims, devoured by that stony chamber.
And as if to release their tormented souls, the sword forged to slay gods slammed its tip straight into the skull of the glowing statue.
The weapon's runes flashed a devilish purple, then returned to blue as they seemingly sucked every drop of mana from the stone sculpture, completely vanquishing the ancient spirits residing within it.
To the two men hanging off the cliff, it was all they needed to be rid of the cursed whispers serenading their ears.
"W-what!?"
Stammering out a sudden and confused ramble, Don Urude appeared awake and functional yet again, his eyes darting around in a crazed frenzy.
"Hell no!"
Using Aaron as a slingshot, he pulled toward, then launched himself upward, landing onto the cliff where he quickly scooped up the blond boy like a baby.
"What the hell happened here, Grimstall!?"
Shouting at the top of his lungs, he nearly missed the sight behind him emerging from the cave, an explosion of rock and turquoise wonder that shook the mountain to its very core.
There was a grumble, then a groan as the so-called maws of the cave slammed shut, the cavern collapsing in on itself now that its support, the statue, had been destroyed.
The commander of the Thorn Knights simply looked between the now destroyed entrance and the boy, a look of utter dismay plastered across his face.
"Report. Now."
…
There was a heavy silence that existed between the two men after their conversation, and only the howling of the wind was able to slice through the tension.
"You have no idea what prevented the statue's effects from trapping you?"
Urude furrowed his brow, waiting for an answer.
"No… All it could be would be my contract with the God of Poisons, but I doubt that would be the reason."
Aaron, of course, knew that it was due to his unusual constitution and relation to a mysterious faction of unknown entities, yet he kept his mouth shut about such things, the truth far more dangerous than lies.
His turquoise eyes stared into the orange ones across from him that were turned downward at the soil, deep in thought.
"I don't like it here… We should continue upward before nightfall strikes once again. If we're lucky, we'll reach the peak by five tonight."
Scratching his short beard lightly, he stood up, forcibly stretching his old bones that had been bruised and dislocated from the repeated damage suffered from the mental prison.
Then, without another word, he walked ahead, slamming the pickaxe and the stone sword into the mountainside.
Only once did he look back, the odd sight of a metallic foot sitting emptily on the ledge making him frown.
"Grab that before we go."
Grunting quietly, he continued his ascent, his eyes fixated on the hundred-meter stretch above that would take hours to climb.
Aaron could only sigh as he picked up his own detached foot; the sound of the metal clicking together was overshadowed by his whisper.
"Obviously I'd grab it…"
…
At exactly four thirty-seven in the afternoon in the year 3125, Aaron Grimstall and Don Urude successfully reached the summit of Evermore.
Doing what none other before could ever accomplish, they stood proudly at the base of the final incline, a short hill that led up only another ten meters or so.
The miasma that filled the atmosphere was unbearable, the level so dense that it physically altered the world around them.
Rocks that had existed a moment before shifted and then vanished into nothingness, and snow fell without clouds to drop it.
To the two men who stood at the pinnacle, reality itself felt simply wrong.
"D- you w-nt th- ho-ors? Or s-ou-d I?"
The blond boy blinked as he listened to the broken dialogue from the man beside him, Urude seemingly confused at what he had said as well.
"It -eems th-t the A-ys-al Mias-a is af–cting us furt-er t-an I ex-ected…"
He pursed his lips as he thought of a way to bypass the odd alteration of the world around them; however, he only frowned as he came up with nothing.
Aaron himself could understand the man's intent well enough, the first question he had asked finally being answered.
"I'll do the honors and climb to the peak if you don't have any gripes with that."
The child froze, covering his mouth in surprise and watching the brow of the man across from him furrow deep.
"How c-n you s–ak nor–lly?"
Yet again, there was a difference between the stronger knight commander and the weakling challenger, this time, one with the connotations of something far more sinister.
I-If he thinks I can bypass Abyssal Miasma, then that could mean he could guess that I have a Ghostship… This is bad. Very bad!
Feeling his chest wrap itself in knots, he swallowed hard, turning his gaze away from the man and into the distance where the very top of the mountains resided.
"I told you. I don't know."
And with those words, he stepped forward towards the slope that led ahead, the short distance feeling like an endless incline.
As time and space bent under his movements, there was an unusual screech that blasted outward after each step, as if the world was screaming out in agony.
Holding his breath, he summoned Ocean's Bane to his hand, and an immediate reduction of pressure enveloped the surroundings.
The miasma dissipated within a meter of the boy's body, the air becoming unusually moist for such a high altitude.
One step, then another, and another, each one harder than the last yet equally as important to the entire climb.
Finally, he ascended to the pinnacle of Mount Evermore, the rays of the sun above slamming into his body like daggers.
"Holy shi—"
He jumped backwards, the sudden appearance of a pitch-black pit leading deeper than he could comprehend, shocking him intensely.
Hearing and noticing his distress, Don Urude attempted the short climb, yet as if an invisible wall had been constructed, he was stopped short, his hands slamming into the barrier with rage.
The man tried to shout, but no sound came out, only a strange sound of dirt being crushed underfoot echoing through the peak.
His eyes bulged with his bloodshot pupils as he slashed at the barrier with his sword, the sight of the blond challenger's panicked face only further reinforcing his own need to get to his location.
Yet, he couldn't have realized, nor ever concluded that that very same fifteen-year-old boy that he had been so worried about wasn't afraid for his own life, but worried for another.
THWACK!
Urude's body collapsed into a lump of flesh, his consciousness waning and then failing, the man's eyelids falling closed.
From afar, Aaron couldn't tell if he was alive or dead; all he knew was that what had struck him down was now standing proud behind him.
"Hail to thee once more, young mortal. Verily, I perceive that thou hast navigated the perils of the mountain and hast arrived at mine abode, thus achieving thy goal at long last~!"
His cheery tone of voice sent a shiver down the blond boy's spine, his crystalline robe fluttering gently with threads of visible miasma.
"Verily, thou dost not exhibit great enthusiasm at the prospect of beholding me? Fie upon it, 'tis a pity indeed! Forsooth, there are matters of import that require our attention, yet let us commence by conversing on the subject of the plataneterous, which doth reside within the realm of the shaneverous."
The blond boy's brow furrowed downward in confusion, the sight of the sapphire-staffed man approaching him making him weary.
"Plataneterous? Shaneverous?"
Trying to take a step backwards away from the approaching man, he was stopped by the endless pit that rested at the very center of the slope he now stood on.
"Verily, 'tis naught but a figurative expression, wherein thou mayest be more familiar with it as the sea monster that doth lurk in yonder chamber. Fie, 'tis of little consequence, thus I shall say no more…"
Shrugging his shoulders, he slowly placed his staff in front of him, digging it into the soil far enough for it to stand on its own.
The sea monster that doth lurk in my chamber? Is he referencing the elephant in the room?
Aaron watched him closely, trying to decipher his strange and unusual manner of speaking.
Noticing the weird-worded man's hands begin to move towards his hood, there was a pause as he stroked the material quietly and then pulled it off in one solid tug.
"Hark, thou mortal, thou dost stand before thine executioner, who doth serve as the stern arbiter of the Architects and the feared slayer of Demigods, the dread Apollis Larengen."