Everything was muffled. Lucid hung in the air as something clutched him from below. The grip was flaming, hot and cold at the same time, but he felt that if he struggled any further he would be dropped into the golden void. The healing was not working anymore. The white light that usually pulsed through his chest shuddered and dimmed as Mercyros's hands closed around him. The Monolith was disturbing the very foundation of his body, the chains that held him together, the essence that kept him alive.
Lucid's eyes were half lidded. He could barely keep them open. Blood dripped from his chin onto the golden stone far below.
"Now, mortal," Mercyros intoned, its voice smooth as polished marble, each word measured like a decree from Olympus. "Will you trade your thread of fate?"
In the distance, he heard people yelling. Fenwick's high pitched pleas. Valen's sharp commands. Celeste's desperate cries. The cultists' wet chanting. None of it mattered. The sounds blurred together into meaningless noise.
'Surrender your thread of fate?'
He thought back to all of his encounters. For some reason, it seemed as if he had heard this before. Not these exact words, but the sentiment. Karmen had told him something once, about threads and choices. The fortune teller with the green hair had smiled and said he would walk a path no one could predict. Neptune had called him an anomaly.
They all seemed to share the same opinion. That he was different. That the rules did not apply to him the way they applied to others.
With that knowledge, Lucid stopped struggling. He knew he would be alright. He always came out unscathed. If anything, the more impossible the situation, the more likely he was to survive.
He laughed. It was a broken, bloody sound. He smiled up at the golden face of the Monolith.
"Go on, you almighty Monolith. Do your transaction."
[Twenty seconds remaining]
The system voice announced it flatly, cutting through the chaos.
Mercyros continued to stare deep into Lucid's soul. Its golden eyes measured him, weighed him, searched for the deception that had to be there.
He could sell the lyre and be safe. That was the obvious choice. The safe choice. The choice any rational person would make.
But no. A part of him wanted to see how this went. He was too stubborn to let the Monolith off that easily. Too curious about what would happen next.
Mercyros spoke again. "You are not going to do anything?"
Lucid shook his head. His wounds were almost fully healed now. The white light flickered back to life, weak but present.
"Are you sure you want my thread of fate?" Lucid asked carefully. His voice was quiet, almost conversational.
[Ten seconds remaining]
The shouts grew more audible by the minute. Fenwick was screaming something about selling the lyre. Valen was yelling at Celeste. The cultists were chanting in unison, their voices rising in a sickening crescendo.
Lucid did not care. He was focused on the Monolith, on the golden eyes that seemed to be calculating something.
'What is an authority?' he thought inwardly. The word had been used before. Karmen had mentioned it. The fortune teller had hinted at it. Was it something special that they had? Was it the equivalent worth of a single thread of fate?
He let the thought go. It did not matter right now.
Finally, Mercyros loosened its grip.
Lucid's eyes shot up. 'What is he doing?'
Mercyros pulled back its hand. The translucent skin of the Monolith's arm shone brighter, the golden light condensing into a single form. Muscle wrapped around bone. Bone formed into a perfect, athletic body. The being wore an elegant white robe that shimmered with gold thread. Its face was beautiful in the way that a statue was beautiful, carved and cold and utterly inhuman.
In that brief moment while Lucid was suspended in the air, Mercyros approached and drove its hand through his chest.
[Time is up. Commencing exchange.]
Everything was engulfed in white.
Lucid tumbled forward, rolled backward, and stood up. He was not bleeding anymore. The pain was gone. He looked around.
Clouds stretched in every direction. A Greek column stood nearby, fluted and white, one of many that formed a circle around a central courtyard. The sun hung just at the horizon, neither rising nor setting, casting long shadows across the marble floor.
A bright light manifested in front of him. An ebony foot stepped through.
It was him. Not his face, not his body, but the presence was unmistakably his. Mercyros had entered his soulscape.
Lucid thought one thing. 'His soulscape. But I will not be weak this time. I will not let him have full control. No.'
His Chain of Heart. It was capable of domaim control, but with the current rank up he could bend the space of a Monolith's soulscape. Something he had not been able to do before.
Mercyros spoke. Its voice echoed off the pillars, formal and cold, like a god passing judgment.
"I shall now begin extracting."
'Huh?'
The Monolith put its hand forward and drove a golden thread through Lucid's chest. He looked down. The thread was radiant, too bright to look at directly. He tried to tear it away, but it was too strong. It was unbreakable.
Mercyros's left hand began to form, bones and muscle coming into life, sculpting itself into a perfect copy of the right.
"Everything is transactional," the Monolith said. Its voice was calm, reasonable, terrifying. "Your very flesh and bones are transactional. Your blood needs nourishment to function. Your organs need blood to function. That is the essence of trade. Now, further yourself. You have a bright, radiant thread. You will be a fine collection for her envisioned world."
Her. The woman with purple hair. The one in the painting. The one who had been waiting.
Mercyros started pulling.
Lucid felt an immediate backlash, as if something was being torn apart from him. He tried to resist the pull of the thread, but as things stood, he could not.
He should not have been able to feel anything. The thread was not physical. It was deeper than flesh, older than bone.
Then he threw up.
Green light flared from his mouth, his eyes, his chest. The white chains around his heart screamed.
That was when he realized.
Mercyros was not pulling his soul. He was pulling Alice.
'No.'
The Monolith was extracting the fragment of the deity that lived inside him. The green haired woman who had healed him, who had spoken to him in dreams, who had given him the chains that kept him alive. Mercyros was taking her away.
The green light grew dimmer. Her warmth was fading. He could feel her slipping, the connection between them thinning like a rope about to snap.
'He has to act. He has to do something. Now.'
He activated Domain Control within his soulscape. The ability he had gained when his Chain of Heart ranked up. The power to shape the space between his own thoughts.
Millions of threads spawned from left and right, from above and below, filling the courtyard with a web of golden light. They pierced Lucid's stomach, suspending the him in mid air, locking him in place. It was Mercyros's thread the one he used to pull lucids thread out.
Mercyros's eyes followed him slowly. The god could not move, but it could watch.
Lucid looked down at his own body. He was spectral here, translucent, made of memory and will. He could see the threads attached to him. Not just one. Millions of them, woven into each other, braided and knotted and tangled.
But one thread stood out. A single, succulent, beautiful, radiant thread etched into his abdomen. It was not just a thread. It was a bar. A block of threads woven into each other because of previous transactions. The accumulation of every deal he had ever made, every promise he had ever kept or broken, every piece of himself he had traded away.
At the other end of that thread, dim and fading, was Alice.
He summoned the Midnight Spear. The Pierced Spine. It materialized in his spectral hand, solid and cold and familiar.
Mercyros's eyes tracked the weapon. The Monolith's gaze followed him slowly, as if through deep water.
Lucid drove the spear down.
He shattered the thread.
White light exploded outward, consuming everything. The pillars of the columns crumbled. The clouds scattered. The sun vanished.