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Heather raised a brow at Smiley’s request. “So, you want me to separate this into two parts and push them into the dungeon?”

Smiley grinned, “Yes. Blue first, then the red.”

Heather pursed her lips as she looked into the warp charge. She was a little unsure of Smiley, as everyone knew about the smiling demon, and she hadn’t actually seen a warp charge either—even so, there was no telling what the blue and red energies swirling inside would do.

But she traced a sentimental finger across her hair clip, a silent acknowledgment of the debt she owed Loki standing by their side.

Heather began using her power while Smiley looked on from the side, though he hid his cunning grin, stifling it from appearing on his face as the blue energy miraculously responded.

Instead of a raging storm of red lightning and blue waves that mingled together, they separated to either end of the warp charge—and without even breaking the charge open, Heather extracted it, somehow pulling it through the lichen metal and green glass alike.

“See, I told you she could help.” Loki said with a proud smile, but it immediately disappeared after a threatening gaze from Smiley.

As Heather directed her hand toward the dungeon portal, her muscles tensed with strain. The portal responded, eliciting widened eyes from Smiley.

The blue energy swirled around a small point of nothingness. It abruptly collapsed onto it and tore a hole open in the delicate fabric of the mirror reality.

Drawing closer, Smiley prepared to leap through the portal into the real world. However, as his gaze met the other side, his heart sank. A dishearteningly familiar bamboo forest stretched before him.

Smiley grit his teeth but held his temper in.

“When it closes, try the red energy next.” He said coldly, and his eyes narrowed onto Loki for a moment.

~Hegatha’s Swamp~

Jay ascended his throne with Asra at his feet who was sitting on the noon-leather blanket. She would have demanded the chair, but Jay seemed far too tense to fuss around with small things like that. However, the skeletons didn’t lift up the throne to begin their march.

“So, what now?” Asra asked with a yawn.

“I just have one more little thing to do. Give me a second.” Jay said, closed his eyes and used the [Host] skill.

Asra raised a brow, seeing his body go limp and his mouth fall open, unsure if she should try to close it.

Jay entered the eyes of Sweeper. The skeletons had taken Hegatha into the abominable basement where she chanted her sickening-sweet curses to her black altar; where she lured children, as well as created the dangerous firelights that plagued the fog, and the sentient leaves which she occasionally ate.

Unknowingly, Jay he had become an unwilling pawn in Hegatha’s plans, but the connection between the breaking shards, the black altar, or how they mixed and melted into the life-giving vapor she inhaled from it remained a mystery, so the extent of his mistakes weren’t completely apparent.

(Blue, leave your sub-skeletons in the basement with Sweeper and return to my side with all the others.) Jay ordered.

The four sub-skeletons moved into a formation around Sweeper, who stood with its back to the mirror. And then, Jay took direct control.

In the bone body he turned around, gripping its sword tightly with his bony fingers. This short-range mirror teleport was the only way out of here.

The third symbol. He thought, remembering what Leeches had told him, and with resolve he placed the tip of the sword against the wall and pushed on the back.

The sword groaned as it scraped across the stone, cutting through the symbol with a grind.

“Hey! Stop!” Hegatha yelled.

Amidst the sound of her desperate struggle against the sub-skeletons, Jay refused to divert his gaze to her panicked face. With resolute determination he pressed his sword onto the next symbol and swiftly destroyed it.

The portal weakened; its mirror-like reflection turned into an opaque haze.

Hegatha yelled and groaned, likely cut by a few swords, but never gave up her desperate screaming.

“We had a deal! A deal! You promised!” She yelled, her voice sounded pained.

Jay couldn’t reply while in the body of a skeleton, but he doubted he would have anything to say, even if he weren’t.

He placed the sword against the last symbol, and paused for a moment. It was a hard thing to place someone’s life in your hands, and then seal their fate.

“You don’t know what you’re doing! Stop! Please!” Hegatha gave a final desperate plea.

*Shring*

A scraping of dust kicked into the air as his sword cut through the last symbol. The mirror portal, without any form of resonance, glimmered for a moment and safely shut down, turning back into the cold stone wall.

“No! No…” Hegatha called, but her voice turned weak, and all the fight she had left in her evaporated like a dying flame.

Her anguished voice sent a cold chill trailing up Jay’s spine, a sensation that pierced even through his skeletal form. Compelled by a mix of curiosity and compassion, he finally turned around to witness her pitiful state.

Tears streamed down her weathered cheeks, carving a path through the layers of dirt as it etched sorrow onto her face. Her eyes, once fiercely defiant and as unrelenting as the consuming swamp, were now empty, vacant, like they were coated with a layer of wax that dulled her untamable spirit.

The weight of her hopelessness was a suffocating silence.

She was unable to push past the sub-skeletons, leaving her body marked with seeping cuts, but now, there was no fight left in her. Her hands dropped to her sides and she fell to her knees.

Jay remained as a silent observer, it was too late to question her. He could have ended the host skill, but out of curiosity, and perhaps compassion, he kept listening, watching.

“Everything. I gave up everything.” She whispered, her voice barely audible but each word heavier than the last. Knowing the harsh swamp life she chose for herself, he could almost grasp the countless burdens, sacrifices and struggles she’d faced. Jay wondered if he would say the same thing.

“At least I can give up now. At least…” She closed her eyes.

Jay was about to end the host skill, but at that moment a strange buzzing sound filled the room.

His eyes scanned the room for the sound, and in a darkened corner a glow began to emerge.

Jay glanced back at the mirror; still just a mundane wall covered with faded runes. Hegatha remained so lost in her hopeless thoughts of despair that she no longer responded to anything; completely oblivious to the strange light. It clearly wasn’t her doing, neither the broken mirror. As for the clay jars that held more of the dangerous firelights, he hadn’t heard any of them shatter, so it couldn’t be one of those creatures either.

The light pulsed and swirled, casting flickering shadows around the room. Jay’s instincts kicked in, sensing the imminent danger. His grip tightened around the bone sword, his senses sharpening as the buzzing grew louder.

In a burst of brilliant light, the energy transformed into a swirling portal, banishing every lingering shadow. Crackling energy coursed around its outside, and Jay only had a single thought.

Shit.