EP.2 Mountains of Corpses, Seas of Blood 8
"Haah."
Ash let out a low sigh, one steeped in weariness and a quiet, simmering anger.
By the time they reached the VIP lounge with its tightly packed private rooms, yet another crowd had appeared to block their path.
These, however, were different from the ones before.
No heavily armed soldiers, no ninjas or mercenaries.
They were women.
Women in gaudy, half-disheveled clothing, shambling toward them with glazed, unfocused eyes — walking as though their souls had been emptied out of them.
Instead of weapons, they clutched liquor bottles or shards of sharply broken glass.
It didn't take Ash long to guess who they were.
Most likely the lounge's courtesans — their memories tampered with, just like everything else in this place.
"You have got to be kidding me…!"
Siren swore before she could stop herself.
She was hardly one for profanity, but even she couldn't help herself at a sight like this.
"Young Master."
Zero and his siblings were just as shaken by the grim tableau. They didn't curse like Siren did, but the tremor in their voices gave them away.
"What should we do…?"
At that, Ash turned his head toward Zero.
"It seems this Maestro fellow needs time, after all. He's even gone to the trouble of marching these women out to bar our way."
"It would appear so."
"Perhaps he's buying time to escape. Or perhaps he's preparing a trap. Either way, it means he's short on time — no more, no less."
"You don't mean…"
Zero looked at the shambling women.
"You can't mean to cut them all down and break through quickly?"
"That is one way to do it."
"Young Master!"
"But I know a better way."
Ash laid a hand on Zero's shoulder.
"So here's what I'm thinking — could you buy me a little time?"
"…I beg your pardon?"
"Why so surprised? Did you truly think I intended to slaughter every one of those women?"
He turned his gaze back to them.
"However pressed we may be for time, one must still separate the guilty from the victims, no? Those women are victims — the same as your siblings. Victims who couldn't even arm themselves properly."
Zero felt an involuntary wave of relief.
Because he had been thinking the exact same thing.
With his breath steadied, Zero finally turned his focus to that 'better way' Ash had mentioned.
"What exactly is this better way you speak of?"
"A simple matter. While the five of you draw their eyes, I'll run ahead and finish everything. It won't take long."
"…You mean to run through that crowd?"
Zero's eyes went wide behind his mask.
What filled his vision was a wall of flesh more than a hundred strong — a living rampart of bodies packed shoulder to shoulder.
To carve through that dense throng without meeting any resistance looked, at a glance, utterly impossible.
But Ash simply nodded.
"That's right."
"Is that… even possible?"
"It is, for me."
There wasn't a flicker of doubt in his voice.
So Zero asked no more. Instead, he gave a silent nod of assent.
"Buying time is no trouble at all."
"Good."
Ash wheeled around at once and addressed the rest of the party.
"You've all heard. From this point on, we split up. Buy us some time."
Meanwhile, Zero drew a data chip from inside his garment.
"Young Master. Take this."
"Mm."
Ash accepted the chip and tucked it carefully away, then spoke to the others.
"Then I'll be going ahead."
With those words, Ash's frame erupted upward like a detonation.
Cloud-Sea Flying Shadow.
An explosive leap that seemed to defy gravity itself.
His body spiraled upward in a helix, rising so high it nearly brushed the ceiling where ornate chandeliers hung.
"Whoa…!"
Zero let out an involuntary gasp of awe at the astonishing leap — and in the same breath, he understood.
He's been matching his stride to ours this whole time.
By then Ash had already flung himself off the hanging chandelier, using it as a stepping stone. His black exploration suit spread out like wings, casting a shadow over the heads of everyone below.
Zero stood staring blankly at the sight until a touch on his shoulder made him turn.
"Quite the shock, I take it?"
It was Siren.
"Ah… yes. I never dreamed movement like that was even possible."
"Heh heh. Everyone who sees Ash's true self reacts exactly the same way."
"I see…."
As Zero murmured his reply, the image of that impossible leap still lingering in his mind, a sudden question occurred to him.
"Then why are you the one looking so proud?"
"…."
Siren froze for a moment, then readjusted her grip on her blade.
"R-right! Time for us to do our part!"
It was painfully transparent, but not wrong — so Zero, too, refixed his grip on his sword and fixed his gaze ahead.
Somewhere along the way, the hollow-eyed women had closed to within arm's reach.
There, I take it.
Weaving through the VIP lounge as though gliding, Ash found his destination almost immediately — a golden door, grander and more opulent than any of the others, had entered his view.
He touched down before it without a sound.
Then he simply kicked the door in.
—CRASH!
The door crumpled like paper and hurtled inward.
And so the innermost chamber of the VIP lounge — the Room of Contemplation — revealed itself.
It was not a room.
Not, in truth, a space built to serve as one.
It was a dome, its walls plastered edge to edge with hundreds — perhaps thousands — of monitors.
Even now, every screen played back a different recording.
A child's first smile toward its father. The sorrow of the night lovers parted. The fury of a Pathfinder betrayed by his own comrades. The flutter of a first love's hand in yours.
Every one of them was somebody's memory.
Countless memories belonging to countless nameless people poured endlessly out of those screens.
Ash spared them not the slightest glance.
His gaze was locked instead on an old man lounging on a plush sofa beneath the sea of monitors, savoring the footage — and on the woman attending him. Aria.
The old man tipped back his glass and spoke.
His voice carried a strange, transcendent serenity, as though he stood above it all.
"Ah — a guest has arrived. Welcome to the Room of Contemplation."
Still without tearing his eyes from the monitors, he continued.
"This is where humanity's most vivid, most brilliant memories are gathered and—"
Before he could finish, Ash came striding straight toward him. The clatter of those footsteps broke the old man's mood, and his brow furrowed.
"How discourteous of a guest. Aria."
The woman attending him stepped forward.
Her forearms split open with a snap, and a pair of gleaming blades slid into view.
"Let me teach you some manners first."
As if those words were a signal, Aria lunged at Ash.
—CLANG!
And lost her left arm.
Regrettably, that was only the beginning.
His next strike shattered the arm-blade on her right. Before the tottering, off-balance assassin could mount any reaction, Ash — his grip already readjusted on his sword — smashed the flat of it into the back of her neck.
—THUD!
And that was that.
Aria crumpled, unconscious.
It had all happened, quite literally, in the space of a single blink.
"…Uuuh?"
The old man made a hollow, stupid sound.
That eerie composure he'd worn moments ago had vanished without a trace.
Ash looked down at Aria's fallen body for a moment, then turned his head and started walking — toward the old man.
Thud. Thud.
His footsteps echoed through the silent Room of Contemplation.
At that ominous, metronomic rhythm, the old man swallowed dryly without meaning to.
"…Honestly. I did wonder what clever little trick you'd pull to stall for time."
Upon reaching the old man at last, Ash promptly kicked the sofa out from under him.
"Gwahk!"
With a pitiful shriek, the old man toppled over along with it.
"A magnificent death. Is that what you were hoping for? I seem to have overestimated you."
As the old man groaned under the sudden assault, Ash — who had closed the distance without him noticing — crouched down over him like a common street thug.
In the same motion he seized the old man by the hair, hauled his face up, and forced their eyes to meet.
And then—
"Good evening."
—he emitted a low electronic tone.
His teal optical sensor glowed with an unsettling light as it stared the old man down.
"Judging by the look of you, you'd be the one they call Maestro. Am I right?"
The old man could not answer.
Ash took that as a yes.
"The truth is, I'm in a rather foul mood right now. It always works out this way on days like this. A habit of mine I've never managed to break."
Ash continued.
"So you'd best answer carefully from here on."
"Wh-what is the meaning of this—"
"First question. The Dreamweaver's signal amplifier. Is it here?"
At those words, the old man's eyes darted aside without his meaning to. At the end of that line of sight stood a squat machine shaped rather like a small tower.
"Well, that's convenient."
Though the old man hadn't answered a word, Ash — having read the situation — nodded.
"Now then. Stop it. All of it."
At that, the old man exploded.
"Y-you! How dare a piece of scrap like you give orders to—!"
Ash shook his head.
"I told you clearly, didn't I? That I'm in a foul mood."
Ash's steel finger touched the old man's chest.
"Have you ever heard the phrase sinew-splitting, bone-wrenching?"
"What is that supposed to—AAAAAAAGH!"
Sinew-splitting, bone-wrenching.
It was an ancient torture art of the Central Plains — one that used qi cultivation and acupoint-striking to twist an opponent's muscles, bones, and meridians, inflicting agony so extreme that flesh and bone seemed to separate while the victim still lived.
Taking his inspiration from it, Ash channeled his brain force through the paths of electro-acupoints and poured it directly into the old man's body.
"Grrrrrrrgh!"
Injecting brain force into a human body?
From that moment on, it was no longer the refined technique of sinew-splitting and bone-wrenching. It was something far closer to electrocution — a current that burned through the nervous system without mercy and churned his innards to jelly.
But hey — the effect was about the same.
"Uuuuuugh…!!"
A faint wisp of smoke rose from the old man's body.
Only then did Ash withdraw his finger.
Watching the old man convulse, he spoke in that flat electronic tone.
"Dreamweaver. Cease operation."
The cold electronic voice made the old man jolt, and he shrieked as if in seizure.
"Wh-what is this?! You damn tin can—!"
"Your answer doesn't match the question."
The finger touched the old man's chest once more.
"AAAAAAAAAGH!!"
The steam rising from the old man's scalp doubled. Even the tips of his hair had begun to singe and curl.
The instant Ash's finger lifted, the old man screamed out an answer before any question was even asked. His tone, curiously, had become extremely polite.
"I-I can't! I can't do it! I can't, I tell you!"
So Ash asked.
"Why not?"
"The k-kill switch is missing! You just slot it in and recite the activation phrase and it's done, but it's not here right now, so—"
"Hm. I see."
Having learned the method, Ash simply swung his fist. The target: the old man's jaw.
—CRACK!
Felled by the sudden blow, the old man dropped where he sat, unconscious.
He now knew how the thing worked — there was hardly any need to borrow this wretch's hands anymore, was there?
Rising to his feet, Ash walked over to that squat machine. He fished the data chip from inside his garment and drove the kill switch into the memory slot that, to anyone's eye, looked exactly like a keyhole.
A soft click of engagement echoed through the silent room.
As though it had begun reading the data, a low fan-whir leaked from the machine. A moment later, a short message printed itself across the monitors.
> RESET SWITCH. . . ACCEPTED
> ACTIVATION PHRASE. . . READY
Reading the brief lines announcing that all was ready, Ash quietly recited the activation phrase.
"Everything you have endured was nothing but a dream."
> CONFIRMED
> OVERRIDE SEQUENCE INITIATED
A moment later.
The core within the amplifier began to hum and whine in response, and from the machine an invisible, colossal wave rippled outward in concentric rings, spreading in every direction.
The monitors that filled the Room of Contemplation — screens that even now were ceaselessly replaying someone's memories — went dark, one by one.
Like ripples spreading across still water, the blackout crept steadily across the entire chamber. Hundreds, thousands of memories lost their light in turn and sank into the dark.
When at last the final monitor went out, nothing remained in the room that had once overflowed with other people's lives but silence and darkness.
That was precisely when the change came.
—Hss.
Every dark monitor flickered back to life at once, as if by prior arrangement.
But there were no memories on them anymore.
All that filled the screens was the dry system logo and the flat notice that no signal was present.
And yet Ash could not tear his eyes from the wall of monitors.
His optical sensor flickered rapidly.
"That crest… I know that crest."
A symbol had surfaced behind the NO SIGNAL text.
It was the reason — a whirling emblem, shaped like a coiling vortex.
The vortex crest rising above the countless monitors washed the entire room in an eerie, unearthly light.