Amukelo's breath came in broken bursts as he stared at the broken bottle in his hand. His fingers clutched the jagged glass neck of the flask.
"No…" he whispered. "No. No, no…"
He dropped the glass, letting it shatter uselessly on the stone floor beside him. His eyes darted to Pao, who was slumped in his arms, her body trembling from the cold that was not in the air, but in her blood. The dark corruption on her chest continued to spread, black veins crawling over her skin like roots searching for her heart.
"Pao, stay with me!" he said, his voice cracking with panic. "Please! Look at me!"
She stirred, weakly, her half-lidded eyes turning to him. Her lips moved, but for a second, no sound came.
Then, softly—like a memory floating on the wind—she whispered, "You… did it, Amu… You survived…"
Tears welled up in his eyes. He held her tighter, cradling the back of her head, shaking his head like a child trying to reject a bad dream. "We survived. We survived. You're going to be fine. I just—I just need to—"
But she smiled. Her cheeks were pale. Her eyes glistened not with pain, but with peace.
"I'm so happy…" she said. "Thank you… for showing me what gratitude looks like…"
Her body shuddered, and she coughed—hard. Blood spattered on her lips.
Amukelo's heart nearly stopped. "Pao, don't talk. Don't use your energy. Just hold on. Hold on for me."
But she wouldn't stop. Her voice, trembling and faint, kept pushing through. "Thank you… for helping me… make things straight with my father… for being there…"
Her eyes, dimming now, looked into his. "I… I love you…"
Then her breathing slowed. Her head tilted slightly. Her eyelids fluttered.
"No… no, no, no!" Amukelo shook her. "Pao—don't you close your eyes! You hear me!? Don't you do this!"
But her body went limp in his arms.
It was like the world tilted. Like something snapped deep in his chest.
He pressed her against him, burying his face in her shoulder. "Please…" he whispered, voice barely audible. "God… not again… please…"
He could see his mother. The same way. The same helplessness. The same fading warmth in his arms. Her body on that rickety bed, her skin cold, her final breath still lingering in the room as he clung to her, praying for it to come back.
"Not again…" Amukelo sobbed, pressing his forehead to Pao's. "Not her too…"
He broke down. He couldn't stop the tears. His chest ached like something inside was tearing apart. "God… please!" he cried out, his voice echoing through the dungeon. "Please save her! Please! You spared me all those times—don't let her die! Take me instead, I'm begging you! Not her… not her…"
Then—just as his voice faded—a tremor ran through the floor. A low rumble.
Then voices. "Oh! We're finally inside!" It was distant, but real. "Let's find them quickly! I hope they're still alive." It was Idin.
Amukelo's head snapped up, tears still falling. His mouth opened in a desperate gasp, and he screamed with all the air left in his lungs. "IDIN!! I NEED HEALING—NOW!"
He saw torchlight. Shadows danced across the dungeon walls. Idin and Bao appeared from the darkness, and the moment their eyes landed on him and the motionless Pao in his arms, their expressions collapsed into horror.
"God—" Bao gasped, and sprinted across the chamber, her pack already flying off her back. She dropped to her knees beside them and saw the black veins crawling from Pao's wound.
"What happened!?" she cried.
"There's no time for babbling!" Amukelo snapped, his voice like a razor. "Give me the damn potion!"
Bao blinked, jolted by the force of it. "Right!" She yanked a bottle from her satchel and shoved it into his trembling hands.
Amukelo tore the cork off with his teeth. His fingers fumbled, trembling with desperation, but he managed to tilt her head back and pour the glowing liquid into her mouth. Some of it spilled, running down her chin—but she swallowed.
Slowly. Weakly. And then, the dark veins began to recede.
He watched, breathless, as the corruption crawling across her chest stopped. Then the wound sealed itself with slow, golden light.
Her skin smoothed. Her breathing deepened.
And then—she took a deep breath. Her body shivered, like waking from a nightmare.
Amukelo's mouth opened in shock. His eyes overflowed again—but this time with something else.
He pulled her into his arms and held her close, so close it was like he was trying to protect her from the world itself. He pressed his face into her shoulder, his tears soaking her clothes.
"Thank God…" he whispered. "Thank You."
He looked up through the dust and cracks of the dungeon ceiling. "Thank You for saving her… Thank You…"
She stirred in his arms, blinking slowly. Her eyes opened halfway, and her gaze met his.
"Y-You're… s-suffocating me, Amu…" she whispered, her voice barely audible but alive.
Amukelo broke into a half-sob, half-laugh. He loosened his grip immediately, brushing the hair from her face. "Sorry. Sorry…"
But he couldn't stop smiling.
Amukelo held Pao gently against his chest. His heart pounded against his ribs like a drumbeat.
He leaned closer and whispered, voice trembling, "Pao… How are you feeling? Can you still feel the pain?"
For a moment, she didn't respond, and the dread came crawling back, digging its claws into his spine. Then, slowly, her eyelids fluttered open, and her lips curled into a faint smile.
"I'm fine…" she whispered, her voice like the wind after a storm. "Thanks to you… I'm just… tired…" Then her eyes closed again.
Amukelo's body tensed. The warmth of her voice vanished, replaced by silence, and his breath caught in his throat. "Pao…?" he said, tapping her cheek gently. "Pao… do you hear me!?"
She didn't respond.
"Pao!" he shouted, panic rising in his chest like a flood.
But then Bao stepped forward and knelt beside him, her voice calm despite the tension in the air. "She's fine, Amukelo. She must've just overused her mana. And with the potion kicking in, her body's forcing her to rest. It happens."
Amukelo's mind flashed back to Tireuz. His words rang in his ears like an alarm—'Healing potions use the user's mana to heal him... If you force mana usage through potions when his reserves are empty, it can cause permanent damage. He might never recover from it.'
He turned to Bao sharply, his eyes wide. "But… what if it depletes her mana reserves? What if she can't—"
Bao raised her hand and cut him off with a shake of her head. "Relax," she said. "One blackout won't wipe out her whole mana reserve. She's too strong for that. A few days of recovery training at most, and she'll bounce back."
"But…" Amukelo looked down at Pao, his voice growing soft. "She's never looked this fragile before."
Bao gave him a faint smile. "That's because she has been pierced through her chest... and you care. It makes everything look more delicate, doesn't it?"
Behind them, Bral walked forward, whistling as he gave a long glance at the abomination's corpse. The thing's twisted limbs were limp, its grotesque face split down the center by Amukelo's final strike.
"Damn," Bral said. "You two really did it. Took down that thing by yourselves." He shook his head, half-impressed, half-in disbelief. "Maybe we shouldn't have run after all."
Amukelo glanced up at him, his eyes heavy with exhaustion and the raw memory of what had just happened. "No," he said, voice low and grim. "It's good you did. If you stayed, there would be casualties... For sure."
Bral raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? I mean, yeah, it looked freaky, but you both survived. You even—hell, you won."
Amukelo looked at the corpse and then down at Pao in his arms. "Yeah… but I don't even know how. It wasn't a fight. It was like a walking disaster."
Idin stepped closer, arms crossed. "You don't know how you beat it?"
Amukelo shook his head. "Not really. All I know is… I couldn't match it at first. Not even close. The only reason I was able to land any hits was because of Pao. Her spells confused it. Her clones gave it too many targets. Her portals saved me more than once. She protected me, over and over again."
He paused, fingers curling around the hilt of his sword.
"But then… after she was hurt… something happened. My sword—it started glowing. Like something inside the blade woke up. And with that power I managed to defeat it."
Idin narrowed his eyes and glanced at the sword. The runes had dulled now, their light extinguished, but the blade still hummed with faint warmth.
"I always thought it was just fancy," Idin said. "I thought the runes were just for durability of the blade, but this…" He shook his head. "I never expected it to give you any kind of power."