Chapter 49: Deathwing: Thanks for an Assist from the Witch of Envy (Patreon)

This chapter is 2-in-1 (49 and 49.2) so I don't lose track of the numbering_____

Chapter 49: Deathwing: Thanks for an Assist from the Witch of Envy__

The instant that mass of black matter—tangled like knotted entrails—touched Ciel's fingertip, it seemed to find its way home, climbing swiftly up her arm.

The slender black threads became vein-like patterns, spreading upward from her fingertips all the way to her snow-white neck, even slowly creeping onto her cheeks.

Ciel's body shivered faintly.

"Hey, Miss Ciel!"

The great dragon raised a foreclaw, meaning to sweep her away from the Witch Factor, but in that same instant a purple-black miasma erupted from within Ciel's body and swallowed her whole.

A strange presence, unmistakably corrupted mana, washed over him; the rapidly spreading miasma blotted out Natsuki Subaru's vision in an instant, and something about it felt deeply wrong.

A Witch's miasma—also called the "Witch's Lingering Scent"—was the most conspicuous mark of anything connected to a Witch. Miasma of such high concentration should have been enough to drive any creature of this world into madness, corroding the flesh of whoever breathed it in and dragging them inexorably toward death.

But to Natsuki Subaru in his Deathwing form, it did little more than slightly dim his field of vision. Yet just then, something that had slumbered deep within him finally stirred in response to the intense stimulus.

A pair of purple-black hands closed around the human heart still beating within Natsuki Subaru, and the sudden, breathless suffocation caught him off guard, leaving a brief blank in his consciousness.

And how could Deathwing—long suppressed, lying in wait for exactly this chance—possibly let such a fleeting opening slip by?

By the time Subaru came back to himself, his eyes had already flown wide.

"Hey! That's not a snack, stop it right now!"

Meanwhile, at the center of the miasma, Ciel was hearing voices—so many voices.

Compared to the Witch of Greed's own Factor, the Lust Witch Factor was not the type best suited to her, but as the most perfect vessel Echidna had ever designed, she was still able to absorb it flawlessly.

Lust was not merely desire in its narrow sense; it was, in truth, the sum of every sensation and emotion. Joy, sorrow, hatred, love, and the most violent of bodily experiences all surged into Ciel's mind in a single instant.

They came from the lingering memories of the Factor's previous host, from Capella's twisted soul, and from every life she had ever touched.

Look at me…

The Witch's Lingering Scent…

Look at me…

Love me…

Don't leave me…

In an instant, everything went blank before Ciel's eyes, and then there was an empty room.

There was no molten rock there, no searing heat in the air.

Nor was there the silver-haired half-elf from the prophecy—not even her beloved Princess, Priscilla.

There was only a bed, herself, and Natsuki Subaru, restored to human form.

She sat quietly at the edge of the bed in a sheer nightgown, letting Subaru rest his head on her flawless, smooth thighs, her fingers brushing his cheek.

"Miss Ciel."

Subaru said.

"Having you by my side... it really is wonderful."

Ciel knew full well this was an illusion, yet she still took his hand and pressed it to her cheek.

"It's all right, Lord Subaru."

Because it truly was a wish that had once lived in the depths of her heart.

"As long as I'm here… as long as I'm here, that's enough."

She wanted to be the first person he saw whenever he turned around.

She wanted to be the first person he thought of whenever he was hurt.

She wanted to be someone who, no matter what happened, could never be replaced by anyone else.

She wanted to make herself strong enough.

Strong enough that she'd never again have to fear the unstoppable ending foretold in Echidna's prophecy—strong enough that being nothing more than a vessel, a mere shadow implanted with borrowed memories and feelings, would never cost her the right to stand at Natsuki Subaru's side.

She found herself thinking of Priscilla.

That princess, radiant as the sun.

And she herself was nothing more than the pale moon accompanying that sun.

She had once lain in some forgotten corner of the world, drifting through existence after losing her reason to live, until Priscilla had picked her up and given her back the purpose she'd been created for.

Precisely because of that, her fear ran even deeper.

She feared that one day the sun would utterly eclipse the moon's fading glow, and that Subaru would come to look at that princess the same way she once had.

With awe, with trust, drawn to that light as naturally as breathing.

"If I were strong enough, Lord Subaru…"

Ciel pressed her fingertips against the back of the illusory Subaru's hand and asked softly:

"You wouldn't leave me, would you?"

The illusion gave no answer before dissolving into the spreading purple-black mist, and the whole room's atmosphere turned sinister.

No! No! No!

He's mine!

Don't you dare take him from me!

Don't you dare!

The voice belonging to Satella, the Witch of Envy, lasted only an instant. As the illusion shattered and Ciel's consciousness snapped back to reality, her vision filled entirely with a gaping maw lined with jagged teeth and molten rock.

With a savage roar, the great dragon snapped its jaws shut without mercy, swallowing her whole along with the Witch Factor. Ciel's consciousness vanished completely amid a searing pain that tore through her entire body.

—————

When consciousness returned to her body, the agony still lingered.

Ciel felt as though her body were being dragged into a bottomless void, her bones, flesh, even her soul twisting and dissolving.

But none of that had happened yet.

The instant her awareness returned, Ciel abandoned the not-yet-absorbed Witch Factor and triggered her teleportation magic instead, narrowly dodging the massive jaws by the barest of margins.

"Yes… power drawn from the very source of this world."

A low voice rumbled out from the still-lingering miasma.

"This will be our first step toward devouring this world!"

Once she'd teleported to an open stretch of ground some distance away, Ciel's mind finally cleared completely. She saw several molten tentacles burrow out of the miasma, writhing wildly.

Right after that came a horrifying sound of flesh splitting apart. On the surface of the great claw the dragon extended from the miasma, its obsidian-black scales cracked open layer by layer, and countless squirming knots of flesh emerged from the molten glow, forming slender tentacles and eyeballs.

And upon the great dragon's chest, a hideous, fang-lined maw tore its way out through a vertical fissure, letting out a soul-shaking roar. Blood like molten lava dripped from it onto the ground, coalescing into one twisted, chaotic creature of flesh after another.

That roar was this monster's declaration to the entire world.

Deathwing was no longer the Deathwing it had once been.

Having absorbed the Lust Factor, Deathwing's mind—already twisted and corrupted by the Old God N'Zoth—now brimmed not only with the impulse toward destruction, but also with a cunning drawn from the Void.

The two strands of thought entwined within it, and in the end the Witch Factor crystallized into an entirely new authority—

Old God (The Ancient One)_____

Chapter 49.2: Old God__

This world had gone completely mad.

That was the only thought in Ciel's mind after she saw the full form of Deathwing as it now was.

Across that mountain-vast obsidian dragon body, scale after scale was still being forced up and shattered from within by proliferating flesh.

More writhing lava-tentacles squeezed out from beneath, trailing sinew and connective tissue torn from the flesh underneath. Countless fissures split open across the dragon's hide, and molten, magma-like blood mixed with shattered scales poured down in a ceaseless flow, radiating an aura of scorching heat and chaos.

Within those fissures, eyes surfaced — one, two, ten, hundreds! They varied wildly in size and shape: some resembled human eyes, some bore the slitted pupils of reptiles, and some showed nothing but clouded whites, reflecting colors of an uncanny hue that Ciel could not comprehend.

That form was nothing less than the deepest nightmare of every sentient being made manifest — madness itself draped in scale and flesh. A single glance was enough to plunge anyone of weaker will into raving insanity.

But she did not choose to retreat.

As all those eyes turned toward her in unison, a whisper — seemingly countless voices layered over one another — rose in her ears.

"Ciel…"

"Come to us…"

"Become one with us…"

Among those voices was a man's low, ragged growl, a woman's stifled sob, and a child's garbled murmur. But one voice calling her name was achingly familiar — and grating to hear.

"…Subaru?"

Deathwing's massive body stiffened for an instant. The countless eyes across its form spun wildly in every direction, weeping a black-purple mucus, and several enormous lava-tentacles lashed against the canyon walls, sending rubble mixed with molten rock crashing down as the earth shook.

It seemed to be struggling against itself.

More twisted flesh surged out from the fang-lined maw across Deathwing's chest, crawling up along the great dragon's skeleton, sprouting jointed limbs and bulging tumors. Across the crimson membrane of its wings, blurred human faces surfaced, mouths open as if wailing, yet unable to make any sound.

The whisper rang out again in Ciel's ears.

"You will drown in endless madness."

Its majestic draconic head still held its shape, but the split of its jaws extended all the way down to its chest, countless sharp fangs sprouting within. From somewhere deep inside, an arm that looked disturbingly human reached out, seized its own skull, and wrenched it violently to one side.

Deathwing snapped its head violently, tearing that lone arm free. It fell to the ground, fingers twitching without end.

Ciel forced down the urge rising within her, refusing to look at that hand — its shape, its size, both were frighteningly familiar.

No… don't think about whether it's him…

"Pain!"

"Despair!"

"Death!"

With every word the great dragon uttered, the canyon shook.

"This… is the end of all things!"

By this point, Deathwing could perhaps no longer be called a "living creature" at all.

Ciel realized, bitterly, that the Witch Factor had awakened something buried in the deepest core of this monster.

It was no longer satisfied with mere destruction. It meant to make every living thing in the world experience the same Old God corruption it had once confronted itself — to drag every foundation of reason and order in this world down into a bottomless abyss.

She had to stop all of this.

It was the sole mission she had been given since the moment of her creation, and it was also, now, the resolve she had made to save him.

Six-colored elemental mana swirled around her fingertips, and within mere seconds she completed the chant for a sixfold spell — crystalline purple arrows, a scorching solar beam, high-speed wind blades, blazing flame, and freezing ice spikes, spell after spell striking Deathwing's twisted form.

Wind blades and flame tore in succession into the joints at the base of Deathwing's wings — by Ciel's calculation, that was the most vulnerable point on any dragon-shaped creature, the area with the thinnest scale coverage. It should —

A quarter-second after her mind raced through that thought, a tentacle burst up from the ground behind her, driving precisely into her heart and out through her chest. It happened so fast that the agony of death didn't even have time to reach her brain.

Ciel's vision plunged into darkness once more…

---

In that instant, Ciel finally understood why Echidna had fought so desperately to find some means of resisting that inevitable end.

The sheer gap in raw power was more despairing than even facing the Witch of Envy had been, back then.

Victory was almost impossible; she could think of no way to win at all.

But she could not simply give up.

She had promised, after all, to stay by his side forever — had even harbored the extravagant hope of being the one and only for him.

How could she give up so easily, here of all places?

When consciousness returned, the lingering effects of that agony lasted less than two seconds before Ciel forced them out of her mind.

"Ul Shuma!"

The moment she finished her sixfold-spell assault, Ciel called on the power of water and fire elements together, summoning a massive pillar of ice from the ground to hurl herself skyward.

An instant later, the tentacle that had lunged at her from behind plunged into the pillar with a shriek. A thunderous boom followed as scorching magma burst out from within the ice, shattering the pillar into a sky full of glittering fragments.

Ciel rose onto her toes and leapt down from the disintegrating ice. At the same moment, Deathwing — still reeling from the sixfold-spell barrage — roared and opened its massive maw toward her, dark purple energy gathering within.

That energy brimmed with the aura of the Void. According to the knowledge Echidna had left her, the Void was the ultimate expression of the Shadow force, locked in mutual generation and opposition with the Holy Light. Though this world had no concept of the six primal forces, some basic logic ought to hold true regardless.

Solar magic, embodying light and heat, might well counter that power effectively.

But what if her judgment was wrong?

The thought flickered through her mind for only an instant.

Then she would simply die again.

"Al Jiwald!"

Without hesitation, Ciel chanted the most destructive ultimate spell in solar magic. A massive beam of heat gathered in her palm, blazing with a brilliance like the sun itself, and shot straight into Deathwing's open mouth, colliding with that dense Void energy and triggering a violent explosion.

The instant Ciel finally landed, she saw that Deathwing's head had already been obliterated in the blast.

Had she won?

Far from it. A massive dragon claw, covered in tentacles and eyes, slammed down without warning, and her consciousness plunged into darkness once more.

---

The agony of being crushed to pieces by that claw was beyond ordinary. When her mind surfaced again, it took Ciel a full two and a half seconds of deep breathing to steady herself.

Two and a half seconds.

In that brief window, another tentacle coiled around her ankle and flung her into the maw across Deathwing's chest, where layer upon layer of fangs ground her into pulp.

This was her third death…

Before her consciousness scattered, she could not help wondering: inside that monster, was the man she cared for still alive, still holding on?

---

"…Al Fura!"

Fighting through the pain wracking her body, Ciel bit her lip and chanted the strongest wind-element spell she could command, unleashing a fierce storm to blast herself back into the air.

But before she could begin another chant, a purple-black breath erupted from Deathwing's mouth with world-ending force, effortlessly annihilating everything before her.

First the entire canyon, then the distant forest, and finally her, still airborne — the terrible breath surged on undiminished, shooting toward the heavens as if this world itself could not contain its power.

This was her fourth death…

The instant her consciousness reassembled, Ciel felt as though countless red-hot pincers were tearing her body apart piece by piece from within. She had no chance to catch her breath — Deathwing's massive claw was already descending, its shadow swallowing her whole.

"Minya!"

Solidified mana condensed into a mass of crystalline arrows glowing with purple light, streaking toward Deathwing's claw. The instant they made contact, the claw rapidly crystallized and shattered.

But as the flesh broke apart, more flesh-tentacles surged out, as though they had finally found an outlet, wrapping around her body and wringing her apart like a twisted towel.

But before death took her, she noticed something — as she was drawn deep into the maw across Deathwing's chest, a faint emerald glow persisted there, dim but steady, standing out vividly against the abyssal darkness.

He was there! He had to be…

Though the agony of death soon swallowed her again, this time, for the first time, a glimmer of hope shone in Ciel's eyes.

Her ninth death…

"Ul Dona!"

Ciel's left arm had already been torn completely apart, but she finished the chant with her right hand alone, raising a great dome of earthen walls around herself.

The earthen walls held back Deathwing's lashing tentacles… for only an instant. As the walls crumbled, a thick tentacle plunged mercilessly into her abdomen, and she coughed up a mouthful of blood through the agony.

Yet she still raised her one remaining hand — her right — light gathering at her fingertips with the glow of solar magic, but it never coalesced into a destructive beam of heat, because as the tentacle writhed inside her body, blade-like bone spurs rose across its surface one after another, slicing her alive into countless pieces from the inside out.

If she only had one hand left, he'd probably think it looked awful…

…Whatever.

She was already dead, anyway.

Her sixteenth death…

She finally saw it clearly.

Deep within Deathwing's body, amid the writhing flesh and countless tentacles and eyes, there was a small patch that the corruption had never touched — as if something were fighting with everything it had to keep that one small place clean.

Lord Subaru, you're still holding on, aren't you.

Her eyes stung with heat, but no tears came — there was no time for tears. She could only force herself to stay calm and keep thinking.

There had to be a way…

No matter how many times she died, she had to find it!

On her seventeenth death, she concentrated her attacks around that patch — not to kill Deathwing, which she knew was, for now, impossible — but to clear away the corruption surrounding it, buying that clean space one more second of breath.

On her nineteenth death, a tentacle pierced her heart. As she collapsed to the ground, she saw that patch flicker faintly brighter for an instant.

Her twenty-second death.

She could feel her body nearing its limit. Every time Deathwing killed her, the agony far surpassed anything from her battle against the Witch of Envy four hundred years ago, each death crueler than the last.

Thinking back on her previous death, if she hadn't bitten down on the vial of poison hidden in her mouth at the very last moment, she might have been left hanging by a single breath, tormented until her mind broke.

Ciel's hands were shaking — not from cold, but because her muscles, seized with spasms, refused to obey her commands.

But she stood up anyway.

"…Al Jiwald."

Solar magic flared from her trembling fingertips, condensing into a beam of heat that met the oncoming purple-black light in one last, desperate stand. Then her consciousness sank into darkness once more.

Her twenty-third death.

When consciousness returned again, Ciel didn't move.

She simply lay on the rubble, staring up at a night sky lit red by molten rock, gasping for breath. Every inhale felt like swallowing shards of glass.

Then death surged over her once more.

Her twenty-fourth death.

I'm sorry, Lord Subaru. I might not be able to win…

But I promised you, so I'll stand up again.

Even if it takes hundreds of times, tens of thousands of times…

I won't break my promise!

Ciel opened her eyes.

And her mana lit up once again.

---

At the same moment, deep within Deathwing's massive dragon body, at the very bottom layer of its mind, Natsuki Subaru was in fact fully conscious.

This was Deathwing's deliberate design. The moment it seized the Lust Witch Factor and claimed the authority of the Old God, it immediately turned N'Zoth's own method of corrupting its will, from centuries past, upon Natsuki Subaru.

Forcing someone to watch scene after scene of despair while keeping them fully conscious, only for them to discover they could do nothing at all — this was, without question, an exquisitely cruel form of torment.

For Natsuki Subaru, the worst part of it all was that — perhaps as some blessing from Finality — he could perceive everything that happened within what seemed like only a few short minutes, including every one of Ciel's Return by Death cycles. Each of the girl's deaths burned itself into the depths of his mind, causing him unbearable pain.

Run through by tentacles.

Swallowed by that breath.

Her soul torn apart by corrupted authority.

"…"

Natsuki Subaru said nothing. Within his mind, a hand clenched itself tight — had he still possessed a physical body, he surely would have felt his own nails digging deep into his palm.

He wanted to scream, wanted to tear through the darkness that held him captive, to tell that white-haired girl to stop, to tell her she didn't need to keep making these futile attempts — that all he wanted was for her to stop dying.

It was almost funny. He'd once talked Beatrice into defying fate itself — and now, was he giving in to it?

It was true — right now, there was nothing he could do. He had no power to draw on, couldn't even make a sound.

The only thing that still existed of him was his own consciousness — and even that clarity was being seeped into, bit by bit, by the corruption Deathwing pressed upon him. He suspected that before long, after being shown a few more tragic visions, he might break completely.

Natsuki Subaru closed his eyes.

He found himself thinking of Zeratul.

What would the Dark Prelate do, faced with a situation like this?

He wasn't Protoss, let alone connected to the Khala of the Aiur Protoss — so what, in a situation like this, could he possibly do?

Natsuki Subaru chose to breathe deeply —

then to feel the breath itself, the rise and fall of his chest, the air moving in and out, letting his awareness settle on the smallest changes within his body.

And then, to place his consciousness within the vastest reaches of the Void, feeling the stillness and cold that came from it.

Cold — that was the Void.

Natsuki Subaru slowly let out a breath.

For now, he might not be able to change anything.

But he could still keep his mind clear, and wait for a chance to break through.

Wait — and hold on to hope!