Two words.
So simple.
So soft.
Yet they slammed into him like a mountain, crushing what little resolve he had left.
It was barely more than a whisper, but it carried the weight of her every scream.
Every moment he’d failed.
Every life of hers he couldn’t save.
Her body convulsed slightly, the black veins spreading further.
Slowly, she was twisting into something unrecognizable but depressingly familiar.
Malik’s hands trembled as he reached for his dagger.
For the first time, his eyes showed a certain emotion.
One that’d make anyone step back.
Not anger. Not fear.
Despair.
Pure, unrelenting despair.
He turned back to Jasmine.
The blackness consumed her like a living thing.
Her one good eye met his, and in that moment, he saw…
‘A-Ah… no.’
He saw something that tore him apart more than anything else ever could.
She wasn’t scared.
She was relieved.
So relieved.
“Please… Just… end it…”
Malik’s grip on his dagger tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
Darkness.
Blink.
Time rewound, dragging him back to the same tragedy.
The edge of the cave.
The “checkpoint.”
Malik stumbled, his knees nearly giving out as reality snapped back into place.
He slowly looked down.
Jasmine was there, her eyes bright and free of darkness.
Safira stood a few feet away, arms crossed, her expression confused.
It was like nothing had happened.
But he knew better.
This time, he wasn’t going to let it happen.
This time, he’d figure it out.
Even if it killed him.
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Blink.
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Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.
Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.
Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.
Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.
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Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.
Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.
Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.
Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.
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Blink.
Malik stood at the edge of the cave, staring into the devil’s throat.
Pale, rotting hands numbering in the thousands had welcomed him.
They reached out, wrapping themselves around him.
His body was completely engulfed in corrupted flesh.
He blinked.
They disappeared.
Slow as a snail, he stepped forward and sat on a protruding stone.
“…Haaaah.”
He didn’t bother looking at Jasmine or Safira.
He couldn’t. Not after how his hope was taken away from him.
He felt unworthy. Like he didn’t deserve this responsibility.
Yet… no one could claim that it was his fault.
Malik had tried.
God, had he tried.
The first ten deaths were chaotic. Desperate.
He ran in every direction known to man, hauling Jasmine as far away as possible.
It didn’t work.
In the next ten, he burned through every ounce of Aether he had, channeling it all into her.
During those attempts, he Turned Hollow, growing old and withering into dust.
Still, that didn’t work either, his inhumane effort was for naught.
Next, he tried keeping her under constant Aether flow, mimicking cultivation.
It only sped up the process.
He tried fighting the blackness directly.
Tried slashing at the veins with his dagger.
Tried cutting away the parts of her body that had been infected.
It. Did. Not. Work.
Nothing ever did.
Her eyes still turned black.
The cracks still formed.
And the black only came back faster, angrier, swallowing her whole until she was nothing but a sack of meat begging for release.
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Malik couldn’t even count how many times he died now.
Every time Jasmine begged him to kill her.
He cursed the first hundred or so times.
Screamed the next.
After another few, he stopped feeling anything at all.
…Tens of thousands.
It had to have been in the tens of thousands by now.
Maybe more.
He didn’t know.
Didn’t care.
Every option he’d thought of.
Every desperate attempt—it all led to the same thing.
Death.
Jasmine’s death…
It was unquestionably inevitable.
Malik didn’t bother anymore.
He led Jasmine to the cave’s depths.
Safira trailed behind them, silent for once.
There, the air was oppressive, and it stunk.
Bad. REALLY bad. It clung to their skin like wet cloth.
“M-Malik… Why… why are you taking us here?”
Jasmine glanced at him.
“…”
He didn’t answer.
Safira, however, wasn’t having it.
“Okay, no… I’m done with this!”
“…”
“Done with this cryptic nonsense!”
“…”
“You’ve been acting weird for hours now.”
“…”
“What is going on?”
“…”
Malik said nothing, almost as if he couldn’t hear her.
His boots echoed against the cold, hard floor of the cave.
Deeper and deeper he went, the darkness swallowing them whole.
Eventually, he reached the spot.
The place where it all started.
Here, a rotten stench like no other made camp.
It belonged to the army of corpses that were left to rot.
Malik stopped and turned towards Jasmine.
He placed a hand on her head, lingering for a moment.
She looked up at him, confusion etched into her features.
“…Malik?”
“Stay here.”
“W-Why?”
“…”
“You’re not making any sense!”
Safira snapped, her nose and mouth covered by both hands.
“…”
Malik ignored her, eyes scanning the cave walls, the floor, the ceiling.
There had to be a clue here, a sign, a reason why this was happening.
Why Jasmine was doomed no matter what he did.
He paced.
Touched the walls.
Searched the cracks and crevices.
Not a single stone was left unturned.
But nothing.
The cave was just a cave.
There was no cursed Holy Relic.
No Arcane carved into the walls.
No sign of some secret society.
Nor some pulsing core of corruption.
Just cold stone and silence.
But Malik wasn’t ready to accept that.
His responsibility demanded more.
He started with the bodies.
Each corpse flipped and searched.
Top to bottom, side to side.
Not one body was left untouched.
Yet… hundreds of bodies later, he found nothing.
Besides their shared method of death…
“FUCK!”
Nothing was unique about them.
Malik knew that this was going to happen.
He knew it.
That was why he delayed it till the end when all his options were exhausted.
“…Damn it.”
He dropped to his knees.
“Damn it…”
His fists slammed into the stone, punching with rage.
“Damn it, damn it! DAMN IT!”
The sound of his own anger bounced back at him, a cruel mockery of his failure.
…
His rage unquelled, he returned to the girls… his responsibility.
They didn’t move much from where he left them, making it quite easy to find them.
The moment he spotted them, his eyes flicked to Jasmine.
She was now lying on the ground, Safira hovering over her in a panic.
Her left eye had already started to darken.
It was happening again.
Of course it was… Of course it was.
It always did. It always came back.
Malik took a shaky breath, his grip tightening on the blade.
There was no other way.
There was no fixing this.
There couldn’t be.
No matter what he did.
No matter how many times he tried.
Jasmine’s Fall was inevitable.
He was powerless.
So utterly, completely powerless.
“I…”
For the first time in what felt like an eternity…
“I’m sorry.”
A single tear slipped free, carving a slow path down his cheek.
“…I-I’m so sorry.”
It burned like fire.
And Malik began to openly weep.
Only now did he allow himself to.
He’d apologize to Sinbad later.
“You’ll rest soon.”
The dagger found itself in his neck.
Blink.