Chapter 286: Chapter 285: Assemble
The mortal realm.
"Lara... oh my god! You did it?!" Merlin beloud, his voice cracking against the stone walls of his study.
The room was dark, filled with the acrid smell of burned parchment, chalk dust still clinging to the air like pale ghosts. Hundreds of failed diagrams sprawled across the floor, circles half-smeared, glyphs abandoned.
But this one — this single parchment glowing faintly under the pressure of their combined will — was alive. It thrummed. The scroll pulsed faintly, like the heart of some slumbering beast.
For a moment, Merlin forgot the weight of age, the tremor in his hands. His eyes, dulled with years of exhaustion, lit with the fire of discovery.
They had finally done it.
Lara held her ground, her blue eyes fixed on the trembling scroll, though a flicker of disbelief still clung to her. "... it worked. We really... it really worked." Her voice was both fragile and fierce, as if she herself couldn’t decide if this was triumph or madness.
Merlin pressed his hand to his forehead. His skin was slick with sweat. He had been chasing this moment for weeks — chasing, failing, breaking, bleeding. He had tried Aurora’s way, memorized every syllable of her impossible chants, prayed for miracles he never believed in. But every attempt had collapsed. His genius had not been enough.
Until her. Until Lara.
He glanced at her — young, stubborn, brilliant. She reminded him of his younger self, except she didn’t flinch where he had flinched. Where he had bent, she held. The girl’s mind was sharper than steel, soaking up everything he taught her and giving it back tenfold. She had done in weeks what he had failed to do in years.
"You’re right," Lara whispered, almost to herself, staring at the shimmering script. "Your theory was right, Master Merlin. Using the dream-portal frame... then paraphrasing its sequence with a catalyst... turning the dream passage into a door to hell." Her words came slow, deliberate, as if speaking them too fast might shatter the fragile truth.
The scroll pulsed again. The crimson-red rune lines expanded, contracted, expanded, like a lung.
Merlin’s chest tightened. He hadn’t felt pride in decades, not like this. His lips curled into a smile, though it was half-tremble. "You are indeed a genius, child. I don’t know if it’s your blood — your brother too was born with raw, untamed brilliance."
Hearing Merlin’s words, Lara’s heart dropped like a stone sinking into black water. For a moment, she almost hated the sound of his voice — not because of what he said, but because of how true it was.
Yes, she was a genius, everyone told her so, even Merlin with all his towering pride had admitted it. But her brother — her future husband — he was something else entirely. His mind wasn’t just sharp, it was ruthless, cutting through truths others didn’t even see. He saw patterns where others saw chaos, openings where others only felt despair.
The only flaw in him was the one she couldn’t bear to name — his heart. Too sensitive, too naïve, too easily scarred by love and betrayal. That soft part of him was the reason he left, and the reason she sometimes wanted to scream.
But he was right. Damn him, he was always right. If she had been in his place, with the same weight, the same wounds, the same betrayals — she would have made the same choice.
That truth hurt more than anything.
So she clenched her fists, nails digging into her palm, grounding herself in pain. She knew. She needed to get stronger. Strong enough to stand beside him, not behind him. Strong enough to shield that fragile part of him he could never protect alone. Strong enough that when the world turned on him again — and it would — she would be there, unshaken, unstoppable.
She whispered in her heart, not for the world, not for Merlin, not for Claire — but for him. ’Wait for me, Atlas. Next time, I won’t be just the shadow following you. I’ll be the one who makes even gods kneel.’
Merlin, seeing her fire, let his voice drop, almost bitter, almost reverent. "Sorry child, I think I made you remember your brother again. But don’t worry child, you will grow stronger, stronger than he ever will, he is strong but you, you are brilliant." He beloud.
Lara bowed her head slightly, though her mind was racing. She wanted to tell him the truth — that much of this wasn’t her own brilliance at all. It was her system. A secret only she could hear, whispering solutions, patching gaps, reworking spells into clean functions. All she had to do was observe, analyze, and the system would digest Merlin’s magic until it became hers.
Still, she didn’t speak it. Not yet. Instead, her gaze drifted to the stone lying at the center of their work: a hazel-red catalyst, faintly pulsing with buried hunger. It looked alive, as if something behind its crystalline surface wanted out.
"Master," she said softly. "The catalyst... where did you get it?"
For a heartbeat, Merlin froze. He had expected this question. It was inevitable.
He forced a small smile and patted her blue hair gently. "Aurora isn’t the only one with surprises," he said, dodging the truth. His hand lingered on her head longer than it should, his fingers trembling. Because he couldn’t tell her. Not yet. She would hate him if she knew.
According to the deal, he thought grimly. His time was close, closer than they realized. And this — this spell, this key to hell — was the last gift he could give them. For Eli. For them. For humanity.
"Alright," Lara said, steadying herself. Her focus snapped back to the craft before them. "To activate the scroll, to pierce into hell, we’ll need an enormous amount of mana. Enough to sustain the catalyst and stabilize the tear."
"How much mana are we talking about?" Claire’s voice cut through the shadows. She stepped into the study, her boots tapping against the cold floor. The woman looked weary, strands of dark hair loose around her face, but her eyes burned with calculation.
Lara glanced back, hesitant. "...Too much. Enough to power a city. Maybe enough to power a state."
Claire clicked her tongue, crossing her arms. The lamplight glinted against the steel rings on her fingers. "Old man, doesn’t the empire still have reserves? Trincates, scrolls, something? Anything?"
Merlin shook his head slowly. "We had. But the keys to the treasury were lost long ago. Even if we could enter, the seals would consume us before we touched them."
The room thickened with silence. The scroll pulsed faintly, mocking them.
Claire’s jaw tightened. Her mind raced, cycling through solutions. There had to be a way — there was always a way. If she had to bleed kingdoms dry, she would. She refused to stop here.
Mana... mana... mana... Her thoughts twisted, desperate, hungry.
Claire’s mind slipped back to the war. The screams, the thunder of steel against steel, the smell of iron and burning flesh. War with the Empire, and with that bitch Empress.
She remembered the endless clashes where their knights moved like men possessed, surging forward with mana that dwarfed her best soldiers. There were moments — too many — when she thought the tide had turned, only to be crushed under their impossible endurance.
At first, she blamed training. Discipline. Some hidden reserve of ancient bloodlines. But it gnawed at her, that question of how. Even prodigies burned out. Even champions had limits.
Through her spies, she began to peel back the layers. The "Primes," the Empire called them. Warriors who were made, not trained.
Aurora had whispered to her once, after the battles, when both of them were half-dead and reeking of smoke. A casual remark, a shard of truth meant to unsettle: "They cheat, Claire. Their strength isn’t theirs."
And later, when Claire pressed, Aurora told her more. Enough to leave her reeling. Enough to etch a scar deeper than any sword wound.
Fairy dust.
The word itself still burned in her memory.
A radiant powder, forbidden, older than kingdoms. A substance so potent it could hollow a man out and refill him with false divinity. And the Empire had been feeding it to their soldiers like wine. And taking the ones who could adapt to it, and throw away the rest.
The shocking discovery had cut her deeper than any battlefield loss. Because in that moment, Claire realized the Empire’s greatest weapon wasn’t loyalty, wasn’t bloodline, wasn’t strategy. It was theft — theft of mana, theft of nature itself, reshaped into soldiers who were never meant to exist.
And then her lips parted. A whisper. "The fairy dust."
Merlin jerked upright. His cane clattered against the floor. His voice was sharp, trembling. "No! Absolutely not. Fairy dust holds power beyond mortal comprehension, yes — but that is exactly why it is forbidden. It devours the user as fuel. It corrupts the spell, corrupts the soul. It is a poison."
Lara’s head turned slowly. She remembered, faintly, whispers of it from her studies. A glowing powder, more radiant than gold, more dangerous than fire.
"The Empress had some," she said softly, almost casually, though her heart skipped. "Didn’t she?"
Claire smiled coldly, her teeth flashing in the gloom. "Then it’s time that bitch finally became useful."
The room darkened with unspoken agreement.
Step.
Step.
Step.
The air grew heavy as they approached the chamber door. The faint scrape of hinges sounded like thunder in their ears.
Claire pushed it open with a shove.
Inside, the Empress — once mighty, now diminished — sat in Claire’s office as though she owned it. Her posture was elegant, too elegant for someone stripped of power. She cradled a porcelain cup of herbal tea, steam curling like incense into the air. On her lap lay a black cat, its fur sleek, its golden eyes unblinking.
The Empress raised her gaze, calm, poised. As if she had been waiting.
The cat purred once, long and low, its golden stare locking on Lara, and for an instant, Lara felt something or rather her system, gave a sudden notification.