Chapter 66: Is this truly the ending you wished for?
Grey had a very, very long dream.
In the dream, she was not living in the era after the Cataclysm.
Instead, she lived before the Cataclysm… where there were no Iron Crosses, no evil gods, no beast tides or foreign races, and no outbreaks of uncontrollable pollution.
People lived in peace and happiness, without having to worry whether their homes would be lost tomorrow, needing only to focus on their future, their studies, and their work… that flourishing old era that existed only in books.
And Grey’s own parents had not passed away.
On a winter evening, the family sat warmly together by the stove, enjoying dinner in harmony.
The aroma of food lingered at the tip of her nose, and the warmth radiating from the fire added a comforting heat to her otherwise cold body.
But—
When Grey finished half a bowl of porridge in small sips and softly called out to her mother, wanting her to taste it too—
The figure that turned around in response to her voice did not bear the gentle face she had expected.
A massive iron-grey cross-shaped brand marred the once-gentle face of the woman.
She looked down upon Grey, the corners of her lips stretching unnaturally, forming a grotesque arc that no normal person could ever make.
No.
Not just her mother.
Her father, her brother too…
Each of their faces bore a clear, ghastly iron-colored cross-shaped brand.
At the sound of Grey’s voice, they turned their heads in perfect unison, staring at her with those cross-marked faces, each wearing an exaggerated, clownish, horrifying smile.
Her former family, just like that, wearing those eerie grins, slowly walked toward Grey, step by step.
…
“No!”
“Don’t!”
Grey struggled as she sat up from the bed, her hands flailing wildly, as if trying to grasp something, only to clutch at empty air in the end.
Fear and confusion still lingered in her eyes as she panted heavily.
A long while passed before the confusion in her gaze gradually faded.
This was Frostwater Town, and she had been taken in by Grandpa Town Chief…
She had already been living here for more than a year.
Everyone in town treated her well, unlike the cities she had once wandered through, where people shunned her for being a drifter.
If only this kind of life could continue forever—
Then even if she couldn’t join the Shoreguards, just continuing to live in Frostwater Town should still be a wonderful thing.
Thinking this, Grey's emotions slowly calmed.
But then—
She noticed something was off in this small room she had lived in for over a year…
White threads.
White threads tinged with blood were everywhere, blotting out the sky and sun, making it feel as though she were inside a spider’s nest.
“What happened?”
She sat up in bed in a daze, got dressed, and looked at the thread-covered room.
And the hallway within the house—lined with cocoons woven from those threads.
Most of the cocoons had already been torn open, with nothing inside.
Only a few remained intact, though they had inexplicably shriveled up.
She gently reached out and brushed aside the threads wrapped around one of the shriveled cocoons…
In the next instant—
Grey’s pupils shrank violently.
Inside the shriveled cocoon was a dried-up corpse.
There were animals—rats, cats…
And there were small humanoid forms.
Not all living things were qualified to be turned into puppets by the blood mist… some weaker lives burned out within the dreamscape it wove, and their bodies were heartlessly discarded by the blood mist.
…
From the clothing, Grey recognized the shriveled little figure.
It was another girl the old town chief had adopted, always somewhat sickly, and often needing care from the other children.
Just a few hours ago, Grey had fed her and spoken with her.
And now she had turned into this dry corpse, the last bit of nourishment in her frail body sucked dry by the blood-colored threads, turned into nourishment for the one behind all this.
“No…”
“No…”
Grey’s voice trembled.
Her memories began to sting, forcing her to clutch her head and flee in terror down the hallway toward the front door.
Maybe… it was just something that happened in the house…
Clinging to that faint sliver of hope, Grey stumbled out the front door.
Then she saw—
All the streets, all the houses…
What filled her vision were blood-tinged threads and cocoon after cocoon, shattered and dried, exposing the corpses within.
They blotted out the sky and the sun, turning the entire Frostwater Town into a spider's den.
But the most devastating sight—
Was the scene in the night sky.
Above the fog-shrouded town, in the dim sky where the moon should have been, now hung a twisted, crimson sphere.
A grotesque red moon formed of writhing flesh, constantly churning and seething.
Shattered memories flashed across her mind.
Grey remembered this kind of eerie red moon.
In half of the outposts that had been destroyed by disasters during her wandering days, she had seen this scarlet moon.
And every time this strange red moon appeared, it meant the safe haven she had finally found would be destroyed again, her life shattered once more, and she would be forced to wander anew.
She had lived in Frostwater Town for over a year… longer than in any of the towns she had drifted through before.
And in Frostwater Town, in the home of the kind old town chief, Grey had felt a long-lost warmth…
Apart from that blurry hometown in her memories, Frostwater Town was the first place that had felt like home.
She had thought this place was different from all the other towns she had wandered through.
She had thought she could live here for a long time… even if she could never reach the Shoreguards' headquarters, because what she had in Frostwater Town was already enough.
But—
That grotesque crimson moon ruthlessly shattered the girl's fragile dream.
Frostwater Town was gone.
That kind old town chief who treated her like a daughter was gone too.
And Grey would once again wander alone.
No—
Now that she thought about it, why was it that every town she went to, those peaceful human settlements would always be destroyed by calamities—whether the red moon, the Iron Cross, or something else…
Why was it that only she could always survive, unscathed?
It was something she had never questioned before—or rather, something she had instinctively avoided thinking about, as a little girl would.
But now, in this moment, with her innocent dreams and fantasies shattered once more, she could no longer avoid it.
Could it be, the root of it all—
Was me?
It was I who killed my parents with my own hands.
Killed the old town chief, and all the kind people in Frostwater Town who treated me well…
“No…”
“No…”
“No!”
“I never wanted this!”
The girl’s anguished cry rang through the town, now covered in blood-thread fog.
And within that heart-wrenching scream—
Everything around her.
The ground, the houses, even the flowing breeze and light.
All of it twisted and froze in an instant.
Atop the town’s clock tower, the hand pointing to midnight trembled.
The tea in the cup went from steaming to boiling, then quickly poured itself back into the pot, the flickering candlelight shifting from dim to bright, then from bright to pitch black.
Suddenly, silhouettes appeared on the once-empty street, people moving stiffly.
As if the film reel of a movie was being played in reverse, everything—every sight and every object—began flowing backward at a disturbingly strange pace.
Even the blood-red moon in the sky began to flicker and fade.
Sometimes it appeared as a flawless, pure moon.
Other times, it reverted to a writhing ball of flesh.
The two forms shifted back and forth.
Then, in the next instant—
“Deny everything that has just occurred.”
“Deny the disasters you brought upon others, the beauty you once encountered, everything others did for you.”
“Also deny…”
“The self called ‘Grey.’”
A clear voice pierced through this distorted moment in time.
It rang unmistakably in Grey’s ears.
“Just deceive yourself and forget it all, forever sinking into a daydream where only you exist.”
“Trapped in the illusions of the past, never able to reach the future.”
“Is this truly—”
“The ending you wished for?”