I could still feel the pain behind his silence, the refusal to let me die. That loyalty that bordered on stupid... I’m not a fan of it at all.
[Tensei, please promise me this...] [Usa]
Deep down, I already knew: I wasn’t getting out of this alive.
This had been a massive, arrogant miscalculation on my part, and I was paying for it in blood, bone, and burning organs... Except I can’t possibly tell my subordinate that.
[I don’t think I am one who will die so easily... But in the event of my disappearance, please become the next Shadow Leader of the Shadow Beast Intelligence Agency, okay?] [Usa]
[...]
[I know you have the skill, the power, the knowledge, and everything it takes to lead. You’re an exceptional person who was even supposed to succeed my father... So... please, promise me thi—]
BANG!!
The connection severed immediately.
A brutal, tearing force ripped through my abdomen, as a chunk of flesh and muscle simply vanished at my side—choked away by something that sounded exactly like what Ren once described as a "shotgun."
My body bent forward while I was still in the air from my earlier leap.
But I had lost balance due to excruciating pain tearing through my stomach.
My body drilled and dragged violently across the ground like a ragged doll, with my limbs flailing uselessly, and my skin scraping raw against dirt and stones.
Every bounce sent fresh shocks through my shattered ribs and torn abdomen, and before I could even begin to fully land and balance—
STOMP!
Something violently powerful slammed down onto the back of my skull, and the impact drove my face straight into the earth. And a deep, bone-shuddering vibration rolled through every single joint and vertebra of mine.
The sudden stop of my forward momentum made my spine creak dangerously, threatening to snap under the abrupt compression.
Cracks spidered outward across the soil in a jagged web, radiating from where my cheek pressed into the warm, pooling puddle of my own blood.
My gaze flickered—on, off, on, off—like a lantern caught in a storm.
I gasped desperately for air that refused to come to my lungs. My chest heaved in violent, shallow tremors.
And my lungs were finished. Completely collapsed and burned. I could feel the damp, grinding wrongness of serious internal injuries shifting inside me with every ragged breath.
It dawned on me like the dark cloud before a storm... and I felts so tired... because I was finally caught.
The foot that remained planted on the back of my head—still pressing down with slow, deliberate, bone-crushing force—belonged to none other than Elara, the Queen of the Amazons. One of the most dangerous people in the world.
It was over for me.
I only hoped, prayed even, that Tensei had heeded my final order and escaped with the others before Sara or Lotus could reach them.
As for me... when I manage to catch even the smallest sliver of breath, I would sink fully into Void’s Pocket, forever lost and forever forgotten.
So completely misplaced in nothingness that even rebirth would be impossible. A complete death, it is called.
Haha...
I love... my job.
"A little furry on the feel..." Elara suddenly began, her voice calm and nearly thoughtful, as she increased the pressure of her feet.
The ground beneath my cheek dug and pressed deeper, with the soil grinding into the split skin of my face. "More or less small-like... two gaping outlets I cannot quite fathom on the skull... and incredibly sturdy too, to not have perished from Sara’s punches and Lotus’s magic..."
What is this?
I’m... I’m scared.
Is this Queen... trying to make out who I am by just stepping on me?
Yabai...
I had utterly underestimated the Amazons.
And I was paying for it dearly.
This destroys everything I had planned.
My heart began to thump again, wild and frantic, as my eyes went wide with genuine, animal fear.
If... even if I threw my entire existence into the void right now... if Elara managed to make out who I was before I could vanish completely, it would defeat the entire purpose.
My death would still not prevent Shishi-no-su from being exposed. I would still be the cause of trouble for my kingdom.
I had never imagined that I myself would be the one to bring ruin down on everything I had tried so hard to protect.
"At least I can tell you are not human," she continued, heavily stomping down twice more—each impact sending fresh tremors through my skull and making stars explode behind my eyelids.
"See? A regular human skull must have caved in by now. So... are you one of the fairy twins sent by Titania?"
"..."
I remained perfectly silent, as any sound could betray me.
"Or perhaps... are you the brother of Dynamis the ogre princess?" Another slow, deliberate shift of weight, grinding my cheekbone against bone. "I do not believe you are dwarven. So are you a Hobgoblin of some sort? That would be impossible, considering they are not so physically strong that they would survive what you have endured. Which would mean you are also not a fairy, then... So it comes down to two people in this world capable of breaching Verdant Spire so arrogantly; since even the demons fear us."
My heart began to beat faster—every second of silence making me feel smaller, more defeated, more exposed beneath her heel.
"You are either Judais, the half-demon and Captain of the Knight’s Order of Gihon ..." She paused, letting the name hang like a blade. "Or you are the arrogant mongrel that very recently got powerful: Silver Shadow. Usagi of the Shadow Beast Intelligence Agency of Shishi-no-su."
BADUMP!!
I was already trembling under her foot, so violently that the shaking alone wouldn’t give me away anymore. It was clear that I was deathly afraid.
But I had never been so terrified in my life.
And at the mention of my own name, Silver Shadow—Usagi, something inside me died a little and then clawed its way back to life just to feel the fear all over again, sharper, colder, and more suffocating.
Now if I ran away to the void, it would mean she was correct, and I was escaping to warn my people.
And if I made any strange motion, even the tiniest twitch of resistance, it would mean she was correct as well. as I didn’t move when she was mentioning others.
What do I do?
Oh no, oh no, oh no—this wasn’t as fun as I thought.
I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out.
I need to get out of here fast!
Amazons scare me.
I could feel warm liquid further blurring my already fractured vision—I couldn’t even tell if it was blood, tears. I couldn’t tell anymore.
Lily... Oka-sama... Your Majesty... Benjamin Mark... anyone...
Please... Help... me.