Free Web NovelChapter 80: Not A Guiding Light
’Pain...’
’I’m in so much pain... It hurts. It hurts so much.’
Warm, sticky blood spread thickly under Helena’s palms as she tried to push herself up. But her arms dissolved into tremors and dropped her face-first back into the slick puddle.
"Aaaahhh!" The impact slapped against her cheek, forcing a sharp gasp that dragged the suffocating stench of copper straight into her chest.
Her lungs seized under every breath.
Unable to move, she could only lie there as the fresh, pooling heat slicked over her body began to turn deathly cold against her skin.
When she tried to drag herself backward, her legs stayed dead, useless weight anchors trailing through the dark until her spine thudded against a freezing stone wall.
The chill bit through her shredded clothes, deep into her bones at the exact moment a violent spike of white heat fractured her skull.
She let out a raw, choked sound she couldn’t stop as the thick, blood soaked through her clothes, gluing the freezing fabric to her thighs as it ran down her skin in warm, relentless streams.
"Where... where am I?"
Arrow shafts bristled from her legs.
’It hurts! It hurts so much! P-pull. Pull it out."
Shakingly, her blood-slick fingers clamped around the wood, ripping it out from her thighs.
"Arghhhh!" Fractures of black patches swallowed her vision in an instant.
Heat surged up from the pelvis, forcing another ragged scream.
The wood tore through her flesh with a wet, sickening suction. Muscles locked so hard she couldn’t breathe, as she clawed the remaining shafts out of her own skin.
As the last one tore free, the wounds gaped open—gushing a thick, bubbling surge of blue slime across her raw flesh before splashing into the pooling blood on the freezing floor.
Helena stared at the flowing blue ooze. "What?"
Clenching her fists to stop the trembling, her fingers kept fluttering out of control.
She tried to breathe, but the raw smell of blood stuck to the back of her throat and made her gag.
A heap of tangled limbs and torsos filled the center of the room, and right at the apex of the corpses was Eli.
Dozens of shafts jutted straight out of his chest and face, pinning him to the pile, his eyes wide and jaw locked open in the middle of a scream.
The blood on his cheeks had already turned to a dark, flaky crust.
Gagging, the sight made her stomach twist violently.
"...no..." Tears streamed down her cheeks.
A raw cry broke out of her throat and she hit the floor.
"No! ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
She slammed her fists down. Again. And again.
"No, no, no, no, no!"
The skin on her knuckles split open, but she kept striking the floor, banging her hands into the hard stoney floor until a seething, blinding heat shot straight up her arms.
Hands swelling, her own warm blood mixing with the slick mess beneath her, however, she continued.
’Why didn’t I see it? How could I be so... so stupid?!’
It was all gone.
The plan had collapsed because she was too slow. Blinded, like a fucking fool.
She had sat there, completely confident, while Fateless stayed ten steps ahead the entire time and pulled the noose tight.
"Get up!" she shrieked at the pile of bodies, her voice cracking into a ragged, desperate rasp.
"Please, just get up!"
When they didn’t move, she cried again.
Her own hands had killed them.
Why always her?
Every time she thought she could do something right, it all came crashing down, making things even worse.
Why?
A choked, hysterical sob forced its way out of her chest as she hammered her bloody palms against the ground over and over, trying to smash the strength right out of her own bones.
Screaming at the ceiling, her vision blurred into dark, dizzying streaks as her mind spun completely out of control.
’Why? Why?! Why?!!! Why can’t I just get one thing right?! It’s all my fault.’
However, crying would fix nothing. Crying and screaming at the sky was useless.
She dragged a bloody hand across her face, smearing tears and blood together.
The sticky warmth cooled quickly against her skin and left her cheeks tight and itchy.
But... How was she still breathing?
She remembered the arrows tearing through her.
She remembered the darkness closing in.
Thick blue slime kept oozing from the open holes.
It clumped against the raw, exposed muscle. Tingling, as it actively stitched the torn fibers back together.
This was strange.
Curious, she scooped a wet handful, shoving it directly into her ruined palm.
The grease sank straight into the wound, sealing the split skin instantly and leaving nothing but smooth, unblemished flesh behind.
Underneath, more layers of it were moving, shifting and repairing the deep tissues.
A sudden wave of heat bloomed right in the center of her chest.
When the worst of the pain finally dulled, she pushed herself upright.
Half her clothes draped in wet, torn strips, and though her legs shook, she stood.
The icy stone floor stung her bare feet, contrasting sharply with the warm slime still moving inside her wounds.
Ding!
[ "You’re... alive." ]
She stared at the glowing screen. The letters glitched and flickered.
[ "Goodness gracious! Player Neon is..." ]
[ "Alive..." ]
Tilting her head, she studied the Runic board notification.
It looked wrong.
Instead of the clean, ancient scripts she knew, the jagged lettering vibrated across the floating screen.
The lines fractured and split into unreadable glyphs before fusing back together.
Even the voice sounded off.
A cleaner message appeared.
[You are one unkillable cockroach, aren’t you?]
[Unfortunately, the game has ended. No prizes will be offered to you.]
"..."
[However, you may exit the game arena.]
[Please exit the game arena within two minutes!]
A portal swirled open behind her, humming with faint energy that prickled against her skin.
Helena’s cold, empty eyes drifted from the glitching screen back down to the heap of slaughtered bodies.
Slowly, her chin tilted up toward the vaulted dark of the ceiling.
"So it was true," she rasped. fгeewebnovёl.com
"You gods really do watch these games. Is it entertaining for you? Watching us die?"
The flat, hollow ring of her own words lingered in the quiet air, devoid of any anger or heat.
Nothing answered. Only the shaky, shallow hitch of her own breath cut through the silence.
"Was watching my parents die entertaining to you, too? Everyone around me is dead." Her words shrank to a dry, barely audible whisper.
"And I’m still here. Why does everything I touch turn to ash?"
Flashes of Fei Ming tearing through her shield and arrows ripping into her flesh burned behind her eyes.
Helena flinched, her frame jerking as she shoved a wet, trembling hand against her crown to physically block the memory.
The split skin of her unhealed hand throbbed violently under her palm, driving sharp spikes of heat straight through her skull.
When she recollected herself, a heavy sigh escaped from her lips.
"Well, what would you know about humans anyway?.You aren’t one. Emotions-eating bastards — that’s all you are."
Dragging her weight forward, Helena limped toward the portal.
However, before she crossed fully through, the Runic board reappeared.
[Neither are you.]
She froze, staring at the blue screen.
[Do you know why you were named ’Neon’?]
"I don’t care what you think. I’m leaving."
One final line appeared.
[Because you are not a guiding light.]
She stood perfectly rigid, her reflection trapped beneath the glowing font. "What?"
The screen flickered, text wiping away to reveal a new line.
[An artificial light that’s impossible to ignore. Yet you only illuminate the path to ruin.]
[You are the glow that lures insects to the flame.]
[Everyone who follows you will be led astray...]
[Including your ’parents’]
[That’s what you are— Neon.]
A sharp, shallow wheeze cut off at her throat.
Falling on her knees, she tried to breathe again, but her chest seized, sternum aching from the strain as her lungs flatly refused to open.
"It—hick!— no... No! I’m not!"
Lips twitching, desperately trying to anchor a single shape, Helena tried to force out a word, but the effort dissolved into a dry, useless hitch.
The portal light swallowed her.
In an instant the coliseum vanished and she collapsed onto the cold forest soil.
Fate...
Fate can be so cruel.
