The Final Desperation

*Tsk* 'Of course, it's not that easy,' Genji clicked his tongue as he stared down at his phone.

"Is something the matter?" Joki asked, noticing his irritation.

"No, just remembered something unpleasant."

Joki didn’t pry any further and instead surveyed their surroundings. Colorful autumn leaves swirled around them, filling their view with hints of festivity. A clear stream trickled nearby, carrying away the fallen debris.

Waving trees and wild pumpkins could be seen off the path, enhancing the scene's autumnal theme. They stood at the bottom of a hill where everything seemed to converge. In front of them lay a path made of disconnected stone pebbles that snaked upward around the hill.

Genji exchanged a look with Joki and shrugged. "Seems pretty obvious where we need to go, doesn’t it?"

Joki nodded and stepped onto the first stone. Suddenly, the entire zone underwent a startling transformation, magnifying everything countless times in size. The stone beneath Joki's foot expanded over the ground and caught Genji in its area. The distance between the steps also became a wide chasm, impossible to cross without a running start.

Genji looked down the edge and noticed the previously earthy ground had become clouds, promising a long fall if they missed their jump. Additionally, strong winds from passing leaves bore down on them, attempting to blow them away.

"I guess this confirms our theory," Genji said in a somewhat upbeat tone. "This whole thing is a giant zone that covers multiple territories. What a mess we found ourselves in."

"Besides that, do you have any ideas on crossing this? I don't want to risk jumping right now," Joki hollered from the other side.

Genji approached and eyeballed the distance. 'It's doable,' he affirmed.

Then he conjured a crystal chain, tied Bruce to the end, and gave it a hard twirl. "Fasten this down once you reach the other side, okay?" Genji said as he released the chain.

"What?" Joki asked, not understanding the request.

"That wasn't for you," Genji replied. "Just watch."

Joki focused on the chain and wondered what Genji meant when a gust of wind suddenly blew the chain off course. 'Guess it's time to pull it back and try again,' he thought, glancing at Genji. 'Weird, why isn’t he doing anything? Is he fine with letting his sheath fall like this?'

Genji met his gaze, smiled, and cocked his head back at the chain. Joki looked back and his pupils widened in surprise when he saw wings sprouting from the sheath. Bruce flapped several times to cover the distance and manifested to tie down the end.

"That’s your horse?!?" Joki blurted out.

"Pretty neat, huh? Anyway, I’ll meet you on the other side. Hopefully, you’re not afraid of heights or have terrible balance. That would be quite troublesome to work around." Genji stabbed a pike through several links to hold his end down before stepping on the chain and running across. Astros looked back and waved at Joki, beckoning him to follow.

'Why does he seem used to this? How often does he do this?' Joki wondered speechlessly before slowly walking over with his arms out.

The chain wobbled violently from the winds and Genji's steps, but Joki managed to stay on. However, he slipped when a strong gust crashed into him at the halfway point. Reacting quickly, Joki grabbed the chain and waited for the storm to subside before pulling himself back up. Like this, they cleared the first chasm.

"One down, many more to go." Genji pulled the chain taut and released constructs at the start, then repeated the sequence with Bruce.

This time, Joki had enough practice to divert some of his attention to observe Genji's methods. He noticed that Genji was completely unaffected by the gales and wanted to draw some inspiration. After several instances, he noticed a gleam of light would always flash before the winds hit, nullifying the current.

'Is he cutting the air so it flows around him? How smart.'

Having understood the underlying concept, Joki quickly devised his own method and picked up his pace. He went from a slow walk to a speed walk to, finally, a sideways shuffle. When the whirlwinds came, he used wind magic to divert the airflow around him. This cost a decent amount of mana, but it was within acceptable ranges.

With this method, they finally reached the top, and the world returned to normal. The path that took hours to climb now seemed meager and easily surmountable. All they had to do was jump down the hill, and it would undo all their progress.

"Let’s rest before we go any deeper."

Joki agreed with the suggestion and sat down to eat. After recovering their energy, they stepped forward, and the surroundings changed again. The cover of autumn peeled off like old paint, revealing a luxurious garden hidden behind. The front gate glowed with polished silver, devoid of imperfections.

A soft creak sounded as the padlock holding the doorway fell off, and the entrance swung open. They walked in, and more oddities entered their sight: giant dice the size of houses, oversized plushies, random playing cards, and shiny chess pieces sporadically scattered across the garden.

As they walked, they heard children singing from ahead. The lyrics were cheerful and accompanied by laughter, highlighting the singers' vibrancy.

♫ Ring around the rosie, ♫
♪ Pocket full of posies, ♪
♫ Ashes! Ashes! ♫
♪ We all fall down! ♪

Then the sound of bodies falling to the ground echoed across the garden. They walked around a bush and saw five children lying on the ground in an open area. Their arms were spread out, waving up and down as if making snow angels. They had content smiles on their faces as they basked in the soft sunlight. After a few seconds, they began singing again.

♩The ground's full of daisies ♩
♪ So many maybes ♪
♫ Ashes! Ashes! ♫
♩We all stand up!♩

With those words, all the children rose unnaturally to their feet. This motion was strange because they made no movements with their bodies. It was as if some invisible force had grabbed them by the heads and hoisted them up. The children interlocked their arms and began rotating counterclockwise.

♫ Ring around the rosie, ♫
♪ Pocket full of posies, ♪
♫ Ashes! Ashes! ♫
♪ We all fall down! ♪

At the last syllable, the children flung their arms out and leaned back, letting gravity pull them down when the scene underwent an eerie transformation. The vibrant colors faded, replaced by a gloomy greyscale. The happy children became cold corpses, their eyes gouged out and crying tears of blood. The bodies hit the ground, but there was no sound. Silence pervaded the world, enforcing a muted reality.

Then everything changed back as if everything had all been an illusion. Genji's eyes widened, but a raspy whisper sounded in his ear before he could do anything else. "I said, we ALL fall down! What don’t you understand about that?"

Genji dove forward and twisted his body around to shoot behind him, but his bullets hit nothing. He rolled onto his feet and warily scanned the surroundings for the intruder. 

He held his stance for another 30 seconds until the children finished the second verse. As they floated upward, the scene abruptly shifted again, and Genji caught sight of a ghostly figure in the corner of his eye. His head swerved in that direction, but the figure remained at the edge of his peripheral vision. Then he blinked and the scene reverted to normal.

The children had begun their cycle again, only this time, their voices were distorted at random intervals.

♫ Ring arrrroooound the roooooooosie, ♫
♪ Pocccccket full of posiiiiiiiies, ♪
♫ Aaaaaashes! Asheeeeees! ♫
♪ We allllllll fall downnnnnn! ♪

Hearing the last word, Genji threw himself back like the children, his eyes darting around for the enemy. His arms were tense, ready to strike regardless of his position in the air. Unfortunately, this did nothing as the scene still swapped. He had already triggered this area's mechanism and made himself a target.

The figure in his peripheral vision moved closer during this time, but it was still too blurry to make out any details. He blinked again, and the cycle began anew. This time, Genji tried attacking the children to break the loop.

Right before his dagger cut them, the scene shifted the attack to the dead counterparts. The figure in his vision drew closer, revealing a white dress. Another blink and the decapitated child regained his head.

The damage inflicted on the inverted counterparts did not affect the real bodies. Instead, attacking them only accelerated the figure’s approach since it could only move when the world was inverted.

'But is this true for everyone or just my perspective? It seems relative to me, so maybe there’s a workaround?'

To test this, Genji dropped his sheath and swung again. Bruce appeared beside him in the inverted world, indicating that the zone was shifting rather than Genji being teleported. Bruce launched his attacks, and Genji blinked. All the damage was nullified.

'So the shift occurs whenever the children are attacked, and the negation applies to all damage, not just the first attacker. How annoying.'

As Genji considered other options, he noticed another strange detail: Joki had vanished. Where did he go? Didn’t they enter this area together? Now that he thought about it, Joki’s presence had faded when they first saw the children—or perhaps even earlier. It was hard to pinpoint exactly when, as this area messed with his sense of reality.

When exactly did Genji trigger the trap? Was it when he failed to follow the lyrics? But even that seemed suspicious. Maybe it happened the moment he first heard the song, or when he entered the garden? Everything blurred together, making it impossible to identify the specific trigger.

'No point in dwelling on it now. I need to deal with the stalker first.'

Genji placed Bruce back at his side as the children finished their verse. The figure drew closer, now appearing as a teenage girl. Her features were still blurry, but it was only a matter of time.

Blink.

The children's voices grew increasingly distorted, making them hard to understand. Some words stretched out as if slowed down multiple times, while others sped up to a squeaky pitch, like a rubber duck.

Genji took out a small explosive and set a timer. He tossed it into the circle and attacked.

‘Five, four, three, two, one,’ he counted down.

He blinked at the half-second mark, allowing the bomb to detonate right as the scene swapped back. A bright flash filled his sight, but the same greyscale gloominess followed immediately after. Not even the sound of the explosion could be heard. 

The girl in his vision became clear enough to distinguish her features. She had several pupils crammed into her eye sockets as if containing all of the children's missing eyes. A demented smile was plastered on her face as she raised a sharp knife.

Blink.

‘I have at most two more tries before she reaches me.’

Genji racked his brain for more ideas as the children finished their chorus again. He immediately blinked and carefully observed the children's movements. Although they performed the same dance each time, Genji could still make out subtle differences.

For example, the tallest boy in the group had a slight limp in his right leg when shuffling around. The shortest girl fumbled occasionally due to her short legs. The group wasn’t as harmonious as they first appeared, and their laughter seemed forced under the distorted sound.

‘Since I can’t kill them, can I mess up their dance?’

Genji waited for the children to separate and fall before approaching. He blinked to cancel the inverted zone and placed rocks around the circle to trip them when they got up again. He focused more on the previously mentioned boy and girl since they seemed most likely to be affected. Finally, he tied their legs together and waited.

♫ Ring around THHHEEE ROOOSSSIIEEE, ♫
♪ Pocket full of POOSSI ahhhhhh!

Halfway through the chorus, the children tumbled hard, but their arms remained interlocked as if fused together during this phase. This worked in Genji’s favor since they struggled to stand afterward.

‘They’d rather waste time getting up than let go of each other. Do they also need to follow the rules to maintain this? If so, what happens if they break them?’

The children recovered from their fall and clumsily finished the chant despite Genji’s obstacles. He quickly blinked, but it didn’t change how close the girl with the knife had gotten. He needed this cycle to work, or he’d have to confront the strange ghost.

Genji took out a gallon of oil and soaked the ground, making the skin slippery. Then he built a makeshift barricade around the short girl, isolating her from the group.

With this done, Genji took a deep breath and began blinking rapidly. ‘Hope this works.’

However, the inverted world was different this time. Not only did blinking fail to cancel the change, but the girl had also disappeared from his sight. A hair-raising chill crept over him as a cold breath tickled his shoulder.

Genji immediately burst forward, but it was too late. A sharp pain pierced his chest as the tip of a knife emerged between his ribs. Then everything reverted, and the pain vanished as quickly as it came. Genji checked his chest but found no wounds. Even his health points remained unchanged.

‘No, something’s wrong. Stats can be faked, but not the sense of danger I felt. Deceived, yes, but not faked. I need to get out of here fast—I can’t afford to stall anymore.’

Genji glanced at the fumbling girl and dashed for the exit. But no matter how far he ran, he couldn’t find the gate he’d entered through. The garden stretched endlessly, creating a closed space that circled back on itself. The world inverted again, and another stab pierced through his right lung. Everything reverted afterward, and Genji found himself back with the ring of children.

‘I was afraid this would happen. These traps just won’t let you go once they latch on.’

Genji took a deep breath to steady himself and reviewed the results of his experiment.

‘Even though I delayed the hand-holding, the attack still triggered. I need to either figure out how to permanently stop it or kill that strange girl.’

Genji decided to prepare for both possibilities since he wasn’t sure which would come first. He waited for the children to drop and endured another stab from the girl before installing a few bars above a boy. Then he stabbed a metal rod through his heart, nailing him to the ground.

The dead version replaced the child, but Genji didn’t care. He pushed the rod deeper into the ground and bent it around the bars, forming a cage that prevented the boy from getting up.

For this bold move, Genji lost his right arm, severed at the elbow. He instructed Bruce to bombard the boy without pause and slashed a circular streak, anticipating the stabby girl’s appearance.

Attack after attack flooded the inverted world, sealing all openings around Genji. After a minute, Genji finally relented and leaned back to catch his breath, when another knife stabbed through his stomach. Genji’s gaze sharpened as he slammed his dagger backward.

The world reverted for a split second, but Bruce’s attack forced it back. A sharp screech pierced his ears, but the girl had already disappeared from behind him. Genji scanned the surroundings and reinstated his bombardment. The problem with this opponent wasn’t her stats but her elusiveness.

Dance of Death and even [Kraken’s Grasp’s] mental impact swept through the area, attempting to catch his target off guard. Genji paused after 40 seconds and began counting.

'One, two—'

Without wasting another moment, he immediately swapped positions with a silhouette, narrowly dodging a fatal stab. At least, that’s how it was supposed to be, but Genji still felt a sharp pain in his neck.

'How?' he wondered as the girl violently yanked the knife out, sending him to the ground. 'I timed it. Why is she still behind me?'

The girl approached and kicked him over before manically stabbing his chest numerous times. In and out the knife went, splattering blood everywhere. She managed his heart, her mouth curving upward into a silent, gloating laugh.

As the last life drained from Genji’s body, she reached for his left eye and gouged it out with her cold fingers. Then, with a hard pull, she snapped the optic nerves connecting the organ to the brain. Her smile grew more twisted as she brought the bloody eyeball to her mouth. After giving it a good lick, she crammed it into her own socket.

It didn’t fit, but she forced it in any way. A soft pop sounded, followed by yellow pus leaking out the edges. She licked off this fluid and reached for his other eye. Then everything went dark.

Darkness...

Void...

Emptiness...

Solitude...

Death...

Until it wasn’t.

[Soul Sanctuary has nullified "Induced Insanity." Becoming immune for 5 seconds.]

Genji’s scattering consciousness reconsolidated, and a flash of realization hit him. “Induced Insanity? Insanity! So it’s all in my mind. That’s why nothing makes sense!”

But despite this understanding, he was still stuck in this illusion. Unless he could break out in the next few seconds, he would return to his previous state, this time for good. In the face of looming death, Genji’s mind burst forward with all its power, trying to conceive any possible outs. His willpower squeezed out every drop of potential within him and demanded more.

More.

More!

MORE.

MORE!

And his mind obeyed—succeeded even. Since he had no way to directly shatter this insanity, he needed an outside force to awaken him; a force so intertwined with him that it could ignore this dream—a legacy.

Reaching into the deepest parts of his existence, Genji pulled out the faint connection between him and his legacy spirits. He traced this connection and entered their mind space. An unprecedented sense of urgency greeted him as he appeared before his spirits. The twins and silhouette wasted no time upon seeing him and jolted his mind.

Then they kicked him out, urging him to deal with the crisis at hand. Genji opened his remaining eye and noticed the same children dancing around him. Their voices chanted “Ring around the rosie,” over and over again in a sing-songy tone. All of them wore the same demented smiles and the multitude of eyeballs as the previous girl.

Genji immediately summoned his dagger and swiveled out a circular slash that bisected everyone. Their eager eyes turned to confusion, and their ghastly smiles faded into frowns. Genji gave them no chance to recover and slashed out again, shredding them all.

Suddenly, the world around them cracked, leaking intense light. These fissures stretched across the sky and dug into empty space, expanding and growing more concentrated. Then everything shattered with a loud burst, and Genji reopened his eyes.

He was back at the bottom of the hill again, with Joki stepping on the first stone of the path. Everything had triggered from that moment. But although the sequence was illusionary, the damage was not.

Moments after Genji awakened, his left eye exploded, and his right arm dissolved into ash. Wounds opened across his chest, destroying his lungs and organs. All the damage he’d sustained in the double-layered illusion had transferred into reality.

Yet despite his miserable state, Joki had it worse than him. A gaping hole burst through his stomach, his ribs shattered into dust, his right leg lost all its muscle, leaving only bone, and half of his face disappeared, revealing a decaying brain. These were deadly wounds and beyond saving. Joki had perished in the trap.

[You have completed the story of: Ring Around the Rosie.]

[Ring Around the Rosie]

Description: Although it’s not a children’s fairytale, it is just as deadly, if not more. Those who are unaware will die before they realize what hit them. Behold, the all-devouring soul ritual!

Mission Progress: 6/3