Do you remember our promise?
We met on a moonlit beach, became travel companions crossing mountains and rivers. Both of us yearned to wander freely—until we found the one who made us willingly enter family's prison.
Hedaar, I'll never leave you.
Through sickness and health, poverty or wealth, I'll stay by your side.
After today, we'll build a home. We'll share joys and sorrows, face fortune and misfortune together. We'll have healthy, happy children—maybe several—who'll inherit our dreams. Perhaps they'll also wander the world and find love on their journeys.
By then, we'll be old and frail. But we'll still cling together, watching our children live their lives.
Will you walk this path with me, my love?
...
Hedaar... Forgive me...
I broke my vow. The rock strata entombed me, leaving you alone.
I don't beg for normal life—just one more glimpse of you. To say how deeply I love you, how I regret failing you. To embrace you once more, then tell you to find happiness without me...
I'm sorry, my love...
...
She still remembered her happiest moment.
Sunlight through stained glass illuminating her wedding dress.
Him fidgeting in an overly tailored suit, that adventurer's swagger gone as he nervously took her hands. She'd nearly laughed—until his earnest vows brought tears.
The bells rang pure that day.
Their kiss burned eternal.
The rings never left their fingers.
Have you finally returned?
Feeling that familiar warmth again.
Hearing that voice again.
Tasting those lips again.
How often had she dreamed this reunion?
How often awakened to crushing emptiness?
Scars fade.
Pain dulls.
The dead stay dead.
Yet if you could come back...
She reached out.
His hand felt just as she remembered.
I'm sorry I'm late...
Just being here is enough...
Hand in hand, they smiled.
Time to go—walking forward together as always.
How they'd once mocked such sentimental gestures...
[Your husband's death was irrelevant! Honestly, him getting lost and crushed was initially problematic—]
Their steps halted.
[—until we realized his corpse triggered Nutty Putty Cave's metamorphosis! His death was perfect! HAHAHA!]
[Quit screaming! It's just an injection!]
[Those last two test subjects? Useless trash—died immediately. Age? Irrelevant!]
She turned slowly.
Some things couldn't be forgotten, even with heaven within reach.
[Your child? Oh right—died Day Two. What's that face for?]
[You might become civilization's cornerstone! Stay strong, my dear test subject!]
Her head swiveled toward the smirking face.
[Let's escalate—bring her family in.]
The happy vision shattered.
[No reaction? Try importing slum children.]
All beauty burned away—only ashes remained.
[Another failure. Dump it in the fissure.]
What stayed was the fire itself.
Endless hatred.
Shattered sanity.
SPLAT.
Her broken body slid down the fissure wall.
Yet consciousness persisted.
She felt everything:
The unceasing agony.
The chorus of dying screams from other discarded test subjects.
And his voice echoing from the research base above:
[We are the stepping stones of human progress!]
As he ascended, repeating the lie he'd almost convinced himself was true...
Her rotting corpse kept sliding deeper.
The fissure neared capacity with bodies.
Until at last—her bones, her rage—plummeted into the absolute darkness below.
She was buried here, never to leave again.
[We are the new era. We are the future.]
[Come, let us toast to humanity's future!]
Rage.
A fury that scorched the soul to ashes, that burned away all sense of self.
Not just her own anger.
But the collective wrath of all those buried here - those who sank into despair, whose souls found no rest even in death.
She felt those burning flames.
So blisteringly hot, so terrifyingly real, like the fires currently consuming her body.
And so she began to climb upward.
Absorbing all the restless flames.
Gathering, bit by bit, every ounce of fury and despair onto herself.
I must kill them all!
This mad obsession condensed, fused together, until only one simple thought remained:
Kill everyone in that research facility!
Slaughter them!
Murder every last one!
Every person who hurt them, who cruelly tortured them; every hypocrite preaching morality while calling themselves civilization's stepping stones; every disgusting wretch claiming to be humanity's foundation. Kill them all, exterminate them completely, leave not a single one alive!
Kill!
Kill!!
KILL!!!
[Look at you all - to be honest, I feel absolutely nothing]
[As the research facility's supreme leader, that General was just an ignorant fool. I'm the one truly in control here]
[I'll keep climbing higher, gaining more power, more wealth, becoming someone you insects could never comprehend]
[As for you? Hah! Sure, you contributed to human progress. But so what? No one will remember your names or stories. You're nothing. Less than nothing. That's the reality. Hahahaha!]
[Hate me all you want - you'll change nothing. This world has no heaven or hell. See? Someone as wicked as me should be punished, no? Yet here I stand - no prison, no firing squad, no divine retribution. I'll never suffer like you did. No one will blame me. Even if I err, I'll be forgiven. And one day... I'll become a true god. The supreme being towering above all!]
Darkness had engulfed the entire observation area.
A disheveled woman in a blood-drenched white dress - now completely dyed crimson - stood trembling.
The ground shook violently. Takakai's ring had vanished. Andreas's grudge shattered at this moment, finding fulfillment upon reuniting with Hedaar before gradually dissipating.
As for Hedaar's grudge... whatever warmth or beauty might have remained within that obsession seemed to vanish alongside Andreas. What remained was an even more terrifying, utterly deranged fury.
Takakai's door had fallen to the ground as he now faced Hedaar directly.
In the freezer zone, as power returned, Fujiwara Chika dragged another door inside. Gasping for breath, she saw Maki and Kaguya already pinning down Folnern - his limbs nearly snapped - and without hesitation, inserted the blood key into her door's lock.
They couldn't wait for Hedaar to reach the research area.
If this core grudge entered the lab zone, history would repeat: the freezer zone would lose power, reverting to its final-day state where Folnern would regain his half-human/half-aberration form, rendering all efforts meaningless. Thus, they needed Hedaar to encounter Folnern while he remained human but without entering the lab zone - only then could this core grudge be resolved.
Normally, tackling a top-tier Midnight-grade scenario like this required:
✓ Multiple Midnight scenarios cleared
✓ At least A-rank Dusk/Midnight enhancements
✓ Comprehensive grudge items (teleportation/attack/defense/healing/summoning/etc.)
✓ Or an elite team
Yet Takakai had none of these - his save-scumming watch had ruthlessly thrown him into this high-difficulty run demanding perfect clearance.
Still, solutions existed. While the blood key couldn't directly target core grudges (like unlocking Room 304), it could link nearby doors - just as in Shirakawa Apartments. By removing doors from Shegaila and Folnern's offices, Takakai and Chika created conduits between zones.
"GYAAAAAH—"
The battered Folnern - face swollen, limbs broken by Kaguya and Maki - shrieked upon seeing Chika's door open.
Hedaar, who should have executed Takakai per her "kill on sight" rule, froze mid-motion, her gaze locked onto the illuminated freezer zone beyond the door... and the still-human Folnern inside.
[AAAAAAAAAH—]
The ear-splitting screech made Takakai's eardrums burst, blood trickling from both ears.
In the next instant, the bloodstained aberration reached the doorway... and stepped into the freezer zone's cold fluorescent light.
Thus, the scenario's endless cycle - continuing for who-knows-how-many years - finally collapsed.
As Andreas's grudge dissipated, the "Red Nut Ash Cave" area's core disappearance triggered violent earthquakes heralding the scenario's disintegration.
BOOM—