Apocalyptic Rebirth: With a repairman system space, she rises again.-Chapter 504: The prism of despair.
"Come on," Sunshine grabbed Carson’s hand, racing off to a plaza whose lights blinked in grey. The air was heavy, stiffing too. Shadows stretched unnaturally, arms reaching out to grab them from the ground, twisting like living things.
They came to a dead, end, a locked door. There were no windows, so nothing for them to climb into and enter the plaza. So, they stood at the edge of the plaza, clinging to their weapons.
"We should use dragonoids to set the on fire," Carson suggested. "Or splash some paint on them. Maybe they are allergic to color." He said through shallow breath. He stepped i front of Sunshine, protectively. "Stay behind me ma’am. I can regenerate, no matter what happens,"
Sunshine pushed him aside. "We should focus. They want our fear; we cannot give it to them. How strong is your mind? If you cannot hold on, I will send you back."
Carson shook his head. "I am staying." If she was here, it was for a good reason. He would stay and help her.
The grey people came closer and closer. Sunshine put away the dragonoid and clenched her fists. Blue sparks of electricity danced across the knuckles, hissing in the stagnant air. Frost spread from her nostrils and all of her pores. A thin sheet of ice crawled on the ground, stretching towards the grey people.
The grey people slowed. All of them and at the same time. They looked down, wary of the sudden change in their environment. But still, their shadows crept closer to the two, whispering promises of pain and loss.
And then, the grey people lunged, their movements jerky and unnatural. Sunshine thrust her hands forward, unleashing ice like she wanted to freeze the whole planet. Carson unleashed fire from two dragonoids at the same time, the red of the fire competing with the white of the ice.
Sunshine;s vision blurred, and whispers grew louder. You will never return. You will die here. You will be one of us soon.
Sunshine gasped, her fear spiking.
The apocalypse will never end. Just stay here with us. Come...join us...feel us. Shadows thickened, nearly blinding her.
Carson threw away the dragonoids and charged into the swarm of grey people. His body was torn papery like hands, grey figures ripping into him cruelly. His wounds sealed up as quickly as they formed. He threw out acid grenades and fought like a beast, fists smashing, breaking bones that stitched back together in seconds.
Sunshine’s ice cracked, and she switched to using her electricity. Images of a headless Nimo swam through her mind. Her electricity sputtered. She was drowning in fear.
New memories were aroused in her mind. Memories of the moment of her death, her real death in her last life. Even then she had not been afraid as she was now. As someone who had died once, how could she be afraid now? How could she protect Carson when she had dragged him to this place.
She closed her eyes, forcing her breath to become steady. She let the fear wash over her, not fighting but accepting it. And then she felt it, the weight of it, heavy like a thick blanket. The fear was also afraid of being consumed.
When she understood this, it recoiled.
Sunshine’s eyes snapped open and suddenly, she could see colors in the grey, cracks in the people’s skin.
[Congratulation host for unlocking a new ability to see in the dark.]
With renewed determination, Sunshine stood up and unleashed an even bigger wave of ice. Sharp spikes erupted from the ground, impaling everything. Lightning swept through other grey people, and they shrieked as their forms unraveled into dust.
With every step that she took, the sky above the grey world rumbled in protest. And soon, only grey dust remained in the area around the plaza.
Sunshine hurried to Carson, staggering as she moved and breathing hard. She called for him, urgency ringing in her voice. He was on his knees, stomach torn open in a dozen places. His body was stitching back together, but slower than before.
"I....won." He coughed blood, and collapsed, his chest rising shallowly.
[I recommend something to speed up his regeneration, but it will take at least three hours. On the upside, his ability will triple when he opens his eyes. A combination of drawing energy from the prime core and the regeneration MX pill will see to that.]
She bought the pill from the system, stuffed it into Carson’s mouth and sent his body into the space. She could not leave just yet. According to the system’s radar, there was something in the plaza she could repair, something useful in the apocalypse.
Using her new vision, she navigated through the streets, fists sparking. The shadows were gone, but it did not mean they were not watching her. So, she kept the frost coming and every once in a while, struck her empty surrounding with bolts of lightning.
She finally reached a building that looked like a temple. It was the only place in this world with color. White! The doors were half-broken. Inside the shadows clung to walls, afraid to breathe. At the center, stood a pedestal and upon it, a crystal unlike anything she had seen.
It was a prism which looked like pure glass, shimmering with white strings inside.
[System, is this it?]
[A prism of the fractured Chromora crystal. It is what drained the color from this world.]
Sunshine was just about to touch it, and she took back her hand. Why would she take something like that back to earth? She did not want to live in a grey world. She could hear the whispers of the shadows--they were pleading. Please don’t take it. It belongs to us.
[By removing it, color will return to this world. The benefit for you is that the prism is a converter. It can turn despair into energy, light into power.
You said your world is only months away from a darkness that will last almost a year. This prism, once repaired, with the addition of a few changes, it will feed your solar panels. Something the artificial sun cannot do.]
The artificial sun was mostly a provider of light, not power. It was like a torch, and a torch could not generate power.
[This prism is a lifeline for you.]
Sunshine looked at it again, wondering if this was what Cassius had used to power Crosstown in her last life. If the sun was not it, then it had to be the prism. Or something else from one of the worlds he visited.
"Will the people of this world be harmed if i take it?" She asked what she was curious the most about.
[No. The planet will repair itself to what it once was eighty years ago. The people are afraid of the prism because they live in fear and off of it. Whoever placed the prism here must have done so accidentally or they were ruthless. After you take it, you can return in a few months, and you will see for yourself what the planet once looked like.]
Sunshine’s fingers brushed the surface of the prism, a shockwave rippled outward. The white in the temple peeled away, showing a yellow color. The floor glowed with earthy brown, and the air seemed to come alive.
Outside, Sunshine could hear it, cracking--like the planet itself was changing. The grey people shrieked, afraid of the sudden shift in their still lives. The brightness, as little as it was, seemed blinding.
Sunshine lifted it fully from the pedestal and vanished from the temple.
***
When she materialized back in the real world, Sunshine realized two things at once: first, she was not in the office, but her bedroom. Second, she was very definitely lying in a nap bed_ with a bare-chested Carson beside her, dead asleep, breathing evenly. The skin of his upper body was red, with cracks.
She groaned, rolling onto her back, muscles screaming in protest. "Ugh. Why are my bones aching." She stretched, then opened her eyes fully.
Hades was standing there. Arms crossed. Expression unreadable. Radiating husband energy.
Oh no!
