My Infinite Gacha In Another World: Surrounded By MILFs

Chapter 55: Chapter 55 — What the Mouth Takes

The herald crossed the distance in less than a heartbeat.

Samira met him blade-first, her sword biting into the remnants of Aelric’s uniform and finding the flesh beneath. The impact sent a shockwave through the chamber—BOOM—rattling the crystals on the walls. Violet light strobed across the stone. For an instant, they were locked together: Samira’s blade buried in the herald’s shoulder, the herald’s claws raking across her armored forearm, sparks spraying from the contact with a sharp, metallic SHRIEK.

Then they broke apart. Samira skidded backward, her boots grinding against the stone. The herald didn’t bleed. The wound in its shoulder gaped open, but instead of blood, thin tendrils of black smoke curled from the tear and reknit the flesh before my eyes.

"Four thousand years," the herald said, rolling Aelric’s shoulder like a fighter loosening up before a bout. "And you still lead with the same thrust. Almira would be disappointed."

"Almira is dead," Samira said. "You helped kill her."

"I helped save her. She was the first piece of the design. The anchor. The foundation. Her death was beautiful. Yours will be, too."

It lunged again.

I didn’t wait for an invitation. The Tenazcrya bow materialized in my left hand, the string humming with silver light. I drew and fired in one motion—THWIP—the arrow streaking across the chamber and punching through the herald’s calf with a wet CRACK. The leg buckled. Samira pivoted and drove her blade into its exposed side.

The herald laughed.

It was Aelric’s laugh. The sound was warm, genuine, the laugh of a young man sparring with his best friend in the courtyard of a tower that no longer existed. The thing wearing his body had kept his laugh. It had kept all of his laughs.

"You’ll have to do better than that," it said. The words came out in Aelric’s voice, but underneath them, something else was speaking. Something that had been waiting in the dark for a very long time.

The herald raised its hand. The crystals on the walls flared. Threads of violet light shot from the stone, wrapping around Samira’s ankles, her wrists, her throat—ZAP. She gasped. The threads tightened. Her blade clattered to the ground.

"Samira!" I drew another arrow, but Odessa grabbed my arm.

"The crystals! They’re conduits—if you hit one, the feedback will fry her nervous system!"

"Then what do we do?"

Odessa was already flipping through her grimoire, her lips moving silently. Blood was soaking through the sleeve of her robe where a shard of crystal had grazed her during the herald’s first attack. She didn’t seem to notice.

"Buy me time," she said. "I can sever the threads. But I need—"

The herald flicked its wrist. Odessa flew backward, slamming against the chamber wall with a dull THUD. Her grimoire skidded across the stone, pages fluttering. The golden circle around us flickered.

"Odessa!" I started toward her, but Chimera was already moving.

She’d been hanging back since the fight started, her breathing ragged, her hand clamped over her palm. But when the herald threw Odessa, something in her posture changed. Her shoulders straightened. Her eyes narrowed. The mouth in her palm pressed against the skin. Waiting.

"Chimera, don’t—"

"You need an opening," she said. Her voice was calm. Too calm. "I can give you one."

"How?"

She turned her palm over. The mouth opened. Not the way it had when it devoured the subordinate herald. That had been hunger. This was something colder. The tongue uncurled between the teeth. The jaw kept stretching until it unhinged with a wet CRACK, and a second row of teeth slid forward from the dark.

"I still have pieces of the other one inside me," Chimera said. "The subordinate. Its memories. Its hunger. If I let it take over—just a little—I can match the herald’s frequency. Disrupt its control over the crystals."

"It’ll burn you out. You can barely stand."

"Then don’t let me fall."

The herald was watching us. It hadn’t moved from the center of the chamber, but its eyes—Aelric’s eyes, dark and depthless—were fixed on Chimera. A thin smile spread across its borrowed lips.

"The failed seed," it said. "Still trying to be useful. Still trying to be more than the broken thing they threw away. You think you can channel the design? You think you can hold even a fraction of what I am?"

Chimera didn’t answer. She stepped forward, out of the flickering golden circle, and let the mouth take over.

---

The transformation was sudden and violent.

Black lines spread from Chimera’s palm, racing up her arm like cracks in ice. Her skin took on a grayish tinge. Her heterochromatic eyes—one crimson, one blue—flared with violet light. She screamed—KREEE—and it was Chimera’s voice, but layered beneath it was something else. The subordinate herald. The echo of the thing she’d devoured in the clearing. For a moment, the two voices warred for control. Then Chimera’s won.

"Now," she gasped. "Whatever you’re going to do—do it now."

The herald’s smile faltered. For the first time since the fight began, it looked uncertain. The threads binding Samira flickered as Chimera’s presence disrupted the frequency. The crystals on the walls dimmed.

Samira didn’t waste the opening. She tore free of the weakened threads and rolled across the stone, snatching up her blade. The golden circle around us stabilized as Odessa hauled herself upright, one hand pressed to her bleeding side, the other reaching for her grimoire.

"Harold!" Odessa shouted. "The crystals! While it’s distracted—!"

I was already drawing. The Tenazcrya bow hummed in my grip, the string burning silver against my fingers. I aimed not at the herald, but at the crystal cluster above its head. The arrow left the bow in a streak of white light—THWIP—and buried itself in the stone. The crystal shattered with a glassy CRASH. The herald screamed.

Its voice was no longer Aelric’s. It was the sound of grinding metal, of breaking glass, of something ancient and furious and hurt.

"Kill the failed seed!" it roared. "Kill her now!"

The remaining crystals surged. Threads of violet light shot toward Chimera—ZAP ZAP ZAP—wrapping around her throat, her wrists, her waist. But the mouth in her palm bit down on the threads and swallowed them whole. GULP. The light drained from the crystals and vanished into the darkness behind her teeth.

Chimera laughed. It was a broken sound, half-triumph and half-agony, but it was hers.

"You’re not the only one who can eat," she said.

The herald lunged. Samira intercepted it, her blade meeting its claws in a shower of sparks—CLANG. Odessa finished her incantation, and the golden circle expanded outward, pushing back the violet haze and filling the chamber with warm light. I fired another arrow, then another—THWIP, THWIP—each one finding a crystal cluster and shattering it.

And Chimera kept eating.

She tore through the threads one by one, the mouth in her palm devouring the herald’s power faster than it could replenish. The black lines on her arm spread to her shoulder, her neck, her jaw. Her skin was smoking. Her breathing was ragged. But she didn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop. She’d been called a failed seed, a broken vessel, a disappointment. She’d been thrown away by the things that made her. And now she was eating them alive.

---

The herald fell.

Samira drove her blade through Aelric’s chest, pinning him to the stone floor with a final, resounding CRUNCH. The body convulsed once. Twice. The mouth opened—Aelric’s mouth—and a sound came out that was almost human.

"Samira," it whispered. The voice was thin. Fading. The voice of a young man who’d thrown himself in front of a monster to save his friend. "I’m sorry. I couldn’t—I couldn’t stop them—"

"I know," Samira said. Her voice was steady, but her eyes were wet. "It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault."

"For what it’s worth," Aelric said, "I missed you."

And then he was gone. The light in his eyes—the real light, not the violet glow of the herald—flickered once and died. His body went still. The black smoke poured from the wound in his chest. It screamed—SKREEE—a sound like tearing canvas. It thrashed. It tore free of the corpse like a parasite fleeing a dying host.

It didn’t flee toward the exit. It fled toward the seal.

"No," Odessa breathed. "It’s trying to merge with the rift. If it reaches the anchor—"

The smoke slammed into the seal. The silver lines flared. The symbols etched into the spinning sphere blazed with violet light, and a sound like tearing metal filled the chamber—RRREEEEEK. The ground beneath us cracked. Crystals rained from the ceiling.

Chimera collapsed. The black lines on her skin receded as the mouth in her palm closed, but she was barely conscious, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Odessa was on her knees, blood pooling under her robe. Samira stood over Aelric’s body, her blade still buried in his chest, her shoulders shaking.

I caught Chimera before she hit the ground. She was light—too light, like the fight had scraped something essential out of her. Her eyes fluttered open for a moment and fixed on my face.

"Did it work?" she whispered.

"You ate half the chamber. Yeah, it worked."

"Good." Her head lolled against my shoulder. "Wake me when it’s over."

She passed out.

The chamber shook. The seal was cracking. Fissures split the silver lines. Darkness seeped through. Almira’s body, suspended at the heart of the sphere, was still and silent. Whatever the herald was doing, it hadn’t reached her yet. But it would.

"Odessa!" I shouted. "How long do we have?"

"Minutes." She was trying to stand, one hand pressed to her side. "The herald is inside the seal now. If it reaches the anchor point—if it corrupts Almira’s remains—the whole structure collapses. Everything inside comes out. The Andawas. The dark energy. All of it."

Samira pulled her blade from Aelric’s chest. She didn’t wipe the blood off. She just stood there, looking at the seal, at the cracks spreading through the silver light, at the body of her master suspended in the center.

"There’s a way to stop it," she said.

"I know. You told me. You bound your soul to the seal four thousand years ago. You can do it again."

"Not again." She turned to face me. Her violet eyes were steady in a way that made my stomach drop. "The first time, I only had to hold a crack. This time, the herald is inside. The seal is breaking. If I bind myself to it now, it’ll take everything. My soul. My body. Everything."

"Then we find another way."

"There is no other way, Hal. The herald is inside the seal. Someone has to go in after it."

"Then I’ll go."

"You can’t. You’re not attuned to the seal. It would shred you before you got within ten feet." She stepped closer. Her hand came up and cupped my cheek. Her fingers were cold. "This is why I didn’t tell you about Aelric. I knew you’d try to save me. I knew you’d throw yourself into the fire. And I can’t let you. Not this time."

"Samira—"

"Let me finish." Her thumb traced the line of my jaw. "I’ve spent four thousand years running from this. From the guilt. From the fear. From the moment I watched Almira die and knew, deep down, that one day it would be my turn." She smiled. It was a small smile, sad and tired and beautiful. "Turns out my turn was always going to come. I just had to find something worth spending it on."

"You’re not spending anything. We’re getting out of here. All of us."

"Hal—"

"No." I grabbed her shoulders. "You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to give me that speech and then walk into the light like Almira did. That’s not how our story ends."

"Then how does it end?"

"With both of us walking out of here. With Lia. With Chimera. With Odessa. With Dorko and Domack and every other broken, stubborn idiot who decided to call us family." I pulled her closer. "You told me once that I was the first thing you’d wanted in four thousand years. Well, you’re the first thing I’ve wanted in my entire life. You. Samira. Before the gacha, before the harem, before any of it. Just you."

She stared at me. The chamber shook. The seal cracked. The herald screamed inside the silver light.

"You’re an idiot," she said.

"I know."

"You’re going to get us both killed."

"I’ve already died once. It didn’t stick."

"That’s still not a strategy."

"It’s worked so far."

She laughed. It was a wet, broken sound, half-sob and half-relief. Then she grabbed the collar of my coat and kissed me. Hard. Her fingers twisted into the fabric. Her lips tasted of cold air and the bitter tea Odessa had been brewing.

When she pulled back, her eyes were still wet, but her jaw was set.

"Odessa," she said. "You said there might be a third option. Something between doing nothing and me dying."

Odessa was leaning against the wall, her face pale, her grimoire clutched against her chest. "The Casket of Muluk. You still have it."

"It’s empty. I used the last of its power on Urdok’s children."

"You used the resurrection charge. The casket itself is a divine artifact. It was designed to contain the soul of a god. If we use it as a conduit—if we channel the herald’s energy into the casket while we pump ether into the seal—we might be able to close the rift without anyone having to die."

"Might?"

"Might. I’ve never tried it. Neither has anyone else. The theory is sound, but—"

"The casket will break."

"Almost certainly. And whoever holds it will absorb the overflow. It won’t kill them. Probably. But it will burn." Odessa looked at Samira. "You’d be the one holding it. You’re the only one attuned to the seal. The only one who can get close enough."

"How long would I have to hold it?"

"Minutes. Maybe less. Just long enough for us to repair the seal from the outside."

Samira nodded. She didn’t hesitate. "Then that’s what we do."

"Samira—"

"Harold." She looked at me. "This is me choosing. I’m choosing to trust you. To trust them. To try the option that doesn’t end with me dead and you carrying another weight you don’t deserve." She took my hand. Her fingers were still cold, but they didn’t shake. "Now help me close this thing so we can go home."

The chamber shook—BOOM. The seal cracked—CRACK. The herald howled inside the light.

I squeezed her hand. "Together."

"Together."