assistirfilmes Chapter 22: Ch20. Dark truth
Chapter 22: Ch20. Dark truth
Chapter 22: Ch20. Dark truth
Miles's hand hovered over the next page, the weight of Alice's words pressing against him. There was more, he could feel it in the way the book seemed to pulse with life.
He turned the page again, and the next entry was even more urgent.
"I failed. The Mad Hatter's grip on Wonderland grows stronger with each passing day. The remnants of the Queen's followers are few, and we are hunted mercilessly. I watched him execute one of them today, and I could not stop him. I couldn't even speak. The words caught in my throat. The scythe, his scythe, sang a song of death, and I watched as another life was extinguished."
Miles' hands trembled as he kept reading. Something inside him pulsed with each word he read, as though the lost pieces of a forsaken puzzle were finally falling into place. He opened his inventory and looked at one specific weapon.
[Scythe of the ???]
[Category: Weapon]
His skin crawled as he read the weapon's description, however, because as his eyes darted across the lines of text, the words glitched, and as the text went back to normal, his eyes widened.
[Item Description: After the war against the Red Queen, the Mad Hatter helped the girl take the land's throne, and for a while, the country became prosperous, happy, and wealthy.
However, everything has to come to an end, and so did the girl's reign, with time and death.
Upon a final, fatal vow, the Mad Hatter took it upon himself to gather the lost powers scattered across the land and finally became powerful enough to bring back the times gone by, but at what cost, as the Harbinger lost his titles and powers, dying at the greedy thirst of his own weapon, never to find that, which had been lost, ever again...]
The text glitched one more time, but the description seemed just like Miles had just read. However, he looked up, at the top of the item's window, and the weapon's name was different.
[Scythe of the Harbinger]
"Are you seeing this, Cheshire?" Miles whispered as if fearing that the scythe itself could hear him.
"I am..." The cat retorted.
"And...? Nothing else to add or to explain about it?" Miles trembled, unsure of what to do. Cheshire's retort, however, was dark and sullen.
"Keep reading, my boy. I think Alice will explain everything in this diary..." And so Miles did.
"I fear for what he has become, for what he is doing to Wonderland. The very air feels thick with death, and the lands grow barren. The madness has spread, infecting everything it touches. Even now, I feel myself losing hope. I feel myself becoming what I never wanted to be... Someone who accepts that this world is lost."
"But there is still time. Perhaps. If I can find the source of his power, if I can destroy the scythe, perhaps then I can save him. Perhaps I can save Wonderland. But I do not know how much longer I can hold onto this hope. I fear I will lose myself before I find the answers."
Miles closed the book slowly, his hands trembling. The words, the pain, the desperation that had been written on those pages, it was overwhelming. He had known, deep down as he kept reading, because of the current state of the world he was in now, that Wonderland had not been saved with the fall of the Queen, but the extent of the damage, the price of victory... It was worse than he could have imagined.
And the Mad Hatter... He had become a creature of darkness, consumed by the very weapon he had wielded in the name of justice.
It too, glitched, revealing what was hidden underneath the question marks.
[Mad Hatter's Reflection]
Miles' face darkened as he recalled what happened when he stood in front of the mirror.
"It was no illusion, then..." He breathed in heavily.
The page caught his eye next. It was covered in jagged, hurried handwriting, the ink smudged but legible. Miles carefully pried it from Alice's brittle fingers, his heart heavy with an unshakable sense of reverence.
The text on the page was brief, but it burned into his mind as he read it aloud:
"To the one who finds this, I leave my final hope. This hat is both a curse and a salvation. The scythe's twin was born of the same madness. I was able to steal it from the Mad Hatter before he could strike me, and so, I saw his demise... Cursed and devoured by the demented power of his scythe, he became dust and serve as the foundation of whatever Wonderland is to become. Wield it wisely, or it will consume you as it did him. Find what we lost, or all will be for naught."
Miles looked down at Alice's remains, at the hat, and at the scythe in his inventory. The weight of her words crushed him, a realization dawning like a storm.
"Two sides of the same coin," Cheshire murmured. "The scythe and the hat."
Miles hesitated, his hand hovering over the hat. The pulsing intensified, synchronizing with the thrum of his heartbeat.
"This feels like a terrible idea," Miles muttered.
"It is," Cheshire replied. "But terrible ideas seem to be your specialty."
With a nervous grin, Miles reached out and grasped the hat. The moment his fingers touched its brim, a surge of energy coursed through him, and the system's voice echoed through his ears.
[You have completed the quest]
[You have acquired – ??? EXP]
[You have acquired – Mad Hatter's Hat]
[You have acquired – Mad Hatter's Mantle]
[You have acquired – Ender's Mask]
As soon as Miles felt the flicker of energy that meant that the items were now in his inventory, he fell to his knees, holding his head in his hands, and a loud shriek escaped his throat.