The Crack In Heaven [A LitRPG Progression Fantasy] Chapter 20: Chapter 20: A Truth Without Purpose

Read chapter 20 of The Crack In Heaven [A LitRPG Progression Fantasy] by Adamus_Auguste on NovelPedia.

Chapter 20: A Truth Without Purpose The moment Giovanni tried to collapse his anchor, sweat turned like ice needles puncturing his half-melted skin, while his face contorted in a feral grimace: his thoughts, his goals—everything warped in front of him. What was he... trying to do? His life was so shitty that he essentially waited for death. At least he lived... With Tonio, Riccardo, and now, Kael, that troublesome lad. Would things get better if he endured a little more? They surely would. Well, at least they couldn't get worse. So, why had he returned to this cursed facility? Marek was frowning in front of him, sword hanging over his neck. To die? He had sworn to survive no matter what... Survive? He was a dead man walking with an anchor more cracked than the monstrosity's glass tube. Breaking it was what he came for! To give Kael and Riccardo clues about rewriting truths before they became like him. Why was he hesitating? Blood poured between his fingers as he tightened them around his stomach. He'd break it now. His eyes sharpened, yet his fingers loosened. A part of his mind opposed him. "I survive no matter what." Hesitation wormed back. The doors were open. If he ran now... His eyes found Riccardo's bitten lips in the doorway, tear-stained hands muffling Tonio's whimpers and holding him in place. No, he would break it. For them! For himself. To leave something meaningful behind before he joined his family in Kraghor's embrace. Don't think. Break it. "Enough. We'll see if your truth lets you survive without a head." Marek swung down. Giovanni's fingers twitched against his will, and his muscles squirmed like water under his skin. The crowd of thugs stepped back, their eager screams turning into horrified yelps. Even Marek froze mid-swing to leap back. "I..." Giovanni located the biggest crack in his anchor. "Break..." He forcefully widened it, not with the stress that withered it but by his will. "YOU!" The anchor blasted. His mind collapsed into shards, and what had protected him from death for two decades finally opened the dam of suppressed diseases. His limbs liquified, and his skull burned. For a moment, faces flashed on the shards. Tonio, in his handmade suit, Riccardo grinning with the family members, his son Francesco proudly showing him he could now read, and Sofia, his sweet wife, caressing his hair. Who were they? They felt important, but... he couldn't remember any. A tear trailed down his cheek. Before the shards shattered, their lips parted. Time froze around him, and so did the thugs. "What does surviving mean now?" They whispered. Giovanni didn't answer. He knew what surviving meant, lived through it, but did he want to after watching his legacy burn and his family die in bodies twisted by experiments while hate slowly gnawed at him? No. This was not surviving. It was agony, plain and simple, torture to a mind that wished for a revenge it would never get, then waited for death as the second-best option. What did surviving mean... It didn't matter anymore to him. Death was fine. He failed to answer, and with his failure, the frozen time that held the shards of his mind suspended resumed its course. When they shattered, the shockwaves of the meaning of his truth being unanchored spread outward. The air trembled, and everything lost its meaning. Giovanni was gone, entirely lost, but not his truth. It subsisted in his broken body, unanchored, without knowing what the survivor was meant to be. Or rather, it built its belief on the ashes of the previous one. His liquifying limbs swelled, his right side hardening like cracked marble that refused to fall. The other side dripped and reformed endlessly, with organs visible without truly failing. A fractured crystalline core floated around his heart, never whole, constantly trying to seal itself. Marek's sword almost slipped from his grasp, and his face decomposed. "Don't tell me you meant your... BASTARD!" He ran a dozen steps back, barking. "Arm yourselves, fools!