Wonderful Insane World-Chapter 123: Mixed Feelings

Maggie’s blows came one after another, over and over.

Her breath was rhythmic, mechanical. Her gaze fixed on the thing Dylan had become—this walking abyss. She struck to slow him, to break him—not his body, knowing it would never stay broken—but whatever still passed for his mind.

"Oh, Dylan... as if your mere existence wasn’t already annoying enough," she growled through clenched teeth. "And now you’ve got a power that makes it even worse."

She swung again, diagonally, aiming for his knee joint. The blade bit into flesh, bone, for the span of a blink—then the tissue closed, restored, smooth, as if mocking her.

And for the briefest moment...

She saw him stagger.

Just a second. A breath. An echo.

A flicker in his blackened pupils.

As if Dylan—the real one, the original—had reached out from within. A silent whisper, like the tiniest crack.

But then he snarled again, louder this time.

A gut-wrenched scream. Something primal and sick.

His blade, half-split, whistled toward Maggie’s throat with a brutality so pure it was almost beautiful.

She blocked. Barely.

The impact bent her. The axe trembled in her grip. Metal screeched. Her legs buckled for an instant, and the taste of blood rose to her tongue—iron, bitter, alive.

And yet...

She was in control.

This was a dance. And she led the music.

Dylan’s strikes were nothing but percussion without melody—raw, disorganized beats. He was fast, yes. Violent, yes. But every attack left him exposed. Every rage-fueled motion shortened his breath, revealed an opening.

His machete, split and unbalanced, reduced his reach, forced him to lean in, to lunge, leaving his flank, his torso, his legs wide open—and there, Maggie’s axe found its angles. Like a predator who already knew her prey’s weaknesses.

She circled him, fluid, almost elegant. With every opening, she made sure her axe bit—Dylan’s body was drenched in blood, soaked as if caught in rain, yet no wound remained.

After losing so much blood, a normal human would have died. But Dylan had proven otherwise.

Maggie was fully committed, but she didn’t have the demonic endurance of her opponent. Sooner or later, she’d run out of breath, and the rhythm couldn’t be sustained forever.

True, she was using technique—but her body... it was as if it responded clumsily to her will, refusing to adapt, making every movement harder to execute.

It drastically slowed her reaction time.

Maggie felt her muscles burning.

Every strike, every parry, every pivot—her body struggled to keep up. Her arms shook under the impact of Dylan’s machete slashes, her legs trembled under the weight of her own exhaustion.

"Damn it..." She barely dodged a thrust that would have gutted her. "Why am I even bothering?"

The answer was right in front of her, in those black eyes that were no longer Dylan’s.

Because there was still a chance.

A tiny, minuscule chance.

And she was going to take it.

Her axe intercepted the machete once more—but this time, Maggie didn’t retreat. She countered.

A low kick swept Dylan’s knee.

With a loud crack, the bone gave way—or at least for a second, before it reformed instantly.

But that second was enough.

Maggie pivoted, using the momentum to strike full-force—not with the blade, but with the axe’s pommel.

The metal slammed into Dylan’s sternum with a dull thud.

He staggered back, swayed—

And in his black eyes, a glimmer flickered.

Like a crack.

"Dylan!" Maggie roared, seizing the opening.

Her axe came down—not to wound, but to sever.

But the moment was fleeting. The spark of humanity drowned in a growl.

Something had changed.

Dylan’s body shuddered, then tensed like a drawn bow. His skin oozed an impure black light, and the violence of his presence thickened. He moved—no longer with the fury of an animal, but with the sinister fluidity of something fully aware of its power.

He had become faster. Stronger. More dangerous.

And the wounds he dealt now... Maggie felt them differently. Deeper. Less bearable. Every strike carried a resonance, something that marked her flesh beyond mere pain.

Then she understood.

He had activated his core. He had detonated it from within, unleashing its essence—the energy that multiplied strength, that blurred the line between will and instinct.

The cruel irony? She had taught him this. Her, Maggie. She who now faced the lesson firsthand.

But she wasn’t one to be buried by the memory of failure.

She, too, had a core. She, too, knew how to use it.

And in a breath—silent, intimate, like an inner vow—she unleashed it.

The world seemed to hold its breath.

Her body ignited from within. Not with fire, but with essence. The red veins tracing her skin pulsed, spreading like living ink across her flesh. They stretched along her back, forming strange symbols—glowing, ancient, almost ritualistic, as if a forgotten language had awakened on her skin.

But Maggie didn’t notice.

Her eyes were locked on her adversary. On Dylan—or what he had become.

She leapt, axe raised, her mind taut as a bowstring.

And this time...

It wasn’t to defend.

Nor to save.

It was to decapitate.

⸻

Elisa watched.

And that alone was torture.

She couldn’t follow all the movements—they were too fast, too brutal, too far beyond her. It was a storm of axe and machete, of torn muscle and silent screams. Every impact echoed in her like a funeral bell. She no longer saw trajectories, only flashes. Glimpses. Blood splattering like paint across a nightmare canvas.

Maggie and Dylan.

Her two companions. Her two anchors.

And her, standing frozen in a world that had grown too vast for her.

One hand pressed to her mouth, the other clenched around the essence bracelet. That small, almost laughable circle into which she poured everything she had.

Everything. Even what she didn’t have.

She felt the essence slipping away like water through her fingers—absorbed, devoured, with no return. A desperate act. A prayer without a god. She pushed, strained every fiber of her being toward something. Anything. A key, an escape, a miracle—a weapon? She didn’t know. She just wanted to help. She had to.

But nothing answered.

And her stomach twisted, knotted, as if an invisible fist had clenched inside her. A deep pain, not of flesh, but of the heart.

She didn’t want to see this.

She didn’t want to watch Dylan die. Not like this. Not falling as a monster, only to fade as a martyr.

She didn’t want to see Maggie win—not because she didn’t wish for it, but because she refused to let Maggie carry that weight.

The weight of killing a friend.

The weight of surviving it.

And so, amid the chaos, Elisa heard herself whisper. A single word, a name barely breathed from her cracked lips.

"Dylan..."

Maybe he’d hear it. Maybe not. Maybe her silent cry, amplified by the essence she burned like an offering, would find a path—a fissure, a sliver of memory.

She wasn’t fighting with a weapon, or a power, or even a plan.

She was fighting with what remained: love.

And hope.

And sometimes... sometimes, that’s enough.

Hope.

What a ridiculous thing, Elisa thought, arms outstretched, knees on the ground, teeth gritted against the strain.

And yet... it was all she had left.

She felt the essence flowing into the bracelet like a river being drained. Her heart beat out of rhythm—not for herself, but for them. For him. For her. For this absurd battle where the world tore itself apart between two familiar faces.

She wasn’t made for fights like this. She had believed her role was elsewhere—a guide, a mediator, a gentle presence to avert disaster.

But this was too much. Too vast.

Maggie struck with the fury of the righteous, with an ancient fire that nothing could extinguish but duty. And Dylan—or what he’d become—answered with the violence of a trapped soul, two hearts walled in by hatred.

And her, at the center of the invisible storm, could only keep giving.

Giving, giving more.

The bracelet burned, searing her skin—yet she didn’t let go. Her nails dug into her palm. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Not from pain.

From refusal.

Refusal to let them be lost.

Refusal to let it all be for nothing.

And then, beneath her fingers – something happened.

A shiver. Subtle, intimate, like the flutter of wings against her palm. A different kind of pulse, almost... foreign. The essence no longer escaped – it was answering. It was vibrating. As if it had received an echo, from somewhere.

Something – or someone – was listening.

The bracelet lit up briefly, a pale red veined with gold, as if Élisa’s raw emotion had etched itself into the material.

Her breath caught. She didn’t dare move. Afraid it might stop. Afraid that this slender thread, this whisper in the void, would break before it could become a cry.

And in the haze of battle, amidst the clash of axe and bone, she dared to whisper once more:

"Please, Dylan... come back."