She was someone he had always admired.
A woman he loved...
And feared just as deeply.
"Now that two of the objectives have been fulfilled..."
Frey looked ahead as he spoke.
"Only one remains."
Maskith gave him a meaningful look.
"Freeing Audrey..."
"Is that correct?"
"Yes."
Frey answered simply.
The three continued climbing in silence.
The tower contained countless floors, each vastly different from the last.
Some were arenas built for battle.
Others housed laboratories.
Some were prisons and torture chambers overflowing with corpses and dried blood.
Frey was almost certain that most of those belonged to Wesker.
Yet there were also luxurious chambers and immaculate halls that stood in complete contrast to the tower’s otherwise sinister atmosphere.
Before long...
They reached the upper floors.
Audrey had been imprisoned on the floor just below the summit.
"We’re almost there... the Chamber of Flowers."
Frey knew exactly where she was being held.
The woman once known as the Legendary Vessel... and, like Maskith, one of the First Author’s direct followers.
"Audrey... is special."
Maskith’s heavy voice echoed through the silent staircase, accompanied only by the rhythm of their footsteps.
"Despite her young age, she was the most outstanding among the Author’s followers. She possesses an ability that grants her an endless reserve of aura—greater than anyone else’s, save for the Pale Devastation. And just like you... she can wield aether."
He paused for a moment before continuing with a warning.
"She serves the First Author. She was entrusted with the same duty I was."
He looked toward Frey.
"Are you truly certain you want to free her? What makes you believe she’ll choose your side?"
His footsteps came to a halt upon the stone stairs as he asked one final question.
"Or... do you intend to use the same method you used on me?"
There was a trace of insolence in the old man’s words.
Yet he spoke carefully, never truly crossing the line, despite coming dangerously close.
Frey did not answer immediately.
He showed no sign of being offended by Maskith’s question.
Instead, he fell silent for a few moments before finally taking a slow breath, a faint smile appearing on his face.
"You mean... taking her heart?"
He let out a quiet laugh before continuing.
"There’s no need for that."
"I already stole it long ago."
"She won’t fight me... because she has always been in love with me."
The words left Frey’s mouth as though they carried no weight whatsoever.
Yet they struck Maskith like thunder.
Even the Great One of Earth turned his eyes toward Frey, unable to hide his surprise at what he had just heard.
Maskith, in particular, looked completely stunned.
"You spent your entire life buried in those absurd experiments of yours, Maskith."
Frey smiled faintly.
"So I suppose you never noticed."
For a brief moment, fragments of the distant past resurfaced within his mind.
Memories he had only recently recovered—memories he had struggled to piece together into something coherent.
When Frey was born, Audrey had been almost exactly the same age as him.
They had grown up together.
He was the First Author’s son.
She was her most trusted attendant, constantly by her side.
Naturally, the two had seen each other almost every day.
Those memories remained hazy.
Yet every now and then, scattered fragments would return to him.
’I’m certain I always saw her as a little sister.’
’That was how her feelings should’ve been as well...’
’But somewhere along the way... something changed.’
Frey was not a fool.
He had long since understood the nature of Audrey’s feelings.
Even though he had never been able to return them.
Still...
He was certain of one thing.
Those feelings ran far too deep.
Deep enough that betraying him... or standing against him...
Would be impossible.
Even if it meant fighting beside him against the First Author herself.
That...
Was the gamble Frey had chosen to make.
But it remained only that—a gamble.
The truth would reveal itself only after they met again.
Before any of them realized it...
The three of them had already arrived before the door to the Chamber of Flowers.
"She’s inside."
Maskith announced quietly, his aged eyes settling upon the enormous crimson door.
"Agaroth forbade everyone from approaching her."
"Even I was no exception."
"He allowed no one to see her... except himself."
A trace of contempt surfaced upon Frey’s face.
He placed a hand against the massive door.
"So..."
"He never truly escaped the past."
With effortless ease, Frey pushed the gate open.
The chamber beyond immediately revealed itself.
It was breathtaking.
So much so that all three instinctively paused to take in its appearance.
It bore no resemblance whatsoever to the rest of the Tower of End.
Crimson dominated every corner.
The room had been crafted with extraordinary care, its architecture resembling the buildings of the true Aether World.
It looked astonishingly similar to the house where Frey had once lived...
Together with his siblings, in that distant past.
A masterpiece reminiscent of humanity’s medieval age.
Their attention, however, was quickly drawn toward the center of the chamber.
There stood a magnificent crimson throne.
Upon it sat a woman with long crimson hair, dressed in a gown stained with blood.
Dozens...
No.
Hundreds of crimson tubes emerged from her body, resembling enormous crimson thorns from afar.
Red roses bloomed from them.
Countless butterflies drifted lazily around her.
Flowers covered the chamber in every direction.
Flowers born not of soil...
But of aura itself.
Audrey’s eyes remained closed.
Eyes that had not opened for an unimaginably long time.
Her face carried silent suffering...
A pain so profound that words themselves seemed inadequate.
For countless years, her body had been used as the source of life energy sustaining demonkind.
She had become an inexhaustible battery.
An endless fountain of power feeding an entire race.
What Agaroth had done to her...
Was cruel.
The same thought crossed the minds of all three.
Frey, in particular, unconsciously tightened his fist.
Audrey said nothing.
Yet everything surrounding her...
Especially her aura...
Screamed a single plea.
One every one of them understood with perfect clarity.
’Kill me.’