Greg thought for a second that it might really work. Agatha was on her knees, crying, and the golden figure of her father was fading away like morning mist.

Instead of anger, the core pulsed with sadness, and in that change, Greg felt the tiniest spark of hope. It was possible that redemption wasn't impossible, but he might still be able to choose to let go.

Then Agatha's eyes changed.

At first, it was just a flicker of purple light coming through the tears, but it spread quickly, eating away at the brown of her irises until her eyes glowed with the same bad energy as the core around them. Her face, which had been open and vulnerable, changed into something else. Not anger.

It was not sadness but something worse, like nothingness. The face of someone who had looked into the void for so long that it finally looked back and won.

"You're right," Agatha said, but her voice was wrong. In layers. It was like thousands of voices were coming through her at once. "It's too late..."

"I've gone too far, and it's too much done... someone who has turned into a monster can't be saved because everything is just the end for them!"

"Wait, Agatha!" Greg began to stand up, and his prosthetic arm began to glow more brightly, but she was already on her way.

She lunged at him with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for her human form. Her hands turned into blades in the middle of the lunge.

Greg barely got his golden arm up in time. The blades screeched against the energy construct, and sparks flew. The impact pushed him back, and his feet dug into the soft floor of the core chamber.

"You don't get it!" Agatha yelled and kept attacking.

Her body was falling apart, and corruption was spreading across her skin like cracks in porcelain. "You have to... stop me!"

"I can't control the Calamity anymore! It has power over me!"

"For years, it's been responsible for me! It gets stronger with every death and every soul it takes in, and I get weaker until there's nothing left but the need to destroy!"

She swung low with a blade-leg, and Greg had to make a barrier to keep from losing his last real arm. The barrier broke apart because of the force, and he rolled away as another strike hit the ground where he had been standing.

"Then let me help you! We can cut you off from the core! We can—"

"There is no separation!" Agatha's laugh was crazy and echoed off the walls that were pulsing. "I'm the core!"

"I became one with it! If you destroy one, you destroy the other! That's what I've been trying to say! This was always going to end in death! I was always going to die here!"

Greg's blood ran cold. "You planned this... From the start, you were never going to make it."

"Of course not!" Agatha came at him again, this time from above, like a meteor.

Greg made a shield just in time, but the blow knocked him to one knee. "Thirty years of getting ready!"

"For thirty years, I've been gathering materials and learning forbidden techniques, all to get to this point!"

"Greg, I'm the bomb! I'm the weapon that will show the truth by being too horrible to ignore! And you're the one who will tell the story!"

"I won't let you die!" Greg pushed back, and his prosthetic arm pulsed with power as he pushed Agatha away. "There has to be a different way!"

"There isn't!" She landed and right away started spinning, with blade-like appendages coming out of her body like the petals of a deadly flower.

Greg had to quickly make and break three barriers, each one only lasting long enough to stop the blows. "The corruption is in my blood, bones, and soul!"

"When I used Voidsilver, Calaminite, and Chaosweave Alloy all at once, I sealed my fate! This is what it costs, to be honest! And this is what revenge costs!"

The walls were moving, and Greg was terrified when the chamber started to shake. The walls were not only pulsing but also changing shape.

Hundreds of weapons were coming out of the flesh-metal, and Agatha's broken mind was responsible for each one. All of the swords, spears, axes, and hammers were pointing at Greg.

"You're not just fighting me," Agatha said, and her voice had that awful layered sound again. "You're fighting every soul I've taken in."

"Everyone involved in this nightmare desires freedom. The only way to grant it to them is by destroying the core. To kill me."

The weapons all fired at once, sending a storm of deadly blades flying in all directions. Greg's mind raced as he pushed the limits of what he had just learned about the Thoughtforged technique.

He made barriers that spun around, with each one appearing just long enough to block an attack before disappearing and reappearing somewhere else. He knew he couldn't keep it up forever, like trying to hold back a tidal wave with his bare hands.

A spear got past his defense and grazed his ribs. Then a sword cut across his shoulder. An axe hit his leg and almost made him fall.

Blood was flowing now, his own mixing with the blood that was already on the floor of this horrible place. Greg knew with sinking certainty that Agatha was right.

This wasn't a fight he could win by being defensive. He had to destroy the core and kill Agatha to ensure the safety of everyone else.

"I would rather not do this!" Greg yelled and created a huge hammer, which he used to clear the area around him.

The weapon broke through a dozen attacking blades before turning back into golden light. "There has to be another way!"

"There isn't!" Agatha's human shape was difficult to tell apart from her metal and monster parts. "This is what I picked!"

"This is what I deserve! Stop being weak and END IT!"

She charged again, and this time Greg did more than just defend. He faced her directly, and his prosthetic arm turned into a blade of golden light that hit her corrupted metal with a sound like thunder.

They fought in close quarters, too fast for the eye to follow. Each blow and counterattack occurred within the span of a single heartbeat.

Greg's new arm moved with perfect accuracy, reading Agatha's attacks and responding with movements he didn't plan ahead of time. But she was just as fast, and the Calamity's power made every blow deadly.

They split up, both of them breathing hard. There were a dozen cuts on Greg's real arm that were bleeding.

Agatha's twisted body was leaking purple energy from the wounds where his blade had hit. More weapons were coming out of the walls around them, and Greg could see movement out of the corner of his eye.

The other two Calamities were on their way. He could hear them tearing through the hallways that led to this main room, drawn by Agatha's anger and pain.

"Fucking damn it...!"

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