Things were spiraling rapidly out of his control. He needs to regain it quickly. He still remembered the palace's outlines, he was just two floors below the Vermillion Queen's quarter. 

The mercury knife he drew continued to contort and twist. Cobbler thought he heard it speak amidst the ringing in his ear. He unhooked another can and flung it towards the spearman and swordsman. The gas burst out of the can, propelling it forward, hitting one of the soldiers before hitting the ground, spinning. 

The ones in which the gas hit dropped their weapons as tears filled their eyes and they began to cough uncontrollably, the hysteria infected the rest, backing away from those coughing and tearing up. 

He limped through them, staying near the gas, slashing and shoving rabidly towards the palace door, almost falling and tripping a few times when he stepped on the fallen spears and swords. 

One of the soldiers managed to grab hold of his cloak as he weaved past, the pins were pulled off the two cans attached to his collars. 

Another blinding flash and deafening ringing, people falling over each other while violently coughing and tearing, the hysteria of being deaf, blind, and losing balance rapidly infecting the rest as they backed away from the fleeing thief.

"MAGE! GET THE LAST ONE" The blinded archer screamed. 

 The mage paused, as if incredulous of what was happening, both to the gears he was using and the disruptions that were being seen. 

"This is an ancient protocol, call in the monks. He must have had a silver relic near the imitation rift. Take the Barius boy away from here and have the Children of Silver gathered by the Queen's quarters." 

Cobbler wasn't able to stop in time and slammed shoulder first into the wall, biting down on his grit as his muscle and the sharp bolt that pierced his shoulder were squeezed together. Blood dripping down faster. 

Pain mounting. He jammed the knife down through the locks of the metal door and kicked it open effortlessly, he limped in, huffing uncontrollably and shut the door behind him with his back against it. 

He took the last can of tear gas out, grunting and huffing in pain as he knelt with his good leg, dripped a drop of silver on his gloved finger, stringing it out into a silver string and hooked it to the pin of his gas can. Had the silver magic not broke the barrier, he would have broken his other leg kicking it open. 

As he pulled out the bolt from his back an inhuman shriek was heard through his earplugs but it was so high-pitched that he thought he imagined it. It was part of the records kept in the library, played on a decrepit thing called a phonograph scraped from another dimension, from what he read, that noise was simply his world's interpretation of it. 

How did he still hear it? Their infinite colored plasmic scales of every possible shade were worth countries. Was this reality? Was he dreaming of fortunes again? Is his obnoxious nightmare finally giving him a good twist at last? He shut his eyes as he realized where he was again, even if this was a nightmare, he needs to stop his thought from idling and straying. 

The assassins were probably already there, only the one who traveled with him was unlucky enough to be transported outside to the courtyard. The route to the Queen's room should be easier. Or so he thought. 

He turned around, breathing as hard as he could to suck air through the filters, his head tilted up, he thought he didn't see it but when he straightened his head, he was sure. By the end of the long dark hallway illuminated only by the moonlight that shone from the high windows, silhouettes emerging from down the stairs. 

Paintings of Vermilion royalties hung by the windows seemingly judged him, he looked back at them in disgust. His knife continued to distort as he stood there panting, oozing cold sweats and blood. He was a cornered and rabid animal. He could feel the blood pulsing in his neck. The freezing pounding of his heart. Distinctly sharp rising pains in all parts of his body. Could he survive another tetanus infection? He smirked grimly at the memory, the thought made his hair stand.

How strange. Death was staring right at him. Yet all he could do was smile. 

He could feel the knife. Literally felt it as if it was part of him. The air surrounding it. It's every twist and turns. Pulsating like the blood in his neck. He felt his consciousness fading into it. A sleep coming. His heart beating slower. So cold. Losing feelings in his legs. Death was rapidly closing in, the emptiness embracing him, the feeling of sleep and cold engulfed all that he could feel. Was this really the end? Again?

"A MANSION!" He startled the approaching guards as he yelled.

"A MANSION; THE SIZE OF A PALACE AND BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, IT'S ALL MINE, I...I AM NOT DYING HERE!" 

Cobbler panted and sweated, regaining his breath and life, rummaging for his tools in his back pouches with his cold and numbed fingers. He can't use mustard gas here, he wasn't ready to use mustard gas on humans either. Moving as fast as he still could, he unhanded the knife back to his sheath and with his shaking hand, reached for the matchstick in his pouch and struck it against the wall. The tiny flame touched the drawing and spread until all of it was burning. Staring with wide bloodshot eyes at the approaching guards, he grabbed the frame of the painting and pulled it down to the carpet, the flame quickly trailing its way down the hall.

The guards didn't stop and kept running towards him. He stood still, he cannot risk engaging with Queen's elite guards. But there they were. Was he at the end of the road? Should he use the canister of mustard gas after all? The question didn't need answering as a shadow crawled through from the dancing flames and the guards turned into blood. His eyes didn't deceive him. They became blood. In that brief instant, he could see the tracing of their bodies by the blood, before it fell into the red hellish flames, vaporizing instantly. 

He saw the thing in slow-motion amidst the blood vapor. It was unrecognizable at first sight, it's appearances so bizarre that it just didn't register in his mind as resembling anything. But something in his mind made sense of it all. Their scales, the plasma, the hues of infinite colors, so vibrant to the eyes that it almost drained all other colors from the world, even the burning red of the fire. He understood what it was. Everything that wasn't the thing in front of him became irrelevant to Cobbler. These scales were a step towards his ambition. 

He leaped forward with one goal in mind, his living knife brandishing, a downward thrust ready, all hesitation, useless and idling thoughts became void as money seemingly took over his mind and in his mad blood-laced brown eyes were convictions of making them true. Everything was slow. A crystalizing reflective silver spread around the corners of his perceptions. The infinite colors no longer incomprehensible, it was just a crystal silver in which the tip of the knife touched. 

Stabbing the knife into the shifting the colors that filled the hallway, from the ground to the ceiling. Clinging to the knife and the body, his wounds opening further, his other hand reaching for the explosive and mustard gas. It's shifting body jerked left and right erratically, smashing his back into the wall, then immediately smashing him forward again, cutting his forehead and shattering the visor of his mask, his grit hardening, refusing to let go of the knife. It felt like his blood was literally being stopped in his vein, through all of the agonies. Money had completely devoured his mind. 

It felt like he was galloping on an untrained horse as it dashed from the middle of the hallway to the end in a matter of seconds, rushing up the spiral stairs towards the third floor, the Queen's quarters for some reason. 

Behind his shattered bloodied gas mask, Cobbler's bloodshot eyes shone with greed and madness, his brown hair was wet with sweats by now as his once pounding heart became calm and all he knew was his ambition. The desire for money neutralized all afflictions that tormented him. Pain, fear, and doubts. All gone.

He hasn't realized this but through all of it, he was still grinning madly.

The strap of his breathing mask was loosening, he had to set it off quick. He was no longer wondering about the consistency of his own skills, the potential failure, the idle and irrelevant thoughts. His mind was only focused on one thing.  

As his insane smile widened, his fingers and boots sank into the solid pulsating silver parts in which the knife infected, mounting himself to the parts of its body that had become solid. He trails the knife down the formless plasma flesh as it dashed up the spiral stairs. Cutting open its skin, shoving the gas canister in, setting off the fuse of the explosives with a pull of a pin, immediately forming a needle and a string with the handle of the knife, stitching it shut. 

The silver string fuse shut its immaterial and nonexistent flesh. 

The thing vanished in front of the door as he fell shoulder first down to the ground, it wasn't the shoulder with the bolt, fortunately. Coughing violently in pain, he pulled the shattered and bloodied gas mask off his face, feeling the fresh air as he instinctively looked at his shaking hand which still held the knife. 

It had turned silver. He could feel the air around it pulsing as the knife subtly shook and twist. The entire castle was blown into pieces, he saw it in shattered in front of his eyes, his ears were bleeding even if he is earplug was in, his head has been separated from his body. 

Alas, time did not allow the colored thing to reign for now. 

He groaned, chipping off the long ends of the crossbow bolt by his shoulder and knee, quickly standing up. He struck the morphing knife into the lock, shifting the pins, unlocking the door. Limping into the room, he saw the Vermilion Queen right in the middle of it, hunching over, her hands on her knees, panting. Still as beautiful and prideful as when he laid eyes on her when she gave the speech at the podium.

"So...Are...You the last one?" She panted, her voice sounded firm even if she was trembling. Her long untied black hair streaked with Vermilion was obscuring her eyes; he could still see the penetrating rubies that were her stern eyes glaring at him. He stumbled next to her and put his arm around her neck, forcing her down with him. 

"Cover...your ears." He whispered.