The past stirred, unbidden.
A ripple moved across the stagnant pond of Veythor's mind slow, sullen, and cold.
It returned not in color, nor warmth, but like a scalpel slicing into dead flesh: sharp, merciless, precise.
Memories were not recollections. They were hauntings.
Betrayals stacked themselves like corpses: glances exchanged without words, doubts whispered with poisoned tongues, a harvest reaped in silence and blood.
He smirked at his reflection or rather, at the thing pretending to be him.
The real Veythor spoke, voice low and frayed, like a blade dragging across stone:
"You are fake. Let me out."
The doppelgänger said nothing.
Silence pressed on Veythor like wet earth in a shallow grave.
"You are fake," he said again, louder now, voice echoing into the black.
"You are me.... yet not me. Let me out!
We have not yet reached our goal.
We cannot stop.
I will not stop."
The doppelgänger smiled. A slow, monstrous thing. A smile that cracked the sky.
Above them, the heavens split open.... and the pale moon spilled down like a wound.
The mimic spoke, almost curious:
"What goal?"
Veythor did not blink.
"Destroy."
The word dropped like a guillotine.
"Destroy?"
"Yes," Veythor snarled.
"Destroy the world. The stars. The gods. The heavens. Hell itself.
And when nothing remains but dust and memory.... I'll destroy myself."
There was no light in his eyes, only hunger.
Ambition burned in the hollows of his soul, a fire with no heat, no mercy.
His smile was that of a dead beast.... teeth bared, unmoving, waiting for rot.
The doppelgänger laughed. A broken sound.
A child's shriek dragged through glass, echoing into infinity.
Veythor looked down.
The sea below them had turned red.... not metaphorically, not figuratively.
It was blood.
Corpses floated like forgotten prayers.
The dead sang a hymn no god would answer.
Then, without warning, the doppelgänger exploded.... a rain of gore painting Veythor crimson.
He did not flinch.
There was no regret.
No sorrow.
Only the unyielding will to destroy.... and to be destroyed.
.....
The world collapsed.
And Veythor.... sleeping like a beaten salesman on a nameless roadside woke.
His heart thundered against the cage of his ribs.
He fumbled in the dark. But darkness was not a stranger to him;
it was a brother.
It lived inside his chest, crawled through his bones.
He found a table.
A battered thing, scabbed with burn marks and blade scratches.
A pack of cigarettes sat there offered like a dying priest's last blessing.
He lit one with trembling fingers.
Smoke curled past his eyes. And for a single, fragile moment,
he saw himself as a bird small, broken, winging blindly through the clouds.
Lost.
Weightless.
Free.
Then the smoke vanished. So did the feeling.
He chuckled.
A cold, cracked laugh that sounded more like a wound than a sound.
Already, his mind turned to the game
The Prime Minister.
Daniya.
The lies, the traps, the tightening noose.
Flashback: The Vanishing of Daniya
He had stood on the balcony, smoking, as the Prime Minister's family made their farewells.
Below, the carriage was readied.
Fools dressed in silk, moving like actors who'd forgotten their lines.
And then Safhire moved his hand.
Not a farewell.
A signal.
Veythor narrowed his eyes, slipping behind the velvet curtain.
Who was the signal for?
He didn't have to wait long.
Daniya walked beside her parents, a shadow clinging to shadows.
Then movement.
A cloaked figure lunged from between the guards, hand over Daniya's mouth.
She struggled. Weakly.
A desperate reach for magic and then the man revealed his face.
"Luwarm!" she gasped, her fear shattering into something foolish and soft.
"You… how? Weren't you in your hometown?"
Of course he wasn't.
She didn't know the truth.
Luwarm her father's lapdog. A leash in disguise.
From the shadows, Veythor watched and smiled. Cold. Clinical.
Safhire's plot was unfolding.
But so was his.
He drew a dagger and carved into his palm.
Blood bloomed.
A full liter poured onto the floor. Mana surged.
The Doppelgänger formed stitched from blood, shadow, and will.
It cost him.
A wave of dizziness.
A weight like a tomb pressing down.
He whispered to the reflection:
"Stand here. Smoke. Be me."
The Doppelgänger saluted.
"Roger."
Veythor vanished into the night.
---
Luwarm led Daniya deep into a forgotten forest.
It wasn't the Eternal Forest of Darkness but it was abandoned, skeletal, and cold.
She clung to him. He held her hand.
They reached a small, ruined hut.
Dust. Spiderwebs. Silence.
Two secret lovers stood beneath a broken roof.
Their eyes met. A kiss. Then more.
But when Daniya moved to unfasten his cloak, Luwarm pulled away.
"Young Lady Daniya," he whispered, voice cracked.
"We… we can't."
"Why?!" she cried.
"Because your father sent us here to win not to love.
And I… I'm just a dog on a leash. Yours is the hand that holds it."
"So what?!"
Her voice cracked.
Tears spilled like rain.
"Do you want me to marry that monster Veythor?
Why must I be the scapegoat for my father's ambitions?
Am I not human?
Can I not choose for once in my life?"
She broke.
Tears rained, slow at first then furious.
Luwarm looked at her. Ached.
But he could not cry. He was a man.
And men do not cry only rot from the inside.
He placed a trembling hand on her dark pink hair.
"I'm… happy that you love me.
But a dog and a noblewoman can't be lovers."
Silence swallowed them.
Daniya sat in a corner. Shattered.
Luwarm stood still, trying not to fall.
---
And outside watching Veythor grinned.
The wind lifted his cloak like a flag of death.
"Awww," he whispered, voice sweet with mockery.
"They really do have bad luck."
He reached into his inventory.... a pocket of endless space granted by the Status System.
A bottle of petrol.
He tossed it at the hut.
The smell crept in a snake through grass.
Luwarm smelled something. Strange. Faint.
But in the wild, every scent is strange.
And by the time he realized
It was already too late.
Veythor stood still, a silhouette against the darkness, the bow in his hand a relic of simpler, crueler ages. His fingers moved without hesitation, smooth and mechanical the dance of a man long practiced in ruin.
He nocked an arrow, whispered the invocation through clenched teeth.
"Rain of Fire.... ignite."
Flames curled to life, licking the shaft like hungry serpents. He drew the string. Released.
One arrow flew.
Then another.
Then many.
A storm.
What began as precision became prophecy a torrent of burning iron. The sky wept fire.
Each arrow screamed downward like an accusation hurled from the heavens. They struck the hut, puncturing wood, thatch, silence.
And then the world roared.
The petrol caught, as it always would. Flames rushed hungrily across the old timbers, consuming all in seconds.
Inside, heat swallowed the air.
Luwarm staggered, heart pounding. He saw the fire. He saw the collapse of the ceiling above them, like the slow mouth of a beast coming to devour.
Without thinking, he scooped Daniya up by the waist not as a lover, but as a man desperate not to fail one more time.
Her cheeks burned from heat, from panic, from some flickering embarrassment she couldn't quite name in that moment of crisis.
"Luwarm... what are you… what are you doing?"
His voice was thin. Almost not a voice at all. More like a breath wrapped in terror.
"Fire."
A whisper.
But it trembled like thunder.
"Fire?" she echoed, still unable to comprehend the truth unraveling around her.
She turned and saw it.
The walls coughing smoke. The floor blistering. The light no longer golden, but hellish and alive.
In that moment, no god came to save them. No story swooped in to offer justice. Only the blaze and the man who had lit it.
Veythor stood before them, a silhouette wreathed in smoke and flame, his face hidden beneath the folds of his dark cloak. His voice slithered from beneath the hood, mocking and low.
"Ah… how romantic. The Prime Minister's loyal dog carrying his darling daughter. What a precious tableau."
His tone was velvet dipped in venom. He shed personas like old skins... now cruel, now amused, always in control.
Luwarm set Daniya down gently, drawing his sword with a trembling hand. Daniya's eyes flared with fury.
"You filthy bastard!" she shouted. "How dare you call Luwarm a dog?!"
Veythor's laugh was unholy... something that had crawled up from beneath the earth.
"Aww… The Prime Minister's porcelain daughter defending her mongrel. How adorable."
Luwarm's voice cut in, sharp with panic.
"What do you want? Why the hell did you set fire to our hut?!"
Veythor stepped forward, revealing a dull grey blade. Plain, unadorned. Efficient. Deadly.
"Why don't we spar a little, dog?"
He walked with unhurried steps, as though violence were a familiar lover.
"Let's see... will your light reach the abyss? Or will the abyss simply laugh… and consume you whole?"
Before Luwarm could react, Veythor was upon him. A blur of motion. Steel screamed through the air, aiming for his neck. Luwarm barely parried, stumbling back into the dirt, breath ragged.
Veythor tilted his head. His grin widened.
"Well now… The dog has some bite. But defending alone won't save you. Or shall I strike at sweet Daniya next?"
Luwarm's eyes widened. Rage bloomed in his chest.
"What's the matter?" Veythor sneered. "Lost your temper already? You can't protect her. You know that, don't you? You're not on my level. I held back, and still... you could only flail."
Luwarm's grip tightened around his sword, but despair gnawed at the edges of his resolve. He shouted:
"Run! Young Lady, please... run! He's right. We can't win against him."
"No!" Daniya screamed, her voice cracking. "Not without you!"
"Please…" he begged, voice trembling. "If you truly love me just go."
Rain began to fall, extinguishing the fire, but not the inferno in Luwarm's heart. His thoughts spiraled.
No… not again. I couldn't save them.... my mother, my father, my siblings. I watched them all die. I was too weak. Not this time. This time I'll protect the one I love, even if it kills me.
But they had misunderstood. Veythor's game was more layered. More cruel. With a sudden gesture, he let the cloak fall from his shoulders, revealing his face.
Both Daniya and Luwarm stared in disbelief.
Daniya's voice shook with rage.
"You… Why? Why are you here? Why did you attack us?!"
Luwarm stepped forward, still shielding her.
"Lord Supreme Commander… with respect... what is going on?"
Veythor's tone changed. It became eerily calm, sincere.
"I know the truth. I know you love each other."
Daniya flushed, but remained silent.
"But you should know… your father knows too."
Daniya staggered back.
"No… No, that's not possible. You're lying!"
Veythor laughed bitterly.
"You don't have to believe me. But do you know why I'm really here?"
He pointed a finger at Luwarm.
"To hunt him."
Luwarm whispered in disbelief.
"M-Me?"
Veythor nodded.
"On Safhire's orders."
Daniya blinked. "What?"
"Do you know your father is trying to force you to marry me?" Veythor said, his smirk returning.
Daniya clenched her fists.
"Yes… but don't get any twisted ideas. I'd never marry a monster like you."
"That's precisely why he wants Luwarm gone," Veythor replied coolly. "But if I obey, I lose political capital. Safhire would tighten the leash around my neck. So I came… to improvise."
Luwarm's mind spiraled.
He… he wants me dead? Lord Consula? Because I love Daniya? No… no, he was like a father to me. He cared for me. Didn't he?
"I… I don't believe it…"
Veythor's voice slashed through his delusion.
"You don't, huh? Because he was like a father to you? Open your eyes, Luwarm. We live in a brutal world. Relationships? Tools. Affection? Bait. He used you."
Luwarm tried to speak, but Veythor interrupted again, his voice a crescendo of cold certainty.
"What? No? Can't see the truth even now?"
Daniya grabbed Luwarm's arm, her own expression a blend of horror and disbelief.
"Then… then what do we do now?"
The storm outside had calmed.... but inside, all was chaos. And Veythor, the eye of that storm, now held the power to decide whether they would live or die.