It was a swift entrance, too swift, as though the air itself had been holding its breath for him.
It had been some time since I'd last seen this man.
Still, the moment he crossed the threshold, memory met reality like flint striking stone.
Barlah.
Even Mirabel had warned me about his presence.
There was something unshakable about him, something that lived in the quiet spaces between sound.
He walked forward, his black cloak whispering against the marble floor, the faint weight of his sword tapping with every step.
When he bowed, it was with theatrical grace, as if mockery were stitched into the motion itself.
"I greet this dark and vile king of darkness," he said, his tone light, his smile sharper than any blade he carried.
His eyes met mine, eyes that once looked down at me as he carved my life from my body.
That memory lingered like the aftertaste of iron. I had gained much from that defeat: ink magic, the Scriptor's art.
Yet even now, I was still searching for a way to weave it permanently into myself, to make the ability breathe as naturally as thought.
"You requested a meeting," I said evenly. "And I have granted it."
He raised his gaze and sighed, a sound caught between sincerity and scorn. "I thank you. I hope you don't bear any hard feelings."
He said it softly, but the words carried a mockery that pressed against the room like humidity before a storm.
I smiled, letting the gesture settle across my face like calm water. "Of course not. I'm a forgiving person. Forgive and forget, as they say."
[Nicholas possessed a peculiar ability, if he wished, he could truly forget someone, and by doing so, erase them from existence entirely.]
Barlah's lips curled in faint amusement. "How gracious. Then allow me to be blunt."
He straightened, the playful edge in his posture sharpening to something more deliberate. "I came here to kill you."
[Nicholas heard the words and his only thought was, "Rematch."]
I wasn't angry. The thought wasn't even violent. It was something quieter, almost curious. "Rematch?"
He laughed, the sound light but hollow, like glass struck by wind. "I had come here to kill you," he said again, almost wistfully.
"But now… I think it would be difficult. So instead, I'll offer information."
I leaned back slightly, not out of comfort but calculation. "Information?"
I asked, voice calm, though the air between us felt taut, strung like a drawn bow. "And what is it you want in return?"
He pressed a finger to his lips, eyes glittering with secrets. "Did I mention," he said with a slow grin, "that I'm quite the storyteller?"
He adjusted his position, straightening his back with quiet poise before pressing his hand to his throat.
His voice deepened, carrying a rhythm that felt deliberate, almost ceremonial.
"There was once a demon who longed to fly. His wings were black and faltered in light, yet to bask in sky and see the moon, he sought to transcend the sun and reach his tune. A tune so bold, a tune so great, it would shake all those awake."
As he spoke, the air bent. Words seemed to take on weight, vibrating against the very threads of existence.
My vision warped; my being trembled as though the story itself was a weapon.
I could feel it, each syllable tearing into the seams of my form, rewriting the space I occupied.
"Awake, those who lingered in the night," he continued softly, "and a blade they felt as they fell from light."
The story ended, and his sword was already in my chest.
The world stilled for an instant. The impact wasn't merely physical; it was an attack on my story, an intrusion on existence itself.
Midir… that annoying little bastard. Sending someone like this was no coincidence.
This wasn't about killing me, it was a test.
He knew I would survive, but I doubt even he knew the nature of this ability.
That made sense; even I hadn't known it until now.
Something like this should have been impossible.
The pain was strange.
I had surpassed the notion of pain long ago, and yet I felt it, pure, undeniable agony echoing through every layer of my being.
Mirabel didn't appear. That was when I realized the truth.
Barlah had made the world around us fictional, a story of his own creation, one he could narrate, twist, and command.
Every motion, every breath, was now a line in his tale.
Stories had been a theme today, it seemed. At first, the thought intrigued me. Now, it simply irritated me.
I gripped the hilt of his blade, feeling the phantom resistance of narrative logic pressing back against me, and pulled it free.
The sound of steel leaving flesh reverberated unnaturally, as though the story itself resisted my defiance.
Barlah flew backward across the polished floor.
I rose from my throne, vanishing in a flicker, drawing my sword in one smooth motion. The air rippled as our blades met.
Ink poured from my aura, staining the ground beneath me with each movement.
His aura responded in kind, dark and heavy, a mirror to my own. Magic was useless here.
The stories we wove canceled each other out, leaving only the purity of skill, swordsmanship and will.
Steel sang between us, strikes blurring until they seemed to merge.
His blade cut through probability itself, each swing bending the world toward his favor.
Blocking him felt impossible, yet my blade found the path regardless.
He was trying to rewrite the outcome, altering the likelihood of my defense succeeding.
But probability was meaningless before thought, and my will stood higher than that.
His attacks grew desperate. I could sense the faintest cracks forming in his composure, subtle yet unmistakable.
His control faltered. He began rewriting individual moments, small shifts in reality, plausible yet fractured.
When I struck at his side, he rewrote the event entirely, altering the sequence so that my blade passed through mist, turning the real into unreal.
But he was limited. His ability could only manipulate what was possible, never what lay beyond it.
And I no longer existed within possibility or impossibility. I stood between them.
That was his mistake.
A quiet chuckle escaped me as I advanced. My thoughts steadied, the haze of his influence dissolving like smoke.
His eyes widened, disbelief flickering in their depths as he realized his power could be denied.
He lunged. I leaned back, my motion deliberate, and let my awareness fold around the concept of time.
Normally, time was nothing to me, it passed like wind over still water.
But this place had a defined rhythm, a story's time, bound by sequence and meaning.
Leaping through it meant leaping through the story itself.
So I did.
In one motion, I slipped forward in narrative, leaving behind the me that had existed only moments before.
To him, it must have seemed as though I had vanished, reduced to an afterimage, a shadow caught between lines of script.
His gaze darted through the haze, uncertain, his senses struggling to reconcile the distortion.
That was the manipulation of Set Time, not merely moving through moments, but bending the chronology of the story itself.
I reappeared behind him, my blade already in motion, thrusting toward his heart.
But instinct, or perhaps some deeper reflex of narrative survival, saved him.
His sword rose like the sun through a dark horizon, clashing with mine in a flash that split the silence.
The sound rippled outward, bending the fabric of this written world.
Our blades locked. Set Time shifted again, twisting under the strain of two conflicting wills.
When one manipulates Set Time, the change reverberates across every world, touching even those unaware of the alteration.
Such an act cannot be reversed while still bound within its concept, it simply becomes the new truth.
My sword, bearing the Cradle of Swords, defied even the logic of this realm.
It carried not just the force of motion but the essence of culmination, the finality of every strike ever made.
The moment rewrote itself. His blade faltered, his stance broke, and the story bent in my favor.
My mind pulsed beneath the strain of the shift, each thought dragging against the fabric of reality like a star collapsing inward.
The sensation was vast, unending, heavy beyond comprehension.
When my senses realigned, I saw it, his eyes, wide with disbelief, reflecting the impossible truth of what had just occurred.
My blade, once deflected, now rested buried in his heart.
Blood spattered across the floor; the little world he had conjured shuddered and died with him.
I drew the blade free in a slow, clean motion, wiping the dark spray from the edge as if clearing a mirror.
He fell back coughing, the pain carving hollows in his face.
He looked up at me with a brittle laugh. "A terrible story. I should have won that fight."
I offered my hand as if to lift him. "Don't clutch at empty things," I said. "You were never more than a pawn."
There was so much pressing in on me, the war, the futures I'd already started to write.
There was Heaven's patient gaze, and the debt of my own undoing and whatever resurrection might follow.
Revenge tempted me, but indulgence now would be a luxury I could not afford.
A bubble of blood plucked itself from his chest and drifted toward me.
I caught it between my fingers; when it burst, the light left his eyes.
I leveled my sword and, with a breath of void, swallowed the corpse until nothing of him remained.
This realm was unforgiving. He had been a filthy pawn, useful only insofar as he advanced another's design.
The king he served was not Midir but Ruari, the pattern of recent events made that clear.
I was a node in a greater machinery, a singularity of sorts, and unpicking that truth would be tedious.
Still, there was a grim comfort in certainty.
I returned my sword to its scabbard and moved back to my throne.
I sat and let my right hand fall against the armrest, exhaling slowly.
"A rotten king," I murmured to myself, tasting irony. "Plotting war while I am still bleeding from the last."