Garid walked calmly into the room where, on a white bed, lay a rather unusual patient. His eyes devoured with greed the book he had taken from the house of the traitor to the Empire.
The words within filled his skull at a terrifying speed. The absurd, impossible truths drove him close to madness. Everything he had once believed was nothing more than a fragment of a much larger masquerade. A vast canvas where he was only a microscopic stain.
But suddenly, the wounded figure seized his arm violently.
"Why are you reading that? It's all lies."
Garid looked down at the wounded with indifference and replied with venom.
"Oh, really? First of all—let go of me. You're here because you got your face smashed in by a seventeen-year-old boy. You're in no position to tell me what's right or wrong. Second, this book reveals truths even you don't know. So you're in no place to tell me what to do."
Aeros struggled upright, anger flaring against the emperor of a crumbling empire. Her face twisted with rage and impatience.
"I know those writings better than you ever will. And believe me—those who weren't meant to read them always suffer the same fate."
This time, Garid was caught off guard. His brow arched in surprise.
"So… you know what's coming for you as well."
"The Witness of History only knows part of the story for now. The rest has yet to be written. But once he awakens, he too will turn against me."
"Do you have any chance of defeating them?"
At these words, Aeros smiled. A wide, mocking smile. What little aura remained to her swept through the room, and her laughter made the very walls tremble.
"If you've read the books, then you know your reign is finished, Emperor Garid. Or should I say—nameless, fallen emperor."
In a burst of rage, Garid slammed the book into Aeros's face.
"And you think I'll just accept that?"
But Aeros caught the book and forced back with ease. Garid felt his strength draining as the entity rose to his feet as if nothing had happened.
"If you haven't noticed yet, the war you started is already ending. Turcan is far too powerful for you. Even with those A42s you threw at the Chosen One."
"Stop calling him that."
"I have no role left to play in this war. My power is pitifully weak after that battle. But if you've read the book…"
Now fully upright, Aeros pressed the book against Garid's face, pinning the emperor beneath its weight.
"…then you already know what comes next, fallen emperor."
Garid couldn't resist. Physically and mentally. He was terrified. He knew what was coming. The icy hands of curiosity had wrapped around his skull and crushed him. He had read the words. He knew the truth. And even if he tried to deny it, his soul bore the mark.
"You look lively, Aeros."
Suddenly, a voice echoed in the room. A voice that belonged neither to the emperor nor to the war-born entity.
Aeros turned her head toward the newcomer, who had slipped inside so quietly that no one had sensed his arrival. Yet the entity showed no surprise—only irritation.
"What are you doing here? Do you want to die?"
The stranger's eyes were black. So black that anyone who gazed into them felt despair well up inside. He had no pupils, only two bottomless voids of shadow. His hair was the same—so dark it seemed more like living shadow than matter.
The man's clothes were just as black, absorbing all light: tailored trousers, polished shoes, a long elegant coat without a hood, and a simple black shirt beneath. His features were striking, almost handsome—but his darkness allowed no room for beauty. He looked as terrifying as any monster. Perhaps worse.
And when he opened his mouth, his words rumbled like the slow groan of the earth itself, dragging the mind into torment.
"In your state, you couldn't harm a fly."
Garid's eyes widened at the sight of him. Since coming into contact with beings from beyond this world and with the writings of that cursed man, Garid had gained the ability to perceive the auras of all things: birds, cars, trees, buildings, even the sky. And this man…
This man's aura was greater than Aeros's, which already pressed down on the room like a crushing weight. His aura was a darkness so vast Garid could not bear to stare at it for more than five seconds without imagining some abomination would crawl forth. It shifted like tentacles of some abyssal sea creature, spreading slowly into everything around it.
Garid felt all hope drain from him. Every emotion he had experienced that day crumbled into a suffocating depression.
At the sight of this man, he wanted only one thing: to end his own life.
But beside him, Aeros turned back to the newcomer, his voice laced with scorn.
"A big fly, in this case."
The two beings from the other world faced each other, their auras unfurling like storms ready to collide. One was a violent crimson, thick and metallic like fresh blood; the other, a sprawling tide of pure darkness, tentacular and suffocating, spreading with the calm inevitability of night.
The room trembled under the weight of their power—or perhaps it was the world itself shuddering, unable to bear the clash of such entities.
But Aeros did not have the upper hand. Soon, the stranger's darkness swallowed every inch of space, pressing down until the war-born entity clenched her teeth and fists in silent defeat. Without another word, he sank back onto the bed where moments ago she had been lying.
"You came to scold me?" she muttered.
The man looked down at him, his voice measured and cold.
"I don't know."
He moved through the room with his hands clasped behind his back, like a visitor inspecting an exhibit. His gaze swept over everything until it stopped at a photograph—an image of an injured man in the middle of recovery. He stared at it for a long moment, then suddenly snapped it in half, shoved the pieces into his mouth, chewed, and spat the pulp violently onto Garid, who still lay unconscious on the floor.
Then he turned back to Aeros.
"Do you have any idea how long it took us to set all of this up? You were there, weren't you?"
His tone remained calm, but the tension in the air thickened, as though he were holding his rage back by sheer force.
Then, without warning, he seized Aeros by the hair and jerked her head violently.
"What were you thinking, huh? Is your brain underdeveloped? Why did you go after the Chosen One? Do you ever think?"
Aeros tried to pull back, weakly resisting, but the man's grip didn't loosen.
"Let me go"
"What?"
Then she fell silent, as if the words had never been spoken.
"That's what I thought."
He slammed Aeros's head into the wall, leaving a gaping hole in the plaster, then turned on his heel.
"Stay right here until your time comes again. We've never needed a pathetic thing like you to tear this world apart."
Without another glance, he left the room in ruins. That day, three hundred men took their own lives. And...
Marc… felt the auras.
"There."
Far away, Marc had felt the auras clash. Truth be told, it had been hard to miss—the world itself had trembled violently for a few seconds before he realized it wasn't a normal earthquake.
He picked up their presence from the center of the empire: Garid lay to the south. His eyes widened. This was wrong. He had never been able to sense auras at such a distance.
He had already found it strange when he left the Emperor's palace. Auras had grown sharper, more present, more real—and suddenly he could feel them from far greater distances. It was as if his senses had been amplified tenfold since emerging from that strange state.
His own aura now spread farther, yet he could also hide and control it more easily. Darkness within him had deepened, but he felt undeniably stronger.
Even so, sensing two entities' auras from that far away was unheard of—almost half an empire away, even if Garid was smaller than Zvenne. Entity auras were massive, yes, but to feel them from where he stood was an accomplishment in itself.
But he didn't waste a second on such thoughts. The books were within reach now, and this time he would not let them slip away or forget them.
In an instant he arrived at the place where it had happened, dust settling in his wake—evidence of his impossibly swift movement.
He found himself in a place where no bird dared to fly.
A man emerged from a hatch in the ground ahead of him, hands shoved in his pockets, walking calmly.
This place was called Aricha—a stretch of wasteland rendered unlivable by a nuclear blast long ago. Garida had once tested a device in the desert, and the result had been far more devastating than expected. Many had died; radiation spread like powder, and the region withered into a dome of death, a place where life slowly extinguished itself. No one could explain why the lethal zone persisted and by unanimous decision it had been abandoned.
Death was certain here. Yet a man walked through it as if it were a park. He glanced at Marc as he passed but said nothing, continuing on.
Marc did the same, letting him go—for one simple reason: he had come for the books. Fighting an entity with such a monstrous aura would lead nowhere.
He had once, in rage, thought Aeros beatable. But this man was on another level. Now that Marc had his wits back, fighting was plainly the worst idea.
He had no chance...
Marc had never felt anything like this—an absolute defeat if he were to confront this monster. He doubted the man would even lift a finger.
Since the man in black, he had never seen such a terrifying aura. Never. His body trembled at the mere thought of who this man really was.
The man simply passed by and kept walking.
Marc turned for one last look, but the man continued on as if nothing had happened.
"What kind of horseman is that?"
He realized quickly that staring longer would change nothing.
So he stood before the hatch he had hunted for so long—an underground bunker in the death zone.
Aricha was known to be uninhabitable. Plants no longer grew, animals had fled, and life of any form had vanished. It was barren and sterile; the presence of humans here was nearly unthinkable.
"Who would have thought the bastard would hide here?"
Marc spotted the hatch the man had used. He took it and found himself in a gray corridor that spiraled inward. A perfect circle of passageways and doors, branching into multiple levels.
He didn't care about the bunker's layout. He had pinpointed the books' aura and walked straight toward them.
But despite everything, part of him couldn't help noticing the complete absence of anyone in this place.
"No soldiers, no guards—where did they all go?"
Marc moved cautiously, eyes sweeping his surroundings until he reached the final door between him and his objective.
Then he hesitated...
His hand—usually steady—lost its surety. He felt as if he were about to ruin everything again, or that he would be unable to go any further after this.
He looked at his hand one last time, his mind thick with dark, hopeless thoughts. Then he reached out and pulled down the handle...