Silence filled the place…
Not a normal silence, but the kind that feels like an open pit leading to the unknown.
The royal hall was still trembling with the echo of the spiritual screams that had melted moments ago.
The air was heavy, soaked with the smell of burnt iron… and the smell of something that did not belong to this world.
Korval stood in the center of the destruction…
His eyes narrowing, the corners of his lips lifting slowly, as if the blood spilled earlier was not enough to erase his smile.
And in the middle of that silence…
A voice came.
Not from outside the hall…
Not from any of the faces on the monster's body…
But from inside Korval himself.
From the deepest point in his consciousness, a place only the insane and the exiled titans could reach.
The voice was calm…
But every letter carried the weight of ages.
"Korval… my remarkable disciple…
Among all who tried to cultivate my technique throughout the eras, you alone made me feel… surprised.
I always believed that my physical structure was a condition that could not be bypassed…
But you broke the condition… broke the rule… broke an entire history.
You did not lie when you said the world is too wide to be trapped in a single shape.
Good… very good.
Continue…
For when your soul matures and strengthens, you will be able to create a body capable of holding me.
And when that happens…
We, the master and the disciple…
Will burn the sky together and shape a world unlike any other."
The words were not spoken…
They were hammered into his soul like hot nails.
Korval smiled slowly… the smile of a man used to speaking with madness.
He answered inside himself:
"I told you… I would find a way.
Nothing is impossible in a world that changes every second.
Elements… laws… dimensions… soul… body…
All of them are illusions that can be surpassed.
Just wait…
I will give you a body.
I will bring you back into existence."
The voice laughed softly, shaking the cells in his brain.
"I… look forward to that… with great impatience."
Then it disappeared.
As if it had never been.
But the echo of the laugh remained in his skull…
Like a funeral bell that refuses to stop ringing.
Korval's return to the world…
Korval opened his eyes.
Only Ashen noticed that the king's gaze changed for a moment… as if something else had looked through him.
Korval laughed…
A real laugh, warm in a way that did not fit with the blood and smoke around him.
Then he said loudly:
"Now… after finishing the first part…
It's time for the second phase of the plan."
Ashen's savage aura slowly rose, while the giant monster tilted its huge head, dozens of human faces writhing across its skin like snakes.
The monster spoke with a voice made of thousands of throats:
"Korval…
Do you really think your weak soul can control all of them?
These people whose souls you bound…
Do you believe you can contain them without them consuming you?"
A question…
If anyone else asked it, it would be an insult.
But from the monster?
It was just hungry curiosity.
Korval's smile grew wider.
"Don't worry."
He reached into the inner pocket of his black coat.
He pulled out a strange piece of skin… irregular in shape, covered in twisting symbols like snakes that seemed to move slowly on the surface.
Even Ashen, the cold man whose heart never reacted to anything, looked at it for an extra second.
Korval placed the piece in the monster's giant palm.
"This is the technique I promised you.
When everything ends… it will be yours.
All you need to do is push your consciousness into it.
You will understand it gradually."
The monster held the piece between its massive fingers, each one the size of a man's head.
And the moment it pushed its awareness into it…
A burst of golden light exploded!
The symbols dissolved…
As if breaking apart into spiritual dust…
Then the dust shot straight into the monster's head through its forehead.
It froze.
Completely.
All the small arms on its body stopped.
All the mouths went silent.
Even the vertical eye stopped moving.
A creature of that size…
Frozen like a statue.
Korval turned to Ashen…
The king spoke slowly as he brushed blood fragments off his coat:
"As for you… Ashen…
Unfortunately… I have nothing to offer you."
Ashen's voice was flat, without any change:
"It doesn't matter."
Simply.
As if he wasn't human.
As if nothing in the world could interest him.