When you are given options, never choose the first, nor the last. If there are only two… choose neither. Seek the third, even if it fails… for it is the truest — Claudius Sherman
*****
Morca already understood the devastating benefits and consequences of both choices. The first offered serenity, while the second offered absolute freedom.
Before now, if he had been asked this exact same question back in Magoria, Northelia—when he was just a fresh high school graduate untouched by the supernatural—he might have been mildly intrigued by the existence of extraordinaries. But that fascination would have remained just that: mere curiosity. It never would have been enough to make him hesitate in choosing the first option.
Even so, he still had no desire to blindly choose the second option either.
The grueling process of awakening his lineage flaw alone had nearly cost him his life, let alone the nightmare of what would inevitably follow: a broken path, a target on his back that would turn both Heaven and the Abyss against him.
Another dark thought weighed heavily on his mind. If he chose the second path, he might never see Claudius again. From his father's final words, it was clear that choosing the extraordinary meant walking forward entirely alone. Which also meant… his mother could one day vanish into the shadows, just as his father did. It was a terrifying risk Morca was simply unwilling to take.
As for the first option, it appeared undeniably appealing on the surface. With both his parents by his side and a golden future ahead, a life of immense wealth and tranquility seemed certain. Yet, even that path carried its own hidden tragedy: he might die long before them.
He already knew that Claudius and Allina were no ordinary individuals. From experience, and from the forbidden lore he had gathered before the Sin Purging Ceremony, Morca understood that Pathbearers—those who walked the path of extraordinaries—possessed lifespans that far exceeded those of ordinary mortals. If he chose to remain a normal human, he would age and wither away while his parents remained virtually untouched by time.
"The first option is tempting," Morca murmured, beginning to grasp the crushing weight of self-determination. "But if I stay, then everything I've endured this past year becomes utterly meaningless. And if I choose to acknowledge my lineage flaw… I may lose those closest to me forever."
To gain something of absolute value, one had to sacrifice something equal in return. It was a simple, brutal truth, yet one he had never truly understood until this exact moment.
"Father must have sacrificed something monumental to interrupt my initial Sin Purging Ceremony. And Mother… she endured an entire year of watching me live as a broken, traumatized cripple. She must have sacrificed something of equal value to forcefully re-awaken my lineage flaw now. So… what right do I have to choose comfort?"
Morca weighed the impossible variables, fully aware that the mere existence of extraordinaries had trapped him in a corner. Then, the parting guidance Claudius had left behind flashed in his mind
....When you are given options, never choose the first, nor the last. If there are only two… choose neither. Seek the third, even if it fails… for it is the truest.
"A choice… never the first, nor the second. Search for the third," Morca muttered, rolling the words over his tongue, dissecting the riddle. "Was that his final clue?"
To acknowledge my lineage flaw, I must ascend the mountain where the crimson moon rests before time reverses to the moment I stood at the train station. And judging by the publication date on that newspaper… I'm already living in the day before my abduction.
His gaze sharpened into needles. Which means I don't have a full day left. I only have a few hours remaining in reverse.
He had decided.
He would ascend the mountain where the crimson moon rested. But he would not do it to blindly acknowledge his lineage flaw; he would do it to see what lay beyond the pre-set parameters of this test. He could not remain stagnant in this alleyway, waiting for time to run its course and erase him. If he was to reject both choices, he had to understand the core mechanism within them. But before anything else, he needed to find the exact direction of the crimson moon.
At that exact moment, a soft, chillingly distant voice echoed directly within the recesses of his mind.
"If mercy were offered to you now… would you still walk willingly into hell? Toward the east lies the mountain where the crimson moon rests."
The words froze him dead in his tracks.
Slowly, Morca turned his body toward the orange-tinted evening sky. And then, he noticed it—something glaringly obvious that he had completely overlooked until now.
The crimson moon was entirely unaffected by the reversal of time.
It receded when the illusionary day emerged and returned when the night fell, moving independently of the grinding timeline. It was as though it were a living entity, waiting, watching… guarding whoever it was meant to guard. And right now, it was drifting deliberately toward the east.
"I didn't notice it before, but now it's clear," Morca muttered, his eyes tracking the anomaly. "The trial began the second I woke up in that bedroom. The crimson moon was always anchoring the eastern horizon. Time was reversing, and the choices were already laid before me. I simply failed to see them."
Morca's gaze swept across his immediate surroundings one last time, watching the ghostly pedestrians walking backward in their rigid loops.
"So this is the Magoria Northelia Mainland as it was while I was away in the Mount Sham province. But is this what truly happened back then… or is it just a perfect simulation created by the genetic sphere?" His gaze lifted slightly, focusing on the sky. "And if I remember correctly… the moon isn't always crimson. Yet here, it never changes."
Morca logged the anomaly away in his mind, treating it as a fundamental rule of the trial. I need to head east now. I don't know how long the trek will take, and I only have a few hours left before the train station paradox hits.
Without a single shred of hesitation left, Morca took his first step toward the east. It was the single step that would permanently alter the trajectory of his destiny.
But the exact millisecond his boot pressed forward into the eastern path, he felt it.
Something dreadful. Something deeply, fundamentally unsettling. It was a visceral sensation he knew would linger in his soul long after this trial had concluded. In that single instant, everything he thought he understood about the genetic sphere utterly collapsed.
Time didn't just reverse—it froze completely.
Then, his entire physical form was violently yanked forward at an impossible velocity, as if he were a maglev train tearing through an atmospheric vacuum at over six hundred kilometers per second. The world blurred into a blinding streak of light, and just as abruptly as it began, the momentum slammed to a dead stop.
"What… was that feeling?" Morca gasped, clutching his chest.
It wasn't a physical pressure. It was worse. It felt as though countless gazes had suddenly turned toward his existence. It was as if he had been watched the very moment he took that non-compliant step. As if, for one brief fraction of a second… he had accidentally stepped out of the trial and into reality itself.
The horrifying thought lingered, refusing to fade. He did not fear the trial, nor did he regret his defiance—but that feeling made him wonder if reality itself had just witnessed his awakening.
"Does my awakening have something to do with breaking reality? Is that why Father went to such extreme lengths to stop me from awakening in the first place?"
He tried to connect the jagged fragments of information, yet the ultimate answer remained frustratingly out of reach. Then, his father's words surfaced to ground him: The answers you seek… lie waiting in reality.
Morca exhaled slowly, letting the cold air clear his mind. "I can't return to a normal life. Not after knowing all this. These forbidden truths are already woven into who I am. To seek reality… to uncover its answers…" He tightly clenched his fist around the handle of the kitchen knife hidden behind his back. "I have to move forward."
If he had harbored any lingering hesitation before, it was completely gone now. Morca's resolve hardened into absolute steel. He would step willingly into the darkest mysteries of Evoslon. His parents had paved the violent path ahead; the rest, he would trade on his own. He had to stand completely independent. He had to be self-determined.
Morca shifted his gaze ahead, looking toward the eastern horizon where the mountain beneath the crimson moon rested.
Right before his eyes rose a towering, jagged mountain slope, its monolithic peak stretching endlessly into the bruised sky. Above its summit hung the solitary, blood-red moon—its glow dim and pulsating slowly, like a slumbering celestial god. The heavy, crimson light spilled over the ridges, painting the entire mountain peak as though it had been thoroughly bathed in fresh blood.
"Is there someone up there?"
Standing at the base of the mountain, Morca's sharp vision caught the distinct outline of a humanoid silhouette seated atop the crimson peak.
Morca exhaled a sharp breath, ensuring his grip on the kitchen knife was firm before he stepped forward to begin his ascent. He took the first step… and nothing happened. The second, the third, the fourth—there was still nothing. No gravity amplification, no crushing spiritual pressure, no weird anomalies.
After his twentieth step, Morca's brow furrowed. Everything seemed far too calm. There was no crushing will trying to break his knees. It felt as though he was simply taking a casual, ordinary stroll along a roadside.
He continued forward, picking up his pace.
He crossed the one-hundredth step… the two-hundredth…
By the seven-hundredth step, Morca was certain of one thing: the figure waiting ahead was undeniably humanoid. Still, its exact identity remained obscured by the bleeding crimson mist rolling off the summit.
At the nine-hundredth step, Morca's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. His mind reeled, utterly unable to accept the visual sight standing right before him.
The figure gracefully seated atop the bloody peak was none other than Allina. His mother.
In that moment, a fragment of his Bloody Doom dream resurfaced in Morca's mind: himself… broken, weeping, with shattered red wings.
And now, right before him, Allina sat upon the bleeding apex. Five grand pairs of immense, god-like wings spread wide behind her back, blotting out the stars. A brilliant, jeweled crown rested upon her once-vibrant orange hair, which now shimmered with deep, unnatural cosmic hues. Blood-stained scale armor encased her body, while long, ribbon-like strands of pure energy drifted lazily into the empty void around her. Fractured lightning whispered and crackled across her silhouette.
Yet, her dreamy eyes—now marked by terrifying, crimson halo-ringed pupils—were completely vacant. Lifeless.
"Mother…?" Morca's voice trembled, the raw shock too overwhelming to fully suppress. "So… this is how it is? First Father… and now Mother?" Never, even in his most unrestrained nightmares, had he foreseen an outcome this cruel.
Behind him, his shadow violently twisted, warping and distorting against the crimson light in silent, frantic protest against the entity that stood before them.
Morca's iron resolve wavered. He staggered forward, forcing his limbs across the final stretch, one agonizing step at a time.
Then, a voice—soft, alluring, and dripping with malicious grace—whispered directly within his mind:
"No return. No mercy. No feeling. Only the end… awakens the path."
The words echoed relentlessly, boring into his skull. His crimson eyes darkened, bleeding into a deeper, predatory blood-red hue. His sanity and logical reasoning began to warp under the pressure, bending until only one primitive, consuming command remained:
Kill.
He stepped forward, standing directly before her. The kitchen knife in his hand stretched forward, its cold steel tip resting directly against Allina's unmoving throat.
However, just as his muscles coiled to slice through her jugular, a sudden, piercing spark of his true self broke through the madness. Morca forcefully regained a moment of composure.
His lips twisted into a chilling, mocking smirk.
He spoke, his voice far too calm, far too hollow for the gravity of the moment. "Eh… so even this trial became a shackle. Choices that were never real to begin with… nothing but cheap illusions."
A faint, tired breath escaped him.
"Now I see why most people fail to awaken. This trial is nothing but a mirror—a reflection of what one most desperately desires or fears." He stared into the vacant, ringed eyes of the entity. "Why should I remain trapped in a fantasy when nothing about my existence has ever been normal? Why should I accept a path shaped entirely by my own subconscious desires? How is that any different… from dying?"
Each rhetorical question struck deep into the fabric of the illusion, yet instead of breaking his mind, the realization steadied his trembling hands.
He let out a quiet, dangerous scoff.
"Neither choice satisfies me," he continued, his tone hardening into absolute malice. "And what kind of twisted, pathetic trial demands I end the life of the very woman who gave me mine?"
A small, lethal smile played on his lips."Father was right."
He slowly raised the kitchen knife, pausing for a fraction of a second as he looked past the bleeding moon.
"Then I will create the third option… for it is the truest."
Without a single drop of hesitation left, Morca inverted his grip and decisively plunged the knife deep into his own heart.