The rifle fired its bullet at Aiden's head.
It collided with his skin, and Jack turned away. He turned back toward the Lycanthos, who was smiling at him with approval.
"You are ruthless, and I like that," the Lycanthos said as he patted Jack on the shoulder. "Search the body for the loot."
"Does it... have to be me?" Jack asked. "No matter what, I shared a meal with him."
"And that's exactly why it needs to be you," the Lycanthos said with a grin. "Respect and whatnot, right?"
Jack glared at the Lycanthos. "You want a team of backstabbers?"
"The perfect team is," the Lycanthos said. "Loyalty is hard to predict, but knowing that your teammate's desire is not."
As the two glared at each other, the shadow creature shifted away from them as his voice rasped, "Something is wrong with that corpse."
The two of them turned at the same time.
Aiden was still leaning with his back on the tree, but he was now covered with a violet energy that seemed to swallow the light. His entire body was dark, like it had lost its color.
He was now a silhouette with violet flames for eyes.
Jack and the Lycanthos stared with fear.
The woman above looked with interest.
The silhouette's body began to rise from the ground.
An otherworldly voice echoed from within him.
Low. Overbearing. Cosmic.
"This is where your story ends — and unwriting begins."
The words seized their very existence.
Without a shred of hesitation, the Lycanthos turned to flee. His muscles bulged as he bolted, faster than any eyes could see. However, Aiden raised a hand.
"Even distance... can be erased."
Then, his hand exploded with violet light. The distance that the Lycanthos traveled was erased, bringing him back to Aiden's hand.
The silhouette seized his throat.
The Lycanthos let out a whimper. Then, his sword let out a whimper and he began slashing at Aiden.
The moment the sword touched him; it was erased as well.
"What... are you..." the Lycanthos asked with eyes full of fear. The silhouette in front of him looked at him with emptiness that swallowed stars.
"I am the consequence of desire," the silhouette answered. "And you are its victim. Be unmade. Be unwritten."
Before the Lycanthos could answer, the void crept out from the silhouette to cover his body. His very being was erased, his existence having never been made. In the next instant, the creature was gone.
Forgotten.
Erased.
The silhouette turned to the others.
They could not remember their fallen comrade.
But they knew that the being before them was not to be trifled with.
Jack was the first to flee.
The shadow creature followed.
The silhouette stood in the center.
A violet flame appeared in his chest.
"Perfect Erasure — from reality and memory," the silhouette muttered. "Initiate."
Time seemed to slow down within the clearing.
Then, a silent field exploded from the silhouette.
It reached the shadow creature first.
It was unmade.
Jack tried to run faster.
But he could not outrun the eraser of distance, time, and reality.
And soon, he too was erased.
As for the silhouette, it stood under the tree. The flame was now directed toward him — answering to a wish that had been uttered.
Perfect Erasure did not merely include the target.
It included Aiden himself.
The silhouette, carrying Aiden's will, reached for the flame to fulfill his wish—
—just as a figure landed before him, wings scattering petals like a shattered kaleidoscope. The woman's ethereal beauty showed no fear of the void creature before her—only keen interest and that strange, unreadable smile.
"It's my first time witnessing a Hungerborn of Void," she said, her voice carrying both wonder and sorrow. Before the silhouette could react, she pressed her palm against the violet flame. The energy didn't burn her—it seeped into her skin like ink into parchment, staining her arm, her wings, the left side of her face in creeping violet tendrils.
"I have an ability," she continued through gritted teeth as the transfer continued. "I see the memories of those I meet. Yours..." She shuddered, her free hand gripping Aiden's wrist. "Yours broke my heart."
The silhouette's hollow eyes flickered. For the first time, something like confusion broke through the void. "Why?"
She tilted her head, her smile sharp but not unkind even as violet veins crawled up her neck. "Because people usually wish to rise, avenge, or connect. No one wants to cease existing to this degree—well, except for you."
Aiden's voice emerged raw from the silhouette: "I didn't ask for this."
"No one does," she agreed, her stained fingers brushing where the flame had been—now diminished, its power halved. The clearing itself seemed to exhale in relief. "But here we are."
Around them, flowers straightened in their beds. The woman's wings—now perfectly bifurcated between white and violet—flared as if testing their strange new balance.
"You took it," the silhouette accused.
"Borrowed," she corrected with a wink that made light dance in her unaffected eye. Then, more softly: "Call it a down payment."
As she spoke, the silhouette began to fade, revealing Aiden within it—human again, but trembling. He stared at her transformed body, the perfect divide between light and void running down her center like a living canvas.
"You look better now," she said, her dual-colored lips curling. One side smiled warmly; the other twisted with residual pain.
"What do you want?" Aiden demanded, his voice hoarse.
"To see what you'll do in our world." She took an unsteady step back, her wings mantling behind her. "I've seen the scars you carry. The memories you want to forget. Now I want to see you make new ones."
"Who are you?"
"My name..." The violet energy pulsed in her cheek. "Is a complication. Knowing me would bring more harm than good." She offered a rueful half-smile. "I'm sorry this is how we met. The next time we do, I expect to see more than just a Hungerborn of Void."
Before Aiden could respond, she staggered—the void energy clearly causing her pain—but still managed to flash him a smile. "Let's meet again, Aiden."
A single powerful beat of her wings sent her soaring, the violet stains glowing like alien constellations against her pale feathers as she disappeared toward the larger moon.
[Rabbit Jack has been erased from the Wish Log.]
A message interrupted his thoughts. Aiden looked down at his hands—human again, but marked by something he couldn't name. The woman's words echoed alongside the system's cold notification. He couldn't understand how she knew his name, or why she'd taken part of the void into herself... but for the first time since awakening in this world, he felt something other than despair.
[You have succeeded in draining the excessive void energy.]
[You have avoided the following consequences: nihilistic tendencies, reality decay, existential void expansion.]
"Existential void expansion?" Aiden muttered, staring at where the woman had vanished. His mind circled back to her parting words, to the impossible divide of her transformed body. "That reminds me... of the crawling edge. Did my arrival—and the void I carried—trigger it somehow?"
He collapsed onto flower-strewn grass, his mind whirling. His wounds were gone. His enemies erased. All that remained was him... and the memory of three foes he'd unmade from existence—a Lycanthos, a shadow, and a traitor friend who no one else would ever remember.
"I guess my wish couldn't be fulfilled," Aiden murmured to the twin moons. The thought of trying again surfaced— "Do I just have to kill myself?"—but it rang hollow now. Death wasn't erasure. And after what he'd just witnessed...
His fingers brushed petals where the woman had stood. "For now... I should look for a way forward."
As he lay there, the system pulsed with new light:
[Desire Fragment: The Second Chance]
[Type: BOND]
["Give this world another chance. I want to see you create new memories here, beyond the scars you carry and the ones you wish to forget."]
[Reward: +100 BOND (Will to Live), unlocks [Echoes of Truth] skill]
[Failure: ERASURE OF ALL PAST MEMORIES]