Looking at Kal El, who transformed into several different faces right before his eyes, the Faceless Man assassin was stunned.
As a Faceless Man, he naturally knew how his own disguises were achieved, and how he would replace another person's life.
But a miracle like this—Kal El being able to change his physique, gender, flesh, bones, everything, from the inside out into another person—this was something the Faceless Men had never seen.
At least for him, that was so.
He was merely a Faceless Man, someone who had abandoned everything of himself, undergone harsh training, and only then received from the Many-Faced God the wondrous ability to change his appearance at will.
Yet no one could accomplish what Kal El was displaying before him now. After all, even the disguises of the Faceless Men had to follow basic rules.
And the name Kal had just spoken—Jaqen H'ghar—together with the form he had now taken: a figure without facial features yet with long hair that was half white and half red…
Wasn't this the true image of a Faceless Man? The Faceless Man could not help thinking so.
Everything Kal El displayed, and the name he uttered, shattered this Faceless Man assassin's understanding, filling his heart with involuntary confusion.
Perhaps only the Many-Faced God could accomplish such things.
Originally, after waking from unconsciousness, he had immediately realized his situation and calmed himself. But at this moment, the Faceless Man could no longer maintain the forced composure he had been clinging to.
Everything Kal did shattered his perception.
The miracle he revealed so lightly before his eyes, the name he casually uttered of the persona the Faceless Man himself had constructed through lies, and the magic Kal had used when he tracked him down earlier in King's Landing—
The Faceless Man already understood that the Kal El before him was no ordinary man, perhaps even—
How could he possibly remain calm?
If he were not hanging suspended, he would likely already have been driven mad.
But even so, his eyes bulged wide as he struggled wildly on the wooden frame from which he hung, determined to force a secret out of Kal.
"Kal El… no. A man must ask: who stands before him? How does this one know such things? What manner of being is the one a man sees…?"
Seeing this fellow's understanding shatter and his entire worldview collapse under what he had just shown, watching him fall into self-doubt, Kal let out two cold sneers. Then the featureless face he had transformed into regrew eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, returning to his own.
He released the Faceless Man's jaw, his voice icy. "Faceless Man, I do not like you answering my questions with lies, so I expect you to take things seriously from here on."
Kal's cold voice and command made the Faceless Man—who had been driven slightly mad and thrown into doubt after everything he had just witnessed—force himself to calm down a little.
He stopped his futile struggling and stared wide-eyed at Kal El before him, as though trying to see clearly what this man actually looked like.
"Kal El… a man must ask: who is the one before him? And what place is this?"
The Faceless Man's voice carried a hint of panic. As he spoke, he shook his head and looked around.
He had already noticed the strangeness of this place earlier, but after Kal's display, that strangeness had become even more obvious.
However, faced with his question, Kal merely stared at him coldly from above. "You came to kill me, and you do not know who I am?"
With that, Kal gave a cold sneer. "As for where this is—"
In response to the Faceless Man's question, a fitting idea suddenly appeared in Kal's mind. He, too, glanced around as he spoke.
"You may think of this place as a divine kingdom. So you may also consider yourself within God's realm."
And just as Kal finished speaking—as if to confirm his words—
The bat-harpy, who had been punished and locked in the small cell earlier for 'speaking' wrongly, stirred in dissatisfaction. From behind the iron bars, she looked toward her master conversing with the human male who might become her neighbor, and she made some noises.
Hearing sounds again inside this oddly spacious stone-brick chamber—with no windows and lit only by the candles along the walls, yet bright as day—the terrified Faceless Man instinctively turned his head.
Then he saw that in a corner of the strange stone-brick room, there were actually three prison cells—and in the one at the very center, there was a creature imprisoned within. It was clearly no human, yet it possessed a human-shaped form.
The creature was still staring at him with a gaze that held curiosity mixed with hostility, its mouth full of sharp teeth open, as if ready to devour him at any moment.
Seeing that there was actually an unknown creature imprisoned inside this room, the Faceless Man's pupils tightened uncontrollably.
And together with what Kal had just said—
The Faceless Man no longer knew what expression he should have. He merely turned his head somewhat blankly, his gaze lifeless as he looked at Kal El before him.
"The one before a man… this… this man—" The Faceless Man opened his mouth, only to find he did not know what to say.
Kal had, of course, noticed that he had discovered the bat-harpy in the cell.
But seeing the Faceless Man, whose understanding had been crushed by one impossible event after another and who had become somewhat incoherent, Kal merely turned away coldly, deciding to give him some time to digest everything.
So he dragged a stool over, set it down in front of the Faceless Man, sat upon it, and simply stared directly at him.
After waiting for a while, until he saw him slowly regain calm from that bewildered and helpless state—
Only then did Kal speak. "If you do not know what you should say, you can tell me who sent you to assassinate me. Was Robert's death connected to the Faceless Men?"
Having deliberately used several displays of magic to shake this Faceless Man, Kal now asked the question he truly cared about.
But once the Faceless Man had calmed down, facing Kal's question, he merely stared at him woodenly and closed his mouth, speaking no further.
Kal could see that he still had reason in his heart, that he was weighing whether everything before him was real.
But unfortunately for him, Kal had plenty of patience—and this was exactly why he had done all of this.
Then a streak of lightning leapt in Kal's palm like a small sprite.
"You do not wish to speak?" Kal's gaze grew dangerous.
"The one before a man said this was God's realm, did he not? A man thought the one before him knew all things."
The Faceless Man's face was now expressionless. He no longer struggled. He simply looked at the lightning flickering in Kal's palm and spoke faintly.
Yet even if he acted calm, Kal sharply noticed the look in his eyes as he watched the lightning dancing in his hand—it had become somewhat heated.
Facing his mocking, probing words, Kal sneered inwardly. The lightning in his hand suddenly flashed and struck the hook from which the Faceless Man was hanging with a clang.
Only then did Kal's voice come slowly.
"I never said I was a god. Perhaps to you I am—but I only know what I should know."
"Speak. Who paid the price to the Faceless Men to have you assassinate two kings?"
Caught completely off guard, the Faceless Man crashed to the ground hard—yet he was tough. Without a sound, he gritted his teeth and dragged himself up from the floor.
Glancing at the iron clasp broken by the lightning, the fervor in his eyes could no longer be contained. "The one before a man is no god, yet he holds methods akin to gods. And you just spoke of this place as God's realm?"
As he spoke, the Faceless Man lunged forward. "Tell a man— is this the place where death returns? The Many-Faced God's domain, the final resting place of the living?!"
But faced with his fanaticism, Kal's face once again showed a cold sneer. Still seated on the stool, he calmly lifted a foot and kicked toward the Faceless Man who was rushing at him.
The nearly two-hundred-pound Faceless Man assassin was like a child before Kal—sent flying back even faster, hitting the ground, and only stopping when he crashed against the stone wall.
Dizzy from the impact, the wounded Faceless Man rolled over and sat up again, blood spilling from his mouth.
He let out a pained groan, yet the look he gave Kal only grew more fanatical.
"So you find this place interesting?" Kal said coldly as he rose to his feet, staring at the Faceless Man who had tried to "attack" him.
The next moment, lightning reappeared in Kal's hand. "But it seems you still do not fully understand your situation. Faceless Man, I am the one asking questions."
This time, the lightning did not even flicker twice in Kal's palm before it struck instantly, hitting the Faceless Man's shoulder as he sat slumped against the wall.
Taking another sudden strike, the Faceless Man could no longer remain stoic. With a single scream, he collapsed to the ground.
The sudden lightning strike tore his shoulder open on the spot; flesh and bone burst apart in shards.
The searing, soul-tearing pain left the Faceless Man unable to grit through it. He immediately writhed across the floor in agony.
His right arm, along with his shoulder, had already vanished.
But because both wrists were still bound together, the arm that had been torn off by the lightning and fallen from his shoulder still remained tied to his hands after dropping down.
And as he rolled in pain, that severed arm swung back and forth with his movements.
Blinding, scarlet blood smeared across the floor as the Faceless Man writhed and struggled in agony.
Watching the Faceless Man rolling on the ground, screaming in unbearable pain, Lord Kal—so relaxed in posture—clearly could not bear to see such mortal suffering.
So after listening for a short while longer, he finally raised his hand with a frown and cast a Minor Healing toward the Faceless Man.
The green light scattered through the air with a strange allure, drifting toward the wounded Faceless Man and settling upon him.
As the green light enveloped him, the wound torn open by the lightning first began to stop bleeding. Then, at the Faceless Man's shoulder, clumps of new flesh began to grow rapidly, crowding over one another as if alive.
And the Faceless Man's screams grew louder—stronger—than before.
Finding the sound grating, Kal could only cast another Wither.
Thus the Faceless Man—who moments before could barely make a sound from blood loss, yet after the Minor Healing had become lively again, rolling and screaming with renewed strength—
Instantly became like a chicken with its throat seized, his mouth producing only hoarse, meaningless rasping as he collapsed onto the ground, a boneless lump of flesh.
If not for the faint breaths and muffled groans, one might have mistaken him for a corpse at first glance.
Seeing the Faceless Man unable to scream and without the strength to roll or even move, the cold voice of the benevolent Lord Kal finally came slowly.
"Now you should recall that girl named Scarlett—or perhaps the one who paid the price to the House of Black and White?"
Faced with Kal's question, the Faceless Man—who had been dying from blood loss and unbearable pain, then dragged back by Minor Healing, only to be struck immediately again by Wither, leaving him without even the strength to turn—
Could only stubbornly lift his head, looking at Kal El, who had somehow once more appeared before him, coldly staring down at him.
"Death… is a god's gift."
A smile hung on his face, his voice hoarse and weak.
But he still did not answer Kal's question.
Hearing this, Kal narrowed his eyes, finally realizing he had said something pointless.
After all, to a Faceless Man who worshipped the Many-Faced God, granting death truly was considered a divine gift.
So Kal let out a cold sneer, then took a bright crimson potion from his inventory.
"Your words reminded me," he said as he crouched down, lifting the Faceless Man's jaw. With a slight squeeze, he crushed the bone.
"Seems I should give you some help."
Finishing his words, Kal raised his hand and forced the healing potion straight into the Faceless Man's mouth.
When he saw the round bottle lodged in his throat and unable to go down, Kal took a rapier from his inventory—
And very kindly helped clear the obstruction caught in his throat.
After the powerless Faceless Man performed, quite vividly, a high-difficulty sword-swallowing act, he finally managed to swallow the shattered glass bottle and the potion inside.
It was just that, during the process, Kal had accidentally crushed a few more bones and muscles, and the rapier had accidentally pierced a few of his internal organs.
With his jaw crushed, the Faceless Man could make no sound; with his muscles and bones limp like noodles, he could not resist.
His instinct to survive made him swallow the glass shards blocking his throat without thinking.
Endless pain tormented the once mighty Faceless Man at that moment—but the potion capable of healing one hundred percent of his injuries ensured he could never return to the Many-Faced God's embrace through pain alone.
He could only stare wide-eyed, feeling the flourishing vitality inside himself while also enduring a suffering so great he would rather simply die.
He turned his head and saw countless clumps of flesh rapidly growing from the torn remains of the shoulder that lightning had shredded. The broken bone pieces grew back little by little.
The Faceless Man felt as though his very soul was about to be worn away by pain—yet the sensations in his body only grew clearer.
As though the more he suffered, the more awake he became.
And the more awake he became, the more he suffered.
Life and death, at this moment, belonged to neither.
He felt like a despised sinner cast aside by both, condemned to live in the crevice between life and death, tormented in agony.
"A man… a man will speak—please… this one begs…"
Only when his jaw finally regrew, and his tongue—crushed and pierced as well—healed back, could the Faceless Man utter his plea for mercy.
Seeing that the Faceless Man had finally bent, fully acknowledging reality, Kal allowed a smile to appear on his face.
"Forgot to tell you—you are in God's kingdom… and also in God's hell."
Coldly saying this to the Faceless Man, Kal turned around, dragged the stool he had pulled earlier, and placed it once more before him.
"Speak. Tell me everything you know."
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