In the middle of a frozen wasteland, where nothing but endless sheets of ice stretched beyond the horizon, a man stood drenched in blood. The wind howled, but he remained still—like a statue at the edge of the world.
From a distance, his features barely held shape, distorted by frost and the crimson stains matting his body. His long black hair, now dyed red, clung to his face. His nose, shaped like a crescent moon, was sharp and proud. His eyes—deep, bottomless voids—reflected nothing.
Huff... huff...
"So this is how it ends, huh?" he muttered, bracing himself against a jagged boulder, his voice dry and brittle, like cracked ice.
He chuckled, the sound hollow in the frozen silence. "Looking back... it really was an interesting life."
Step. Step.
Footsteps echoed behind him—slow, steady, deliberate.
He didn't turn. He didn't need to. He knew exactly who it was.
Without a word, the approaching figure walked past him and came into view.
A man clad in pitch-black armor.
The armor absorbed the cold light of the sky, glinting faintly—but eerily silent. No clatter of metal, no sound of chains. It moved as though it were alive.
The black-armored man paused, his face hidden beneath a dark helm. His voice, when it came, was deep and calm.
"Do you regret it?" he asked. "Everything you've done?"
"Why would I regret?" Vern paused, blood dripping from his chin. Then, with a faint smirk, he continued, "If I didn't know the consequences of my actions, perhaps I might. But I knew. I knew exactly what would follow. So no... there's nothing to regret."
The man in black armor—Cyan Drake—frowned beneath his helm.
"Do you even know how many innocent people you've killed?"
Vern let out a dry chuckle and raised his blood-stained face toward Cyan. "Have you ever counted the animals you've slaughtered over the years... just to rip the meat from their bones?"
"You—!" Cyan's voice cracked, anger flaring. "Are you saying that human lives are as insignificant as an animal's?"
"Insignificant, you say?" Vern's lips curled into a smile. "Do you believe animals don't feel pain? That their cries are less real than a human's?"
Cyan's eyes burned with frustration. "Do you even hear yourself? Are you trying to justify your evil?"
"Justify?" Vern laughed softly, shaking his head. "No, no. You misunderstand me, Cyan Drake."
He bared his crimson-stained teeth, grinning like a beast. "I do not need to justify anything. Every act, every death, every choice—I made them all, with full awareness. No regrets. No apologies."
His voice dropped to a mocking whisper. "And besides, I'm about to die, aren't I? So what does it matter?"
"You…" Cyan's hands trembled. "You are beyond reformation. I should end you right now."
"Reformation?" Vern threw his head back and burst into laughter, the sound echoing through the frozen expanse. "Why in the world would I want to be reformed—after finally becoming my truest self through endless suffering?"
Cyan fell silent, his jaw clenched, fingers tightening around the hilt of his blade.
The wind screamed between them.
Vern's voice softened, almost like a whisper between old friends. "You know, Cyan… it's funny."
Cyan said nothing.
"I always wondered what I'd feel at the end. Regret? Fear? Loneliness?" Vern tilted his head, gazing up at the grey sky as snowflakes landed on his bloodstained face. "But I feel... nothing. Just peace."
He slowly slid down the boulder, his legs finally giving out. His breath fogged the air, shallow, uneven.
Cyan took a step forward, boots crunching against the frost. "You should feel pain. You should beg for forgiveness."
Vern chuckled again, hoarse and faint. "You really want me to play the part of a repentant monster? Sorry. That role was never mine to begin with."
There was silence again—long, aching.
Then Cyan raised his sword.
The air grew still. Even the wind seemed to hush.
"You'll die here, Vern. But not as a martyr, or a legend. Just as a murderer. Alone."
But before the blade could fall, Vern looked up—and smiled.
It was not the smile of a broken man. It was not the grin of a defeated soul. It was something else.
"Do it," he said. "Strike me down."
Cyan hesitated.
That smile… it wasn't peace.
It was certainty.
"Why are you smiling?" Cyan demanded, lowering his blade slightly. "What are you hiding?"
"Do not be afraid, Cyan Drake."
Vern waved his hand, as if brushing away the weight of Cyan's growing unease. His voice was steady—calm, even gentle.
"You were right when you said I would die alone." He paused, then smiled faintly. "But that was my choice. I never needed anyone to accomplish my goals... if anything, people needed me to sever their threads."
Cyan's eyes narrowed.
How can a person be so emotionless? he thought. There's no fear. No regret. Not even malice. There's nothing in his eyes...
He parted his lips. "Vern... you're from the Kael House. How did you become like this?"
At the mention of Kael House, something flickered in Vern's expression.
He turned his head slightly, gazing toward the distant south. For a moment, his black eyes seemed softer—haunted by memories buried beneath the frost.
"Don't show emotion with those dead eyes of yours!" Cyan snapped, his voice cracking like thunder over ice.
But Vern didn't flinch. Instead, he let out a slow breath, almost a sigh.
"Cyan Drake... it seems you don't understand emotions at all," he said. "You think I'm emotionless? Foolish. There isn't a single soul in this world without emotion. If I had none, then what would make life exciting?"
He looked back at Cyan, his smile unreadable.
"The only difference is... I don't act on them. Not like most people."
Cyan clenched his fists.
"You've lost what little human you had left, Vern."
Vern exhaled sharply, his gaze steady.
"Enough talk," he said, his voice edged with finality. "Now finish me."
Cyan stood still for a moment, eyes locked on the man before him. Then, without a word, he raised his sword.
"Very well," he muttered. "I shall end the evil you've wrought… and the lives you've destroyed."
He stepped forward, snow crunching beneath his boots, and leveled his blade at Vern's throat.
Vern gave a faint chuckle, his eyes closing as if welcoming the darkness.
"May you suffer for eternity," Cyan said, his voice heavy with emotion. "May the weight of your sins—of the hundreds of thousands you've slaughtered—never leave you."
SHHHRRING—
With a single, clean swing, the blade cut through flesh and bone.
A sharp, metallic hiss filled the air, and in the next breath, Vern's head slid from his shoulders, falling silently into the snow.
"Stubborn to the end, huh?" Cyan said aloud, his voice quiet, almost tired.
He looked down at Vern's lifeless body, the severed head resting still in the snow.
There wasn't a flicker of emotion in his eyes. Not even at the moment of death, Cyan thought to himself, brows furrowed.
Shhhiiink.
The sword slid cleanly back into its scabbard with a crisp metallic ring.
Cyan raised his hand toward the sky and made a signal.
A few minutes passed.
From the clouds above, a majestic eagle descended. Its wings spanned wide, feathers gleaming like strands of polished silver. With a graceful swoop, it landed beside Cyan, eyes sharp and intelligent.
He reached back into his scabbard, withdrawing a tightly sealed scroll. As he bent to tie it around the eagle's leg—
RUMBLE. RUMBLE.
The ground trembled—no, shook, as if something ancient had stirred beneath the ice.
"Hm?" Cyan blinked, instinctively turning his head—
And froze.
From Vern's headless corpse, a radiant light had begun to rise. Not flickering. Not fading. It surged upward, bright and gold, burning through the sky like a divine flare.
It wasn't just light—it was majestic, like the last trumpet of a dying world.
Cyan shielded his eyes, stepping back slowly.
"What… is this?" he muttered, tension rising in his voice, though his expression still held.
The light grew stronger. He could feel it—pulling something from the world itself.
His knees buckled.
Suddenly, he gasped.
His body—no, his armor—was melting. The proud obsidian plate that once defined him now dripped from his limbs like liquefied shadow.
This—this shouldn't be happening.
Cyan's hands trembled. This isn't possible… my armor… it was forged by the High Lords… it can't—
His vision blurred.
"No… no. I can't die here… not like this," he said breathlessly, panic creeping into his voice. "Not now..."
Then came the final horror.
His memories.
They were vanishing—being ripped from his mind, fragment by fragment.
Moments he cherished, names he knew, faces he once protected—all crumbling into dust.
And in their place… came something foreign.
An unseen life. Emotions he had never felt. Voices that didn't belong to him. Names he couldn't place, yet felt deeply tied to.
"What… what's happening to me?!" he shouted, clawing at his head. "My memories! Who am I?!"
The panic snapped his restraint.
"You cursed human! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!"
As if in answer, the light from Vern's corpse pulsed—blinding, overwhelming.
The ice cracked. The sky tore open.
And the world… began to change.
Cyan screamed, voice raw and cracked.
"Curse you, Vern… Ka..l.!"
And then—
He vanished.
Erased from the world like a whisper lost in a storm.