The instant Veythar's body collapsed into ash, the black key pulsed once in Kairis' palm.
The dragon's dying roar echoed like a whisper swallowed by the void.
A door appeared — not stone, nor metal, but pure absence.
The moment he stepped through, the world inverted.
He landed on something that looked like ground… but wasn't.
The texture shifted beneath his boots, rippling like glass disturbed by thought.
No sound. No wind. No warmth. Just a horizonless dark, painted in muted blue and ghostly silver.
The system's voice flickered briefly before vanishing.
> [System Interference Detected… Communication Severed.]
He was alone.
Completely.
The Second Layer — Thariel's Domain
From the shadows ahead, a figure materialized — faint, almost transparent, draped in flowing black and gray robes that never fully took shape.
Only two eyes, glowing faintly violet, held any definition.
"You've stepped where mortals aren't meant to walk," the voice said — soft as dust falling on glass, yet heavy enough to vibrate through Kairis' bones.
"I am Thariel, the Silent Shadow. The whisper between light and thought. Tell me, Apostle-candidate, do you fear vanishing?"
Kairis' grip tightened around his sword. "Fear? No. But I do understand it."
Thariel's lips twitched — or maybe it was the illusion of lips. "Good. Then let's see how much understanding matters when there's nothing left to understand."
And the world dissolved.
He blinked — and found himself standing in a corridor made of mirrors, hundreds of reflections staring back.
In each, he saw himself dying — stabbed, decapitated, burnt alive, crushed beneath invisible weight.
His own voice screamed from the mirrors.
Then silence.
All the reflections turned to look at him simultaneously.
He moved — but his reflection didn't.
It smiled.
> "You can't fight what's inside you, Kairis."
Thariel's whisper came from everywhere, threading through the still air.
Kairis lunged forward — his sword cleaving through the reflection — but instead of glass, it cut through himself.
Pain exploded through his chest; he coughed blood and dropped to a knee.
When he looked up, he was in a different corridor.
The reflection that killed him was now standing, whole.
He was the ghost.
He fought the reflection again. Died again.
He fought Thariel's shadows. Died again.
He fought the silence. Died again.
Each time he woke, weaker — more distant from who he was.
Days, weeks, months — meaningless.
Time didn't exist here.
Only repetition.
He screamed into the void, the sound devoured before it could echo.
One death blurred into the next.
By what could've been his hundredth life, his mind began to fracture.
"Am I… still me?"
He looked at his hands — they flickered, translucent.
The shadow of Thariel circled him like a slow current.
"Identity is the first thing to rot in the void," Thariel murmured. "The living cling to names. The void takes them first."
Kairis fell silent.
He couldn't remember his mother's face.
Elyra's laughter.
Aeren's grin.
Kaiyara's warmth.
Everything was slipping through his fingers.
The next time he rose, there was no sword in his hand.
Only an empty grip — trembling.
Thariel's silhouette stood before him, unarmed.
"Fight me," the being said.
Kairis charged out of instinct, striking again and again — every blow passing through, rebounding back tenfold.
Broken ribs. Shattered arm. His body crumpled into the nothing beneath.
He gasped for air, though there was none.
Thariel crouched beside him.
"This is not about killing me," he whispered.
"It's about killing who you think you are."
Then the shadow placed a hand over his chest.
Kairis' vision went white.
He awoke — in a field.
Blue skies.
Grass.
Wind.
He turned — Elyra and Aeren were running toward him, laughing.
Kaiyara stood by the hill, smiling softly, sunlight glinting in her hair.
His heart ached. Tears welled up.
But as he blinked — they melted.
Their faces stretched into darkness, their voices turning to screams.
> "You left us, Kairis."
He fell backward as the world cracked apart again, the illusion breaking into shards of glass, cutting through him.
He died again.
He stood once more.
Silent.
Barefoot.
Eyes hollow.
No emotion. No identity.
He raised his head, whispering,
"…I'm still here."
And for the first time, Thariel hesitated.
The void rippled.
The being's form trembled.
"Even without purpose, you persist. Even without memory, you resist. Tell me, mortal — what drives you?"
Kairis looked up, eyes dim but unwavering.
"My existence is my rebellion."
The air shifted.
Gravity swelled around him instinctively — not as power, but as will.
Every shadow bent, folding inward.
Thariel's illusion shattered.
Black tendrils of gravity coiled around Kairis' body.
The void's whispers turned to static, then to silence.
He closed his eyes.
He no longer needed to see.
He felt Thariel's movement — the ripple in space, the subtle pull of displaced air.
Kairis moved.
Not fast — precise.
Every motion preempted Thariel's intent by a breath.
Sword met shadow.
Blade met silence.
Then a single cut — from throat to void.
Thariel froze, looking down in disbelief as the illusion that was his body began to fade.
"You've learned…" he breathed, voice unraveling. "To perceive beyond perception."
Kairis stood amidst the still air, chest heaving.
"Void isn't emptiness," he said quietly. "It's the truth that remains when everything else is stripped away."
Thariel smiled faintly. "Then you're ready for the next step, successor of nothingness."
The realm collapsed into dust.
When Kairis opened his eyes again, he stood before a new gate — this one humming with stormlight.
Static danced across the black sky.
The mark on his wrist pulsed faintly — a sigil resembling Lucien's crest.
He exhaled.
"…Alyth," he murmured, reading the faint script on the gate.
His body trembled — not from fear, but from exhaustion.
He had died a thousand times.
Yet he still stood.
Above him, the void whispered, almost fondly:
> "He's beginning to understand."