Chương 79: Chapter 77: Colors of Existence

It was, without a doubt, a being without a 'self'—a non-existence. Without a true self to anchor it to reality, the creature was doomed to inevitably disappear back into the place where all gathered egos were meant to be erased: the Void. But it didn't want to return to that emptiness; it refused to be erased from the world. So, it tried. Like a drowning man clawing at the ocean's surface, the entity cast its gaze across the infinite world, searching for a way to 'exist.' Until it found a boy.

He was dying, withered by a disease that no prayer could cure. He lay in a lavish room, surrounded by the scent of medicinal herbs and the love of a family that could do nothing but watch. Maids tended to him daily, and doctors, funded by the Duke's limitless wealth, exhausted every tonic in their repertoire. Yet, none of it mattered. The entity understood neither the concept of family nor the warmth of love; it only saw that the boy's life force was flickering.

Driven by instinct, it realized it could inhabit that failing vessel. So, it did. It consumed the boy. Mmmm? The 'boy' opened his eyes for the first time in a long while. His memories remained intact, his emotions lingered, and his body felt like a spring morning—vibrant and healthy. He sat up, touching his hands with a sense of wonder. After glancing around the room for a moment, he scrambled from the bed to the mirror, staring at the reflection of a twelve-year-old with jet-black hair and eyes like polished onyx.

He was slim, dressed in soft pajamas, looking every bit the young lord he was supposed to be. A smile graced his features. He tugged at his hair, felt the solid weight of his legs, and sifted through his memories like a child with new toys. The boy let out a laugh, almost amused. His joy radiated in waves of pure bliss that filled the silent room.

"I-I have a self now… I did it, I'm not fading anymore!" But then, beneath the laughter, the entity felt something… or rather, it felt nothing. The boy's face was full of joy, but the core of the entity remained hollow. Its desire was the wind that drove the boy's emotions, forcing the smile, yet it couldn't feel the warmth of the sun it was mimicking. Still, it continued to grin, clinging to the hope that true emotion would bloom if it just played the part long enough.

A maid entered, her posture professional yet weary. She had knocked out of habit and respect, expecting to find a bedridden patient, and when her eyes landed on the empty sheets, her heart skipped a beat. Then, noticing the moving figure by the mirror, she froze.

"…Y-Young Lord?" she whispered, her voice trembling.

"Th-he Young Lord… the Young Lord is awake!" Her shout acted as a herald for the mansion, and the halls soon flooded with the thrum of running feet.

"Liam is awake?! Let me see!" A girl with white hair rushed over and threw the door wide open, unshed tears brimming in her eyes.

A few months later,"Then, he told us to go away before he showed us his 'glorious magic.'" The girl laughed loudly.

"What an idiot, right?" The girl, whose hair shone like spun silver and eyes gleamed with rich gold, strolled down the hallway. Her movements were playful and carefree, causing her white, gold-accented dress to ripple in waves. Her face beamed with joy as she recounted the tale to her brother. Beside her walked Liam, clad in a crisp white shirt, a black vest, and a structured coat.

"Right!" Liam laughed, his voice a cheerful resonance that filled the corridor.

"You certainly find some funny people, Keyla." He turned toward her.

"By the way, why did father even accept this banquet? Isn't Duke Heinca opposing us?"

"Who knows?" She tilted her head slightly.

"Maybe he has other plans?"

Under a night sky carpeted with stars, Liam sat on the edge of a cliff, the churning waters below reflecting the silver of the moon. He swung his legs idly, his hands planted on the earth as he gazed up at the stars. A rustle in the grass behind him drew his attention, and he glanced over his shoulder.

"I knew you would be here," Keyla said, standing behind him. She laughed softly, offering a fond smile.

"You've been sour about banquets even before that illness of yours." Liam turned toward her with a look of surprise.

"What are you doing here, Keyla?"

"Just came to check on you." She stepped forward, crouching down to take a seat beside him.

"We can't have the next duke get assassinated, right?" Liam tilted his head back, his black eyes tracing the constellations before he let out an exaggerated sigh.

"Today's banquet was long, did you enjoy it?"

"I did," she nodded. Her expression then shifted, turning teasing and mischievous.

"I see you still haven't learned to love them. It's because you slipped and fell in front of everyone at that first one you attended, right?"

"Hey! Don't remind me of that over and over!" He avoided her gaze, wrapping his arms around himself as if trying to hide.

"…It was so embarrassing."

"But you know," Keyla murmured, turning toward him. The playful light in her eyes dimmed into quiet concern.

"You seem… I don't know, different somehow. Like you're not the same person." Liam froze. He snapped his head to meet her gaze, his eyes wide. A long, chilling gust of wind swept over the cliff, tangling Keyla's silver hair as the silence stretched into an eternity. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Finally, Liam parted his lips.

"What are you talking about, Keyla?" He forced a gentle smirk.

"I'm your little brother." Keyla's face instantly snapped back into a teasing look. She reached out, framing his face with both hands and squishing his cheeks together.

"I know, I know. You're my one and only lovely little brother." She shook his head back and forth with a bright, radiant smile.

"I was just roleplaying a story part to see your reaction, idiot."

"Wh-what am I doing? I'm still not him. Why? Why can't I feel a thing?" Back in his room, Liam huddled in a corner, his expression twisted with exhaustion and hollow rage. He gripped his dark hair so tightly that pain flared across his scalp, his bloodshot eyes staring intensely at the floor.

"I'm not fading… but it doesn't feel right. Why? Why, goddammit!?" He slammed his fist against the floorboards.

"Am I Liam? Am I someone else? Who am I?" The entity could flawlessly mimic the boy's joy, his sorrow, his love, and his hatred… but it could never feel which of those colors truly belonged to it. Then, a sudden sound made him flinch—three knocks echoed through the room.

"Liam, I'm coming in!" Keyla burst through the door, as cheerful as the morning sun, clutching a book. She scanned the room and found Liam sitting on the edge of his bed, smiling at her just as he always did.

"Are you here to read?" he asked, tilting his head.

"Coming!" Without another word, she sprinted toward him and leaped, playfully punching his cheek as she tackled him onto the mattress. His cheek flushed red from the impact. Eyes wide, he slowly sat up, glaring at Keyla with feigned irritation.

"Why do you have to do this every time!?" Keyla merely looked back at him, letting out a cheeky, unapologetic laugh.

Time flowed like a steady river, and they aged along its currents. Liam matured into a man of striking handsomeness. He attended academies, laughed with his peers, and navigated the usual frustrations with instructors. He even found a woman to call his own. But the nothingness inside the entity's core remained a blank canvas—no painted color could brighten the void. Envy crept into its heart as it watched the world through Liam's eyes, yet even that envy felt like the mere ghost of an emotion.

Now, he was seconds away from his final breath. He had been a Duke—a man who lived up to his lineage. He had built a family and gathered a mountain of memories. But those memories weren't Its own; they belonged to the self named 'Liam.' He looked around at his sister, his wife, and his children—one of whom was now the reigning Duke—and finally closed his eyes, drawing the curtains on his mortal performance. Centuries bled into millennia. Through the march of time, the entity became a thousand different people.

When it was a mother, it raised children with a stolen tenderness before succumbing to old age. When it was a warrior of immense power, it fought for glory until a blade found its heart. When it was a criminal, it used its shapeshifting gifts to mock the law. It was drowning in color… yet starved of meaning. Tears fell like rain as the woman watched her lover die with a blade through his heart.

"NOOOO! J-Jakes…" Queen Ilyra's scream echoed through the royal hall, a grand chamber now transformed into a macabre bloodbath. Her face was marred with fresh wounds and soot, her golden hair reduced to a tangled mess.

"We'll meet again… in heaven," Jakes whispered. Blood bubbled past his lips, yet he still managed a warm, genuine smile.

"—My love." The knight stepped forward, flicking Jakes' blood from his steel, and stopped right before the Queen. She was crying, but the entity beneath was not. It was a flawless performance of a grieving monarch, yet the entity remained unsatisfied. With a cold slice, Queen Ilyra Seimara died, and her kingdom crumbled into the dust of history. And the entity drifted onward, still searching for a 'self.'

It had finally had enough. It had lived, it had performed, and it had died, over and over again. Yet the outcome never changed. Every shade of life existed within it, but not a single hue belonged to it. It looked at the world—at children, dragons, elves, heroes, and villains. Every living being had their lives painted in steady, deliberate strokes, while its own colors kept smearing. It had given up on trying to avoid being erased long ago, because the sheer volume of gathered egos made it feel impossible.

Now, it didn't just want to exist; it yearned to be itself. It tried to find a cure, living through a thousand more masks until it reached Cirelith. And there, all its performances were unraveled by an unknown woman, and all of its consumed selves were destroyed by a single man. Now, It was fading again.

"In the end, I even became fuel before ever finding a self," the entity said, its voice a hollow rattle as it looked at Noa. Noa snapped back to reality, the weight of the entity's memories finally releasing their grip on his mind. Then, within the lingering energy the entity had surrendered, he felt something strangely familiar yet distant. He reached out, forcefully accelerating the pull of [Echo Reclamation], tearing through the landfill to unearth a specific gem.

"Listen here, dude. I saw all that, and honestly, I don't really give a fuck about your backstory," Noa said, tilting his head down, his dark gaze locked onto the entity.

"But answer me this: if I give you this 'self' you want so badly, will you join our side?"

"H-how?! You're not able to—""I don't fucking know, so just answer the goddamn question." It stared at Noa in silence for long seconds before whispering, "…yes. Please." Hearing the answer, Noa's expression shifted, and a dark chuckle escaped his lips.

"Good. Then become my Fool." Noa closed his eyes, concentrating on the energy coming from [Echo Reclamation]. As he absorbed the final dregs of the entity's emotions, the sensation crystallized—an unstable, shifting mass gathered at the creature's core. Like a sculptor molding wet clay, Noa reached out with his mind and began to shape the fluid chaotic energy, forcing it to compress into a permanent, singular identity.

"There you go. Just give it some time," he said, opening his eyes and setting the creature down. The figure remained a shadowy mass, but it was solidifying. The fluid was slowly taking on a definitive, unchanging form.

"Now, onto our little barrier here." Noa pivoted toward Jain, who had just pinpointed his position and was charging straight at him.

"Let's say goodbye to it, shall we?" Acheron was overflowing now, its dark blade humming with the recycled misery of the thousands of lives the entity had consumed over the centuries. Noa stepped back, lowering his stance, his eyes fixed on the golden barrier looming above. — Formless Sword: Trace (Lingering Afterimage) — The sword launched into the air, defying logic and gravity as it tore a jagged path through the atmosphere.

As a tide of violent purple energy cascaded across the entire city-state, Jain halted her advance, staring up at the blade in disbelief. The tip of the blade met the golden barrier, and for a breathless second, the impact hung suspended in silence. Then, the barrier shattered like fragile glass, its golden fragments raining down upon the earth. But before the shards could dissolve back into divine energy, the sky ripped open once more.

[Summoning: Angel of Liara] A blinding pillar of pure light pierced the clouds, slamming into the ground right beside Jain. The glittering shards of the shattered barrier were immediately drawn into the beam, swirling upward like a cyclone of holy gold. With a snap of his wings, an angel manifested beside the Saint. Noa's face was stripped of all emotion as he stared blankly at the duo.

Between the hunt for the entity, the clash with the Saint, her sudden resurrection, and the divine intervention of Liara herself, he was running on strength. Now, with an angel joining the fray, his odds of surviving a one-on-two stood at a flat zero percent. But there was still one variable he hadn't forgotten. There was still a presence that could stand beside him. <Looks like it's getting more interesting. > As his partner's voice echoed in his mind, Noa slowly raised Acheron.

His exhaustion melted away, replaced by an arrogant, darkly amused grin. Within his consciousness, he could feel Vionette lounging in her chair, system windows dancing before her eyes, wearing the exact same wicked smile.

"Let's go fuckers, it's a 2vs2." <Let's go fuckers, it's a 2vs2. > And thus, the battle between the divine and the damned began.