Chương 292: Persona

Vale stood before the masked man. The swords pierced through his back rang with a faint, metallic chime every time they touched, filling the air with an unsettling atmosphere. The chained man raised his bone-like blade and pointed it directly at Vale, staring at him, or at least, staring where his eyes should have been behind the mask. A small smile tugged at the corner of Vale's mouth as he realized exactly what kind of situation he'd stumbled into.

'So… I really can't leave this dream just by dying, huh.' he thought, reaching down into the bloody sea to retrieve his blade once more.

"Well, since I can't die, I guess I'll fight you to pass the time," Vale said out loud. He grasped the bone-like sword with both hands, tightening his grip as he stepped forward toward the chained man, toward the enemy before him. The chained man rushed forward as well, and in the blink of an eye their blades collided. The clash echoed like thunder through the silent world. -unknown POV In a vast sea of blood, far beyond the reach of any known realm, a man hung suspended by countless chains.

Blades jutted from his back like jagged wings, each movement sending fresh ripples across the crimson expanse beneath him. Though he dangled in the sky as if crucified, he did not struggle. He had long since exhausted the meaning of struggle. An obsidian mask clung to his face it was smooth, cold, and carved with the expression of a past he no longer wished to claim. Above him hovered five suns composed not of light, but of pure darkness.

They circled him with deliberate slowness, silent sentinels whose only purpose was to keep him bound within this unfathomable abyss. The sea below was his blood, an ocean born from wounds that refused to close. His lifeblood dripped endlessly, turning the void into a landscape of red without horizon or mercy. At the distant edge of that ocean rose mountains of obsidian. From where he hung, they seemed almost small, no larger than ordinary peaks. But this was an illusion.

Each mountain towered thousand's of kilometers high, monolithic guardians carved from darkness itself. They weren't built to keep the chained man trapped. They were built to keep something else out.

"Are you going to keep narrating my prison," the man growled, "or are you finally going to tell me what you want me to do?" Though his mask concealed his expression, his tone carried the weight of eternity, impatience forged by endless suffering. He wasn't looking in any direction, not truly. It didn't matter where his eyes turned; he knew that no matter where he looked, he would see me.

"Very well," He said.

"If you're so eager, I'll come to you. I don't need my powers to reach you anyway." He did not move. Instead, the world around him shifted. The blood ocean, the chains, the dark suns, the mountains, all of it evaporated like a breath on glass. In their place bloomed an endless white void. His wounds remained. His blood still leaked. He entered this realm exactly as he had been moments before, as if his suffering refused to be left behind. But here, he no longer had to strain to move.

In this place, the laws of existence bent around him, not the other way around. His torn black armor, tangled hair, and obsidian mask were the only shadows in the boundless whiteness. His blood became the sole color, vivid and violent against the void. Only two beings could enter this realm freely. Only two had ever existed here. For this place lay beyond creation, beyond destruction, and beyond the comprehension of anything that could be called 'alive.' But the man standing before me was anything but ordinary.

He was Kealix von Eskarion, the second mistake of reality, and my most cherished creation. An anchor so absolute that his mere existence kept an entire reality from collapsing.

"Don't bullshit me," he rasped.

"I'm standing right in front of you, Writer. Now tell me, what do you want me to do?" The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. His voice was ruined, hoarse from agony, cracked from eternity, heavy with a weariness that not even oblivion could dissolve. I stood before him in simple black clothes, loose and comfortable. Clothes that contradicted the weight of the being who wore them.

"Ah, yes," I said softly.

"My apologies. You have endured far more than I wished for you to bear. I'll keep this brief." I cleared my throat, steadying myself. And then I spoke to Kealix.

"As I said, I'll keep this brief," I began.

"There's a boy I want you to train. He'll be thrown into a dangerous world, and he needs to be prepared for what waits on the other side." My tone softened instinctively. I did not dare speak harshly, not to him. He had endured more than any being should, especially after choosing to exile himself. Kealix tilted his head, contemplating. His hand rose to his chin, fingers tapping lightly against the obsidian mask. The gesture was strangely delicate for someone who could tear a universe in half with a thought.

"So…" he murmured, voice measured.

"You've found another subject for your writing, I assume? And you want me to train this so-called boy of yours?" His voice held no tremor. Despite the suffering etched into his existence, his tone was steady, almost composed. His posture remained rigid, the kind of controlled stillness only beings older than time itself could maintain. After a moment, he continued, "And from the way you're speaking, I assume you've already set things into motion?"

"Ding, ding, ding! Correct," I replied with a burst of enthusiasm.

"I've already placed the boy in your realm and had the two of you fight, oh… two chapters ago." A low, dark chuckle rumbled beneath the mask, a sound that might have shattered the will of lesser beings. But here, it held only amusement. I pressed forward.

"Either way… may I ask something of you, Kealix?" He tilted his head slightly.

"Well… does my answer truly matter? Whatever I say will only become what you wish to write."

"Of course it matters," I insisted.

"What kind of writer would I be if I didn't consider what my creations had to say?"

"You're missing the point," Kealix sighed. The weariness in his voice seeped through, heavy and ancient.

"I know, I know. I wrote that response too, didn't I?" I said with a sheepish shrug. He didn't reply, so I cleared my throat again, preparing to ask the question I knew he wouldn't like.

"Can you take off your mask, my dear creation?" I asked, staring into the single unblinking eye carved at the center of his obsidian faceplate. His silence stretched long enough to become a language of its own. Then......

"…Very well," he murmured.

"I'll show you my face… even if you already know exactly what it looks like." Kealix raised his hands. His fingers brushed the mask's edges with the reverence one might give to a relic. Slowly, painfully slowly, he lifted the mask away. When the final hook detached, the air itself seemed to shift. His face was revealed. Kealix was a man whose existence defied the concept of "human." His features were sharp, almost divine, the kind of beauty that stole breath and commanded silence.

His jawline looked carved by a sculptor obsessed with celestial symmetry. His eyes were molten gold, glowing faintly as though carrying an entire sun's worth of memories behind them, memories of pain, aeons, and reluctant divinity. His hair, pitch-black and impossibly soft-looking, flowed in thick, wavy strands down his back until it brushed the bottom of his spine. Each strand shimmered like ink under starlight, mesmerizing in its perfection. His beauty wasn't simply striking, it was suffocating.

"Are you done writing about my face yet?" Kealix asked flatly, noticing my stare. Beneath the stoicism, a faint thread of annoyance pulsed.

"Oh, right. Sorry," I said with an awkward cough.

"You're always aware of what I'm writing. One of the perks of being a mistake, huh?" Something inside him shifted, something small, but unmistakably real. His brow tightened. His gaze dropped. A shadow of exhaustion, subtle but raw, flickered across his perfect features. He turned his head slightly, shielding himself from a memory he had never escaped.

"Well," he said quietly, "I suppose it's my turn to make a request, isn't it?" He paused. A breath. A tremor of hesitation.

"But you already know what I'm going to ask… don't you?" Kealix lowered his gaze to mine. Even bowed slightly, he towered over me. And in those golden eyes… there was a vulnerability few beings would ever witness. I offered the gentlest smile I could muster, one of the only comforts I was capable of giving.

"Of course I do," I said softly.

"You want to see your wife… don't you?" The moment the word wife escaped my lips, his hands tightened around the mask he held. The obsidian creaked, just barely, under the pressure of a man who could crush galaxies in his palm. A single droplet of blood slid from a wound on his back. It fell slowly, hitting the void floor with a sound far too loud for something so small. Echoes rippled outward, vibrating through the emptiness like a heartbeat.

"Yeah," he said quietly.

"I was made to love her, after all. But I assume you also know the problem that would arise if I visited her without your help?" I nodded, my expression sobering.

"Of course I know. It's the same reason you had to seal yourself away from the other dimensions. Without my help, they would know." My voice flattened deliberately, emotion here could be dangerous. Kealix gave a small nod. Gratitude flickered in his eyes, gentle and fleeting. His wife was one of the few pieces of family he had left, one of the few reasons he hadn't let himself unravel. He had not seen her since that day.

"That's great then…" he said, a faint but genuine smile touching his lips, rare, precious, and almost painfully human.

"When do I leave?" I smiled back, mirroring the softness he likely didn't realize he had shown.

"How about… right now."