Chương 79: 78: The Promise

The Dweller's expression didn't change, though something in his posture softened.

"How?"

"I spoke to her the moment I understood why you came after me. Finding her body was easier than finding her soul." His voice grew quieter.

"She's happy. She misses you. But she doesn't want to return to this world." Zeinai broke. The tears came without warning. Decades of discipline collapsed as he bowed his head and sobbed, great shuddering cries echoing across the mountains. He was seven again, waiting for his sister to come home. The Gloom Dweller said nothing. He simply waited. When the sobs finally faded, he asked, "Would you like to see her?" Zeinai could only nod. The Dweller stood and offered his hand. The world didn't move. It opened.

Reality parted into a quiet doorway between life and death, revealing a meadow where flowers bloomed without seasons. She was there. Bora. Long dark hair, a simple white dress, and the same warm smile he'd carried in his memories all these years. She looked at him.

"Oppa..." His knees gave out. His hand reached toward her as she reached back, their fingertips stopping just short of touching.

"Why are you crying?" she asked with a watery smile.

"I missed you," he whispered.

"Every single day."

"I missed you too." Her smile faltered as she noticed his missing arm.

"Oppa... your arm..."

"It's alright."

"It isn't!"

"I didn't need it without you." She laughed through her tears.

"Silly..."

"I know." She glanced at the Gloom Dweller.

"He visits me often. He's very kind." Zeinai looked back. The Dweller remained silent.

"I like it here," Bora continued.

"It's peaceful." Her voice grew small.

"I can't come back. I don't want to live again. Do you understand?" He did. Bringing her back would only return her to the world that had broken her.

"I understand." Relief washed across her face.

"Then live, Oppa. Please... live for me."

"I promise."

"I love you."

"I love you too." The meadow began to fade.

"Remember me, Sangmin..." The doorway closed with a quiet sigh. Zeinai remained on his knees long after she was gone, tears still falling, but for the first time in years, the grief no longer felt empty. — The Gloom Dweller waited. When Zeinai finally steadied himself, he knelt before him.

"Thank you." With his head lowered, he whispered, "Forgive me."

"For what?"

"I tried to kill you... steal your magic."

"Get up." Zeinai didn't move.

"Get up." Paris gently pulled him to his feet.

"That isn't my name." Zeinai blinked."'Gloom Dweller' is what the Syndicate calls me." A faint smile crossed his face.

"My name is Paris Moon." A person's name. Not a monster's.

"I need your help," Paris said.

"Anything." Paris looked toward the mountains.

"I can't see the future, but I can... read the mind of time. Like smelling rain. You don't know it'll fall, but you feel it coming." He fell silent.

"I feel something." His voice barely carried on the wind.

"I'm going to die soon." Zeinai's heart sank.

"How?" Paris smiled faintly.

"I don't know."

"You just said you could read time."

"I can. Not command it." His gaze remained on the horizon.

"Time has... moods. Currents. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it screams. Right now, it's quiet."

"But you know you'll die."

"I know something is waiting."

"When?" Paris shook his head.

"I don't know."

"Can it be stopped?"

"I don't know." Every answer was the same. Zeinai frowned.

"You're hiding something."

"I am not."

"You're avoiding it."

"I'm accepting it." The words settled between them. After a long silence, Paris spoke again.

"And Crook is going to return." Zeinai's head snapped toward him.

"…She's alive?"

"I didn't say that."

"You said she's coming back."

"I did."

"You know enough to say it."

"I know enough to believe it." Before Zeinai could ask another question, Paris added quietly,"I have a daughter."

"I'll protect her," Zeinai said without hesitation.

"I swear it. On my sister's soul-" The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"No." Paris finally met his eyes.

"I don't want you to protect her." Zeinai frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"I want you to kill her."... The words struck harder than any blow. His mind refused to accept them.

"…Sorry?"

"Her name is Butter." The name caught him off guard.

"She'll be twenty when fate brings you together. Prepare before then."

"Prepare for what?"

"She'll be... strong."

"I've fought you." Paris's expression remained unchanged.

"She's stronger." Zeinai almost laughed.

"How?"

"She's an anomaly." The words stopped him.

"If you know anything about abominations," Paris said, "then you know anomalies stand above them." Silence settled between them. Confusion crept across Zeinai's face. That made no sense. Every operative learned the classification system. The weakest abomination possessed enough conceptual energy to erase a nation. That was the minimum threshold. They could simply exist, let their aura spread unchecked, and consume an entire country. Average abominations threatened planets, sometimes entire solar systems.

The strongest could repeat that scale over and over, a billion times if left unchecked. An anomaly... What could possibly stand above that? He looked back at Paris. Paris paused.

"But she needs to become stronger."

"Stronger for what?"

"For what comes next."

"What comes next?"

"You'll know when it's time." Zeinai stared at him, waiting for more. Nothing came.

"That's it?"

"That's all I can give you."

"…You're asking me to kill your daughter based on that?"

"Yes." Silence hung between them.

"Why would you ask me?"

"Because you can."

"There has to be someone else."

"There isn't."

"Her mother?" A shadow crossed Paris's face.

"She can't."

"Your friends?"

"I can't ask them."

"Why?"

"It has to be someone who truly feels nothing for her. If the Gloom senses love, it won't recognize it as murder." Zeinai understood. This was the price. Paris hadn't spared him out of mercy. He needed someone capable of killing his daughter without affection tainting the act.

"…Will she deserve it?" Paris closed his eyes.

"I hope not."

"Then why?"

"Because sometimes the kindest thing a person can do..." He opened them again.

"... is something they'll never forgive themselves for." Zeinai's gaze fell to the stump where his arm had been, then to the memory of Bora smiling in that endless meadow.

"…Okay." Paris's shoulders relaxed for the first time since they'd met.

"Thank you." The last light slipped behind the mountains. Paris stepped forward and embraced him. It lasted only a moment, but it carried the weight of a lifetime. When they parted, Paris looked older. He snapped his fingers. Shadows pooled across the grass, rose, and unfolded into a long wooden table laden with steaming food. Fresh bread. Roasted meat. Rice, vegetables, fruit, tea - a quiet feast that looked as though it had always belonged there.

"Sit," Paris said. They did. For a while, neither spoke. Zeinai unwound the bandage from his ruined eye, wiped away the blood that had seeped through it, then wrapped it back into place before quietly returning to his meal. The mountains remained silent around them. By the time the last cup of tea had gone cold, the plates were empty.

"Go. Your mission is complete. C-3-NTIPID is dead."

"The city will remember," Zeinai said.

"The fight. The shattered buildings." Paris shook his head.

"No one will. I'll see to that." A brief silence passed.

"Except you." He said nothing more. They stood together for one last moment before Zeinai turned and walked away. Zeinai descended the mountain in silence. The evening breeze slipped through the gaps in his armor, cool against his skin. He pulled his helmet back over his head, sealing away his face once more, though the wind still found its way through the suit's vents. He felt... lighter. The pain remained. His shoulder still burned where his arm had once been, and his ruined eye rested beneath the bandage.

Yet something inside him had finally unclenched. For the first time in years, he wasn't carrying the weight of an impossible promise. Groups of hikers climbed the narrow trail. The moment they saw the towering armored figure, conversations died. They instinctively pressed themselves against the mountainside, clearing the path without a word. Fragments of conversation drifted toward him.

"Ke...?"

"Chhito!" English. He frowned. Something was off. His visor quietly overlaid the words, yet their lips weren't matching what he was hearing. Nepali. His suit had been translating everything automatically. He'd never noticed. Even back in Tokyo, the terrified screams, the news helicopters, the civilians shouting - every word had simply registered as flawless English inside his helmet. He'd accepted it without a second thought. He glanced back at the hikers.

Their mouths formed sounds he couldn't understand, yet the translation flowed effortlessly through his earpiece. A faint smirk touched his lips. Technology. His HUD quietly projected the coordinates back to the New Zealand faction. One wormhole. One step. He ignored it and kept walking. Further up the trail, two women approached. Neither moved aside. The first wore a black-and-gray cloak that concealed most of her body. Beneath it, he caught glimpses of a lean, powerfully muscled frame and bronze skin.

Something about the way the cloak hung looked... odd, almost as though she had only one arm beneath it. A black eyepatch covered her left eye. Long, wavy dark-brown hair drifted behind her in the wind, partially braided with small bronze beads, polished stones, and weathered trinkets woven through the strands, framing sharp gray eyes and severe features. Around her neck rested a verdigris-bronze collar weathered by age. She never looked at him. Even so, he knew she was walking toward Paris.

There was a resemblance between them. Not in appearance, but in the quiet gravity they carried. The second woman couldn't have been more different. Honey-blonde hair sculpted into an extravagant old-money coiffure. Designer heart-shaped sunglasses rested atop her head, their tinted lenses catching the evening sun. Emerald-green eyes framed by careful eyeshadow. Soft lipstick.

A tailored peach suede jacket over a matching skirt, white leggings, polished shoes, diamond earrings, and a matching necklace that caught the light. A rich perfume lingered around her, almost overpowering against the clean mountain air. An apron hung loosely from her right hand. Neither showed the slightest hint of fear. That unsettled him more than anything. His visor attempted a scan. ERROR. RETRYING... ERROR. UNKNOWN EXISTENCE. Even his HUD refused to acknowledge them. Loose stone shifted beneath his boot.

He stumbled. The woman with the eyepatch caught him by the shoulder before he could fall. Her grip was firm, effortless. Silence lingered. The blonde smiled warmly, "Cuidado con esas rocas, cariño." Be ca reful on those rocks, sweetheart.

"… Thank you." He continued downhill without another word. Only after the women disappeared behind him did he notice something strange. The warmth beneath his bandage was gone. He stopped, touched the ruined eye, then pulled the bandage aside just enough to look. The injuries hadn't healed. They'd been... reduced. It felt less like regeneration and more like someone had reached into reality and quietly turned the severity of his wounds down. Torn flesh had become scars. Agony had faded until only memory remained.

The woman with the eyepatch. Whether she'd done it deliberately or without realizing, he couldn't tell. One thing felt certain. They knew. They knew what had happened, and they were going to speak with Paris about it. Zeinai looked back toward the mountain peak, remembering the impossible fractures that had opened across reality during the battle, the dimensions laid bare beyond the universe. Perhaps they'd come through one of them. He stood there a little longer before turning away.

The mountain wind caught his cloak as he continued down the trail. The world was far bigger than he'd ever imagined. — The moment Zeinai returned to the Nest, people froze.

"Op... Operative Zeinai."

"Welcome back, sir." Greetings came out as stutters. Technicians straightened instinctively. Operatives stepped aside. Even several Steppers watched him in quiet awe, whispers following him through the corridors.

"That's him..."

"He actually killed C-3-NTIPID..."

"He came back alive..." Before he reached debriefing, a scientist practically sprinted across the hangar and shoved a scanner against his chest.

"Hold still." The device whined. Her expression drained of color.

"... That's impossible." More scanners appeared. A second scientist looked over her shoulder, then a third.

"You have catastrophic Apis poisoning."

"No..." She rescanned him.

"... Half your body should already be mist." Zeinai looked down at himself.

"But I'm still here." They rushed him straight to the medical wing. For the first time in decades, he truly slept. It wasn't the shallow, instinctive sleep of an operative waiting for alarms, or the fractured rest haunted by Bora's face and endless battlefields. It was real sleep. Deep enough that he never dreamed. When he finally woke, trays of hot food were already waiting beside his bed. He ate in silence. Outside the room, footsteps passed constantly. Scientists. Engineers. Steppers. Mostly women.

They slowed as they reached his doorway, peeked inside, whispered something to each other, giggled, then hurried away whenever he looked up. He pretended not to notice. A few entered under official excuses. One adjusted the monitoring equipment. Another checked his vitals. Several engineers measured what remained of his left arm with scanners and flexible tapes, recording every angle and dimension without explaining why. He didn't ask. A week later, he understood. His left arm was no longer a stump.

The Syndicate had replaced it with a matte-black prosthetic, sleek and seamless, humming with heavily saturated Apis that pulsed in slow blue rhythms beneath its surface. They praised him for the C-3-NTIPID mission. No casualties. No witnesses. Rumors spread through the Nest faster than any official report. An operative had killed an abomination alone. Nobody understood how. Engineers argued it had to be classified weaponry. Scientists insisted multiple operatives must've been involved.

Veterans simply shook their heads, saying no operative should've survived a battle like that, let alone won it. Then another story surfaced. Zeinai had fought an Antarctic Faction Stepper. And lived. That alone bordered on impossible. The tale grew with every retelling. Some claimed he'd defeated her. Others insisted they'd fought to a draw before outside circumstances interrupted the battle. Whatever the truth, he'd stood against one of Antarctica's monsters and walked away.

His reputation swelled almost overnight.

"That's our operative."

"He upheld New Zealand's name."

"Antarctica isn't the only faction producing monsters anymore." Veteran operatives began greeting him with quiet nods of respect. Younger recruits watched with open admiration, and more than a few requested transfers into combat divisions after hearing the stories. The city's memory of the battle had been wiped clean. Every shattered window, every screaming civilian, every hydrogen bomb's worth of force that had nearly erased a hundred miles of coastline had been reversed. Paris's work.

The Gloom Dweller had scrubbed the event from time itself, leaving only the official report: Operative Zeinai successfully terminated rogue experiment. No collateral damage. Recommend commendation. The commendation came with a new arm, a promotion, and the quiet acknowledgment that he had become one of the New Zealand faction's most valuable assets. The Apis that had flooded his bloodstream during the battle had changed something inside him. His remaining brown eye had turned a pale crystalline blue.

It saw things even his HUD couldn't quantify. Ghosts. Chakras. The faint shimmer of reality wearing thin at its edges. A waking dream layered over the world. Sometimes, at the edge of his vision, he saw Bora. Only for a moment. Never long enough to speak. Never close enough to touch. The years moved on anyway. Little by little, the nightmares stopped. The guilt never disappeared, but it loosened its grip until it became something he could carry instead of something that carried him. He laughed more. Slept better.

Neither lasted forever, but they reminded him that he was still capable of living, of smiling without forcing it. He was happy, or as happy as anyone could be in a world like this.