“I’m sorry, I really don’t know why I…” Evan muttered to himself, then lowered his head and examined the dagger in his hand.
He suddenly realized that the dagger that had inexplicably appeared in his hand looked strangely familiar.
When had he seen a knife handle made of agate? A hazy memory slowly resurfaced from the depths of Evan’s mind.
It was… back when he was still very young. The Lord was riding a horse through the forest. Evan could see a beautiful agate knife hanging on the lord’s hefty body, which was perched on the horse with a shiny chestnut coat.
That knife was the only thing that caught the eye amidst that mountain of flesh, and the impoverished boy, hiding behind a tree to spy on noblemen hunting, just so happened to see it.
After entering the mage tower and becoming an apprentice mage, most secular things lost their meaning. Yet, deep within Evan’s heart, the agate knife still sparkled in the afternoon sunset’s light.
Evan suddenly raised his head and looked at Alister again. It was clear that Alister was the injured party, but at this moment, it was Evan who had a pained expression on his face.
“You’re hurt?” Evan abruptly inquired.
“It’s just… a minor injury,” Alister replied.
Evan suppressed his instincts and met Alister’s eyes — the latter had hesitated for a moment when he heard the word “hurt.” The red-haired apprentice mage concealed it well, but Evan’s intuition was sharper than what normal people could comprehend.
“Where were you hurt?” Evan asked. There was no doubt in his tone, only certainty.
Alister hesitated and slowly sat down, looking as if he simply needed a rest from the excessive sweating.
Taking a deep breath, he said, “Evan, the wound isn’t serious…”
“I want to see it,” Evan interrupted.
Alister seemed extremely reluctant, and Evan instinctively felt a creeping sense of unease. He even felt hints of fear and violent rage.
A bloodthirsty desire surged through Evan’s veins. He attempted to control it but failed. Fortunately, the situation still appeared manageable. Despite his resistance, Alister eventually revealed his wound to Evan.
Alister, under Evan’s strong insistence, removed all his clothing. The wound Evan had inflicted earlier was a diagonal gash adorning the former’s skin. Dark red blood seeped out of the wound, staining his chest.
Everything appeared ordinary, but Evan sensed something amiss. His mind felt clouded, but he could still detect a subtle yet deadly sense of peculiarity.
His senses became unnaturally keen, leaving him stunned—
Why hadn’t he noticed the metallic scent in the warehouse just fifteen minutes ago? Why were there sounds of insect wings fluttering in the shadows and the wet, squirming noises of something enormous?
The magic lamp, as if responding to Evan’s scrutiny, dimmed its light, nearly concealing Alister’s face in shadows. Evan forced himself to fix his gaze on Alister’s face.
At times, Alister was still himself, but at others, his face seemed oddly distorted, appearing multiple times in Evan’s field of vision, as though reflected in countless mirrors and condensed into a single space.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Mjirf, fatfgfji, fwqas.
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Ktja qfmeiljg yifcv bo mbcoerlbc jcv cjerfj gfaegcfv joafg j ibcu jyrfcmf.
Dea Snjc mbeivc’a vlrmfgc lo atlr kjr j ubbv rluc. Gffq vbkc, tf vlvc’a kjca ab jvwla atja atlr ktbif atlcu ofia ojwliljg, jr lo atlr rfdefcmf bo fnfcar tjv jigfjvs gfqfjafv atberjcvr bo alwfr.
“Ugh…”
A small sound escaped Evan’s throat.
His body swayed, and dizziness forced him to involuntarily close his eyes. After spending some time regaining his composure, he noticed that everything returned to normal, as if the intense fear had been a product of his imagination.
Alister was still standing where he had been. He was very close to Evan. During their leisurely time together, his tall frame had regained its musculature, and the chest wound no longer bled.
Evan detected a faint scent of blood from him.
“Evan?” Alister spoke, his tone a mix of concern and unease.
“I once…” Evan gazed at the red-haired youth, his lips pressed together, “I once materialized a room in the starry sky with my imagination. It was… a house of fantasy, where I could obtain anything I wished for…”
Evan’s voice sounded dry and hoarse, as if his voice box had been treated with crude, molten metal.
“But, you know what? The strange thing is, no matter how I changed the furnishings in that room, there was always an ugly hook on the wall. That was my mentor’s… well, I guess I should call him my former mentor… he had a similar hook on the wall of his laboratory… I guess the fear that hook instilled in me was so deep that I couldn’t forget it. I believe my ‘room’ was constructed with that hook as its foundation – countless illusions built upon a small truth.”
Evan step after step towards Alister.
His fingers caressed the cold edge of the dagger, whose handle was no longer made of agate.
What he envisioned was a different knife — a dark, long blade said to cut even Bone Demons in half.
Cold and lethal.
Alister’s eyes widened in horror, and Evan’s deathly pale face reflected in his pupils.
“Evan…”
“Shhh,” Evan hushed him softly.
“Don’t move.”
He gently placed a hand on Alister’s chest, his movements appearing almost tender.
Alister, like countless times before, felt Evan’s pale, cold fingertips trembling slightly.
An unusual mix of fear, despair, and elation danced across his face, as if Evan had harvested his very soul.
When Evan commanded him not to move, Alister obediently froze in place, even though he had seen the long black knife in Evan’s hand.
This blade will be sharp… so sharp that it can cut through anything in the world, even a god’s flesh, Evan repeated in his mind.
He lifted his head, casting a cold gaze upon Alister, whose expression suddenly froze.
Shluk—
Evan felt as if he’d stabbed the dagger into a sturdy leather water bag.
The long knife in Evan’s hand that he had conjured from his imagination sliced through Alister’s body.
Somewhere in the distant void, a long, low hum resonated.
Alister’s upper body dropped to the ground with a muffled thud. Some blood oozed out, but not much. It was certainly much less than what a human ought to have.
But then again, no real human would possess a body like Alister’s.
Rustle…
Within the vivid red wound, countless tiny eyeballs aligned their pupils in Evan’s direction.
Alister… or rather, “His” body, was filled with herpes-like eyeballs, just as Evan had suspected.
A wicked grin curled the corners of Evan’s mouth as he emitted a piercing and prolonged cry, alternating between laughter and tears.
“I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it wasn’t real none of this is real you can’t change this part you damn well can’t this is where you came from this is the true you you lied to me you’ve been lying to me all this time—”
“Evan…”
Under Evan’s gaze, Alister’s facade began to crumble.
The grotesque things Evan had glimpsed before – human faces, worms, a confluence of various sinister entities – appeared before Evan.
And at the center of this abomination, two eyes stared intently at him.
Crazy, covetous, and insane.
Merely gazing into those eyes made Evan feel like he was losing his mind.
He raised the long knife in his hand high and slashed at the monstrosity frantically. Upon realizing that he was in the “room,” everything became effortless. He hardly recognized himself anymore.
Those eyes were crushed by him one after another, and a viscous fluid dripped from his fingers. He tore through the entity’s flabby, gel-like skin and flesh and grinded the bones and shell hidden within to dust. Dark liquid scattered throughout the room like rain or fog, and “His” projected shell began to collapse under Evan’s attacks, unable to resist.
Yet, despite all that, Evan couldn’t stop himself.
He felt as if he might genuinely be losing his mind.
He dismantled everything before him into ground flesh and fragments of bone, mixed in foul blood and plasma, but he remained gripped by fear…
My love.
“He” whispered to Evan through the illusory monster he’d created and Evan collapsed exhausted, sinking into the pool of blood on the ground.
He could sense “His” presence, lurking in the shadows beyond the starry sky, far grander than the entity Evan saw with his naked eyes.
“He” was more vast than anything. “He” was dimmer than the darkest of nights.
Accept me… acknowledge me… love me… be… with me…
“No…” Evan stuttered.
“Never—”
Then, summoning his last ounce of strength, he rushed toward the warehouse’s door. There was no longer a so-called magic array or magic lamp there, and the door seemed paper-thin and oddly crooked, like the entrance to some colossal worm cocoon.
Beyond that door, the grating and clawing sounds that had once terrorized Evan grew louder, grating on his ears.
But Evan didn’t hesitate.
He flung the door open.
Outside the door lay silence and darkness.
Evan stepped out.
You have no choice.
Was it an illusion?
Was it reality?
In that final moment prior to entering the darkness beyond, Evan heard a whisper from close by — so close that it felt like the speaker was right beside him.
