A good man, huh?
Two simple words.
But in my case, it's... not so simple.
Not really.
I'm not a good man—not in the traditional sense.
Maybe I'm a selectively good person—kind to a few, a curse to the rest.
And I know the difference. I see it in the wreckage I leave behind.
Rartar.
Lav.
If anyone deserved better from me, it was them.
Without Rartar's approval, Sia would've never been able to adopt me. It was his word—his silent nod-that carved out a place in this world for an abandoned, useless brat like me. A safe haven. A roof. A family.
And how did I repay him?
...I don't even want to start on that.
Because I know. I know the kind of person I am and the strings I've pulled.
I destroy good things. I rot the hands that reach out to help me.
Even someone like Goodman, who might be ten kinds of bastard—even he doesn't deserve the things I've done to people who only had good intentions toward me.
Probably.
'And who the hell are you to call him vile?'
The voice came from somewhere inside, slithering like cold metal against bone. It wasn't loud, but it pierced. A whisper in my soul. A scalpel to the chest.
My heartbeat twisted. My spine pulsed with involuntary shivers.
And Forza noticed.
She didn't say anything, but I could tell she felt it.
The tremor.
The silence.
The guilt that leaked off me like blood from a fresh wound. A wound that was barely healed enough. Her kindness reminded me of Rartar and Lav.
I still remember the last conversation I had with Rartar.
Brief. Sharp. Rushed.
"Once I'm done with this mission," he had said, eyes already distant, "I'll retire. I'll give Sia the life she deserves."
He said it like a promise.
Like a vow.
Had Sia known that? She would've never let me get close. Not even in a thousand lifetimes.
Not even after the letters she sent kept coming back unopened.
Not after the silences.
The growing void that became their marriage.
Because of Sia, that promise was never made... And I ensured she never finds out.
And to Rartar, it was made too late. Too fucking late for his own good.
And Lav?
Don't even get me started.
He's the only one who calls me brother. The only one who believed in me blindly, without question. His loyalty? Unshakable. His kindness? Stupidly unconditional.
And the thing I did?
No brother would even think of it—not in his worst, filthiest dreams.
Yet here I am.
Living.
Breathing.
Existing.
Like it didn't happen.
Even now, even with the Wraiths looming and the world unravelling at the seams…
These memories—these sins—they creep back in.
Small.
Petty.
Less relevant, maybe.
But they sit heavy on my mind like anchors dragging through my soul.
And I deserve it.
Every ounce of this regret. Every spike of guilt.
'Lav is good. Too good. Kind to people who don't deserve his warmth, especially to ungrateful bastards like you.'
Another whisper.
Same voice.
And it felt mine.
And not mine.
Like something inside me was trying to wake up.
To make itself known.
It wasn't just self-hatred.
It wasn't just guilt.
It was… presence.
Something other, something, I, Lucius, agree with.
***
"Then it happened... on a day I will always dread.
The fourteenth of September."
Her voice trembled.
"The day my baby brother... lost his life."
"…"
"I still remember that day like it was yesterday. He was smiling... talking more than usual. Just being himself.
It was a relief, honestly. After all those nights, those horrible nightmares he kept having. The ones he could barely describe, just… fragments of terror, voices, shadows.
You might've experienced them once or twice in your life... the kind of dreams that leave a mark even after you wake up."
I didn't know if she expected an answer. Or if she was just… releasing.
But either way, I said nothing. I couldn't.
I've never truly dreamt—not like normal people.
Not once, though I constantly daydream about my past and regrets, if that sounds familiar.
The only thing that resembled a dream was after my battle with that Wraith.
But I know that wasn't a dream. That was me dying—slipping into the void from the brain trauma, injury that almost split opened my brain—until Ninia somehow stitched my mind back together overnight.
Still, I gave her a small nod. One I hoped showed understanding, if not shared experience.
Her gaze locked onto mine—heavy, unblinking.
"Cris... he kept talking about the voices. The pain. The confusion.
I tried, Lucius. I did everything.
We saw healers. Doctors. Even the so-called 'experts.'
All of them... worthless. Glorified, useless trash in white coats.
And I saw it—too late.
Meanwhile, Cris was slipping. Night by night.
The sleeplessness gnawed at him. The overthinking. The self-doubt.
He was afraid of what was happening inside his own mind.
And I didn't have a clue how to save him."
She paused. Her breath hitched as if her throat was tightening with every word.
I let her continue—held her hand tighter but said nothing.
"Our parents... they tried too, but it wasn't enough. Not really. Especially after I forced them to cancel all his training and those mindless 'social events' they kept dragging him to.
That bought him a little peace, I think. But even then… I had the feeling he was lying to me. Just to stop me from worrying."
Her expression hardened—nostalgia giving way to frustration.
"Eventually, Mr. Roid—our steward—and his wife, my nanny, told us about a mind specialist. A woman.
One of the best in the field.
Her achievements were widely recognised. Her work, groundbreaking.
But... our parents? Refused to even consider it."
She turned to me slowly, eyes glinting with something bitter.
"Can you guess why?"
I didn't answer.
But the thought crawled into my mind immediately.
She must've been a commoner.
Or worse… an Nmana.
"She was an Nmana," Forza confirmed, her voice low but sharp. "The kind of person nobles wouldn't even spit on unless ordered. The dirt under our boots had more worth in their eyes."
She looked away. "I regretted telling them about her. But I still went. I had to."
A soft silence fell, broken only by the rhythm of the storm outside.
"She was kind. Professional. Brilliant. But she couldn't help us either.
And she told us why.
Cris's condition… it wasn't just mental. It wasn't something that she, or any regular expert, could handle.
It was tied to his elemental affinity."
I blinked. My thoughts stilled.
"She said it was beyond her reach—not because she wasn't capable—but because she wasn't qualified to touch that world. You don't expect a Nmana to specialise in elemental resonance, of all things."
There was no judgment in her tone. Just the bitter truth.
"But even so… she gave us something the others didn't. Something we never even thought to ask for."
Her voice dropped—almost reverent.
"She gave us clarity.
A diagnosis.
An answer.
And a direction—one we desperately needed."
"The elemental affinity we inherit... It's tied to our mana core and brain. That's basic knowledge—taught to kids before they even learn to wield a blade.
But according to her… the woman I mentioned… our affinities also have a deeper, more elusive connection. Not just with our minds—but with our souls."
She paused. The words lingered in the storm-washed air between us.
"The soul part… It's still mostly theory, sure. But it's widely accepted by now.
The mind, though? That's where things get complicated. Scholars still argue over it, even though the evidence is right there, as obvious as the sun and moon in the sky."
She exhaled, voice thinning.
"That same connection… it was reacting negatively inside Cris.
It wasn't just his mana causing problems—it was his affinity. Something about it was triggering an adverse response in his brain.
That's what led to the nightmares. The hallucinations. The insomnia. The flashes of pain.
His mind was under siege. And with the constant training…"
She broke off—her voice catching mid-thought.
That's when I noticed it. The silent tears, rolling freely now, breaking past every wall she'd held in place.
I said nothing. Didn't need to.
I understood.
She didn't have to relive the moment of his death with words.
I'm curious by nature. But not cruel.
Not heartless.
And I knew—knew—what happened.
Cris didn't stop his training. He couldn't, wasn't able to, perhaps allowed to. Whether it was pride, duty, or the need to meet the standards expected of him as a noble child and as the unofficial heir of the Walkins, he pushed on.
All the symptoms she listed—they all pointed to a single source of collapse: his brain.
The sleeplessness meant his mind had no time to recover... Even the overexploited knights, the battleknights and the Aerial knights in particular, even their most basic training regulations enforced a minimum of eight hours' rest.
For those with elemental affinity? It was nine. Minimum. No exceptions.
But Cris? He was barely getting any. And when he did sleep, the nightmares tore through whatever little recovery he might've had. Add the mental strain, the stress, the pressure of responsibilities he'd taken on for Forza's sake, the expectations of being a noble heir…
His mind broke.
It just… gave out, somehow.
And here she sat—his sister, his protector—crying like a child in my arms, trying her hardest to keep her voice steady, to suppress the sobs racking through her chest in fits and shivers.
And all I could do was hold her, unable to even offer the slightest of warmth against this cursed storm that for sure has dropped the temperature...
Even my touch—my supposed comfort—felt half-hearted. Not because I didn't care, but because it simply wasn't enough.
How much pain had she buried inside?
How much of it did she carry… without ever letting it show?
I found myself comparing her suffering to mine.
And truth be told… mine didn't even come close.
Losing an eye? A fragment of my perception?
Sure, it's tough, difficult to accept and adapt.
But me personally? I've always had someone.
Even at my lowest, when the world almost collapsed and I nearly broke, I had people standing behind me. Sia and Sara, like unshakable pillars. Lav, the roof that never once let the storm in. Even Mercy and Edward, and Arcane—the mighty, distant sun I orbit without understanding.
Forza?
She had no one.
No one to hold her hand when her own nightmares got too loud.
No one to scream for her when her voice failed.
No one to sit, to stay, to listen, to cuddle beside her...
Just silence, loneliness and emptiness... As if they're a mixture, not separate painful entities.
And now, years later, here she was. Sitting beside me, soaked to the bone, tears blending with the rain. Finally letting someone see, move in, allowing another being inside that unbreachable circle of hers.
And gods… I was glad it was me...
"…Shush now. I'm here, yeah? You don't have to worry about a thing anymore—"
'Evade.'
…What?
That voice.
It cut through my head like a blade.
"LOOK OUT!"
Forza's scream exploded in my ear like a war cry.
Before I could process a damn thing—before instinct, logic, or thought could even spark—she shoved me hard, violently, with the full force of someone holding an SS-rank title. I flew sideways, my shoulder scraping hard against the soaked dirt as my eye widened, heart hammering out a confused rhythm in my chest.
Then—
ZUPP.
A flash.
A faint, blindingly fast streak of light—thin, brilliant, and impossibly precise—tore through the air like a ghost blade.
My vision froze on it, even as I was flung away. Just a sliver of time—less than a second—but enough to realise:
Mana arc.
No. Not mana.
Something worse.
It zipped between us, slicing the space we occupied a heartbeat ago. So fast it seemed unreal. It wasn't until it was past us that the sound caught up—a thunderous boom that shattered the silence, like the very sky cracked open.
The arc collided with the tree we'd been resting under—the one shielding us from the worst of the storm.
It didn't survive.
With a sound like the world tearing in half, the entire trunk detonated into a shower of splinters—tens of thousands of shards, some no bigger than splinters, others large enough to crush bones.
I should've been watching the chaos around me. But I wasn't.
My eye locked onto a single memory—
That streak. That light. That devastating precision.
Too slick.
Too quick.
Too violent.
It hit before its sound even reached us.
It outran its own thunder.
My breath caught. My chest tightened.
Lightning.
It wasn't just a mana arc—
That was a lightning arc.
Amongst the thousands of splinters flying like jagged shards through the air, my cloak—that cloak—was incinerated right in front of my eyes.
A gift from Arcane himself.
Gone.
Burned to ash by a silent, precise strike meant to end our lives.
I gritted my teeth, burying the anger as I forced my mana outward. I didn't have time for such trivial, mere emotions—not now. Drawing in everything around me and within me, I empowered my expanded sensing range. Two hundred meters. No more. I had to contain it, sharpen it, turn it into a focused blade instead of a wild storm.
And still—nothing.
The attacker… he or she was close. Too close for comfort. Too close for either of us to have sensed them beforehand.
How?
Forza moved before I could.
A surge of mana radiated from her—dense, volatile, overwhelming. Not just raw mana… but wind mana, controlled and precise, beginning to spiral around her like a vortex. I felt it pile up in waves, at least three times what I could handle without relying on telekinesis. The storm wrapped around her like a second skin as the wind howled and parted.
And then—manifestation.
Her wings erupted into existence. Massive. Divine. Ethereal. Feathered arcs of power spread wide like those of an angel descending for judgment. A sleek, translucent armour followed—wind-forged, glinting like living glass. It reminded me of Ronith's summoned armour—refined, regal, and far more intimidating up close.
"She's a manifestor as well." The realisation clicked in the back of my mind.
Then she was gone.
With a single flap, she soared upward, slicing through the thick fog and into the endless, grey-tinted skies. Several lightning arcs followed, trailing after her like guided retribution, but she dodged with ease, fading into the clouds above, vanishing like a spirit of wind.
As for me, I didn't wait around.
Airborne—opposite direction. I let gravity tug me toward the swampy floor below before correcting myself. With a pulse of telekinesis, I realigned my body mid-air. My feet, previously upside down, snapped below me in perfect balance. I spotted a thick, still-floating log—the splintered remains of the obliterated tree.
I pushed off it with full force.
Toward the second tree.
The "weird-looking" one. The same one Forza had pointed out earlier.
But then, my instincts screamed. That same twisted mana signature again.
Another spell. Similar pace. Same direction.
They were tracking me.
I was close—just meters away from reaching cover.
I summoned Snowhite mid-air, letting it snap into my hand with a flash of silver. My grip was instant. I brought the blade forward and used it not just to deflect the incoming arc, but to pivot, spinning through the air and angling myself toward the tree's cover.
I miscalculated.
The arc wasn't just fast.
It was brutal.
The moment Snowhite made contact, the spell detonated—its destructive momentum blowing through my guard like a warhammer through parchment. The impact hurled me backwards, my body ragdolling through the air before it was buried deep into one of the shattered logs.
CRACK.
The log split open as I crashed into it, wood exploding outward. My ribs felt the force. My back screamed. But I didn't lose consciousness, not for a single moment.
Not now.
Not when someone out there was trying to end us.
Whoever this bastard was… they knew how to hide, how to strike, and they didn't miss.
My back was glued to the log—what remained of it anyway.
It had absorbed the full force of my impact, splintering with the weight I'd brought crashing down. My body ached, but nothing felt broken—just battered, bruised, stretched thin by the violence of a spell that wasn't meant to be dodged.
My vision… it felt split.
Which, in a way, it already was.
One side: pure darkness, that familiar void where my missing eye once provided clarity.
The other: blurred, distorted in a haze of grey fog, washed out by the thick mist and the ash-coated winds that now made up our battlefield. The world tilted sideways. My breath came in shallow but rhythmic waves, syncing up with the steadying pulse of my heart.
Mana coursed through me.
Gentle. Warm. A soft current coiled through my spine, slowly easing the pressure along my back. It wasn't deep healing, but it was enough—just enough to get moving.
My heartbeat had been frantic, chaotic… now, it was steady again. In sync with my breathing. That earlier moment of panic, of confusion and helplessness… it was fading.
I had lost my calm, just for a heartbeat.
And I was grateful that's all I'd lost.
Slowly, I pushed myself forward, peeling my body from the crushed log as if glue had bound us together. Bark crumbled off my back, flakes of sap clinging to my cloakless frame.
No sounds.
No signals.
Nothing.
My senses hadn't picked up a single thing since the last strike, and I didn't mind that silence. Not really.
If anything, it told me one thing: the bastard was good at stealth. Too good.
But stealth… came at a cost. If you excelled at hiding, chances were you lacked somewhere else. That's how balance worked.
Usually.
But Lightning? Lightning changed everything.
It didn't follow the usual rules.
It rewrote them.
In a blink, it could shift the fight from life to death, without time for reaction, for retaliation. I knew that. Which is why I couldn't afford to hesitate again.
I glanced up.
The storm had gotten worse.
Wind howled overhead, twisting the clouds into violent spirals. Forza was up there—somewhere. I could feel it. Couldn't sense her, couldn't see her, but I knew.
She was still fighting against her own thoughts, memories, I think.
Still searching, navigating while trying to focus on the upcoming battle simultaneously.
I turned my gaze downward, scanning the warped branches below.
And that's when I saw it.
A subtle shift—just beneath me.
The swamps. Thick. Brownish. Muddied from the storm's embrace.
But one spot was… darker.
Slightly off. Not just in shade, but in texture. In movement.
It slithered slowly, concealed expertly beneath the thick surface sludge. If I hadn't been looking for anything, I might've missed it. But now?
Now I was locked on.
That was no common beast.
That was something else.
And the mana… The mana radiating from that spot?
Unreal. Condensed. Dangerous. Suffocating in pressure despite its submerged nature.
The figure—or whatever it was—halted just a few meters ahead of me. Beneath the water. Motionless. Waiting.
I stood on the thick branch that had caught me, braced, ready. Snowhite, humming lightfully.
I didn't move.
Not yet.
Neither did my enemy.
Only the swamp churned, slowly, around that impossibly dark spot beneath the surface, like it was holding its breath, waiting for someone to blink first.