Chapter 167: A Promise and a Curse

He had not said that he had drawn attention to himself, but to "us."

Before Ravian could delve deeper into the implication, the ancient voice responded. He understood none of it, but the incomplete crown shattered completely as the final note came to an end.

The purple threads snapped, and the distant worlds connected to the same crown vanished with them.

The form the entity had been attempting to construct above its head collapsed as though it had never existed.

Ravian raised an eyebrow.

’So this world wasn’t its only objective.’

Evernight Palace was merely one step along another path.

One failed step among others being laid elsewhere.

A scream tore from the very depths of the entity’s soul, shaking the foundations of the world as the space around them visibly fractured. It surged to its feet and reached for something in the air that Ravian could not see, but the colorless restraints tightened around it. Part of its arm tore apart and dissolved into mist before the entity could fully extend it.

"Noooo!" Its voice emerged with terrifying depth, filled with a hatred its smile could no longer conceal.

Ravian smiled at it despite the fear stirred within him by what he was witnessing.

"It seems I didn’t merely win your game," Ravian said as the cracks within the entity’s body widened. "You lost something as well... something it seems you will never be able to recover, no matter what you do."

The purple mist trembled more and more violently.

The entity could no longer wield the palace’s authority, and the laws no longer recognized its commands, but something remained within it that belonged to it alone rather than to this world.

It drove its fingers into its own chest, and they passed through as though forged from hardened steel.

The entity tore out a thin thread of its purple mist, and its body shuddered as though it had ripped away a piece of its own soul. It did not direct the thread toward Ravian as an attack, but instead allowed it to fall into the stream of light beginning to form in preparation to carry the victor away.

It was a strand woven into the course of the laws themselves—something Ravian did not understand and perhaps never would.

The restraining laws did not intervene to stop it. The attack was not lethal, nor was it a command issued to the Nightmare World.

The thread moved with the light, then appeared directly before Ravian without crossing the distance between them.

It pierced his chest, and Ravian’s body stiffened instantly as his consciousness was dragged away.

He felt no pain, only a deceptive warmth spreading through his soul. Then he saw a white room back on Earth and a bed he knew better than any other place.

His mother was sitting upon it.

The illness had not yet consumed her body, nor was she surrounded by hospital equipment. She smiled at him and extended her hand.

"Ryan."

Ravian’s soul froze like a statue.

She was there before him.

His mother—healthy and safe, with neither a barrier nor the soil of her grave separating them.

"Mom..." Ravian said in his spiritual form. Had this been his physical body, tears would have poured from his eyes the instant he saw her in perfect health.

Unfortunately...

Ravian knew immediately that the image was false.

No matter how flawless the illusion might be, no living being was capable of recreating his mother perfectly enough to make him truly believe it was her.

Absolute Focus shattered the illusion instantly, reducing the room to fragments, but the purple mist did not disappear with it. Instead, a tiny shard of what remained of the broken illusion sank into a deeper layer of his being and coiled around his soul like an alien thread he could not grasp.

Other images appeared.

Lysandra gazed at him with admiration.

’No, now you’re outright telling me you’re an illusion, you son of a bitch.’

The thought passed through Ravian’s still-unsteady mind.

Footprints appeared both behind and ahead of him, tracing a path only his own feet could have left. Cities and armies followed, bowing before a throne upon which he sat alone.

Ravian recognized every illusion without the slightest emotion, but he could not expel the source producing them.

It did not seem like a wound that could be healed. It was a contamination that had settled within his soul, carrying the entity’s trace even after its authority had collapsed.

Ravian looked toward the entity through the fractured images.

It was smiling now.

The entity had lost its world and whatever had awaited it beyond that world, but it had left its revenge embedded within the soul of the person responsible.

Before either of them could move again, Ravian’s consciousness returned to the main hall of Evernight Palace. Pale mist had already flooded the chamber so densely that it had become difficult to see clearly.

{The review of the final trial has been completed.}

{Congratulations to Participant Rayan, Correspondence Office Employee and holder of the Killer role, for clearing the final trial as the victor of the Nightmare World.}

{The player will leave as the sole winner and the participant who made the correct accusation.}

Mirai looked at the messages, then at Aldric. Both of them turned toward Ravian, and he did not miss the sadness in Mirai’s eyes.

They had remained alive until the very end, but that did not make them winners. The original condition permitted only the holder of the Killer role to leave once the number of participants had fallen to three.

Another line appeared.

{As the participant who made the correct accusation, the victor has been granted the right to determine the fate of the other surviving participants.}

{Will you permit Mirai and Aldric to leave the Nightmare World with you?}

{Yes/No}

Ravian did not need to think.

A promise was a promise.

"Yes."

The "No" option disappeared.

{Selected: Yes.}

{Participants Mirai and Aldric have been granted the right to leave the Nightmare World.}

{Return to the original bodies will now begin.}

Aldric’s eyes widened, while Mirai continued staring at Ravian as though seeing him for the first time.

The white mist had already begun coiling around their bodies, and the tips of her fingers were dissolving into motes of light. She tried to say something, but no words emerged.

Perhaps she wanted to ask why he had saved her when he no longer needed her.

Perhaps she wanted to know when he had realized that the final trial would grant him the right to choose. Or perhaps she had intended to say something else entirely.

The world did not give her the opportunity to ask.

Ravian watched as her form gradually vanished before him like a mirage. As the Nightmare World collapsed around them, he gave her the most beautiful smile she had ever seen on his face. It held no mockery, no threat, and none of the cold madness that had terrified the participants throughout the past several days.

It was the smile of someone who had kept his promise.

"Didn’t I promise you and tell you to trust me, Mirai?"

The light swallowed half his body.

"My word is a sword at my own throat."

Then Ravian, Mirai, and Aldric vanished together, leaving the entity alone to be devoured by the laws amid its collapsing world.

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Note:

Volume Four: The Nightmare — Complete

Next Volume: Volume Five — The Golden Scriptures

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