The Villain's Story

[Struggling to answer?]

Alan remained silent, contemplating his thoughts and waiting for a reply.

[Your thoughts, muddled, are they not?]

Kulak said as he circled Alan. The boy began to feel a headache after those words were mentioned.

[How pitiful. Perhaps both you and I need help?]

“What are you talking about?”

Alan asked, unable to put up with the situation. The splitting headache urged him to do something.

[Just a sulking son who was sad that his mother tried to hide.]

“How am I pitiful?”

Alan asked him, confused.

[Because you do not know what you even are.]

Alan turned to face him, locking eyes with the Supreme of Shadows. Two bright moons against two blue diamonds.

“Then tell me?”

Kulak chuckled. He melted into the void and appeared behind Alan, placing his hands on his shoulders as the void changed. The shadows that composed it rose and formed a board in the air.

The shadows twisted and turned until they formed a scene Alan was familiar with, that of two people sitting at the edge of a cliff looking into a sea of stars. In this case, however, it was a dark sea with nothing.

“…”

It was his encounter with the First Shadow, his own shadow as he believed, in the form of a child gazing into the sea

The shadows quickly changed, replicating his encounter with the Second Shadow, James’s shadow… and the entire battle with the Third.

It was… unpleasant, seeing his own being reduced to nothing but his heart from a single dragon breath. However, his eyes caught something else, a mass of shadows forming a solid structure around what appeared to be his crumbling heart.

Was it his regeneration? No, whatever it was withstood the beam. He had thought his heart was durable enough to endure the breath once or twice… so what was that exactly? What strange thing had enveloped his heart as his body was eviscerated, protecting him from that deadly beam.

“What is that?”

He asked, unable to contain the curiosity, the Lord of Shadows promptly replied.

[Help from my dear sister and mother.]

‘From Lanesha and Ariel?’

He would have to thank the two, but before he could do that. He had to ask something.

“What am I?”

A dragon? A puppet? Or a substitute soul that had managed to gain sentience? A mere replacement for James’s crumbling soul, like a character he was controlling?

If Kulak was pitying him for not knowing what he was… He should have some idea, no?

The Lord of Shadows raised both arms in the air and shook his head.

[How would I know?]

‘…’

Alan’s brows furrowed, and his grip tightened, but he reeled it in, aware he was nothing to the Supreme being. He almost had his hopes up.

‘Why did I even ask?’

He should just get the approval of the Lord of Shadows and complete the trial.

[You’re a kid who doesn’t know what he is doing. You’re a Kid who hides what he really wants to do, gaze into a sea of stars, and enjoy the tranquility…]

Kulak disappeared; his voice echoed throughout the empty void. He reappeared soon after, taking a seat on his throne.

[You’re a kid that thinks that everything he does, everything he thinks about, and avoids is all going the way someone else wants him to do, which might be true… but the kid worries about it far too much.]

“What are you hinting at?”

The Warden smiled and continued.

[You’re a kid who’s afraid that no matter what you do, the outcome will always be the same. A pawn of the abyss. But do you know something, Alan Peccator?]

The Warden locked eyes with him and muttered in a low tone.

[Lapsus, Fatipu, and Dominatus.]

He muttered three names, one of which Alan recognized. All in the language of dragons, the esteemed Dragon Tongue.

[You’ve already made that body your own.]

“What do you mean?”

[You have made that vessel your own, through your unique skill.]

The Lord of Shadows took a deep breath, a vague attempt at imitating a normal person, perhaps to get closer to Alan.

[Lapsus, the power to cut the threads of Fate from its magnificent weave.]

Aranus’s unique skill, the one that made the Abyss cherish him so much, the one skill that made him… suffer. The unique power to interfere with fate and rip it out. To make even Fate forget your existence.

Everything about you, gone.

Kulak had a twisted expression on his face as he talked about Lapsus, and Alan could feel his grip on the golden crystal strengthen. The Lord of Shadows… was straining himself, for what, Alan did not know.

[Fatipu, The unique skill that Serpent possessed, that which allowed him to understand the weave of fate, to see that which cannot be seen, to feel that which cannot be felt. A curse, normally… but a blessing for someone like him.]

It was his first time hearing about that one. The epithet ‘Serpent’ was for James, and Alan finally knew what that man’s unique skill was. Fatipu, which directly translates into ‘He who could read fate’ in Dragon tongue.

[Each a unique skill among unique skills, Lapsus was possessed only by Aranus, but Fatipu had appeared before; however, almost all of its users went insane, but that man.]

Amidst all that scorn, there was a sort of admiration behind his words, as if the Warden was truly impressed with what James had done.

[And the last, but not least. A skill like Lapsus, never heard of in history, manifested in a substitute soul, which allowed him to slowly gain independence, which granted him free will.

You were not created, Alan Peccator. You’re being to come into existence by itself, something that even the Serpent didn’t plan, but he did use it to his full advantage.

Dominatus, to dominate everything. A skill manifested in a substitute soul, one wrapped in mystery, that only you can unveil.]

He looked into Alan’s eyes, but Alan knew he was looking at something beyond his eyes.

[A skill, that overtook both Lapsus and Fatipu, that overrode the control of the Serpent over the Substitute soul and even the damn contract that bound that vessel to the Abyss, eventually giving birth to you.

Alan Peccator.]