The room was the antithesis of the golden chamber before it—utterly black, as though the walls themselves devoured light and sound alike.

A round table stood at its center, vast and ancient, its surface carved with symbols that shifted and pulsed like something alive. Around it sat eight thrones, each occupied by a figure whose very being refused to stay constant.

Their forms bled and warped with every heartbeat—one moment elven grace, the next demonic horns, then human eyes or beastman claws. Shadows clung to them like a second skin, and even the air around their chairs seemed afraid to move.

The only light came from a screen embedded in the center of the table.

On it flickered a face young, handsome, and infuriatingly calm.

Short black hair, golden eyes that burned like twin suns.

Sebastian Nekros.

For a long time, no one spoke. The silence was not peace, it was reverence, it was fear, it was the pause before an unholy prayer.

Then a voice broke the quiet.

Distorted. Layered. Wrong.

It came from one of the eight, the shape of their face flickering between male and female, young and old.

"We've found it," the voice rasped, low and crackling through the dark. "A vessel worthy of housing the Forgotten Cardinal. One strong enough to endure the crossing."

The other figures stirred shifting, watching, silent.

The screen shimmered faintly, and for a brief, impossible instant, Sebastian's golden eyes seemed to flick upward as though he could see them through the divide.

The air grew heavier.

And then, without warning, the screen blinked out, leaving only the blackness, the table, and the whisper of unseen things moving in the dark.

The Order of Nowhere sat in silence once more.

But now, the silence felt like anticipation.

---

Life is a strange thing.

It breathes, it breaks, and it pretends to mean something.

Humans no, mortals love to pretend there's purpose in it. They talk about destiny, about reason, about divine balance, as if pain were some moral currency we pay to earn happiness. But pain doesn't make us pure.

It doesn't make us strong. It just reminds us that we're still here, that the heart is still beating, the mind still screaming, and the body still clinging to the illusion of control.

Suffering isn't a teacher. It's a mirror. It shows us what we are when the world stops pretending to be kind.

Some people learn to run from that reflection. Others learn to embrace it to find peace in the ache of their own scars.

Because maybe that's what life really is: not the pursuit of happiness, but the quiet acceptance of the knife's edge between agony and existence.

Maybe to live… is to hurt just enough to remember you're not dead yet.

And in that fragile balance, between breaking and breathing—humans call it living.

"You're probably wondering," I rasped, voice hoarse, broken by ragged breaths, "why I'm rambling all this philosophical bullshit."

My lips twitched upward into something that might've been a smile or maybe just a grimace twisted by pain.

"Well… It's because right now, I need bullshit. I need something to make sense of this. Because every nerve in my body feels like it's on fire. Every breath hurts more than the last. And yet—" I let out a dry, breathless laugh, "—it's the most alive I've felt in years."

I coughed, tasting blood. It burned as it slid down my throat, metallic and bitter, like punishment and memory rolled into one.

"Pain reminds you you're still here," I muttered. "That you haven't disappeared yet."

My head tilted back. The ceiling blurred, spinning. And in that dizzying moment between agony and unconsciousness, I couldn't help but laugh again. Low. Unsteady. Almost fond.

Because this pain had a story.

And it began with a single step forward.

---

The world fractured the instant I moved.

Faster than thought, faster than breath, Sacha's blade screamed through the air, a song of death and defiance. The Sixth Form – Sepulcher Wail ignited.

Black resonance rippled outward, the kind that tore at the edges of reality itself. The air turned heavy, thick with pressure, the arena trembling as the sound of annihilation devoured all else.

Across from me, Nora stood her ground. The Sol Aegis bloomed before her a radiant shield of light and fire, swirling like a miniature sun. The brilliance painted her in gold, but her expression remained cold, calm, untouchable.

Her hair, white as fresh snow, whipped in the storm. Her eyes icy blue, sharp enough to cut—stared through the maelstrom, unwavering. She looked divine, incandescent. And she was about to fall.

Light met death.

When our powers collided, the world screamed.

The shockwave turned stone to dust and flame to silence. The Colosseum's marble floor was ripped apart, erased by the storm. My lungs compressed under the sheer force, my heartbeat syncing with the chaos until I couldn't tell where I ended and destruction began.

White fire and black shadow twisted together in an endless spiral. Neither yielding. Neither fading. Just consuming.

And through it all… that song.

The song, one that felt like it followed death. Slow. Mournful. Ancient. A requiem that didn't mourn what was lost, it accepted it. Like it had seen this countless times before.

When the chaos finally broke, the world was nothing but ruin. Smoke and silence.

Two figures still stood amid the wreckage.

Two fools who refused to fall.

I felt the resistance first, her Sol Aegis holding firm against the Wail's hunger. The clash rippled through my arm, my spine, my soul. Every heartbeat pushed more of my life into the strike, every second screaming that I had gone too far.

And then, finally—

Crack.

The shield split down the center.

Light shattered like glass.

Sacha's blade, now little more than an echo of black flame, tore through what remained and struck Nora square in the chest.

The sound that followed wasn't the roar of victory, it was the whisper of tragedy.

Her body jerked back. The white of her hair caught the dying sunlight as blood burst from the wound, cascading down her front like a crimson river. Her knees buckled, her breath hitched, but she didn't scream. She just looked at me, those blue eyes flickering like fading frost.

And then I felt it, the backlash.

My heart lurched. My vision blurred. Every part of me that still worked began to unravel.

The Sixth Form. I had forced it. My body could barely handle the Fifth; hell, it would bring me to the edge of death. But this? This was suicide.

My muscles ruptured first. My right arm, my only working one, exploded in a mist of red. The shock ripped through my chest, my ribs snapping one by one like dry twigs. My bones shattered. My veins burned. I could feel my own blood searing through me like acid.

Every heartbeat was a scream.

Blood poured from my eyes, ears, and mouth. I could taste death, metallic and cold, creeping through my veins.

Still, I smiled.

Because for one perfect moment… I won.

Across from me, Nora stumbled. She clutched her chest, blood pooling at her feet, her light dimming. Even as she fell, she looked composed—like a goddess struck down but refusing to yield her grace.

We fell together.

Her body hit the ground first, soft and final. I followed a heartbeat later, Sacha's broken blade slipping from my fingers.

The song returned. That same ancient tune.

It hummed faintly through the air, a ghostly lullaby carrying over the ruins of our battle slow, sorrowful, eternal.

And as my vision dimmed, I thought, so this is what pain really means.

It wasn't suffering.

It was proof that I'd lived.

Then the world went dark.

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