The forest that bordered the field still breathed faintly of mist — a thinning, ghost-grey veil clinging to the roots and hollow trunks.
The air carried a weight of rot and the smell of wet bark mixed with the metallic tang of blood.
Grass bowed under the weight of morning dew and gore alike, glimmering like fractured glass beneath the pale light that filtered through a torn canopy.
The wind moved only in shallow whispers, brushing against the corpses strewn across the clearing — stirring stray threads of torn cloth, broken blades half-swallowed by mud.
Two men remained.
Wolf and Hyung-woo.
Wolf rose from where he had crouched, the wakizashi's point still damp and gleaming in the pale sun. He took a small, deliberate breath and let it out as though framing a sentence.
He stepped forward in a casual arc, closing the distance to Hyung-woo with the unhurried gait of someone who has decided the shape of what comes next. Up close the man who called himself Hyung-woo looked less mythic and more like a man who had been carved into rage and nerves — eyes hard, jaw clenched, a map of small scars across the knuckles.
"The whole year. That. Is the amount of time I have spent with him."
Wolf's lips curled in a slight, almost invisible sneer, the sound carrying a complex mix of annoyance and grudging respect.
"You know I know him well," Wolf continued, slowing until he crouched so their eyes were level. His face was almost soft as he spoke of Klion, but there was a blade under the softness.
"Klion. He is indeed a coward. He knows he was used. He knew he was a cog; still he moved forward. He never had followers in the true sense, yet he pulled a group and kept it together. He kept his cover and the people believed — or wanted to. That takes a kind of bravery too, don't you think? A stubbornness to survive within the lie."
Then his expression shifted; the smile thinned and sharpened.
His voice hardened, a dangerous edge creeping into the low tone.
"In the last months he tried to press me, to get me under his control. Brave or paranoid — I can't tell which. Maybe both. That's some kind of bravery! Or perhaps it's just that his paranoia overwhelmed him, or he really convinced himself that we are... friends."
"Hm..." he breathed out, a sound that was less a question and more a challenge.
"Do you know which one is it?"
Hyung-woo didn't flinch, though a muscle twitched almost imperceptibly in his jaw. His voice was rough, barely above a whisper, yet firm.
"Don't you already know the reason?"
Wolf paused, the silence stretching tautly between them and the pounding in Hyung-woo's ears. His expression shifted.
He lowered himself until his face was mere inches from Hyung-woo's, his breath cool against the man's skin.
"Heh..." Wolf groaned, a low, guttural sound in the back of his throat, but he didn't elaborate. He slowly straightened up, his eyes momentarily flicking upwards to the clear sky.
Then he looked back down, his gaze settling on Hyung-woo once more.
Wolf leaned in, the angle of his shoulders narrowing like the muzzle of a gun. His eyes, almost black now with the day's work, bored into Hyung-woo.
"Let's talk about you then,"
Wolf said, his voice now taking on a lighter, almost conversational, yet dangerously curious tone, like a scientist examining a strange specimen.
"How many times have you regressed? Returned? What do you call it for yourself — regress, return, loop? What is the word you use?"
Mid-sentence, Hyung-woo's head snapped up.
His eyes, initially clouded with fatigue and pain, now met Wolf's gaze.
They were clear, unwavering, and utterly defiant, without the slightest tremor of fear.
Wolf stared at him deeply, perhaps even looking past the surface—searching for cracks, for an echo of past memories, a clue to the countless lives Hyung-woo might have lived.
Hyung-woo's mouth tightened.
"I'm not answering your questions," he said. His voice was dry, clipped — not defiance so much as a refusal hardened into glass.
Wolf's lips made a soft, almost admiring sound.
Persistent, he thought, conceding the point in a way that might have been fondness in another life. He let the moment stretch, then rose and pivoted toward the ruined bodies as if revealing an exhibit.
"Look at them," he said, sweeping a hand across the field of fallen.
The movement was theatrical — a conductor presenting his orchestra.
"What is their fate in their first life?"
For a long beat Hyung-woo only looked at the corpses, the gunsmear of blood, the faces half-turned to sky like drowned things.
Hyung-woo's stare hardened; he held it on Wolf a long time, calculating, the ghost of many sleepless hours behind his eyes.
Finally, very slowly, the taut shoulders sagged a fraction and he let out a long, raw sigh.
Hyung-woo's voice broke the silence—hoarse, strained, but carrying the weight of countless lifetimes."They never survived," he said quietly, almost muttering at first.
His head tilted slightly, eyes dull yet firm, as if he was confessing to something both obvious and damning.
"You always kill them. That's why I tried to stop you."
Wolf blinked. The suddenness of the answer struck him—not just the words, but the weary resignation behind them.
For a moment, his breath hitched, his chest rising and falling unevenly.
He stared deeply at Hyung-woo, as though searching through the cracks in his face for meaning, for deceit, for something that might make it easier to understand.
"So you're just waiting to die… and start it all over again? Hm?" Wolf's voice trembled—not with fear, but a strange fascination, like a man peering into a mirror that reflected not his face, but the shape of his sins.
"...Haha." He chuckled, then louder, "Hahaha—!"
But then he stopped.The laugh froze in his throat.
His expression hardened mid-breath. His eyes, half-lidded in disbelief, locked on Hyung-woo and did not move.
It was as if his thoughts had sunk into a void—his mind slipping beneath a dark current where words could not reach.
"...Hey!"
A voice pierced through the fog of stillness.
A hand touched his shoulder—warm, firm, snapping him back to the present.
Wolf flinched, blinking rapidly, and turned.
Lamentia stood beside him, faintly smiling, her expression unreadable beneath the smudge of dirt and the flicker of faint ether around her fingertips.
"Oh?"
Wolf tilted his head, his tone light, teasing—almost playful.
"When I looked at the field earlier, you were gone. I was starting to wonder where you ran off to."
Lamentia laughed—a short, silvery laugh, but dry.Then she pointed casually at Hyung-woo's motionless body and said,
"If you wanna search him, then just kill him."
Wolf blinked, his brow furrowing. His head jerked slightly, his mouth parting in visible confusion."What?" His voice cracked with disbelief, almost a scoff.
Lamentia gave him a sly smirk, her eyes narrowing with a knowing glint.
"Yeah. Your teacher has her own secret, alright? Let's just kill him and I'll do my thing."
"Uh…" Wolf hesitated, tilting his head back slightly as if trying to read her tone. His face twisted into half a grimace, half a grin. "Are you sure?"
"Of course!" she said cheerfully, though her voice carried a strain beneath the false brightness.
"So what are you waiting for, my dear disciple?"
Wolf sighed—a long, quiet exhale through his nose. His shoulders relaxed, but his eyes didn't.
She's serious…? Or she's bluffing?
His gaze flickered once toward Hyung-woo, then back to her, then down to his own saber.
"Alright," he muttered inwardly.
He adjusted his grip on the hilt—slowly curling his fingers tighter around it until the leather creaked.
He stepped forward, boots scraping against blood-soaked earth. The scent of iron and ash pressed into his lungs.
Hyung-woo stood—or rather, swayed slightly—his eyes unfocused, his breath shallow.
Yet even now, at the edge of death, the man refused to speak, refused to flinch.
His stare was empty, and in that emptiness Wolf saw something frighteningly pure—resolve.
Wolf let out a shaky breath, his mouth twitching into something between a smirk and a grimace.Even now… still like that, huh? You really are something.
He raised the saber.
The air around the blade shimmered faintly with residual ether, its edge catching the faint reflection of the crimson-stained field.
He exhaled one last time—slowly.
Then thrust.
The steel pierced through Hyung-woo's throat.
A faint shudder ran through the man's body, his knees buckled, and he collapsed soundlessly onto the mud. Blood pooled around his neck in a widening circle.
Wolf stood over him, the saber still in his hand, his chest rising and falling in silence.The familiar chime of the system notification flickered across his vision—bright, hollow, irrelevant. He dismissed it with a flick of thought.
There were more important things now.
He turned toward Lamentia."Alright," he said, voice rough but steady. "Do it."
Lamentia's expression softened for the briefest moment—somewhere between pity and focus.
She glanced at Hyung-woo's corpse, then back to Wolf, and nodded.
"Hold my hand tight," she said, her tone suddenly sharp, commanding.Wolf obeyed, gripping her hand firmly. Her other hand extended toward Hyung-woo's head, fingers trembling with a faint, pulsating light.
Her lips moved—quietly at first, then stronger, her voice threading through the air like silk pulled taut.
"Void and Silence, yield your claim.The Flow within me, I command it now.Mind is gone, but the Echo remains.Tear the Veil! The Past is mine to see!...Enter!"
The last word cracked like thunder.
Ether exploded outward, then collapsed inward violently—compressing into Hyung-woo's corpse like a tide pulled by an unseen moon. The air distorted, rippling around them. The very light bent, thickened, twisting as if the world itself had turned into syrup.
And then—sound vanished.
Not quiet. Gone.
Even their breathing—gone. The world had been swallowed whole.Wolf felt as though he were being flattened, then stretched, his mind torn from its anchor. The pull was immense, not physical but absolute.
Then—silence.
He opened his eyes.
He was floating.
Around him stretched an endless expanse of pale gray—a sky and ground indistinguishable, light without source or direction. Yet within that nothingness, colossal shapes drifted: corridors made of mist, archways of thought, fragments of memory that shimmered like glass.
Some appeared as long hallways lined with countless doors—each one humming faintly.
Others took form as vast libraries, with books suspended in the air, their pages turning on their own, ink flowing backward.
The dimension pulsed faintly, alive but wordless.
The only sound was the echo of their own thoughts—like whispers bouncing through the marrow.
Wolf froze in place, eyes wide, breath caught.
He could only stare.
What… is this?
Lamentia tightened her grip around his hand suddenly, grounding him. Her voice came low but firm, reverberating strangely in the void.
"Don't let go of my hand. I'm the one who cast the spell—if you lose contact, you'll lose your link to me."
Wolf glanced down at their joined hands—hers glowing faintly blue, his own fingers outlined by a faint red shimmer.
He nodded, still half-entranced.
"If I let go," she continued, "you might be trapped here. Forever."
He looked around again—awed, almost childlike for a brief moment. His voice came out a hushed murmur, half fascination, half disbelief."What… is this place?"
Lamentia chuckled softly, though her eyes darted warily through the drifting shapes.
"Can't you see? Just think of it as… a place of memory."
She smirked, tugging his hand lightly before turning toward the enormous library that loomed in the distance—its shelves spiraling infinitely upward.
"Well then," she said, her voice gaining a playful edge again, "let's explore his memories, shall we?"
Then, laughing softly, she pulled him forward and broke into a run, leading him toward the library—her hair scattering faint trails of ether light in the gray void as Wolf followed close behind.