"ACK!!!"
Quân cried out, trapped directly at the entrance doorway.
Hundreds of threadlike strands continuously surged from his ears, mouth, and eyes, binding him tightly against the wall.
"MMFF!!"
Quân roared, yet his tongue was quickly restrained, leaving him helplessly encased in a cocoon.
His heart pounded incessantly, tears brimming and spilling over to dissolve into the surrounding space, like a faint, misty vapor of reality.
Quân stared wide eyed at the figure bearing his own likeness who was steadily approaching.
BOOM!
An axe emerging from the void buried itself straight into Quân's neck. His eyes rolled back, turning stark white as life left him.
'I...'
That was the sole word he could recall...
"So that is all?"
The false Lunas, or rather Kale, walked up behind Quân, casually placing an arm around his shoulder as if in mock intimacy.
"Not yet."
"?"
The silver haired Quân brushed the arm off, stepping up to Quân's cocooned body.
The dark cocoons were now soaked in crimson blood, seemingly compressing the corpse of the deceased.
"He has only died in the physical sense; the psychological aspect remains the crucial core."
Quân spoke with a severe expression, a fleeting look of boredom passing through his eyes.
"So get on with it."
"Do what?"
Kale asked, seemingly uninterested in the answer.
"Your Black Tide of Knowledge, unleash it. Allow me to breach his consciousness, his dream world. Otherwise he will still remain there. Only when he is slain within can the mark of death truly be engraved upon his psychological self."
"?"
Kale, currently wearing Lunas's face, froze, caught somewhat off guard.
"Oh, surprising..."
"Living in the underground world, one is bound to go insane sooner or later, or face torture under interrogation. Thus, Ron's disciples used self hypnosis so that, in a desperate plight, a distinct alternate personality would awaken. And because that personality was far too hollow, you overwritten them."
"Dissociative identity disorder... How did you?"
Kale paused, yet regardless of what the truth was, he chose not to press further. Knowing too much takes away the fun, does it not?
He gently raised his finger, from which a cold, dense aura began to radiate.
That aura rapidly solidified due to its sheer density, forming thousands of threadlike strings that encircled the space.
Space itself seemed to harden yet soften, like coarse fabric weave.
It resembled Kale's outer robe, like a fabric sheet of the macro reality.
Those black threads intertwined, constructing a veil of reality.
Pitter patter...
Pitter patter...
The sound of rain falling from the void gradually filled the air.
It drowned out the sound of Quân's voice.
It drowned out even the sound of flowing blood.
"We will live," Quân said to Kale.
Regardless of everything, he would live.
A new layer of reality was being constructed, weaving together thread by thread.
Quân felt reality tremble, yet he paid it little mind. After the one hundred and thirteenth time, he had stopped bothering to keep count.
Everything simply drifted past since those days.
"I will claim the name I truly deserve."
The one calling himself Quân addressed the void.
...
"...So what do you mean?"
"Quân will be the decisive chess piece."
Ron and Janeus wandered through the ruined city, gazing up at a dreary, gray cityscape stripped of its familiar spectrum of colors.
"Reality is far too harsh; there seems to be no way out."
Ron spoke, handing a file to Janeus.
"Everyone here has been assimilated, at least except for the four of us."
Saying that, Ron pointed to his own forehead.
"Yet sooner or later, I will become that thing too."
Then Ron pointed toward the high sky, where giant worms hidden behind layers of dust and smog were laying waste to the city.
An invasion of self and mind.
"Is there no way?"
Janeus asked, staring at Ron's back.
"Invasion is almost inevitable, unless Lusk, that fellow, helps me. Even then, I am not entirely certain. Perhaps all memories of the train must be erased, and even so, only Quân and I will remain lucid."
Ron fell silent for a moment, then turned to Janeus.
"And even then, I will not exist for long. This is the boundary of knowledge."
Quite simply, Ron lacked sufficient knowledge—a barrier that could not be overcome even after trying a thousand times.
"However, inside that train, things seem remarkably strange, as though time outside and inside move differently, and..."
Ron covered his face, letting out a bizarre smile.
"Death, we will die, including everyone. Gurgle..."
Then Ron burst out laughing—the first time Ron had ever laughed like that, at least according to what Quân remembered of that smile.
It was not the first time.
"All of us... gurgle... we will die... pfft!"
"Is that so funny?"
Janeus glared at Ron, only to notice a sudden shift in his eyes.
"HA... AAHAHAHAHA!!"
Ron laughed wildly with his mouth split wide, revealing hundreds of jet black threads bursting out from his mouth.
They wrapped around Ron, binding his body tightly.
"RON!"
Janeus lunged forward, desperate to save Ron, yet everything was already too late.
Unless... unless... time could be turned back to retrieve a person from absolute annihilation.
The magicless one, the chosen one.
"If you can kill Quân, then you become Quân. That is the last thing I wish to say."
Janeus spoke to Quân before the collapse came crashing down.