Haruto glared at her, his jaw clenching hard. "You're lying. If my own mind generated this image, it wouldn't choose your face. I despise you."
Lilith merely laughed, waving a hand dismissively. "Oh, stop being such a baby. Come on, let's talk."
Haruto pulled his knees up, slapping on a deadly serious, ice-cold expression. "I have nothing to say to you. Get out of here."
Snap.
Before Haruto could even blink, reality warped around him, and he was suddenly sitting right beside her instead of across from her.
Haruto stared, utterly baffled by how fast she controlled the space.
Lilith smiled calmly, crossing her legs. "There, now that you're a bit closer, calm down. This conversation is going to take a while. Take a deep breath in... and let it out."
"Be quick," Haruto snapped, his voice hard.
Lilith chuckled, resting her chin in her hand. "Oh, come on. I didn't come all this way just to rush. We've got time. Tell me, how's life treating you lately?"
Haruto glared at her sideways. "Like I'd ever tell you anything."
"You really hate me that much, huh?" Lilith asked, her smile turning wry.
"More than you can possibly imagine."
Lilith flashed a soft, amused smile—but the exact moment she did, a chilling sound echoed: a sharp, pained hiss of intake, as if someone was choking. A drop of tear slowly welled up and trickled down from the corner of her eye.
Haruto jerked back in shock, staring at her bleeding eye. "What the hell is that?!"
Lilith calmly reached up, wiping the drop away with her fingertip, completely unfazed. "Oh, this? You're imagining it, remember? I'm just a projection born from the dark corners of your own mind."
Haruto stared at her, his jaw tightening as a bitter frustration boiled inside him. "Then what the hell do you actually want from me?"
Lilith leaned in closer, her expression turning dead serious. "Isn't it obvious? Out of everyone in this entire world, I'm the only one you truly trust... even if you hate to admit it."
Haruto glared at her, his voice tight. "What is the point of all this?"
Lilith let out a light, mocking laugh. "What are you even doing with yourself lately? Tell me."
"I don't know," Haruto muttered, looking away. "I'm just surviving... and pushing my progress forward."
Lilith chuckled again, a bright, chilling sound. "Nice. What level have you reached?"
"Level 20," Haruto answered flatly.
Lilith burst into a grin. "A whole month has passed, and you went from Level 18 to Level 20. You've always had the raw talent to level up absurdly fast when you actually try."
"I've been busy with other things," Haruto snapped defensively.
"Oh, please," Lilith teased, resting her chin on her hand. "If you're really inside my mind, you already know everything I'm thinking anyway."
"Fair enough," Lilith conceded, her tone dipping into something softer. "So... what's really bothering you?"
Haruto's expression darkened. "I got betrayed."
Lilith smiled knowingly. "I know. And you got your ass handed to you, didn't you?"
"There's nothing funny about that," Haruto growled, his fists clenching. "These people are completely corrupt. They do evil things, and I'm trying to fix it. I want to be a good man."
Lilith stopped smiling. She looked at him with a cold, unyielding gaze. "If that's your mindset, you'll never understand how life works. This world isn't about good or bad. It's about weak and strong. The strong are always right, no matter what."
Haruto let out a sharp, cynical scoff. "Ah, right. So you're just here to lecture me with your profound wisdom?"
Lilith chuckled lightly, stretching out lazily on the ground. "Oh, stop being so defensive. If you want, ask me a question and I'll give you the answer."
Haruto turned his gaze toward her, falling silent for a long, heavy moment. The cynical mask slipped away, leaving a rare flash of raw vulnerability in his eyes. He stared at the ground before looking back at her. "...Why am I even here?"
Lilith instantly understood the deeper weight behind his question. She didn't sit up; instead, she rolled onto her back, staring up at the empty sky above them. "Who am I to answer that for you? Why don't you try answering it yourself?"
"What am I supposed to say?" Haruto muttered bitterly, looking away. "Besides... what's the point of remembering the past? Back when we were still in the academy, everything felt like a lie anyway."
"Lie or truth, it's all just a matter of perspective depending on which side of the line you're standing on," Lilith replied softly, her voice carrying a strange, haunting echo. "To a deer, the wolf is a cruel monster. But that's only because the deer hasn't starved to death yet."
Haruto let out a frustrated breath, staring down at her. "Then what even is your existence? Why are you here?"
Lilith propped herself up on one elbow, looking at him with a knowing smile. "If we're being completely logical about it, I'm just a manifestation of your own mind."
"As Lilith?" Haruto pressed.
"Because that's what your subconscious chose," Lilith replied smoothly. "Look, my existence here depends entirely on your will. I've seen everything you've been through."
Haruto narrowed his eyes, a bitter edge returning to his voice. "I know. Your survival instincts were always on top , you have bent the heavens to its knees. But answer me this—if everything about my past was real, what is all this?"
Lilith let out a soft sigh, rolling back onto her back to gaze at the empty sky. "If I'm being 100 percent honest with you... your past was real, and your present is real, too."
"How is that even possible?" Haruto demanded, running a hand over his face.
"The only difference," Lilith said quietly, "is that in the past, you were someone else. And right now, you've become someone new."
Haruto shook his head, frustration boiling in his chest. "What kind of nonsense is this? None of it makes any sense." He gave up pacing and dropped heavily onto the ground beside her, staring blankly up at the endless sky.
Lilith turned her head slightly, watching him with an enigmatic expression. "Everything is scripted, you know."
Haruto's jaw clenched, his eyes flashing with sudden defiance. "I've always hated scripted things."
"Then," Lilith whispered, a faint, challenging smile touching her lips, "you should fight the one who's writing the script."
Haruto went completely still. A cold realization washed over him as he stared into the empty space. "...Who?"
Lilith didn't answer right away. She simply looked back up at the sky, her voice echoing softly as the dreamscape began to fade around them.
"I am."
Haruto opened his mouth to snap back, but before a single word could escape, Lilith lunged.
With blinding speed, she straddled his waist, slamming him down against the ground and pinning his arms firmly to the earth.
"Wait—what the hell are you doing?!" Haruto choked out, straining against her weight.
In that exact instant, a violent floodgate broke open inside his mind. Memories—vivid, chaotic, and buried deep beneath layers of psychological trauma—slammed into him like a physical blow. The shifting timelines, the old days, the academy, the betrayal, and the hidden mechanics of his entire existence swapped and collided in a blinding flash of light.
Lilith leaned down close, pressing her weight against him. Her voice dropped to a soft, agonizingly tender whisper. "Oh... I missed you so much."
Haruto stared up at her, his breath catching in his throat as the surreal weight of her words sank in.
"You know," Lilith continued, her fingers tracing the edge of his jaw, "it hurt me so much when you ran away from me back then. I missed you like crazy. But what could I do? You're the only one... the only one who has what it takes to reach Level 100."
"What are you talking about...?" Haruto hissed, struggling violently beneath her.
Lilith leaned in even closer, her lips brushing against his ear as a chilling shiver ran down his spine. "Just wait and watch. The real story starts now. Everything I've built... it's all for you. Now, take back your power and start climbing."
Furious, Haruto glared up into her eyes, a dark, lethal resolve hardening in his chest. "If you scripted all of this... if you're the one pulling the strings... I'll destroy you."
Lilith pulled back just an inch, a heartbreakingly bittersweet smile touching her lips as she looked down at him with an icy, beautiful calm.
"You think you can destroy me?" she murmured softly. "I'm sorry, my future husband... but you could never bring yourself to do it."
Haruto's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "Why the hell are you calling me that?!"
Lilith let out a soft, echoing laugh that began to dissolve the world around them into fractured white light. "Because... you're the one imagining me this way."
"No!" Haruto shouted.
"Yes, you are," Lilith whispered, her voice fading as the dreamscape began to shatter.
"No!" Haruto shouted again.
Snap.
In a blinding flash of white light, Haruto's eyes snapped wide open. He bolted upright, gasping for air as he found himself sprawled out on the cold, hard ground back in the dark shadows beside the road where he had collapsed.
He stared at his hands, his breath coming in ragged gasps. What... what was that? Was that all just a dream? Or was any of it real?
Then, the final words she whispered echoed hauntingly in his mind: Take back your power and start climbing.
Driven by a sudden, electric surge of instinct, Haruto clenched his fists. A rush of pure, unfathomable energy surged through his veins—not the dull, restricted blue of the syndicate, but the terrifying, absolute familiar weight of his true essence.
A manic grin broke across his face, and a wild laugh tore from his throat.
A sleek, shifting HUD of absolute black and white materialized around him, snapping into place. The system interface flared blindingly in his vision, flashing his true, unlocked status:
Title : StarchildNothingness: Level 20Creation: Level 20
Complete, unadulterated control. Every single magic spell, every flash, every specialized sector and movement skill he thought he had lost forever—they were all back. The suppression was gone. All the custom area build by nothingness and creation were back.
Haruto stood up slowly, the dark aura swirling violently around him as he stared up at the night sky, letting out a dark, triumphant laugh.
How did this happen? he thought, marveling at the sheer power humming beneath his skin.
Yet, even as the thrill of absolute power washed over him, a deep, unsettling thought gnawed at the back of his mind. Wait... was Lilith actually there? Did she really call me her future husband? If my own mind conjured her up... does that mean deep down, somewhere in my heart, I actually...
He violently shook his head, pressing his palms against his temples.
No. No way. That's completely impossible, and I also have something else to worry about.
As the echoes of the dream still vibrated in his mind, Haruto's thoughts violently pulled back to that pivotal moment just before he woke up—when Lilith had him pinned to the ground.
He remembered her leaning in close, her voice a low, teasing whisper right before reality shattered: "One last answer, just for you. This will help you grow. Want to know the secret to reaching Level 99?"
Haruto had snapped back at the memory, "Tell me."
And her chilling response echoed vividly in his ears: "Do you want to become truly strong?"
"Yeah, I do," he answered without hesitation.
"Killing humans makes you level up exponentially faster."
Back in the real world, standing alone in the dark alleyway wrapped in his swirling black-and-white Starchild aura, Haruto froze. The weight of those words hit him like a physical blow. A heavy, unsettling sickness twisted in his stomach, and a cold sweat broke out across his skin.
He stared down at his hands, the very hands that had just reclaimed their god-tier powers of creation and nothingness. The thought alone—that slaughtering innocent human lives was the secret shortcut to bypassing level caps and rocketing straight to the top—made his chest tighten. It wasn't just dark; it felt like a psychological trap, a sickening shortcut dangled by his own subconscious.
He couldn't wrap his head around it. Was that really the hidden mechanic of the system? Was power in this world truly measured in blood?