A pain like nothing he had ever imagined suddenly tore through his entire body. It felt as if he were being thrown into a blender, destroyed, reconstructed, and destroyed again in an endless cycle.
Every fiber of his being twisted and snapped. His blood felt like it was being drained, replaced, then drained again, over and over. But nothing hurt more than his eyes.
They burned as if molten metal had been poured into his skull. Two spheres of scorching steel melted through his face. The agony was unbearable. He screamed, nails digging into his own skin in desperation.
Golden drops of blood beaded from the scratches he left on his cheeks, only to retract back into the wounds, as if even his own blood refused to abandon his body. He had no idea how long the torment lasted. Seconds, minutes, hours maybe. Time dissolved into nothing beneath the weight of pain. Only suffering existed.
Still, despite the pain, his body was becoming stronger, faster, healthier…though he was too busy to realize.
Eventually, the pain slowly subdued, replaced by a cold feeling that washed over his body, taking away all the aches and discomfort that had accumulated over the years. Then it moved up, reaching his brain.
His vision split.
He could still see the endless expanse of golden strings, bright, vast, immeasurable. But now he saw something else layered over it, or beneath it, or beside it. He wasn't sure.
A second world of strings. Similar to the first… yet completely different.
It looked smaller somehow, shrunken in comparison — its strings thin, trembling, fragile like threads on the verge of snapping. Their light didn't glow; it flickered, dim and unsteady. Each strand seemed tired, as if struggling just to exist.
Where the golden world pulsed with strength and dominion, this other realm looked starved. Weakened. And yet, he felt attracted to it, as if there was where he was meant to be.
Sylas spotted one sphere of light, it was floating aimless. Hitting the strings, as if trying to find something to anchor to.
Then, it disappeared. The Spell's voice pulled him out of his Soul Sea.
[Awakening Aspect Ability…]
Laid on the string, Sylas flinched by the voice, his previous experience telling him that it wasn't an ally anymore.
[Aspect Ability acquired.]
[Aspect Ability Name: Lost Eye]
Ignoring the whisper, Sylas started crawling. He wasn't sure where, nor if he would be able to escape the strange voice. Even so, even if it was meaningless, he crawled, not even realizing Silk on top of his clothes.
The spell, indifferent to his suffering, continued.
[All power has a price.]
[You have received a Flaw.]
[Your Flaw is: Burden of Knowledge.]
Sylas's vision suddenly blurred and he lost his grip on the string. He began falling.
[Wake up, Fate Eater!]
The gold world spun and disappeared.
***
"A lua?"
Sylas opened his eyes.
The moon was the first thing he saw, hanging alone in a starless sky. He was lying on the cold concrete floor, covered only by a thin piece of cardboard. His clothes hung loosely on him, shabby and worn, their fabric so faded it was impossible to tell what color they had once been.
He sat up, dizzy and unsure of where he was. Looking around, he could only make out vague silhouettes—shapes that resembled trashcans stacked against the walls. It smelled terrible.
"Onde eu tô?"
The words came out in a language he didn't recognize, his own voice startling him. His skull felt like it was cracking open, the pain relentless and blinding.
He doubled over and threw up. But nothing came out except a few mouthfuls of water, his stomach otherwise empty.
He felt his mind slip.
In one memory, he was Otto; a young man in his mid-twenties with blonde hair, green eyes, and fair skin. A bookworm who devoured anything he could get his hands on: novels, philosophy, biology, physics, politics… everything. He lived with his head buried in pages, chasing knowledge for the sake of understanding the world.
In another, he was Sylas; a sixteen-year-old street rat. Olive skin, black hair, and golden eyes that made him impossible to forget. After losing his parents, Sylas had lived off whatever he could steal. He was a thief, a pickpocket, and a scammer. A liar, one of the worst species.
Their memories overlapped and collided, tearing at one another, each struggling to seize control of the single consciousness they now shared.
Outside, he stumbled into piles of trash, legs barely obeying him.
"O que caralho, is happening?"
The languages fused on his tongue, melting into each other like his memories were doing the same.
He remembered every detail in both his lives. Every face he had ever seen, even in passing. Every word he had ever read, no matter how small or forgotten. The clarity was too much, too perfect. The sheer clarity of it all forced another wave of vomit up his throat.
But the worst was still to come.
In one particular memory, Otto was lying on his bed. It had been a day like any other, ordinary, slow, even forgettable. He remembered himself scrolling through his phone, searching for a new novel interesting enough to distract him from reality. He remembered the boredom. And the cold air drifting in through the opened window, making him curl deeper into his blanket for warmth.
Eventually, he came across a novel whose cover made him stop. A demonic mask, fangs bared, three twisted horns rising like a dark crown.
That was all it took. He clicked it instantly.
He remembered how fun it had been to read Sunny's journey.
In his mind, dark tendrils of corruption began to curl and spread.
He remembered Sunny conquering his first Nightmare.
The tendrils thickened.
He remembered the moment Sunny consumed the drop of Ichor. The agony described so vividly in the book suddenly far too easy to imagine now.
The darkness inside him expanded.
He remembered when Sunny stepped into Weave himself…delving into the deepest layers of Ariel's Tomb, all for the sake of a wish that seemed so far, yet so close.
The tendrils lashed outward.
He remembered when he had become a Supreme, killing the King of Swords. He remembered how, much later, Sunny returned to the pyramid. How he descended once more into its depths, seeking secrets Ariel himself had feared and buried there.
He remembered the True Names of each and every one of the creatures that crawled in the Void.
And that's when it happened. Corruption exploded inside his mind.
A storm of darkness that swallowed every thought, every memory, every sense of self.
It tore through him like wildfire, consuming everything it touched. It threatened to consume him, until it did.
On the outside, his golden eyes had turned completely black, dark as the void itself.
Shadowy veins crawled across his scrawny body like living cracks of night. His fingers brushed the wall beside him. It crumbled at his mere touch.
Corruption surged through his mind, spreading further and further, threatening to swallow the last fragments of who he was…and then, suddenly…It halted.
It had encountered something. A secret that should never have been touched. A truth that no mind, mortal, divine, or corrupted was ever meant to know.
It found the origin of all things. Something older than the Void. Older than the first light. Older than existence itself.
It found the truth.This world…was nothing more than text on a page. A story. A narrative. A novel.
And the instant it realized that, it was erased. Not sealed. Not resisted. Not overcome. Erased. As if it had never existed in the first place.
Otto collapsed forward, falling over trash and vomit. His vision dimmed and then disappeared entirely.