Third-Person POV...
In the forgotten fringes of a forsaken town, where the last wisps of civilization succumbed to the all-consuming darkness of neglect, there stood an abandoned building that seemed to whisper tales of despair to the wind. Its crumbling facade, a testament to the ravages of time, loomed like a specter, shrouded in an aura of foreboding.
Deep within the labyrinthine recesses of this forsaken structure, a solitary room lay hidden, its existence a secret known only to the shadows that danced upon its walls.
The air within was heavy with the stench of decay and stagnation, a noxious presence that clung to every surface. The walls, once a sterile white, now wore a grimy patina, as if the very essence of hope had been extinguished, leaving only a dull, soul-crushing grey.
In this isolated, hermetically sealed chamber, two figures stood in stark contrast, their presence a jarring juxtaposition of vulnerability and cold determination.
One, a man, lay slumped in a steel chair, his limbs bound by rusted chains that bit into his skin. He was unconscious, his head lolling forward, unaware of the reckoning that awaited him. The chair, a cold, unforgiving monolith, held him captive like a sacrificial offering.
Before him, a young man stood—Riyan, now eighteen years old, his slender frame belying the terrible purpose that burned within him. His gaze, fixed intently upon the captive, was a mixture of cold satisfaction and barely contained rage.
The stance he held was tense, alert, as if he were poised on the edge of a precipice, ready to plunge into the abyss he had so carefully prepared.
This was the moment nine years in the making.
This was justice—his justice.
...
Riyan's POV...
My hand delved into the rusty toolbox beside me, fingers closing around the cold metal of the pliers like they were an extension of my own will. With deliberate slowness, I extracted the instrument, its jaws opening wide.
The man tied to the chair remained unconscious, his body limp and helpless. Perfect. I wanted him awake for this. I wanted him to feel every moment of what was coming.
My eyes fixed on his hand, on the fingernail of his index finger. How many times had these hands brought death? How many times had they taken from others what they could never return?
How many times had they torn apart my world?
With sudden, brutal precision, I clamped the pliers onto his fingernail, the metal jaws closing around it like a vice.
The effect was instantaneous.
His eyes flew open, body jolting upright as consciousness slammed back into him. A blood-curdling scream tore from his lips as I ruthlessly pulled out the nail in one smooth motion. The sound echoed off the walls, a symphony I had waited nine years to hear.
A crimson rivulet began to flow from the nail bed, trickling down his finger.
"Welcome back," I said coldly, my voice devoid of the warmth it once held in childhood. "We have so much to discuss."
His eyes, wild with pain and confusion, locked onto mine. I saw the moment recognition flickered—not of who I was, but of what he was facing. The understanding that he was at someone's mercy, just as my parents had been at his.
The irony was delicious.
"What... what are you doing?! Who—" his words dissolved into another scream as I moved to the next finger.
I didn't answer. Not yet. Words would come later.
First, he needed to understand pain.
Without granting him even a moment's respite, I began to methodically extract his nails, one by one, from his fingers. Each removal was precise, calculated, a surgical dismantling of his ability to feel safe, to feel whole.
His screams grew louder, more anguished, echoing in the sealed room like prayers to gods that wouldn't answer. My hands moved with deliberate, almost clinical precision, as if performing some sacred ritual.
And in a way, perhaps I was.
The air grew heavy with the scent of blood and sweat. The only sounds were his cries of torment and my steady, controlled breathing.
I felt... nothing. No guilt. No hesitation. Only the cold satisfaction of a promise being fulfilled.
As the last nail was pulled from his toe, his body slumped forward, head lolling to one side. He was still conscious, but barely—teetering on the edge of shock.
I set the pliers down carefully and stepped back, studying my work with the detachment of an artist examining a canvas.
"Still with me?" I asked, my voice cutting through his labored breathing.
...
His head lifted slightly, eyes unfocused but struggling to find me in his pain-blurred vision.
"Why..." he managed to whisper, voice hoarse from screaming. "Why... are you doing this to me?"
The question hung in the air like a desperate prayer.
And I laughed.
It started as a low chuckle, then built into something wild, unrestrained. "Hahahahahaha!" The sound filled the room, bouncing off walls, mixing with his whimpers into a grotesque symphony.
His eyes widened in terror, and I felt a surge of dark satisfaction.
My laughter died as suddenly as it began, replaced by an expression of icy indifference. I leaned forward, close enough that he could see every detail of my face, every shadow of the hatred I carried.
"Why, you ask?" My voice was silk over steel. "Remember that fateful night of November 12th, nine years ago? When you brutally snuffed out the lives of a loving couple in New Creek Town?"
I watched his face transform—shock bleeding into horror bleeding into desperate recognition.
"Remember how you made a nine-year-old boy watch? How you laughed while they begged for mercy? How you took your time with them, savoring their fear?"
"No... no... please, I—" he stammered, voice cracking.
"Please?" I interrupted, my smile widening into something cruel. "That's what they said too. My mother. My father. They pleaded. They begged. And what did you do?"
Silence answered me, heavy and damning.
"You should have a taste not of your own medicine," I continued, my voice dropping to a whisper that somehow felt louder than his screams, "but of the hell I have meticulously prepared especially for you."
I straightened, letting the weight of my next words settle over him like a burial shroud.
"I've created a word for this moment. A word that seals the fate of death for anyone who hears it. A word that will be the last meaningful sound you comprehend in this life."
I paused, letting the anticipation build.
"That word... is Nemora."
The way I pronounced it—"Neh-Moh-Rah"—sent visible shivers through his broken body.
My lips curled into a sadistic smile. "Let me continue your pleasure..."
...
I picked up the knife next, its blade catching the dim light. His eyes followed the movement, fresh terror blooming in their depths.
What followed was methodical. Clinical. Each act of violence a payment extracted for the debt of blood he owed.
I worked in silence now, save for his screams, which grew hoarser as time passed. Each cut, each wound, each carefully inflicted agony was a memory avenged. Mom's final moments. Dad's futile struggle. The nine-year-old boy I once was, hiding in that closet, world shattering around him.
Time lost meaning in that room. There was only the work, the justice, the reckoning.
Eventually, his screams faded to whimpers, then to labored breathing, then to silence.
I stepped back, my work complete, staring at the lifeless form before me.
It was done.
Nine years of waiting. Nine years of planning. Nine years of becoming something other than human.
All culminating in this moment.
...
As I stood frozen, breathing heavily, a dark, ominous silhouette began to materialize behind me. The air seemed to vibrate with otherworldly energy as Furia took shape, her blackness so profound it appeared to absorb the very light around it.
With unhurried, deliberate movement, she slowly wrapped her arms around my torso, enveloping me in a gentle yet unyielding embrace. The tender gesture was a stark contrast to the carnage before us.
"Furia," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "It's finally done..."
"Yes, Riyan," she responded, her voice like velvet wrapped around steel. "It's done..."
My body relaxed, tension draining away as I slowly turned to face her. My eyes, once burning with cold fury, now reflected something more complex—relief mixed with a creeping emptiness.
I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her into a desperate embrace. "But I've become what I wanted to destroy, Furia..." The words were laced with bitter irony. "I've become a monster too."
Furia enveloped me completely, holding me close as if to absorb my pain, my fear, my uncertainty. Her arms were a sanctuary, a refuge from the storm of what I'd just done.
In that moment, she was solace itself, her presence a balm to my ravaged soul.
We stood there, locked in embrace, the world around us melting away. Two figures suspended in darkness, bound together by fate and blood and the terrible price of vengeance.
"You did what you had to do," she whispered. "You avenged them. You can rest now."
But could I? Would I ever truly rest again?
...
Third-Person POV...
"But that was the last day Riyan saw Furia. After that moment, she disappeared—like she had never existed at all."
The room fell silent save for the steady drip of blood on concrete.
The boy who had entered seeking vengeance had achieved it.
But the man who left was someone else entirely.
Someone who would carry the name Nemora—the identity born from that night of murder, forged through nine years of cold preparation, and baptized in the blood of revenge.
The cycle was complete.
And Riyan was forever changed.
##################################
**STORY TRANSITION - PAST TO PRESENT**
Riyan's POV... (Months Later)
After that night, I found solace in books—novels, webnovels, anything that could transport me away from what I'd become. Words danced before my eyes, offering escape into fictional worlds where heroes were pure and villains were punished cleanly, without the terrible weight that real vengeance carried.
But my reading wasn't just escapism. It was strategic. I needed to move forward, to build something from the ashes of what I'd been.
I poured myself into my studies with the same intensity I'd once devoted to planning revenge. My grades soared. I aced every exam, topped every class ranking.
The University of Triads—prestigious, distant, perfect—became my new goal.
And I achieved it.
I secured my place at the university, ready to begin again.
To leave Nemora behind and become someone new.
Someone who could live without the darkness.
Or so I thought...
Because fate, it seemed, had other plans.
Plans that would lead to a truck, a bright light, and awakening in a world I'd only read about in fiction—reborn as Riyan Descartes, the "villain" of Saint's Odyssey.
The past buried.
The future uncertain.
But the darkness within?
That remained.
Always.
**📢 MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT 📢**
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**Special Question:** How do you feel about Riyan's past? Does it justify his current personality, or has he gone too far? Comment your thoughts!
— **Lone Raut*
*Arc Complete: Riyan's Past Life**
**Next Chapter: "37.Return to the Present"**
*Riyan's flashback ends. We return to the Hotel BlackMoon infiltration, where Riyan's darkness has been fully unleashed...