Gasp!
Kochav jolted upright.
His hand shot to his chest.
Nothing.
No wound. No blood.
He looked around.
Darkness.
The abyss stretched endlessly in every direction.
No sky. No ground.
Only an ocean of black fog pretending to be both.
For a moment, he simply stared.
Then a long sigh escaped him.
Soundless.
"Again?"
He pushed himself to his feet.
"Whatever."
The darkness shifted around his legs as he walked, offering no resistance.
No paths. No exits.
Just the same endless void.
Kochav walked.
He walked because the alternative was standing in the dark.
Aimless.
Without destination.
Without purpose.
—
"Run…"
Whispers pierced his ears.
Multiple voices.
Different tones.
Overlapping.
"Run…"
"Retry…"
They intensified.
Quicker. Less coherent.
"Retry… retry… remains…"
Kochav stopped.
His right hand instinctively gripped his left wrist.
Then his brows furrowed.
He expected scales.
Claws.
The cursed hand.
Instead—
Warm flesh.
Five fingers.
Normal.
He slowly looked down.
The voices grew louder.
"Repent…"
"Repent!"
—
"Fuck off!"
Kochav shouted and yanked at the arm.
Pain exploded through him.
Real pain.
His own.
The wrist bruised beneath his grip and blood seeped where his nails dug into the skin.
Woommmmm…
Blue light bled from beneath his right hand, illuminating his frame in the darkness.
Then—
BOOM! BOOM!
A muffled force slammed into his left elbow.
The bone shattered.
The arm went limp.
"Ack!"
He doubled over, instinctively clutching the injury.
"Remember…"
A final feminine whisper gnawed at him.
Then—
Silence.
Kochav wasted no time.
His palm flattened.
Psychic light extended from it, forming a blade.
He brought it toward where the cut should have been—
"Are you sure that's the correct one?"
A daemonic voice spoke from behind him.
Kochav spun around.
His eyes flared blue.
Nothing.
Only darkness.
He clicked his tongue and looked back down—
The blade had already bitten into flesh.
Blood streamed from the wound.
"What…?"
He recoiled.
The psychic blade dissipated.
He stared at both hands.
Then his breathing stopped.
His left hand wasn't the one being cut.
It was holding the blade.
His right hand was the one bleeding.
This was wrong.
He knew that for certain.
"What the fuck?"
—
A breeze brushed the back of his head.
A presence.
GRIP!
Kochav spun and seized a throat.
Scales.
Warm.
Alive.
At first, there was only a neck.
Long.
Serpentine.
Then his eyes adjusted.
The darkness receded.
A snake's head hissed at him.
He followed the neck downward—
And found the body.
Three meters tall.
Its second head was still cloaked in darkness.
Feathers of deep blue and violet draped over an avian frame.
Bird-like talons gripped an ornate staff.
The creature watched him with unsettling calm.
—
Kochav wasn't fazed.
A grin of disgust spread across his face.
"Now you've finally shown yourself."
His fingers tightened around the serpent's throat.
"Aren't you afraid of letting me see you, daemon?"
—
A gust of psychic force washed over Kochav's face, parting his hair and exposing the scars beneath.
The daemon did not move.
Only the darkness around it bent.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound of beaks tapping together.
"You see us, yes."
A pause.
"Not yet fully."
The voice did not come from the serpent's head.
Nor from the hidden one.
It came from the darkness itself.
Kochav's grip tightened.
The serpent merely watched.
"Remember us..."
The voice softened.
"...as you remember them, offered child of the Ambitious Bloodline."
The staff struck the ground.
Tok.
Darkness climbed upward like smoke, clinging to the air.
Then images emerged.
Faceless.
Dozens of them.
Kochav's breath caught.
He knew them.
The warmth they once carried.
But their faces—gone.
They were his family.
His real blood killed them and the daemon had taken their faces from him long ago.
And now—
It was mocking him.
"Huff…"
A chuckle escaped Kochav.
Small and bitter.
"I've lived without their faces for seven years."
His gaze locked onto the shadow.
"There is more than one way to recover my memories."
A pause.
The grin slowly returned to his face.
"I'll find you and kill you."
He tightened his grip around the serpent's throat.
"That's still my favorite method."
—
Click... Click... Click...
"A shame."
"How difficult your life has been."
The overlapping voices softened, almost sympathetic.
"If only you had been born pure of blood."
A pause.
"Silver of hair."
The hidden head shifted within the darkness.
"Like your kin, you could have lived forever."
"A Pseudo-Perpetual, like your grandfather."
The daemon laughed quietly.
—
"Yeah."
Kochav snorted.
"I have Helena to thank for not being incestuous scum like the rest of her family."
The laughter stopped.
"I'm leaving."
He squeezed the serpent's throat and it exploded into cloud of black smoke in his hand.
The daemon disappeared, leaving only darkness.
Then he looked down at his arms.
Calculating.
Which one.
Which arm was supposed to be severed?
—
Time passed.
Yet Kochav still stood there.
Unable to choose.
He closed his eyes and ran his fingers along both forearms, searching for the place where the cut should have been.
It only made him more confused.
He couldn't feel the ward either.
That worried him more than the missing hand.
"Why aren't you leaving, little Rogue?"
The daemon's voice drifted from the darkness.
"Hesitant?"
The whisper dissolved into quiet laughter.
—
"Never."
Kochav answered immediately.
"It's not like time moves while I'm stuck here."
He began pacing.
Each step kicked up darkness like smoke and dust.
His eyes darted through the abyss.
Searching.
For something.
Something missing.
Eventually, he let out a long sigh and sat down.
His hands reached into the darkness.
It gathered in his palms like dense black fog.
For a long moment, he simply stared at it.
Then he asked himself something he had never considered before.
"What is this place?"
A dream?
If it was a dream, then he needed to wake up.
A cage?
If it was a cage, then he needed to break it.
The darkness remained absolute.
No answer came.
All he knew was this:
Sever the curse.
Sever the daemon's influence.
And he would leave this place.
—
"You thirst for knowledge."
The daemonic voice came from everywhere.
And nowhere.
"We can provide."
Kochav's eyes narrowed, his resolve unchanging.
The only thing he would ever need from a daemon was its demise.
The daemon laughed.
Hungrily.
"Your unbreakable conviction—"
"Obsession."
The second voice cut in.
"We admire."
Their voices echoed through the abyss.
Then they laughed again.
"We offer you truth."
A pause.
"This time—costless."
—
"Yes, and I will tell you a fact, free of charge."
"I'm going to kill you."
Kochav snarled the words back.
—
The daemon only laughed.
Loudly.
"Fact!"
Hungrily.
"You will witness reality."
Another voice joined in.
"With your own eyes—"
Suddenly, the darkness beneath him rose.
It clung to his feet.
Then continued to climb.
Kochav jolted upward, his whole body trembling as he resisted.
Blackness crawled over his ankles—
He blasted it away with psychic force.
BOOM!
The darkness scattered.
For a few seconds.
Then it surged back.
"Fuck off!"
He drew the dagger from its sheath and started stabbing downward.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The darkness flowed around the blade.
Avoiding it.
The point sank into flesh instead.
Ack!
Kochav hissed through gritted teeth.
Blood spilled from his legs.
The abyss drank it eagerly.
He jumped.
Then blasted the air beneath him.
BOOM!
His body rocketed upward.
For a sliver of a second—
He was free.
Then the darkness caught him.
Blackness painted his feet.
His calves.
His knees.
And continued to climb.
Kochav dropped back to the ground.
Limping.
His hands frantically clawed at the darkness coating his legs.
Then it climbed onto his hands.
His eyes widened in horror.
"Yes…"
The daemon's voice pierced the abyss.
"Resist."
Its pitch climbed higher.
Sharper.
It hurt his ears.
"Resistance brings pain."
Laughter overlapped with words.
Thousands of voices speaking at once.
"Pain contributes to growth."
"Keep growing."
"Keep improving."
The darkness continued to rise.
His body slowly dissolved into it.
His legs.
His torso.
His arms.
Only his head remained.
Then—
Only his eyes.
Kochav shook his head violently.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
The darkness seeped through his eyelids.
They opened anyway.
Black.
Blacker than the abyss around him.
Blacker than night.
Blacker than Abaddon.
——————————
Kochav blinked.
The abyss was gone.
He was back on the battlefield.
Falling.
Cold air screamed past him.
His cursed arm was gone.
The shattered platform rushed upward.
THUD!
He hit the ground.
A shadow fell over him.
Anathor.
Kochav's eyes widened.
He rolled.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Psychic projectiles detonated where he had been.
He looked up.
Too late.
The Knight's armored heel descended.
His vision filled with ivory.
CRACK!
PLEB!
—
GASP!
Darkness.
His eyes snapped open.
But the pain remained.
He felt it.
The crushing of bone.
The collapse of his ribs.
The wet rupture of flesh.
The pulverization of his skull.
"AAAHHHHHHK!"
He screamed.
The sound finally existed.
And the daemon's laughter grew louder.
Kochav turned toward the sound.
His hand followed.
Psychic force gathered at his fingertips, bathing his face in blue.
The rest of him remained black.
THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!
The bolts vanished into the abyss.
Silence.
Then something breathed against the back of his neck.
"Pain is truth."
"Truth is inevitable."
A chuckle.
"Try again."
——————————
He blinked.
Again.
Falling.
BOOM!
Before he could hit the ground, psychic force erupted beneath him, hurling him several meters sideways.
The shattered platform rushed past.
Projectiles.
He saw them.
Distortions in the air.
CREEK!
A sheet of metal ripped free from the debris and swung in front of him.
KOOM!
Metal fingers burst through it.
Kochav reacted instantly.
A force shield flared into existence.
CRACK!
It shattered.
Anathor's hand closed around him.
"Weak."
The Knight's voice remained utterly indifferent.
Then the fingers tightened.
CRACK!
PLEB!
—
"HAAAK!"
Kochav jerked upright.
His hand clutched his chest.
His breathing came in short, ragged bursts.
He raised his head.
——————————
Again.
Falling—
Kochav twisted sideways, his hand already aiming at Anathor's helm—
Shk! Schik! Shk!
Three tendrils pierced his chest.
His shoulder.
His throat.
He had forgotten the invisible vines.
Before he could even register the pain—
——————————
Again.
Fall—Distance—Death.
Again.
Fall—Fight—Death.
Again.
Fall—Feint—Death.
The whispers began.
"You're here because leaving means death."
Again.
Fall—Cover—Death.
"We show you how weak you are without our powers."
Again.
Fall—Distance—Fight—Death.
Again.
Fall—Shield—Death.
Again.
Fall—Retreat—Death.
Again.
Fall—Charge—Death.
The voices lowered, almost sympathetic.
"We do not seek your death."
"We offer strength."
—
Kochav heard the daemon, although his vision was still fixed.
On the battlefield.
On his Deaths.
"Fuck off—"
The curse died on his lips...
....He went quiet.
Still he experienced death and pains.
But he realized something.
He was disconnected from the vision just now, his mind was.
The moment he had spoken, his attention slipped momentarily.
But that was enough.
His lips curled upward, grinning.
He ignored everything.
The pain, the smell of blood and his own death.
And realized that it would just keep going regardless of his attention.
"I see..."
He had never been controlling them.
He had merely been in synchronization.
The pain remained.
But it was already becoming numb.
The daemon went silent.
That alone was enough.
Kochav laughed.
A tired, painful laugh.
"You just couldn't help yourself, could you?"
Silence.
"You tried to keep me from thinking."
His smile grew.
"My cooperation wasn't your only goal."
The darkness trembled.
"You were trying to stop me from figuring this place out."
A pause.
The visions continued.
Another death.
Another scream.
Another future.
Kochav no longer looked at them.
He looked into the darkness instead.
Then he smiled.
"You can't control."
Another pause.
His smile widened.
"You only influence."
Silence.
Then he frowned.
"And what do you influence?"
The answer came immediately.
The missing details.
The cursed hand.
The subjugation ward.
The darkness.
He looked down at his hands.
The darkness had risen because he believed it could.
The visions had trapped him because he believed he was inside them.
His eyes widened.
"...My perception."