Joseph stumbled backwards, clutching his wound. Blood continued to pour from his severed hand, painting the white void with crimson. He knew instinctively that he couldn't escape in this magical realm—this was Theo's domain, a space where the other student held absolute power.
Fear crashed over him like a tidal wave.
The sensation was overwhelming, cold, and absolute. It was not just the fear of dying—it was the sheer terror of oblivion, of ceasing to exist, of being erased from the world entirely.
Theo gave another swift, horizontal slash. The blade carved a burning line across Joseph's chest, splitting skin and muscle with surgical precision. His other arm was cut cleanly, blood spurting from the new wound.
Joseph collapsed instantly, kneeling on the cold, shimmering surface of the water. He was on his knees now, broken and bleeding, his blood dripping into the infinite ocean beneath him.
Johan's mind screamed in desperation: I am losing everything. My home, my life, Johan, Jennifer. This is how it ends? Alone, covered in pain, drowning in a dimension I never thought to enter.
"Please, leave me, leave me," Joseph begged, his voice desperate and hollow. "I don't want them to cry for me. If I die, I can't see their smile anymore."
His words—a plea not for his own life, but for the people he loved—seemed to pierce through Theo's rage. For just a moment, the other student hesitated.
But only for a moment.
Theo looked down at the defeated Joseph, his tone cruel and absolute. "Who will cry for you? You maniac."
Thwick. Thwick.
Over the next few minutes, Theo delivered multiple brutal attacks on Joseph. His wounds bled freely, each cut deeper than the last. His almost-dead body sank lower and lower into the water, the ocean rising around him like a grave.
Joseph closed his eyes, finally accepting the inevitable. His body was submerged completely, sinking into an infinite, crushing depth of water that pressed down with devastating weight. One single word repeated in his mind, an endless loop of regret:
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
From the consuming darkness, a voice echoed—gentle but firm, cutting through his despair like a blade through water. "Joseph, why are you apologising for my sin? This is my redemption. Not yours. Live in the paradise that you belong to."
Joseph's eyes snapped open.
A younger man stood before him—his mirror image but taller, radiating formidable power that made the very water around him vibrate. This figure wore striking grey armour that seemed to be forged from starlight itself, and the glowing symbol of the Lord pulsated on his breastplate. The same figure Joseph had seen in his dreams. The same presence he had felt in his blood.
The Lord of Knowledge—his previous incarnation, his true self—stood before him.
Suddenly, the water around them turned from a tranquil blue to a thick, suffocating black liquid. The transformation was complete and absolute.
A wave of savage satisfaction hit Theo, who watched Joseph sink into the depths. "Master Riddle, I take your revenge. I kill the—"
Before he could finish the word, Theo felt a chilling pull from beneath. He looked down in terror.
The black water was surging around him, rising with terrifying purpose. He was suddenly yanked down, sinking into the dark abyss with no resistance he could muster.
GLOOORP.
Theo was disoriented, his senses screaming in confusion. He was no longer in the endless sea but standing in something far more terrifying—an archive of pure energy. Joseph's memories. The black void forced him to witness the past, to see the truth that would shatter everything he believed.
The scene resolved into crystalline clarity: a six-year-old Joseph was playing hide and seek in a sunlit garden. He ran toward a sprawling tree, his small voice filled with delight. "Sister Jennifer, I know that you are on the tree."
Jennifer's voice came from the top branches, warm and amused. "Who told you that? Okay, okay, I am on the tree. But guess which branch am I?"
The scene shifted seamlessly.
Young Joseph was studying in his room. Suddenly, he looked up at the garden from his second-floor window. Below, Johan stood with his arms crossed, his expression stern and protective. "Oi! Don't climb so high up in the tree. If you or Joseph gets injured, nobody will be worse than me," Johan warned them.
Jennifer climbed down, landing lightly on the ground. "Why is he always so rude, like an old man?" she muttered with a pout.
Little Joseph smiled, innocent and pure, his small hand pressed against the window glass. "Brother always cares about us."
Jennifer smiled back, gently cupping his cheeks in her hands. But suddenly, her expression shifted to profound sadness. She asked him a question that seemed to carry the weight of her entire soul: "Joseph, if you have a choice to go with Johan or me, who will you choose?"
"I would rather go with my mother," Joseph replied with a wide, childish smile—a smile that held complete trust, complete innocence, complete faith in the family that loved him.
Theo staggered backwards, utterly confused. His hatred was momentarily displaced by bewilderment. What is that? I was told lords have no birth or childhood. This is impossible. This is—
The void surged, and the scene shifted two years later.
Johan, Joseph, and Jennifer stood together in a light-filled room. Their mother, Lina, was sketching them with practised, elegant strokes. She was forty-one years old, but she still looked like a woman of twenty-five—timeless, beautiful, radiating a gentle power that filled the space around her.
The sketch was so fine that it seemed like she was capturing not just their images but their very souls on paper.
"Mother, you can buy a camera to take a photo of us," Johan suggested, ever the pragmatist. "This can be a time-saving method."
"Oh! The camera, the device that paints the scenario quickly on paper," Lina replied to him with a soft laugh. "But that's not what I want, Johan."
"Johan, mother just wants to spend some time with us," Jennifer said gently. "She will go far away soon."
"Yeah, yeah, but Joseph may be tired," Johan argued with characteristic concern for his younger brother.
"Johan, Jennifer, you can go to sleep now," Lina said, dismissing them with a smile that held infinite affection. "But I need some time to draw Joseph."
Johan and Jennifer reluctantly departed, understanding the unspoken truth—their mother needed this moment with the youngest.
Joseph sat patiently on a stool, his small form still and trusting.
Lina's eyes twinkled as she saw their picture coming to life on the page. She worked with love in every stroke, capturing not just his appearance but his essence—his innocence, his vulnerability, his capacity to love unconditionally.
"Mother, you told me that I have another brother," young Joseph asked, his voice curious and trusting. "What does he look like? Is he like me, you, or father?"
Lina's hand paused. A profound sadness crossed her face, but she smiled anyway. "He looks so kind, brave, beautiful, and he cares for everybody. He is truly a hero," she replied simply, her voice carrying the weight of a love that transcended time and death.
"When will I meet him?" Joseph asked innocently.
She looks at her son, "One day, my heart. One day."
This was the last conversation Joseph ever had with his mother.
The memory faded to darkness.
The memories abruptly stopped.
Theo stood alone in the void, staggering backwards, consumed by a regret so consuming it threatened to drown him. His sword fell from his trembling hand and dissolved back into water.
How? He is the son of Mother Lina, Theo whispered, shaken to his core. The information seemed impossible, reality-breaking. I listened to his thoughts; he is clearly the Knowledge Lord. His consciousness carries the weight of that power. But he is also a child of the Bennets. What does this mean? How is this possible?
The revelation cracked the foundation of everything he believed. His entire worldview—built on the knowledge that the Lord of Knowledge was a being of pure consciousness, without family, without childhood, without human connection—shattered into pieces.
Do I kill an innocent? Theo whispered, regret washing over him like a tsunami. He had been so consumed by the need for revenge, by the memory of his master Riddle's death, that he hadn't stopped to question. He hadn't investigated. He hadn't looked deeper.
He had simply attacked.
Suddenly, the true Lord of the Knowledge World stepped out from the swirling black void. His face was identical to Joseph's—the same features, the same eyes, but radiant with power and infinite sadness. He moved with immediate purpose, walking directly to the stunned disciple.
Without hesitation, without a word, he knelt in complete submission.
"The boy you killed is Joseph Bennet, the son of Lina," the Lord said, his voice carrying the weight of absolute truth. "I am the Lord whom you are searching for. I am the one you should blame. I am the one who killed Riddle."
The words hung in the void like a confession, like a judgment.
The Lord reached out slowly, deliberately, seizing the hilt of Theo's water-sword—which still rested in the disciple's trembling hand. The weapon was slick with Joseph's blood.
With brutal, calculated force, he drove the weapon deep into his own abdomen.
KRIK-SHHH.
The sword sank in with a sickening sound, piercing through flesh and bone and whatever lay beyond. Blood erupted from the wound, but it was different—not red like Joseph's blood, but luminescent, glowing with the power of the Knowledge World.
At that exact moment, Joseph materialised in the void beside them. His body was a ruin—blood still rained from his wounded hand and chest, severed limbs hanging useless at his sides. Yet he was miraculously whole, suspended between life and death, caught in a moment that transcended normal existence.
As the Lord bled from his self-inflicted wound, something miraculous happened.
His blood was not falling to the black ground below—instead, it drew itself toward Joseph with purposeful intent. The blood coalesced, swirling and condensing into the red symbol of the Lord—the mark of absolute power and absolute sacrifice. The symbol briefly hovered over Joseph's chest, glowing with terrible beauty.
Then it was absorbed entirely into Joseph's body.
Instantly, Joseph's severed hand reformed, the bone and muscle and sinew knitting itself back together in seconds. The deep, deadly cuts across his chest and ear closed, the flesh healing flawlessly, leaving his skin unmarked and whole.
The price had been paid.
Theo took his water-sword from the Lord's abdomen, pulling it free as the wound sealed—not healed, but sealed, leaving a scar of pure darkness across the Lord's torso. The water-blade dripped with divine blood.
"I guess pain is just a punishment for you," Theo said, his voice lingering with rage that was slowly transforming into something else—regret, understanding, shame. "But this regression is your suffering."
The Lord smiled—a look of profound peace settling on his face like a benediction. "I guess I deserve that."
With the exchange complete, the dimension violently shattered.
The black void exploded into a billion pieces, each fragment carrying a memory, a moment, a truth. Reality fractured and reformed. The impossible space collapsed, unable to sustain itself after the Lord's sacrifice.
Theo and Joseph crashed back into reality with brutal force.
They were instantly returned to the school library. The familiar smell of old books and dust greeted them. The late afternoon light streamed through the windows. Students could be heard in the distance, their voices echoing through the hallways.
Joseph stood still for a moment, his body recovering, his mind struggling to process what had happened. His hand—the hand that had been severed, that he had watched fall—was whole and unmarked. The wounds across his chest and ear had vanished completely.
But the truth remained.
He had just met his previous self. The Lord of Knowledge had sacrificed himself—not his life, but his power, his essence, his regret—to save an innocent boy and to teach a disciple the price of blind revenge.
Joseph's consciousness began to fade. The weight of the experience, the overwhelming truth of his dual nature, the emotional devastation of witnessing his mother's final words—it was too much. His eyes closed.
He became unconscious, his body collapsing gently to the library floor.
Theo knelt beside Joseph's unconscious form, his water-sword dissolved back into nothingness. His entire body trembled with the magnitude of his realisation.
"I am sorry," Theo said to Joseph's unconscious body, his voice barely a whisper. "Revenge is a blinding force; it can cloud the judgment of even the wisest individuals. I thought I knew truth, but I only knew rage."
He looked at Joseph's peaceful face, unmarked and whole.
"I was a fool," Theo continued, tears streaming down his face. "And you paid the price for my foolishness. But the Lord—he paid the greater price. He taught me what it means to be truly powerful: not through conquest, but through sacrifice. Not through vengeance, but through mercy."
Theo placed a gentle hand on Joseph's shoulder, a gesture of respect, of apology, of something that might—one day—become redemption.
Outside, the school day continued. Students walked the hallways, unaware that in the library, in a space between moments, a truth older than time had just been revealed, a price paid, and a soul forever changed.