Lonir sat alone, surrounded by silence so thick it pressed against his ears.
The cards hovered in his awareness—not physically present, yet unmistakably there. Each one existed as a pressure, a weight behind his eyes, like memories that refused to stay buried. He did not look at them with curiosity anymore. That stage had passed quickly. Now he regarded them the way one regarded wounds: with familiarity, caution, and an understanding that they would hurt no matter how gently they were touched.
Pain was not new to him.
Pain had always been there—threaded through his life from the beginning, shaping it, hollowing it, teaching him the simple truth that endurance was not a choice but a requirement. Long before gods, before cards, before pacts, Lonir had lived inside suffering without ever consenting to it.
What unsettled him now was not the pain itself.
It was how little he resisted it.
The last fragile light he had once carried—the idea that things might improve, that survival meant something—had already gone out. In its absence, the pain no longer felt like an enemy. It felt… inevitable. Almost natural.
And that frightened him more than agony ever could.
Because the cards were no longer satisfied with his flesh alone.
They had begun to touch his mind.
Thoughts slipped when he tried to hold them. Emotions dulled, as if wrapped in damp cloth. Faces from his past blurred at the edges. Names took longer to surface. The gray within him had thickened, no longer passive—no longer just there. It moved now, slow and heavy, eroding him from the inside.
Lonir reached for the Covenant Anchor.
The moment his fingers closed around it, a cold pressure spread up his arm. Not pain—at least not yet—but something intimate and invasive, like a presence settling into his bones. The card felt heavier than it should have been, as though its mass was not measured in weight but in consequence.
He stared at it for a long moment before speaking.
"Can you at least teach me how to use the other cards," he said, his voice flat, drained of emotion.
Then, after a pause, he added, "Lord of Despair."
The words tasted bitter.
Silence answered him.
The world seemed to stall around that silence. No distant sound. No movement of air. Even his own breathing felt muted, as though reality itself had leaned in to listen.
Then the card twitched.
Not subtly.
Violently.
The Covenant Anchor convulsed in his hand, its surface rippling as if something inside it were turning over, stretching. The sensation shot straight into his skull—
And the voice followed.
It did not speak to him.
It spoke within him.
"Let us assume," the voice said, vast and layered, overlapping itself like echoes in a hollow pit, "that you may activate them through the Bleak."
Lonir exhaled slowly, his jaw tightening. A dull ache bloomed behind his eyes.
"Is there no way to avoid that?" he asked.
His fingers curled unconsciously.
"I can feel my mind slipping."
He had not expected a reply.
But one came instantly—sharp, dismissive.
"That is your only path, weak one."
Something dark coiled in his chest.
Lonir's grip tightened, anger bleeding through the numbness. He tried to bend the card between his fingers, applying pressure with raw intent. His muscles strained. Veins stood out along his forearm.
The card did not yield.
It was not merely rigid.
It was absolute.
As if the concept of breaking had never been included in its design.
He squeezed harder.
His fingers burst.
Bone cracked. Flesh split. Pain erupted in a blinding surge that tore a scream from his throat.
"Damn you!"
He dropped the card instinctively.
Before he could even register the injury fully, his fingers reformed—bone knitting with sickening speed, flesh sealing, nerves reconnecting. The pain retracted, vanishing as abruptly as it had arrived, like something that had never truly belonged to him.
Lonir stared at his hand.
Slow understanding settled in.
Any damage caused by the card—by the god—was undone by its will.
His eyes darkened.
He picked up a stone from the ground and smashed it against his finger.
The bone snapped.
This time, nothing healed.
Pain lingered—deep, raw, undeniable.
Lonir nodded slowly.
"So," he murmured, "my theory holds."
He lifted his gaze, addressing the unseen presence.
"Any harm I cause myself, without your involvement… lies beyond your authority."
The silence that followed was dense.
Unamused.
Lonir closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, steadying his breath despite the pain.
"Then I have no choice."
He whispered the words—not because it was necessary, but because something inside him wanted to.
"Activate the Bleak."
The response was immediate.
The card ignited within his mind—not with light, but with sensation. Cold flooded his veins, sharper than ice, heavier than lead. His thoughts staggered as the familiar countdown clawed its way forward, each number pressing against his consciousness like a blade.
I need to endure this, he thought.
I need to master it—before I face that damned hunter again.
Five—
His body failed instantly.
Both eyes ruptured.
Heat and liquid poured down his face as he screamed, collapsing forward.
"Stop—stop, you bastard! I told you to stop!"
The Bleak did not listen.
Instead, an image forced itself into his mind.
A sword.
Ancient. Rusted. Bound in black thorns that wrapped around the blade like living restraints. The metal looked old enough to have forgotten the hands that forged it. The hilt was studded with nails—jagged, uneven, cruel—designed not to be held, but to punish.
The image sharpened.
Condensed.
And became a card.
The Sword Of Sowrrow And Torment.
Lonir grasped it—
And his vision returned.
His hand was already wrapped around the sword's hilt.
The nails drove into his palm, twisting deeper with deliberate intent. Black and green fluids seeped from the wounds, thick and acrid. A searing heat surged through his limbs—not fire, but poison, alive and crawling beneath his skin.
He screamed again, voice breaking.
"What—what is happening?! Ah—son of a whore! Poison!"
The sword moved.
It did not fall.
It latched onto his arm.
Metal fused with flesh. Nerves screamed as the blade became an extension of his body, veins bulging as something foreign spread through them.
Information flooded his mind—raw, invasive, absolute.
Lonir clenched his teeth until they trembled.
"I… understand."
His breathing shook, but his words were clear.
"The sword remains bound to my hand for the duration of combat," he muttered.
"And the longer I endure its presence… the longer it stays."
The card began to fade.
"So the base duration is twenty seconds?."
A bitter breath escaped him.
"I cannot endure more than that for now."
He hesitated.
Then asked, quietly:
"Can it be activated alongside the Bleak?"
His hand healed instantly.
The poison did not.
It remained—coiled inside his arm.
His fingernails loosened, then fell away one by one. Dark green fluid seeped from beneath them, from his nostrils, from the corners of his eyes.
Lonir did not scream this time.
He watched.
He understood.
And deep within the gray—
Something shifted.