Fire.
Blazing fire.
It came from beyond the Veil, wrapped in boundless fury. It illuminated the darkness, but brought an even deeper terror.
Karyl fell to his knees, clutching his throat as he tried to refuse to breathe. The increasingly heavy stench of blood was frantically taunting his sanity. Veins bulged along his neck, and boundless resentment began to churn inside him.
No, that wasn't my anger, he thought.
I can hold on. I have to hold on.
That was what he thought, while the voice continued.
Take up your blade and armor. Tear apart the ugly faces of these self-righteous people.
Hang them. Cut off their heads. Turn their pitiful bodies, dressed in soft, sheer gauze, into dry bones.
Make them pay.
That's what you want, isn't it? You want the world to burn. You want everything consumed by flames. I can hear your thoughts. Come out. Stop hiding.
I will give you everything.
And I want nothing.
Karyl shuddered and closed his eyes.
He didn't know who—or what—was speaking. But he didn't care. The voice prowled in the darkness, trying to make him "come out."
Those few words had already revealed more than enough.
The situation was the same as before.
As long as he didn't make a sound, they couldn't see him. During the years he had drifted, this was how he had spied on the shadows behind the Veil.
Now, he just needed a little time.
Yes, a little time.
When he was alone, he always had time.
Karyl closed his eyes and let his thoughts sink into a gloomy, rainy night.
--
A gloomy, rainy night. An empty ruin.
All around him, there was silence. Countless shadows stood wordlessly in the darkness, packed together, their forms terrifying.
"Will you avenge us?" asked a skinless child standing at the edge of the ruins.
"I will," Ghost replied, lips pressed together.
"Take revenge for us," said a gaunt worker trapped beneath the ruins, coughing blood.
"I will." Ghost crouched and nodded to him, then rose and continued on his way.
"You don't have to do this."
A woman in ragged clothes, hanging from a roadside utility pole and swaying in the wind, spoke. "You don't belong on Nostramo."
"But I saw everything."
Ghost stopped and told her, "I can't stand it."
"You don't belong here."
The woman repeated herself. Her pallid face was livid, her eyes swollen, her features horrifying. She had been hanged for resisting a gang member who tried to rob her.
"You're a ghost. You don't have to suffer for strangers."
"Perhaps." Ghost nodded and continued onward.
"You don't have to do this," the woman called after Ghost, repeating herself.
In the rainy night, countless dead like her watched the scene. Every one of them.
"No, I do," Ghost said firmly.
"But what about that child?" the woman asked. "What will happen to him?"
"...He'll find his own way."
"You gave him light."
A man's head murmured from the middle of the ruined road. "And now you're going to take that light away with your own hands. Even if you kindle a fire, can it really cleanse Nostramo's darkness?"
"The light I gave him was false," Ghost whispered in reply. "There was nothing noble about it."
He looked at the head, whose eye sockets were hollow.
It belonged to the leader of a workers' uprising. He had failed, and the nobles had subjected him to a gruesome execution.
"False light?" the head asked.
"Yes."
Ghost said, "If he had been of no use to my plan, I wouldn't have brought him back from that mine. If he had no strength, I wouldn't have taught him how to kill or how to judge evil fairly. I'm only using him."
"That's a lie. In the mine, he was no more than a beast, terrified even by a source of light. How could he be of any use to your plan?"
The head retorted coldly, its hollow eye sockets pitch-black. "Besides, even if what you said were true, in a world like Nostramo, where there's no light at all, is false light really worse than true light?"
Ghost didn't answer. He just fell silent. After a moment, he said, "I didn't come here to debate with you."
"I know. You've always been so purposeful. You never do anything unnecessary. You want to set yourself alight, don't you?" the head asked calmly.
"Yes."
"Then you'll die."
"Yes."
"We're only memories, Ghost. We have no names, no past, no life. We have nothing. We're nothing but pain."
The head gazed at him and spoke softly. "But you're different. You still have hope. You've been given a chance. You should make the most of it."
"I don't anymore." Ghost shook his head. "I made a mistake. I let my guard down. That allowed one of them to find me."
"..."
The head fell silent, then sighed.
"You're a foolish man, Ghost. I don't understand why you chose to step into this cruel world yourself. You drifted for so long. You've seen how terrible humanity can be. Why insist on changing everything with your own hands?"
"They aren't human," Ghost replied. "Is that reason enough?"
"No."
"What would it take to convince you?"
"You can't convince me," the head said. "Nor do you need to. You wield your power without needing our permission."
"I'm already dead. I'm just a painful memory. I can speak with you because you came here. If you leave, we'll all stop thinking. You're speaking to an echo, Ghost. You can't convince someone who's dead."
"But I need your help," Ghost said softly. "I need... a flint."
"You don't need us." The head spoke calmly. "The dead can't help you. Face the truth, Ghost."
"...What truth?"
"The truth about your power," the head said.
"We never gave you any power. It belongs to you. It isn't what you imagine—the so-called 'souls of the sufferers,' or the crystallization of our pain. No. It's something else."
A cold blue light slowly shone in the head's empty eye sockets. The rain continued to fall, and millions of blue lights appeared among the eerie ruins around them.
Ghost lowered his head.
"So that's what it is." After a long while, he said, "So that's how it works."
--
Karyl opened his eyes.
The stench of blood was still heavy, spreading through the hall. The Baroness's corpse had gone cold. Her body was now a ravaged, horrifying mess, almost too terrible to look at. A cold blue glow still lingered in her dark eyes.
The voice continued.
Karyl could just make out its shape: immensely huge, filled with deep-seated rage. There was no doubt that this was not something that belonged in the normal world.
In silence, Karyl slowly raised his right hand.
--Countdown.
For no reason he could name, he remembered the description he had once given to Wraith.
He had said he was a ticking time bomb, with an invisible countdown. As it turned out, that was half right and half wrong. The countdown had always been visible. The trigger was even in his own hand.
How ridiculous, Karyl thought. Because of your stupidity, an innocent child would bear your mistake throughout his short life, and might even carry guilt he didn't deserve.
And after that, how would he live? Would he notice what was wrong with his body?
And what would happen to Nostramo?
Would the sun emerge from the clouds? Would the pollution be cleared away? Would the beasts outside the city be driven off? Would corruption end? Would the lives of the gang workers improve?
He had no answers. His thoughts were terrifyingly tangled. A word he hadn't thought of in a long time rose in his heart.
Two words, two syllables, azure blue. It wasn't perfect, but it was far better than Nostramo.
A thousand times better.
Karyl closed his eyes, then opened them again.
In the next instant, a cold light suddenly blazed in his eyes. It had never been so intense, shining brilliantly in the room like blue suns.
Terrible pain came with it. Karyl could feel his organs breaking apart—the power, at its master's unwilling command, crushing everything in his body.
Liver, lungs, heart—and then upward. The blue radiance swept through his body like flames, destroying everything, burning everything away. At last, in a thousandth of a second, it reached his brain.
"Goodbye," Karyl said to the darkness.
At that moment, he felt no pain. He was only worried.
No!
The voice in the darkness screamed in fury. Scarlet flames suddenly burst forth, trying to engulf him, but the Veil's barrier held them back completely.
All it could do was watch as its chosen sacrifice became a corpse, utterly devoid of life.
No! No! No!
Rage swept through the room. A terrifying howl came from beyond the Veil. An immense pressure, unrelated to the real world, abruptly descended and shook the sturdy room. Then, without warning, it vanished in the next instant.
The darkness retreated with it.
The candlelight flickered. The room was quiet.
Footsteps sounded outside the door. A shadow stumbled in and, at the first sight of the corpse, rushed toward it.
He carefully lifted the corpse, blinking rapidly. His fingertips trembled uncontrollably. After a moment, Wraith opened his mouth and let out a tiny, indistinct whimper from deep in his throat.
"..."
He wanted to speak, but no words came.
His body trembled, his teeth chattered, his muscles spasmed—and then an emotion so powerful it nearly shattered his sanity surged through him, breaking his unworldly heart.
"Ah, ah..." he cried softly, holding the corpse and shaking his head.
His face remained expressionless, yet his movements were so gentle. Rainwater slid down his dirty face.
It wasn't raining on Nostramo tonight.
After a while, Wraith let go of the corpse. He laid him on the ground and turned away, his shoulders and neck trembling. He said nothing, only making a strange, broken sound again and again.
Stay calm, Wraith—he'd said that.
Wraith told himself, imitating Karyl's voice.
But it didn't work. A vast sorrow came crashing over him.
In the gilded room, he stood in rags, broken and alone—and then, a voice came from beyond the Veil. Through Wraith's grief, it reached his heart.
+Take his hand.+
The voice spoke.
What? Who?
+You will soon know who I am. But for now, Konrad Curze, take his hand.+
Who are you? And who is Konrad Curze?
+Do you want to save him?+
The voice didn't answer directly. Instead, it brought up something else. It called Wraith by an unfamiliar name, yet, for some reason, its toneless voice felt familiar to him.
Strangely familiar.
I do.
+Then take his hand.+
After a moment's silence, Wraith clenched his teeth and did as instructed. He walked forward unsteadily and took the corpse's right hand.
+Good. Now don't move.+
The voice rushed from beyond the Veil with something like a sigh of compassion. For an instant, Wraith seemed to see a glimmer of golden light.
In the next moment, he recoiled as if struck by lightning. A dazzling light flared in his pitch-black eyes.
Before you continue