The Long Night (End)

Fire.

Blazing fire.

It came from beyond the Veil, wreathed in boundless fury. It illuminated the darkness, yet brought with it a deeper terror.

Karyl fell to his knees, clutching his own throat, trying to refuse the air. The increasingly thick scent of blood was frantically provoking his sanity. Veins bulged on his neck, and boundless resentment began to churn within his heart.

No, that is not my anger, he thought.

I can still hold on; I must hold on.

That was what he thought, and the voice continued.

Take up your blade and armor, and tear away the ugly masks of these self-righteous people.

Hang them, sever their heads, and turn their pathetic bodies, draped in soft, delicate gauze, into withered bones.

Make them pay the price.

You want this, don't you? You want the world to burn; you want everything to be consumed by the flames. I can hear your thoughts. Come out; stop hiding.

I will give you everything.

And I want nothing.

Karyl trembled and closed his eyes.

He did not know who, or rather, what the voice was. But he did not care—the voice wandered in the darkness, trying to make him "come out."

In these few words, enough information had already been revealed.

The situation was the same as before.

As long as he did not make a sound, they could not see him. During those drifting years, that was how he had peered at the shadows behind the Veil.

Now, he just needed a little time.

Yes, a little time.

When alone, he always had time.

Karyl closed his eyes, letting his thoughts sink into a gloomy, rainy night.

A gloomy, rainy night, empty ruins.

The surroundings were silent, and countless shadows stood soundlessly in the darkness, dense and terrifying in appearance.

"Will you avenge us?" a child who had lost his skin asked from the edge of the ruins.

"I will," Ghost replied, pressing his lips together.

"Avenge us." A gaunt worker, crushed beneath the rubble, coughed up blood and spoke.

"I will." Ghost crouched down, nodded to him, and then straightened up to walk past.

"You don't have to do this."

A woman wearing tattered clothes, hanging from a utility pole by the roadside and swaying in the wind, said, "You do not belong to Nostramo."

"But I have seen everything."

Ghost stopped his steps and told her, "I cannot endure it."

"You do not belong here."

The woman repeated, her pale face bruised and purple, her eyes swollen, her appearance ghastly. She had been hanged for resisting a gang member's robbery.

"You are a Ghost; you don't have to suffer for people you don't know."

"Perhaps." Ghost nodded and continued forward.

"You don't have to do this." The woman's voice rang out behind Ghost, and she repeated it once more.

In the rainy night, countless dead like her were watching this scene, without exception.

"No, I do." Ghost said firmly.

"But what about that child?" the woman asked. "What is he to do?"

"He will find his own path."

"You gave him the light."

A man's head whispered from the middle of the ruined road. "And now you are going to take that light away with your own hands. Even if you ignite the flames, can this fire truly cleanse the darkness of Nostramo?"

"What I gave him was a false light," Ghost replied in a low voice as well. "It is not noble."

He looked at the head, whose eye sockets were empty.

This head belonged to a leader of the worker's uprising; he had failed and was subsequently executed by the nobles.

"A false light?" the head asked.

"Yes."

Ghost said, "If he were of no use to my plan, I would not have brought him back from those mines. If he lacked strength, I would not have taught him how to kill, nor how to judge sin with fairness. I am merely using him."

"Lies. When he was in the mines, he was nothing more than a beast terrified of the light. How could he possibly be of any use to your plan?"

The skull retorted coldly, its hollow eye sockets pitch black. "And even if what you say is true, in a world like Nostramo where there is no light to be found, is a false light any worse than the real thing?"

Ghost did not answer; he remained silent. After a moment, he said, "I did not come here to debate with you."

"I know. You have always been purposeful. You never do anything unnecessary—you want to ignite yourself, don't you?" the skull asked calmly.

"Yes."

"Then you will die."

"Yes."

"We are but memories, Ghost. We have no names, no pasts, no lives. We have nothing but pain; we are nothingness."

The skull stared at him and whispered, "But you are different. You still have hope. You have been granted a chance, and you should make good use of it."

"It is gone." Ghost shook his head. "I made a mistake, and my caution abandoned me. That allowed one of them to find me."

"..."

The skull fell silent, then sighed.

"You are a truly foolish man, Ghost. I do not understand why you would personally step into this cruel world. You have drifted for so long and have seen the horrors of humanity; why are you so insistent on changing all of this with your own hands?"

"They are not human," Ghost replied. "Is that reason enough?"

"It is not."

"What must I do to convince you?"

"You cannot convince me," the skull said. "And you do not need to. You use power; you do not need our permission."

"I have long been dead; I am merely a memory of pain. I can speak with you only because of your arrival. If you leave, we all cease to think. You are speaking to an echo, Ghost. You cannot convince the dead."

"But I need your help," Ghost said in a low voice. "I need it. A flint."

"You do not," the skull said calmly. "The dead cannot give you any help. See the truth, Ghost."

"...What truth?"

"The truth of your power," the skull said.

"We never gave you any power. It belongs to you. It is not the 'souls of the suffering' you imagine it to be, nor is it the crystallization of our pain. No, it is not. It is something else entirely."

A chilling blue light slowly ignited within the skull's hollow eye sockets. The rain continued to fall, and in the grim ruins surrounding them, millions of points of blue light flickered to life.

Ghost lowered his head.

"So that is it," he said after a long silence. "So that is how it is."

Karyl opened his eyes.

The scent of blood remained thick, drifting through the hall. The Baroness's body was already cold, her form now a ruin so horrific that one could barely bring themselves to look at it. Within her pitch-black eyes, a chilling blue radiance still lingered.

That voice continued.

Karyl could vaguely perceive a hint of its form—immense, carrying a profound sense of fury. Without a doubt, this was not something that belonged in a normal world.

In silence, Karyl slowly raised his right hand.

--Countdown.

For no reason, he recalled this description he had once spoken aloud to Wraith.

He had once said that he was a ticking time bomb, possessing an invisible countdown. Now, it seemed that statement was half-right and half-wrong. The countdown had always been visible; the detonator was held in his own hands.

How ridiculous, Karyl thought. Because of your stupidity, an innocent child will bear your mistakes throughout his short life, perhaps even carrying unnecessary guilt.

And after this, how will he live? Will he notice the problems within his own body?

And what of Nostramo, in the days to come?

Will the sun ever emerge from the clouds? Will the pollution be cleared? Will the beasts outside the city be driven away? Will the corruption end, and will the lives of the workers improve?

He had no answers. His thoughts were terrifyingly chaotic now. A term that had not been mentioned for a long time rose in his heart.

Two words, two syllables: Azure. It was not perfect, but it was far better than Nostramo.

A thousand times better.

Karyl closed his eyes, then opened them once more.

In the next instant, a chilling light erupted in his eyes. It had never been so intense; it shone in the room like a blue sun.

A terrible pain followed. Karyl could feel the organs within his body shattering—that power, at its master's will, was reluctantly crushing everything within this vessel.

Liver, lungs, heart—and then it surged upward. The blue radiance, like flames, scoured his body, destroying everything, burning everything. Finally, in a thousandth of a second, it reached his brain.

"Goodbye," Karyl said to the darkness.

In this moment, he felt no pain, only deep concern.

No!

A voice from the darkness let out a furious roar, and a scarlet blaze erupted in that instant, attempting to envelop him directly, yet it was constrained by the limits of the Veil and could not advance a single inch.

It could only watch helplessly as its chosen sacrifice became a corpse devoid of any life.

No! No! No!

Anger washed through the room, and a terrifying shriek echoed from the other side of the Veil. A massive pressure, entirely unrelated to the physical world, descended suddenly, causing the sturdy room to shake; yet, in the next instant, it dissipated without warning.

The darkness retreated along with it.

Candlelight flickered, and the room returned to stillness.

Outside the door, footsteps sounded. A shadow stumbled in, rushing forward the very moment he saw the corpse.

He carefully lifted the body, blinking rapidly, his fingertips trembling incessantly. After a while, Wraith opened his mouth, and a faint, indistinct whimper escaped from the depths of his throat.

"."

He wanted to speak, but he could not.

His body shook, his teeth chattered, his muscles spasmed—and then, an emotion that nearly shattered his sanity surged forth, breaking his naive heart.

"Ah, ah," he whispered, cradling the corpse and shaking his head.

Though his face remained expressionless, his movements were incredibly gentle. Rainwater slid down his filthy face.

Tonight, Nostramo was not raining.

After a while, Wraith let go of the corpse. He laid him on the ground, turned away, and his shoulders and neck trembled uncontrollably. He did not speak, merely emitting a strange, broken tone.

Stay calm, Wraith—he had said so.

Wraith told himself, imitating the voice of Karyl.

But it was no use. A massive wave of sorrow rolled in.

He stood in the opulent room in his tattered clothes, looking broken and lonely—and in the next moment, a voice came from the other side of the Veil. It reached his heart, carried by the tide of Wraith's grief.

+Take his hand.+

The voice said.

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 did not answer directly, instead turning to another matter. He addressed Wraith by a strange name, but for some reason, his monotone voice made Wraith feel a sense of familiarity.

A strange, eerie familiarity.

I do.

+Then take his hand.+

After a moment of silence, Wraith gritted his teeth and obeyed. He stepped forward, trembling, and took the corpse's right hand.

+Very good. Now, do not move.+

The voice rushed from the other side of the Veil with a pity that sounded almost like a sigh, and in a daze, Wraith seemed to see a flash of golden light.

In the next instant, he was thrown backward as if struck by lightning, and blinding light ignited within his pitch-black eyes.