The air at the palace peak was no longer merely cold as it should be. It bit, gnawing away the last warmth from the marrow of his bones. The silence no longer simply enveloped—it possessed its own essence, its vibrations creeping through the veins of the marble, sucking away every sound until only a damp, suffocating emptiness remained within the chest.
And at the edge of the world's window, he stood.
His body tense as a bow drawn taut,its arrow already destined—
His gaze nailed upon a place,a place that was cold, dark, hollow, and full of chaos—a natural anomaly whose very existence was spurned by the cosmos itself.
That place did not deserve to be called a nail of the world adorning the earth. The cosmos itself called it the body of betrayal. A vile place where pride was cast down in disgrace.
And people called that place the "Mount of the Fallen". Where the first star was thrown from heaven for its arrogance.
From where He stood, the mountain did not merely rise. It breathed. And every breath was poison—its air uninvited into the body, yet its will violated all anatomy of its prey. Killing every creature without granting them the freedom to fight.
And from its peak, a purple light radiated. Not as a light of hope promising salvation, but as a groan of vengeance distorting the sky. Like an oil stain upon boiling water—a reminder that the wound still remained.
He who wounded the heart that made him...
And when he was cast down from his station...
It was he who felt most wounded...
From the witches' towers encircling Elysion, a lullaby rose like smoke. And in truth, it was no longer a comfort—but a needle driven into the consciousness of those too weary to resist, numbing their freedom each night, laying them down with contentment upon beds adorned with dreams of happiness impossible to attain in this cruel world.
Though they would not forget the war,
At least the melody could make them believe in peace.
Even if,in truth, it was like searching for water across the expanse of a barren universe.
Even Gaius himself felt the tip of that needle piercing his own temple, trembling the last remnants of resolve within him.
"This isn't resistance, Gaius! This is suicide dressed in glory…" Ken's voice cracked from the shadows like coarse stone struck against iron. Gone was its flatness. Only a weariness that cut deep remained.
Gaius turned his face away. His smile no longer depicted the happiness he once displayed—it was now merely a tear of flesh baring his teeth.
And from that mountain,the purple light glinted in his eyes, making them resemble the eyes of an insect—multi-faceted, hollow, and fixed.
"Glory?" he spat, his voice beginning to falter. "No... This is different.. Elysion has long been comatose, sustained by an illusion. And someone must cut its life support...
Let them choke on reality,
or awaken with a scream..."
"I am done being a target! All this time, we have only reacted—repairing walls, burying the dead, waiting for the next attack... Tartarus gnaws at us from within. And Elysion... lingers in sweet dreams bought with surrender."
Finally,he looked at his friend, and in his eyes reflected the chaotic glow from the lair of the fallen being.
"I will not wait for them to return...I will stalk their nest myself!"
He seemed to have lost his mind.
Like a sheep that had lost its shepherd.
A king who had now begun to stray in the reality of a truly bitter world...
To drown or to be drowned...
Both kill.Yet reality forced him to choose...
But freedom can never be killed by anything...
And perhaps—
That is where the rebellion will begin.
"With what? By climbing a mountain that will kill you? Man… You know that place is the grave of a being far beyond your comprehension. Even your own body will not endure. NOT EVEN if only to survive." Ken turned his gaze straight toward Mount of the Fallen, fixing his eyes upon it, and something began to stir within his soul.
"Every being who lays eyes upon it can feel its presence... It still groans, still digesting its own exhaustion..."
But Gaius cut him off, snapping Ken back from the inner tremor that was slowly consuming him.
"And from there, we can watch their gate... Observe the Patterns. The Rhythm... We are not attacking Tartarus head-on, you ice cube. We are studying it. And for the first time—we will see our enemy not as an inevitable force... but as an entity with gaps and weaknesses..."
"I'd still be furious if you called me that, even if I were possessed."
How could this be possible?
Following a madman who wants to take me to die with him?
That isn't loyalty...That's...
Huh...Whatever it is... He is my brother.
And he is the only one I have in this world...
Better to die protecting your brother,
than to die protecting the lives of those who do not even know you at all.
"And there is one more thing you should know...
That mountain is not merely a nail in the world...
Its ground is not like any earth you have ever tread.It is dead flesh. They say the first step upon it feels like... like stepping into a void."
His voice dropped to nearly a whisper.
"And that void tries to kill you..."
Gaius snorted, but his eyes remained fixed on the silhouette of the mountain.
"Huh...One thing I know...
It is better to be devoured by a terrible truth than to be digested by a comfortable lie..."
And from the corner of his other eye—
Ken understood the burden carried by the man beside him—
A king who would rather face terror head-on than watch his people die slowly in an illusion of peace.
"I am not asking you to come with me to write history, Kenny.
History is just a tale told by the victors—
Instead,we go there to taint their reality... To prove the gate that brings them is real... And we... These two starving madmen are not afraid of it!"
"I understand..."
Ken drew his sword. The sound that emerged was not a dramatic shing, but a reluctant groan of metal, like rusted joints grinding.
And this time...
For the first time—he did not hold his sword heroically—his grip instead resembled a broken motion from a man already weary of fighting the world...
"You seek horror just to prove we can still feel horror? That... is a pitiful reason to die..."
....
We do not come to worship,
nor to steal the shards of its shattered light.
We come, two souls too awake to obey,
to peer into the abyss behind the suffering.
From the summit of that tombstone above, from the lip of the crater left by the fall of the being the cosmos spurned,
it is said the eye can pierce the world's veil.
There, behind the light-sucking, trembling curtain,
lies the maw of Tartarus—a portal exhaling the breath of its prison-plains.
We will sit upon the carcass of the Betrayer,
gazing down into the pit where all terror is incubated.
Observing its pulse, counting its drawn breaths,
seeking a gap between the teeth of its locked gate.
We stalk this portal not to open it,
but to understand the pattern of its snarl.
To learn, does it too breathe?
And if so, can it be strangled?
We will turn the corpse of the Rebel Star into a watchtower,
transforming its curse into a watching eye fixed upon destruction.
From this graveyard, we will map the path to hell,
and stare at it without blinking.
For sometimes, to fight another darkness,
one must first stand upon darkness already vanquished.