Kayden nodded slowly. "I understand."
"What do you understand?" Rita asked while looking at him with curious eyes.
Kayden hesitated for a moment before speaking slowly.
"The words everyone keeps repeating… maybe that's what it means. When souls intertwine, meanings are understood even without explanation. You might think all humans are equal, but that's just a claim… there will always be those who are superior."
But the truth was that he was only guessing.
He wasn't certain of anything.
At that moment, Kayden was lying, but his lie was nothing more than an attempt to understand something larger than logic itself.
Still, Kayden had already begun placing himself above them.
Rita lowered her head before speaking softly. "You know… the Master always told me he felt lonely. He possessed everything anyone could imagine power, immortality, wisdom… yet he was always isolated. As though something inside him was silently devouring him."
He paused for a moment, then continued, as if whispering a buried secret: "He once told me… he wanted to watch something called a 'film.' I didn't understand it, and he never explained it. He just laughed, as if it were a magical word from another world."
Kayden looked at her for a long moment, his eyes narrowing slowly. "I understand…"
"Did he tell you anything about the movie?" Kayden asked in a calm voice, with a faint layer of pretense.
Rita raised her gaze slightly, trying to recall something buried in the fog of memory. "Hmm… I don't remember everything clearly, but…" She paused, then continued, "He always said the movie was about a superhero… but not really a superhero. Just a human, and yet everyone in that city feared him."
Kayden's eyebrow slowly rose, as if something familiar had struck him in the middle of this strangeness.' Batman? Are you talking about Batman?'
Rita continued with a calm expression, carrying a strange smile, as if speaking of something she didn't fully grasp. "He mentioned it a lot… said it would be released soon. He was very excited about it."
Kayden froze for a moment, as if something inside him had shattered.
' Released soon? What version is she talking about…?'
A cold feeling crept up his spine, a faint sense of alienation, as if he were in a world that was familiar on the surface… but wrong underneath.
"Did… did he tell you anything else about the film?" Kayden asked again, this time less cautiously, as if what he had heard wasn't enough.
Rita shook her head simply. "No."
Silence fell between them for a moment, before Kayden returned to his thoughts, studying her calm expression that showed no confusion or hesitation.
' Why does she answer so easily? She's not hiding anything… Is it because I don't belong here? Does she really think I was sent by that man?' Kayden thought tiredly. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again on Rita's calm face.
"Why didn't he take you outside?" Kayden asked again.
Rita flinched slightly and looked up at the sky, as if searching for an answer there. Then she sighed deeply. "I wanted to have a child. A simple desire… but impossible. I'm just a human. I don't possess a spiritual core. But he… he had surpassed all limits."
She paused, then looked at him. "You have a core, don't you?"
Kayden nodded calmly. "Yes."
"If you have one," she said, "then know this: you can only bond with someone who has the same. If you love a woman without a core… you might kill her without meaning to. Would you be happy seeing your beloved die in your arms?"
Kayden fell silent. He was asked about love, and ghosts rose in his memory. "I… don't know," Kayden said coldly. "My relationship with women? Complicated. Shocking. I've had enough."
He closed his eyes briefly, and Arabela's image surfaced in his mind. A shiver crawled from his neck down his spine.
Rita looked toward the gate, then pointed. "Your friend is here… with the cat. I didn't let him wander around so he wouldn't get lost."
She murmured softly, "I don't know much about the master… but if you see him, tell him I'm still waiting for him."
Kayden stood up. "Is there a doctor here?" he asked.
"Not exactly a doctor… but there is a special place," she said, and quickly led him toward a cave.
"When my master couldn't move forward… when his steps were heavy with confusion or pain… he used to come here," Rita whispered.
Kayden looked at the cave quietly. Rita entered, placed a small candle into a rocky hollow, and carefully set some fruit in front of it.
Then she quietly withdrew from the cave and returned minutes later with Adam, who was gently wiping the back of the black cat.
"Sir Carlos," Rita said, looking at Kayden, "I explained to him the function of the cave… how it is a place for inner connection, not just healing."
"Jin?" Adam said, his voice mixing confusion and surprise.
But Kayden muttered calmly without looking at him, "Be quiet, please." He glanced at Adam from the corner of his eye, thinking, Your enemy is beside you… but you don't have the luxury of getting rid of him yet.
Adam entered the cave calmly, his steps light as if he didn't want to wake something sleeping inside it. He examined the walls, touched the ground, then said, "It's very good. You're lucky."
Adam approached Kayden, who was sitting and preparing to meditate, and said in a low voice, "I just wanted to remind you of something. You haven't accepted the spiritual core yet. In fact… I don't think you've even accepted that you are alive."
Kayden stopped moving. He raised his eyebrow slowly, looking at him in disbelief. "What do you mean?"
Adam smiled and sat directly in front of him. "You don't feel like you belong to this world, do you? As if you are detached from time… from your body… from your fate. As if you're just someone who survived by mistake."
Kayden stayed silent, then said after a moment, "No. On the contrary. I know exactly where I belong. I know I must live… for a very long time."
Adam seemed to listen, but didn't believe him. He pulled out a small knife and placed its cold blade near Kayden's neck without pressure.
"I can end it now," he said calmly. "Free you from everything. From thinking, from memories, from wounds. You'll die… but you'll be free."
Kayden didn't move. He simply pushed the knife away with his left hand.
"Can you postpone it?" Kayden said, taking off his coat and handing it to Adam. "It's expensive."
Adam smiled, then stood up. "Of course."
A moment of silence passed before Rita called from outside.
"Sir Carlos, you can wait outside now."
Adam didn't respond immediately. He stood at the cave entrance, then suddenly asked, "That thing that exploded and stained my clothes… was that because of you?"
"No, I didn't do anything," Kayden replied calmly.
Adam left the cave as if nothing had happened.
"Sir Carlos… which master do you follow?" Rita asked.
Her question was like an arrow—lightly thrown, but carrying full weight.
Adam looked at Kayden, as if the answer required shared understanding. Kayden gave a subtle nod.
"I follow the Great Master," Adam said calmly.
Rita's expression lit up with mixed surprise and doubt, but she didn't comment.
Adam continued, his tone rising theatrically: "The Great Master… is the light of my life. No one understands his greatness like we do. You are isolated here, you don't know what's happening outside. I can tell you everything every event, every prophecy."
Then he pushed the massive rock, sealing the cave entrance with a heavy sound.
Kayden sat alone, eyes closed, trying to meditate. But the echo of words, the memory of the cold knife, and the weight of uncertain truth… allowed him no peace.
Hours passed heavily, each minute dragging as if time itself had decided to sit beside him and watch his collapse in silence. Kayden couldn't enter meditation… couldn't escape his thoughts, his inner voice, himself.
He sat on the ground, pulled his knees to his chest, and buried his face in his arms. Then he whispered suddenly, barely audible "Am I… disabled?"
He slowly lifted his head and looked at the cave walls. He saw marks carved into the stone scars left only by someone who had fought their silence for a long time.
"He was suffering too?" He looked down. "I… accepted everything. Everything that is happening to me now. But… what is the problem then?"
He paused for a moment, then muttered as if testing his own name, "I am Kayden Bryce… Kayden… Kayden?"
He suddenly raised his eyes, his pupils widening as if remembering an old crime he had forgotten. "No. Kayden Bryce is dead."
He let out a bitter sigh. A feeling stuck in his throat not confession, not regret. "I am not Kayden Bryce… so why am I accepting his death? You fraud… why did you drag me here?"
He laughed, but it wasn't laughter. It was a breath twisted with the edge of madness. "You turned me into a bad person. A very bad one…"
He leaned his head against the wall and whispered weakly, exhausted. "You know? Since I got your body… I've been living in peace. A peace I've never known before."
"I have siblings. I have a mother… and a father. I can eat until I'm full. No one asks me anything, no one beats me, no one steals from me. It's a simple life… but it's real."
He sighed again. "And if I could live like this… I would do it again. Without hesitation."
He grabbed his hair with both hands, trying to calm himself… trying not to scream.
But something on the wall caught his attention—words carved violently, as if they were a cry for help from another time.
"S O S"
He touched the letters with his fingertips and muttered sarcastically, "You bastard… do you want to go back to your homeland?"
He didn't know much about that "world," but he knew one thing: Ren Yuan was tired of pretending.
He grabbed a random stone and began violently destroying the letters, striking them with rage as if he were avenging a memory that wasn't his. Dust scattered, but the anger did not fade.
He looked at the wall with disgust. If there had been a mirror in the cave, he would have smashed it with his fist.
"Kayden Bryce… how did you drag me with you? Why?!"
His voice trembled, as if he had lost his inner balance.
Then he suddenly fell silent, as if his consciousness had hit another wall. "But I'm living happily here… and that's a good thing, isn't it?"
He quickly raised his hand and covered his mouth, as if realizing he had said something forbidden. Then… he punched the wall.
Until he felt pain.
Outside, Adam sat in silence. He heard the sudden sound of pounding from inside. He raised an eyebrow and asked quietly, "Is he hitting his head?"
He moved slightly closer to the rock, but did not go further. "If he dies… it would be mercy," he said as if it were a real possibility.
Then he returned to waiting. Calm. Silent… as if unwilling to become involved in what was happening behind those stone walls.
Adam looked around. There was no one… except him and the black cat sitting nearby, as if on a sightseeing trip.
Adam slowly ran his hand through its fur. His silence was not helplessness, but deep thought, as if he stood at a crossroads between mercy and betrayal.
"Nian…" he suddenly said without looking at the cat. "Should I pray? Or wait? Should I… help your master?"
The cat did not respond. It simply stared at him for a moment, then turned away and cleaned its tail, as if the question meant nothing.
Colton trusted his master, of course. But Adam was not fooled. He had never trusted Kayden.
Adam pulled out his small knife, a weapon he kept for rituals, not killing.
He cut deeply into his right palm without hesitation. Warm blood flowed.
He approached the large rock sealing the cave and drew a circle with his blood, then inscribed a triangle inside it… one pointing upward, the other inverted.
"Be careful with what you choose…" he whispered, as if someone might hear and respond. "There is no perfect doctrine… no correct one. O revered one, Emdeniel… end his suffering. If death is his salvation, then so be it."
Adam returned to sitting, looking at the moon for a moment as if praying to it.
"I've called you many times…" he muttered. "But Emdeniel only responds rarely. Sometimes… I feel like I'm even abandoned by my own master."
Inside the cave, Kayden's hand was bleeding, but pain no longer meant anything.
He was somewhere beyond the body, in a state of unconsciousness between memory and denial.
He laughed… a broken, distorted sound, the laugh of a man who understands how shattered he is.
"I am Ren Yuan…" he said quietly, as if confessing or interrogating himself. "I am twenty-six years old… I work in investment, I own a beautiful house, my mother only visits on special occasions, I have no siblings… my brother died… my father is always busy."
He breathed slowly, as if each word carved deeper into him. "I have friends… but I am a slave to my work. A slave to time… a slave to life."
Then he looked at the shadows on the cave walls. "I am… Ren Yuan. And I accept what happened to me. In fact… I am happy."
"I always wanted this freedom… here I can be anything, achieve everything I couldn't achieve. Under the name of Kayden Bryce… I have the family. The money. The influence. His life… his education… his relationships. Everything is mine."