Aslan saw Lewena. It was the first time he had seen her since the day eight years ago when he himself had struck her neck.
Beyond the fluttering veil, there was a scar on the woman’s neck—a clean scar, one that Aslan himself had carved.
Upon seeing that wound, Aslan could not glare at Lewena.
He could neither condemn nor raise his voice. Aslan was not an insensitive person to the extent that he could do such a thing.
The memories shared with Lewena held Aslan back by the ankles, and the expression on his face was one of anguish.
It was the best expression Aslan could muster. Unable to erase it, Aslan silently stared at Lewena.
Half-opened eyes. A languid atmosphere. Her alluring expression and features harmonized well with that languor.
Her straight nose bridge and thin, red lips blended so perfectly that Aslan couldn’t utter a single word until those lips parted.
“Are you in pain?”
A voice softer than sticky honey. Aslan belatedly came to his senses from that voice and realized Lewena was scrutinizing his face.
Their gazes met and intertwined, and Lewena smiled as if drawing curtains over her violet eyes.
“How do I look to you?”
Aslan responded with a pained expression. Though he tried hard to answer curtly, his voice melted involuntarily, revealing his awkward attempt at distance to Lewena.
Instead of answering immediately, Lewena removed her hand from the railing and gently lifted the veil covering her face.
Their eyes met. Her violet irises were moist with deep interest and joy.
“You look like you’re in immense pain.”
That joy nestled in her irises spread to the corners of her mouth, forming a deep smile. With a smirk curving into a crescent, Lewena said with apparent relief,
“That’s good.”
There was no need to confirm what she meant by “good.”
“Is it because of me that you’re suffering?”
She knew the source of Aslan’s suffering and took satisfaction in it.
She was satisfied knowing that even Aslan’s pain belonged to her.
Without bothering to confirm, Aslan gave a bitter laugh. Though it was his usual wry smile, it was special to Lewena.
“Yeah, you look like someone in pain.”
Lewena, who had been watching Aslan with what seemed like a pleasant expression, suddenly stretched out her arms. Along with her extended arms, her chest swelled slightly.
As Aslan watched this, Lewena smiled and spoke.
“If you’re in pain, would you like me to embrace you?”
Like before.
“Would you tightly hold me and stroke me all night until I sleep peacefully?”
It was a kind offer. So much so that Aslan involuntarily recalled the scene.
Aslan let out a hollow laugh while looking down. Amidst that spreading sense of futility, Aslan’s memories lingered heavily.
Back when Beryl hadn’t burned yet, and when Aslan lived together with Lewena, Aslan often woke up in the middle of the night writhing in excruciating pain.
It was due to overusing equalization. Although now, after further overuse, his perception of pain had dulled and he no longer experienced these symptoms, they were frequent occurrences back then.
Pain as though his entire body was being torn apart. In the storm of agony that enveloped him, Aslan felt like a small boat adrift in the sea.
There was nowhere to lean, and many things became blurred amidst the boiling pain.
Whenever Aslan suffered thus, Lewena always opened her mouth with that same calm demeanor.
“Does it hurt a lot? Would you like me to hold you?”
And she would cradle Aslan tenderly throughout the night with sleepy, half-open eyes.
Though this actually worked rarely, Aslan found humanity in her inhuman kindness.
Recalling this memory, Aslan exhaled another hollow laugh. Watching Lewena tilt her head, Aslan smiled with a grimace.
Lewena hadn’t changed.
Not a bit, from the day eight years ago when he cut her neck until now, she remained exactly the same.
“Do you not need it? If you don’t… wouldn’t it be nice to hug each other after so long?”
Her gentle coaxing continued.
From that subtle whining tone, despite her disdain for humanity, Aslan could perceive a hint of loneliness in Lewena.
All of this was precisely the Lewena that Aslan missed and remembered fondly.
With a nostalgic pang, Aslan’s emerald eyes narrowed and disappeared beneath his eyelids, leaving behind a painful smile.
A forced grin amidst his suffering. Not even a spreading smile but rather a groan. Clutching his brow, Aslan squeezed his eyes shut tightly.
“Damn…”
Lewena lowered her arms as if understanding the answer. Leaning both hands on the railing, she turned her head away.
“I’m disappointed.”
Lewena’s gaze, staring far into the distance, was dim under the moonlight, unable to escape the encroaching darkness. An oppressive silence quickly filled the space between Lewena and Aslan.
The wind howled around the tower, and the grass in the vast aerial garden constructed alongside the tower swayed with the breeze.
Lewena’s hair and veil also fluttered in the wind. Watching her undulating hair, Aslan was the first to speak.
“Why did you come here, Lewena?”
Lewena slowly turned her head to look at Aslan. Her expressionless face resembled a doll.
“To meet Hyun-woo and make a proposal to him.”
Proposal.
Aslan knew what that proposal was.
Thus, Aslan’s question took a different direction.
“Why did you use magic?”
A gentle question. Lewena grinned. Her amiable smile seemed genuinely pleased.
“If I didn’t do this, Hyun-woo wouldn’t have come, right? He’s a good kid.”
Aslan erased the smile he had formed, and Lewena responded by raising the corner of her mouth, enjoying Aslan’s expression.
“If there’s nothing stopping me or if stopping me isn’t the cheapest option, he won’t come, right?”
The wind ceased, and the veil fell over Lewena’s face. Only her eerie voice filled the void.
“He’d avoid me instead if blocking me causes harm to others. That’s the kind of good kid Hyun-woo is.”
So she used magic. The unspoken words reverberated in Aslan’s mind as Lewena’s voice.
Aslan knew Lewena well.
And conversely, Lewena knew Aslan just as well.
Lewena was right. Aslan wanted to see Lewena less than he wanted to avoid causing harm to those around him.
So if, as it was now, damage had already occurred due to Lewena, and stopping her was the only way to halt it, Aslan would have chosen avoidance or escape.
Silently acknowledging Lewena’s words, Aslan gazed steadily at her face revealed by the gently blowing wind.
An answer wasn’t necessary.
After all, Lewena already knew the answer and wasn’t interested in Aslan’s casual affirmation.
As Aslan remained silent, Lewena examined his face again and smiled softly. Her faint smile floated in the sorrowful silence, soft like clouds drifting across the night sky.
After staring at each other for a long moment, one of the lovers finally spoke.
“Must you stand so far away?”
It was the woman who spoke first. She made a pitiful expression and crossed her legs.
Her long, white legs. When those white legs were folded under her thin silk dress, Aslan unconsciously stared at Lewena folding her legs.
Naturally, memories teased him from beyond that sight. On cold nights, during winter evenings when snow blanketed the sky and turned it gray, Aslan and Lewena always overlapped their bodies.
The rustling sound of sheets slipping and wrinkling. Tracing the wrinkles with fingers, Lewena’s expression would soften lazily, tinged with a poignant sadness.
Aslan used to soothe that sadness, holding and caressing her until it faded. Those long white legs.
Remembering the scene while looking at the legs hidden under the dress, Aslan revealed his inner thoughts amid a long silence.
Of course, Lewena noticed and smiled enigmatically, seemingly satisfied.
“You can come closer if you want. Or…”
Lifting the hem of her skirt slightly, Lewena revealed her ankle. It was flawless, pristine—an ankle that suited the description “transparent.”
“Do you want to?”
What it implied was obvious. What would happen if he agreed was equally clear. While it might be enjoyable in the moment, Aslan knew he couldn’t bear the consequences afterward. Frowning, Aslan shook his head.
Despite the hesitation evident in his actions, Lewena appeared pleased.
Lowering the hem she had lifted, Lewena stepped onto the railing almost effortlessly.
Her hair whipped violently in the wind, creating a surreal and dreamlike ambiance.
Casting a shadow against the moon, the dreamlike atmosphere was tainted by ominous vibes, with only the pair of violet irises glowing vividly within that shadow.
Then Lewena’s delicate lips parted. Aslan recognized the words that followed as her proposal.
“Let’s leave everyone Hyun-woo is currently with and go somewhere alone, just the two of us.”
And the proposal was exactly as Aslan had expected.
“Hyun-woo.”
Calling his name affectionately, Lewena’s voice was sweet and full of tenderness despite the sinister gleam in her eyes.
“Let’s live together like we used to.”
Hearing that voice, Aslan clenched his fists.
“Love each other like before, rely on each other’s warmth to fall asleep, wake up sharing each other’s thoughts. Then… I’ll give you anything.”
There was no deception in Lewena’s words. Aslan knew these were sincere words from her heart.
“It’s an enticing offer.”
Indeed, the offer was so alluring that the words slipped out naturally.
But.
Lewena smiled softly without saying more.
Even though there was something left unsaid.
When their eyes met, the wind stopped. The veil covering Lewena’s face didn’t obscure her violet irises, which shone brightly even in the thick darkness.
Aslan knows Lewena well, just as Lewena knows Aslan.
Lewena was a high priestess of the Abyss in the game.
The Abyss was a unique type of evil deity among the gods.
Since it existed in a two-dimensional space without self-awareness or willpower, it was only natural.
This dimension devoid of self-awareness and willpower made the Abyss one of the most powerful evil deities, second only to the Veil of Mercy.
Monsters that collapse worlds by filling them with their mass, knowledge-eating gods, time-traversing whales—none of these entities could compare to the alien nature of the Abyss.
Only two things existed within the Abyss:
Incomprehensible darkness and the unfortunate beings stained by that darkness.
Originally, Lewena should have been the very will of the Abyss itself.
To Lewena, morality, belief, humanity, and value didn’t exist.
Everything to her was equally worthless.
Even during the time she spent with Aslan, she remained consistent.
She was the Black Witch Lewena.
Even after becoming a priestess of the Dark Ram Herd, the power and favor of the Abyss remained unchanged.
The essence of the Abyss was consumption, and her essence remained unchanged despite changes in faith or people.
She consumed what she couldn’t understand.
Knowing full well that consuming wouldn’t lead to understanding.
Aslan looked down from their meeting gaze to the restless shadow of Lewena.
There was only one thing she didn’t consume.
Lee Hyun-woo alone.
Aslan closed his eyes, recalling events from Beryl.
“…What can you offer?”
Unperturbed by Aslan closing his eyes, Lewena placed her hand on her chest.
“I’ll give myself.”
“And what will I lose?”
Lewena didn’t answer. She simply smiled.
As if asking, “Don’t you already know?”
As if implying, “Didn’t you experience enough in that one year?”
Aslan smiled bitterly, knowing the answer Lewena didn’t provide.
Aslan looked up at the sky.
The star-filled Geladridion night sky. Something was gracefully flying through the stars scattered across the heavens—the shadow of the Immovable One, a god that devours time.
Despite its beautiful posture and seemingly harmless appearance, and regardless of its lack of interest in humans, the Immovable One was undoubtedly an evil deity.
Because, upon appearing in Geladridion, its current goal was to devour the time of every existing entity in Geladridion.
To evil deities, humans held no value.
The accumulation of human thought, the continuation of life, the will that transcends nature—all were powerless and irrelevant.
There was no greater cause or justice.
Aslan considered himself a selfish person.
The reason Aslan sought to destroy evil deities.
The reason he dared to dream the nearly impossible dream of surviving this cursed world—
Was purely out of selfishness.
Aslan thought.
If he were someone who harbored ‘noble intentions,’ he would earnestly wish for
Someone else to change this world.
And changing the world was possible only for Aslan.
It was something “only he could do.”
Therefore, there was no room for hesitation.
Because Aslan was not someone who procrastinated on what he could do.
Aslan slowly lowered his head. His emerald eyes, once reflecting the stars and evil deities, were now blazing.
The confusion and pain he experienced upon hearing about Lewena’s survival or discovering the talisman were gone.
Looking into Lewena’s eyes, Aslan plucked a feather from the wing of Steamfalos he had stroked with his hand.
“Lewena.”
“Hyun-woo.”
“You know what I’m going to say.”
Knowing persuasion would be futile, Lewena quietly said while gazing at Aslan.
“Yeah. I know well.”
Withdrawing her extended hand, the woman smiled gently.
“You’re still cool.”
Simultaneously, Aslan’s world began to warp. The world reflected in her vivid violet eyes began to twist.
The light in front of his eyes bent, the ground beneath his feet twisted, and the wind flowing across his skin changed direction, surging upward into the air.
The smell of burning lingered at the tip of his nose, and a sour taste, though barely perceptible, tingled on his tongue.
Every sensation and cognition warped, and Aslan staggered under the influence of the illusion magic.
Even amidst this chaos, Lewena lifted both sides of her skirt, creating an image reminiscent of a noblewoman’s bow, which stirred the shadows beneath her feet.
Through the swirling shapes of these shadows, monsters emerged. These blackened creatures crawled out from the shadows, trailing streams of dark liquid originating from the Abyss.
Even as Aslan observed the blurry forms of these monsters, he calmly closed his eyes despite feeling as if his head might explode from dizziness.
The world was ravaging Aslan. All five senses were abandoning him, turning their backs on him.
Even the excruciating pain that could cause an ordinary person to faint here was present.
But Aslan was no ordinary person.
Clutching his teeth with sheer determination, his honed mental strength kept Aslan standing upright amidst the sharp, cutting pain.
Among the chaotic sensations where he couldn’t tell if he was standing or lying down, Aslan closed his eyes.
The only reliable sensation was luck.
As his sixth sense, sharpened through training, flared brightly, Aslan gripped the dagger he envisioned in his mind—a dagger resembling a feather.
Amidst the severely distorted illusion magic where even his own voice was inaudible, only Aslan’s voice transcended logic and echoed loudly.
“Purity.”
And the will of a single human blazed white.
