LUCIUS.
This was terrifying. I admitted that to myself without shame. Everything around me—everything—had stopped. Not slowed. Not hesitated. Stopped. Time had folded in on itself for no apparent reason. No wind. No sound. No breath beyond my own.
My instincts screamed at me to run, to act, to do something, but even they didn't know what. I stood paralysed—not from fear, not entirely—but from the sheer wrongness of it all.
Then… the darkness around me, the shadows began to move.
It started slowly, like whispers unravelling from beneath the trees. The black silhouettes of the branches, the leaves, even the rain-shrouded undergrowth—all began to stretch. Shift. Slide across the frozen ground, as though pulled toward something.
No, not something. Someone.
Roughly twenty meters ahead, just between me and the Chimaera's still form, the darkness collapsed inward—sucked into itself like a vortex. The pieces twisted together, spiralling into form, rising higher and higher until they shaped something vaguely humanoid. And then that shape sharpened, clarified.
A wraith? Or at least… something that looked like one.
The swirling shadows solidified into a tall figure. Taller than most men—six feet, maybe more. The details were unclear at first, but then I saw them. Two eyes. No—two stars. That's what they looked like. Burning with an otherworldly blue, glowing brighter than anything else in this paused world. They hovered where its eyes should be, embedded in the skull of a being made of pure night.
I should have collapsed from fear. I wanted to. Because if this creature—this entity—was the one responsible for pausing time, then it could have ended me before I'd even known it existed.
And yet… it didn't.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice stiff with unease. It didn't tremble, but the weight behind the words was raw and cracked, stretched thin by uncertainty.
The entity didn't answer. Instead, it turned its gaze to the Chimaera, still frozen mid-snarl. It stood there for a moment, silent, contemplative. As if studying it. Judging it.
Then slowly, it turned back to me.
My breath caught in my throat. One eye—my only one—locked with his glowing blues. My fingers twitched at my side, desperate for weapons I no longer had.
I expected rage. Condemnation. Power overwhelming. But what I felt instead—
Relief.
Somewhere deep in my chest, buried beneath the fear and helplessness, there was… a sense of distant familiarity. As if something inside me recognised this being... Trusted it. But why? For what?
"To think you almost lost to this vile creature..." His voice was deep—grounded like the weight of falling mountains. Echoing yet personal. "...What a shame."
I had no retort.
What could I even say to that? He wasn't wrong. I had unofficially lost. I was weak. And that truth stung more than any blade, any spell could. My head dipped before I realised it, avoiding the pressure of its gaze, which also meant any incoming attack wouldn't be noticed, not that it mattered anymore.
Because he was right. I was pathetic. And I was tired of pretending otherwise.
I wasn't born gifted with elemental mana. No fire to burn, no water to control, no wind to fly... And no lightning to channel and strike. Just… the ability to touch mana. To manipulate it better than most. Maybe that had meant something. Maybe people had whispered prodigy when they thought I couldn't hear.
But the reality? The reality was cruel and simple.
Without my weapons, I was nothing. Without Crimson Ultima, now melted into nothingness, and Snowhite, submerged and unreachable—I was just a boy. A broken boy standing in front of a god.
And worse still? The world had made sure to remind me of that fact. Over and over again. Even now. Even here, before Death wraps itself around me.
"Aren't you a mentality monster…" the entity said, its voice laced with sarcasm as dull and dry as the colour of its form. "To think you, of all people, would think this way... It's truly a shame—and a waste of potential."
I didn't understand what he meant. Not fully. But something about the way he said it—dismissively, like he already knew the path I'd walk before I took a step—hit harder than any insult.
A waste of potential? Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn't, I didn't really care that much anymore, I was down after all, my morale took a pretty bad beating during these last three days.
Still, I stood there, empty-handed, tired, and out of options. I'd already lost. My blade. My pride. My purpose. And maybe... this would be my last day in this world. If so, the least I could do was try to understand the miracle happening in front of me.
"You haven't answered my question," I said flatly, or at least I tried to sound like that.
I should've been afraid of him. Everything about this entity screamed danger, power, and unknowable origin. But fear never came. Instead, a strange calmness settled in me, like standing at the edge of a cliff after you've already decided to jump. There was nothing left to hold onto—no weight, no resistance.
The shadowed being didn't respond with words. Instead, it slowly lifted its left arm, pointing a single finger up toward where its mouth should've been. With a motion more human than I expected, the entity wagged it side to side—tsk, tsk as if I'd asked the wrong question.
"That's not the right question," it said. "Ask the right one, and I'll answer. Hurry up now."
the voice was calm, but there was a certain urgency underneath. As if... something was pressing in from behind. Some unseen clock is ticking.
I froze. The right question? My mind raced. Hundreds of possibilities, no, thousands—spun through me in a storm of tangled thoughts. Questions about who he was, what he was, why time had stopped, how he appeared, what he wanted—none of them felt right.
But then... I breathed. This wasn't supposed to be a riddle. this one wasn't testing intelligence— it was probing intent. Purpose.
"Why are you here?" I finally asked. "What's your purpose?"
That… seemed to reach... him? the eyes narrowed—just slightly—but I saw the subtle shift. The dimming of those radiant blues, like a candle drawing breath. At the same time, I noticed the forest, the Chimaera, the rain—they were all gone. Replaced by an endless plain of darkness.
Nothing. No wind. No scent. No sound. Just him. Just me.
But I didn't care anymore. Not about where I was. Not about what was real or not. Not while he stood in front of me.
"Honestly?" he said, his tone colder now. "I don't have much time. And frankly, I don't associate myself with losers like you."
The insult landed like a slap—sharp, unfiltered, and without hesitation.
"So I'll make it short."
I stared up, one eye locking onto those alien stars where his should've been.
"You've got a gift even the gods would tear down heaven to reclaim. Something buried within you. Something of ancient history, more ancient than myself, perhaps," he said. "A piece that could change not just this pathetic excuse for a battle... but what's coming. The real ones. The future wars that will make this Chimaera feel like 'the good old days,' memory."
I blinked. Slowly. That didn't make sense. A gift? Me?
He continued before I could speak. "You're not wrong. Life—and mana—aren't fair. But you… You're the last person who should be whining about not being chosen."
I clenched my jaw. He had no idea what he was talking about. No idea the kind of life I'd lived.
"What abilities?" I asked, voice low. "What techniques? What 'gift' are you talking about?"
He leaned in slightly—not physically, but spiritually, like his presence folded closer, denser.
"You're the one who limits yourself," he said. "You confine your nature. You wrap chains around your own power and then curse the world for how heavy they feel."
"You can move mountains without breaking them. Raise oceans without spilling a drop. Pull the skies down without ever feeling crushed. And yet... what do you do with that potential?"
He shook his head in something between disappointment and disdain as if he wasn't over exaggerating my capabilities... Or was he?
"You toss trees like spears. Push and pull like a child playing with magnets. You reinforce your body like a second-rate bruiser. You crawl in the dirt of your own making—then you curse the heavens for your lack of wings...
"... I guess whining runs in your blood."
His words didn't shout—but they echoed. They hit me where I didn't know I could be hurt. I wanted to scream back at him. You think I asked for this? You think I had choices? But I didn't speak. Because somewhere deep down… I knew he was right about some things, at the very least.
"You're gonna die here... just like Ragnar. Alone. Without anyone by your side as you breathe your last breath." He said it so casually. Like he was stating a mundane truth—the sky is blue, fire burns, you're about to die. And the terrifying part? He wasn't wrong, again. If he vanished now—if this fractured fragment of whatever frozen time-state this was dissolved—I'd be dead in less than sixty seconds. The Chimaera wasn't playing anymore. No tricks. No games. Just death.
And I nodded. Not out of agreement. Not out of peace. But because... the weight of it all finally sank in. This—this storm-drenched clearing on the edge of nowhere—this is where I'd die? Not in some grand final battle. Not beside my comrades, or before my family? Not with a purpose. Just here. Just like this, he thought of it, squeezed around my chest like a vice. Not the fear of dying—no, I'd danced with death too many times to fear the end itself. But this?
What about Sia?
What about Sara and Lavya?
Who would protect them? Who would stand between them, alongside them, against the world that only ever takes, devours, and never apologises?
No one.
If I died now, I'd leave behind more than a battle—I'd leave a void. A promise, broken. A shield, shattered. A future, uncertain.
The brutal truths rose like ghosts in the fog. This wasn't about whether I wanted to keep going. This was about whether I could afford to stop.
And then he spoke again—this shadowed entity with eyes like stars of hope and a voice like prophecy.
"...Ragnar died after going all out. Burning himself—and his enemy—to ash. He didn't retreat. He didn't cower. He died protecting you and your mentor."
The voice pressed deeper, cutting into something raw and pulsing beneath the guilt.
"If you're going to give up and die by the hands of that beast... at least go all out once. Without fear. Without hesitation. Without caring about consequences."
He paused.
"You're a dead man anyway. The best thing a man can do before dying is to truly realise his potential—the power he holds... or held."
My throat tightened. My hands trembled—but not from fear. From something else.
Resolve, maybe.
Anger, maybe.
He was... Right. But so was I. Dying here, now, felt wrong—not because I was afraid of the pain, or the end—but because this wasn't supposed to be the end.
Not when the Wraiths still stalked Varis like whispers in the dark.
Not when Sia and the others still slept peacefully behind walls that wouldn't hold forever.
Not when cities were one shadow away from erupting into chaos—and no one even knew what was coming.
No. This wasn't the end. And if it was... I'd make sure the Chimaera remembered it.
"Chop chop, like I mentioned earlier, I don't have much time... well, I don't have any time left anymore. So, heads up, little one!"
His voice echoed like distant thunder cracking across an endless void. A sharp clap followed—both hands colliding—and instantly, the suffocating darkness around me fractured like glass struck by a divine hammer. Shards of void fell upward, downward, nowhere, and I felt something snap back into place inside me.
My core roared to life.
Mana surged through my veins like wildfire through dry leaves, furious and familiar. I didn't wait—I couldn't wait. I launched my mana circulation instantly, clinging to the one thing that hadn't betrayed me since the day I was reborn, the one thing that never abandoned me, no matter how hopeless I became.
Mana.
The world returned in a whisper. The storm's howl crept back in. Rain resumed its chaotic fall. Trees shivered under gusts that remembered they had purpose. And in the middle of it all—anchoring the chaos—stood the creature I now despised more than Goodman himself.
The Chimaera.
It roared—low, sharp, guttural. A sound not meant to intimidate, but to end. Its back pulsed with power as another bolt of lightning, thicker and brighter than the last, gathered above its head. This wasn't wild discharging—it was calculated destruction. The mana within the beast swirled with rhythm and discipline, forming a compressed lance of electric death.
I should've moved. Dodged. Summoned a barrier. Something.
But my mind—traitorous as always—pulled me back.
That shadowed entity. That conversation. Was it real?
Had I really stood in a space where time had no meaning, where thunder paused mid-roar and the rain hung suspended like frozen tears? Had I truly spoken to someone—or something—that treated time like a curtain to be drawn back?
Or had I imagined it all? A last-ditch hallucination conjured by a dying mind to cope with its end?
I didn't have the luxury of indulging that question.
The bolt was almost here—bright enough to sear my vision, fast enough to be a breath away. Yet my thoughts betrayed me once more, circling not to the threat, but to Ragnar. To Crimson Ultima. To the way he burned his life to ash so others could keep theirs. He died as a hero. I hadn't even lived like one.
But that shadowed figure... his words carved deeper than the Chimaera's talons ever could.
'You limit yourself. You bind what was born unshackled. You blame the world for chains you forged with your own hands.'
He meant my telekinesis, of course, he did. He saw through me, saw the cautious little tricks, the conservative movements, the defensive patterns I'd clung to like a coward.
Let's see how right he really was.
The world around me crackled with volatile energy—the beast's bolt finally descending, its arc wild and murderous—but I raised my left hand, steady and deliberate.
Index. Middle. Thumb.
The formation was precise, ritualistic. The same posture I used to birth my newest spell, my own technique. An inspiration I'd stolen from Mercy himself, the man who turned elegance into warfare. I called it Praise: Ultima.
A bead of mana formed—small, too small for its weight. A white star pressed into marble's skin. It hummed at my fingertips, compressed beyond reason, dangerous beyond logic. The mana condensed itself between my straightened index and slightly curved middle finger, while my thumb served as a stabiliser, balancing the orb like a lens on the verge of shattering.
But this time... I didn't just stop there. The final step, once supplied by Crimson Ultima, her fire mana, now had to come from me. From within.
I pulled my telekinetic mana into the core of the sphere. It fought back against the raw mana, unstable and wild, screaming at my will like a chained beast. Unlike elemental mana, which listened, obeyed, belonged... raw mana belonged to no one. It never had.
Until now.
It pulsed once, white heat bleeding into the storm around me. The hairs on my arms stood on end. The storm faltered for half a heartbeat. Even the Chimaera's bolt wavered in its descent. My breathing slowed. My grip steadied.
If I were going to die—if this would be my last stand—then I would go down not as the boy the world pitied, not as the mage who wasted his gifts. I would go down as the one who finally listened.
PRAISE: ULTIMA, THE CRIMSON PURGATORY!