"This is a joke. A cruel, twisted joke."
Valen Veridian opened his eyes to a void. No darkness. No light. No truth or lies in sight—just a plain, meaningless field.
He thought he was looking at his life.
He thought of every action and every truth his mind could remember.
He remembered his killer.
Marcus Alderwood.
The moment that name entered his mind, a storm of emotions surged through him.
> "Even after everything he did to me… I forgave him," Valen thought. "I made him my friend. But in the end, when I sat on the throne… he took both our lives.
I won't forgive him. Not even in this afterlife."
But then Valen realized something.
Dead men don't think.
So why was he still thinking?
Why was he still… here?
He looked around.
Nothing.
An endless void stretching in all directions. No Heaven. No Hell. Just the purest form of nothingness.
But even in that nothingness, he felt something—something staring into him.
Not into his eyes… but into his soul, piercing through him like cold steel.
As he tried to understand the presence, his eyes caught something.
Someone.
His vision burned with fury.
Marcus Alderwood.
His murderer.
There he was—calm, seated in the void.
Valen wanted to fight. Wanted to scream. Wanted to tear the silence apart.
But he couldn't move.
He was trapped.
Sinking deeper into this abyss, as if the void was swallowing him whole.
> "Why do you look at me like that, Marcus?"
"Like I'm the one who sinned?"
Marcus stared at him. Still. Waiting.
A smile on his face.
Not guilt.
Not fear.
Pity.
Valen stared back.
A storm of questions raged in his mind.
> "Why did you hesitate?"
"Were you scared of death?"
"Or were you afraid of the gods watching you?"
Just as his thoughts began to spiral into pain, the void itself trembled.
A voice echoed.
Not Marcus's.
Something… far beyond him. Beyond them.
A being beyond death itself.
Valen couldn't see it, but he could feel it. The presence wasn't just near—it had always been there.
Watching.
Waiting.
He felt neither fear nor comfort—only the weight of something vast. Something unknowable.
And then, it spoke:
> "Tell your tale, Valen Veridian. Let your truth be judged in the void of light.
Let yourself come to an end… or descend into the chains you forged."
The voice wasn't asking.
It wasn't suggesting.
It commanded.
Valen clenched his fists.
> "You want me to speak of that cursed tale… the life I lived through?"
"Do you have any idea what I endured?"
"Do you know the weight of the pain I carried?"
And then, a third figure emerged.
A being cloaked in an aura of authority and chaos.
Tormentor of Peace.
A shadow made real. A presence that existed outside of gods, outside of death.
His voice echoed with quiet finality:
> "It does not matter, Valen Veridian.
You are not the only one who has suffered.
A life without pain… is not a life at all.
Now speak. Let the watchers decide your worth."
As the Tormentor of Peace finished speaking, Valen turned.
Not to Marcus.
Not to the void.
Not to the gods.
But to you.
The reader.
> "You will hear my tale now.
Judge me… if you dare."