Zekai stood frozen, staring at Lucien. His mind refused to catch up with what he'd just watched happen.
'Your death is my life.'
'What the hell did that even mean?'
Minutes ago he'd escaped what he'd thought was a sanctuary. Now he'd walked straight into the grip of something worse.
His fingers locked around Null Drakular. He backed up a step, then another.
"No." His voice came out thin. "I know for a fact — if I kill you, I survive."
A tremor ran under the words — fear that death itself didn't work the way he'd always assumed.
Fear that death itself didn't work the way he'd always assumed.
The guardian didn't answer. He stepped forward instead and pressed his palms together.
Clap.
The sound rolled through the sanctuary.
"See for yourself." His eyes settled on Zekai. "...how you killed him."
Something pulled behind Zekai's eyes. The world warped — throne, pillars, Lucien, the guardian, all of it collapsing into one smear of light.
"What—"
The scene tore away before he could finish.
He was on the throne now — the same one Lucien had occupied a minute ago. His own body sat there, one leg crossed, spine straight... regal in a way that felt wrong on him.
'How did I get here?'
He tried to move. Nothing answered. His fingers stayed still. His head wouldn't turn. Breathing itself felt like something happening to him, not something he was doing.
He could feel every heartbeat — none of it belonged to him.
He looked ahead and went cold. Someone stood before the throne.
Himself.
Same face. Same eyes. Null Drakular gripped the same way. Even the killing intent on that other face matched exactly what he'd worn charging Lucien down minutes ago.
"No—" His instincts screamed. 'This isn't real.'
The other version of him moved — the exact motion Lucien had used before. Gone from where he stood.
'Move!'
His body wouldn't listen.
The blade flashed.
SLASH!
Steel passed through his throat.
For one unbearable second he watched his own body from outside it — head separating clean from his shoulders. Warm blood hit the throne.
'This is the worst mistake I've ever made,' some part of him thought, distant, like it belonged to someone else.
Just one regret sitting under everything else.
'I promised Aron I'd bring him back.'
His head kept falling toward the floor.
'And I'm going to die here. I never even found him.'
"U-uh—"
His head hit stone.
Black.
Zekai gasped.
"Haa—!"
Reality slammed back into him. He was on his knees in front of the throne again, both hands clamped around his own throat.
Air tore into his lungs. He doubled over, dragging in breath after breath, one knee grinding against the floor.
Nothing. No wound. No blood. No scar. He checked again anyway. Still nothing.
His eyes dropped to his own hand. Null Drakular was still there.
Relief hit him hard, sudden as catching himself before a fall. For a second that was the only thing his body could register.
'I'm alive!'
Then Aron's smile cut through it — easy, familiar, unwelcome.
'...I almost broke my promise.'
He lifted his head, slow.
Lucien hadn't moved. Whole, untouched, eyes shut, exactly as he'd been the entire time.
Zekai stared.
The guardian looked down at him, a thin smile forming. "How was it?" His head tilted. "Your sword's got a nice edge to it."
Something like amusement crossed his face. "Not enough, though."
"Want me to sharpen it for you?"
Zekai said nothing. His breathing hadn't leveled out yet. He'd walked through dangerous fights before — some close enough to taste his own death coming.
This was different. He hadn't imagined it. He'd watched himself die. And somehow that scared him worse than Lucien's raw power did, because he had no framework for what had just happened to him.
His grip refused to loosen around the hilt.
'Can't let go of this. It's the strongest thing I've got right now.'
The guardian glanced sideways. "Look at him." A note of quiet enjoyment in his voice. "A street dog finally learned what fear tastes like."
Zekai's attention snapped toward them.
He turned. There they were — the strange figures from the staircase. Pale robes, faces buried in shadow, only eerie green eyes catching the light.
Three stood clear in front. Behind them, faint silhouettes lingered in darker patches of the air.
Three more. Six total.
His jaw tightened. He'd counted six on the stairs the first time too. Why only three had shown themselves at first, he had no idea.
They followed me up here.
One laughed. "He jumped in so eagerly before."
Another joined. "Look at him now."
"Can barely stand," a third added, head tilting.
"Can we play with him too?"
He studied them, careful. Something about their build reminded him of Soulreaver — the resemblance sat close enough to be unsettling.
Not identical, though. Purple-black tones crawled across their bodies where Soulreaver had run black and white, and their eyes carried a wrongness Soulreaver's had never had.
His gaze swept the sanctuary. Lucien. The guardian. Six of these things.
He'd walked straight into a gathering of something that shouldn't exist anywhere near his world.
His grip tightened. 'I walked right into their trap.'
No time to sit with it. He had to move, now.
He kicked off backward, clearing the top of the stairs in one motion and landing several meters below. His mind ran the math instantly.
He froze for a second.
The dimensional interference...
It had been at 99.4% before he'd reached the sanctuary. Now there was nothing. No warning. No percentage. Not even the usual broken response.
He quietly whispered, "Arcana Status." Nothing.
His brow tightened. 'Why isn't it showing anymore?'
Time had to be passing outside. If the interference had reached that level, the fracture in Greyhaven should already be causing trouble. Monsters could be spilling through. The BSA might already be dealing with a stampede.
His chest tightened. Then he remembered the Bureau.
'They'll handle it.'
The thought brought a small measure of relief. He wasn't the only one protecting the city anymore.
But another thought followed immediately.
'If I fail here...'
His eyes hardened. Reoccurrence. Thirty days. Whatever remained unresolved would surface again. Maybe somewhere else. Maybe in a worse form.
'No. I can't let it reach that point.'
He turned and ran. Two steps.
One shadow figure launched after him, closing the gap before he'd finished his second stride.
"Your death belongs to us."
A weapon unfurled from its hand — not a blade. A whip. Obsidian cord, a skull for a handle, cold blue light burning in its sockets.
Vespercoil.
The wrist snapped. The cord cracked forward.
CRACK!!
The skull tore through the air, aimed straight at his throat.
Instinct fired before thought did. The Fool's Authority surged, and for one fraction of a second countless branching paths opened in front of his eyes.
He picked one. Reality bent around the choice, and his body simply wasn't there anymore.
Vespercoil struck empty air and slammed into the staircase behind him.
CRACK!!
Black fractures spiderwebbed across white stone.
The weapon didn't just recoil, though — the second the skull hit stone, the cord twisted against physics and curved back through the air.
Toward him.
His pupils shrank. "What—"
It was tracking his soul, not his body. A faint blue mark flared across his chest and vanished under his skin before he could process it.
The figure's green eyes narrowed. "...Marked."
His jaw clenched. "Tch."
He was already gone. He reappeared behind the creature, no hesitation, twisting through his hips and driving everything into one leg.
BOOM!
The kick caught it square in the back, sending it dropping like dead weight — and then it stopped, suspended, something invisible catching it mid-fall.
It turned its head toward him, unbothered.
"You're strong."
Its voice stayed level, calm in a way that felt wrong. Vespercoil coiled slow back into its palm.
"But strength won't save you once Death's already got your name."
He didn't wait for it to finish. He turned and sprinted for the Ascension Steps.
Behind him, the cord dragged across stone.
Scrape. Scrape.
If the stairs had brought him here, maybe they'd take him back.
He hit the bottom step. Then his instincts screamed one word.
STOP.
He froze. Something invisible stood in his way — the same barrier from before.
Synthesis.
His face fell. "No—"
He drove Null Drakular into the wall, the crimson vein flaring, dark energy pouring down his arm.
"Move."
He shoved. Nothing gave. He gritted his teeth and swung.
BOOM!
The impact shook the staircase — and left it without a single mark. His eyes went wide. He swung again.
BOOM!
Still nothing. The blade shook in his grip.
This is Synthesis. Same barrier. I broke this thing earlier.
But this one was built differently. What he'd shattered before had only ever been the outer seal.
This one ran deeper. Older. This time it existed to keep him in, not out.
"Why can't I break it now?"
The answer landed hard. His expression shifted. He looked back over his shoulder — past Lucien, past the guardian, into six pairs of eyes that hadn't looked away once.
"H-haaa—" The guardian stepped forward, whatever calm he'd worn before gone from his face entirely.
"You're an idiot, Zekai."
His eyes sharpened. "Did you really think we'd let a Fool Bearer walk out of here alive?"
"You're staying."
"Piece by piece—" His smile twisted into something ugly. "—we take you apart."
"And once there's nothing left of you—" His gaze slid toward Lucien. "—your soul goes to our Lord as an offering."
His attention shifted back to the barrier. The shape of the whole trap opened up at once.
The sanctuary. The guardian. The impossible staircase. The barrier that wouldn't budge. Lucien. His own death, watched from outside his own body.
He swallowed hard. 'So the Ascension Steps—' His eyes stayed locked on the wall. '—they let me through. Brought me straight here.' A beat. 'Every step of this — planned?'
His voice dropped lower. "This whole thing was a trap the entire time?"
The guardian's smile stretched wider. "Yes." Another step closer. "All of it."
Silence.
His jaw set hard.
The guardian stopped walking. Then, almost bored, added— "All of it—"
His eyes caught the light. "—except the Ascension Steps."
Zekai went still. His pulse stuttered. "...Then who chose me?"
The guardian smiled wider.
And for the first time since he'd set foot in this sanctuary, he understood the trap ran deeper than anything he'd guessed.
✦ End of Chapter 63 — Who Chose Me? ✦