The light had no end.
The Traveler couldn't see the river anymore.
He couldn't see the forest, the mountains, or even the ground beneath his feet.
Everything he had known had disappeared.
And Dark Arafial was disappearing too.
Black particles drifted from his shoulders.
At first, they resembled ash.
Then the particles became thinner, dissolving into the endless radiance before they could fall.
His left hand began to fragment.
The edges of his fingers broke apart, revealing the white light behind them.
The Traveler stared.
"Arafial."
Dark Arafial didn't answer.
His expression remained cold.
His eyes were completely black.
Not purple.
Not blue.
There was no visible pupil, iris, or reflection.
Only absolute blackness.
He looked down at his disintegrating hand as though it belonged to someone else.
Then he closed his fingers.
The particles stopped moving.
For a moment, the darkness around his hand became solid.
But the light pressed against it.
And the particles began to separate again.
The Traveler took a step toward him.
"You're disappearing."
Arafial raised his eyes.
"Observant."
"Do something!"
A faint smile appeared on Arafial's face.
"Give me an order again, little vessel. I dare you."
The Traveler's jaw tightened.
Even now, with his body breaking apart, Arafial couldn't resist being cruel.
But there was something different about him.
His voice remained steady.
His face remained cold.
Yet his eyes never stopped watching the light.
He was waiting for something.
Or expecting something.
The Traveler looked around.
"What is this place?"
"Not a place."
"Then what is it?"
"Something that shouldn't have reached us."
Arafial's right shoulder dissolved.
Black particles drifted away.
He barely reacted.
The Traveler moved toward him again.
"Let me help you."
Arafial's expression changed.
Not into fear.
Into disgust.
"Help me?"
He laughed quietly.
"You can barely protect yourself."
The Traveler stopped.
Arafial stepped closer.
"You have been thrown from mountains. Impaled. Beaten unconscious. Hunted by creatures you don't understand."
His black eyes narrowed.
"And every time you survive, you look around as though surviving was an achievement."
The Traveler's hands curled into fists.
"What do you want from me?"
Arafial's smile vanished.
"To stop watching you behave like a human."
The words struck harder than the Traveler expected.
Arafial leaned toward him.
"You keep calling yourself a vessel. You keep asking what you are. You keep searching for explanations as though some human answer will make this easier."
His voice dropped.
"You're part of the Abyss."
The Traveler stared at him.
"You are a part of the Lord of the Abyss."
Arafial's black eyes burned with something the Traveler couldn't name.
"So why do you keep thinking you're human?"
The Traveler said nothing.
Arafial stepped closer.
"Why do you keep fearing death?"
"Because I don't want to die."
"Why?"
The question came without warning.
The Traveler frowned.
"What?"
"Why don't you want to die?"
"Because I—"
He stopped.
Arafial waited.
The Traveler looked away.
He didn't have an answer that felt sufficient.
He wanted to live.
He wanted to understand what had happened to him.
He wanted to know why his body carried powers he couldn't explain.
He wanted to know what had been taken from the original Arafial.
But he also knew something else.
He was afraid.
Afraid of losing control.
Afraid of becoming something he couldn't recognize.
Afraid that the cold figure standing before him wasn't merely another part of his existence.
Perhaps he was afraid that Arafial was right.
Arafial watched him struggle with the answer.
Then he spoke.
"Weakness."
The word echoed through the light.
"That is what the Lord hated."
The Traveler looked up.
Arafial's expression was merciless.
"Not pain. Not injury. Not defeat."
He raised his disintegrating hand.
"Weakness."
His fingers began to dissolve again.
"And you carry it as though it were something precious."
The Traveler's anger rose.
"You think being cruel makes you strong?"
Arafial stared at him.
"No."
His answer was immediate.
"I think being cruel is sometimes more honest than pretending you can save everything."
The Traveler stepped forward.
"That's your excuse?"
"Excuse?"
Arafial's voice sharpened.
The surrounding light trembled.
"You think I am trying to excuse myself?"
His eyes became darker.
"I am trying to make you understand what you are."
The Traveler's anger broke through.
"Then stop speaking in riddles and tell me!"
For a moment, neither moved.
Then Arafial smiled.
There was no warmth in it.
"Good."
The Traveler stared at him.
"What?"
"Anger."
Arafial tilted his head.
"Finally, something other than fear."
The Traveler's breathing grew heavier.
Arafial continued.
"You are always waiting for the world to strike you before you decide how to respond. You wait for the monster to attack. You wait for the blade to enter your back. You wait until the enemy has taken everything from you."
His voice became colder.
"And then you call your suffering strength."
The Traveler moved toward him.
"Shut up."
Arafial's smile widened.
"There it is."
"I said shut up!"
"Make me."
The words hung between them.
The Traveler's entire body tensed.
For one instant, something dark stirred beneath his collarbone.
A thin black line appeared beneath his skin.
Then vanished.
Arafial noticed.
His expression became still.
The Traveler noticed it too.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
"Don't lie to me."
Arafial's eyes narrowed.
"You want the truth? Then listen."
He stepped forward until they stood face-to-face.
"The complete Arafial did not beg the universe to spare him."
The light pressed closer.
"He did not plead with his enemies."
"He did not ask permission to exist."
Arafial's voice lowered into something ancient.
"When the beings above him decided he was too dangerous to remain whole, they tore him apart."
The Traveler remembered the dream.
The unconscious figure.
The three shapes.
The human body falling into a distant world.
Arafial continued.
"And you know what the Lord hated most?"
The Traveler said nothing.
"Not that they defeated him."
Arafial's eyes burned.
"That they believed they had the right to decide what he would become."
The Traveler's anger faltered.
Arafial noticed.
He always noticed.
"And now look at you."
His voice turned cruel again.
"You are afraid to become what you are because you might lose the comforting little idea that you are human."
The Traveler's expression hardened.
"I'm not afraid of being powerful."
"No?"
"I'm afraid of becoming you."
Silence.
For the first time, Arafial didn't immediately respond.
The light continued to consume the edges of his body.
One side of his face had begun to dissolve.
Yet his expression remained cold.
Then he laughed.
A low, quiet laugh.
"Then become something worse."
The Traveler stared at him.
Arafial leaned closer.
"Become something they cannot divide."
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Because they will come again."
The Traveler felt the coldness spread through his chest.
"Who?"
Arafial's smile disappeared.
"The Hunters."
The word seemed to drain the light of its warmth, though the radiance remained blinding.
The Traveler remembered the voices from his dream.
The destructive half has been removed.
The illuminating half has been removed.
Then destroy the remainder.
He looked at Arafial.
"Those beings?"
"Some of them."
"Who are they?"
Arafial's expression became utterly cold.
"They are the ones who hunt what should not exist."
He paused.
"They hunt gods who refuse their order. Civilizations that discover forbidden truths. Beings that grow beyond the limits assigned to them."
The Traveler's eyes narrowed.
"And Arafial?"
Arafial stared directly at him.
"Their greatest failure."
His body flickered.
The light was winning.
But he continued.
"They don't call themselves gods. They don't call themselves kings. Those names are beneath them."
The Traveler waited.
Arafial spoke the name as though he despised every syllable.
"The Null Court."
The endless light shuddered.
Far beyond the white expanse, something answered.
A sound too deep to be heard.
Arafial looked upward.
For the first time, the Traveler saw genuine hatred in his expression.
"The Null Court," Arafial repeated. "The self-appointed judges of existence. They decide what deserves to remain whole—and what must be broken into pieces."
The Traveler's voice became quiet.
"They separated you."
"They separated the original."
"And they might come for me."
Arafial looked at him.
"They already have."
The Traveler froze.
"What?"
Arafial's black eyes held his.
"Do you believe your arrival in this world was an accident?"
The Traveler couldn't speak.
"Do you believe that every creature, every curse, every hunter who has followed your path simply found you by chance?"
Arafial's voice became a whisper.
"They have been searching for what remains of the original Arafial."
The Traveler's hands trembled.
"And the stone?"
"I don't know."
For once, Arafial didn't pretend to know more than he did.
"I don't know whether the stone belonged to them. I don't know whether it was a prison, a message, or a door."
He looked at the endless white.
"But I know what happened when it broke."
His expression hardened.
"The Null Court noticed."
The Traveler stared at him.
"Then we fight them."
Arafial looked back.
And laughed.
"You?"
The Traveler stepped forward.
"Yes. Me."
"You cannot even control your own nature."
"Then I'll learn."
"You don't understand what they are."
"Then I'll understand."
"You will die."
The Traveler's eyes narrowed.
"Then I'll die fighting."
Arafial's laughter stopped.
For a long moment, he studied the Traveler.
Then he spoke quietly.
"That is the first answer you've given me that doesn't disgust me."
The Traveler said nothing.
Arafial's remaining hand reached toward his chest.
Black particles drifted from his wrist.
"The Lord of the Abyss hated weakness," he said. "But don't mistake that for a hatred of pain."
He looked directly into the Traveler's eyes.
"He hated surrendering his existence to those who believed they owned it."
The Traveler's anger slowly settled into something harder.
Resolve.
Arafial watched him.
"Remember that."
His body began breaking apart faster.
The Traveler reached for him.
"Arafial!"
"Don't touch me."
The warning came sharply.
The Traveler stopped.
Arafial looked at his dissolving body.
Then back at the Traveler.
"If those beings come to kill you..."
His eyes became completely black.
"...kill them."
The Traveler's jaw tightened.
Arafial's voice rose.
"DO YOU HEAR ME?"
The light trembled.
"If the Hunters come for you, do not kneel! Do not plead! Do not ask them why you deserve to live!"
He stepped closer, his face breaking into black fragments.
"You are a part of the Abyss, you fool!"
His voice thundered across the endless radiance.
"YOU ARE A PART OF THE LORD OF THE ABYSS!"
The Traveler stood motionless.
Arafial's expression was cold, merciless, almost furious.
"Stop thinking like a human who has been given permission to survive!"
The Traveler's eyes burned.
"And stop treating me like something you own!"
Silence.
Arafial stared at him.
Then, slowly, he smiled.
"Good."
His body dissolved further.
"Keep that anger."
He looked into the Traveler's eyes one final time.
"Because the Null Court will try to take even that from you."
His face broke apart.
His shoulders vanished.
The darkness surrounding him folded inward.
And Dark Arafial disappeared.
The Traveler stood alone.
The light remained.
He couldn't tell whether Arafial was dead, imprisoned, or merely beyond his perception.
But he could still hear the last command.
If those beings come to kill them... kill them.
The Traveler looked down at his hands.
He had spent so long asking what he was.
Perhaps that question had become a weakness of its own.
He raised his head.
"I'm not your weapon, Arafial."
His voice was steady.
"But if they come for me..."
He clenched his fists.
"...they won't find someone waiting to be broken."
For a moment, the light seemed to dim.
Then it stopped changing.
Stopped moving.
Stopped trembling.
Everything became silent.
Not the silence of an empty forest.
Not the silence of a sleeping world.
This was a silence so complete that the Traveler could no longer hear his own thoughts.
He couldn't sense Dark Arafial.
He couldn't sense the Abyss.
He couldn't sense anything.
He tried to move.
Nothing.
He tried to turn.
Nothing.
He tried to call Arafial's name.
No sound emerged.
Then—
something touched his shoulder.
A hand.
Cold.
Human-shaped.
The Traveler went completely still.
The fingers rested lightly against him.
Whoever stood behind him had crossed the endless light without making a sound.
A voice whispered beside his ear.
"At last. We have found the third piece."
The hand tightened.
And the light went silent