It was, without a shadow of a doubt, a being without a 'self'—a hollow vessel of non-existence. Without the weight of a soul to anchor it to reality, the creature was a leaf caught in a spiritual gale, doomed to inevitably disappear back into the churning abyss where all gathered egos were meant to rest: the void.
But it didn't want to return to that suffocating darkness; it didn't want to be erased from the world. So it tried. Like a drowning man clawing at the surface of the sea, it searched for a way to stay.
The entity cast its gaze across the mortal realm until it found a boy. He was dying, withered by a disease that no prayer could cure. He lay in a lavish room, surrounded by the heavy scents of medicinal herbs and the stifling love of a family that could do nothing but watch. Maids moved like silent ghosts, and doctors, funded by the limitless wealth of the Duke, exhausted every tonic in their repertoire. None of it mattered.
The entity understood neither the concept of family nor the warmth of love. It only saw that the boy's life force was a flickering candle, nearly extinguished. With a predatory instinct born of desperation, it realized it could inhabit that failing vessel.
So, it did. It consumed the boy.
Mmmm?
The boy woke up. His memories remained intact like archived scrolls; his emotions were still there, echoes of a life he hadn't truly lost. His body felt like a spring morning—vibrant and healthy.
The 'boy' sat up, touching his hands with a sense of wonder. He scrambled from the bed to the mirror, staring at the reflection of a twelve-year-old with jet-black hair and eyes like polished onyx. He was slim, dressed in soft pajamas, looking every bit the young lord he was supposed to be.
A smile formed on his face. He grabbed his hair, felt the solid weight of his legs, and sifted through his memories like a child with new toys.
"Heheheh… I-I have a self now… I did it, I'm not fading anymore." He laughed, his joy coming in puffs of pure bliss that filled the silent room.
But then, beneath the laughter, the entity felt something… or rather, it felt nothing. The boy's face was happy, but the core of the entity remained a hollow vacuum. Its desire was the wind that pushed the boy's emotions, making him smile, but it couldn't feel the warmth of the sun it was mimicking.
Still, it continued to grin, clinging to the hope that emotions would come if it just played the part long enough.
Knock-knock.Creak.
A maid entered, her posture professional yet weary. She knocked out of habit and respect, expecting to find a sleeping patient. When her eyes landed on the empty bed, her heart skipped. Then, she saw him—the moving figure by the mirror. She froze.
"…Y-young lord?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "Th-th-the young lord… the young lord is awake!"
Her shout acted like a bell through the mansion, and the halls soon flooded with the sounds of running feet.
***
"Then, he told us to go away before he showed us his 'glorious magic.' Hahahah! What an idiot, right?"
A girl with hair that shone like spun silver and eyes of rich gold walked down the hallway. She didn't just walk; she danced, her movements playful and carefree, jumping slightly with each step. Her face was a portrait of pure joy as she recounted the tale to her brother. She wore a dress of white and gold, a perfect mirror for her sun-drenched personality.
Beside her walked her brother, Liam, looking sharp in a white shirt, a black vest, and a structured coat.
"Hahahah! Right!" Liam laughed, his voice a cheerful resonance that filled the corridor. "You certainly find some funny people, Keyla."
***
Under a night sky carpeted with stars, the two siblings sat on the edge of a cliff, the churning water below reflecting the silver of the moon.
Liam tilted his head back, his black eyes tracing the constellations before he let out a playful, exaggerated sigh.
"Today's banquet was long," he said, looking over at Keyla. "Did you enjoy it?"
"I did," she nodded, her hair catching the starlight. "I see you still haven't learned to love them. You've been sour about banquets ever since you slipped at that first one we attended."
"Hey! Don't remind me of that! It was embarrassing."
"But you know," Keyla turned toward him, the playful light in her eyes dimming into a worried expression. "You seem… I don't know, different somehow. Like you're not the same person."
Liam froze. His eyes widened just a fraction, the movement almost imperceptible. A long, chilling gust of wind swept over the cliff, tangling Keyla's silver hair as the silence stretched into seconds.
Finally, Liam's lips quirked up.
"What are you talking about, Keyla?" He moved his lips into a gentle smirk. "I'm your little brother."
Keyla's face suddenly shifted back into a teasing mask. She reached out, grabbing his face with both hands and squishing his cheeks together.
"I know, I know~ You're my one and only lovely little brother." She shook his head back and forth with a bright, radiant smile. "I was just reciting a story part to see your reaction, idiot."
***
"Wh-what am I doing? I'm still not him. Why? Why can't I feel a thing?"
Back in the sanctuary of his room, Liam was huddled in a corner, his face a mask of exhaustion and hollow rage. He gripped his dark hair so tightly his knuckles turned white, his eyes bloodshot as he stared intensely at the floor.
"I'm not fading… but it doesn't feel right. Why? Why goddammit!?" He slammed his fist into the floor. "Am I Liam? Am I someone else? Who am I?"
The entity could mimic the boy's joy, his sorrow, his love, and his hatred with surgical precision… but it could never feel which of those colors truly belonged to it.
Knock-knock.
"Liam, I'm coming in!"
Keyla burst through the door, as cheerful as the morning sun, clutching a book. She scanned the room and found Liam sitting on the edge of his bed, smiling at her as he always did.
"Are you here to read?" he asked, tilting his head with practiced innocence.
"Coming!" Without another word, she sprinted toward him and leaped, playfully punching his cheek as she collided with him on the mattress.
"Why do you have to do this every time!?"
"Heheheheh~"
***
Time flowed like a sluggish river, and they aged with it. Liam matured into a man of striking handsomeness. He attended academies, laughed with his peers, and navigated the usual frustrations with teachers. He even found a woman to call his own.
But the nothingness inside the entity's head remained a blank canvas. No color could brighten the void. Envy crept into its heart as it watched the world through Liam's eyes, yet even that envy felt like a ghost of an emotion.
Now, he was seconds away from his final breath. He had been a Duke, a man who lived up to his lineage. He had built a family and gathered mountains of memories. But those memories weren't Its; they belonged to the character named 'Liam.'
He looked around at his sister, his wife, and his children—one of whom was now the Duke—and finally closed his eyes, his mortal performance coming to an end.
***
Centuries—perhaps even ages—passed. Through that time, the entity became a thousand different people. When it was a mother, it raised children with a stolen tenderness before dying of old age. When it was a warrior of immense power, it fought for glory until a blade found its heart. When it was a criminal, it used its shapeshifting gifts to weave through the shadows of the law.
It lived for hundreds of years, but no matter how many shades it gathered, the canvas remained stubbornly empty. It was drowning in color… yet starved of meaning. It had learned to match every hue in the world perfectly, but it had never learned how to create a single stroke of its own.
"NOOOO! Sob… J-Jakes."
The scream of Queen Ilyra echoed through the royal hall, which had been transformed into a macabre bloodbath. Her face was a map of scars and fresh injuries, her golden hair a tangled mess. Tears fell like waterfalls as she watched her lover die with a blade through his heart.
"We'll meet again… in heaven," Jakes whispered, blood bubbling from his lips, yet he still managed a warm, genuine smile. "My love."
The man who had stabbed him stepped forward, shaking Jakes' blood from his steel. He stopped right before the Queen.
She was crying, but the entity was not. It was performing the act of a grieving queen, and it played the part flawlessly, yet it remained unsatisfied. The goal it had dreamt of was still hidden in the dark.
Slinn~
With that cold, rhythmic sound, Queen Ilyra Seimara died, and her kingdom fell into the dust of history. And the entity continued its march, searching for a 'self.'
***
It had finally had enough. It had lived, it had performed, and it had died, yet the outcome never changed. Every shade existed within it, and none of them were its own. It looked at the world—at children, dragons, elves, heroes, and villains. Every living being had their lives painted in steady, deliberate strokes. But the entity's own colors kept smearing.
It had given up on trying to avoid the fade, because the sheer volume of gathered egos made being erased feel impossible. Now, it didn't just want to exist; it wanted to be 'itself'.
It began its march to find a cure, living through a thousand more masks until it reached Cirelith. And there, all its carefully curated selves were destroyed by a single man. Now, finally, it was fading.
"At the end, I even became a fuel before finding a self," the entity said, its voice a hollow rattle as it looked at Noa.
Noa snapped back into reality, the weight of the entity's memories finally releasing his mind. He felt something strangely familiar yet distant. He reached out and forcefully accelerated the power of [Echo Reclamation], as if he were digging through a landfill for a specific gem.
"Listen here, dude. I saw all that, and honestly, I don't really care about your backstory," Noa said, tilting his head down, his eyes fixed on the entity. "But answer me this: if I give you the 'self' you want so badly, will you join our side?"
"!!?"
The entity, which had felt nothing for eons, felt a spark. It stared at Noa for a long, heavy silence before whispering,
"…yes. Please."
"Heheh—good." Noa closed his eyes. "Then become my fool"
[Echo Reclamation]
As he absorbed the final dregs of the entity's emotions, he sensed it—an unstable, fluid mass gathered at the creature's core. He could feel the malleability of it. Like a sculptor with wet clay, Noa began to edit the fluid, forcing it into a permanent, singular shape.
"There you go. Just give it some time," he said, opening his eyes and setting the creature down.
The figure remained a black mass, but it was hardening. The fluid was taking a definitive, unchanging form.
"Now, onto our little barrier here," Noa turned toward Jain, who had just located his position. "Let's say goodbye to it, shall we?"
Acheron was overflowing now, its blade humming with the recycled misery of the thousands of lives the entity had consumed over the centuries. The negative energy flowed into the dragonic steel with the force of a collapsing star.
Noa stepped back, his upper body leaning into a violent arc, his eyes fixed on the golden sky above.
— Formless Sword: Trace (Lingering Afterimage) —
The sword launched into the air, defying gravity as it tore a path through the atmosphere. A tide of purple energy radiated across the entire city-state, so intense that even the terrified civilians outside the walls could see the violet dawn.
The tip of the blade met the golden barrier, and for a few agonizing seconds, there was no impact.
KRAAASH!
The barrier shattered like a mountain of glass. But before the echoes could fade, the sky opened again.
[Summoning: Angel of Liara]
A pillar of pure light pierced the clouds, slamming into the ground near Jain. The glittering shards of the shattered barrier didn't vanish; they were drawn into the light, swirling like a cyclone of holy gold.
Flop—flop.
With a powerful snap of its wings, an angel manifested beside the Saint.
Noa's face was a void, stripped of all emotion. It was just a normal, quiet face, staring blankly at the duo of the Angel and the Saint. Between the grueling hunt for It, the Saint's sudden resurrection, and the divine intervention of Liara herself, he was running on fumes. Now, with a literal Angel manifesting to seal the deal, any rational calculation put his odds of winning this 1vs2 at a flat zero percent.
But there was still something he hadn't forgotten. There was still a presence that could stand right beside him—if not, in fact, inside him.
As the voice of his partner erupted in his mind, Noa raised Acheron. His exhaustion vanished, replaced by a smile of pure arrogance and dark amusement. Deep within his subconscious, he could feel Vionette sitting in her chair, system windows dancing before her eyes, wearing the exact same predatory grin.
"Let's go fuckers, it's a 2vs2."
And thus, the battle between the divine and the damned began.