?????°???°?????

  “Victor, your temperature is dropping! Get up!”

  There was no pain. Not the way I expected. There was a distant discomfort. My body felt… shut down. As if it had decided, on its own, that it was no longer worth it.

  Even so, Serena spoke as if she were calling me back from somewhere far away.

  I wanted to answer. Say anything. Say that everything was fine.

  Then another voice made itself heard.

  A laugh.

  Low at first. Drawn out. Laden with something that wasn’t amusement, but contempt.

  “Heh…”

  The shadow moved.

  Even without turning my head, I felt it. The pressure shifted. The air around me grew denser, heavier.

  “Look at him.” Orion’s voice was far too calm. “He can barely breathe. That’s your savior.”

  He came a little closer.

  “If he could move, he’d run.” He said, without hesitation. “Monsters always run to survive. He’d leave you there without a second thought.

  My vision darkened for a moment, not from losing consciousness, but from irritation. Something inside me tightened, weak, but present.

  “You’re not here for him.” His voice rose. “You’re here because there’s nowhere left to run.”

  Saving someone.

  I didn’t want to save the world. I never did. I didn’t want to be a hero, or a villain, or anything in between. Everything I’d done until now was just reacting. One step after another, always pushed forward by the next threat, the next choice that had to be made now, with no time to think.

  I was too tired to deny anything.

  Orion’s voice remained steady, confident.

  “He’s already given up.” He said, unhurried. “You’re talking to yourself, girl.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Serena’s voice came out firm. Weak, but firm. It didn’t tremble like before.

  Orion laughed again, louder this time.

  “Oh? You’re still insisting?”

  My body remained motionless. I felt the cold creeping in slowly, not from the snow, but from within. A numbness, slow and far too comfortable.

  Serena took a deep breath.

  “Victor is kind.”

  The words hit me in a strange way.

  “He always thinks of others. Even when he didn’t have to. Even when he was afraid.”

  Orion clicked his tongue.

  “Kindness doesn’t keep anyone alive.”

  “He cared even for someone like me. Someone who brought nothing but trouble.”

  My chest tightened.

  “I don’t care if he’s a monster or not, he wouldn’t run. Not from you!”

  Orion clenched his fists.

  “Someone like that…” Her voice faltered for a moment, but she didn’t stop. “Doesn’t deserve to die by your hands.”

  The silence fell, heavy.

  For a second, I felt something different coming from Orion. Not contempt. Not sarcasm.

  Irritation.

  “Enough!”

  The shadows around him expanded violently.

  “Don’t speak as if you’re better than me!”

  The air tore apart. He lunged at Serena.

  The thought came calmly. Not as an excuse. As a realization.

  ‘Oh… Serena, he’s going to kill you.’

  The world jolted. No buildup. No warning.

  My body simply… was standing.

  I grabbed Orion’s leg the moment he advanced. With an almost lazy motion, I threw him in the opposite direction.

  The air was forced out of his body along with a dry, distorted sound, and the shadow around Orion burst backward like a wave.

  He was hurled far away. Very far.

  He rolled across the devastated field, tearing through debris, crushing what remained of the ground before stopping, leaving a deep trail carved into the earth.

  I took a deep breath once. Then another.

  I slowly turned my head.

  Serena stood frozen, eyes wide, breathing far too fast.

  I smiled. A real one, this time.

  “Sorry…”

  My voice came out hoarse.

  “I know this isn’t the best moment, but… I’m glad you’re blind.”

  She blinked, confused.

  “Because, seriously…” I let out a small, weak laugh. “If you could see my face right now, you’d laugh at me.”

  Orion was getting up in the background, slower this time.

  I turned my gaze forward again.

  Something in me had changed. There was no more hurry, no more pressure. No more weight crushing every thought.

  I didn’t know who I was.

  I didn’t know what I was supposed to be.

  But I realized that I was the only one truly worried about that.

  Hearing Serena made me see it.

  I’m already someone.

  I just hadn’t noticed.

  “Serena. I won’t be able to defeat him.” I said quietly. “You’re going to die.”

  She didn’t step back.

  “You also won’t have time to run to the capital.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “But I’ll keep you alive for a few minutes. So use that time however you decide.”

  Orion laughed in the distance, coughing up something dark.

  “What a beautiful speech.”

  I ignored him.

  Serena stayed silent.

  She took a deep breath. And stopped trembling.

  “Okay.” She smiled back.

  The world didn’t speed up again.

  Even after I stood up. Even after Orion was thrown far away.

  He came again.

  No speech. No provocation. Just rage.

  The shadow thickened around his body, forming jagged blades that tore through the air as he advanced. Each step crushed the ground as if the earth itself was wrong for existing beneath his feet.

  I moved.

  And it was… simple.

  My body dodged before I even thought about how. A short step to the side. The strike passed through where my head had been an instant before, slicing through the wind.

  I didn’t use mana. I didn’t activate anything. I didn’t calculate trajectories.

  I just walked.

  ‘…Ah.’

  That was the first thing I thought.

  Orion twisted his body, trying to hit me with a shadow-wreathed kick. I ducked. I felt the displaced air rush over my back. The ground ahead exploded when the blow missed.

  I rose in the same motion and pushed his shoulder with the palm of my hand.

  Nothing special. No excessive force.

  Even so, Orion stumbled two steps backward.

  ‘This is… easy.’

  The realization came without excitement. Without surprise. Like noticing that a staircase had fewer steps than expected.

  It was as if I was finally inside my own body, instead of chasing after it.

  ‘I hadn’t really thought about it, but… this body is mine.’

  Orion snarled.

  “Stop playing with me!”

  He advanced again, faster now, heavier. Wide, violent attacks, trying to crush me instead of hitting me. Too much force.

  Unnecessary.

  I dodged a punch and caught his arm on the next impact, twisting my body just enough to use his own weight against him. Orion was thrown aside, rolling, tearing the ground with his back.

  He got up almost immediately, but this time there was something different in his eyes.

  Raw irritation. His face was twisted, not from effort, but from frustration.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “You were dying!” He spat the words. “This makes no sense!”

  Nothing I was doing was hurting him, yet he looked deeply wounded.

  I stayed still.

  Breathing.

  Feeling the cold air enter my lungs and leave slowly. Snow fell around us, but it no longer felt present. It was just… scenery.

  I tilted my head slightly.

  “Yeah…” I murmured.

  And that made Orion furious.

  He screamed and made the shadow explode outward, the ground cracking in circles around his body. Fragments of stone floated, trembling under the pressure of unstable mana.

  ‘So that’s it…’

  I wasn’t trying to win anymore. I wasn’t trying to survive. I wasn’t trying to prove anything.

  I was just there.

  Moving my body. Feeling the moment.

  Leaping over Orion while dodging another attack, I looked up at the sky again.

  ‘Ah… so this is it. Moving without weight. Without fear. So this is freedom?’

  In the distance, I felt something different.

  A cold that didn’t come from the snow. A presence that wasn’t hostile to me.

  ‘Come on, Serena. Feel freedom with me.’

  She wasn’t going to run away anymore either.

  °??──────??°

  The mana burned.

  Not like fire, nor like ice, but like something wrong, something that pierced Serena’s body from the inside, pressing against every vein, every nerve, as if it didn’t belong to her.

  Even so, she didn’t retreat.

  The ground beneath her feet trembled with distant impacts. Muffled explosions echoed across the field, accompanied by shockwaves that made the remaining snow vibrate before dissolving into the air. Victor and Orion fought far away, their presence felt more by the weight they imposed on the world than by any visible form.

  Orion was completely focused on him.

  His fury was loud, heavy, too heavy to notice any other threat. All his attention, all his hatred, all his intent to kill were directed at Victor.

  She was invisible.

  The mana inside her body writhed, trying to escape. Each attempt to restrain it made the pain intensify, as if something inside her resisted being contained.

  Serena closed her eyes for a brief moment.

  When she opened them again, she raised her right arm in front of her body. The movement was slow, careful, as if any haste could make everything collapse. She turned her hand, leaving the back of it facing the ground, and then extended her index and middle fingers toward the distant battle.

  Her left hand remained open, slightly apart, her fingers tense, uncertain.

  It was a strange stance. Asymmetrical. Almost fragile.

  And at that exact moment, when the pain reached its limit and the world seemed heavier than her body could bear, everything around Serena disappeared.

  There was no sound.

  The battle, the cold, the ground beneath her feet, everything was torn away at once.

  And Serena fell in silence. Into a completely white space.

  The white didn’t hurt. That was the first thing Serena noticed.

  There was no cold, no heat. No pressure on her body. No weight in her lungs. She tried to breathe, and she could, far too easily. The air seemed to come from nowhere, yet filled her chest gently, almost kindly.

  She looked around.

  ‘My eyes…’

  She was seeing. Even though there was nothing there, she could see her hands, her feet, her worn clothes.

  There was no ground, no sky. No visible boundary. Just a pale void stretching endlessly in every direction. Even so, she felt no fear.

  Then the sound came.

  At first, too faint to identify. A metallic noise, irregular, cutting through the silence like a poorly remembered memory. Serena turned her head instinctively, even without knowing where to look.

  The sound repeated.

  Clang.

  Swords.

  The white distorted for an instant, and images began to appear, not as complete visions, but as overlapping fragments, drifting in and out of focus.

  A training yard. Blades clashing under the sun. The rhythmic sound of steel against steel.

  Sentil advanced with youthful determination, his movements still crude, but filled with will. In front of him, Hogan blocked every strike with ease, correcting his posture with short, firm words.

  “Again.”

  “Feet steady.”

  “Don’t fight with anger.”

  The voices echoed and dissolved.

  The white tore open again.

  Now a deeper tone. Muffled conversations. Heavy words, burdened with concern. Her father’s figure appeared only in fragments, hands pressed against a table, tense shoulders, a voice too low for her to fully understand.

  “…this can’t continue…”

  “…the guild is pressing…”

  “…it’s dangerous…”

  The sentences came incomplete, as if the space itself refused to reveal more than Serena already knew. She felt a light tightening in her chest, not pain, just recognition.

  Another cut.

  The smell of new fabrics.

  Dresses being lifted in front of a mirror. Careful hands adjusting sleeves, collars.

  Her mother’s voice was clear there, filled with a lightness Serena had almost forgotten.

  “This one brings out your eyes. You like this one, don’t you? You don’t have to choose now.”

  “Mom, I don’t know, I’m blind!”

  “Oh? I’m sorry— ah, Serena, you’re adorable.”

  There was laughter. Soft, sincere laughter. Serena tried to approach that memory, but it drifted away like mist in the wind.

  Then the sound changed.

  A loud, frightened neigh.

  Uncontrolled footsteps on wood.

  Screams.

  The white was stained with cold shadows.

  The stable appeared incomplete, straw on the floor, doors open, soldiers running. Serena felt the panic before she even understood the scene. The cold exploded without warning, spreading like an instinctive reflex.

  The horse fell.

  There was no blood. Only ice. The rigid body, the eyes frozen in a final moment of terror. The silence that followed was absolute, too heavy to be broken.

  “Step back!”

  “Don’t get close to her!”

  “Calm down, Serena, calm down!”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t… I didn’t mean to—”

  Hands tried to reach her. Voices overlapped. The world screamed for her to stop, even when she didn’t know how.

  The white reclaimed everything.

  And then, the memory that never disappeared.

  The room.

  The scent of dried flowers.

  Breathing too weak.

  Her mother approached slowly, ignoring the warnings, ignoring the cold already filling the air. There was fear in her eyes, yes, but above it, something stronger.

  Concern.

  She knelt in front of Serena and embraced her.

  The touch was brief.

  The cold answered before any words could be spoken.

  The memory didn’t show the exact moment of death, only the weight that remained afterward. Her mother’s body shattering into pieces. The silence broken by distant screams. And Serena, too small, standing at the center of it all, unable to understand how something meant to protect could destroy.

  The images began to drift away.

  Others came, longer. Emptier.

  Closed doors.

  Silent corridors.

  Identical days.

  Serena alone, choosing not to go out. Not by order, but by decision. Isolation as a shield. Safety built on absence.

  And later, regret.

  She wanted to see the world. To feel the sun. To hear voices without fear.

  But it had been her who chose to run.

  The white finally stabilized.

  And in front of her, something began to take shape.

  A silhouette identical to her own.

  The figure became clear.

  It was Serena.

  Not a memory, nor a distorted reflection, it was too exact. The same face, the same body, the same posture. The difference lay in the eyes: alert, firm, without the constant weight of fear.

  “Who… are you?” she asked, her voice low, cautious.

  The other Serena tilted her head slightly, as if she had expected the question.

  “I am you.”

  The impact didn’t come as shock, but as confirmation. Something inside her had always known.

  “No.” Serena said, taking a step back. “You’re Ice Rose. You’re the one who… hurts people.”

  The other smiled faintly. A crooked, almost rebellious smile.

  “That’s how you see me,” she said. “And for a long time, that’s how everyone spoke of me. So you believed it.”

  The white space rippled, as if reacting to her words.

  “Unique skills like me have consciousness. I connect to your essence. The way you see yourself shapes me too. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Serena looked away.

  “You saw yourself as a monster, so I became one.”

  She clasped her hands behind her back.

  “I’ve always been here, Serena. From the very beginning. Not as something separate… but as part of you.” She stepped a little closer. “The problem is, when you treated me like a monster, I learned to act like one.”

  Serena felt the tightness in her chest return. It wasn’t pain. It was guilt.

  “I was afraid,” she admitted. “Afraid of hurting someone again.”

  “I know,” the other replied without hesitation.

  Serena lowered her gaze. Her hands trembled.

  “And now? You want me to accept this, after all this time?”

  Ice Rose watched her for a few seconds before answering.

  “I want to know if you’re truly ready. If we’re in this space, it’s because you called me here. Not the other way around.”

  “I… wanted to help. Everyone is fighting— I want… I want to fight too! I don’t want to run anymore! I don’t want anyone else to die because of me!”

  Serena blinked, looking away.

  Then, silence.

  “It’s not wrong, is it?” she asked. “Using power to stop someone who needs to be stopped… that’s not a sin, is it?”

  Ice Rose’s smile widened slightly.

  “Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t,” she replied. “But you’ll have to live with that choice.”

  She extended her hand.

  “Do you accept forgiving yourself?”

  The silence stretched for a moment.

  Then Serena remembered her mother’s voice.

  “You are strong.

  And strong people don’t exist to flee from the world.”

  She lifted her face.

  “A truly strong person…” she said, her voice gaining firmness, “doesn’t protect herself from everything.”

  She stepped forward.

  “She protects herself while protecting others.”

  Serena took Ice Rose’s hand.

  “I accept.”

  The white shattered.

  °??──────??°

  The sound came first.

  A dry, violent impact, followed by the distant roar of the ground breaking apart. The air returned heavy, far too cold, saturated with clashing mana. Serena inhaled sharply, as if she had been submerged for far too long.

  And, for the first time, she saw him.

  Not as blurred outlines.

  Not as borrowed sensations.

  But truly.

  The field of Cirgo stretched out before her, vast and devastated. The soil was scarred with deep craters, fractures spreading like fresh wounds.

  And in the distance, she saw the battle.

  Victor.

  She could see him clearly.

  His body moved between Orion’s strikes with almost absurd precision. There was no waste in his movements. No urgency.

  Orion, in contrast, was pure fury.

  Every one of his blows made the air explode. Mana overflowed without control, forming visible distortions around his arms and legs. He roared, lunged, missed, and grew even more enraged with every failure.

  Serena felt it clearly now.

  The difference between them.

  The mana inside Serena reacted the instant she realized it.

  An intense current surged through her body, forcing every muscle to tense. The pain returned, but it was different.

  Serena ignored it.

  She held her stance.

  Right arm extended. The back of her hand facing the ground. Index and middle fingers pointed toward the distant battle.

  Her left hand remained open, sustaining her balance.

  Her mana began to spill out of her body in visible waves. Ocean green. Deep blue.

  The colors intertwined, swirling around her like freezing currents, causing the air to crystallize around her feet. The ground began to crack, thin lines of ice spreading outward from her position.

  The collar around her neck reacted.

  First, a vibration. Then a sharp creak. The metal darkened, covered by a layer of translucent ice that thickened with every passing second. Serena felt the pressure increase, as if the object were trying to assert itself one final time.

  She clenched her teeth and kept going. There were no words.

  The collar shattered with a dry snap.

  The fragments fell toward the ground and broke apart before even touching it, reduced to frozen dust.

  At that very moment, Serena’s eyes shone silver, far too intense to be human.

  And then—

  The snow of Cirgo vanished.

  It did not melt. It did not evaporate. It simply ceased to exist.

  The oppressive cold that covered the field dissipated in a single breath, as if it had never been there. The gray sky split open, clouds drifting apart to reveal an unexpected sunrise.

  Light touched the world.

  Trees regained their colors. Grass broke through the frozen soil. The field breathed once more.

  Orion realized it too late.

  He turned his head at the exact moment the space around him was altered.

  The ground beneath his feet surged upward violently, ice emerging in a spiraling motion. A colossal pillar grew in an instant, shaping itself into something impossible.

  A rose.

  Made of absolute ice.

  The stem rose like a spear, and thorns formed in rapid succession, piercing the space around Orion before he could react. The ice did not merely restrain him, it invaded him.

  Smaller roses bloomed around him, one after another, freezing everything monstrous within his body. His mana tried to react, to explode, to escape.

  It failed.

  The ice advanced to the most fundamental level of existence. To a place where there was no longer any way to fight.

  The rose kept growing.

  It rose past the trees. Past the hills. Until it stood as tall as a skyscraper.

  And then, it shattered.

  Massive fragments fell across the field, dissolving into shimmering particles before touching the ground, like petals carried by the wind.

  The silence that followed was absolute.

  Serena felt her legs give out.

  She dropped to her knees, gasping, hands braced against the still-warm ground. The mana around her body began to settle, slowly retreating like a tide after a storm.

  Serena lifted her face.

  The world was still there.

  And this time, she did not close her eyes.

  °??──────??°

  The impact came like dead weight.

  Orion fell in front of me, opening a shallow crater in the already ruined ground. His body rolled once before stopping.

  I didn’t approach right away.

  His presence was still there, smaller, irregular, faltering, but not gone. When he moved, I saw the incomplete transformation far too clearly.

  His body was still human… in parts.

  Half of his face was covered in thick shadow, as if the light itself refused to touch it. The skin in that region was marked by glowing red veins, pulsing erratically. One horn still protruded from his head, but it was broken near the base, jagged, like shattered bone.

  He was breathing with difficulty.

  A heavy, dragging sound, rising from deep within his chest.

  Then he brought a hand to his own torso.

  His eyes widened for a moment, not in fear, but in understanding.

  “…So that’s it,” he murmured.

  The mana around him finally lost all order. There was no structure left, no coherence. The core had been destroyed… and the human heart was far too corrupted to support what remained.

  Orion closed his eyes for a few seconds.

  He took a deep breath.

  When he opened them again, something had changed.

  The blind fury was gone.

  His gaze was firm now. Far too calm for someone about to die.

  “Heh…” He let out a short, hoarse laugh. “So this is how it ends.”

  All of his remaining mana erupted at once, compressed into a single suicidal impulse. The ground behind him shattered as he lunged forward, completely ignoring his own body.

  I moved.

  I sidestepped to the left, feeling the wind of the strike graze my shoulder. I countered immediately, aiming for joints, blind spots, flaws that simply hadn’t existed before.

  His skill was no longer responding. I could counterattack.

  Orion tried to hit me again.

  He missed.

  My fist slammed into his abdomen with full force.

  The impact folded his body in midair. He tried to stay on his feet, but the second blow, to the jaw, sent him flying back.

  He dropped to his knees.

  His breathing came in ragged bursts now, heavy and uneven. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth, staining the ground.

  I stopped in front of him.

  For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.

  Then he lifted his face.

  His eyes were strangely clear.

  “Where… where was… your core?” His voice was low.

  The question caught me off guard.

  I frowned.

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

  I placed a hand on my own chest.

  “But… if I had to guess…” I pointed to the exact place where a human heart would be. “I think it’s here.”

  Orion fell silent.

  A faint smile appeared on his face.

  “…Of course,” he murmured. “That makes sense.”

  He drew one last breath.

  All the tension left his body at once.

  Orion toppled forward and fell to the ground, motionless.

  I stood there for a few seconds, staring at his body.

  The fight was over.

  ?????°???°?????