Six months had passed since Kaiser had first set foot in this cabin lost in the heart of the forest. Six months of lessons, of meditations...

His silver hair reached down to the small of his back, and he tied it with a leather strap so it would not hinder his movements. His body, though still covered with silver scars testifying to the damage caused by the Sundering Eclipse, had regained some of its former vigor.

That evening, Diavolo was waiting for him in front of the cabin with an expression Kaiser had never seen on his face.

"Last lesson, Baby boy," he announced in a voice without emphasis.

Kaiser looked at the staff, then raised his eyes to Diavolo. "The last one?"

"The last one." Diavolo pointed to the forest behind him, that mass of trees and darkness stretching as far as the eye could see. "You are going to cross the forest, alone..."

Kaiser felt his heart accelerate. The forest that separated Yggdrasil from Babylon was known to be one of the most dangerous areas on the continent. For six months, he had never explored its depths, contenting himself with the immediate surroundings of the cabin. Diavolo had always forbidden him from venturing any further.

"How much time do I have?"

"All night." Diavolo crossed his arms. "If you are not out by sunrise, I will come and get you. And you will have failed."

"And if I fail?"

Diavolo shrugged with calculated indifference. "Then you will stay here, to start over when night falls... Because if you are not capable of crossing this forest, you are not capable of facing what awaits you outside."

Kaiser did not answer immediately.

"Any advice?" he asked.

Diavolo displayed a smile that Kaiser did not see, because he had already turned his back. "Do not forget what I taught you. And we will meet again at Yggdrasil..."

Kaiser plunged into the forest without looking back.

Darkness enveloped him immediately, not gradually as a natural twilight would have done, but brutally, as if the light had withdrawn from the world in a single movement.

He took a few steps, then stopped to let his eyes adjust, but his eyes did not adjust. The darkness was total, absolute, an absence of light so complete that it seemed to have a physical consistency, like black water in which he was advancing.

He moved forward cautiously, placing one foot after the other, probing the ground with a staff to avoid roots and crevices. After a few minutes, he heard a sound. It was a murmur, indistinct, that seemed to come from all directions at once. He stopped, listened, and the murmur transformed into voices.

"Kaiser."

His first name, whispered by several mouths, some close, others distant, some high-pitched, others deep. He recognized the voice of his mother.

He recognized the voice of Kleopatra... of Ariana... and even that of Ruby...

"And what else? Auditory illusions of a fool?"

He continued to advance. The voices did not stop, but he learned to ignore them, to treat them like the sound of the wind in the branches. It was at that moment that the second distortion manifested itself.

A shadow moved on his left, just at the edge of his peripheral vision. He turned his head, but the shadow had disappeared. Another shadow moved on his right, then behind him, then in front. They were everywhere, these moving shadows, and they seemed to get closer every time he stopped looking at them directly.

He quickened his pace, but the shadows quickened with him. He stopped, and the shadows stopped. He then understood that these shadows did not come from outside. They were generated by his own mind, by the saturation of mana that disturbed his senses and made him see things that did not exist.

He closed his eyes. He advanced like this, with his eyelids closed, for what seemed like an eternity.

His other senses sharpened to compensate: he felt the damp moss under his feet, he breathed in the smell of sap and earth, he heard the rustling of the phosphorescent vines that parted as he passed.

The voices faded, the shadows disappeared, and for the first time since entering the forest, he found a semblance of calm.

It was at that moment that the ground gave way beneath him.

He toppled forward, opened his eyes by reflex, and saw that he had almost walked into a crevice two meters wide, a fissure in the ground that descended toward invisible depths. He recoiled hastily, his heart pounding in his chest, and it was while stepping back that he heard the hiss.

"Why did you kill me, Kaiser?"

"Huh?" Kaiser was shocked to see this silhouette here again.

"Jessica..." murmured Kaiser.

Her dull, tear-filled eyes fixed Kaiser with unbearable intensity. She was only a hallucination, a fragment of what Kaiser considered irreparable mistakes.

"Why, Kaiser?" she asked. "Why did you do this to me?"

Kaiser closed his eyes, but the image of the young girl did not disappear. His memories rose to the surface with cruel clarity. He saw again the moment when he had found her, alone and vulnerable, fleeing the mockery of the nobles. He remembered the softness of his own voice when he had promised to protect her, to make her a Paragon.

"You loved me... at least, that’s what you made me believe," continued the apparition, taking another step toward him. "You got everything you wanted from me. My body, my trust... my virginity."

"This is not against you, Jessica...."

The young woman’s face tensed. "I stole those documents for you, I betrayed my own father because I believed you were my only refuge. And in return, you used that evidence to designate me as the only culprit in front of him. You watched my father banish me, you watched my sister Melissa laugh at my fall, and you did not say a word."

For him, Jessica was only an effective tool that, once its mission was accomplished, became an unnecessary complication. A naive child who, if left alive, would inevitably come back to haunt him. In addition to already being unscrupulous, the Level-Headed skill had greatly atrophied his emotions.

"You ordered that woman to kill me," said Jessica, her voice breaking. "I was walking alone in the dark, still hoping that you would come looking for me..."

The image of Jessica’s decapitation by Eleanor came back to his memory. He had stayed there, observing the scene with detached attention. At that precise moment, he had even told himself that there was nothing like a romantic date after a murder.

"I am unscrupulous," admitted Kaiser, addressing himself as much as the shadow. "I saw only the goal... all that had taught me that weakness was a crime. And you were weak, Jessica. Too kind for this cruel world."

The hallucination approached. "Was my life worth less than a metal mine? Did my devotion mean nothing? You took my virginity, you took my honor, and you took my last breath just so you would not have ’unnecessary problems’. I was even ready to be only your mistress... As long as—"

"Jessica... I do not regret killing you that night..." he began, his voice regaining some of its past coldness. "I do not regret it because it allowed me to obtain the power I need today."

"But..." he added, and for the first time, a nuance of sincere regret pierced his tone, "if I had to do it again, I would not do it." thinking perhaps of Ruby, of Kara, Kleopatra or those other women who had eventually come to mean something to him beyond simple strategic utility... And some of whom he had even ended up losing.

He knew that his words changed nothing about the past. Jessica was already dead...

"I am not a perfect person and I make mistakes... But you always have to assume these choices and face their consequences."