"Well... this is astounding."

Those were the words that slipped from Azriel’s lips as he looked at Dorian, who was crouched on the floor before him.

Dorian had raised his hands—or rather, what remained of them. There were no hands left at his wrists anymore, only mangled flesh. Skin and bone were caught between his teeth, and when Azriel glanced down, he noticed a thumb beneath his feet, half-submerged in a pool of pure black blood.

It was almost funny, Azriel thought, how he felt so little.

No disgust.

No horror.

Nothing at all as he watched the prince cry there in pathetic misery, black veins spreading visibly across his face and body like cracks in poisoned marble.

"Soul corruption, huh..."

One of the most dreadful fates that could befall a living being.

That said, Azriel looked utterly incapable of caring.

He merely walked toward Dorian with calm, measured steps. Each footfall echoed through the corridor, and with every one of them, Dorian flinched.

Flinched.

And flinched again.

Azriel stopped before him and looked down with a curious expression. Then he bent slightly and pinched Dorian’s blood-slick chin between his own bloodied fingers.

"Are you still in there?" he asked. "Or has your mind already been corrupted too?"

Dorian’s teeth chattered as he stared up at him in terror.

"I suppose your mind hasn’t rotted yet."

Even so, he would die soon enough. The sheer volume of blood he had lost, combined with the grotesque mutilation he had inflicted upon himself, had already sealed his fate.

One eye gone.

No hands.

He looked hideous.

Azriel crouched until they were level, meeting Dorian’s remaining eye.

"Yeah..." he murmured. "You really do have my soul."

Unbeknownst to Azriel, his crimson eyes were now glowing with a terrible radiance, frightening the prince even further.

Azriel knew only that Dorian possessed the same soul as he did, though he could not truly perceive it. Or perhaps he could, and his mind was simply refusing to acknowledge what lay before him.

It was like the way the brain ignored the existence of one’s own nose while still knowing it was there. The same phenomenon was unfolding now. Azriel was looking at Dorian’s soul. He knew it belonged to him. He knew it was there. He was likely staring directly into it.

And yet he could not perceive it.

"Hey, Dorian," Azriel called softly, without even a hint of malice.

Dorian looked at him and let out a low, broken moan.

This time, with a sliver of desperation threading through his voice, Azriel asked,

"What did you see...?"

Dorian’s body trembled even harder. Then, at last, his lips parted by the slightest margin, and he whispered in a shaky, fractured voice,

"You... I saw you... the... the real... you... and... hands... so... so many hands..." His face twisted in terror. "No—no, please!"

He flinched violently and threw himself backward.

"D-don’t touch me! I-I’m sorry! S-sorry! I’m sorry! P-please! Please, I’m sorry! S-sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!"

Tilting his head, Azriel watched him.

Blood poured from Dorian’s mouth, his nostrils, his remaining eye, and from the empty socket where the other had once been.

All of it was black.

It was rather unsightly.

"Hands..." Azriel repeated softly.

Still crouching, he intertwined his fingers behind his neck and bowed his head for a moment, closing his eyes.

"Pheww..."

A long breath escaped him.

Then Azriel felt his jaw tighten as he struggled to ignore the prince’s incessant apologies.

"I feel... so strange," he murmured. "I’m conscious. I’m in control of my body. And yet... it feels as though I’m not myself." His voice grew quieter. More distant. "Why am I acting like this? Am I really conscious? Am I really in control? What exactly is happening to me...?"

He looked at Dorian again.

The prince still had not stopped babbling his apologies.

"Did you see a woman back in the arena?" Azriel asked.

"She... was embracing me..."

He felt compelled to find her again.

To feel her touch again.

But Dorian was useless.

A sigh escaped Azriel’s lips as he summoned his Desert Eagle and raised it, pointing the gun at Dorian, who seemed scarcely aware of the death now hanging over him.

"If you are me, then... is Lia actually Jasmine? But she is my elder sister, not my younger one. Am I overlooking something?"

He grimaced faintly.

"Ugh. This is absurd. Just as expected of the gods, if they truly intend to break me."

He frowned.

"Why am I not more disturbed by this? Has my mind already fractured?"

His gaze lingered on Dorian.

"Hm? Do you know the answer, Dorian? Or should I call you Leonardo? Perhaps Leo? Hm? Hey?"

He paused, then exhaled.

"Ah, screw it."

Azriel pulled the trigger.

The white bullet punched cleanly through Dorian’s skull, killing the prince of the Sun Kingdom instantly. His body collapsed at once onto the stone floor.

A pang of disappointment stirred within Azriel as he stared at the corpse.

"Everything is designed to break me," Azriel murmured, gazing down as he rubbed his chin. "Not kill me."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"The Forest of Eternity... the World of Eternity... this scenario..." He paused. "There is a key I possess. Pollux has been trying to break me as though that were the answer to... something."

"Not bad."

"..!"

Azriel looked up at once.

A familiar face stood there.

Lia.

The child Lia he had left behind with Nol.

She was standing directly above the corpse of her elder brother, utterly unbothered, wearing a sadistic smile.

Azriel blinked several times.

Then, slowly, without even realizing it, the corners of his lips curved upward.

"Pollux."

Standing up, Azriel’s smile only widened. He failed to notice the way the child’s face—the body Pollux had taken for his own—darkened.

Azriel took a step toward Pollux.

Pollux took one back.

He flinched.

Azriel flinched as well.

For a single, dreadful instant, both of them seemed to realize what had just happened. The smile vanished from Pollux’s face at once.

An awkward silence settled between them. Awkward, yet somehow suffocating. They simply stood there, staring into each other’s eyes.

"Pollux..." Azriel broke the silence first.

Then, quieter, he asked,

"...Are you afraid?"

Pollux scoffed, but in Lia’s small body, the sound came out almost cute.

"Nonsense. I am the Great Divine Star Spirit Emperor. I do not know what fear is."

"Maybe," Azriel said. "But then... why are you inhabiting the body of this child?"

A thought crossed his mind.

’I wonder... if I look at Jasmine now and compare her soul to Lia’s, will they be the same?’

Before Pollux could answer, Azriel asked another question.

"Have you actually been Lia all this time?"

A widening smile returned to Pollux’s face.

"I thought it would be more amusing if I stayed so close to you all this time, while you remained completely unaware."

"I see."

Azriel scratched his neck, almost casually.

Then he asked, "Did you harm Nol?"

Pollux shook his tiny head.

"He had already departed. He told me to stay put inside his [Unique Skill]."

A chuckle escaped him then, strangely adorable in that child’s voice.

"He is quite lucky. Another minute, and I would have murdered him." Pollux tilted his head. "Are you aware of who you keep so close to your side?"

Azriel looked at him quietly.

For a moment, Pollux only stared back. Then his expression turned serious. He tried to hide it, but Azriel had already sensed it somehow—the faintest trace of fear.

Then Pollux said a name Azriel had never heard him use before.

"Are you... Azriel?"

"Yes... I am...?"

Once again, they looked at each other.

A full minute passed.

It almost felt like a staring contest.

At last, Pollux turned around and began walking, his tiny hands clasped behind his back. Azriel followed beside him, calm on the surface.

"I have your sister," Pollux said.

"...I suspected as much."

Pollux laughed.

"At first, I did not truly believe it. Back in the Forest of Eternity, I thought you were merely pretending to be a son and brother who cared for his family." His smile sharpened. "Then I realized you had actually sealed your memories. And I wondered... perhaps, deep down, the real you would remember that you do not care for them at all."

Pollux glanced at him.

"But I was wrong, wasn’t I? The real you... cares about them very deeply."

"I have no clue what you are talking about, Pollux."

Another laugh.

"Of course you don’t. But very soon, you will."

Azriel glanced at Pollux. That sadistic smile still clung to his face as he looked up at him in return.

"I warned you, didn’t I?" Pollux said. "I told you I might grow impatient if I did not receive that key soon."

"I can’t give you something when I don’t even know what it is."

"...Neither do I."

"Hah!"

A short laugh escaped Azriel this time.

So Pollux did not even know what the key was, yet he was demanding it from Azriel, who knew nothing either?

How absurd.

Suddenly, they stopped.

Before them was a trapdoor leading down into what Azriel presumed to be an oubliette.

Pollux opened the hatch and jumped down.

Azriel did not hesitate. He followed, landing moments later in a pitch-dark chamber.

A second later, silver fire bloomed.

A torch ignited, casting pale light across the room.

Azriel’s eyes opened slightly.

There they were.

The two princesses he had been searching for all along.

Celestina sat against the wall, her head hanging low. Her wrists were chained above her, and a blindfold covered her eyes. Azriel noticed dried blood on her robes and face, but no visible wounds.

Beside her lay Jasmine.

Unlike Celestina, she had no injuries. Nothing bound her. Nothing restrained her.

She simply lay there peacefully.

Unmoving.

Unconscious.

Asleep.

"I have yet to take Celestina," Pollux said.

"But Jasmine?"

His smile widened.

"If I wished, I could burn her mind to ash with a single thought."

"..."

"There is only one thing you can do if you wish for her to wake again."

Azriel turned toward Pollux.

Something began to build inside him.

Slowly, his hands started to tremble.

Pollux smiled with cruel delight.

"You stubbornly refused to break, no matter what I did to you. So then... how about this? There is a certain skill you possess. One bestowed upon you by your precious goddess. [Soul’s Crucible]."

The chamber seemed to grow colder.

"Give it to me," Pollux said.

"And in return, you get your lovely sister back."

"Heh..."

Ah...

There it was.

Finally, Azriel felt something familiar.

Something that belonged entirely to him.

He was not confused. He did not feel strange. There was no dissonance, no hollow uncertainty, no foreign emotion twisting inside his chest.

At that very moment, Azriel felt only one thing.

Anger.

He was angry...

Very...

Very...

Angry.