Chapter 100. Records Reflect What People Wish to Believe
The masked man let out a laugh, a sound so hollow, so devoid of human warmth, that it felt like wind howling through a ribcage. "Guilt implies regret, White Sword..."
"I feel none." He stepped forward, the movement fluid and wrong. "Your squad served a purpose considerably greater than their own small, insignificant lives."
"They were not victims... they were keys. They opened a path that had been sealed for centuries, and you carried the proof of that success out with you, though you were too blind and too broken to ever realize what you were actually protecting."
’Keys?’ Catherine’s mind shrieked.
The word felt like acid flooding her veins. ’They weren’t keys... They were Aldric... They were Mira...!’
"They were people who laughed at dinner and bled out in the dirt!"
"They weren’t tools!" Her vision blurred with a sudden, violent surge of tears she refused to shed.
William moved instinctively, stepping into the space between Catherine and the threat, positioning himself as a living shield. His fingers curled around Aetherion, the blade humming with a low, anticipatory growl as it shifted into its ready configuration.
"You want to explain that a little more clearly," William said, his voice dropping into the lethal register of a man who had killed countless things before, "or should I just start asking questions with my sword instead?"
For the first time, the masked man’s attention flicked toward William. Behind the featureless void of the mask, something calculating and faintly curious seemed to stir.
"Ahh... you must be the one that’s trying to save her from trauma, huh...? The reincarnator..." The masked man laughed. "Yes... I’ve heard whispers about you."
"An interesting complication, though not one that changes anything meaningful about what’s already been set into motion."
’What...? He fucking knows who I am?!’ William’s grip tightened until his knuckles threatened to burst through the skin. "You seem to know a lot about me for someone I’ve never met."
"I know a great deal about many things, Instructor Wade." The man’s tone was conversational, which made it infinitely more terrifying. "It’s the natural advantage of patience."
"Some of us have been arranging pieces on this board for considerably longer than you’ve been alive in either of your lives." The mask tilted again, a mocking gesture. "Your Aetherion is a fine blade indeed..."
"I understand the dwarf built something quite unusual for you... well, it won’t matter in the end, but still... I do appreciate craftsmanship."
"Heh. Flattering," William snapped, his patience evaporating like mist in hellfire. "Still doesn’t answer my goddamn question."
The man dismissed William with a wave of his hand, a gesture of such profound contempt that it felt like a physical slap. He turned his gaze back to Catherine, who stood frozen, caught between fury and a soul-crushing grief.
"Your squad’s sacrifice unsealed a relic that has waited a very long time for the right hands to claim it, White Sword..."
"What happened eight years ago was never an accident... It was the beginning. And soon enough... it will finally be finished."
"What relic?" Catherine demanded.
Her voice was no longer just shaking; it was breaking, splintering under the weight of eight years of repressed trauma. "What did they die for?! Tell me what their blood bought!"
"A name that would mean nothing to you yet and everything to you soon enough." The masked man savored the question, his voice dripping with the satisfaction of a predator watching prey squirm. "I will say this much, since you’ve earned at least that..."
"What lies sealed beneath that dungeon was never meant to stay buried forever..."
"Your kingdom simply lacked the courage to finish what an older generation started... they buried the truth alongside the failure instead."
"We are simply finishing the work properly this time."
"Who’s ’we’?" William interjected, his stance sharpening, his muscles coiled like springs. "The Hollow Circle is supposed to be dead," they said.
"Sixty years dead, according to every record the Crown holds."
An approximation of a smile seemed to ripple across the blank surface of the mask. "Records reflect what the people writing them wish to believe, Instructor Wade."
"We were never as thoroughly finished as your kingdom’s histories claim..." The masked man raised both arms. "We simply learned... after that first painful lesson, the value of patience over spectacle."
"That answer belongs to a conversation for another day." The masked man took a single step backward into the treeline.
Immediately, the shadows around him began to curdle and thicken, twisting into an unnatural vortex that distorted the very air—the unmistakable signature of high-level teleportation magic. "Enjoy what little time you have left playing soldier again, White Sword..."
"It won’t last long enough."
"Wait!" Catherine cried out.
The anger was gone, replaced by a raw, desperate need for closure that tore through her chest like a serrated blade. "Aldric... Mira... and the others..."
"Tell me something! Tell me their deaths meant something more than just opening a door for you!"
The masked man paused, suspended halfway between reality and the hungry void of the gathering darkness. For a heartbeat, the mocking cadence of his voice faltered, replaced by something colder, something almost resembling genuine consideration, though it lacked any trace of humanity.
"Their deaths meant precisely what any door’s hinges mean to the room behind it," he said, his words dripping with a casual cruelty that made Catherine’s skin crawl. "Necessary... forgettable... and mechanical."
"I would advise you to stop searching for meaning in the carnage, White Sword..." The masked man laughed. "You won’t find comfort in the truth other than finding more of the same jagged glass that already shattered your soul."
"You BASTARD!" William roared.
The restraint snapped. The moment the distortion fully formed, William surged forward like a predator unleashed.
Aetherion screamed as it shifted into its arcane configuration, the blade crackling with unstable, violet lightning. William threw the strike a killing blow designed to cleave through shadow and bone alike, but the masked man vanished into the coalescing dark a half second before impact.
The arcane bolt tore through empty air with a thunderous crack, vaporizing a section of ancient oak behind where the man had stood, sending splinters flying like shrapnel.
Then, silence.
A deafening, suffocating silence.
The unnatural pressure lifted as abruptly as it had arrived, leaving behind only the smell of ozone and the fading echo of William’s fury. William spun around immediately, his chest heaving, his eyes scanning the treeline for any sign of retreat.
But there was nothing. Only the empty, bruised twilight.
He turned to Catherine, expecting to see her in a combat stance, but she was gone—not physically, but the woman he knew had retreated behind a wall of paralysis. She stood frozen, her sword still raised in a trembling guard, her entire body shaking with such violence that the steel rattled audibly.
"Catherine." William crossed the distance between them in three strides, lowering Aetherion but keeping his muscles coiled.
He reached for her shoulders, forcing his voice to remain a steady anchor despite the adrenaline still hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "Catherine, look at me...! Breathe! Stare at my eyes!"
She finally lowered her sword, the tip scraping against the cracked earth with a harsh, grinding sound. When she turned to face him, William recoiled inwardly.
This wasn’t the distant, hollow panic of the dungeon. This was something far more dangerous.
Her eyes were bloodshot, pupils blown wide with a cocktail of grief and fury so potent it looked like physical pain. Her expression was a twisted mosaic of horror, a raw, bleeding wound exposed to the air.
"They didn’t die by accident," she whispered.
Her voice was thin, frayed at the edges, cracking with every syllable as she fought the urge to collapse. "William... they didn’t die by accident..."
"It wasn’t some monster’s whim... and it wasn’t bad luck." Her fingers spasmed against her sword hilt. "Someone planned it... Someone orchestrated every scream, every drop of blood..."
"They used them... They used Aldric, they used Mira... They used all of them like pieces of meat to turn a lock."
"And I..." A sob caught in her throat, strangled and bitter. "I carried the proof of their slaughter out of that tomb without ever understanding that I was protecting the very thing that killed them."
"We don’t know the full truth yet," William said urgently, gripping her arms to ground her. "Listen to me..."
"That man... he’s a fucking monster who feeds on chaos!"
"He said those things specifically to dismantle you... especially to weaponize your trauma against you."
"We cannot take a single word from a coward who hides behind a mask as gospel truth!"
"But it fits, William!" she screamed suddenly, the sound tearing from her lungs like a physical wound. "It fits too damn well!"
She began to pace, her movements erratic, her breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. "The summoning of that Reaver in a Tier One dungeon while we were testing your blade... the mana signatures at these disturbance sites... that bastard’s symbol."
She stopped abruptly, clutching her head as if trying to hold her skull together. "Eight years, William."
"Eight years of believing I survived because I was strong enough or because fate spared me!"
"But if he’s right..." Her voice dropped to a terrified whimper. "If he’s right, then I didn’t survive a tragedy!"
"I survived a transaction! I... need to know... I need to go back down there!"
"I need to rip the truth out of the earth itself, because if what he said is true, then every memory I have of that day, every tear I’ve shed, and every prayer I’ve offered has been built on a foundation of lies."