Can I trust anyone now? If he can manipulate people's emotions that easily, then is anything I went through even real? Can I even consider my connection with Iris and Raiven real, or was it all just a performance crafted by that Controller?

I can be sure that my feelings toward them were real for me, but what about everyone else's feelings toward me? Vensen, Corvin, even that idiot who sold his soul to the Crow. Was any of it real, or were they simply reacting to emotions he planted in them to make them feel that way?

Questions keep spinning in my head nonstop. Was everything I lived through just part of his script? Was what Diana's spirit said about Iris being near me even real? And was Raiven's spirit circling around me too? Did they never appear to me because our friendship was never real in the first place, but just an illusion manufactured by that man?

The spirits returned to circle around me, so I deactivated the Authority of Law and released Ragu. Then I put on the mask lying on the table and lay down on the bed. The spirits slowly faded away around me, and the room became quiet.

But that quiet didn't bring me... I don't even know what quiet is anymore. There were plenty of voices raging inside my head, but this time none of them were tied to the spirits.

Now I'm wondering whether anything I do after this even matters. Is there any point in pushing myself to fight again? What would I gain in the end? Was all the suffering I endured up to this moment worth anything?

I have died so many times I can't even count. Stabbed to death, burned to death. My chest was pierced hundreds of times by all sorts of things until I died. And that deep wound in my chest from the battle earlier is still there even now.

And now even my relationships with everyone around me have become a massive question mark. Were their feelings actually their own, or just influence planted by the Controller? Honestly, at that moment, the thought of giving up seriously crossed my mind.

I no longer wanted to fight. The second those thoughts appeared in my head, my healing stopped completely.

Before, the mask would slow down the healing, but it would still happen eventually.

This time, the healing stopped completely. The wounds remained open with no sign of recovery.

I lay down on the bed, closed my eyes, and drifted off fast, unlike all the previous times. Sleep was unbelievably easy this time.

I woke up to the sunlight coming through the window. I didn't return to the past in my ghostly form this time, and I didn't meet the younger Jevan. I stayed in bed without moving.

I did not get up. I just lay there staring at the wall in complete silence for hours until I heard knocking on the door.

It was Vensen. I knew the carriage that would take us out of the district had arrived.

I gathered my few belongings and left with them without saying a single word. I didn't want to talk. I no longer knew whether they were under Garrod's influence or not. Was my encounter with Vensen a coincidence or part of a plan? Did the Controller manipulate their movements too, just to make sure I showed up there that day? Questions kept piling up, and there was no way to confirm anything.

Even so, I walked out with them and climbed into the carriage, even though I barely had the energy to do that. I noticed all their eyes were fixed on the hole in my chest. I didn't bother explaining anything.

...

The carriage kept moving, and the whole time everyone's eyes were on me as if I were a walking corpse. And honestly, I don't think they were wrong. Right now, I'm basically a corpse walking on its feet.

Even so, none of them had the courage to ask what caused my injury, and I had no desire to answer even if they did.

Eventually, it seemed Vensen couldn't hold back his curiosity.

"What did you do last night to end up like that,"

I rested my head on my hand while looking at the road through the window.

"Nothing important, just a simple walk."

He didn't push the question, maybe because he noticed I wasn't in the mood to talk, or maybe because he didn't see any point in trying to get answers from me.

The trip went smoothly at first until we approached the borders of the Skull Gang's territory, where someone tried to stop our carriage.

Corvin grabbed his sword, and everyone prepared to fight.

But I muttered simply,

"I hope we pass safely into the Night Wolves' territory."

Another man came rushing from afar and approached the one who stopped us. They exchanged a word or two, and when he heard what I said, fear flashed across his face. The man stepped back and cleared the way, and our carriage passed without trouble.

We kept moving until we entered the Night Wolves' areas. After we crossed in, the carriage continued for hours until it stopped in front of an elegant hotel inside the Twentieth District.

We all stepped down. Honestly, this was the first time I saw a place even close to a real shelter since... maybe this was the first time I ever had a chance to rest in a place like this.

And only then I noticed that the masked woman had been sitting beside me the entire trip.

Since we entered the district, Vensen and the man who sold his soul to the Crow were looking around in awe. The same look I saw on Corvin's face on his first visits here.

Even though he supposedly worked with the Night Wolves for years, it seemed he never visited this area before.

As for the hotel itself, each one of us was given a separate room. Each room was more spacious and cleaner than any place I had ever slept in before. I didn't take off my cloak or my mask unlike all the previous times. All I did was throw myself on the bed, and after that, all I did was stare at the wall.

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