The fog pressed closer, heavy and wet, as if the domain itself were listening. Rhyka leaned back against the pine trunk, smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth, trying to shake off the strange unease Nero's words had left behind.

But Nero didn't let the silence settle.

He extended one pale hand, palm angled slightly up, as though he were offering something invisible. His fingers were long, steady, and every motion precise.

"Don't misunderstand," Nero said quietly, his voice low but steady, each syllable carrying the weight of something carefully measured. "When I lost my place, it wasn't… ordinary. It wasn't just a vote of council or a signature on parchment. It was a revelation."

Rhyka's golden eyes narrowed, but the faint smirk lingered. "…A revelation?"

Nero nodded once, his gaze unwavering. "It was as though a great existence something far above me peeled back every layer of pretense and laid bare the truth of who I was. It showed me myself. And in that moment, I knew." His pale eyes sharpened. "I wasn't enough. Not for the seat. Not then."

The words should have rung hollow, another noble excuse. But the way he said it it wasn't excuses. It was memory. His tone carried the weight of someone who had lived it.

Rhyka felt his chest tighten despite himself. He tried to laugh it off, to scoff, but the sound caught in his throat. Because he knew. He knew what Nero meant.

Because he had felt it too.

His smirk faded slightly as the memory rose the moment in the void, when the oppressive voice had torn him open, when the golden Web of Martial Essence had revealed itself to his eyes for the first time. That impossible clarity, that unbearable beauty, the golden line that sliced through everything.

The "glance."

The moment he tried to summon the memory fully, a dull ache stabbed into the back of his skull. His breath hitched as his chest tightened, not from fear but from sheer incomprehension.

For the briefest instant, the image flickered in his mind a sprawl of golden threads, twisting, infinite, intersecting in ways no human could map. Colors beyond human sight burning like stars behind glass. A brilliance that wasn't brilliance, lines that weren't lines, truths too large to be contained in his head.

Then dizziness. A roaring in his ears. His vision swam, the forest around him bending and twisting like it was melting.

And just as quickly, the memory collapsed.

Gone.

Wiped away like chalk on stone.

Rhyka exhaled harshly, dragging a hand down his face. His smirk returned, but it was strained now, defensive. "…Tch."

Every time he reached for it, the same thing happened. Ache. Noise. Dizzying, incomprehensible fragments. And then nothing.

It was like his own mind refused to hold onto it.

Nero hadn't looked away, his pale eyes watching Rhyka with unnerving calm. Almost like he could tell what had just happened. Almost like he knew.

"I don't accept it," Nero said firmly, cutting the silence. His voice sharpened, no longer detached. "Not even close. That's why I'm here. Why I left. Why I fight. I will not remain what that existence declared me to be."

Rhyka studied him quietly, golden eyes faintly glowing in the mist. His chest still burned from the echo of that impossible vision, and the ache in his skull throbbed like a warning.

"…You think you're the only one who's been laid bare?" he muttered under his breath, smirk curling faintly back into place.

But even as he said it, the memory slipped again like sand through his fingers. The golden lattice, the line, the brilliance gone.

Just a dull ache, and the bitter taste of knowing he'd seen something no one else could understand.

And now, sitting across from Nero in the suffocating fog, he couldn't shake the feeling that neither of them were supposed to be alive after seeing it.

The mist around them was unnaturally still, heavy as though it were listening. Both boys sat apart from the caravan, firelight little more than a dim blur through the trees. Rhyka's golden eyes glowed faintly in the dark, while Nero's pale features looked carved from marble, his composure unshaken despite the raw admission he had just laid bare.

Nero's voice was calm, but there was something beneath it a suppressed fervor that betrayed how much weight these words carried.

"Here," he said, lifting a finger and pointing faintly into the forest mist, toward that patch of nothingness that only Rhyka had spoken of. His gaze sharpened, the aristocratic detachment slipping just enough to reveal hunger. "In that pocket of empty space you saw… lies my chance. My chance to change what was forced on me. To rid myself of the burden of inferiority."

Rhyka tilted his head, smirk tugging faintly at his lips, but his eyes narrowed like a blade. "…Inferiority?"

Nero's lips curved, though the smile was thin, humorless "Don't mock me. You, of all people, understand. You stand apart from them. From everyone. You've seen the way they look at you the way they whisper, the way they dismiss you because you have no core. You've heard it a thousand times. 'Magicless.' 'Lesser.' And yet you crush them underfoot with nothing but your body."

Rhyka's smirk deepened, but it didn't reach his eyes. He didn't like the way Nero said it, like he was peering into his chest and dragging out truths Rhyka preferred to keep buried.

"So why tell me?" Rhyka asked after a beat, his tone sharp. "Why open your mouth at all? Why not keep your precious secret locked up until it's yours alone?"

For the first time, Nero's mask cracked not with weakness, but with clarity. His pale eyes fixed on Rhyka's golden ones, steady and unblinking.

"Because you don't have mana," he said plainly. "That's why."

Rhyka blinked, then scoffed, leaning back against the tree trunk with exaggerated nonchalance. "…And what the hell does that mean?"

Nero's expression sharpened, his voice dropping lower, every word deliberate. "It means what I'm after, he thing hidden in that void wouldn't interest you. Can't interest you. Because whatever it is, it's tied to mana, tied to the flow of sorcery itself. You're outside of it. A creature who walks without it. And because of that, Rhyka…"

For the briefest moment, a spark of intensity flared in Nero's pale eyes, breaking through his usual composure. "You and I are natural allies."

The words hung between them, heavy.

Rhyka tilted his head, smirk fading into something sharper, more dangerous. "…Allies."

"Yes," Nero said firmly. "If anyone else anyone with a core, even at the lowest stages learned what lies in that emptiness, they would run toward it. Like moths to flame. Even the most powerful of mages the Archmages, the Rank 6 titans of the continent would abandon everything to claim it. And when they did, they'd tear apart anyone in their way. Me. You. Everyone."

He leaned forward slightly, voice tightening. "But you? You're different. You don't hunger for what lies in mana's depths. You don't need to. Your body walks a separate path. That makes you the only one I can speak to about this without fear."

Rhyka's smirk returned, sharp and mocking, though inside his chest burned with unease. "You're putting a lot of faith in me not running my mouth, Nero."

Nero's lips twitched into a faint smile. "No. I'm putting faith in the fact that your pride won't let you beg for something that isn't yours. You'd rather die than walk the same path as them, i think you and I are alike in that manner.

Internally Rhyka called bullshit this bastard doesn't I used to beg and pray to the Goddess every night.

Rhyka didn't answer. His golden eyes glimmered faintly as he studied Nero, but inside, the turmoil pressed harder.

Because the truth was he was interested. He couldn't help it. That void, that emptiness, that impossible thing he had glimpsed in his Martial Vision it burned in the back of his skull every time he thought of it. The dull ache, the dizzying fragments, the brilliance he couldn't remember. It called to him, even if he couldn't say why.

And Nero… Nero was speaking like it was salvation.

Rhyka forced the smirk wider, shrugging like it didn't matter. "…So you don't even know what's in there."

Nero didn't flinch. "Not exactly. But I know enough." His pale eyes gleamed with restrained fervor. "Enough to know it can change me. Enough to know it can free me from this chain of inferiority."

He leaned back, exhaling slow, deliberate, as though leashing the hunger in his voice. "And that's why I'm here. Why I haven't stopped. Why I'll never stop."

The silence after was thick. The mist pressed in around them, and somewhere distant, a devil beast howled.

Rhyka tilted his head back against the pine, golden eyes narrowing faintly, the smirk etched on his face like armor.

"…You're so buglike ," he said finally, though his voice was quieter than before.

Nero's lips curved, calm and unshaken. "Maybe. But so are you, Rhyka.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.