Chapter 56: Getting Stripped Naked

’What? There’s no way I’m letting you take over my body. How am I sure you won’t use it for your sick agenda?’

’And what makes you think you have any choice in the matter?’

His eyes refocused on the slowly moving blade. Despite it’s slow speed, the purity it oozed didn’t reduce in the slightest. He could still feel every microsecond of his shards decimating and the sheer extremity of the pain it wielded.

’And what of your dear Vassal? Will you let her die because of your fear?’

’I’m not scared,’ Aden replied immediately.

The Entity chuckled. ’Of course you aren’t. That’s why you haven’t sought out the Princess all this time.’

’There wasn’t enough time. I had to defend against the attacks she sent my way,’ Aden retorted.

’Then what about the time you humiliated your brother? Surely if you’d stayed for a moment longer, you would’ve made contact with her and none of this would’ve happened.’

Aden didn’t reply.

’Face it, Me. You’re scared, weak and absolutely pathetic. You cling to the concept of being human so tightly it disgusts me. Had you accepted the Marrow in it’s full form, you would’ve killed this annoying girl in minutes. Had you not helped those little kids in the sewers, the Princess would have never known your location.’

Aden’s breath hitched. ’The kids…told her?’

The Entity cackled. His wheezing breath filled with genuine amusement that bounced around Aden’s disoriented mind.

’You didn’t seriously think they were loyal to you, did you? Bwahaha! You’d be more foolish than I expected if you did! Those kids are just like you. Opportunistic, alone, hungry and adaptive.’

’Then again, your opportunistic traits have dwindled quite considerably, hasn’t it?’

The glowing blade reflected in Aden’s irises. The words stung, but not as much as the concept of betrayal. Who would’ve thought the little children he’d unknowingly treated as his assistants would sell him out?

’Who says I trusted them? If I was in their shoes, I’d sell anyone out as far as it gave me what I needed the most,’ Aden replied slowly.

’Don’t fool yourself. The death of your Master gave you strength, but his very existence brought with it a massive downside,’ the Entity’s voice lowered to a whisper. ’Dependency.’

Lorelei’s blood filled the nook of Aden’s neck, the warmth mixing with the words sent strange signals through him.

’Had you ventured into the world on your own, you would have experienced everything in its primal state. Betrayal would not have shaken you—certainly not on a scale as small as this.’

’You would have learned Resonance as it truly is, not this diluted version you were spoon-fed while pretending hardship meant uprooting trees and building a home.’

’Tell me… what did you think this was? Some martial arts story you brought with you from Earth?’

The Entity let his words hang in the air, thick with the smell of scorched earth and the copper tang of Lorelei’s life-force.

’Earth,’ Aden thought, the word feeling like a foreign object in his mouth. ’You’re digging pretty deep for a “god” in a box.’

’I am digging into the only thing that remains of your foundation,’ the Entity purred. ’You treat this world like a game of numbers. You calculate risk, you manage resources, you transfer pain like a weakling afraid to truly grasp it’s concept. You think if you play the Scumbag role well enough, you can keep your hands dirty but your heart intact. But look at her, Aden.’

Aden’s gaze flickered to Lorelei. Her grip on the blade was slackening. The gold light was starting to turn her skin into translucent, glowing porcelain—the first sign of Purification turning a human into a monument.

’You didn’t trust the kids? Fine. A good lie for a dying man,’ the Entity continued, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. ’But you trusted your Master. You trusted the idea that if you struggled enough, the world would eventually yield. That’s the most human delusion of all. The Sun doesn’t yield to the shadow. It erases it.’

’I’m not a shadow,’ Aden hissed internally, his mind-scape trembling. ’I’m the Void. You said it yourself.’

’A Void is an absence, Aden. And right now, you are filled with too much… clutter. You have memories of a Master who loved you yet didn’t even tell you his real name himself. You have a girl who worships you. You have a conscience that makes you use your Vassals as conductors for pain so you don’t have to hear yourself scream. You’ve made yourself heavy. And a heavy object cannot adapt; it only breaks.’

The golden blade was a hair’s breadth from his forehead. The heat was peeling the silver shards from his brow, revealing the raw, red skin beneath.

’I can make you light again,’ the Entity whispered, his voice now sounding remarkably like Aden’s own. ’I can take the burden of her death from you. I can take the guilt of the children’s betrayal. I can turn that Resonance of yours into a Law that the Princess herself will have to obey. All you have to do is stop holding the door shut.’

’If I let you in,’ Aden’s thoughts were becoming sluggish, the divinity of the blade numbing his brain, ’there’s no me left to win.’

’There was never a you, Aden. There was only a survivor. And survivors don’t care about the name on the throne, they only care that the throne is still standing.

’Choose. Do you want to die as a human who was sold out by orphans for a loaf of bread? Or do you want to wake up as the thing that makes the Princess regret ever being born?’

Lorelei’s head fell against Aden’s chest. Her heartbeat—his final anchor—gave one last, stuttering thrum.

’Give me the keys, Aden. Let’s show the Sun what happens when it stares too long into the dark.’

Aden looked at the blade. He looked at the girl. His Adaptive Resonance didn’t give him a percentage this time. It simply gave him a choice: The Grave or the Ghost.

“Fine,” Aden croaked aloud, his voice breaking through the silence of the Sinking District. “Take it.”

The golden blade hit.

But it didn’t find flesh. It hit a sudden, absolute nothingness.

The Saintess’s eyes widened behind her visor. The man beneath her didn’t explode; he inverted. The silver shards didn’t shatter—they turned into liquid shadows that swallowed the golden light whole.

[Adaptive Resonance: Total System Override]

[User Status: Dormant]

[New Protocol: The Hollow King]

Aden’s hand, the one clutching the Saintess’s ankle, didn’t just rot her armor this time. He didn’t even use the Void. He simply Tuned her.

He matched her divinity in a microsecond, then inverted the frequency. The Saintess didn’t even have time to scream before her own Holy energy turned into a localized internal explosion, shattering her golden leg from the inside out.

The Entity took a deep, greedy breath. “It’s been a while…”

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