"Ethan Lumiere, congratulations on the cure for the Violet Thorns disease. Go to your mother and make her happy until one of you perishes."
It felt as if a cold water poured over my burning heart.
I felt like every test was an entire age, but I was done now.
I just had to return to the capital, and that would only take a few days.
I heard Killer and Ella's voices, and little by little, I opened my eyes to find myself in Elios's white room.
Ankvorena and Arthur were talking to each other in a corner of the room, Killer and Estelliora were joking together, and Kafka was talking to Elios, who was still sitting on his chair, focused on his table.
When they noticed I had regained consciousness, Arthur and Ank, who seemed to be talking seriously, stopped. Ella stopped biting Killer's ear, and Kafka stopped talking to Elios, and they gathered around me.
Expressions of anticipation and worry were clear on their faces, which I could barely see, as if I had been sleeping for days.
I raised my body and looked at Elios, and without saying anything, he moved his hand as if writing something, and when he finished, something began to form in front of me from the white light of the room.
And it quickly took a clear shape.
A vial of medicine containing a blood-red liquid.
Arthur sighed, a sigh followed by a smile of relief as if it were an eternity preceded by years of despair.
Ank closed her eyes, and the small smile that had almost become habitual was drawn on her face, and she looked at me with the sparkle in her blue eyes that looked like frozen sky.
As for Killer, a wide smile formed on his face, and he gently patted my shoulder, followed by Kafka placing his hands on my shoulders.
'We can now return in peace, Ethan,' Ella telepathised before sitting on my head.
Finally, I held the medicine in my hand.
"Congratulations on obtaining the medicine. I wish you a happy life," Elios said in a calm tone followed by a strange silence.
The wall behind us opened.
"But I want to tell you two things first."
"What are these things?" I wondered.
I then stood on my feet and checked my gear.
"Be careful. And no matter what happens... please, do not wish for death."
We found ourselves at the exit of the City of Tears in the blink of an eye.
"Did he transport us?" I wondered.
"It seems so," Arthur said, looking at the tall tower.
I put the medicine in my bag before speaking.
"We can only wonder."
And we turned to leave afterwards.
The dark, rainy weather of the City of Tears was immediately replaced by the clear sunset sky with red and orange hues.
And the vast expanse of grass fields ending in a forest of tall trees made me feel nostalgic as if I hadn't seen it in months or years, even though I had grown bored of wandering in it just two days ago.
I had slept for about six hours.
It's good that I didn't spend days on the tests.
And to be honest, it was extremely boring.
It's good that my life isn't a novel, as that part would have been the worst.
Before we headed to the capital, a white dove stopped by us and placed a letter in my hand.
A letter with the royal family's mark on it.
Tension and fear clouded my features, and I opened the letter with trembling fingers.
Arthur came very close; I felt he shared the same feelings at that moment.
I opened the letter and began to read.
"Ethan Lumiere, by Heaven and the Throne, I am certain that your journey towards the cure was nothing but a series of trials that only a courageous heart could endure. And I believe that you, at the moment of reading this letter, have finally achieved your goal.
Nevertheless, I must, with great sorrow, inform you that fate does not always align with the hopes of seekers. Lady Erathia Lumiere's illness unexpectedly worsened, and time did not spare her to see the fruit of your sacrifice. She passed away peacefully, leaving behind a prayer for you for mercy and strength.
Know that I send you my sincerest condolences, accompanied by the majesty of my grief for this ending that is unworthy of your great endeavour.
By the Seal of the Throne, Stasioni Luxarin"
A long silence.
My voice, which had grown unsteady during the reading, stopped and became too weak to be heard.
And then, the faint breeze completed the explanation of what was hidden in long silence.
My hands did not move away from the letter; rather, it was my head that moved.
I looked at the red sky, similar to the colour of the medicine that no longer held any importance.
A medicine worth long days and nights, now worthless.
A great weight I felt in my throat, and the heat of my body increased with the acceleration of my heartbeat.
I felt Ella's emotions.
Sadness, regret, a deep desire to cry, and not knowing what to do in such a situation.
Killer lowered his head and looked at the ground without uttering a single word.
Ankvorena's expressions were filled with overwhelming shock and sorrow, and her disbelief at what she heard from my trembling voice was more evident than Killer's visible grief.
Arthur, on the other hand, was staring at the letter in my hands with wide eyes whose eyelids were etched with lines of sadness, and words failed to form on his tongue.
The sky looks incredibly beautiful.
It pays us no mind.
"Arthur, did I tell you... how much I loved watching the sunset with my mother?"
And with these words, drowned under the weight of immense emotions, my eyes filled with salty tears and rolled down my face until they fell, touching the grass beneath my feet.
And then I thought and wished: If only I had wings to fly to the sky.
"I hear and obey." Preceded by a short sigh.
Kafka?
Kafka then spoke in a serious and firm tone, completely different from Kafka's usual style and tone.
"Ethan Lumiere. I, the left eye of the embodiment of joy, my mission of accompanying you is concluded. And now my primary mission has begun. The Embodiment of Joy wants you. And if you try to resist, it will only harm you."
No one understood what Kafka said, as the previous shock had distracted everyone.
But one step from Kafka, too fast for anyone to see, brought him to me.
He grabbed my neck, my bag fell from my back, and he flew away.
His immense flying speed made me feel the crushing air pressure, and with it, I saw Kafka's completely different face, filled with sternness and coldness.
But we weren't alone.
Arthur grabbed Kafka's robe at the last moment, but his hand could slip at any second.
"Kafka, what are you doing now?" Arthur yelled in a voice that would have shaken the heart of the Kafka we knew.
But this Kafka didn't care one bit.
"Arthur Javier. My mission does not end by doing anything to you. If you value your miserable life, you had better beg me to return you to the ground safely."
Arthur gritted his teeth so hard that his gums bled.
"I felt you were hiding something from the beginning. I knew you were hiding something. But for it to be this despicable makes me nauseous and disgusted."
Kafka looked at Arthur out of the corner of his eye.
"You humans don't know when to shut your mouths."
Arthur then smiled, a smile filled with oppression.
"Ethan will not die. So go to hell."
Arthur let go of Kafka's robe and flew away, returning to the ground.
Kafka stopped in the sky at a towering height where I couldn't see humans on the ground. And then a new hand grew in place of his severed hand.
"Ethan Lumiere, bearer of the Mask of Eternity and guardian of Esteliora. As I told you before, the Embodiment of Joy wants you. It wants to include you in its ranks on the continent of Jolaya. Accept your destiny and learn more about it, or we will move to the unpleasant method."
I couldn't say anything; the words scattered, and the letters broke apart.
His hand was pressing on my neck, almost suffocating me.
I wasn't resisting; I just looked at his emotionless face with my bewildered eyes.
"Let me go."
Kafka was surprised.
"Just let me fall. What's the point of continuing in a world without a world?"
"Wait, wait,"
Kafka wiped away the tear that had just left my eye with his thumb.
"Don't wish for death. That's what Elios told you, okay? You are strong. Just one word, if you say it, everything will end peacefully."
He's playing with me.
"Do you remember when we first met? When I chose you? You must have been sure I would choose you. I wasn't lying when I said you had a beautiful name," I said.
I took a heavy breath and continued.
"And your full name? This is the first time I've heard it from you, and it only makes your name more beautiful."
"Don't think your words will touch my feelings," Kafka said.
My tears continued to fall, and my voice only grew weaker.
I gathered the scattered words again and spoke.
"You cared about me when I fainted after the adventurers' test, didn't you? Arthur told me. Thank you."
"I did that because you weren't supposed to die, not out of love for you," he replied without a moment of silence.
"Thank you."
Kafka was slightly annoyed, and it showed on his face.
"It seems you don't understand."
He pointed his hand towards the ground, where there were many fields and farms.
And he launched a giant fireball from his hand, almost the size of a ship, and let it go.
It crushed and burned everything.
The crops, the animals, and the people all burned in a fraction of a second and evaporated.
And the light produced by the impact of the fireball with the ground alone was enough to blind anyone close enough not to be directly affected by the ball.
And the surrounding forests began to burn, their black smoke covering the sky.
"Did you see? The longer you take to answer, the more people will die."
"I don't care. Let them die. This is their world. As for my world, it has ended. Let hell embrace me, How strange it is to be anything at all."
Crack.
One blow from Kafka's fist towards my waist broke a bone in my ribcage.
But I didn't scream, and I didn't sweat.
He flew me again at superhuman speed that almost tore my heart, but it wouldn't, because he was careful not to let me die and to live every atom's worth of pain. Kafka stopped at my hometown, Interline City, of which only the ashes of houses remained.
Its black ground told the story of the war the dead had lived.
He set me down precisely at the remains of my house, and before letting me go, he broke the femur of my right leg so I couldn't move.
He then left me on the ground and went to the last standing wooden pillar and with one breath, he crushed it and levelled it with the ground.
The pain in my leg and chest was severe, but if death followed, it was fine.
Kafka returned to me and kicked my face until I coughed up blood and vomited.
"Agree."
He hit me all over my body, repeatedly.
My chest, my stomach, my leg, my face, and my whole body.
My whole body bled and was drenched in red blood.
And with every blow, I saw his cold, emotionless face.
And he stopped.
He looked at my body and my condition, and his eyebrows furrowed in anger and disgust, and he began to yell at my bruised face covered in my red blood.
"Why won't you agree? Those people in the farm and the animals and all the forests burned and their lives ended because of your stubbornness, and it's possible your sister would have a better life if you agreed. You don't know the full picture, Ethan. All the Embodiments want you, the Archons will move at any moment and force you to join them."
He took several deep breaths, and waved his hand in the air until the blood scattered from it before continuing.
"Throughout our lives, we awaited the bearer of the Mask and the guardian of Esteliora, and here you are before us, but you make things much harder."
Silence fell for a moment before he asked.
"Whose side are you on exactly, Ethan?"
I couldn't move any cell of my body.
But I drew breaths with difficulty, and formed the last sentence of my life.
"You always... reminded me of my older brother, Kafka."
Finally, surprise showed on Kafka's face.
Before he could say anything else, we heard a voice from afar.
"It's been a long time, Kafka Umbra."
As soon as Kafka heard this voice, he took one last, brief look at my ravaged body, and flew away at top speed.
And the owner of the voice stood before me, and I saw only his back.
"This boy is under my care from now on."
The last thing I heard before I lost connection with reality.