Newfear

Blatir: "I won't deny it… But tell me, Aqua… What will you do now? Will you kill your king in front of everyone? In front of all these people? Is this the justice you seek?"

Blatir's voice was calm, yet beneath it lurked a hidden challenge, as if he were pushing Aqua toward the abyss. He knew he still controlled the situation, even with blood staining the hall, even as death crept toward him. Because he understood one truth… kings do not die with mere words.

Under the towering ceiling of the royal hall, where torches bathed the walls in a dim crimson glow, tension filled every corner. The air was thick with pressure, as if even the walls themselves held their breath, waiting for what was to come.

Aqua, his body torn and battered, could barely stand, yet he did not retreat. His grip on the sword tightened with each passing second, as if sheer willpower alone kept him upright.

Then, he took another step forward.

At that moment, Sir Varias, who had been momentarily lost in thought, stepped forward hesitantly. Meanwhile, Sir Darian clenched the hilt of his sword, his eyes locked on the scene with cautious intent. His stance betrayed hesitation, as if waiting for a signal... any movement... that would force him to act. Sir Varys, on the other hand, seemed uncertain, as though his mind was struggling to grasp what was unfolding before him.

But before he could speak, the sharp sound of heavy footsteps echoed from beyond the grand doors, followed by the urgent shouts of approaching guards.

A dozen armed guards burst into the hall, swiftly surrounding the scene.

Aqua did not waver. He did not even acknowledge their presence. His focus remained solely on his target.

At that moment, Raymond finally moved. He strode forward, his heart pounding wildly, positioning himself between Aqua and what was about to unfold.

Raymond: "Enough."

His voice was calm but carried an undertone of unspoken tension.

Raymond: "Calm down, Aqua. Don't make things worse."

But Aqua had no intention of stopping. He had passed the point of no return. His sharp gaze bore into Raymond, his exhausted body barely holding together, yet he did not falter.

Aqua: "Step aside, Raymond. Or I will kill you next to your father. "

His voice was hoarse, laden with exhaustion, yet sharp as a blade.

Then, slowly, Aqua turned his head, his eyes fixing on one of the guards standing too close... too close and carrying a small dagger tied to his waist.

Aqua moved.

He turned fully, as if an idea had suddenly taken root in his mind, and then, without warning… he lunged.

The guards reacted instantly.

The first rushed in from the right, his sword gleaming under the dim light, but before his strike could land, Aqua had already dodged.... his movements unnaturally swift for a man so worn down. Twisting sharply, he plunged his blade deep into the guard's stomach in a lethal strike. Blood splattered onto the floor, adding to the chaotic carnage of the hall.

He did not wait for the first to fall.

The second was already charging. Aqua spun again, this time parrying the attack with his sword. With a swift thrust forward, he drove his blade into the second guard's chest, pulling it out in a single fluid motion. The guard stumbled back before collapsing lifelessly.

But the others were closing in fast.

Then… Aqua did something unexpected.

Raymond: Aqua!!

In a swift motion, he crouched down, his hand darting toward the fallen guard beside him, fingers wrapping around the dagger at his waist.

Aqua surged forward, his broken body screaming in protest, but he ignored the pain. Pain no longer mattered. His body was nothing more than a vessel to reach his final goal.

The guards rushed after him. But it was already too late.

In a flash, Aqua raised his hand...

And hurled the dagger.

Time seemed to slow.

The blade cut through the air, every eye in the room following its deadly arc.

Raymond turned abruptly, but there was no time…

No chance to stop the inevitable.

Then... The dagger pierced Blatir's chest.

A deadly silence fell over the hall.

The only sound was the king's ragged, uneven breathing, as though even air had become a burden upon his lungs. He staggered back, his grip loosening, yet his eyes remained wide, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

He did not scream.

He did not groan.

Only a single trembling exhale escaped his lips... a sigh of someone who had just realized that this was the end.

Sir Variss hesitated, his steps unsteady, shock painted across his face. The guards near the throne advanced warily, their gazes darting between their wounded king and Aqua, as if they no longer knew what to do.

Blatir slowly raised his hand toward his heart, where the dagger was embedded deep. His fingers trembled over the wound, as if trying to grasp the sensation... as if trying to comprehend that this body, once thought invincible, had finally been betrayed.

Blood seeped steadily onto his royal robes, crimson staining the once-majestic fabric, tainting the throne itself with one final humiliation... telling him that his power would protect him no longer.

His eyes met Aqua's.

And for the first time… they spoke.

Not fear.

Not regret.

But acknowledgment.

An acceptance of a reality he could no longer change.

All eyes remained fixed on the scene, disbelief hanging thick in the air.

Aqua stood, breath heavy, body drained, yet he refused to collapse.

Not yet.

The pain in his flesh no longer weighed on him... something else did. Something deeper. Something far heavier.

His gaze never wavered from Blatir, who had now fallen onto his back, his trembling hand still grasping at the dagger buried in his chest, blood pooling into the golden embroidery of his robes, as if mocking his grandeur... his power.

But Aqua did not see the blood.

He did not see the crooked crown, nor the crimson staining Blatir's lips.

He was searching for something else.

An answer…

Regret…

Even anger... some final look of defiance, some last glare of hatred to justify it all.

But there was nothing.

Only emptiness.

Blatir's eyes held no reaction. No fear, no sorrow. Only calm. As if he were gazing beyond Aqua... past him... into something no one else could see.

A weight pressed onto Aqua's chest.

A weight without a name.

But he knew it well.

This was not the ending he had imagined.

The void was not supposed to be the answer.

Then, for a fleeting moment, their eyes met.

And in that moment... Everything changed.

Amidst the chaos, the heavy breaths, the blood cooling against his skin... Aqua felt something strange.

Stillness.

As if the world had gone silent.

As if every sound that had ever haunted him... screams, echoes of suffering, whispers of the past... had all disappeared.

Only his own breath remained.

Slow. Ragged. But alone.

In absolute emptiness.

Was this the peace he had ignored?

Or was it simply a cold void, consuming him inch by inch?

But then…

Something stirred at the edge of the hall.

Raymond. His wide eyes spoke of a different truth.

As if he had just remembered something.

As if everything he had forgotten over the years had returned in one single, too-late moment.

His feet moved before he could think, his voice rising.... But... The blade cut through the air.

There was no time.

Aqua's back arched for a moment... then stilled, as if time itself had frozen.

Then…

Warmth spread across his torn shirt, a strange, sticky sensation clinging to his burned skin.

Pain was not as sharp as he had imagined.

It was not sudden. It was merely warmth. As if life was quietly slipping away.

The hall froze. No one moved. No one spoke. Only silence. And blood.

And an ending.

Raymond stared ahead with wide eyes, his face pale, his breath unsteady as if he were suffocating despite the air around him. He collapsed onto his knees beside Aqua's corpse, his trembling hands pressing against the ground, trying to process what had happened... but he couldn't.

This wasn't just another death… It was something greater, something that had torn a piece of his very being away with it.

At that moment, the hall was drowned in a heavy silence... not the silence of stillness, but the silence of loss. The silence of moments when no one knows what to do. Many eyes stared, but they were empty. Bodies stood, but they did not move, as if the world itself had frozen, waiting for what would come next.

On the other side of the room, Blatir reached out a trembling hand toward the throne, trying to steady himself, but his strength failed him. Beside him, Baron Kimri Akimont struggled to staunch the bleeding, pressing a cloth against the deep wound. His eyes were filled with worry, but he said nothing. There was something in his gaze... perhaps pity, or maybe something else no one could understand.

As for Raymond, he was shaking... not from fear, but from realization… The realization that this moment, no matter what followed, would never leave him the same. A cold current swept through his chest, and suddenly, he remembered…

He remembered his mother. He remembered her laughter, now nothing more than a distant echo… He remembered the warmth that no longer existed… He remembered the shadows her absence had left behind. Then, his memory shifted to something else... something far darker…

His eyes fell on Aqua's sword, lying on the ground. Its blade was no longer silver as it once was but a deep crimson, soaked in the blood of those it had slain. He stared at it for a moment, then slowly extended his hand… and grasped it.

When he stood, it was not just a simple movement... it was as if he were rising from one life into another. His steps were heavy, yet steady, carrying the weight of everything this moment had accumulated.

Meanwhile, Sir Darian had slowly approached Aqua's body. He knelt in silence, his eyes burning with fury, never leaving the lifeless form before him. The Marchioness Atris followed, but she couldn't look for long. She averted her eyes in pain, as if afraid she would be consumed by the sight.

And Raymond... he had arrived. He stood before his father, the sword in his hand dripping with blood, yet he did not waver. Nearby, Sir Variss watched in silence, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his sword... but he did nothing. For a moment, there was conflict in his eyes, but it passed quickly. He turned away, as if abandoning his duty, his role, or perhaps something deeper than that.

Then, slowly, Raymond raised the sword and held it before Blatir, its cold edge barely touching his throat. His hands were trembling... not from fear, but from everything boiling inside him, from everything he could no longer endure.

When he spoke, his voice was not a scream. It was not even a threat… It was a whisper, yet it carried the weight of an entire world, the weight of a soul cracking under the burden of pain. His voice was broken, hoarse, as if the words themselves struggled to escape his throat. He was speaking, yet he could barely breathe between the words.

Raymond, his voice choked and trembling:

"Did you kill her?"

The tears had begun to fall. He didn't know who he was crying for the most… For his mother, whose warm touch he could no longer remember? For his friend, lying lifeless before him, his once-powerful body now reduced to silence? Or for his father… the man he no longer knew if he hated, or if he hated himself for having to stand here now?

His fingers tightened around the sword's hilt, but he didn't feel strength... only coldness. A chilling cold that swept through his body, as if something inside him was freezing and dying with it.

Blatir, despite the pain, despite the bleeding, looked at him. There was no anger in his eyes, no fear… Only astonishment, as if that question alone was heavier than the dagger buried in his chest. For a moment, he said nothing, as if searching for an answer he had never found before.

Then, finally, Blatir closed his eyes, as if the darkness of his confession was too much to face with them open. For a brief second, Raymond thought he wouldn't answer... that silence would be his final choice. But when he opened them again, his voice was weak, exhausted… as if his words were crumbling before they could even leave his lips.

Blatir, in a faint, trembling voice: "It wasn't on purpose…"

He paused for a moment, exhaling a shaky breath, as if even the air itself was too heavy in his lungs. His eyes, which had always held the sharp glint of authority, had faded into the shadows of a sorrow he had never acknowledged. Or perhaps… a sorrow he had tried to forget.

Blatir: "But... Believe me… I...

I loved her."

But in the end, love was not enough. It had never been enough.

There was no hesitation. There was no scream. Only a hand that moved with an eternal weight, as if carrying out an inescapable fate.

Raymond pressed down on the sword.

With deadly ease, as if death had been waiting for him all along, the blade sliced through Blatir's throat, encountering no resistance, as if his body had been ready to leave this world long ago. Blood burst forth like reversed raindrops, staining the royal floor, drenching the regal robes, defiling everything… except the silence.

A deeper silence. A heavier silence. A silence that felt like the sound of the end itself.

Raymond did not move. He did not even breathe. His body was rigid, his glassy eyes fixed on the fallen king. But there was no victory in his expression, not even relief.

It was over.

Or at least, it was supposed to be.

At that moment, silence engulfed the hall completely. The air was heavy, so much so that breathing became suffocating, and the vision was blurred. Every pair of eyes in the room had frozen in place. From the royal guards to the nobles seated in the front rows, not a single soul could believe what had just happened before them. Blatir, the king who had been the symbol of power, dominance, and prestige, had fallen... his noble blood spilling onto the floor. And before their very eyes, he was gone.

Baron Kimri Akimont stood beside the throne, a cold shiver running down his spine as if time itself had frozen. Blatir's blood was not just a mark of injury; it was the proclamation of an era's collapse. Sir Darian, who had always been prepared for such a moment, seemed lost, his face twisted in an expression of disbelief.

Marchioness Atris stood in the center, watching in somber silence. She cast a glance at Raymond, her gaze filled with both sorrow and astonishment. Meanwhile, Sir Varys, who had never once lost his composure, remained at a distance, his eyes wandering into an empty void... as if something vital had just perished in that very instant.

Then… Raymond moved.

Slowly, he looked forward, toward the throne. It was there... the place that had brought all this suffering. It had never been King Blatir who ruled; it was the throne that had ruled… guided by unseen, insatiable forces, controlling the fates of people as if they were mere pawns in an endless game.

His voice was unsteady, barely above a whisper, as if the weight of his words was too heavy to be spoken.

Raymond: "The throne… was nothing but an illusion. A fleeting glimmer in the darkness. A dream you all chased, but in the end, it was the one that led us all into this abyss."

He paused for a moment, as if drawing the words from the depths of his soul, then continued:

Everyone who sat upon it believed they wielded power… but they were merely prisoners in a gilded cage. And my father… was the last to believe that lie.

Then, as if something inside him had snapped, he took his first step toward the throne. His eyes were transfixed, carrying the weight of an ancient mystery. Gripping the throne from behind, he yanked it violently, and before the eyes of everyone present, he began dragging it toward the royal balcony overlooking the town.

Every person in the hall watched cautiously... some afraid of the unknown, others afraid of the truth that was beginning to reveal itself. Sir Darian struggled to make sense of the situation, but it was clear he was paralyzed. Marchioness Atris closed her eyes, as if awaiting her fate.

When Raymond reached the edge, he stood still for a long second, as if time itself had stopped around him. His gaze fixed upon the town, a city that harbored the throne's secrets, its buildings standing as silent witnesses to more than anyone could imagine. The streets below teemed with movement, with life that never ceased, with the rhythm of countless feet dancing upon the earth that had once been a refuge of hope. But that movement was not as it once was. There was something in the air, in the dim glow of sunlight struggling through the clouds, revealing a painful truth. And the town that had once cradled this throne… was no longer the same.

Beneath his hands, the throne felt cold... its surface unnaturally smooth, yet fractured like the shell of otherworldly. It was carved from black rock, its texture resembling hardened volcanic glass, layered with a strange, organic roughness that almost seemed to breathe under his touch. Along its sides, veins of gemstones branched outward like frozen rivers of fire, their dull gleam catching the faint light filtering through the hall. This was not just a seat of power... it was a monument of something far older, something that had ruled long before any king had claimed it.

Then, with a sudden, forceful kick, Raymond sent the throne lurching forward. Its weight dragged against the floor with a grinding sound, stone scraping against stone, until it tipped over the edge.

For a brief moment, it hung in the air. Then, gravity seized it.

The black stone structure crashed into the courtyard below with a deafening impact, shattering upon the hardened ground. The brittle shell of the throne split apart, sending jagged shards flying across the square. The embedded gemstones fractured, scattering like fallen stars, their glow fading into the dust. A crack rippled through the courtyard's stone floor, as if the very earth recoiled from the throne's demise.

And as the last fragments of the shattered seat settled in the silence, the world around them seemed to hold its breath... watching as the symbol of their rule lay broken, reduced to nothing more than scattered remains.

Beneath his feet, the world grew hazy. But it was not the world itself... it was a deep, sinking feeling, as if a lifetime of deception was beginning to dissipate into the air. This city, this system, this throne that bound them together… was nothing but a fleeting shadow, a broken stage play that had led to the ruin of all souls. And when he looked down at the crowded streets below, something inside him shattered.

Then, slowly, as if every step pulled his heart deeper into the abyss, he took a step back. Everything around him seemed to breathe agony, and he alone stood at the heart of this void.

With a sudden, forceful kick, he sent the throne hurtling forward, as if trying to free everything trapped within him from the chains of indifference. The sound of the throne rolling toward the edge echoed like thunder in the silence. With each movement, the ground trembled beneath his feet, as if every fragment of this entity called.'the Neafear Throne' was crumbling into irreparable pieces.

And then, in a single moment, the throne tumbled over the balcony's edge, crashing into the courtyard below... shattering into scattered remnants upon the ground.

Far below, in the square, the gathered crowds held their breath as one, as if bracing for an explosion. Among them was Leon Cypher, watching the scene with wide, disbelieving eyes, as if life itself had been stripped from him. He fell to his knees, his gaze filled with shock and denial. His heart crumbled like an ancient tree that had suddenly lost all its leaves. He knew then... every sacrifice, every effort he had made, had been for nothing.

Arcadia, with all its history and honor, had collapsed in a single instant. And everything had become as fragile as scattered sand.

In that moment, the world fell silent.

Everyone in the throne hall stood still, their breaths caught in their throats. There were no words left to speak... the weight of the truth was far too heavy for any of them to bear. The winds had ceased, as if the very sky itself had stopped breathing.

And in that moment, a voice shattered the deep silence, as if the universe itself had paused to listen.

Raymond, now more unyielding than stone, with fragments of his very soul reflected in his eyes, spoke with unwavering resolve.

Raymond: "The royal rule is over."

The words that left his lips were more than just a declaration. They were the death knell of everything that had come before. They were not merely spoken... they were the conclusion of a battle waged within him, a leap into the unknown that no one had ever dared to imagine.

His voice merged with the suffocating silence, as if time itself had stopped, and the world had begun to dissolve into this new dawn.