(Agon’s POV)
I opened my eyes, seeing nothing but Darkness...
Utter Darkness..
Not just the absence of light. Not just the stretch of shadow where things might lurk. This was deeper, heavier. A void that stretched beyond the edges of existence, suffocating in its nothingness, yet limitless in its reach. It did not feel like an absence but rather a presence, something watching, something waiting.
I stood there, alone.
No loose camp. No Celia. No Jess. No Uvan. No Lovia.
Just me.
A cold weight settled in my chest as I exhaled slowly, watching my breath dissolve into nothing. The air or whatever this place had instead of air was thick with contradiction. Boundless yet suffocating. Still yet shifting. The kind of silence that had weight, pressing against my skin, my ears, my mind.
The world, if it could even be called that, twisted at the edges of my vision. My exoskeleton bio-armor still clung to me, iron-touched white ash texture glistening with a muted sheen. It pulsed softly, alive in ways I couldn’t quite grasp, as though responding to the void around me. Or perhaps to something within it.
Then, the whispers began.
Distant. Faint. Like shattered glass grinding against itself in an endless fall.
I turned my head slightly. Nothing. Yet the sound persisted, growing, sinking into the fabric of this place. Screams.. silent yet deafening, pressed against my skull. They weren’t screams of terror. Not of rage. They were something worse. A sound without a source. Without a cause. A sound that simply existed.
I took a step forward. The ground, if it was ground did not shift beneath me. It did not feel solid, nor did it feel like air. It simply was. A thing without definition.
And then I saw it.
A chair.
Black, pristine, untouched by dust or decay. It barely existed against the backdrop of the void, yet my eyes latched onto it instantly. My mist vision made it clearer, but I didn’t need it. I could feel it. A presence. A weight. As though the world, fractured as it was, acknowledged its existence above all else.
I hesitated for only a moment before stepping forward. Reaching out. My fingers brushed the surface, cold, smooth, yet pulsing with something beneath. Something alive.
I sat.
The moment my back touched the chair, the weight of the void shifted. Pressing in. The whispers curled around me, eager, desperate, watching.
Seconds bled into minutes. Minutes into something longer. I couldn’t tell. Time had no meaning here. It was an endless stretch of thought, of waiting. Until...
"Hello again."
The void shattered into silence.
The voice was soft. A single note in a hollow world. Not loud, yet it carried through everything, forcing it all to yield.
I turned.
A figure stood there.
A girl.
She wasn’t older than sixteen. Her long white hair flowed unnaturally, as if untouched by gravity, strands shifting in slow, deliberate waves. Her eyes, deep blue, calm as still water met mine, holding something vast beneath their surface. Beautiful. Unfathomable.
Wrong.
Something about them was wrong.
She smiled. Playful. Almost innocent.
But there was something in that smile that made the world seem to hold its breath.
Something that made my blood run cold.
"Agon."
Her voice echoed. Not loud. Not soft. Just there. A silent fracture splitting the fabric of this void, cutting through the illusion... if that’s what this place even was.
I exhaled slowly.
The figure before me moved.
She walked toward me at a casual pace, the kind a girl might take when given permission to finally step outside after being locked in all day. Leisurely, unconcerned, as if the endless abyss surrounding us meant nothing at all.
Her form was familiar. Too familiar.
Long, flowing white hair. Deep blue eyes that held too much. That looked at things not as they were, but as they could be. Beautiful. Terrifying. Like something that had never belonged in a human body, yet had chosen to wear one.
She wasn’t Celia.
She stopped a few steps away. And then, without a sound, a chair materialized before her, identical to mine. Pristine, pitch-black, almost devoured by the surrounding darkness.
She sat.
Legs crossed in a motion too fluid, too poised. Her movements carried an elegance that belonged to something far older than the young girl she resembled.
For a moment, she just looked at me. Studying. A quiet, unreadable smile resting on her lips.
Then, finally...
"How was it?"
The question came lightly. Casually. But there was weight behind it.
I narrowed my eyes slightly. How was what?
I didn’t voice it immediately. Instead, I let the silence stretch between us, watching, measuring.
When I spoke, my voice was calm.
"How was what?"
The sourc𝗲 of this content is freēwēbηovel.c૦m.
Her smile didn’t waver. If anything, it deepened, just slightly, as if she had been expecting my response.
"Come on," she said, tilting her head, the motion slow, intentional. "I’m talking about your first date. How was it?"
The words lingered in the air. Unnatural. Not because of what was said, but who was saying it.
My first date.
Ithelvaire.
Memories surfaced, vivid in their recall... the raw grieving landscape, the ashen gray sky illuminating cracks of multicolored lightnings, the weight of the moment. I didn’t need to relive it. She already knew.
I breathed in. Exhaled. Then
"You already know what happened," I said evenly. "So why bother asking?"
She nodded. A single motion, slow and measured. Her expression never shifted. "Yes, I already know," she admitted, voice smooth, unbothered. "But it would be interesting to hear it from you. Don’t you think?"
Playful.
That was the word for it.
Not in a mocking way. Not even in an amused way. Just... a calm, almost detached kind of playfulness, as if the conversation was nothing more than a thread she could pull at her leisure.
Which meant I had no reason to entertain it.
I leaned forward slightly. Not enough to seem aggressive. Just enough to shift the weight of the conversation.
Then you won’t hear it from me....The thought was simple. And so I did what I had already decided to do...
I changed the subject.
"I have a question," I said, voice steady. "And I need an answer. A truthful one."
She studied me for another long moment. Then, after what felt like a deliberate pause.
She nodded.
"Alright, alright," she said, waving a hand dismissively, as if humoring a request that was neither inconvenience nor importance to her.
She rested her chin lightly against her knuckles, tilting her head in that same, slow way.
"So, what’s your first question?"
I exhaled before opening my mouth.
"What happened to Ithelvaire when Yadred, Emperor of the Forsaken, ascended?"
That was my question... and I needed an answer, a genuine one
She tilted her head slightly. Just enough to suggest thought, though her expression never truly changed.
A moment passed.
Then, with a slow, calm motion, she raised her right hand, resting her fingers lightly against her jaw again. The gesture was casual, almost absentminded, yet something about it felt too smooth, as if she was mimicking thought rather than experiencing it.
Then she spoke.
"The fruit that contained Ithelvaire no longer exists," she said, her voice smooth, almost unbothered. "It was destroyed."
She let the words settle before adding, with a light tilt of her fingers,
"Just by the presence of Yadred’s real body awakening there before he ascended."
I didn’t react immediately.
Instead, I let the words replay in my mind, searching for the weight they should carry. But there was something distant about the way she said it. As if she were explaining the natural consequence of a raindrop falling.
I exhaled. Slowly.
"What does this fruit mean?"
She hummed, shifting her posture just slightly as if the question amused her.
"The fruit, or the Fruits of Narrative, are hyper-absolute simulations."
Her words were light, spoken with a casual ease, but the concept behind them was anything but.
"I suppose you could call them self-contained narratives," she continued, "so coherent they outcompete organic realities."
Her hand lifted, fingers curling slightly as if shaping something unseen.
"They simulate higher layers," she said. "Creating illusory ascension paths."
A pause.
Then, almost as if indulging my thoughts...
"Virtual worlds for mortals."
I blinked.
"Virtual world..."
The words felt foreign as I muttered them under my breath. They didn’t belong to my understanding of the reality here. They clashed against everything tangible, everything real.
But I forced my mind forward. Forced myself to focus.
"Then how do these fruits act?" I asked. "Is the system moving us between different fruits for each mission? And does the destruction of the fruit that contained Ithelvaire means everyone in Ithelvaire is dead or non-existent?"
Another pause. Another unreadable smile.
She watched me for a moment, then gave a slight shrug, as if the answer was barely worth explaining.
"Like I said, the fruits are virtual worlds for ascension," she said lightly. "And yes, the system moves you between different fruits… but that depends on the type of area your mission is in."
She let the words settle. Then, a brief flicker of something passed through her expression.. a slight, almost imperceptible shift before she answered my final question.
"The destruction of a fruit…" she said slowly, "…is the erasure of everyone inside it."
I felt my breath still.
Not a sharp intake. Not a gasp. Just stillness.
The realization was slow, creeping. Not something that hit all at once but rather settled, its weight sinking into my chest, into my bones.
Ithelvaire was gone.
And with it...
Geralda. Geralt.
Everyone who was cursed by Yadred’s grief..
I stared forward, mind spiraling through the implications. Through the sheer finality of it.
But before I could speak..
"Except," she said, cutting through my thoughts with an almost teasing lilt, "for those who have already ascended out of the Tree of Fiction."
My gaze snapped back to her.
I inhaled slowly, steadying my voice.
"What do you mean?"
She smiled.
Not wide. Not exaggerated. Just a small, knowing curve of the lips.
"Geralda and Geralt won’t be affected by Yadred’s ascension," she said simply as if knowing my thoughts. "In fact, it wouldn’t bother them at all."
She paused, tilting her head again, as if considering the weight of her own words.
Then, with that same unsettling lightness...
"They are not from that fruit."
A breath. A silence.
" Infact.. They don’t belong to any of the fruits as they are already beyond normal ascensions."
The words hung there, thick and unmoving.
I sat still, my mind turning over itself, processing..
What… did I just hear?