After a brief ascent with Blight's aid, Asher landed softly, the battlefield shrinking behind him.
Before him stretched the mist .
He stared straight into it. No hesitation this time.
The war, the screams, the blood — all of it belonged to the world behind him.
Ahead lay only silence. And freedom.
A faint smirk curved his lips. His fists tightened.
"How hard could it be?" he muttered, and stepped forward into the fog.
***
"Do we measure our lives by what we achieve, or by how many bonds we make?"
The sound of the video paused with a faint click. Young Asher frowned, swiveling toward Casandra, who was busy chopping vegetables at the counter.
"Aunt Cass, is this about me punching those jerks again? Because if it is, I swear they starte—"
Casandra cut him off with a laugh. "No, no! It's a genuine question. Am I not allowed to be philosophical once in a while?"
Asher narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Well… in my opin—"
"Just answer the question!" she said, pointing her knife playfully in his direction.
He sighed, scratching his head. "I don't know. Bonds are… things I usually form to help me reach my goals, so—"
"WHAT?!" The knife clattered onto the cutting board as Casandra whirled around, hands on her hips. "How could you say that, mister?"
Asher blinked. "Am I not allowed to have my own opinion?"
Casandra huffed. "Well, in my opinion—"
"Tsk." Asher clicked his tongue, and that only made her grin wider.
Then her expression softened. She stepped closer and gently took his face in her hands. "Listen, Asher," she said quietly, "I don't care what your goals are. But bonds—people—are always more important. Always."
Asher looked away, pretending to be annoyed. "Yeah, yeah…"
"I'm serious," she said, tilting his chin back toward her. "Promise me."
"What?"
"Promise me you'll never sacrifice your bonds for your goals."
He exhaled, clearly reluctant, but placed his hand on hers. "…I promise."
Casandra's lips curved into a smile—warm at first, then teasing. "Well then… would you sacrifice your bond with me to achieve your goal?"
"I—I didn't mean it like that!" he spluttered.
"Oh?" she said, raising a brow. "Then tell me, Asher."
"What is your goal?"
____________
"What is your goal?"
A voice whispered in his mind. Asher trugded to the mist as his very being collapses upon a series of questions about his existence. Yet that one stood out to him.
What was his goal really?
No... who was he? Was he the Asher who lost his parents to a car accident?
Or was he the Asher that sacrificed himself to let the people close to him leave?
Was he the anomaly eighth demon?
Or was he on of the countless avatars of the illusions that took hold of him.
Was he... Echo of the abyss or singularity?
Asher gritted his teeth, marching front.
He was all of them.
Who else could it be.
He was Echo of the abyss and Singularity. He was... Asher.
"But you didn't answer the question, Asher."
Dahila's voice threaded through the fog, intimate and everywhere at once. "What is your goal?"
He stopped. The mist pressed in from all sides, a living wall of silver that swallowed sound. Shapes moved inside it — flickers of Dahila, a dozen half-formed smiles stepping out and dissolving again like reflections on disturbed water.
'Is it to escape this nightmare?' one phantom asked, voice honeyed. 'Or to keep the few friends you have alive?' another chimed.
They drifted toward him, a court of illusions, and he hated them. He lashed out, blade arcing through vapor; the edge met nothing but cold air. One apparition laughed and vanished. Another bowed and folded into the fog. Dahila's chorus curled around him like smoke.
"Come on," Dahila's voice said from no single direction. "You don't need to slash at me."
The words were small — a candle held under his nose — and for the first time the fog felt honest. The copies faded, and the shape that remained stepped cleanly out of the mist: Dahila.
His hand loosened, as his gaze narrowed at Dahila. "What are you doing now you thing?"
Dahila let out a seductive smile, walking beside Asher, then leaning in to whisper in his ear, "You want to know my goal Asher?" Asher's eyes widened as he turned back.
Dahila was missing.
A heartbeat later, she cupped his face from the front, fingernails cool on his cheek. She studied him as if reading a line of script. "Ah—what a face."
She brought her lips to the hollow of his neck, exhaled, and the scent of night flowers and iron folded into him. "Say it."
Something inside him cracked. The urge was a low drum against his ribs, an animal's hunger made articulate. His fists clenched until knuckles whitened; his whole body shook with it. The answer tore out of him like a torn sinew:
"I want to kill."
Dahila feigned shock, "What was that?"
His voice broke and snapped, all the years he'd swallowed spilling out raw. "I want to kill him. No — all of them."
"Kill who?" she asked, amused, patient.
He turned, fist trembling, ruby dust glinting on his knuckles. "The daemons."
Dahila smiled looked at him Asher Asher spoke disdain leaking from his voice.
"I want to rip every single one to shreds."
Nether... that fucker... he wanted to create life so badly? He wanted to surpass the gods?
Asher wouldn't let him. He was going to kill every single 'living' thing Nether created. He was going to hunt down every Daemon for supporting him in the doom war. A daemon doesn't care about its siblings?
Who cares!
Asher was going to hunt every single of of the Daemons down, slowly butchering them.
He wanted Nether to watch — to feel the same hollow, endless dread that had gnawed at him for two years. He wanted that thing to learn what it meant to wait for death. To sleep with the snap in its ears. To live each heartbeat counting down to oblivion.
He pictured Nether shrivelling under that knowledge. He pictured the daemon-made crowd shrinking until only one remained — trembling, eyes wide and useless — Nether, the last creature to understand fear.
"The Daemons are dead Asher." Dahila said.
They were. In the doom war before.
Still, the heat behind his ribs did not cool. He bared his teeth. Blood welled at the corner of his mouth where he'd bitten his lip; it traced a dark line down his chin.
He wasn't in his stone body anymore. That made it clear. He was in his soul sea. Somewhere, somehow, he had entered his soul sea.
"I want to kill them with my own hands," he said, and the sentence was less a promise than a confession.
Dahila closed the space between them until he could feel the warmth of her breath. She leaned in, close enough for his pulse to quicken under her gaze. For a heartbeat the world narrowed to the tilt of her smile. Then she withdrew, amused and deliberate.
"You're angry," she observed, faintly amused. "Hungry." Her finger tapped her chest; the gesture was absurdly intimate, like a secret being passed across their bones. "I'll give you your chance."
She then lifted her finger.
"I'll make sure to give you the opportunity to kill the Daemons."
She poked at Asher, her grin widening.
"You destroy the nightmare spell."