Lira moved toward the pod with heavy, deliberate steps.The upper side of the pod was made of a glass-like material. She leaned forward to look inside—and the moment she did, her eyes snapped to her father's face.
Tears slipped out on their own. She couldn't believe it.
The man who had once been obsessively fit, always energetic, always strong… was now nothing more than a skeletal frame.
The color drained completely from Theodore's face.
A faint yellowish tint had slowly begun to creep over Theodore's body. It was so subtle that it was almost impossible to notice—but Lira noticed.
Her gaze drifted away from her father's face—and fell on his hand.
On his right arm was a tattoo, inked in black, blue, and red.
It was shaped like a half-moon, surrounded by delicate patterns in a pale golden hue.
Something changed in her.
In her grief-stricken eyes, a deep, sudden hatred surged to the surface.
That tattoo was the mark of the very thing that was slowly stealing her father away from her. When someone passed the First Book of Judgment, the tattoo appeared on its own—a symbol of victory, almost magical in nature.
A sign that they had conquered the book.
But in this moment, to Lira, it felt no different from a mark of death. Slowly, painfully, her father was here… yet not truly here.
And just as slowly, she was losing him. Lira had never hated anyone in her life.
But today—for the first time—hatred took root in her heart. And it was overwhelming.
Dark.
Endlessly deep.
Hatred for the force that was trying to rip away her only family.
Hatred for the thing that was dragging every happiness of her life onto a path— a path from which almost no one ever returned.
Her steps faltered.
As the realization sank in, her chest tightened: her father's condition was slowly turning into the same horror she had seen so many times in her nightmares.
The officer saw the way her body swayed and rushed forward, catching her before she could collapse.
Her dreams—and her father's condition—were pointing in the same direction. A truth she absolutely refused to accept.
"No—"
She wrenched herself out of the officer's grip and stumbled toward the pod. Pressing her palm against its surface, she rested her hand there as if she could still touch him… as if the glass were the only thing separating them.
"Dad…" Her voice broke.
"Why did you do this?" She swallowed hard, tears blurring her vision.
"You know I can't live without you. You shouldn't have gone back there." A breath hitched in her throat.
"Please… come back." Her forehead rested against the pod.
"I miss you so much." But there was no one there to answer her.
Even though her father stood right in front of her, Lira knew—his soul was somewhere…
In a world he couldn't return from… not until he was deemed worthy. Not until he passed this trial.
And coming back from the Book of Judgment was not something everyone could do.
Lira couldn't even bring herself to say that her father was already in the Fourth Book of Judgment, the chances of returning it were painfully small—barely fifty out of a thousand.
And yet…
A fragile hope still clung to her heart. That her love would pull him back. That her father would return.
And this time, she would never let him go anywhere again.
For a long time, Lira stayed there with him.
In that room.
The eight months of her life, she spoke as if telling a one-sided story. She told him everything—the small, happy moments,the mischief she had gotten into,
why the housekeeper had scolded her—how terribly she had missed him.
She pretended her father could hear every word.
As if he might suddenly open his eyes and say,
"Lira, enough now. Stop talking nonsense. I'm tired of listening to you."
So many times, a single thought made her heart ache with the desperate wish for it to come true.
But reality was something else entirely.
After nearly three hours of sitting alone in that room, speaking into silence, the officer returned and gently informed her that it was time for her to leave.
Lira looked at her father one last time.That pale yellow face—the one that haunted her dreams.Those lifeless eyes. Dark. Empty.
Her nightmares and reality were slowly becoming the same thing.
And she swore never to let that reality become real.
Holding that thought close, she looked at her father with a quiet determination—and made a promise.
"Dad…
You've done everything for me all my life. It wouldn't be wrong to say that everything you ever did—you did for me.
Now it's my turn."
As Lira stepped out of the room, her nightmares and reality began to overlap.
She could no longer tell what was a nightmare—and what was real.
Her feet started moving on their own, searching for a destination she hadn't consciously chosen.
Lost in thought, she walked without realizing it—her feet had carried her straight to her destination.
This was where it had all begun.
Her eyes lifted to a massive golden board mounted high atop a towering building.
"The Path Of Solitary"
There was something unsettling in her gaze—
a strange pull, and an equally strange hatred.
This was the place where it had all begun. The place where her father had received the tattoo of death.
And now, Lira stood outside the same building.
She had come to claim that very same mark upon herself—
so she could save her father.