He should have felt fear—or perhaps that cowardice rooted deep in human nature should have seized him.
But all Isaac felt… was hunger.
Not a hunger for glory or status, but a craving for truth—the kind that slithers into the soul and never leaves.
Before him floated a single eye, suspended in an endless black void like a devouring hole.
Sapphire-blue. Colossal.
Its iris spun like a dying star caught in a whirlpool of flame.
It stared at him.
Not as a man gazes upon prey, but as the sky looks down upon the earth—vast, indifferent, eternal.
And when it spoke, there was no echo.
Only a pulse.
"Let us become one."
The silence had not come from a lack of words.
It came from the weight of the words themselves… as if silence had been given a voice.
His breath stilled—not in fear, but in contemplation.
What was this thing?
An eye? A mind? A god… or something beyond?
This was no offer.
No pact.
It felt like a command—one written into the stars before time had a name.
The eye pulsed again, waves of light rippling through the abyss.
"A world awaits—a place of chaos unchained, where every breath is a wager, and every heartbeat a battle."
The iris spun faster, as if stirred by the mere thought.
"There, power takes on forms unimagined. There, nothing is fixed—not fate, not flesh, not even death."
He remained silent, watching as fragments of starlight gathered around the eye like a swarm of forgotten memories.
"I wish to witness you—not as a distant observer, but from within. To see your rise, your fall, your evolution."
There was no arrogance in the voice.
No plea.
Only hunger—raw, ancient, unfulfilled.
And beneath that hunger… something else.
Admiration.
"Because watching you… is truly fascinating, O King."
There was a flicker—deep, buried, and unfamiliar.
Not fear. Not awe.
Something… worse.
He raised his head, and for the first time in decades, his gaze faltered.
His breath caught—not in hesitation, but in recognition.
"You…"
The word slipped out, not as speech—but as instinct.
"You make me feel something I thought long dead."
A smile curved his lips—slow, deliberate.
The kind that belongs to men who make peace with madness.
In his eyes, something stirred.
A hunger older than pride. Sharper than fear.
Isaac stepped forward, the faint grin never leaving his lips.
"Tell me something…"
His voice carried no malice, but there was weight behind it—like a trap waiting to snap.
"You are beyond gods, beyond law… so why ask?"
"Why entertain consent, when your kind were made to take?"
He tilted his head slightly, watching the colossal eye for the smallest tremor—
"What binds a god to politeness?"
The sapphire iris narrowed, and for a moment, the void itself warped in silent reply.
Then came the sound.
Not laughter as mortals knew it—
More like a fracture in sound itself, a rupture where silence bled.
"No, King…"
The voice returned, smooth and ancient.
"Your defiance is absolute—even in ruin. I could burn your body, but your soul… would claw back to the surface."
A pause.
A pulse.
"That… is why I need you willing."
Isaac chuckled softly, eyes glinting with mischief.
"Then tell me… What name does a god wear, when standing before a king?"
The air grew heavier.
The void recoiled.
And then—
A surge of pressure bent the abyss inward, as if reality itself was retreating from a name too vast to hold.
A voice boomed—vast, uncontainable:
"The Azure Sovereign greets you king."
Isaac let out a sharp laugh.
Not from fear. Not from pride.
But the kind of laugh reserved for those who've learned to smile when the universe plays games it thinks are clever.
"What a twist of fate… to meet my reflection in a world not my own."
His grin deepened.
"Very well… I accept, Azure Sovereign. If I am to fall, let it be beside the one who mirrors me."
— — —
The Sovereign did not hesitate.
Its voice came low, calm—like the tolling of a bell before the fall of a kingdom.
"Your path ends here, Isaac. You must die… for the journey to begin."
He didn't flinch.
He had walked beside death too many times to be moved by its shadow.
"I shall carry your soul across the veil… into a life yet unwritten."
The void around them stilled, as though reality itself waited.
"But the place… the vessel… even the fate—you must leave all to chaos. I cannot choose where you will be reborn, nor whose hands you'll awaken in."
And that…
That was the one rule Isaac had always refused to follow.
The Sovereign's voice deepened, echoing through the seams of space.
"I will become part of you. Bound within your very being."
"My power will remain sealed until you prove worthy of it."
"Your agony shall echo through me. Your triumphs shall reshape what I am."
Isaac remained silent for a heartbeat.
Then, his grin returned—sharp and deliberate.
The grin of a man who saw the world not as it was, but as a game already half-won.
"It seems the real fun is about to begin."
— — —
He stood at the base of a lifeless mountain, where nothing grew—where even silence refused to echo.
No eyes to watch. No names to remember. Just him.
With bare hands, he began to dig.
The earth was stubborn—dry, cracked.
It did not yield easily.
But he did not stop.
This was not a grave—it was a conclusion. A tombstone for power, for pride, for the ghost of a man who mistook strength for purpose.
When the pit was finally done, time itself seemed hesitant to move forward.
He stared into the hollow space—not with sorrow, not with fear—
But the way a king gazes at the end of an era.
And then, he smiled.
"This chapter… is over."
No ceremony.
No witness.
No god to judge him.
He rose, lifting the blade that had once carved empires—
And drove it into his chest.
Blood flowed like ink across a page long overdue.
Warmth fled—not just from his skin, but from the myth that once wore his name.
Pain followed.
And with it… peace.
A familiar hymn hummed by death itself.
Images danced behind his eyes—
Defeat.
Victory.
The crushing weight of expectations.
The silence after applause.
And through it all, the Azure Sovereign waited.
Not as a god.
Not as a watcher.
But as a witness.
A grin tugged at Isaac's lips.
"At last… the silence shatters."
And with that, he closed his eyes.
— — —
He awoke to nothing.
No sky.
No ground.
No direction.
Only absence.
Existence had unraveled.
There was no breath, no time, no weight to tether him.
He simply was.
An infinite darkness stretched in every direction—still, sacred, utterly devoid of sound or shape.
Isaac drifted through it—formless, anchorless.
He had died.
And yet… something in him refused to fade.
He opened his eyes.
No pain.
No pulse.
Only thought.
"How fitting…"
His voice was little more than a whisper—consumed the moment it left him.
"To awaken in a place as empty as the life I left behind."
For a while, nothing answered.
And then—
A presence.
It did not ripple or echo.
It simply… arrived.
Like the concept of motion had remembered it existed.
A flicker of blue.
Then brilliance.
The eye returned.
Sapphire.
Endless.
Unblinking.
As if it had never stopped watching.
The eye narrowed.
Its light intensified—no longer passive, but burning.
A voice emerged, deeper than before. More certain.
"My respect for you only grows, King. I never thought I would care for anything… yet here I am, watching over you."
Isaac smirked.
Even here, between life and death, his pride remained.
"Then do it."
"Let the world forget… and let me begin again."
The eye flared.
A beam of azure fire erupted, striking Isaac's soul.
Not his body—it was gone.
But whatever remained of him… was set ablaze.
Pain followed.
It was not agony of the flesh, but of memory, of essence, of identity unraveling thread by thread.
He did not scream.
He just endured.
As the fire consumed him, his voice cut through the collapse:
"Darkness in the distance… but I go forward."