He watched.
Always watching.
From shadowed corners, from forgotten spires, from the reflections of broken mirrors—Kagetsu no Jōka laughed. The Eternal Jester, smiling behind his porcelain mask, drifted through the world like a dream no one could wake from. The smoke of his misdeeds lingered in the air longafter he vanished. Cities whispered his name. Dead gods stirred in their sleep. But none dared speak it aloud.
Not yet.
The Adventurers' Guild, the largest and most powerful institution left in the fractured mortal world, was the first to recognize the pattern.
Massacres. Madness. Souls shattered beyondrecognition. Magic behaving unpredictably. Ancient seals unraveling in silent places long buried.
None of it made sense.
Until it did.
One word, one name—hidden in the final breaths of survivors and buried in the confessions of mad prophets—rose again and again, like rot beneath the skin.
Kagetsu.
The name hadn't been spoken for centuries. The world had moved on. But history has a habit of bleeding through the walls of the present.
And when the realization struck, it struck hard.
"He's supposed to be a myth," one guild master said, trembling behind oak and steel. "A story used to frighten mages."
"Seal records confirm his existence," anothercountered. "But it can't be. That kind of power… it's impossible."
"What do we do?" someone asked.
No one answered.
Not until someone uttered a name older than the guild itself.
"The witch. The one who saw the end and lived."
Even older legends whispered about her—a sorceress so ancient, even the first gods had feared her. She had vanished long ago, buried beneath mountains and centuries. But her soul, they said, could still be summoned, if the price was high enough.
And so they paid.
Thirteen high mages bled into a circle carved with silver runes. It took days. Spells that hadn't been used in ten generations. A sacrifice none spoke of. And in the center of the room, something appeared.
Not flesh.
Not shadow.
But memory made manifest.
A woman, translucent and faintly glowing, dressed in robes that moved like storm clouds. Her face was lined with age and wisdom, and her eyes were blind—but seemed to see through every soul in the chamber.
"You called," she said.
The guild fell silent.
One of the masters stepped forward, voice barely above a whisper.
"We seek guidance. The world is unraveling. We believe… we believe Kagetsu has returned."
At that, the witch froze.
Her lips curled—not in surprise, but in a grim recognition.
"He never left," she said.
"What… what do you mean?" another asked.
She turned slowly, her eyes resting on nothing, yet seeing everything.
"You think the seal was perfect. It wasn't. You think the gods succeeded. They didn't. They only bought time. Time, and a fragile illusion."
"Then what do we do?"
The ghost-witch laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.
"There is nothing to do."
"You mean… there's no way to stop him?"
"None," she said. "Even when the gods walked the world, they couldn't kill him. They only sealed him, and even that was barely achieved. You live in an age without gods. Without faith. Without hope."
She stepped forward, her form flickering like a candle in wind.
"Look around you. Chaos follows his name. Hope withers in his shadow. He is not death. He is the reminder that death would be kinder."
The room was silent, heavy with her words.
"Then… are you telling us to give up?" someone asked, voice breaking.
The witch turned her head, her expression unreadable.
"Yes."
A pause.
And then fury.
"You dare mock us?" roared a guild enforcer. "You dare give us despair and call it prophecy?"
Magic sparked in the air as others followed, rage and fear boiling over into action.
They struck.
Bolts of energy surged forward, fire and lightning converging on her ethereal form.
And passed through her.
The ghost-witch's expression didn't change.
"I am already dead," she said calmly. "You did not summon me to fight. You summoned me to know. And now you know."
She turned, her form beginning to fade.
"Your war was lost before you were born."
And with that, she vanished.
---
The silence that followed was suffocating.
No one moved. No one spoke.
Then the murmurs began.
Disbelief.
Denial.
Rage.
Panic.
Guildmasters turned on each other. Accusations flew. Paranoia spread like wildfire. If even the gods couldn't stop him, what could mere mortals do? Some insisted on gathering relics. Others spoke of hiding. A few began to talk of surrender.
The unity that had held for centuries cracked in a single hour.
And far away, on a rooftop soaked in rain, Kagetsu laughed again.
He could feel it—the ripple of doubt, the tremor of faith breaking like glass.
And he fed on it.
Because that was the secret.
He didn't need to strike a single blow.
He only needed them to realize…
They had already lost.
---
To Be Continued...