That wasn’t a battle. Not a monster. But something filthier—more despicable—human nature itself.
Beneath the Sunset Lodge, in a sunless basement laboratory, a failed experiment dragged a lone alchemist into the abyss of a curse. His flesh collapsed. His sanity shattered. His desires were violently amplified. In return, he gained two powers— “an existence no one could perceive,” and “the authority to dominate souls.”
The price was his humanity, lost forever.
Upstairs— an exhausted Fern sank defenselessly into sleep.
She didn’t know. On the other side of the wall, something was watching her. No breath. No footsteps. No trace of mana. Like a ghost that didn’t exist.
When consciousness is eroded, when memories are rewritten— is the “him” in her eyes still truly the same person?
If tenderness is only an illusion. If every embrace is a lie. If the name whispered in her ear… isn’t the man she longs for at all—
Then that night, upon those pure white sheets, trust was quietly torn apart. And she would never even realize what had been taken from her.
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