Chapter 187: Prelude to Collapse
The battlefield's center.
Clouds were pushed aside, and the earth fractured into fine cracks. The ground that had once been a battlefield now writhed like something alive.
Basim had invoked the force of the mountain, and Marik had pierced the heart of the mud. The aftermath rippled outward like waves, seeping into the Wall of Memories.
Moments later, dark crimson cracks spread across the surface of the Wall of Memories. As though ancient nerves were stirring once more, the mass of rock drew a deep breath.
Calix stepped forward.
A flash of light blazed, and the wall's surface enclosed everything on all sides. Without even stepping inside, it was as though he had already entered.
The light that seeped through resembled blood. Red, viscous, carrying a steady rhythm like the beat of a heart.
Every surrounding sound vanished completely. Not even cold air could be felt. In its place, thousands of voices filled his ears.
"Save me."
"Don't forget me."
"I will… Leave behind my name."
It sounded like a single voice, yet hundreds of cries were layered within it. That was the totality of every memory Verhas, the Wall of Memories, had consumed.
From somewhere behind, he thought he briefly caught Basim's battle cry, Royce's shout, Ella's voice in prayer. But he no longer turned back.
All light and noise surged in from afar, then were promptly swallowed by the wall. All that remained was the heartbeat.
Thud, thud, thud—
With each step he took, the earth beat along with him.
Calix parted the darkness and walked into the heart of the memories. The interior was not a simple corridor—it resembled a vast, living brain that breathed.
Mana flowed through every wall like capillaries, and between them, fragments of someone's life flashed past like a dying vision. Tear-stained smiles, pain-laden screams, cries mixed with elation. Countless scenes flashed all at once and washed over his field of vision.
"……So this is the interior of the memories."
Even Calix's words scattered instantly.
One step. Two steps.
The floor was soft like flesh, and with each step, the heartbeat was conveyed through the soles of his feet. He knew he had entered a living organism.
The true domain of Verhas.
He had entered a body made of memories and was now facing the souls imprisoned within.
Then, from somewhere far away, a great tremor resounded.
Thick bundles of mana stretched on without end, and at their center floated a transparent polyhedron like glass. A different face was reflected on each of its surfaces, exchanging glances with one another as they moved with life. And within the interior of that polyhedron, a faint silhouette was visible. It was the shape of a human, curled like a fetus.
"So this is your heart, Verhas."
The heart paused for a moment, then trembled faintly, as if in answer.
And from within it, slowly—ever so slowly—
Something opened its eyes.
* * *
The instant before Calix swung his sword, the polyhedron radiated light. Immense mana filled the space, and once again his vision was consumed.
It felt as if he were falling into someone's memory.
His hesitation was brief; he lowered the tip of his blade and silently observed the scene unfolding before him. A village consumed by flames, soldiers run through by swords, families clinging to one another and weeping in a filthy surgery room. Every one of those scenes passed by as black-and-white afterimages.
Perhaps because the memories were so old, the light flickered and the sound of crying cut in and out repeatedly.
Calix's gaze met that of a healer standing in one corner of the surgery room. His expression was blank with shock, yet within it lay the anger of a man furious at his own powerlessness.
In that moment, the shapes around him shifted, and a familiar scene unfolded.
It was Calix from his days at the Marquis's estate. His childhood, when he was looked down upon even by lowly servants, passed by slowly. He soon joined the mercenary group Mountain Rabbits, and the faces of fallen comrades flashed before him.
No blame. No demands.
Suddenly, Calix's breath faltered briefly. Yet he did not look away until the very end.
Then, from beyond the wall, a low voice came.
[Memory is eternal. It cannot be hidden, nor can you hide from it.]
There was no telling where it spoke from, nor whose voice it was. It carried a resonance as though a man and a woman, an elder and a child, were all speaking at once. Yet within those words, there was an unmistakable center.
"Yes."
Calix answered briefly.
"That's why I don't run."
At those words—which cut to the core of how he lived his life—the black-and-white afterimages came crashing down. Black hues poured like a waterfall, painting a new picture.
Then, a vast space was revealed.
There was no sky, no ground. Only within the pulsing atmosphere did a lone stone altar sit at the center.
Upon it lay a corpse with its abdomen split open, and around it stood thousands of human silhouettes. All had their eyes closed—shadows with only their outlines remaining.
Their shapes were faint, yet their breathing was vivid. It was a space where the boundary between the living and the dead had vanished—a reception room of memories.
And from among them, a man stepped forward.
Neatly bound leather clothing, fingers dusted with powdered herbs, and a face with prominent cheekbones. As light fell upon his brow, both irises gleamed with an otherworldly fluorescent color. He looked less like a malevolent being and more like a man who had grieved for far too long.
As the man raised his head, the surrounding shadows subtly moved in unison with him. They seemed subordinate to a single body, a single consciousness.
"……Verhas."
As Calix called his name, the corners of the man's mouth slowly curled upward.
[You have traveled a long road, Calix. You who are like me.]
With a gesture of his hand, the floor became transparent. Beneath it lay yet another world.
The stench of rot, festering wounds, corpses covered in red cloth. It was the infirmary of a village ravaged by plague. Those who lay there were silent, yet there was a man forcing his way between them, grinding herbs.
It was a young Verhas.
He had not given up. Even beside corpses, with withered fingers, he continued to inscribe names. Serian, Hort, Belen…… Even as the ink bled and the paper was soaked with blood, he did not stop.
[They died. Yet while I called their names, they lived.]
The faces of those whose names had been called rose faintly, then vanished.
[As long as someone remembers, true death does not come.]
Calix's voice resonated quietly.
"So that's why you buried yourself in shadow? To keep from losing their names?"
A bright smile spread across Verhas's face. Then the thousands of silhouettes opened their mouths at once and sang in a single voice.
[Yes, I refused to be forgotten. And for all of them, I alone 'remember'.]
With those words, the reception room shook. The shadows that had been still as if sleeping raised their heads. As those who had forgotten speech trembled their lips, countless whispers rose from the floor.
Those whispers were both prayer and curse.
The voices grew clearer with each passing moment.
Someone called out the name of someone they loved; someone murmured a confession they had never been able to speak aloud. Someone confessed their sins, then quietly smiled at the end.
And at the conclusion, all sounds overlapped into one.
[All of these are me.]
Verhas spread both arms wide. It was a quiet movement, yet the entire reception room drew breath in accordance with it. Then his face contorted.
From a young man's face to a wrinkled elder, to a woman with beautiful smile lines, to the innocent expression of a small child. His lips, irises, and the lines of his cheekbones twisted endlessly into one another.
[Their final gaze, their final breath, their final thought. The hand that has held every last one of them is none other than me—Verhas.]
The silhouettes packed into the walls grew slightly more distinct. The lines of their shoulders, their fingers, and the shape of their lips became visible. Yet their irises alone remained turbid.
[Forgetting is the same as murder.]
Verhas's voice sank with weight.
[No—perhaps it is a punishment more cruel than death itself. We forget those we loved, let slip the friends with whom we laughed, and pour away even the memories they left behind. And I did not permit that.]
Calix slowly looked around him.
He reached a fingertip toward the nearest shadow. No hostility was felt. Instead, a light bloomed from somewhere near his chest.
In an instant, his memory surged forward.
It was an old battlefield. In an age before neural accelerators, a rain of arrows poured down. A young soldier desperately raised his shield, but, slicked with sweat, he lost hold of the spear shaft. A young man from the same village called out his name. The shape of his lips was clear, yet no sound reached him.
The moment of death passed in an instant.
The shadow still stood in its place. Calix understood, however, that only its hollow shell remained.
"But that soldier……"
Calix opened his mouth.
"Can never smile again. Can never make another mistake, and can never love anyone."
In his mind flashed the Mountain Rabbits cackling at Gregor's words, and the tender sight of Volga and Zahira together.
"The moment they were seized by you, they were stopped forever."
At the quiet reproach, thousands of shadows trembled faintly.
Yet Verhas showed no particular reaction. He tilted his head slightly, and a faint smile once again played at his lips.
[Even so, they are not forgotten.]
Verhas's voice spread across the floor of the reception room.
[Neither their pain nor their love disappears. That is the salvation you seek. What you call 'being stopped' is, to me, an unchanging repose.]
He stepped forward. With each step he took, the feet of the surrounding shadows moved simultaneously.
[Do you not also know?]
His fluorescent irises pierced straight through Calix.
[How terrifying it is to disappear. The Mountain Rabbits laugh it off every time, but the chaos within you already knows the answer. That what follows death is nothing but oblivion.]
With a single gesture, the space tore open.
Before Calix's eyes, yet another scene arose. The moment he first confronted another's death in the mines, the sight of Kenta—master of the hand axe—as he lay dying, and even Wheatley's final moments. If only he had possessed the power to change everything—
‘Would anything have been different?’
Calix asked himself.
[Behold.]
Then Verhas whispered.
[You are one who reverses the flow. You shall succeed me and become a greater god of memory. With the chaos you possess, you could hold onto far more.]
His hand reached toward Calix.
[With chaos, stop the flow. Then no one will ever disappear from your side.]
For a moment, the reception room fell silent.
Before Calix's eyes, the things he could obtain were drawn out. Countless faces upon the battlefield, the Mountain Rabbits and mercenaries, farmers whose names he didn't even know, knights and dwarves and elves. If what Verhas said was true, even his mother could dwell in eternity.
Never again would anyone die. Within this place, no one would be forgotten. There would be no more grief and wailing, no more loss and emptiness.
‘But in exchange, nothing would ever change.’
Those who smiled would remain forever in the moment of smiling; those who wept would remain forever as weeping memories. No new mistakes, no new choices. Simply frozen in their final expression, they would live out a life that repeated without end.
Calix drew a breath.
It was a maddeningly tempting offer—yet the meaning contained within it was far too wrong.
As he opened his mouth, the whispers of the reception room subsided.
"You harbored compassion, yet that very feeling is what imprisons them."
For the first time, Verhas's face twisted.
[Imprisons?]
The lips that had been curled in a smile trembled.
[I am keeping them alive. What you cast aside. Those who lost their names, someone's fathers and mothers, children and the weak.]
With those words, a shadow swelled from behind the young Verhas. The thousands of gazes directed at Calix writhed as though just awakening from sleep.
It was then.
Suddenly, a dull resonance was carried from afar.
Boom—
A tremor like mountain ridges colliding. The wave Basim had unleashed was creating fine fractures in Verhas's domain.
Immediately after, another rhythm was layered over it.
Rumble.
The golden radiance Marik had created drove into one side of the space. Ceiling and floor shook simultaneously. Fine cracks spread across the reception room above.
Calix raised his head.
"Can you hear it, Verhas?"
By now, the eyes of the beast—who had shed the appearance of a human—narrowed to slits.
"There are those approaching from outside."
Calix continued calmly.
"Those who correct their mistakes, who rise again even after falling, and who then strive to make even slightly better choices."
His gaze traveled to the shadows that filled the surrounding space.
"You fear that. That lives you have not seized are flowing somewhere beyond your reach. That they are aging into faces you do not know and loving in words you cannot understand."
The space slowly warped.
The chaotic mana surpassed Calix's body and began expanding throughout the entire space. He had studied his opponent long enough. He had listened to his story, understood parts of it, and knew that it was wrong.
Verhas no longer smiled. Fine cracks formed in those fluorescent irises.
[……Foolish one, only that which has stopped is perfect peace.]
Only then did he shed his mask and reveal the malice within. Across countless ages, compassion had curdled into obsession.
[My path is not wrong. If only for the sake of those you cast aside, I will maintain this repose. This is this vessel's love.]
Calix closed his eyes briefly, then opened them.
"Love, you say……"
His fingertips idly caressed the hilt of his sword.
"To me it looks like a prison."
The moment those words rang out, the entire reception room lurched violently.
Not from any single direction, but from all sides, golden embers seeped in. Ella's prayer came, faint yet carrying unmistakable warmth.
Shock spread across Verhas's face.
[Stop! This world is mine!]
It was already too late.
The floor twisted, the shadows split and scattered into the air. Then darkness, golden divinity, and gray chaos mingled and exploded. As if an entire nervous system had gone berserk, the whole space was collapsing.
And at the very end of it all—
"Calix!!"
The Mountain Rabbits had come together.