Chapter 200: A Love Stronger Than Death
The last vestiges of childhood melted from Aman’s reflection, replaced by something far more dangerous - a smirk that didn’t belong to any child, but to the hunter who’d been waiting behind those innocent eyes all along.
The illusion world screamed as it fractured like a thousand realities unraveling at once.
Then, with a final, deafening silence—
—the world tore itself apart.
Before the Lament Shroud could even process the shift, the very fabric of its reality contorted violently.
One moment, the child was in its grasp, ensnared in the illusion it had so carefully woven.
The next, the comforting dark of its own being was torn open, as if something far older and crueler had reached in and wrenched it apart.
The Shroud was flung, without grace or warning, into a stark and unfamiliar reality.
Agony—raw, searing, utterly alien—vibrated through its vast consciousness, rippling across its amorphous form like a shockwave. It was pain beyond comprehension, a torment that clawed at the very fabric of its existence.
And, for the first time in its existence, the Shroud flinched. Its hollow eyes snapped shut.
But, just as quickly as it began, the pain stopped, leaving a phantom ache.
"!"
The Shroud opened its eyes, reflexively trying to assess its new form, wondering if the merge was truly successful.
Hmm...
Its ’body’ was... different alright.
But, a bit too different perhaps.
Just then, the darkness peeled away like rotting skin.
Then, the body’s focus shifted, and the shroud used the chance to take in its surroundings.
It was no longer within the familiar confines of the blizzard, nor the boy’s comforting meadow. It was in a massive, desolate land, littered with the remnants of what looked like an ancient battlefield.
And then it saw them.
A horrifying tide of monsters.
Hulking beasts with flayed hides, slithering things that pulsed with too many mouths, gaunt horrors that shrieked like nails on glass. They came in waves, a writhing, howling mass with no purpose but to devour.
The Shroud understood annihilation when it saw it.
This was not a place meant for survival.
It instinctively tried to move, to turn and flee, or at least unleash its power and tear these things apart as it would its prey.
But the body remained unresponsive, a cruel, heavy shell. Frustration, hot and unfamiliar, boiled within its vastness. Confusion clouded its core.
Wasn’t the merge supposed to be successful?
Why wasn’t its body abiding its wishes?
Wait...
Could it be...?
A cold, logical deduction formed, the only plausible explanation for this inexplicable torment.
It must be experiencing the boy’s memories right now, a side effect of the merge.
The boy’s past consciousness had bled through, an unforeseen flaw in what should have been its triumph.
Helpless, it could only watch as the memory unfolded. Its body, small and utterly insignificant against the onslaught, foolishly charged forward, wielding a tarnished sword that seemed impossibly light in its grip.
There was no way to win this.
There was no way he could end but in oblivion.
And, as expected, the body was shredded and broken in a horrifying flurry of claws and teeth.
It died, a foolish, reckless death.
Wait...
The boy died?
Then how was he still alive?
What was happ-
GRRR-!
Another wave of immense, soul-shattering pain assaulted the Shroud, brutal and all-encompassing, as darkness took over once more.
Its entire being felt as though it was blazing in hot and terrifying flames. Every fiber of its essence screamed, incinerated by an agony unlike any before.
Then, just as the pain reached its unbearable zenith, the agonizing cycle repeated itself. The searing flames abruptly ceased, leaving a raw, phantom burning. Its form, whatever it was now, shuddered back from the brink of absolute dissolution.
The Shroud opened its eyes again, its very consciousness still throbbing and recovering from the lingering trauma of the latest death.
It was back in the blizzard.
The familiar, frigid air lashed at its new ’skin’, the biting cold a stark contrast to the inferno it had just escaped.
A wave of something akin to relief began to unfurl within its core. It was out of that relentless cycle of pain, back to the place it knew.
But just as the sensation settled, the body stumbled backward, a choked gasp tore from its throat. The Shroud’s attention snapped to where the boy’s gaze had locked.
There.
Across the snow-whipped expanse of the Keep, a human figure moved. Tall, broad-shouldered, radiating a terrifying aura of destructive power.
It was the boy’s father, the original target of the Shroud, now rampaging through the keep, a storm of uncontrolled violence.
His eyes were now pitch black, twin voids that swallowed the swirling snow.
A cold thrill sparked within the Shroud’s depths. So, it hadn’t fully merged with the man. Instead, it had corrupted him.
But the results were good, better even.
Such unbridled destruction, a marionette of raw power. It reveled in the chaos, a predator watching its trap spring beautifully.
Yet, the body it inhabited shuddered, a silent, desperate tremor running through it as its father smashed and tore, destroying everything in his path. The memory surged with an emotional resonance that the Shroud couldn’t grasp.
Then—
The father’s head snapped toward them.
Aman’s breath hitched.
The Shroud thrilled.
With a single, fluid motion, the corrupted man raised a spear - its tip already glistening with frozen blood - and drove it deep into his son’s chest.
The boy didn’t scream. He just... folded, crumpling to his knees, blood bubbling between his lips as he stared up at the monster wearing his father’s face.
His lips moved. One word, silent, drowned in red.
"...F-Father?"
The Shroud felt it.
Not just the spear’s bite, not just ribs splintering - but the wet crack of a child’s heart breaking inside its cage of bone.
A flood of alien sensation poured through their shared veins:
Betrayal, yes - cold as the steel between them - but beneath it, love still beating its wings against the boy’s ribs, refusing to die even as the spear did its work.
Sorrow - not just for himself, but for the man his father had been. For the hands that once lifted him high, now slick with his blood.
And love - not the sweet, dying ember of devotion, but love burning through its own ruin, a star consuming itself to light the dark one final time.
The Shroud convulsed, its stolen lungs seizing as the boy’s love flooded its hollow core like poison.
This wasn’t mere mortal despair. This was love and loss woven into a noose, tightening around its stolen throat.
Then - darkness.
And the last, fading pulse of a child’s heart:
I... I love you... Father.