Frey showed no reaction.
Instead, he rose from his seat and walked toward Gehrman with slow, heavy steps.
"Whether I hate you or not doesn’t matter right now. And killing you would gain me nothing."
He stopped in front of Gehrman, staring down at him.
"Tell me, Gehrman. You know the future—but not all of it. Isn’t that right?"
The smile slowly faded from Gehrman’s face.
Seeing that, Frey continued.
"I’ve been thinking about it for a while. You know the future, or at least parts of it... but at the same time, you’re missing countless details."
"You didn’t know about Vex of the Hell Dukes. You didn’t know about Amon of the High Demons. That alone proves it."
"What you see are more like major events—key points that define a certain path. Isolated dots that shape the route you want to reach. But everything between those dots is blank... dark. You try to connect them without altering the path itself."
That meant walking through endless uncertainty.
And yet, Gehrman had always done exactly that.
The blue-eyed man fell silent for a long moment, meeting Frey’s gaze. Then he closed his eyes .. and smiled again.
"You’re right. That’s exactly how it is."
His confirmation made Frey calmly sit down on the floor in front of him.
"Tell me this," Frey said quietly.
"You didn’t tell me about my connection to Nameless. You didn’t tell me about the future you’re desperately trying to reach. Not because you didn’t want to... but because you couldn’t."
"Am I right?"
Gehrman was momentarily stunned by how much Frey had pieced together.
He didn’t lie.
He nodded.
"If I told you the truth, everything would collapse. Like a small piece knocking over a larger one... which knocks over another, and another, until all of them fall and everything is destroyed."
Gehrman was planning something enormous.
Something that involved both Frey and Nameless.
Frey Starlight had been carrying far too much lately .. his fractured identity, his connection to Nameless, the Aether World, the History Scribes, the Demon King Agaroth...
And beyond all that, Audrey—whose whereabouts he didn’t even know, yet who clearly held answers he desperately needed.
His mind never rested.
The fact that he could still hold himself together at all was remarkable.
Looking at him, Gehrman realized something.
The young man in front of him could no longer be broken.
Even if everyone around him died, he would keep moving forward.
Somewhere along the way, Frey had gained something deeper than mere rage.
A purpose.
A path he alone had chosen.
A path only he—and Nameless—truly knew.
Frey stayed silent for a long time.
Then he looked back at Gehrman.
"I only have one question," he said.
"And I want you to answer it."
"That depends on the question," Gehrman replied calmly.
Frey nodded.
"Judging by everything I’ve endured so far... what’s coming next will probably be even worse. I’ll likely sink deeper into darkness than I already have."
"I understand that it’s all necessary to reach the future you’re aiming for."
"But tell me just one thing."
"When this path ends—when the future you want finally comes to pass—will I obtain it?"
"The power. The power to break the world’s limits."
"Power equal to... or greater than what Nameless once had."
"After all these sacrifices... all this suffering..."
"Will I grasp true power?"
"The kind of power that could destroy this entire world if necessary?"
As Frey spoke, his expression twisted into something terrifying.
His dark eyes were wide open ... thirst for the answer ..
That thirst ..
it was what made Gehrman, for the first time since the conversation had begun, feel uneasy.
The shock was written clearly across his face. He had not expected a question like that.
And from Frey’s tone .. his gaze, the way he spoke .. Gehrman knew that refusing to answer was not an option.
So slowly... after drawing a deep breath, Gehrman nodded.
Frey saw it.
He let out a quiet breath of relief.
"I see... that’s enough, then."
Frey stood up, turning his back to Gehrman.
"I still can’t repair your vessel, even though I’ve reached the sixth stage of Shadow Adaptation. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be useful on the battlefield. Preserve yourself as much as you can—you’ll be fighting too."
With that, Frey began to leave.
"Where are you going?" Gehrman asked.
Frey waved a hand without turning around.
"To where my father... and my sister are."
At those words, Gehrman said nothing more.
Frey vanished from his sight.
---
As he walked away, step by step, the same cold glow still burned within Frey’s dark eyes.
"That’s fine... Even if something happens to me at the end of the future Gehrman is preparing... even if Nameless takes over my body .. he’ll keep walking the same path, even if I don’t."
Frey closed his eyes.
Deep inside him .. within that inner safe zone that had turned crimson from countless souls and oceans of blood—the sword he had once driven into the ground still stood, embedded in a sea of red.
Beside it stood Frey... and Nameless.
Both of them, walking the same path.
"Even if one of us falls,"
they said in unison,
"the other will carry on."
No matter what happened ..
no matter what awaited them ..
nothing would change from this point forward.
Frey renewed his resolve...
and soon arrived at the place where his father and sister were.
In a secluded part of the Shadow Sect, deep within a dark forest,
stood a small cabin .. one Gehrman had recently built for Frey and his family.
It was isolated, hidden far from prying eyes .. far better suited to Frey’s current state.
When he arrived, he found his father already standing, having battled the curse of Thanatos for a long time.
"Father..." Frey said, rushing toward him.
"Welcome back, my son," Abraham greeted him warmly.
"Are you really alright to move?" Frey asked. "That curse was restraining you badly..."
Abraham smiled and flicked his hand through the air, splitting it as though moving at the speed of light.
"No problem. I’ve completely purged the remnants of that filthy monster’s power."
Hearing that, Frey activated his Void Eyes and examined his father’s body.