There was complete, absolute silence.
Even the screaming from the mist seed to fade at that mont.
Judgnt stepped forward—that strange, impossible-to-rember figure. When she spoke, her voice was layered, as if multiple entities were speaking through one throat, each word carrying weight that pressed against Northern’s eardrums.
"You would challenge the will of El Fach? The design of the Constellation of Awakening?"
Northern t her gaze without flinching.
’Here we go.’
"If El Fach wanted to stop , they should’ve done it themselves instead of hiding behind automated defense systems and well-aning pacifists."
He turned toward the door.
"Now, if you’ll excuse —I have a nature to fight."
Northern stepped through the doorway.
The red mist surged toward him like a living thing, sensing violence in his soul, ready to trap him in his own worst mont, to make him another eternal prisoner screaming into the void for eternity.
’How dramatic.’
It touched his skin—
—and stopped.
[Na Mastery: Unnaming - Level 1]
[Analyzing Mist...]
[This may take a minute and I suggest you enter into the mist for a more accurate result]
Northern sighed and walked into the mist.
’Of course it needs more data. Why make things simple?’
The mont he crossed the threshold completely, the world changed.
The temperature didn’t just drop—it inverted. Heat beca cold beca sothing else entirely, sothing that existed outside normal sensation, like his nerve endings couldn’t decide which lie to tell his brain. The screaming that had seed distant before was now inside his head, reverberating through his skull like his own thoughts had turned against him.
Each scream had texture. Weight. They pressed against the inside of his head like physical objects trying to claw their way out.
And then he saw it.
Himself.
Not a reflection. Not an illusion.
At least it didn’t seem like one. Northern’s perception of this other Northern was perfectly, unnervingly real—solid flesh, breathing, present. This wasn’t so magical projection.
The other Northern stood ten ters away, and he was smiling. It was the smile he’d worn when he tortured Kryos. The smile that said he was enjoying this, that the violence wasn’t just necessary—it was satisfying.
"Hello," the other Northern said. His voice was Northern’s voice, but stripped of all pretense. No casual tone. No conversational deflection. Just honest, cold amusent. "Finally. No more performance. No more ’I didn’t want this’ bullshit."
Northern’s hand went to where his weapons would be, but they weren’t there. The Soul Forge felt distant, muffled, like trying to reach through thick glass.
’Great.’
[Warning: Mist is suppressing active abilities]
[Analyzing structure...]
[Estimated ti: 47 seconds]
Northern kept his expression neutral. ’Forty-seven seconds. I can handle forty-seven seconds.’
The other Northern laughed—a sound without warmth.
"You’re already calculating. Already strategizing. You think this is a fight you can win through tactics?" He tilted his head, and the gesture was so familiar it made Northern’s skin crawl. "I am you. I know every thought before you think it. Every plan before you make it."
He stepped forward, and Northern noticed he was carrying sothing.
Kryos’s head.
Spinning it. Casual. Like a toy.
"Rember this? Rember how good it felt? The sadism, the control, the pure satisfaction of reducing a threat to a screaming wreck?" The other Northern’s smile widened. "You told yourself it was justified. That he threatened your family. That he earned it."
"He did earn it."
The words ca out flat. Matter-of-fact.
"Oh, I agree." The other Northern’s smile didn’t waver. "But here’s the question you don’t want to answer: Would you have done it even if he hadn’t threatened them? If he’d just been... annoying? Inconvenient? In your way?"
Northern said nothing.
’I don’t have to answer that.’
"I an, look at Ulzred... your first ever and only student. Or Raizel, your first ever teacher. Sohow, sohow, Northern—people that dare co close to you always wind up dead. And you always have to play the victim. Even when you’re the one that killed them."
Northern’s gaze darkened, sothing cold settling in his chest. "Doesn’t confronting my violence usually an you throw my abilities back at ?"
"...and we circle around in so poetic combat?" The other Northern laughed. "Hell, no. You know I’m wiser than that, Northern. There’s more than one way to break a person like you."
’Of course there is.’
The mist churned around them, and more figures began to erge.
Every person he’d killed. Every monster he’d destroyed. Every threat he’d eliminated with overwhelming, often excessive force.
They circled him like witnesses at a trial. Or executioners at a sentencing.
Northern recognized faces in the crowd. So had nas. Most didn’t. All had one thing in common.
They’d gotten in his way.
"You keep pretending you’re reluctant," the other Northern continued, tossing Kryos’s head aside carelessly. It rolled across the ground, still wearing that frozen expression of agony. "That you don’t want to be involved. That you’re forced into these situations. But we both know the truth, don’t we?"
He leaned in close, and his eyes—Northern’s own eyes—held nothing but dark recognition.
"You like being powerful. You like overwhelming your enemies. You like the look in their eyes when they realize they’ve fucked with the wrong person. You like being the necessary evil. You like the fear. The dominance. The absolute certainty that you can destroy anything that irritates you."
Northern felt sothing cold spreading through his chest.
Not because the words were lies.
But because even he didn’t know if they were.
’Forty-seven seconds is taking a very long ti.’
[Analysis: 32 seconds remaining]
"You’re not a hero," the other Northern said softly, almost gently. "You’re not even an anti-hero. You’re just a person who got hurt once, decided never to be weak again, and now you’re so overwhelmingly strong that you’ve lost all sense of proportion."
The figures around them began to move closer, their footsteps silent on the mist-covered ground.
Northern recognized so of them. The white walker whose na he’d taken without rcy. Sura’s counterpart. The people he’d massacred in Sloria, many of them scorched beyond recognition. The monsters he’d slain on the streets of Lotheliwan.
So still had burn marks. So were missing limbs. All were watching him with empty eyes.
"You spin Kryos’s head like it’s a dramatic effect," the other Northern continued, his voice conversational, friendly even. "You explain what you’re doing while you torture people because it makes you feel clever. You maintain that cool, conversational tone while committing acts of violence that would make warlords uncomfortable."
He grabbed Northern by the collar, and his grip was iron.
Real. Physical. Solid.
"And the worst part? The part you really don’t want to admit?" The other Northern leaned in until they were nose to nose. "Is that you’re not conflicted about it anymore. You haven’t been for a long ti. The mask is habit. The reluctance is nostalgia. But the truth—the real truth—is that you’ve accepted what you are."
Northern stared into his own eyes.
Into that cold recognition.
"And what am I?"
The other Northern smiled.
"A weapon that learned to think. A monster that learned to talk. A creature of violence that’s just barely convinced itself it has a conscience."
[Analysis: 15 seconds remaining]
The figures rushed forward.
Northern tried to summon his forms, his echoes, anything—but the mist suppressed everything. He was just him. Just flesh. Just the person underneath all the power.
And they hit him.
Not with fists.
Not with weapons.
With truth.
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