I couldn’t beat Alyssara.
The thought was a cold, absolute fact, a shard of ice in my mind that her power had solidified. I was trapped, pinned physically by her relentless, warping Reality Control, my Peak Radiant power feeling like a child’s shout against her divine-level hurricane. The Gilded Cage of her fantasy, the one I had just shattered, had been replaced by a cruder, more honest prison of pure, overwhelming force. Her hand, radiating that chilling, possessive energy, was moving toward my face, her voice promising to break the ’flawed copy’ and find the ’original’ beneath.
Despair was a heavy, suffocating shroud. The gap was just too much. The wall to Divine-rank, that shimring, impossible barrier I had been striving towards, hovered just above , intangible, unbreachable. And I was not strong enough at Peak Radiant to break her Complete Control. I had failed.
Suddenly, the suffocating pressure of her sanctum vanished. The cold, alien architecture, the scent of roses and ozone, the overwhelming presence of Alyssara – all of it dissolved.
I was in a garden.
No, not a garden. The scent was wrong. It was sharper, almost peppery. I was standing in an endless field of vibrant, cheerful yellow carnations, swaying gently under a sky of impossible blue. The warmth of a gentle sun touched my face. I knew this place. This was the mindscape, the conceptual space, the Original Arthur had pulled into before.
"Hello again, we haven’t talked in so ti," a familiar voice reached my ears, calm and carrying, as if the wind itself spoke.
I turned. My azure eyes t similar azure eyes. No, not similar. Identical. He stood there, the Original Arthur, the one whose body I inhabited, looking exactly as I rembered, clad in simple, practical clothes, his gaze holding a quiet, unreadable intelligence.
"Arthur," I said, the na feeling strange on my own tongue, addressed to another. "You brought here." It wasn’t a question. I recognized the subtle shift, the feeling of temporal distortion. This was his space, his control. ’A mindscape,’ I realized, the thought coming with a sharp pang of bitter irony, ’where even a second can stretch for nearly forever. Just like hers.’
So I had breathing room. Not freedom, just a different cage.
"Yes," he nodded, his expression calm. "Three years, has it been?"
"Five since we had a proper eting," I corrected him, my voice sharper than I intended, the desperation and humiliation from the failing battle still fresh, curdling into a raw, biting anger. "Just before I trained under your ’direction’ in Xerion Pri."
I took a step towards him, the soft petals of the carnations brushing against my legs. "You haven’t guided ," I pointed out, the words lashing out, seeking a target for my frustration. "Not really. Not since the beginning. And this is the result." I gestured to myself, to the lingering psychic echo of Alyssara’s power, to the absolute, unwinnable situation outside this... this flowery prison. A bitter scoff escaped my lips.
"It’s refreshing to have you be like this," Original Arthur pointed out, a small, almost imperceptible smile touching his lips. "Honest. Angry. It’s an improvent."
I narrowed my eyes at him, the rage mounting. "Tell now, Arthur. Why did you bring to this world? Why did you pull here?" My voice was rising, losing its careful control. "You are a regressor, are you not? Soone with the knowledge, the experience, the power of a life already lived. So why did you need ? Why did you need a smart boy from a planet with no mana, no miasma, no concept of this... this madness? Why replace yourself with a flawed copy, a weaker substitute?"
He paused, his gaze never leaving mine, his calm infuriating. He looked at , his identical eyes narrowing slightly, as if reassessing . Then, he bent down, brushing his fingers against one of the vibrant yellow flowers.
"What is this flower?" he asked, his voice quiet.
The abrupt shift in topic was jarring. "They’re yellow carnations," I replied, my voice still tight.
"Yes," he nodded, plucking one, observing it. "And... what do they symbolize?"
"Disdain," I responded instantly, the answer coming from so forgotten fragnt of my old life. "Rejection. Disappointnt. I don’t know what that has to do with–"
"Disdain and disappointnt," OG Arthur said, cutting off, his voice firm. He held the flower up between us. "Do not lie to yourself, Arthur."
"Lie to myself?" I asked, confused and angry. "About what?"
"About your weakness," he said, shaking his head slightly. "Or rather, about your perception of it. I did enjoy your humility, for a ti. It drove you to get stronger, to question, to grow. But do you truly think, even now, that you are weak?"
I blinked, the question catching off guard. Objectively, no, of course not. I was a Peak Radiant. My power, my skills, my control – I was confident I could give a good, hard fight to any standard Divine-ranker, perhaps even find an edge against one of the Demon Lords or Great Seven leaders.
But the thought soured instantly. ’That’s the lie, isn’t it?’ I thought, the internal monologue returning, the one Alyssara had exploited so perfectly. ’Objectively strong, yes. But asured against him? He’s a regressor. He’s lived this life before. He would be so much stronger than I am at this sa age. He would have planned for Alyssara. He would have already reached Divine-rank, probably years ago. I am a failure, hopelessly behind the curve he set, a pale imitation.’
My silence, my internal conflict, must have been clear on my face. OG Arthur just observed for a long mont, his gaze analytical. Then, in a motion that shattered my understanding of our entire dynamic, he bowed. A full, formal, respectful bow, his head lowered.
My eyes widened in pure, unadulterall shock. "W-what are you saying?" I stamred, taking an involuntary step back. "What are you doing? This is my fault, not y-"
"No," he said, straightening, his expression now one of profound, weary seriousness. "This is my fault. I apologize to you, Arthur Nightingale."
"I... I don’t understand."
"When we first t in Vryndall," he explained, his voice losing its detached, instructive tone, "I chastised you. I called you weak, arrogant, blind. I did it because I needed you to be more humble, to realize your weaknesses. Because you were holding yourself back. Not just with the Soul aspect, which was not your fault, but by getting comfortable in your position. You were starting to think of yourself as a peerless genius, like Lucifer or Jack. You were limiting your own growth. Which is why I... went off on you." He chuckled, a short, dry, self-deprecating sound. "And... I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit disappointed in you back then. My expectations were... unfairly high."
"What’s the point you are making?" I asked, my mind reeling, trying to process this confession.
He smiled, a different smile this ti, tinged with a genuine, almost paternal warmth. "The point is, from that mont onwards, Arthur Nightingale... you have never, not once, disappointed in your strength. After the Well of Miasma, there was never anything to truly complain about. When we t in Avalon after the attack, when I convinced you to go to Xerion Pri... even then, I was not disappointed in your power, only your hesitation." He shrugged. "In truth, even without Xerion Pri, you perhaps would have achieved the sa results on your own. You are just that relentless."
"What?" I asked, the single word hoarse.
He stepped closer, his gaze intense, his hand coming up to poke firmly in the chest, right over my Sword Heart. "You are holding yourself back, Arthur Nightingale. Right now, in that fight, you are holding back because you are chasing a ghost. You are asuring yourself against a legend that you, yourself, have created."
He poked again, harder, emphasizing each word. "You. Have. Surpassed. . At my peak."
The words hit like a physical blow. "That’s... that’s not possible. You’re a regressor. You knew everything–"
"I knew a path!" he countered, his voice rising for the first ti, not in anger, but in passionate conviction. "A flawed path that led to failure! A path that ended with my world in ashes! And who do you think you are fighting out there? Alyssara! A Divine being who can play with multiple Demon Lords at the sa ti, and you are surviving against her! You broke her fantasies, you landed blows, all without even reaching Divine-rank yourself!"
He stepped back, his chest heaving slightly, his azure eyes blazing with a fire I had never seen in him. "Do you have any idea what you are? You wield three Gifts, not just as tools, but as a perfect, harmonious synthesis, a feat I never achieved. And you have The Grey." He said the word with sothing approaching awe. "A power that has never existed before in all of creation. A power that forced the Akashic Records, the very chronicle of all existence, to create a new entry just to comprehend you."
He looked at , the arrogant, all-knowing ntor completely gone, replaced by... a predecessor, humbled and awestruck. "You are not a copy, Arthur. You are not a replacent. You are not a flawed echo. You are an anomaly. You are a new variable that the universe, and I, never saw coming. You are holding yourself back because you think you are my shadow, when the truth is... I was never anything more than the groundwork for you."
His smile returned, faint, and full of a profound, shattering respect. "You are the one who has surpassed . You are the true hope. You are the one, Arthur Nightingale, I could never compare to."
My mind, my soul, the very foundations of my self-doubt, fractured. The limiting belief I had held onto, the subconscious, crippling idea that I was just a substitute, shattered into a million pieces. The ghost was gone.
And in the silence of the sun-drenched field of carnations, I finally, truly, saw myself.
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