Razeal nodded his head slowly, as though the weight of Zara's explanation had finally settled inside him.

"I see… I see," he murmured. The logic was harsh, almost absurd, but it made sense in its own way. Perhaps it really did explain why his bone had been cut through. Still, part of him refused to accept it fully. Did it truly make sense that a single strike from that little fairy could slice an entire empire in half? The image itself was insane. And yet, when framed under Zara's reasoning, it didn't seem impossible anymore. Disturbing, yes.. but not impossible in sense ofc.

He pushed that thought aside and lifted his gaze back toward her. "So… will you teach me how to reattach my boness myself.. To control obsidian agony now?" he asked, his tone shifting into something more hopeful, almost casual. "I might be able to do it now. I have dark mana too."

To prove his point, he raised his hand. Above his palm, a small cloud of pure dark mana swirled, dense and unstable, like a piece of night torn free from the void. It pulsed faintly, as if alive.

Zara's expression didn't change. Her eyes remained steady, her posture calm, her presence suffocating. "You can't learn it," she said flatly. Then, without hesitation, she added, "And it's not like I was ever going to teach you."

Razeal blinked, taken aback by her blunt dismissal. "Why not?" he asked instinctively. The comfort he had felt earlier in her presence made him speak without caution. For once, he didn't filter his words.

Her response was a spear thrust to the chest. "Because I don't want to."

Zara's eyes locked onto his with a quiet ferocity, as if daring him to argue further. Her voice carried no room for negotiation, no crack of possibility.

But Razeal wasn't so easily silenced. His jaw tightened, his hand curling into a fist as the dark mana above it dispersed into nothingness. "I mean, I can't just keep coming back to you to repair them whenever they get cut off," he argued. His tone was steady, his reasoning simple, almost practical. "It's not about greed. It's… necessary. That much, I should at least have."

Zara stared at him. Her face was utterly plain, almost bored, but her silence weighed heavier than words. She tilted her head slightly, her eyes narrowing just enough to make him feel like she was speaking without moving her lips. Cut off again? Her gaze seemed to say it. So casual… as though you already know it will happen again.

Her voice followed a heartbeat later, soft but piercing. "Normal people never get their bones joined back together once they're cut off."

The simplicity of her words struck like a slap.

Razeal frowned. "I mean… accidents can happen," he countered quickly, raising his shoulders slightly as if trying to dismiss the weight of her judgment. "Not like it's an everyday thing for me. Remember when I first came here? I was in one piece. It's just a little accident."

He offered a crooked half-smirk, but it faltered when he saw her expression.. utterly speechless, her eyes sharp and unreadable.

"You've lost more than you realize," she said finally. Her voice was colder now, her tone dipped with disdain. "Your hair turned white. You had it cut, and unevenly at that.. it looks embarrassingly sloppy. You've lost an arm. And now…" Her eyes swept over him, cutting deeper than any blade. "Now you've become less of a man than you were. As you also look… lost."

The words burrowed into him.

Razeal rolled his eyes, forcing a mask of indifference. "Less of a man," he muttered under his breath. He wanted to shrug it off, but his frown betrayed him. Lost?

That was the second time she had said something like that. The last time, she'd accused him of changing. He hadn't believed it then, and he didn't believe it now. In his own eyes, he hadn't changed. He was still the same. Still the same Razeal.

Lost? No. Impossible.

He knew his path. He knew what he was going to do next. Everything was planned, almost every step. There was no room for doubt, no room for wandering. So why did her words shake him? Why would Zara.. someone with no reason to waste words.. say such a thing?

He clenched his fists tighter. His voice was sharp. "I'm not lost."

Zara's eyes never wavered. Her presence pressed against him like gravity itself. "You are lost," she said calmly. "I can tell. I have lived longer than you can imagine, sitting through eons you couldn't begin to dream of. I can tell if someone is lost just by the way they stand, the way they breathe. And you…" Her gaze pierced him, cutting through his mask. "…you are more lost now than you were when you first came to me."

The silence that followed was deafening.

Razeal didn't reply at first. He stood there, his thoughts spiraling inward. Was she right? Had he changed without realizing? Was there something in his stance, his movements, his words, that betrayed him?

Confusion pricked at him, a whisper of doubt crawling beneath his skin. He searched himself, his mind racing back through memories, through choices, through every step he had taken.

Minutes seemed to drag as he stood in contemplation, lost in a labyrinth of his own making. Finally, he exhaled sharply and shook his head. "Maybe you're wrong this time," he said firmly. His voice carried conviction, even if a trace of uncertainty lingered beneath it. "I might have been lost once. But I'm not lost now. Not anymore. I'm more stable than I've ever been. More stable than anything I ever was."

Confidence laced his words. He believed them. At least, he wanted to.

Zara, however, looked unimpressed. She leaned back slightly, her lips curving into the faintest ghost of a smirk. "Are you?" she asked. Her tone was almost mocking, almost pitying. "A truly lost man would never know he is lost. He would swear, with all the certainty in the world, that he is on the right path. That he is walking straight. But in reality…" Her eyes narrowed. "He is drifting."

The words hit harder than a blow.

Razeal froze.

Her voice softened, though her expression remained merciless. "What is your goal then? Let's hear it."

Her interest seemed genuine now, curiosity glimmering faintly in her eyes. She leaned forward slightly, then bent her knees with deliberate grace. As she did, the air shimmered. Out of nothing, a chair materialized beneath her, its structure sleek, dark, and regal, as if carved from dark stones themselves. She lowered herself onto it with an elegance that looked effortless, folding one leg over the other.

Her gaze never left him.

"Well?" she pressed, her voice low, commanding. "Tell me. What is it you're really walking toward?"

"I want to live," Razeal said, his voice steady, each word landing like a stone dropped into still water. "And I want to get stronger. There is a fate that has already written my death, carved into it that I shall never grow stronger on my own. That I will end broken. Without taking what has been written and planned for me, I am nothing. My goal is to break it.. tear it apart so that my life is mine to decide, not anyone else's."

The words came out raw, unflinching, as if the very marrow of his bones carried this truth. He did not raise his voice. He did not shout. He simply spoke, calm yet weighted, as though repeating an oath he had carved into himself countless times already.

From the very moment he had awoken in this world.. reborn! hadn't this always been his fight? Every step he had taken was a rebellion against the script fate had already written for him. Every choice he made was a deliberate contradiction. If fate told him to fall, he rose. If fate told him to stay still, he moved. Yes, some events he had allowed, twisted to his advantage, but ultimately all his actions were to defy the inevitable. He had been born into shackles, and every breath since was him breaking link by link.

His eyes were calm, but behind them memories flickered moments where he had stood against what was "meant to be." He carried them like scars hidden under skin. To him, this wasn't an ambition. This was survival. This was necessity.

Zara, however, was unmoved. She watched him with a composed, almost disinterested expression, her arms folded as she leaned back in the plain, ordinary-looking chair that had manifested beneath her. She looked regal even in simplicity, her gaze sharp and unyielding, a weight pressing down on him as surely as her power.

"That isn't a goal," she said finally, her tone as even as it was cutting. "Not even an ambition. That is nothing but rejection. So tell me ..are you living only to reject what has been written for you?"

Her words stung, but Razeal did not flinch. He met her gaze squarely.

"It isn't rejection," he replied, steady, measured. "It is reclamation. I'm taking what's mine. Deciding for myself. My life should belong to me. Would you like it, Zara, if someone else decided when you would end? Decided for what purpose you live and when you are allowed to stop? That is my goal. My fate will be mine to decide. No one else."

His voice did not tremble. There was no anger in it, no desperate edge. It was calm, deliberate, but iron lay beneath every syllable. He knew she would not understand.. not truly. Few ever could unless they had lived it.

Freedom to live was a privilege. He had never had it. Most people were blessed simply to exist without a noose of destiny around their neck. They lived, they laughed, they chose. He had been denied all of it. Forced into roles he never wanted, burdened by chains he never asked for, thrown into suffering he never deserved. He spoke now with the weight of someone who had known what it meant to be stripped of every choice.

"I understand," Zara said after a pause, her eyes narrowing, tone almost pitying but sharp as ever. She lifted one hand and pointed directly at him, her finger cutting the air like a blade. "But what about your life then? You speak of rejection as though it is a purpose. The goal of a life should be created by what you want, not by what you are forced to resist. A goal born out of the actions of others is not yours.. it belongs to them. Even if you cling to it, even if you convince yourself it is yours, it isn't. It never was. How is it yours if you never even thought it before it was imposed on you?"

Her words were ruthless, her tone pressing down on him as if to strip him bare.

She leaned forward slightly, her eyes burning into his. "Let me give you an example. Let's say your fate promises you ten years of life. Only ten. If you lived those ten years fully... if you laughed, fought, loved, and chose without ever thinking about fate wouldn't that be more truly yours than constantly fighting against a death that was already there? Wouldn't that mean more than living in rejection alone? Because right now, your goal is not yours. It belongs to fate. You are chasing shadows cast by something you despise."

Her words hit him harder than a strike. He clenched his jaw but held her gaze, his calm beginning to fray at the edges.

"Try to think," she pressed, her voice sharp. "What is your actual goal? Not this refusal. Not this obsession with breaking death. You say you want to live longer. You say you want to grow stronger. For what? Tell me that."

Silence stretched. Razeal's eyes flickered, the air around him tense. Finally, he spoke, his voice still calm but low.

"You won't understand," he said.

Zara's lips curved into something that was not quite a smile closer to disdain. "Or maybe it is you who does not understand. Maybe you have forgotten how to live. Maybe their actions broke you so much that you forgot what the meaning of life even is." She shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving his face. "You are calm now, but I can see it. You're boiling inside. You know the truth, but you don't want to admit it. You're afraid to."

Razeal's hands tightened into fists at his sides. His breathing slowed deliberately, controlled, but inside his chest there was fire. Her words cut deeper than he wanted to admit. She was right.. he was boiling.

At last, he spoke again, voice low but steel-edged.

"I know exactly what I am doing. You, or anyone else who has never been through this, will never understand. My life was stolen from me. Everything was taken my family, my friends, my childhood, my happiness. Even my very blood was taken from me. I by my own hands took it all oyt.. All of it gone. Do you think someone can just live after that? Do you think it's so simple? Tell me, could you?"

His eyes darkened, old wounds rising to the surface, his voice no longer calm but thick with raw truth. "There is no peace for me. None. I don't know what it feels like anymore. But I will live. I will fight through this hell. And fuck everything else. Fuck everyone behind this. I don't care who or what they are. I will tear them down. I will do it no matter what it costs even if it means I throw my life into the fire. At least then, I will die on my own terms. At least then, I will have chosen. And I will be satisfied."

He stood there, his words plain, unembellished, but hard as iron. They were not the words of a man seeking pity or convincing himself they were the words of someone who had endured, who had lost everything, and who had chosen defiance as the only thing left.

Zara watched him, her eyes unreadable. For a moment, the silence between them seemed endless. She had called him lost. Perhaps he was. But he had spoken his truth, and truth, even broken, had its own kind of power.

"How boring… living for revenge," Zara said, tossing him a look that measured him and found him small. Her voice was flat, uninterested in his rising anger as if she was testing him by boredom rather than by force.

"It's not for revenge," Razeal started. He felt his pulse spike at the accusation even as he knew he didn't owe anyone an explanation. He didn't fully understand why he felt the need to justify himself now; maybe because this was the first time someone had asked him plainly and expected an answer. He wanted to say more, to shape the thing that sat behind his teeth into words. He wanted to be heard.

Before he could finish, Zara cut him off with the casual impatience of someone who spoke only to provoke clarity. "Let's ignore that for a second. Tell me this.. let's say you die right now. Everything ends. Would you be satisfied with what you have accomplished in your life? All the years you've lived ..would you be satisfied?"

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