Volume 6: Chapter 21: Change (Part 2)

Deep down inside, what am I really?

A human?

Monster?

Demon?

Undead?

I can no longer tell.

My life before I met her, I remember nothing.

I was a man who lost half of his soul and memories.

A sad and pathetic life form that lacked any kind of purpose for existence.

But instead of putting him out of his misery, she took pity on him and even offered him a place under her wing.

To this day, that was the kindest gesture he had ever received.

Maybe that is where he learned to care, even if just a little.

Back then he could not tell the right from wrong, up from down, left from right, good from evil. Now he knew all too well.

One foolish mistake.

Just one misstep.

That was all it took for him to end up in this mess.

Granted, his view of the world used to be a mere fraction of what he knew now.

But now those times were but a distant memory.

How naïve he was back then….

But perhaps that naiveté shielded him from the horrors of the reality.

There was no way he could have known just how cruel and messed up the world was and what role he would end up playing in it.

Now that his eyes have been opened, everything had changed.

When she found him, he was a blank slate, a canvas without a drawing.

He used to be comfortable with a fate that he will always be a secondary character or even a side character in a grander story, someone with next to no significance.

But fate had other plans. Or perhaps he ended up defying the path the fate had set for him. Either way, the result was the same.

Instead of remaining a side character, it seems like he had the job of a protagonist forced upon him, without having any choice in the matter.

He used to hate this…hate it so much…but at some point he had let go.

The longer he played this game the more addicted he felt to it.

Like an all-consuming game of chess, everything finally was beginning to make sense.

And his blank pages began filling with vivid colors.

But even then, his true self remained empty.

Deep down inside, he knew, he had no identity.

He was nobody.

Beyond the darkness, beyond the monster, and beyond the burning despair, he was a faceless being, in a room full of masks.

Each mask was yet another role he had to play.

Mask of the Lord of Darkness who wanted to destroy it all.

Mask of the Nobleman who loved to a fault.

And the mask of a man who was lost and wanted to be found.

Unlike his alter-ego, he still had to find out who he truly was.

Nur Finnerman….he found his own identity, his own meaning as a mere servant to a Secondary Deity and a father to their child.

But who was he in comparison?

A faceless monster that wanted to have something of his own?

He knew full well that what he wanted was not the same as what Nur Finnerman wanted.

Had his ambitions been the same, he would have simply summoned Desolai with the Ring of Death and asked her to take him back.

She may not be the same Desolai that he knew, but it wouldn't have mattered in the slightest.

The reason he had not done so was not because he feared endangering her or anything of that sort. It was because he wanted to find his own purpose, not the purpose of his predecessor.

Still, he did feel deep sense of gratitude for that angel, the one from who he learned the simple act of kindness.

If he ever met her again, he would have to thank her.

What he wanted was to find his own identity, find his own purpose.

And playing the part of the villain in this sick and twisted game Chronos had put him in seems to be doing just the trick.

But even if he did succeed, what else will remain?

His son was not in this world, not yet anyways.

He had no desire to go back to being Desolai's servant, not after experiencing the taste of this life.

What would wait for him, long for him, care for him, and maybe even love him?

At times he felt jealous of his allies. All of them had concrete identities of their own, yet their leader was the only one who remained a blank slate.

Must not lose grip, stay focused….

…This game has only just begun and I have a long way before I am finished.

Once again, I shall don this mask…