The words on the metallic door began to glow... then slowly dim, as if breathing.
Veythor’s lips curled into the faintest smile. He murmured under his breath, so quietly it was almost for himself alone.
"No matter which world I end up in... fate never stops messing with me, huh?"
"What?" Raika tilted his head.
"Nothing," Veythor replied. "Let me answer it."
Raika crossed his arms. "Oh? You’re saying you can answer it? Go ahead then.... prove it."
"You two, please don’t start," Shimi cut in, her voice low but sharp. "This is not the time to fight among ourselves."
"Sorry, Shimi," Raika muttered, though his eyes didn’t leave Veythor. "But I can’t help it. He always talks like he’s some kind of all-knowing genius."
"He might be one," Shimi said, a small smile touching her lips.
Raika felt a strange, dull ache in his chest at those words.
"You know," Shimi continued, "every plan we’ve used to get here was made by him. And most of them... he carried out almost single-handedly."
Raika’s gaze lingered on Veythor, who stood in silence before the glowing door, eyes fixed, thoughts buried deep. That ache in Raika’s chest sharpened, twisted... yet he couldn’t name it.
What is this feeling I keep getting? he asked himself.
Veythor’s voice broke the tense silence as he began to recite the inscription, each word carrying an uncanny weight.
"Invisible threads I silently spin,
Binding the many to where they’ve been.
No hand can grasp, no eye can see,
Yet all are tangled irrevocably."
He let the last line hang in the air.
"An invisible thread... connecting us all, huh?" Veythor muttered, almost to himself. Then he smirked. "Got the answer."
"The answer to this question..." Veythor’s voice rose, his eyes fixed on the door, "is Fate."
Raika tensed. "Hey.... at least warn us before you do anything!" The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the Nov3lFɪre.ɴet
But before the argument could spark, the glowing words on the door shivered, then dissolved into nothing. New letters bled into existence across the cold metal.
Congratulations. You have correctly answered the question.
With a deep, resonant thunk, the door unlocked and began to creak open. From within came the same unholy screams they’d heard before inhuman, distorted, like the sound of something breaking and laughing at once.
Shimi and Raika swallowed hard.
Veythor didn’t flinch. His expression remained unreadable as he stared into the widening gap.
Beyond the threshold, there was only darkness. A darkness so deep it didn’t just hide light... it devoured it.
"You two... let’s go."
Veythor’s voice was calm, almost too calm, as they stepped forward into the darkness.
The void swallowed them whole— until, without warning, everything turned crimson.
Veythor’s eyes widened. For the first time in a long while, his expression broke into genuine shock. Shimi and Raika were frozen mid-step, their bodies drained of light and color, reduced to shadows... as though time itself had forgotten them.
They echoed from ahead, slow and deliberate, each one growing heavier in his ears. Instinct gripped him. His stance shifted into the familiar guard of Muay Thai, but his mind whispered the question he couldn’t kill...
The figure emerged from the bleeding haze, and Veythor’s breath caught.
The same blood-red eyes, the same scarless face, even the same dark clothes that clung to his own body. Yet there was something wrong, something suffocating about the smile curling on its lips... a smile that wasn’t his.
It stopped within arm’s reach.
Veythor moved first, his elbow slicing forward in a sudden, precise strike aimed at the temple. It should have shattered bone. But it passed through, harmless, as though striking mist.
The thing’s smirk deepened.
And then, with no more effort than lifting a leaf, it closed its hand around his throat and raised him from the ground. Its body was no larger than his own, yet the strength was crushing... unnatural.
"You are just an imposter, Veythor."
The voice was his. But layered beneath it was something deeper... ancient, echoing.
Air fled his lungs. His vision blurred at the edges, black and red merging into one. He clawed at the hand around his neck, but his fingers met resistance without weight, as if the thing existed only where it chose to be touched.
What is this thing? Why can’t I even touch it...?
His teeth ground together.
"You are nothing but a thief who stole this body. You will never escape your fate. You can never change it. No one ever could. No one ever will. Fate is the world, the existence, everything."
The words dripped into him like poison, each one weaving into his thoughts, making his own memories feel like lies.
The world around them grew darker, yet redder, as if the very air was steeped in blood. The shadows stretched and trembled like living things, whispering secrets that should never be heard.
The doppelgänger’s hand twisted... and the sound of snapping bone cut through the silence.
Everything went black.
So this... is fate? Not a chain, but a mouth.
And it has already begun to eat me.