Chapter 1853: I am not your fucking replacement!

"Forsaken... Huh..." 28 mumbled as he stared into the white void.

There was nothing there, not even a shadow or a distant shape, yet his eyes remained fixed upon it as though something invisible stood before him.

The emptiness somehow felt more familiar than anything he had ever seen.

28 parted his lips, but no words came. He closed them again, swallowed, then tried once more, only to stop as if the thought itself had become too painful to voice.

25 waited for him without interrupting. He simply stood there, watching 28 in silence, as if he already knew what was struggling to surface inside his mind.

"Is it... Lily? Was she the Arcane Queen? And that young boy... they were different?" 28 finally asked, his voice quiet and hollow. His eyes remained fixed on the white void, carrying none of the curiosity he should have felt.

25 stared at him for a few seconds. He knew this was not what 28 truly wanted to ask, but he did not press him. Instead, he glanced toward 27, who was still standing a little distance away from them, his expression as indifferent as ever.

27 indifferently said, "You caught her attention for the first time. So that Arcane child... changed her selection for your timeline... just for you." He finished the last words with a faint trace of annoyance, as though even acknowledging such a fact irritated him.

"Huh..." 28 merely nodded. Usually, he would have wondered about it.

Perhaps he would have even felt some strange pride or relief knowing that the Arcane had interfered with the course of his existence for his sake. But right now... none of it reached him.

There was no excitement, no gratitude, not even fear.

There was only emptiness.

And then came the silence.

It stretched on for almost an hour... perhaps even longer. None of them moved more than necessary. They simply remained there within the endless white void, waiting, until 28 finally broke the silence.

"Why did you forgive her?" 28 asked, his eyes still blunt and lifeless.

25 gently smiled. There was no amusement in it, only a quiet sadness that seemed to have settled into his face long ago.

"Why wouldn’t I?"

"She betrayed you!!" 28 shouted at him. His voice echoed through the empty space before dying into the distance.

He was not truly angry at the Prophetess, nor did he even know whether he had the right to judge whatever 25 had endured.

What tore at him was something else entirely.

He could not understand what his friends had done to him... and he could not understand Penelope.

Penelope’s cold face, right before she killed him, kept returning to his mind. No matter how hard he tried to push the memory away, it resurfaced again and again, accompanied by the same final look in her eyes.

25 continued to smile faintly as he shook his head. He stepped forward, then stared into the same white void.

"I am... a sinner," he said quietly.

His eyes lowered toward his hands. His fingers slowly curled as though he could still feel the weight of everything he had once held within them.

"They called me God. Yet, I abandoned them." His expression tightened with pain.

"I protected what was within my land, and I refused to extend these hands to the people who needed them. I watched other Empires... rot. I watched their people suffer, and all I did was remain within my own borders and convince myself that their suffering was not mine to bear."

His voice remained calm, but beneath it was something worn and deeply wounded.

As he clenched his fist, "I protected one, yet... it cost everything else. To this day, I still hate myself for not helping those children.

Am I deserving of being their God? I don’t know... Perhaps I never was."

He slowly loosened his fist and looked at his palm.

"I don’t need to be their God. I just... I just want them to be happy. That was all I ever wanted. But I failed others." His voice trembled for the first time.

"I failed them all. When they begged... when they cried... I heard them. I knew they were suffering, and still... I let them die."

He swallowed, as though even after all this time, the confession remained lodged painfully within his throat. Then he nodded to himself and turned toward 28.

"I betrayed them."

"..." 28 blankly stared at 25.

"To them, I am... A coward. A betrayer." 25 spoke with a painful calmness. "And perhaps they are right. Perhaps that is exactly what I deserve to be called."

Just then, 27 smirked with amusement.

"Hah... A self-aware hypocrite who doesn’t even realise the full extent of his own contradiction... and selfish mongrels who have chained their so-called God to their prayers, their fears, and their desperation.

A fucking hypocrite worshipped by fucking mongrels...

What a fucking combination!"

25 turned silent before smiling and nodding, "Indeed... Because I cannot forgive myself, I need to believe that everyone else deserves forgiveness."

27 scoffed.

25 stepped closer to 28.

"But to my people... my children... I am their only God. Their only hope. If I abandon them too, then who will they have left?"

25 looked directly into 28’s eyes.

"Tell me... who is wrong here?"

28 remained silent. His lips parted slightly, but no answer came.

There was nothing simple enough to say. Just him? The people? Their enemies? Everyone? Who was truly wrong?

25 did not wait for an answer.

"Here, what is right and what is wrong... does not depend on the person. It depends on the one who views it. To one man, a choice may be an unforgivable sin. To another, that same choice may be the only reason someone survived."

He turned his gaze back toward the endless white void.

"We are not the world that has stories."

"We are... stories of this world."

As he placed his hand on 28’s shoulder, he said once again,

"The ones who cried... the ones who begged... the ones who acknowledged their mistakes... the ones who believed they had sinned... If I don’t forgive them... who will?"

28 clenched his fist until his nails pressed into his palm. "B-But she killed you! She took your happiness! Didn’t you realise it? Because of her, you died and caused pain to your people!!"

25 was still smiling warmly, as if he were looking at nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum. There was no mockery in his expression. If anything, there was a painful tenderness in his eyes, the kind reserved for someone who was hurting too deeply to understand what they were saying.

"It hurts... right? Being killed by the person you love. I truly hurt. But have you ever thought about what it means to hurt the one you love? Huh?" His eyes trembled slightly as his fingers tightened against 28’s shoulder.

"Remember... she taught you."

28 frowned, wondering what the hell he was talking about. The words seemed meaningless at first, slipping through his thoughts without finding anything to hold on to.

But then he remembered...

Dora.

Isadora Pinkheart.

The name surfaced from somewhere deep inside him, dragging an old wound back into the light.

He had killed her.

With his own hand, he had taken her life.

He remembered the sensation of it, the unbearable weight that had settled inside his chest when he realised what he had done. She had been the one who told him to kill her.

She had even returned afterwards, giggling as though death itself had been nothing more than a passing inconvenience.

But for him...

It hurt.

It hurt so much that he had cried alone.

He had never forgotten that feeling. The guilt, the helplessness, the strange emptiness that remained even after he knew he couldn’t do anything other than to take her life.

25 smiled as he nodded, watching the memory quietly pass across 28’s face.

"Broaden your view, and you will see... Truth. You will see... their stories. Bring them into yours and fill them with happiness and colours..."

He gently smiled.

"And... we might find what our story is truly made of."

"..." 28 blankly stared at him with his emotionless eyes before slowly looking down at his shoulder, where 25’s hand rested.

"Be... the best of me."

For a moment, 28 simply stared at the hand resting upon his shoulder.

25 knew...

28 had just lost everything inside him.

Even his trust.

What was there left to believe anymore?

His friends had betrayed him.

The very people who had kept him together had, in fact, been manipulating him all this time.

Every memory he had cherished, every word he had trusted, every moment when he believed someone had genuinely stood beside him suddenly became something he could no longer understand.

If their love had been a lie, then what about his own feelings?

If their friendship had been fabricated, then which memories belonged to him?

The realisation was going to tear him away from the truth itself, because if everything he believed in could be false, then even reality had become something he could no longer trust.

He kept asking himself these questions, searching for an answer within reality itself.

But... how long could he keep doing that?

Then 28 muttered, "You know... I always thought that even if the world betrayed me... even if the whole world stood against me... I... I really thought my friends would always stay beside me."

His voice had lost the anger it carried moments ago. It sounded smaller now, almost like the voice of someone confessing a childhood belief that had finally been proven wrong.

His eyes trembled.

"I thought... no matter what happened, they would be the ones I could come back to."

Once it started to sink in, his reality began to crumble.

Piece by piece.

25 instantly realised what 28 was about to go through. His smile disappeared, and his expression became serious. He shook his head, as though trying to stop something that could not simply be stopped with words.

"Don’t do it, child."

"T-They... They just manipulated me? All this time... was my love fake? Was their love fake? Who am I? Tell me? Am I... really the person?"

His breathing became uneven. His eyes moved restlessly, searching for something that was not there.

It was as though he was desperately trying to find a single memory that still belonged entirely to him.

"28!!" 25 shouted as he gripped his shoulder.

"Look into my eyes... You are real. This is real! Do not run away!"

28 slowly raised his head.

He blankly stared into the pure, white, glowing eyes before a weak, broken smile appeared on his face.

"Yeah... I am just... another number."

The words came out almost peacefully.

That was what frightened 25.

"..." 25 fell silent as he shook his head. "No, that’s not what I meant..."

"Haha... Hahaha."

28 laughed audibly.

The sound echoed through the endless white space, returning to them distorted and strangely hollow.

It was the laugh of a person who no longer knew what he was feeling.

A person who could no longer tell whether the tears belonged to pain or happiness.

A person standing at the edge of himself... wondering whether there was anything left on the other side.

25’s eyes trembled as he watched him, "Child... Look at me."

28 nodded, but his smile remained. It was a strangely calm smile, almost gentle, and that frightened 25 more than his shouting had.

"I can see... hahaha... It’s all fake. I mean, come on... it’s obvious. I am just another fucking number. I am not even real... none of this was ever real... everyone is fake."

His fingers twitched at his sides.

"Yeah... I see it now. I am just your test subject, right? I mean, what else am I? I own nothing..." He slowly looked down at his hand as though seeing them for the first time.

"This body, this soul, this power... they were all yours... Not mine. Hahaha... Oh, God! Why did it take me this long to understand?"

25 took a cautious step toward him.

"Don’t."

28 slowly turned his head toward 27, who stood with his arms folded, an amused expression resting upon his face as he watched 28 unravel.

"What do you both want? Tell me. I am living in your fake world... huh?" 28 asked, his smile becoming increasingly unstable.

"Are you two enjoying playing with my mind? Haha... I mean... I died."

He paused.

His smile disappeared for half a second.

"I died."

The words came out almost like a confession.

"I died when that asshole killed me for my organs. Haha... I died there." His breathing became uneven. "This..." He pointed at himself, his finger trembling violently.

"This thing is nothing... nothing more than a fake one created by you two."

He stared at his own hand.

For a moment, he seemed to expect it to become transparent.

Nothing happened.

That only made him laugh again.

25 hurriedly shook his head. "No, it’s not! Child... look at me, child... please..." He reached for 28 and forced him to look into his eyes, desperate to anchor him to something real.

"GET THE... FUCK AWAY FROM ME!!"

28 shouted as he shoved 25 away.

The force sent 25 staggering backward, but 28 did not even seem to notice. His chest rose and fell rapidly.

"I am not you! You got it? I am not your fucking puppet for you to test with those fake realities!" His voice cracked.

"My friends would never do this to me! They loved me!"

He suddenly laughed.

"They loved me..."

The words sounded strange coming from him.

As if he were trying to convince himself.

"They did...Hehe... right?"

His smile twitched.

"You guys are manipulating me... You’re tricking me... You’re faking this all!!"

28 clenched his hair with both hands and pulled hard, his fingers trembling against his scalp.

"Oh, fucking God! All those times... all those deaths... all those fucked-up things... you all made this."

His breathing became ragged.

"Just to torture me, right? To test me... to see whether I could become like you..." He pointed toward 25, his eyes wet and broken.

"How many times did you make me suffer? How many times did you watch me die?"

His voice dropped into a whisper.

"How many times did you laugh?"

25’s lips parted, "No-"

"I am not your fucking replacement!"

25’s eyes trembled, almost blurring with tears. He slowly shook his head.

"No, child. You are not my replacement. Nobody is anyone’s replacement."

28 clenched his teeth.

"I am nothing like you! Look at you. You were killed by the hands that you trusted, and you still have the nerve to lecture me." His voice rose again, as if those would prove the truth,

"I am NOTHING like you!! I ain’t a saint! I ain’t a fucking God!!! I am not your cheap copy. I am—"

"Who are you, then?"

A cold, menacing voice echoed from behind 28.

25 immediately glanced toward 27 and tried to say something, but 27 raised one hand, stopping him.

"You’re done. Now it’s my turn."

His cold, ice-blue eyes settled upon 28.

27 took a slow step forward, his expression completely indifferent.

"I am asking you... who the fuck are you?"

28’s lips parted.

"I am..."

Nothing.

His mind went completely blank.

"I am..."

His voice became smaller.

"I..."

His fingers began shaking.

27 smirked.

In the next instant, he appeared directly before 28.

"You don’t?" he murmured. "Heh. Pity... I know."

He leaned closer, his voice dropping into a whisper beside 28’s ear. A devilish grin slowly spread across his face.

"You are nothing more than a consciousness born from my fucking dick. Hehehe~"