Chapter 71: The Thief Who Stole Himself

Kai fell through darkness.

There was no wind, no sound, and no sense of direction. His body simply continued downward, turning slowly as if the abyss had become a vast ocean without water.

He reached for the wall, but his fingers closed around empty air.

"Dorian!"

His voice disappeared beneath him.

No answer came.

Kai looked up. The opening of the palace had already become a thin silver line. The Old Capital was shrinking above him, its broken towers and ancient walls fading into the distance. He could still see several figures standing near the edge.

Sarah.

Kael.

Jax.

He could not tell whether they were looking at him or running from the palace.

Were they alive?

Had the palace swallowed them too?

Kai tried to move his arms, but his body reacted slowly. His shoulder was still numb from the fall, and his ribs ached beneath the dark clothes he had received after putting on the mask.

The cracked black mask pressed tightly against his face. His white hair floated around his head, strangely bright against the darkness.

He tried to activate Architect Authority.

Nothing happened.

He tried again.

A sharp pain crossed his skull, and a faint white mark appeared beneath his palm before disappearing.

"That is useless," Kai muttered.

The words sounded louder than before.

"Focus. Panic is useless."

He had said that many times since arriving in this world. Every time, the sentence had helped him take one more step forward.

This time, it did nothing.

The abyss suddenly stopped him.

Kai’s body froze in midair.

His legs hung below him. His arms remained slightly raised. Even the strands of his white hair stopped moving.

Then a bell rang somewhere beneath him.

One strike.

The sound passed through his bones and shook something inside his chest.

A thin red line appeared in front of his eyes.

The role assigned to you has been accepted.

The Thief Who Stole Himself.

Objective: Retrieve what was taken.

Failure: Return the stolen identity to its original owner.

Kai stared at the words.

"That is not an objective."

The red line flickered.

"That is a threat."

A second message appeared beneath it.

The thief is not the invader.

The thief is the one who remains.

Kai’s expression darkened.

"Stop speaking in riddles."

Something laughed below him.

It was his voice.

Kai looked down.

A pale face floated in the darkness beneath him. At first, he thought it was only a reflection. Then the face opened its eyes.

It had his features, but it was younger. The black hair was short and untidy. A thin scar crossed the left eyebrow. The eyes were filled with a fear that Kai no longer recognized in himself.

Kai knew that face.

Original Kai.

The boy looked up at him.

"You took my body."

Kai’s fingers moved toward the knife at his waist. The blade was still there, but his arm felt weak.

"I didn’t choose it."

"You still took it."

"I woke up inside it. There was no agreement."

Original Kai climbed upward through the darkness. His feet touched nothing, yet he moved as though he were walking up an invisible staircase.

"You speak like him."

Kai watched him carefully.

"Like who?"

"The man who built the cage."

"Company?"

Original Kai stopped a few steps away.

For one moment, the boy’s eyes changed. They became two empty windows filled with distant white towers, endless corridors, and lights that never turned off.

Then the image disappeared.

"Company gave me a role," Original Kai said. "They called me a weak porter. They gave me a family that feared me, friends who pitied me, and a future that ended in the lower districts."

"Most people would call that a miserable life."

"It was mine."

The answer struck harder than Kai expected.

He had spent weeks treating the body as a tool. A weak body. A damaged body. A body that needed to be improved before it could survive.

But the body had belonged to someone.

Someone who had been afraid.

Someone who had been abandoned.

Someone who had watched another person continue living through his face.

Kai looked away.

"I didn’t erase you."

"No." Original Kai smiled without happiness. "You only continued after I stopped."

The darkness around them changed.

A huge black door appeared behind the boy. It was taller than any tower Kai had seen in the Old Capital. Hundreds of names covered its surface. Some were written in red. Some had been scratched out. Others moved beneath the stone as if they were trying to escape.

At the center of the door was one empty space.

Kai’s name appeared inside it.

KAI.

The letters began to crack.

"Why am I here?" Kai asked.

Original Kai pointed toward the door.

"Because the palace cannot decide which of us is real."

Kai clenched his jaw.

"I am real."

"Are you?"

The question silenced him.

For a brief moment, the darkness vanished.

Kai saw a desk beneath cold white lights. Screens covered an entire wall. Lines of information moved across them, but none of them looked like the simple messages of the Tower. A group of engineers stood behind him, waiting for instructions.

Someone called him Arthur.

Then the scene changed.

A small apartment appeared. Its windows were cracked. A woman shouted at a young man named Kai. A little girl hid behind a chair while rain struck the glass. A boy carried heavy boxes through a narrow street.

Two lives.

Two sets of memories.

One body.

Kai grabbed his head.

"Get out."

Original Kai did not move.

"Your memories are not proof," the boy said. "They are only evidence."

The black door opened.

A long hand reached through the gap. Its fingers were thin, and its joints bent in the wrong direction. A black mark covered its palm. The mark looked like an eye with its lid sewn shut.

Original Kai stepped backward.

"You have to steal the name."

Kai glanced at him.

"What?"

"Not the body. Not the memories. The name."

The hand seized Original Kai by the throat.

The boy struggled, but the creature lifted him from the ground with one arm.

Kai did not wait.

He pulled the knife from his waist and threw it.

The blade crossed the darkness and pierced the creature’s palm. A sound like tearing metal filled the abyss. The hand released Original Kai and snapped toward Kai instead.

Kai twisted aside.

The fingers closed around his shoulder.

Pain exploded through his arm.

He stabbed the wrist once, twice, three times. The creature did not bleed. It did not even slow down.

It began dragging him toward the door.

Kai dug his boots into the invisible floor.

"Let go!"

The fingers tightened until his bones creaked.

The red role inside him reacted.

The Thief Who Stole Himself.

A faint white glow appeared beneath the cracked mask. It did not come from Architect Authority. He was not forcing the world to obey him. He was not changing a rule.

The role was showing him the truth.

The hand was not trying to kill him.

It was trying to identify him.

If the creature decided he was Kai, it would drag him through the door and return him to the life that belonged to the body.

If it decided he was Arthur, the palace would reject him as an intruder.

Either way, he would lose.

Kai stopped resisting.

Original Kai stared at him from the floor.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying something stupid."

"You are very good at that."

"Finally, someone understands me."

The creature dragged Kai closer to the door. The whispers grew louder.

"Kai... Kai... Kai..."

The sound came from hundreds of mouths. Some voices were young. Others were old. Some were crying. Others were laughing.

Then one voice entered his mind.

State your identity.

Kai’s memories began to split apart.

Arthur.

Kai.

Arthur.

Kai.

His childhood vanished. His office vanished. Sarah’s face appeared, then broke into pieces. Dorian’s black mask flashed before him. Jax laughed beside a broken elevator. Kael shouted at him. The family he had never truly known reached toward him through the rain.

Every memory was being examined.

Sorted.

Measured.

The creature wanted a simple answer.

A name.

An owner.

A category.

Kai understood that the system of the palace was not asking who he felt he was. It was asking which role it could safely assign to him.

That was the mistake.

He had spent too long trying to answer questions written by other people.

He could say Arthur.

He could say Kai.

Instead, he smiled beneath the mask.

"I am the thief."

The abyss went silent.

The creature froze.

Kai pulled his shoulder free and reached toward the red name floating above the door.

KAI.

The letters burned his palm the moment he touched them.

Original Kai screamed.

"Don’t!"

Kai held the name tightly.

"I’m not stealing your life," he said.

The black door groaned behind them.

"I’m stealing the thing that decided your life was already finished."

The darkness shook violently.

Original Kai ran toward him and slammed both hands into Kai’s chest.

The impact sent them apart.

The name flew between them like a burning piece of paper.

Original Kai reached it first.

For a moment, Kai thought the boy would take the name back and leave him trapped between two identities.

Instead, Original Kai pushed it toward him.

"Then carry it," the boy said. "If you want to live in my body, carry everything that came with it."

Kai caught the name.

The letters struck his chest.

The cracked mask split from forehead to chin.

White light swallowed the abyss.

Kai screamed as memories poured through him. He felt the fear of a boy being called useless. He felt the shame of entering a room where everyone expected failure. He felt the loneliness of being surrounded by people who had already decided he would never matter.

For one terrible moment, he also felt the hatred Original Kai had kept buried.

It was not directed only at Company.

It was directed at him.

Kai refused to let go.

When the light faded, Original Kai was gone.

The creature had vanished.

The black door had slammed shut.

Kai dropped onto a floor of cold stone. He remained on one knee, breathing heavily. His right hand trembled as he pressed it against his chest.

The name was no longer outside him.

It had settled beneath his ribs, heavy and painful.

A new message appeared in front of his eyes.

Role updated.

The Thief Who Stole Himself.

Temporary Authority granted: Name Theft.

You may steal one assigned identity from one target.

Cost: The stolen identity will remember you.

Kai stared at the final line.

"That is a terrible ability."

"Most useful abilities are."

The voice came from behind him.

Kai turned sharply.

The Nameless Man stood beside a narrow stone bridge. His black mask was broken near the mouth, and blood ran down the side of his coat. He looked exhausted, but his posture remained straight.

Kai rose slowly.

"Where are the others?"

"Alive."

"Sarah?"

"Alive."

"Kael and Jax?"

"Also alive."

Kai exhaled. He had not realized he was holding his breath.

Dorian watched him carefully.

"You saw him."

"Original Kai."

"And?"

"He thinks I stole his life."

"Did you?"

Kai looked down at the black scar across his palm.

"I don’t know."

Dorian studied him for a few seconds.

"That answer is better than a lie."

"You knew this would happen."

"I knew the palace would test the name. I did not know what you would choose."

"You could have warned me."

"Would you have listened?"

Kai looked at him.

"No."

"Then I saved us both time."

Despite himself, Kai almost laughed. The sound never fully escaped his throat.

Far ahead, beyond the bridge, a dim red light appeared. A city waited beneath the Old Capital. Its streets were filled with statues wearing the faces of people Kai had never met. Some statues stood on their knees. Others held swords. One of them had a face that looked exactly like Sarah’s.

At the end of the bridge stood a single gate.

Above it, carved into the stone, were six words.

A thief must return what he stole.

Kai tightened his grip around the knife.

Dorian turned toward the gate.

"Come on, Kai."

Kai followed him across the bridge.

Behind them, something knocked from inside the sealed door.

Once.

Twice.

Then a third time.

A voice whispered through the stone.

"Arthur."

Kai stopped.

Dorian’s hand slowly moved toward his weapon.

The name echoed through the abyss again.

"Arthur."

No one in the Old Capital was supposed to know that name.

Not Sarah.

Not Kael.

Not Jax.

Not even the palace, unless it had finally discovered what he had spent so long hiding.

Dorian looked back at him.

"Kai?"

"Keep walking."

"Kai, listen to me."

"Keep walking."

The voice behind the door laughed softly.

The sound was not human.

It was the sound of a page turning.

Kai stepped toward the red city. His legs were still weak, and his shoulder throbbed with every movement. The new authority beneath his ribs felt unstable, like a blade hidden too close to the heart.

He did not know what waited beyond the gate.

He did not know whether Original Kai was truly gone.

He did not know how the voice had learned his real name.

But for the first time since entering the Old Capital, he did not feel like an intruder wearing another man’s life.

He felt like something worse.

Something that had finally been recognized.

The gate opened.

A wave of cold air moved through the underground city. The statues turned their heads toward him one by one.

Then every statue spoke at the same time.

"Welcome back, Arthur."

Kai’s fingers tightened around the knife.

Dorian raised his weapon.

The red city lights came alive, street by street, revealing countless doors beneath the palace.

Some were made of iron.

Some were made of bone.

Some were made of memories.

At the center of the city stood a tower that looked exactly like the Tower of Ascension, except its highest floors descended into the ground instead of rising toward the sky.

Kai stared at it.

Dorian’s voice became quiet.

"That is where the first story was buried."

Kai looked at the tower, then at the gate behind him.

"Then that is where we are going."

"You may not survive."

Kai touched the scar on his palm.

"I have survived worse."

"No," Dorian said. "You have escaped worse. There is a difference."

Kai glanced at him.

For once, he had no answer.

The city beneath the palace began to move around them. Doors opened. Footsteps echoed through empty streets. Somewhere in the distance, a child began to sing a song Kai had never heard but somehow remembered.

Behind the sealed door, something whispered his name one final time.

"Arthur."

Kai stepped into the city.

The gate closed behind him.

And the Old Capital began to remember the man who had stolen himself.