CHAPTER 438: CHAPTER 438 - LOST

# PoV 1.

... Where am I?

Darkness. Endless, suffocating, crushing darkness. Not the kind that comes when the sun sets, but something deeper... heavier, like being buried under a thousand layers of night.

I try to move, but my body won’t answer. My arms, my legs... nothing responds. It’s like I don’t even have a body anymore.

Why?

Why can’t I move?

My head aches, a dull, throbbing pain, as though I’m forgetting something... something important. It slips from my mind like sand between my fingers, no matter how desperately I try to hold on.

What do I do? What can I do?

... Who am I?

"... Dear~"

A voice. Soft. Familiar? The word pierces through the emptiness like a drop of light falling into an abyss.

Who was that? Who is "dear"?

"Husband~"

Husband? Me? Am I someone’s husband?

"...Fik"

Fik?

Is that... my name?

"...Fik~"

The voices keep coming. Sweet, intimate, each one wrapping around me, yet none of them gives me clarity.

"Honey~"

"Master~"

"Darling~"

"Daddy~"

"My son~"

"Fik"

"Lil bro"

"Bro"

"...Father"

Each word hammers at me, striking sparks in the darkness. They feel real... too real, but they don’t fit together. Husband. Master. Father. Brother. Son. What am I supposed to be?

The noise swells, countless voices calling at once, overlapping, tangling, pulling me apart. My chest tightens, my mind cracks beneath the weight of their affection, their claims, their need.

"Stop..." I whisper, but the voices drown me.

Ughhh! Who’s talking?! Why are there so many?! Where am I?!

WHO AM I?!

[... TER]

This voice again... Who is it this time?

[MASTER!]

... Master? Is that... me?

[MASTER! WAKE UP!]

Wake up? I’ve been trying, over and over, but I can’t. My body doesn’t respond. My breath doesn’t flow. Am I even still alive? Or am I nothing but a fragment drifting in this endless void?

[MASTER! REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!!]

Remember? I’ve been trying, desperately clawing at the fog in my head, but everything slips away like sand through my fingers.

TELL ME THEN! WHO AM I?! WHO ARE YOU?!!

[MASTER, IT’S ME, I’M SYSTEM]

... System? The word stirs something, faint but real. A tether.

[MASTER, REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!! REMEMBER YOUR FAMILY! WIVES!]

Family...? Wives...? My chest aches with a hollow longing. I... had a wife? No, more than one? Faces blur in the darkness, smiling, crying, fading before I can grasp them.

[... YOUR CHILDREN!]

... Children? The word echoes in my hollow self. Little hands, laughter, warmth, yet all swallowed by this suffocating dark.

[YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!]

Responsibility...? What is responsibility, when I can’t even hold onto myself?

[... YOU SAID YOU WILL SEE IT TO THE END, SO DON’T GIVE UP NOW!]

See it... to the end? Yes... that was me, wasn’t it? I said that. My voice, steady. A promise. If I start something, I must finish it. Even if it breaks me. Even if it consumes me. Right! But what can I do? I can’t even move my body. I’m trapped. I’m-

"Ck~ ck~ ck..."

The sound cuts through the void like a mocking blade.

"Pitiful. Truly pitiful~"

The voice is close, too close. Cold. Familiar, yet not. My nonexistent skin prickles as if the darkness itself is leaning over me.

"You’re too reckless"

Reckless...? I don’t even know what I’ve done. What did I do to be called that?

"... This is the third time I’ve helped you"

Helped... me?

"As a Will, my successor, indeed no one can restrain you..."

Will? Successor? What do those words mean?

"But isn’t this... a bit too much?"

The weight of the words presses against me, and the darkness seems to ripple, as if reality itself holds its breath.

"Wake up now, and next time... don’t let your strength consume you"

The voice was heavy, yet gentle, like an echo carved into the fabric of his soul. It wasn’t scolding, but guiding, as though each word was a thread pulling him back together.

"You still have a long way to go. So don’t stop here. Remember..."

The darkness around him rippled, as if reality itself bent to the weight of the words.

"Keep moving forward, my successor... my legacy"

The last syllable lingered, not fading but embedding itself deep within his chest, burning like a brand that refused to be forgotten.

His chest lurched.

A sharp inhale tore through his lips, dragging fire into his lungs as if he had been drowning for an eternity. His body convulsed, his fingers twitching against the cold ground. The suffocating darkness shattered like glass, and light, painful, blinding light, stabbed into his eyes.

"...Kh...!" Taufik coughed violently, his throat raw, each breath like swallowing knives.

The System’s voice quivered with relief.

[MASTER!! You’re awake!!]

Taufik groaned, pressing his trembling hand against his forehead. His body felt like lead, his veins burning with a chaotic storm of power barely contained. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was, only the echo of that voice lingered.

My successor... my legacy.

"...Legacy?" he whispered hoarsely, his voice breaking.

His vision steadied by degrees, revealing the fractured ground around him, still scorched and trembling with the residue of the Void. He could feel it gnawing at his insides, hungering, pressing against its cage, desperate to break free.

And yet, above the weight of that darkness, something else stirred. A strange determination, fragile but unyielding, rose within him.

His thoughts were hazy, blurred at the edges... but through it all, one truth rang clear.

# PoV 3.

"I can’t... stop here..." he muttered, dragging himself to his feet, his breath heavy, chest rising and falling like a furnace. His clear blue eyes flickered faintly as if still wrestling with remnants of Belphegor’s coffin.

"I have to see it to the end... How long was I unconscious, System?"

[Ten hours, twenty-eight minutes, three seconds, Master]

Taufik exhaled slowly, his shoulders loosening.

"...That long, huh?" He frowned, but then another thought struck him like a blade. "...Wait. What about Lembu and the others? Where are they?"

[They’re here, Master. After you defeated Belphegor, the Dream Coffin collapsed, so they were automatically released. But...]

The hesitation in System’s tone made Taufik narrow his eyes. "...But what?"

[... They were inside the Dream Coffin for too long. Their souls are damaged. For now, they won’t wake. Their souls need time to repair themselves]

Taufik’s jaw tightened. "...Damaged souls? Hah, then I’ll just repair them. I can mend their essence, or... if needed, I’ll forcibly turn back time to when their souls were still intact"

[You can’t, Master]

His eyes sharpened. "...What do you mean I can’t?"

[Master, after identifying them one by one, their souls aren’t merely fractured. Due to the Dream Coffin, infinite memories are now embedded within them. Not foreign illusions, memories they personally lived. If you rewind time or forcibly strip those memories, there’s a high chance they’ll awaken... as different people]

Taufik froze, the words weighing like chains on his chest.

"...So even if I force it, they might not be them anymore..."

[Exactly, Master. In the end, it’s up to them, to sift through those infinite selves and return to the truth. All you can do is wait]

A long silence stretched. Finally, he closed his eyes.

"...Alright. If waiting is all I can do, then I’ll wait. But I can’t just leave their bodies lying here, can I?"

[You don’t need to, Master. Don’t forget, you now bear the Concept of Void. You can keep their bodies safe within it]

Taufik’s brow furrowed. "...The Void, huh. That power... it almost devoured me. If not for the Will’s last fragment... I might have been lost already"

[All the more reason to learn control. This is your power now. If you wield it with intent, it won’t harm them. Just try, Master. Keeping their bodies exposed here is far more dangerous. Who knows what the other Sins might attempt]

He let out a quiet breath, then slowly opened his palm.

"...Alright. Let’s try"

Darkness, deep and infinite, blossomed in his hand. A sphere of nothingness, so pure and yet so violently unstable that reality itself seemed to recoil around it. Just looking at it made the air shiver. No wonder Belphegor had said no one could control it.

"...It’s done. Now... the next step"

He focused, gripping tight onto his will. The Void trembled, resisting, but he bent it, shaped it, forced it to obey. At last, it stretched and hardened into a long blade, a sword of absence laced with veins of molten gold.

Without hesitation, Taufik sliced the air. The world screamed, and reality itself split open. A ripple yawned before him, bleeding with Void.

He let out a relieved sigh. "...So far, no errors"

Turning, his eyes softened at the sight of his companions. Lembu, Basukhi, Kl’lara... They looked peaceful, as if merely sleeping. But Taufik knew better, their souls were at war within themselves, drowning in endless false memories.

"...Just in case, I’ll wrap their bodies with my Mana," he murmured. His hand glowed, pure golden Mana weaving around their forms like a protective cocoon.

Once satisfied, he lifted them gently, guiding their bodies into the opened rift.

"Rest there... until you wake again," he whispered.

The Void accepted them, silent and unyielding, but harmless under his command. Only after making sure they were secure did he close the wound in reality, sealing the ripple shut with a final stroke of his blade.

Silence reclaimed the battlefield.

Shattered mirrors crumbled into dust, leaving only him, his Katana, and the lingering thrum of the Void pulsing faintly in his veins.

"...So, I’m alone again, huh?" Taufik muttered, his voice carrying in the emptiness. His gaze hardened. "Two more layers before I reach the heart of Hell..."

He exhaled, shaking his head. ’No use dwelling on it. As long as you’re still here, System, I’m not completely alone’

[Of course, Master. I’ll always be by your side]

A faint smile tugged at his lips. "Good... That’s all I needed to hear"

He tightened his grip on the blade, the fractured world around him already twisting toward its inevitable collapse. "Alright then... to the next layer. Let’s end this damned Hell once and for all"

With that, Taufik stepped forward, his silhouette swallowed by the descent into the sixth layer.

....

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