Oliver stood facing Tom, the leader of the Black Crow. Tom had been cornered, driven into a dead end. Around him were figures like An, and even Enola, who had just arrived. The scene was charged, the weight of the moment palpable.
Oliver studied Tom carefully. As a leader, Tom had undoubtedly prepared for this moment. He had surely planned countless escape routes, contingency plans, and desperate gambits to avoid defeat. Yet, standing there now, he made no move to flee. He stood his ground, his posture confident, like an experienced hunter trusting his aim.
Tom's lips curled into a wry smile as he stared down his younger opponent. "Kill me if you like," he said, his tone calm, almost mocking. "But let me warn you; no matter what happens to me, countless Black Crows will rise to take my place. Maybe they'll be changed by my greed, but they'll never disappear."
There was no fear in his voice. It wasn't bravado, it was belief, unwavering and absolute. His words carried the air of a man who had already accepted his fate.
Tom closed his eyes, his shoulders relaxing slightly. He stood there, waiting for the inevitable.
Enola stared at his uncle, her expression unreadable. Oliver glanced at the middle-aged man before him, weighing his options. An, meanwhile, simply watched silently, her gaze hard and cold. No one spoke. No one moved. The tension in the air was suffocating, thick enough to choke on.
Time seemed to stop.
'Damn it.' Oliver's thoughts raced. 'I've rushed this too much. Pushed it too far. This wasn't the plan.'
He had intended to use Tom's death to spark a deeper conflict, to pit Enola and his group against each other. But now, standing in the moment, the strategy felt hollow. It was a mistake, a miscalculation. 'Now I'm trapped in this.'
For the briefest moment, despair flickered across Oliver's face, though he quickly masked it. 'I'll have to find another way.' He glanced around, searching for a new angle, a new opportunity.
'Next time, I need to stay focused. No distractions. No wasted effort.' He straightened his posture, pushing the thought aside.
In the stifling silence, Tom's smile widened slightly, as though he understood the turmoil in Oliver's mind.
The question hung in the air, heavier than the silence around them: 'Who will kill him?'
An stood still, her arms crossed and her gaze cold, but she made no move. Enola didn't step forward either, her expression conflicted, torn between the man in front of him and the weight of his past. And Oliver, the sharp tactician, the man who could end it all, simply watched. His hands rested on his bow, but the string remained unpulled.
None of them moved. Each waited for the other to act, their mutual hesitation amplifying the tension.
---
In Enola's mind, Tom wasn't always this person. If you stripped away the present moment; the schemes, the manipulations, the war, there was another version of him buried deep in memory. A man who once wasn't so cruel. Perhaps it had been a mask, a façade of kindness to hide an ulterior motive. Or maybe it had been genuine, the last flicker of decency in a world that demanded its extinguishment.
Enola's thoughts spiraled back to the days when she was little more than a girl, desperate and lost. She had left her family in a fit of youthful defiance, consumed by a dream they all mocked. From the stern-faced grandfather down to the young children who barely understood the concept of ambition, they all ridiculed her. They told her, her ideas were foolish, impossible.
The shame and anger had burned in her like a fire, and that night, she ran. No plans. No destination. Just the need to escape.
By dawn, reality had come crashing down. She was in an unfamiliar city with nothing but his pride; and pride didn't buy food. Her stomach gnawed at her until she had no choice but to swallow her dignity. She dug through trash bins, her hands trembling as she pulled out rotting scraps. The memory was vivid, burned into her mind: a rain-slick street, the stench of decay, and a pair of thin, filthy hands fumbling through garbage. She had been little more than a ghost of himself, shivering with hunger and humiliation.
Then, as if out of nowhere, a clean, steady hand extended toward her, holding food.
Tom.
Enola still didn't know how a distant relative had found him in that remote town, but she had. Tom didn't scold her, didn't demand explanations. He simply helped. At the time, Enola had been a wreck of a girl, angry and brash, but Tom never seemed to lose patience with her.
When Enola couldn't sleep at night, plagued by anxiety and doubt, Tom would stay up with him, talking quietly until the storm in her mind calmed. When others mocked her naïve dreams, Tom didn't laugh. Instead, he would say, "Everyone's life has meaning. The purpose of life is to find it."
Had it been kindness? Or had Tom simply known that Enola would never grow powerful enough to threaten him? Enola didn't know. But in the years she followed Tom, the man never gave her reason to doubt. Whatever his intentions, Tom had remained consistent, and for a young girl desperate for stability, that had been enough.
---
An watched the scene unfold, her own thoughts far removed from the present. Her mind drifted to memories of her younger days, long before the wars and monsters. She thought about the little girl from the annual market, the one who made juice.
The girl would appear every year, setting up her humble stall with a bright smile. Her juice was unforgettable; simple yet refreshing, sweet but never cloying. Every time An visited the market, she would seek out the stall, pay the symbolic coin, and savor the drink. Over time, their exchanges grew from polite smiles to casual conversation.
The girl liked to talk about the stars. She would gaze upward with a kind of wonder that seemed impossible in their harsh world. She often spoke of a traveler she was waiting for, a man she had once saved in the forest. The girl's face would light up when she described her, a black-haired man who had lost his memory but possessed an incredible kindness.
"He was amazing," the girl had said with a wistful smile. "Even though he couldn't remember anything, he always took care of me. He made even the smallest gestures feel important. A pat on the head, a kind word; it meant everything."
But one day, the man disappeared. No one knew where he had gone, yet the girl wasn't worried. "He's immortal," she'd said simply, her voice full of quiet certainty. "He'll be back someday."
---
Back in the present, Tom stood facing them all, his back straight, his expression calm. Despite being cornered, there was no fear in his eyes. If anything, he looked amused.
"Well?" he asked, his voice breaking the silence. "What are you waiting for? Do it." His gaze swept across them, lingering on each one. "Kill me, if you think it will change anything. But let me tell you this; cut me down, and more will rise. You might not like what the Black Crow has become, but the spirit of it will never die."
His voice carried no desperation, no pleas for mercy. Instead, it was filled with the grim assurance of a man who had made peace with his fate. "Maybe I was greedy," he admitted with a dry chuckle. "Maybe I twisted things along the way. But you can't destroy an idea. No matter how hard you try."
He closed his eyes, his lips curving into a faint smile as though mocking them all. "Go ahead. I'm waiting."
Enola stared at him, her heart heavy with memories of the man who had once saved her. Oliver's sharp eyes remained fixed on Tom, but his fingers never touched the string of his bow. An, cold and calculating, stood motionless, her hands by her sides.
No one moved. No one spoke. The tension in the air felt suffocating, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
And in that moment, as the seconds stretched into what felt like an eternity, Oliver's mind raced. 'I miscalculated. I've pushed too far, too fast. I meant to use this moment to deepen the cracks between us, to pit Enola and his group against one another. But now… now, I've lost control.'
His eyes flickered with frustration, though his face betrayed nothing. 'I'll need another opportunity. I can't lose focus now. Not again.'
And yet, no one stepped forward to end it. For all their convictions, for all their goals, none of them were willing to strike the final blow.
It wasn't immortality. It wasn't indestructibility. It wasn't anything fantastical or dramatic. It was simply the fact that he wouldn't die; not in the conventional sense, at least.
That's how it had been described, in the other person's own words. '"I won't die. Even if I disappear for a long time, I'll come back."'
She believed him. Whether it was a bond born out of love or something as simple as friendship, no one could say. The certainty of her belief, however, had kept her waiting for him all these years. Seven long years had passed since the Black Crow began capturing elves, and An hadn't seen the little girl since.
Perhaps it was a tale destined for a happy ending, like so many hopeful stories passed down through generations. Or maybe it was just another tale of heartbreak, where two souls could never reunite despite their best efforts.
An would never know.
---
Oliver, however, wasn't thinking about such things. His mind didn't linger on tales of lost love or impossible hope. Instead, he was acutely aware of the silence behind him; the way the people standing nearby seemed lost in thought, as if they too had been swept away by memories.
He sighed quietly and turned away, his boots echoing softly against the floor. He stepped past Aegnor and Nisha without a word, weaving through their group as if they weren't there. The heavy atmosphere of the room weighed on him, pushing him outside into the open air.
The sky was gray, clouds thick and brooding as if they were about to burst. The air was heavy with the oppressive stillness that came before a summer storm. 'A thunderstorm is coming,' he thought absently, his steps carrying him beyond the white walls of the inner city.
It wasn't long before the first cold raindrops hit his face. He paused, tilting his head back to look at the sky as the sparse rain fell. The droplets were familiar, their soft chill dragging his mind backward in time.
'Rain, just like back then.'
He had stood like this once, years ago, when he was younger. Back then, though, he had a home to run to; a place where he could shelter from the rain. Now, that home was nothing but ashes, burned away by the life he had chosen.
'Take one last look.'
He closed his eyes briefly, as if saying a silent farewell to the boy he used to be. But his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden, blinding flash of white light that split the sky.
The roar of thunder came immediately after, shaking the ground beneath his feet. The lightning struck where he had stood only moments before, igniting the earth in a blaze of fire.
His brow furrowed, his body tensing instinctively as he turned back toward the house.