After some days, Sylvain had grown accustomed to Kseradyn's presence, his malice no longer an immediate shock but a constant, suffocating force. It was strange how quickly one could adjust to the company of a monster. Their conversations had become more fluid, more direct—no longer was Sylvain simply enduring the prince's words; now, he could speak on nearly equal footing.
"Does it bother you, Azur?" Kseradyn's voice cut through the air like a scalpel, his tone laced with an eerie amusement.
Sylvain turned his head slightly. "Hmph? What is it?"
"Existence," Kseradyn said. "Does it bother you, in this world?"
Sylvain hesitated. The question was more complex than it seemed. He had spent his entire life struggling against the weight of expectation, the curse of his own bloodline, the loops that twisted fate into an inescapable spiral. To exist was to suffer. But to deny existence—that was something else entirely.
"That is a complicated question," he finally said.
Kseradyn chuckled, a dry and knowing sound. "I suppose it is. But I realized something important after all these years of suffering that I have endured. Even if the humiliation of being born in flesh was quite tormenting… there was something that made me live my life to the fullest, something that made me hold my head high."
His copper eyes gleamed with an unnatural intensity as he continued. "For a man to truly live, he must hunger, he must lust, he must crave for as long as his heart desires—no matter the consequences. No matter what unreadable fate he is offered, his thirst should never be quenched. That is the only truth of nature. For anyone who refuses to accept their nature will only face ruination."
Sylvain stood beside him in silence, absorbing the weight of his words. There was something undeniably compelling about the philosophy, a cruel but undeniable logic. He had never thought about it in quite that way before.
It was almost… revelatory.
But then, would that excuse everything Kseradyn had done? Perhaps not. The prince was still facing consequences, even if they had yet to truly amount to anything. Yet.
And that was the thing about consequences—they always came eventually.
"So, in order for you to feel alive, you march on your desires? Wouldn't that be pretty selfish?" Sylvain asked, his voice cool but searching.
"It is selfish," Kseradyn responded, his gaze unwavering. "But self is nothing but a term made by the self itself. We are prone to suffering, so we try our best to complicate that suffering. One of those methods is self-doubt, self-hate. Fortunately enough, I don't hate myself." He tilted his head, eyeing Sylvain with quiet interest. "Do you hate yourself, Azur?"
Sylvain was silent for a long moment, the question hanging in the air like a weight. He thought deeply on it, but the answer came easily. "I do not hate myself, but I don't particularly love it. I never thought that I needed much love to move forward, anyways."
Kseradyn's lips curled into a half-smile, a low chuckle escaping him. "Hahaha, that is quite interesting. I can tell you are special. Something in me screams for more connection with you, but I'm not sure what it is." He stood suddenly, brushing off his clothes. "Now, I have a war to win. I will be back shortly."
As he turned to leave, Sylvain reached out, his hand touching the prince's back with an instinctive urgency. The moment their skin made contact, an electric shock vibrated through their entire nervous systems. It was a touch that lasted mere seconds, but to Sylvain, it felt as though time had stretched, the sensation of raw power and tension lingering in the air.
Then, their minds locked—both felt it, the shift in their shared moment. Kseradyn's eyes flipped, and Sylvain's widened in horror.
In an instant, Sylvain's consciousness was transported to a nightmare. He saw himself, taller and more imposing than usual, chained to a cold, metal surgery bed. Blood was splattered across the room, and large containers filled with orange liquids stood ominously in the corners. The air was thick with a suffocating tension.
"Hurry up with the process!" a voice barked. It was a woman, strong, androgynous, her voice laced with authority. "But Empress, it's your son! He's only fourteen. This could prove lethal to him." A doctor protested weakly.
"You dare oppose an imperial order, Doctor Nizrak Kirr?" the Empress snapped, her gaze seething with disdain. "No? Then hurry up. The Houses of Pilturia have already made their own weapon with tachyons. What we have to do is be bolder. The project of neural synchrony must succeed."
Sylvain's vision blurred as the memories flooded him. He could feel the pain Kseradyn had endured—the agony, the sorrow, the deep betrayal. But it was more than that. He felt the isolation, the weight of having been nothing more than a tool for the Empress's ambition. A failure, discarded once the project had finished. The child had no connection to the Empress, only to the cold commands that dictated his every move.
Days passed in that vision, days of unrelenting suffering. Sylvain felt the torment Kseradyn had experienced, the pain that gnawed at him, the crushing realization of abandonment. He could feel Kseradyn's fleeting connection to the world fade away as the boy became nothing more than a shell, lost to the constant cries of his own mind, torn between urges and the hollow remains of his morality.
Sylvain felt it all—the torment, the constant battle between pain and silence. And then, after all that suffering, Sylvain felt it again—the lives Kseradyn had ended. He felt every death, every spark of life snuffed out by Kseradyn's hands.
The chaos of their shared connection resonated within Sylvain, sending waves of grief, anger, and confusion crashing over him. The souls of the victims Kseradyn had absorbed, now swirled within him, their energy surging, coursing through Sylvain like an electric current.
A chill ran down his spine as the vision ended. Sylvain's breath was ragged, his chest heaving with the weight of what he had just experienced. He looked up at Kseradyn, the prince standing there, his eyes locked onto Sylvain's with an inscrutable expression.
Sylvain swallowed, his heart pounding. He wasn't sure if he could trust what he had just felt, but something in him told him that it was more than just a glimpse into Kseradyn's soul—it was a shared understanding, a link between their fates.
"I understand," Sylvain murmured, his voice thick with the echo of what had just passed between them.
And for a brief moment, they stood in silence, connected by something darker than either of them could comprehend.
Kseradyn then stared at Sylvain, his expression unreadable. "Your name is Sylvain, I see… it is a beautiful name. You should have kept it in here." He chuckled, bending over until his face was level with the fallen Sylvain.
"We do share the same goal after all, Sylvain… You should join me."
Sylvain, however, remained lost. Not only had he witnessed all of Kseradyn's pain and absorbed the agony of countless others, but now, his sister's presence lingered beside him more strongly than ever. Her whispers brushed against his mind. "It seems you're half awake, brother."
He couldn't make sense of anything. But Kseradyn was growing impatient. He grabbed Sylvain and pulled him up.
"Come on, Sylvain… I've never felt this much connection with someone before. We SHOULD partner up together. No one will judge you anymore. You wouldn't need to hide your goal from anyone. Me and you—we could fulfill our desires and be free. Truly free!"
As Sylvain regained his senses, a realization struck him. Kseradyn had not yet fully connected to Sylvain's life. For some reason, he wasn't the key to the neural connection.
It was Sylvain.
"I-I can't… no, I shouldn't."
Kseradyn's brows furrowed in confusion. "Huh? Why not? Don't you get it? YOU ARE NOT FREE with the others. I want to give that to you—to be who you want to be with me, to truly live, to fulfill your desires of revenge."
Sylvain exhaled sharply, his voice steadier now. "You don't seem to have absorbed everything out of my life like i did for yours, Kseradyn… The reason why my path isn't as dark as yours is because my desires stem from following my morals. I'm someone who needs rules. I'm afraid that without them… I would have been even worse than you."
Kseradyn heard those words and, for the first time in his life, felt heartbroken. The only person who shared his vision—or at least the same outcome of his goal—did not want to join him. It was as if the universe was laughing at him. A superior being rejected by the only soul who could understand him.
It was suffocating.
His hand shot out, seizing Sylvain by the neck. His grip tightened, his voice trembling with something between rage and desperation.
"I was ready to throw everything away for you to join me, to accomplish the death cathedral together… but if I can't have you, then no one will."
Sylvain struggled, his vision darkening as the air was choked from his lungs. With the last of his strength, he unsheathed a dagger from his sleeve and slashed at Kseradyn's hand. The prince loosened his grip, but no pain registered on his face. The cold certainty of death loomed over Sylvain.
Kseradyn stepped forward, prepared to end it—
The door swung open.
"Your Highness? Is everything alrigh—"
The servant's words were cut short as Kseradyn's hand pierced through his stomach, his arm emerging from the other side. The man gasped, eyes wide with incomprehensible horror before his body was thrown aside with a sickening force.
Such power was by no means natural. The empire's scientists had done more than one experiment. Kseradyn was not just their failed project, he was a creation beyond control.
His muscles bulged unnaturally, veins straining as if they were ready to burst. The raw energy within him was volatile, unstable. And yet, he advanced toward Sylvain once more, his expression blank, his purpose clear.
He was going to finish this.
Sylvain started dodging Kseradyn's attacks, barely keeping ahead of the monstrous prince. He recognized Kseradyn's attack patterns—he had absorbed his most important memories, after all. He knew Kseradyn deeply.
"I'm sorry, Kseradyn," Sylvain muttered between ragged breaths, dodging another strike. "But to join you is to abolish who I am as a person."
Kseradyn's expression twisted, and he went berserk. He grabbed his entire desk and hurled it at Sylvain with terrifying strength. Sylvain dodged, but the moment he moved, Kseradyn lunged, seizing his arm and nearly breaking it.
A sharp gunshot echoed through the room.
Kseradyn staggered back, blood seeping from his stomach. Sylvain had shot him.
The momentary space gave Sylvain time to breathe, but he knew the truth—he couldn't defeat such a monster through sheer force. He needed to create an opportunity, something unconventional, something Kseradyn wouldn't expect.