Become A Character Who Dies Within Three Chapters

"Plop—"

Like a still lake suddenly broken by a falling droplet, ripples spread as if the echoing sound had awakened someone from a dream.

Sylus's eyes snapped open. He gasped for breath, pupils unfocused, cold sweat streaming down his face. His legs hurt unbearably. Around him was nothing but utter, suffocating darkness, without a trace of light.

He was the only light here. But even that light was about to be swallowed by the abyss. He couldn't breathe. Was he going to die, just as they all wanted? He was so small, so pitifully small. Why was he so weak? This clearly wasn't his body—he was supposed to be tall, powerful, unstoppable...

No. He couldn't accept it!

"Sylus, are you okay?"

A voice rang out, carrying concern mingled with a hint of mockery.

Sylus jerked his head up. In those pitch-black eyes of his, a faint light seemed to stir. Louis leaned forward slightly, hands clasped behind his back, head tilted with a sly grin that revealed two sharp fangs.

"Come on, get up. Even you can stumble sometimes?" he chuckled.

Sylus pressed his lips together, staring at Louis's hand toward him. He shook his head.

"You're right, Louis. I'm not perfect. I'm not what you think I am. I'm useless, powerless... I've never once protected anything I needed to protect in my life... I... should die."

Louis looked at him with a trace of confusion before finally speaking softly:

"Every creature that exists in this world has its own worth. So do you, Sylus. I've told you before that an existence as perfect as yours should be the only one in this world. Ha ha."

Sylus looked at Louis's smile. His own lips twitched upward ever so slightly.

"I'm not perfect. Because I'm different..."

"And it's exactly that difference that makes you one of a kind!"

Sylus froze. His eyes widened as he stared at Louis, at the hand so close before him, as if carrying the sun's warmth.

"Get up... buddy."

Sylus blinked blankly, then instinctively reached out. His heart pounded wildly—so fast it hurt.

Something seemed to explode, to shatter. Chains screamed in despair. Everything before him scattered into countless stars—Louis included.

Sylus suddenly clenched his own hand. So hot. His ring finger was burning. Something inside was surging restlessly, straining to break free.

He opened his eyes wide. The darkness was gone. That colossal figure loomed closer and closer, while the image of the helpless child from his past overlapped with the image of the powerless, oversized child he was now.

Run... run... Mother...

Mother...

Everything may have been wrong from the very beginning. Run? Escape? The child of the past may have been too helpless to do anything but flee. But Sylus—this Sylus—no matter how powerless or weak, he would die with glory!

A flicker of astonishment crossed Aboli's eyes. She stared at Sylus—so battered he was unrecognizable—yet trembling as he forced himself upright.

His legs wavered, ready to give out at any second. His arms couldn't even lift. And still, he stood. Even with a hunched, broken silhouette, he faced Aboli head-on. His eyes were wide open, and within them burned a light she knew she would never understand.

"Oh, so you can still stand. Such willpower is truly commendable."

Aboli laughed. Before Sylus's eyes, there was only a blinding white—Aboli was undoubtedly the child most favored by the light, endlessly blessed.

"Ha... ha ha ha..."

Yet Sylus laughed too. Blood spilled from his mouth with every chuckle. His face, torn and bloodied from the brutal battle, was unrecognizable. And still he laughed—a laugh of satisfaction, as though after so many years, he had finally broken free from the shackles that had bound him all his life.

For some reason, Aboli found Sylus's smile utterly loathsome. So loathsome. Incomparably loathsome.

"I'll crush you to ashes!"

Aboli didn't even think before the words left her lips. Yes, that was how it should be. Anyone who made her feel uncomfortable deserved to die. She had the power to make it so—there was no reason for her to endure displeasure!

She suddenly lifted herself into the air, light condensing at her fingertip. She would burn Sylus away, melt him until nothing remained!

Sylus threw back his head and laughed wildly, watching the gathering radiance, a miniature sun forming.

Danger surged all around him, yet he seemed oblivious, shouting instead:

"Ha ha ha! I see now—I finally understand! The lover I've always searched for, I finally realize, ha ha ha!"

He laughed like a madman, but in his heart he knew: through all the years lost in that dreamlike fantasy, today—the day that dream shattered—he had finally found the answer to the perfect lover he had always longed for.

"My love... You are not the one I love—you are the idealized version of myself!"

"Boom! Shiiing!"

At that moment, Aboli's arrow of light shot forth!

It streaked through the air at blistering speed. The farther it flew, the more energy gathered at its tip, until it became immense and blinding, swallowing Sylus's silhouette whole.

He was drowned in light—his figure lost entirely within it.

Time itself seemed to slow. Sylus could feel the searing heat burning his flesh, threatening to incinerate even his very bones into ash.

Too hot. Too painful. Ha ha ha! This was what he wanted—what he should have had from the very moment of his birth!

A massive energy vortex erupted from the ring on Sylus's hand, devouring everything. Black smoke poured from his eyes, spreading darkness everywhere, surging like a storm about to descend.

Sylus's eyes snapped open—now nothing but pure obsidian black, without pupil or sclera. Darkness poured forth endlessly, devouring Aboli's light, devouring even himself, and swallowing Louis into that eternal night.

Aboli hovered in the air, staring in shock at the sphere of darkness that kept swelling, expanding across the ground.

"Impossible!"

She nearly ground her teeth as she spat out each word. Behind her, countless orbs of light materialized and shot straight down toward the earth.

"Boom! Boom boom boom!"

Explosions shook the skies, quaking the land itself. Yet every blast was repelled. The dark sphere had already begun to unravel, becoming a hazy flame that slowly drifted upward into the heavens.

Three pairs of wings tore out from the darkness—dense black feathers that devoured all light, their vast span rivaling Aboli's own, if not greater.

As the darkness receded, Sylus's new form was revealed.

He floated in midair, one leg bent slightly. His body was covered in sleek black feathers, strange crimson patterns like curses coiling from his ankles to his neck. Some markings even stretched across one side of his face, as though he could shatter at any moment—emanating a dreadful, ancient aura.

His gray hair had grown long, streaming wildly in the air, faintly luminous from where his ears should have been sprouted two great azure plumes, standing upright—the only color that differed from the black engulfing him. Upon his head burned a halo, woven from diamond-shaped fragments of black energy, radiating ceaselessly like a crown of fire.

A magic circle had formed high above, composed of three broken rings, their jagged gaps jutting outward like demonic horns.

Sylus's entire body blazed within its own energy field, burning brilliantly.

An angel with black wings? Impossible. How could such a being exist?!