Parallel Memory

Chapter 568: Zeros POV

The forests had long since given way to stone and shadow, and the jagged mountains behind us felt like they were watching, like black fangs biting into the horizon, reminding me there was no return. Every step forward pressed heavier on me—not from fatigue, but from restraint. It was a constant battle to keep my mana coiled tight within me, suffocated like a flame in a glass jar, while the dark energy seeped outward instead, masking my human presence.

It wasn’t a clean mask. It was like tar oozing from my skin, thick and clinging, whispering every time I exhaled, gnawing at my thoughts in ways I was afraid to admit.

Lilith walked beside me, her silence sharp as a blade. She’d already shifted her appearance again—her once radiant silver hair dulled into a matte raven-black, falling in messy strands. The proud curve of her ears had softened into the rounded shape of the commonfolk, and her eyes glowed no brighter than amber glass. She looked like another low-blood devil girl trudging down the road. But to me, she was still Lilith, her presence the only tether that kept me steady.

"Keep your flow steady," she murmured as we skirted another group of armored patrols clattering down the road. Her words were calm, but I could feel the tension beneath them. "Your dark energy is spiking."

My grip tightened around my cloak. "I know."

The truth was I didn’t. Or rather, I couldn’t help it. The more I used it, the harder it was to control. Every night, the warnings followed me—my Earth self, that mirror of me who looked the same but carried a sharper edge, who seemed to know more than I ever could.

He always came in my dreams. We stood face-to-face in that strange dimension of light and shadow, where the world stretched into nothing and yet pressed on me with unbearable weight. His voice was sharp, relentless.

"This energy will consume you. Every time you release it so freely, you are no longer wielding it—it is wielding you. Accept it long enough, and you’ll lose yourself. Do you want to become another monster, Zero?" he said while pointing at the emperor of destruction reminding me of his life.

I woke each time drenched in sweat, fingers twitching as though the shadows clung to me even outside the dream. And so I tried, whenever I could, to switch. When the valleys closed in or when the jungle swallowed us whole, I forced myself to breathe mana again, no matter how raw and exposed it made me feel. I had to strike some balance, or I’d collapse long before the capital’s gates.

The days blurred together. Every devil town we entered was another gamble with death. The air stank of sulfur and burning oil, merchants hawking trinkets laced with eerie enchantments, soldiers whose horns gleamed sharper than their blades. My tar-like aura made some glance twice, suspicion curling in their eyes. But Lilith was our shield—her shapeshift not just a disguise, but a role she slipped into with frightening ease. She spoke their tongue like one of them, moved with the subtle confidence of a noble-born, even when her face belonged to a peasant.

I followed her lead. Silent. Hooded. Always watching, always tense.

Seven days of walking tightropes. Seven days of silence between breaths, of flinching at every sound, of keeping my mind from splintering. By the time the capital finally rose before us, my chest ached with exhaustion.

The Devil Capital.

It was... monstrous.

Black stone walls arched into jagged towers that seemed less built and more grown, like the claws of some titanic beast clawing up from the ground. Crimson veins of light pulsed through the walls themselves, casting eerie glows on the streets below. Winged nobility flew overhead, their shadows stretching like vultures. The air was thick with power, oppressive and suffocating. The weight of Lord Aamon’s dominion was carved into every stone, every breath of the city.

"Keep your head low," Lilith whispered, her voice barely audible beneath the roar of the crowd. "We’re too close to be careless."

I obeyed, letting the cloak fall deeper over my face as we blended into the throng. The streets boiled with life—merchants trading, soldiers barking, horned beasts pulling carts of ore and chained prisoners alike. The smell of iron and smoke clung to my tongue.

We drifted from district to district, ghosts within the city. I listened more than I spoke, ears tuned to tavern whispers, the kind spoken only after the third drink when fear loosened tongues. In shadowed alleys, we gathered fragments of information, stitching together a picture piece by fragile piece.

The former king lived. That much was certain.

But he was imprisoned within the Black Bastille, the fortress beneath the capital’s heart. Guarded day and night, bound by chains of power so absolute even the most ambitious nobles didn’t dare dream of freeing him. To the devils, his existence was less of a secret and more of a warning. Proof of what happened when you opposed Aamon.

That was enough. Enough to light a spark of a plan in my chest. Fragile, desperate, but still a plan.

And then... it happened.

That feeling.

A gaze, heavy and unwavering, sliding across my skin from the darkness. My steps froze. The hairs on my neck stood on end.

I knew that presence.

My chest tightened, lungs clamping shut as if the city itself had wrapped around me. Slowly—like dragging a chain underwater—I turned toward the shadows.

And there she was.

Mia Frostine.

Even concealed, her pale hair gleamed faintly in the gloom. The cold sharpness of her gaze pinned me instantly. It wasn’t just her—shapes stood with her, figures my mind recognized before my heart could believe. Zion. Lisa. Sylvia. Misha.

My friends. My classmates. People I had left behind in the Human Domain.

The air collapsed inward, suffocating. The crowd, the city, the devils—it all fell away. All that remained was the impossible truth of their presence. How? Why? How could they have come so far, so deep into this cursed kingdom?

Lilith shifted beside me, tension radiating from her body. She followed my gaze, her amber eyes widening. "Zero..." she whispered, voice brittle with alarm.

I couldn’t answer. My thoughts clashed like blades, sparking and scattering without direction. I had prepared for enemies. For betrayal. For the dark energy trying to consume me. But not for this. Not for them.

And Mia—she knew. She always knew. Her gaze, sharp as a spear, pierced through the cloak, the disguise, the flimsy veil of dark energy. I couldn’t fool her. Not with masks. Not with altered mana.

My breath hitched. What could I possibly say? What reason could explain why I was here, moving through devil territory with Lilith at my side, black energy leaking from my skin like poison?

Why... Why were they here?

The weight of the question pressed harder than any chain.

But then, as quickly as they had appeared, they moved. Mia’s gaze lingered one moment longer, unreadable, then shifted away. One by one, they melted deeper into the alley shadows, their silhouettes swallowed by the crimson glow of the streets.

I followed with my eyes, numb and disbelieving, until they disappeared into the yawning arch of a building ahead. Not just any building. Massive, ancient, its spires carved with devil sigils that burned faintly in the night. An arena—huge building with hollow echoes.

My pulse thundered in my ears.

Mia. Zion. Lisa. Sylvia. Misha. In the capital. Inside that arena.

And suddenly, I realized—I wasn’t just here for the former Devil King anymore.

The web had grown thicker. I was in the middle of the novel’s plot. The war had begun and humans were initiating it.