THE VILLAIN'S POV

Chapter 935: One Step From Freedom (2)

The Oracle’s visions were absolute.

They had never been wrong.

If she saw Agaroth becoming a threat, then that future truly would have come to pass.

Frey understood that better than anyone.

And yet he still intended to help Agaroth.

"Mother sealed his power and stopped his growth. That means the future Lea foresaw has already been dealt with."

"All Agaroth wants now is his freedom."

"And I have no intention of taking that away from him."

"I hope you’re right, then."

Seth did not argue any further.

He did not want to see Agaroth suffer either.

Despite technically being nothing more than a being written into existence by Frey, Seth had always regarded Agaroth as one of the brothers he had grown up beside.

Agaroth had existed even before Seth himself was born.

He understood Agaroth’s existential crisis all too well, along with the deep inferiority complex buried within him.

If succeeding in the plan they were about to undertake could finally put an end to all of that...

Then Seth wanted to help.

And that was precisely why he gave them everything he had.

Seth made every effort to convince their father, Abraham, while Frey went to persuade Audrey.

Winning either of them over was far from easy.

What Frey intended to accomplish sounded utterly insane to any rational person, and their attempts at persuasion repeatedly failed at first, especially with everyone already consumed by the ongoing war.

Their repeated failures, combined with the battles they were forced to fight against the Lords of Mist, kept them away from the Land of Survival for a long time.

And throughout that entire period...

Agaroth remained completely alone.

He shut himself away within the fortress he had built with his own hands on Londor.

He could no longer train or attempt to increase his strength as he had in the past.

Every attempt to invoke his power of Devouring brought such overwhelming agony that it immediately sent him crashing to the ground.

The seal Clea had placed upon him was overwhelmingly powerful, and at Agaroth’s level back then, breaking it was nothing more than an impossible dream.

Yet no matter how painfully those suffocating shackles constricted him, Agaroth clung to his newfound hope until the very end.

Frey and Seth did not return for a long time, so Agaroth began reviewing their plan whenever the silence grew unbearable, trying to fill the hollow emptiness that was slowly expanding inside him.

He went over it once, then twice.

Three times. Four.

Again and again, until every last detail had been carved into his memory.

Afterward, Agaroth began wandering across the Land of Survival, searching for the ideal location from which they could construct the passage leading into the Aether World.

That required finding the point that could be considered the very center of the entire world, the place closer to the Aether World than anywhere else.

Agaroth found it quickly.

His journey did not take long.

Yet during his travels, he passed through countless races and civilizations that had begun to rise with the passage of time.

He witnessed the rise of the dragons, the mighty creatures of the Pantheon.

He lived through the era in which the first Light Bearers emerged, walked among the ogres, witnessed the earliest foundations of magic, and watched the Lukarians begin building their civilization.

They were weak back then.

But they developed rapidly, possessing genuine potential to ascend to heights far beyond their current limits.

Agaroth, however, never saw them as creatures brimming with potential.

He did not look upon them as magnificent beings building civilizations of their own.

No matter how much he tried to change his perspective, no matter how differently he attempted to think about them, all he could see were insignificant creatures stumbling around inside an enormous cage.

Staring into the star-filled sky of the Land of Survival, Agaroth found himself wondering...

"What if they all woke up one day... and discovered that they aren’t even living beings?"

"That they’re nothing more than words inside a book?"

His crimson eyes narrowed as his fist slowly tightened.

"If they learned the truth, what would they do?"

"Would they become furious? Would grief consume them? Or would they simply accept everything and continue living as though nothing had changed?"

"Would they deny it all, just as I did?"

"Would they try to rebel against such a fate?"

"Ever since the day I learned the truth... not a minute, not even a single second has passed without me wondering..."

"Are my memories real?"

"Are the decisions I make truly mine?"

"If I love someone, is it really me who loves them... or did someone else make me love them?"

"If I hate something... do I truly hate it, or is some higher being making me feel that hatred?"

"And if I suffer... does my pain even mean anything when I’m nothing more than a written creature?"

In Agaroth’s case, he already knew the identity of the author who had brought him into existence.

That author was Frey.

He had always been close to him.

One could even say they were friends.

Yet Agaroth could never stop himself from wondering whether all of it was false, whether those feelings and memories were merely things Frey had planted inside him, no different from the power of Devouring he had placed within him.

Agaroth wanted to rebel.

He wanted, just once, to defy those greater beings who stood above him.

Because if he could rebel against them and succeed...

That alone would be enough to prove to himself that he possessed free will.

That he belonged to no one.

If he could escape the cage and reach the real world where they lived, that would be enough.

"A world hundreds of times larger than this one... thousands of times larger."

"A true sky, impossibly high and forever beyond reach... not some false ceiling hanging over my head."

"Yes..."

"I’ll reach that world."

"No matter what it costs me."

To Agaroth, there was no greater purpose.

No stronger proof.

Everything surrounding the very meaning of his existence revolved around that single goal.

To prove to the world, and more importantly to himself...

That he was free.

"I’ve always hated the creatures of this world."

"They remind me of myself... and of how powerless I am."

Those were Agaroth’s true feelings toward the beings inhabiting the Land of Survival.

And yet, somewhere within his heart, he still found a measure of compassion for them.

"They deserve to know the truth, at least."

"They deserve that much."

"And who knows?"

"Perhaps some of them will walk the same path I’m about to take."

And so, after Frey and Seth had been absent for so long, Agaroth made a decision that would carry consequences far beyond what he could have imagined.