THE VILLAIN'S POV

Chapter 903: Illusion Called Reality

Frey and Abraham had begun sparring against each other frequently.

They fought seriously every single time.

With each duel, Abraham grew stronger. His growth had accelerated tremendously ever since he began unconsciously drawing upon the Ether inside his body, despite still being completely incapable of controlling it directly and relying on instinct alone.

”I feel like I’m the only one benefiting from these duals.”

Abraham spoke while sitting beside Frey at one corner of the open training grounds where they had fought moments ago.

Frey shook his head in response.

”I benefit from them just as much as you do.”

He answered while placing his mask beside him, relaxing calmly as though he carried no burdens at all.

Abraham let out a faint sigh, unconvinced by Frey’s words.

”Don’t flatter your old man. Unlike me... you’re clearly holding back and refusing to use your full strength.”

”That’s because you still haven’t recovered your own strength yet. Otherwise, I’d have to risk my life every time our swords collided.”

Frey answered calmly.

Abraham laughed.

”And now you’re flattering me again.”

He raised his hand, and Light Aura gathered around it as his Star Power began shining brilliantly.

Abraham focused harder, causing faint particles of gray energy, Ether itself, to appear around the white aura.

But his Ether was weak and incredibly faint.

”I feel like I’m living inside an illusion. An illusion I no longer understand.”

Abraham spoke quietly.

He had hidden his emotions skillfully until now, but Frey could see the truth clearly within his father’s eyes.

How shaken he truly was.

How unstable.

”Sometimes... ignorance is comforting, unlike truth, which can become hell itself.”

Frey spoke while staring toward the skies of the werewolf planet.

”I can barely keep up with everything you’ve shown me, son. Barely capable of understanding it... let alone believing it.”

”Out of nowhere, I learned that I have another family entirely. Other children... another wife I can’t remember anything about.”

Abraham’s eyes narrowed slowly as his fist tightened.

”What you told me hasn’t left my mind. Six entire months still weren’t enough for me to accept it... I feel as though all of this is nothing more than an illusion.”

While Abraham’s true emotions finally surfaced, Frey remained silent, listening quietly.

Abraham was suffering from a crisis that touched the very core of his existence.

Part of him refused to believe what Frey had told him, while another part accepted it completely.

He possessed no memories of the Writers, none of his children, none of his wife. The only family he knew was the one he built as Abraham, the life he lived after becoming Abraham and nothing before it.

The only children he still recognized as his own were Frey and Ada.

And his wife had died long ago, both the first and the second.

”It’ll be difficult to accept the truth. I couldn’t accept it either.”

Frey’s voice became quieter.

”My previous self... Nameless had to erase those memories entirely just to continue living afterward.”

”But you’ll be alright, Father. Ever since I became trapped inside the Material World, you were always there for me.”

”And now, I won’t leave you alone either. I’ll help you... until the day you recover everything.”

Abraham listened with trembling eyes.

He stared at his son, then forward into the distance, wanting to say something, yet unable to force the words out.

So he remained silent, lowering his head helplessly.

Frey gently placed a hand on his father’s back.

Supporting him.

The two sat together like that for several minutes until Abraham finally regained his composure and returned to normal.

Maskith was still busy engraving Frey’s Life and Death Mark onto the majority of the werewolf soldiers who had joined Shadow Sect, giving both of them enough free time to simply sit there without doing anything.

Abraham quietly stared toward the distant sky before finally asking with hesitation:

”My wife... the First Writer. What kind of person is she?”

A faint smile formed on Frey’s face when he heard the question.

”I don’t really know how to describe her properly. Even to us, her own family... she always felt very far away.”

”She’s... incredibly powerful. Powerful enough that I never managed to defeat her even once.”

”Cold. Unbreakable. She never reveals her true emotions.”

”And... she’s a passionate mother who cares deeply about her children and husband... even though she never openly shows it.”

A dry laugh escaped Abraham.

”She sounds terrifyingly capable. Are you sure I was actually married to someone like that?”

”If she’s stronger than you... then she’ll probably beat the hell out of me too.”

Frey laughed as well.

”She’ll be entering this world soon.”

”To beat the hell out of both of us.”

”Is that why you’ve been desperately increasing your strength lately? To prepare for her?”

Abraham asked with a strained smile, fully aware of the methods Frey had chosen in order to grow stronger.

Frey remained silent for a moment before finally answering.

”The moment we enter that continent, there’ll be no turning back.”

”It’s filled with monsters... The First Writer... my mother... is an existence as dangerous as Demon King Agaroth.”

”And there are others just as dangerous.”

”I need every bit of power I can obtain if I want to win against them.”

Frey spoke without the slightest trace of hesitation.

”The power you’re talking about... comes from the souls of the living beings inside this world.”

Abraham said quietly.

Frey nodded.

”That’s right.”

”There’s a reason I’m capable of becoming stronger by burning the souls of others.”

”In fact... I’m the only one capable of doing something like that.”

”Because the creatures of this world were originally created by me in the first place.”

”And by killing them, imprisoning their souls, then burning them... I reclaim the power through which they were created.”

”My strength rises. My control over Ether deepens.”

Frey spoke calmly before adding:

”And that’s why I haven’t attacked Hellmond yet.”

”Because I don’t want to kill the demons... only for the Ether they were created from to return to my mother and increase her strength instead.”

A faint smile appeared on Frey’s face.

”But I think the time has finally come.”

He made his decision.

”It’s time for us to go to Hellmond.”

...

...

...

A.N — End of Volume 4 —

Frey Starlight.

After the final fusion between Frey and Nameless, the definitive version of Frey was born. There will be no other version after this one. The current Frey is the strongest, and the most mentally stable, version of himself.

So the question here is this:

Is the current Frey the same Writer who created the Black Book and wrote the world of Land of Survival within its pages?

The answer is yes.

But not entirely.

From the very beginning, Frey was designed to be a broken character. Not ”broken” in the overpowered sense, but in the literal sense. Distorted. Damaged.

And I intentionally made him that way.

No matter how much stronger he became, no matter how powerful he looked from the reader’s perspective, that strength would always end up looking insignificant before the sheer scale of the challenge standing in front of him.

Because the wall before him was always impossibly high.

At the start of the story...

And even now.

The greatest example of that wall is the Demon King, Agaroth ... the highest wall one could ever crash against.

Frey desperately tried, again and again, to surpass that wall.

And every single time, he failed.

Whenever he failed, he would fall into a spiral of overwhelming despair. That despair created unbearable pressure that shattered him, forcing him to retreat into a safe zone inside his own mind ... a place he escaped to whenever failure and hopelessness consumed him.

He would give up and rest there...

While another version of himself would be born. A stronger one. One capable of facing the challenge and continuing forward.

At first, there was only one version sitting before the quiet campfire.

Then there were 2.3.4...

Until the entire place became crowded with countless versions of Frey.

And that alone is proof of just how broken Frey truly is as a character. How exhausted he became from constantly facing impossible trials.

The last versions to fall were Nameless...

And the final Frey, the one who carved the path toward the ending.

All of those countless versions have now become part of Frey the Writer.

So no...

He is not simply the Frey who created the world of Land of Survival.

He is something far more complicated than that.

The truth is...

Frey’s distorted existence has finally reached its absolute limit. And after everything he has gone through, I believe the time has finally come for his true rise .. the rise we will witness during the final two volumes.

I think he is ready now.

Strong enough to become the wall standing before his enemies instead.

Strong enough to finally evolve into the next stage.

And that is what the Nameless Ascension Arc truly means.

(Lately, my fingers have started feeling stiff whenever I write, almost as if they were made of stone. I just hope I can still create something good .)

As an additional note, I honestly don’t think I’m a very good writer when it comes to writing characters. In fact, I think I’m rather weak in that aspect. Still, I hope Frey is interesting enough for readers to care about him.