Chapter 39. Hypocrite

Levin floated above us like a harbinger, sword still pointed at the Mega Tusk’s broken body. The beam hadn’t fallen yet, but the pressure in the air told us it would. The fog, which had stayed dormant since Levin’s bloodline awakened, stirred and drifted downward toward us.

“It’s coming,” Kevin muttered as he spread his mana around me and Lyra.

The fog hovered just above us, its voice sliding in before the mist began to roll outward. “None of you mortals understand what you're about to face.”

“You can’t fight a True Fate Seed, especially not one controlled by the Shadow Phoenix itself.”

“What are you doing?” I snarled at the fog, voice sharp with frustration.

“Protecting you,” the fog answered.

“You’re the one who pushed my son to this limit and now you’re protecting us?!” Kevin cut in before I could speak again. The mist continued thickening around us, swallowing the edges of the battlefield. “I’m not falling into your trap again,” Kevin barked.

Mana surged from his body, lashing out in a wide pulse that shoved the fog back. But it recoiled fast, slamming directly into Kevin’s outburst of mana. The recoil forced Kevin to one knee.

“Just sit,” the fog commanded. “I don’t get it. Why are you doing this?” I asked, hopelessness crawling up my throat. Even Kevin’s power had failed. There was no stopping this, let alone saving Levin.

Silence lingered before the fog finally replied.

“.......”

“I couldn’t understand why his spark lived in that boy...I had to see. I had to know if it was fate. Now I’ve seen what he is. I still don’t know if saving you was the right choice. But I didn’t want to let him down twice.”

Before I could speak again, a laugh echoed from above.

Whether it came from Levin or the Shadow Phoenix, I couldn’t tell. But it meant only one thing. The bomb was about to be dropped. I looked up and went still. The beam had grown massive. Levin’s body was completely hidden. Whatever it absorbed in those few moments had swollen it to something unnatural. Even from a horizon's distance, it loomed impossibly large.

How were we supposed to survive something like this? While the question circled my head, the beam let go.

It began to fall.

The black beam hurtled toward the earth, trailing a savage tail of flame and molten debris as it ripped through the sky. Its form glowed from within, threads of red pulsing beneath a shell of pure darkness. The friction alone ignited the sky. Streaks of glowing shadow carved across the air like claws tearing through fabric.

Beneath it, the Mega Tusk remained still. It stood in silence, illuminated not by sunlight, but by the shadow of the thing coming to erase it. The beam fell like a meteor, only worse. It descended with brutal calamity.

This wasn’t just a bomb. It was an extinction incarnate. A fireborn harbinger of annihilation. And the moment it touched the ground, the world fractured.

A solid column of black fire exploded upward, tearing through the sky with a roar that arrived seconds too late. The Mega Tusk vanished on contact, its body erased the instant fire touched it. There was no resistance, everything the beam touched caught fire and unmade itself. It vanished completely, obliterated without a trace.

The ground beneath it split—hollowed out, gouged into a pit so deep the bottom stayed hidden. The crater caved in and kept falling, tunneling past where even my sight could reach. A ring of force expanded from the center, sweeping trees aside like paper caught in breath. The earth surged upward, then folded in, twisting midair before disintegrating.

Then the shockwave came. It reached us before we had time to brace. The blast warped everything—color inverted, shapes stretched into streaks of charcoal and ember, bending space like breath drawn through fire.

My vision blurred. The force collapsed the air around us, smashing into the fog’s barrier. But it never broke through. The mist thickened again, forming a curved wall that caught the wave and held it. The sound tore past us, but the pressure stayed outside.

It felt like we stood inside the eye of a storm.

Outside, the world rippled in every direction. Dust spun in a tightening spiral, its mass dragged toward the crater, as if something were pulling from inside.

And then, silence.

After the dust began to settle, the fog released its hold on the barrier. The mist faded. The wind stopped. What remained was emptiness. As far as the horizon reached, the forest was gone—ripped out, erased, nothing left but ash and scorched emptiness.
All that remained was barren land.

Where the Mega Tusk once stood, there was only a hole.

Levin’s body lay near the crater’s edge, limbs splayed, unmoving. I hovered forward, but Kevin was faster—desperate, afraid Levin might vanish too. His body was completely bare. Whatever clothes he'd been wearing were gone, burned into nothingness. Kevin crouched beside him, checking his condition with sharp, trembling movements. Then, without a word, he pulled off his cloak.

It was long—too long. He didn’t just cover Levin’s body. He draped it from head to toe.

And for a second, my heart cracked.

I floated closer, reaching them. Tension coiled inside me as I stared at the cloak—like a body bag waiting for the final word. For a moment, none of us moved. The silence pressed harder than the blast ever had. Kevin’s shoulders tensed. His hands hovered above the cloak, as if afraid to check—bracing for the worst. My own breath caught. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

But... he was breathing.

“Wait...he’s breathing. Kevin, why did you cover him like that?”

Kevin didn’t look at me. “He’s naked, isn’t he?”

“Yes, I know he’s naked! But why the head?! You made it look like he died!”

“Oh. Oh… my bad.” He reached out to adjust the cloak and I noticed his hands.

They were shaking.

Kevin, the calmest guy in our entire party, was trembling just trying to pull the cloak back. I’d never seen him like that. Maybe he really had been scared—that Levin might not wake up. Scared enough to forget his composure.

“Is Levin okay now?” I muttered, my voice quieter than I expected.

“He should be fine for now. Just passed out after mana exhaustion,” Kevin said.

He moved his hand to gently lift one of Levin’s eyelids. There it was. Levin’s eye—normal again. No more pitch black. Just... him.

Behind us, the fog hadn’t moved. It still hovered in place watching, waiting. I had no idea what it wanted. And Lyra... she still hadn’t woken up. At least now, both she and Levin were safe.

“We can’t stay here,” Kevin said, voice rough.

“Yeah. We should find a place to rest. We can’t stay here long. We don’t know if the fog might pull something later.” I nodded. No argument.

Kevin lifted Levin carefully, wrapping the cloak tighter around his small frame. His movements were slow, deliberate — too careful for someone who usually moved with steel and certainty. I did the same trick again. I shrank into super mini dice mode and zipped into Lyra’s back. Then both Kevin and I walked out of that mess.

As we left, I glanced back.

The fog still lingered in the air. It didn’t stop us, just watched us go. I had a lot of questions I wanted to throw at it. Why had it held Kevin when Lyra was about to die? And why save us now, from the Shadow Phoenix? But now wasn’t the time.

We needed to make sure everyone stayed alive first. The rest could wait.

Together, we left the crater behind and the deepest part of Fosagi. Far enough that the mist thinned and the pressure eased. It took about an hour before we finally found a small cave, half-collapsed, but good enough. We had passed others along the way, but Kevin insisted we go further. Extra distance. Safety first.

Kevin laid Levin beside Lyra, he had already dressed him in clean clothes. He kept one hand on the boy’s shoulder, as if afraid to let go.

Both of them were still unconscious. But at least, for now, the danger was over. They just needed time. There, Kevin built a small camp and lit a fire. The afternoon air had begun to turn colder, so the flame was just enough to warm the cave. After scanning the area to make sure it was safe enough, he left briefly and returned with some forest chicken.

Kevin was busy preparing dinner. I dazed inside the dice, not sure what to do with myself. I hovered near the edge of the cave, too tired to process the mess we had survived. I wanted to sleep, but somehow that didn’t feel right.

The chicken lay above the campfire, flames crackling softly. Kevin brushed Levin’s hair back now and then. I could see it. The love in his eyes said enough. He must have been worried sick about his son.

I could not imagine it. If it were me, and my own kid had gone berserk like that, hollow-eyed, tearing the earth apart, leaving a crater big enough to swallow half the forest, controlled by some thing we did not even understand.

Yeah. I would probably lose it too.

I hated the silence. It felt thick. Unnatural. So I said the first thing that came to mind.

“So... you must’ve been surprised by Levin’s black flame, huh? His big bloodline debut kinda went nuclear.”

Kevin stayed silent. The awkwardness just kept growing. Damn it, mouth. Why’d you open yourself.

And then, he spoke. His words dropped like a second bomb. One with just as much force as Levin’s.

“That wasn’t his first time using the black flame.”

BAM! What?

That line shattered the air.

“Levin didn’t know,” Kevin continued, voice low. “He’s not aware of it.” He looked down. His shoulders trembled. “No one else knows either. No one but me.”

Then, barely above a whisper.

“I think... I don’t know. But after today... I’m starting to see it.”

Kevin swallowed hard.

“Maybe it was always about this. About the black flame. I should’ve seen it back then.”

“And now... maybe I know why she left us.”

Silence hung between us. His voice barely a breath.
“My wife...”

What?
I thought his wife left because of a normal couple fight or something like that. I never thought it had something to do with this...

He turned toward me, eyes glassy.

“Dan... please. Don’t tell anyone what I’m about to share.”
“I’m sorry if this sounds selfish. But I can’t carry it alone anymore. Not after all these years. Not after today.”

His whole body was shaking now. Shoulders hunched. Tears fell without restraint.

I didn’t know what to say. My dumb little comment had just cracked open another bombshell. Today was already too much. The Mega Tusk disaster. Lyra getting trashed. My complete helplessness. Levin dying. The Phoenix. The Fog. And now this.

Honestly.

I wanted to say no.

Not out of cruelty, but because I was full. Full of ash and noise and fear and things I hadn’t processed yet. But then I looked at him.

Kevin, who never flinched. Who never yelled. Who never looked this small. The only mature adult in the group—reduced to a trembling mess. A warrior bent not by flame or fang, but by memory.

Rejecting him now would’ve been easy. It was his problem, not mine. But it would’ve made me something I couldn’t stand. Rejecting him now felt wrong.

Is this what it means to be part of society?
You say yes even when you want to say no.
You pretend to care because the alternative isn’t a good option either.

I always said I hated hypocrites. But here I was.
Mouth open. Saying something I didn’t want to.

“Yeah you can share it... I won’t tell anyone,” I said softly, even though every part of me wanted to walk away.

And just like that, I lied.
To him. And to myself.

I said yes, not because I meant it, but because saying no felt worse.

Guess I became one too.
Hypocrites.
And I hated that it was so easy.

Then I added, remembering just in time.

“I can’t promise you about Lyra. She can read my mind. So don’t bring this up if she’s around, alright?”

Kevin gave me a slow nod and exhaled. With deliberate hands, he pulled his shirt over his head and let it fall without a glance. Across the tops of both shoulders, near the corners, I saw them.

Two burned scars.

The skin looked seared and twisted, the kind of burn that left a memory even after the pain was gone. Before he spoke again, his expression looked troubled, as if exposing the scars hurt more than the wounds themselves.

Then he said,

“The truth? It started before Levin was even born.”

“And I’ve been lying to him ever since.”