Chapter 15 – Pact

"…To see what value remains in you, Ezra Ashenguard." "Before you become nothing but void."

The words floated in the air like stardust—heavy, yet alluring. They touched something within Ezra. But the boy didn't respond right away.

A silence took hold. The kind of silence that isn't empty, but too full—like the pause between two heartbeats on the verge of collapse.

Ezra furrowed his brow, eyes still fixed on that figure of light and shadow, judge and executioner, temptation and promise.

'Too good to be true,' he thought bitterly.

His throat tightened—not from fear, but resentment. His mind was already hardened by lies, false promises, serpent smiles like Bastian's. Even now, standing at the edge between dream and oblivion, Ezra couldn't believe.

"How about you go find some other idiot in a coma to hand candy to?" — his voice came out hoarse, but laced with irony, dripping venom. "And while you're at it, maybe kill me in the process?"

The figure didn't retreat. Didn't protest. Didn't even respond with anger. But the air around them seemed to freeze. The light dimmed. The mist condensed, as if holding its breath.

And then—a sound. A low, dry laugh, hollow—like rotting wood cracking beneath the weight of human arrogance.

"You're already dead, Ezra Ashenguard." The words came not as a threat, but as a verdict—cold, absolute.

Ezra scowled, his anger bleeding into his voice: "And how the hell would you know that?"
The entity returned, calm and unfazed: "The same way you think you don't."

Ezra clenched his fists, but didn't answer. "Then why do you keep dragging me back?" he growled, exhausted and furious. "What do you get out of this?"

The presence tilted its head slowly, like a predator studying prey it hadn't yet decided to devour. "Because echoes… can become screams. Shells… can become vessels. And the dead… can become Legis."

Ezra scoffed, a bitter chuckle escaping through clenched teeth. "Poetic. Profound. Pretentious." — he narrowed his gaze. "But still… not an answer."

The ground beneath Ezra's feet trembled slightly. As if reality itself were waiting for a reply.

"It's simple. Do you truly wish to be destroyed, Ezra?"
The question was blunt. No theatrics. No embellishment.

Ezra didn't answer right away. Not because he was surprised—but because the question echoed in a place he pretended to have forgotten.

"Honestly…" he began, voice shaky, yet steady, "…I don't even know anymore." It was a confession, an honest one.

"I just…" Ezra swallowed hard, his face caught between the shadows projected by his own mind. "…just wanted a chance."

His shoulders slumped. Like an old burden finally breaking him.
"I wanted to fight for something that was mine."
"Without being pushed. Without being used."
"Without living as the shadow of someone else's dream."

The figure ahead, made of smoke and static light, didn't reply immediately. It merely stepped back—and with that, the darkness around them receded slightly, revealing a flicker.

A spark. Fragile, hesitant. Like a candle in the wind.
But alive.
It danced in the void like a final heartbeat trying to remember what it meant to be human.

Ezra stared at it.

"I know it sounds selfish… maybe even hypocritical," he continued. "But… maybe, just maybe… if I'd been born into a normal family, with normal friends… in a normal society…"

"…I wouldn't have wished for any of this." The spark pulsed, as if it felt the weight behind each word. "But why should I suffer for something I was never given?"
"Why do I have to pay for sins I didn't commit?"
"Why did they get to shine… while I was cast into shadow?"

Silence.
But it wasn't indifference.
It was waiting.

"It's simple," the figure replied, with that voice that seemed to echo through the ages. Gentle, almost affectionate—but with an underlying cruelty.

"Suffering is part of existence. And the degree of that suffering… depends on what you do with it."

A hand extended toward Ezra. It was made of mist, light, cracks, and something older than time itself. Like a broken promise trying to become an offering.

"If you don't want to suffer anymore… fight, Ezra."

Ezra looked at the hand. It wasn't aggressive. Nor was it welcoming.

He didn't move."…and what if I don't want to fight?"

The question slipped out sharper than he expected. It wasn't a bluff, nor dramatics. It was cruelty—directed inward.

"What if I just want to disappear?" His voice weakened, turning into a whisper. "If that's what would set me free?"

The figure remained still.
There was something ancient in its stillness.
Not pity. Not judgment.

"You can." The answer came plainly. "You can give up. You can let go. Many already have. And the world will keep turning. Nothing will stop because of your absence."

Those words, though true, hurt. But what hurt more was the honesty in them.
No lies. No false hope. No promise that he was irreplaceable.
He wasn't.
And he knew it.

"But…" The figure tilted its head. "That's not what you want, is it?"

Ezra trembled. The words from the self-proclaimed demon struck exactly where they were meant to.

"And what if I fail again?"

The spark between them flared brighter, as if answering for itself. The figure stepped back slightly, its silhouette flickering. "Then you'll try again."

Ezra felt his stomach churn. That answer… so simple.
No guarantees. No promise of victory.
Only the certainty that if he tried… he might fail.

"After all," said the voice of the demon — or judge, or whatever it truly was — "the just will be justly dealt with."

Ezra looked up, teeth clenched. "Only when it's convenient."

"And effort will always be rewarded." The demon continued

"Only when all the conditions are met." The anger flared like a dying ember.
No longer hot enough to burn — just enough to keep the pain alive.

"And what if I told you…" the figure stepped closer, "that the conditions have been met?"

Ezra hesitated. His heart, though weak, leapt. He wanted to scream it was a lie, that it made no sense.
But he also wanted to believe. Because if it was true — if something within him still remained — maybe there was more than ruin ahead.

"Then I'd say you really are a PhD-level demon."

The figure stood still for a moment, as if savoring the response. No visible reaction.
But Ezra felt it — in the shift of the air, in the weight that settled over the void —
It had laughed.
Not with mockery.
Not with delight.
But with something else...

"Maybe I am," the entity replied. "But even demons know truths humans would rather forget."

Ezra turned his face away, as if that alone could silence it. "And what if this is just another trap? A new kind of disappointment?"

The figure stepped closer again. Now so near that Ezra could feel its coldness

"You've already been deceived by friends. Betrayed by blood. Silenced by those meant to protect you. What would one more lie change?"

Ezra bit his lower lip. He was still there. At the end of everything, he was still himself — shattered, yes. But standing, even if inside he'd been on his knees for a long time.

"I don't have a Codex…" he murmured. "No Law. Nothing."

"Wrong," the figure answered. "You have what none of them ever did."

Ezra arched a brow. "Oh, please. Enlighten me with another one of your poetic nothings."

The entity crouched before him, eyes of light at his level. And for a moment, the void stopped spinning.

"You have absence — and above all, you are greedy. Your hunger is boundless. And each of these is, if not a Law itself, a fragment of the Primordial Ones."

The figure raised the spark. It now hovered between them. Waiting.

"You can reject it all. Die here. Or…" The pause was enough to make time ache. "…you can claim what no one ever has."

Ezra said nothing. The chaos inside him danced like loose sparks in a barrel of gunpowder. Hope and skepticism collided like storm-tossed waves in a war that had raged for years. But there, within the hush before the inevitable, something inside him — an old, forgotten beat, but not yet dead — began to pulse again.

Faint.
But alive.

"I must be going even crazier than I already am…" he muttered, eyes locked on the spark that floated between his fingers like a secret whispered by the universe.
He reached out his hand.

And in that moment, Ezra felt the weight of a truth that didn't come from outside.
A truth locked within him for years.

"If I accept this…" he whispered, gaze sharpening, "I don't want to be saved."
A pause. An echo.
"I want to be free... To do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whoever I damn well please — even if it means unliving someone."

At that instant, the forming mist trembled once more, and the figure before him laughed.
A deep laugh — without lips, without sound — but felt in the bones.

It had finally taken form. Tall, slender, humanoid — a being of silent might.
With long, jagged white hair that fell like silver rivers down to its waist, swaying in a wind that did not exist.

Two horns curved backward in spirals, like an ancient crown carved from shadowed bone.
With wings — massive, folded across its back. One hand held a mask close to its face: smooth, pale, marked by three slits — two for eyes, one for a mouth — all empty.
The other hand… gripped Ezra's.

"Of course… After all, you are Ezra Ashenguard." The voice echoed more inside him than around.
And then, in the silence that followed, something moved.

On the mask.

A smile appeared. Not just on the mouth — but in the eyes too. The slits curved, almost imperceptibly, as if the mask was alive — or worse: as if smiling was its natural state.

Ezra looked up, startled by the demon's form. Still, he did not flinch.
He'd come too far to falter now.

"If I am Ezra Ashenguard…" His voice came out firm, sharp, like a blade sheathed for far too long.
"…then tell me, demon…"

"Who are you?"

The figure didn't answer right away.
The silence stretched, taut as a drawn bowstring — until, with a slowness almost ceremonial, the smile on the mask widened.

"I am Mazzareth."The voice was manifold.Each syllable sounded as if spoken by a different mouth — deep, sharp, whispering, ancient."Civilizations have called me by many names: Judge. Legislator. Devourer. Usurper. Reaper of the Seven Crowns."

Mazzareth leaned in slightly, like someone about to whisper a secret to a mortal forgotten by the gods."But to you, Ezra Ashenguard, one name will suffice…"

The presence moved closer — and Ezra saw.Inside the figure, behind the translucent skin and eyeless mask, words floated.Symbols. Fragments of unwritten laws, as if its body was made of forgotten clauses and promises that never should have been made.

"…The Soul Devourer."

Ezra didn't flinch.

His fists clenched, even as the void around him seemed to press against his bones. "And what do you want with me, Mazzareth?"

The mask tilted slowly. The mouth smiled. This time… the eye slits smiled too. Literally.The once-empty gaps twisted into curved lines, revealing… teeth.

Not human teeth. But fine, symmetrical rows — sharp as unbreakable clauses. As if the mask, at last, revealed the predator behind the formality.

"I want nothing, Ezra…" The voice was thicker now. Almost tender. Almost affectionate. "Except for your soul. And The Laws hidden beneath"

The mask leaned even closer. "I offered. You accepted. And now…"

Ezra looked at Mazzareth's outstretched hand. It was pitch black and bony — yet that didn't make it any less imposing. If anything, it made it more.

Ezra let out a laugh. Dry. Tired. But, somehow, sincere.

"You want my soul?" he murmured, his grip still firm around Mazzareth's."I never used it for anything anyway… to begin with."