Razeal and the old man stood locked in silence, eyes fixed on one another. Time felt suspended, as if the endless white walls of the chamber themselves were holding their breath. Neither blinked or shifted. It was just the weight of two wills colliding in the void.

The old man finally exhaled, his chest expanding against the cruel spikes that impaled his body. His voice came low, steady, carrying the authority of decades lived in defiance.

"I don't know why you're so confident, boy," he said. "But No I will not become someone's lapdog. I have never lived bowed beneath another, and I won't start now. I've lived seventy-six years under my own will, my own pride. To throw that away, even for a handful of borrowed years… it would be shameful. Embarrassing. When history remembers me, they will not say I bent the knee to some arrogant brat. No. I'd rather let my life end here in this sterile tomb than spit on everything I stood for."

His eyes never wavered, still locked with Razeal's.

Razeal's smirk only widened. His voice dropped lower, almost conspiratorial.

"I know about the divine boon your ancestor received," he said smoothly. "The blessing. The same one that still chains you. I know it only left you four years to live. But what if you could live longer? What if you could walk out of this prison and still see the world.. More then you say to be?"

The old man's jaw tightened, though his eyes flickered with the faintest tremor of surprise. His voice came sharp, edged with warning.

"Stop bullshitting me. No one.. no one.. can undo his Will. It is inevitability itself.. Don't waste my time pretending otherwise."

Razeal shrugged, as if the disbelief didn't bother him in the slightest. "Believe it or don't. Makes no difference to me. I have more important things to accomplish. Compared to what I'm chasing, undoing that little curse of yours would be nothing more than a side job."

The old man's lips curled faintly. He couldn't decide if the boy was delusional or if his arrogance was simply too great to comprehend limits. Still, the certainty in his tone stirred something in him.. a tiny spark of doubt against his own conviction.

"No need," the old man said flatly after a moment, dismissing it with a shake of his head. "You knowing about it is surprising enough. That secret was supposed to die with my bloodline. But I will not cling to false hope, nor throw away my ideals on a child's claim."

Razeal's eyes narrowed slightly. He leaned forward just enough to let his words sink deep.

"So you really don't want to leave here?"

"If leaving means breaking myself into someone's subordinate, then no. I won't." The old man's tone was resolute, iron-strong.

Razeal's smirk deepened. His voice dropped to a whisper, cruel and deliberate. "Oh? I wonder about that… What if I told you you could spend your last few years with your daughter?"

The old man's eyes fluttered wider. For the first time, his composure faltered. Confusion cracked across his face like a hairline fracture in stone.

Razeal's smile stretched faintly, knowing he had struck something vital. "Yeah. You heard me right. You might not have known… but your lover carried your child. After you were taken into Eternal Hold, she bore a daughter, just seven months later. She's alive. Twenty-nine years old this year." His tone softened only slightly, just enough to sound almost sincere. "Don't you think that poor girl deserves to know her father? To at least see his face once before his life is gone?"

The chamber seemed to still. The old man's lips pressed together tightly. His eyes drifted downward, shadowed by thick lashes. His chest rose and fell in slow, deliberate breaths, spikes groaning softly against his restrained body.

He hadn't known. He had believed himself alone. His woman dead or moved on, his bloodline ended with him which he honestly wished it should. Still he had lived thirty years in this cage thinking there was nothing waiting for him beyond its walls.

A daughter…Haa?

His mind spun in jagged circles. Twenty-nine years. She would be a woman now. A stranger who carried his blood. She had never once seen her father. Did she even know his name? His face? Would she hate him for being absent? Would she resent him? Or would she… would she want to meet him, even once, before fate claimed him?

The thought twisted inside him, a sharp ache he hadn't felt in decades. Long-buried emotions stirred in his chest.. hope, guilt, longing.

But when he finally lifted his gaze back to Razeal, his expression was steady again. Controlled.

"So now you're trying to buy me," he said at last, his voice low and heavy. "First with greed. Now with emotions. You think dangling the idea of my daughter in front of me will make me crawl?" His eyes sharpened, cutting into Razeal's with dangerous intensity. "Do you think you can purchase my will like some cheap merchant's trinket?"

Razeal tilted his head, his smirk never faltering. He said nothing, but the confidence radiating from him was unshaken.

"I don't move because of manipulation," the old man continued. "I've lived my life by one principle: I only do what my will commands me. My pride is not for sale. My loyalty is not something to be bought with tricks. If I walk beside you, boy, it will not be because you forced me, or bribed me, or waved promises of family in my face. It will be because I decided it myself."

His words echoed in the chamber, iron-clad.

Razeal folded his arms across his chest, gaze cool, utterly unfazed. The smirk curved into something sharper, as if he'd expected exactly this answer.

The silence between them was as heavy as the endless white walls that surrounded the chamber.

Finally, the old man broke the silence, his deep voice echoing with the authority of decades spent unbowed.

"And if it really is about meeting my daughter, about freedom, about escaping this damned hole…" his eyes burned with restrained fire, "then I could have it right now. Do you understand that, boy? If I begged that Empress.. if I lowered my head, just once she would free me. She would unleash me, if only to bind me under her banner. She would gladly take I, Yograj Molarious as her subordinate. That is an option I could claim even now. So why, tell me, should I choose you?"

His voice deepened, reverberating with iron will.

"The man who spent thirty years here, rotting in chains, only because he refused to bow… Do you truly think that man would surrender himself to a child? You need to try better." His lips curled into a thin, grim smile. "I am Yograj Molarious. Untamed. Unruled. Not even the Empire could make me kneel. Do you really believe you could?"

The words weren't boast. They were fact, spoken with the calm certainty of a man who had stood unbroken before armies and rulers alike. His eyes blazed with pride, with majesty the very essence of a man who had carved his existence through defiance.

Razeal bowed his head slightly. For a moment, the smirk that so often twisted his lips widened even more.

A quiet laugh stirred. He passed. He said in his head.

Yes, this was what he had been waiting for. Not submission. Not weakness. But the unshakable pride of a man who would rather die than betray his principal's.

Razeal's lips curved again, but this time into a genuine smile.. not mocking, not cruel. Satisfied.

When he lifted his head again, his entire demeanor had changed. The mischievous arrogance slipped away, replaced with an earnest calmness. His voice carried a weight it had lacked before, respectful, even noble in its cadence.

"I would like to apologize for my rudeness," he said evenly. "It is… just an habit of mine. I mean.. People see the world through different eyes, different priorities, different perspectives. It was my own shallow thought that made me assume you were the kind of man who could be bent. But clearly.." his smile widened, carrying a faint warmth. "I was mistaken."

The humility in his tone was startling, so utterly unlike the boy's earlier sharpness, that Yograj raised a single thick brow. The words, the rhythm, the dignity.. it was almost as though the boy had been schooled in noble etiquette.

"I hope you won't take my small act to heart," Razeal continued. "Human behavior is… inconsistent. Sometimes we judge too quickly. I misjudged you. That much I'll admit and i have apologized for that "

Yograj studied him for a long moment, the weight of his gaze heavy. Then, with a slow nod, he allowed a faint exhale through his nose. "I understand, young man. People are… many things. Priorities differ. Not every face shows the truth."

The shift was subtle, but undeniable. The hostility in Yograj's voice softened into the first shade of acknowledgment. Afterall this boy wasn't entirely misguided just unpolished. As indeed, one cannot judge a person's character by their face alone. And yes, everyone carries their own priorities.

Razeal seized it instantly.

"In that case," he said, straightening his shoulders, "I would like to change my offer. I won't ask you to be my subordinate. That was wrong of me. Instead…" He let the words hang, a faint glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "Come with me as my partner."

Yograj tilted his head.

"No restrictions. No orders. I won't command you, nor will I try to leash you. You'll be free to do as you please. Fight beside me when you wish, walk your own path when you don't. But together, we could… achieve more. Isn't that what you want? To live the last years of your life as you choose?"

The old man narrowed his eyes. Silence stretched between them once more.

Razeal pressed further, his voice measured, weaving each word with care. "I mean… it's not like I could force you, even if I wanted to. You want freedom. Adventure. To see new horizons. That's what drove you to defy the Empire in the first place, isn't it? That restless desire to step into the sea, to explore, to clash with the unknown. That's why you risked everything, even your life. Wasn't it because land… land is boring? Land is predictable. Known."

Yograj's lips twitched faintly.

"And wasn't it the sea you longed for?"Razeal's eyes gleamed as he leaned closer, his tone carrying almost a whisper of reverence. "The endless expanse of water. The uncharted. The dangerous. The free."

He extended his hand, not in command, but in invitation. "So Come with me. Not as my servant. As my partner. Let's walk to the Ocean Black together. You'll have your freedom. Your adventure. Your last four years spent exactly as you dreamed. I mean its not that we doing anything different.. its just we have same exact destination and just walking on path together.."

For the first time in decades, Yograj's face cracked into something other than stoic defiance. A smile.. wry, sharp, faintly amused.

He could see through the boy's ploy. He knew this was another tactic. The boy had shifted from crude demands to polished persuasion, almost buttering him up, appealing to his pride, his ideals, his wanderlust. Clever.

And yet… the words resonated. Deeply.

Because Razeal wasn't wrong. If he escaped alone, if he begged the Empress, he would simply trade one cage for another. A longer leash, perhaps, but still a leash. And wasn't it true that all he ever wanted… was to see the uncharted seas before death finally claimed him?

The boy was sly. Too sly for his age. A fox dressed in the skin of a young ripe age. But perhaps… a fox worth watching.

Yograj chuckled, shaking his head faintly, still impaled on the cruel spikes. A sly fox, at this age. What kind of hell did he crawl out from, to already speak with such cunning?

His eyes lingered on Razeal. And against his will, he felt a flicker of amusement ripple through his chest.

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