Ravian took another step forward until only a sliver of space remained between his neck and the frozen hand.
"Who owns the bell? Who made it ring? Who gave each toll its meaning and then forced this entire world to obey it?"
The entity did not answer.
"You are the master of Evernight Palace. The bell is your true voice, the mist is the hand with which you eliminate the victims, and the laws are the cage you used to enforce your judgments."
An image appeared across the mirror, showing Bran driving the two axes into his own body at the third toll.
"Bran drove those axes into himself."
An image of Talia dying after her false accusation appeared next, followed by Garrick falling beneath Bran’s axes.
"Your judgment killed Talia, and Garrick was killed through the Traitor’s Tool, which you allowed to appear after lifting the prohibition against killing from its bearer. Bran was your axe, just as I was the one who chose the direction of the blow for you."
The images stopped.
"Yes, I selected the victims, and I knew they would die. But the question wasn’t: Who chose them? Nor was it: Who held the Killer role?"
Ravian stared into the pitch-black eyes that contained no trace of white.
"Your question was: Who is the killer?"
For the first time, the anger disappeared from the entity’s face and was replaced by fear.
Ravian continued, "Selecting the victims made me an accomplice to your crimes, and perhaps it made me worse than many killers, but it did not make mine the hand that carried out the death sentences."
He pointed directly at the entity.
"You are the owner. You created the world that imprisoned us, assigned the roles, enforced the punishments, and turned my choices into actual deaths."
Ravian looked toward Mirai and Aldric.
"And they are my witnesses to your final message before every nightfall."
Mirai nodded first, followed by Aldric.
The black mirror trembled.
"With two witnesses, I formally accuse you—the Nightmare and owner of this palace—of being the killer in this world."
A circle of colorless symbols appeared beneath the entity’s feet.
{A formal accusation has been registered.}
{Accused: The Nightmare, owner and master of Evernight Palace.}
{Means of communication submitted as evidence: The Black Bell.}
{Reviewing communication records...}
Scenes from all four nights, including the current one, raced across the mirror at tremendous speed.
{The Black Bell has been confirmed to have reached all participants.}
{Each toll has been confirmed to carry a distinct and comprehensible meaning.}
{Final communication before the enforcement of the death sentences has been confirmed.}
Thin cracks began spreading visibly through the entity’s body.
{Reviewing execution authority...}
{The Nightmare World has been confirmed to have carried out the death sentences.}
{The owner of the world has been confirmed responsible for the instruments of execution and the punishments.}
The entity opened its mouth, but the laws did not allow its voice to emerge.
The final line appeared.
{Accusation result: Correct.}
....
The result of the accusation remained suspended above the black mirror.
{Correct.}
No one moved for several moments.
Then the purple hand that had been reaching for Ravian’s neck contracted and transformed into threads of mist that separated from the entity’s arm. The same thing happened to the two masses that had attempted to silence Mirai and Aldric, which disintegrated in the air before they could touch them.
The entity retreated a step.
"No..."
A second circle of colorless symbols appeared around its feet, then the symbols rose from the floor and coiled around its body like intangible restraints.
The entity attempted to command the purple mist to move, but the mist did not respond, as though a higher authority had commanded it to remain still.
It raised its hand again.
Nothing happened.
Ravian watched it as a new conclusion began taking shape in his mind.
’It is the master of this world, but not the master of its laws.’
If the laws had belonged entirely to that entity, it would have been able to alter the result or silence the two witnesses before the accusation was completed. It had failed to do either, and now those same rules were stripping away the authority it had exercised throughout the Nightmare.
The owner of Evernight Palace was not the highest existence standing behind this world.
’It, too, was subordinate to something,’ Ravian thought, his eyes sweeping across the entire palace as it began shaking violently.
The space above the entity’s head trembled.
A faint, incomplete crown took shape, resembling the one that had hovered above Ravian’s head when he advanced to the Ninth Rank, though this one was slightly different. It consisted of hundreds of purple threads extending toward distant places beyond the palace walls. Ravian could not see their ends clearly, but through each thread, he caught a glimpse of a different world—another palace, a sunken city, a black temple, and an unfamiliar battlefield.
This was not the only Nightmare.
Other worlds were operating at the same time, each sending something to the same entity.
A crack appeared across the crown.
Then the voice came.
It did not originate anywhere within the hall, nor was it heard through their ears. It pierced directly into their souls, deep and slow like the call of a blue whale traveling across the bottom of a dark ocean untouched by sunlight for millions of years.
Ravian did not understand a single word. He could not even recognize it as a being’s speech in the first place.
The entity standing before them, however, understood everything.
It immediately dropped to one knee.
Its ever-changing features fell away, revealing undisguised fear upon its true face. It lowered its head before the empty space as the ancient notes continued one after another, each one deepening the cracks spreading across the crown.
Ravian did not know what was being said.
The entity’s expression told him enough.
The voice was not offering comfort.
It was passing judgment.
The entity raised its head with difficulty, then spoke in the comprehensible language of the palace.
"I did not intend to draw the Saviors’ attention to us, my ruler."
Ravian’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets upon hearing the one term he had come to hate more than any other since arriving in this world.
’The Saviors?’
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