Chapter 353: The Mysterious Man’s True Identity Is Finally Revealed!

“Hahahaha! Do you see this now, son?! Look at what you have helped us accomplish! Humanity… humanity has finally evolved into its next stage! Aren’t you glad? Aren’t you happy, Zephyrus?”

“…”

The man ignored Willheim entirely. His eyes remained fixed on Riven, and the gentle smile across his face slowly widened, almost as if he had been waiting for Riven to recognize him.

Zephyrus… That was his name. The moment Riven heard it, something inside his mind reacted, but he could not tell whether it was a memory, instinct, or the influence of Genesis.

And his power was immense. The amount of psychic energy gathered within Zephyrus easily rivaled Riven’s own and surpassed that of any Genesis Clone he had ever fought. Even through the vision, Riven could feel it surrounding the man’s body and spreading across the entire laboratory.

Genesis’s malice could be seen within his eyes. No, it could be felt. The sensation crawled across Riven’s skin and entered his mind, making his body tense for a moment.

Yet Zephyrus continued smiling at him as though nothing were wrong.

“Y-You’re…! Why…? We’re…?”

As Riven began to understand the truth about this man, Zephyrus’s voice echoed throughout the laboratory. His body suddenly vanished, leaving behind only a scattering of black feathers. Before Riven could turn around, Zephyrus appeared behind him. He leaned closer and whispered into his ear with a gentle voice that made the words feel even more unsettling.

“We will meet again, brother.”

“?!”

Riven suddenly regained consciousness and began coughing, his entire body jolting as he struggled to breathe. One hand pressed against his chest while the other dug into the bloodstained grass beneath him. Daniela and Label, who had decided to accompany him into the dungeon, immediately turned toward him in surprise.

“Riven! What’s wrong?”

“Huh? That feeling…”

Label was also connected to Genesis and its cells, and she sensed something strange lingering around Riven. Thin particles of psychic energy drifted through the air before fading one after another. She tried to follow them with her eyes, but they disappeared beneath the eternal sunset covering the C-Rank Gate known as the “Forgotten Battlefield.”

It was a vast grassland covered in blood, broken swords, abandoned shields, and the corpses of countless soldiers. The dead continuously rose from the ground to fight one another and attacked anyone who entered their battlefield.

Riven and Label had infiltrated the dungeon together and were about to confront the boss of the first floor. At the same time, Riven had been controlling his shadow clone inside the Macabre Forest Dungeon, where Vladimir accompanied him. For a few seconds, the psychic attack left his connection to both bodies unstable.

“I’m… I’m fine,” Riven said, shaking his head. He forced himself to stand, released a long breath, and brushed the dust and dried blood from his clothes. His chest no longer hurt, but the memory of Zephyrus’s voice remained clear in his mind, giving him short headaches the more he remembered that man’s smile. “But that man… He called me brother? I had no idea I had another brother, but… he’s different from the rest. He’s…”

Riven stopped speaking as the answer formed in his mind. If Zephyrus truly looked almost identical to him, like a taller and slenderer twin, then there was only one explanation…

Without a doubt, he was also Viviane’s son. But unlike Riven’s other siblings, Zephyrus seemed to know exactly who he was and what Willheim had created him to become.

Could it be that his mother had hidden the truth from him? Had she actually given birth to twins, two sons who looked almost identical?

But somehow, one of them had been taken away by Willheim… If that was true, then Zephyrus had spent his entire life under that monster’s control while Riven grew up without ever knowing he existed.

But how had it happened? When had Willheim taken him? And why had nobody ever told Riven about it?

His mother was gone from his cells, so he could not even ask her about it. No matter how hard he tried to search through the memories and instincts she had left behind, he found nothing that could give him an answer.

But considering how honest she had been with him back then, why would she lie about something this important? Why keep Zephyrus a secret? Perhaps she had never known what happened to him, or maybe someone had erased that part of her memories.

“…”

Riven remained silent for several seconds before sighing and shaking his head. The questions kept piling up, and every possible answer only created more of them.

There was no point in wasting more time on this right now. Zephyrus was gone, the vision had ended, and the dungeon around them was still filled with enemies waiting to attack.

Still, Riven now understood that there was far more he did not know about his own life and family. Every truth he uncovered seemed to reveal another secret hidden beneath it.

Willheim’s fascination with him suddenly made more sense. And that “him” Willheim sometimes referred to whenever they fought… Could he have been talking about Zephyrus this entire time? Perhaps Riven had only reminded him of the son he had raised and transformed into whatever Zephyrus was now.

And Zephyrus could control any of the soldiers created by Willheim as if they were puppets. Did that mean they all shared his cells? If so, the perfected serum had not merely turned them into Super Soldiers. It had connected their bodies and minds to him.

Was… Willheim being deceived by Zephyrus into creating an army of tens, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of his own clones?! If Zephyrus could enter any of their bodies whenever he wanted, then destroying one soldier would accomplish almost nothing. He could simply move into another and continue fighting.

“Shit… I don’t like the sound of any of that,” Riven muttered, rubbing his forehead before shaking his head again. “For now, though, we have to conquer this place.”

“???”

“???”

Daniela and Label stared at Riven, genuinely confused by everything he had been murmuring.

Has Riven finally gone insane?

—–

Riven has an evil twin!

And yes he’s inspired by Sephiroth.

Riven and Zephyrus will have a similar relationship to Cloud and Sephiroth from FF7.