Chapter 395 -: 394 I will kill you, Fate!

Chapter 395: Chapter: 394 I will kill you, Fate!

"You sound like a witch trying to seduce me," Julius frowned as he glanced at Vitra, his expression caught somewhere between suspicion and disbelief.

Although he had come here for precisely this purpose, since Destiny had promised that he would receive an inheritance, the way Vitra had been speaking made the entire affair sound suspiciously like a kidnapping.

If he hadn’t known better, he might have suspected that the enormous man was trying to lure unsuspecting children onto some remote island with promises of wonderful gifts, only to reveal his sinister intentions after they had already stepped inside.

Vitra stared at him without responding.

For several seconds, the enormous man seemed genuinely incapable of deciding how to react, his previous composure giving way to an expression of complete bewilderment.

Perhaps he had expected Julius to be anxious about Rosalina, desperate to obtain the promised inheritance, or at the very least curious about what awaited him beyond the mysterious passage.

He certainly hadn’t expected the man standing before him to compare his carefully prepared invitation to the schemes of a suspicious witch.

Then again, considering the state of Julius’s love life, perhaps Vitra shouldn’t have been surprised that the man had managed to find something else to complain about.

After all, Destiny had revealed the truth to Rosalina for precisely this reason. She wanted Julius to fear losing the woman he loved enough that he wouldn’t hesitate to enter the space Vitra had prepared for him.

Under ordinary circumstances, Julius might have questioned the arrangement, demanded an explanation.

However, with Rosalina already gone and the possibility of losing her weighing heavily on his mind, he was far less likely to resist. It was a rather cruel way of ensuring his cooperation, but Destiny had apparently decided that his willingness to act mattered more than his comfort.

"Well, don’t look at me like that," Julius sighed, noticing Vitra’s dumbfounded expression. "I’m going in, so you don’t have to worry about convincing me. I trust Destiny."

As he spoke, Julius turned toward the passage through which Rosalina had disappeared.

Although the opening before him looked similar to hers, he could sense a difference between the two, as though each had been prepared for a specific purpose. He couldn’t explain how he knew this, but the distinction was unmistakable.

Nevertheless, he had no intention of wasting time investigating it. Rosalina had already entered her inheritance, and if he wanted to understand what Destiny had planned for him, the only reasonable course of action was to follow.

Yet even as he approached the opening, Julius couldn’t help wondering why he trusted Destiny so readily.

He had known her for a relatively short time, and everything he had learned about her suggested that she was a being whose intentions could hardly be understood by ordinary mortals.

Her knowledge was vast, her influence extended far beyond what he could comprehend, and her seemingly boundless kindness toward him was suspicious enough that the old Julius would have remained on guard regardless of how warmly she treated him.

He had spent much of his life learning not to trust things simply because they appeared desirable, especially when the person offering them possessed the power to decide his fate.

So why was he behaving differently now?

Was it because Destiny was an all-knowing goddess, someone who could perceive truths that remained hidden from everyone else?

That explanation seemed insufficient. If anything, her overwhelming knowledge should have made him more cautious, since a person capable of seeing so much could easily manipulate him without his ever realizing it.

Perhaps it was the way she treated him, the inexplicable familiarity he felt in her presence, or the quiet certainty that had settled within him whenever she assured him that things would work out. He couldn’t identify the reason, and that uncertainty bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

However, questioning his own trust wouldn’t change the situation before him. Rosalina was already inside the space Destiny had prepared, and whatever awaited her there was beyond his control.

He could either remain outside, wondering what might happen, or enter the passage and discover the truth for himself. Considering that he had already agreed to follow Destiny’s arrangements, there was little point in continuing to hesitate.

As for the promise Vitra had made regarding Rosalina, Julius could only hope that the man hadn’t been lying.

"All right, I’m going."

Julius took a final glance at Vitra before stepping through the opening. The instant he crossed its threshold, the space behind him closed, sealing itself without leaving so much as a trace of its former existence.

He didn’t feel any noticeable shift in his body, nor did he experience the sensation of being transported across a great distance.

One moment, he had been standing before Vitra, and the next, he was somewhere else entirely, surrounded by an unfamiliar darkness that stretched beyond the limits of his vision.

"Where is this place?" Julius murmured, looking around.

Nothing answered him. There was no visible ground beneath his feet, no sky above his head, and no discernible landmarks that might help him determine where he had been taken.

Darkness surrounded him in every direction, so complete that he initially wondered whether he had lost his sight.

Yet he could still perceive his own body, and the sensation of standing on something remained despite his inability to see what supported him.

Then he noticed something moving within the darkness.

Julius’s eyes widened as countless threads appeared before him, their luminous strands stretching across the boundless expanse in every direction.

Crimson, silver, emerald, sapphire, violet, gold, and innumerable other colors intertwined with one another, extending so far that their paths eventually disappeared beyond his perception.

Some ran parallel to one another, while others crossed, twisted, and converged into intricate patterns that seemed to possess a structure of their own.

The longer he looked, the more he realized that the threads weren’t simply scattered throughout the darkness. They formed an incomprehensibly vast network, one whose full extent he couldn’t begin to imagine.

"I can see them?"

The words escaped him before he could stop himself. His gaze moved from one luminous strand to another, and the blood gradually drained from his face as the truth dawned on him.

"Threads of Fate..."

He knew what he was looking at. He had seen these threads before, although never under circumstances like these.

When Destiny had allowed him to witness her vision, he had been able to perceive them through the power she shared with him, but that experience had been fundamentally different from what he was experiencing now.

Back then, he had merely been shown something that belonged to her. Here, he was seeing the threads directly, without Destiny’s intervention or any apparent explanation for his ability to perceive them.

His heart tightened as he stared at the endless network surrounding him.

He didn’t know whether the threads had always existed in this place or whether their appearance had something to do with his arrival, but he could feel that he had stumbled into something far beyond the inheritance he had expected to receive.

The darkness itself seemed strangely oppressive, and although the threads radiated enough light to make their colors unmistakable, their brilliance did nothing to dispel the surrounding blackness.

It was as though the light had been permitted to exist only within the narrow boundaries of each strand, forbidden from reaching anything beyond them.

For a moment, Julius considered turning around and demanding an explanation from Vitra.

However, the passage had already vanished, leaving him with no obvious way to return. Even if he could somehow reopen it, he doubted Vitra would be standing on the other side waiting to answer his questions.

The enormous man had sent him here for a reason, and Julius suspected that the inheritance he had been promised was connected to the threads surrounding him.

But if that was the case, where was his inheritance?

"Where is my Invincible Path Legacy?" he muttered, his brows drawing together.

He had entered this place expecting to receive it.

Instead, he had found himself standing in an endless void, staring at the very threads that governed the destinies of countless beings.

There was no explanation, no instruction, and no indication of what he was supposed to do next. As the silence continued, his unease gradually turned into frustration, and he began to wonder whether Vitra had deliberately sent him here without explaining anything simply because he found it amusing.

Just as Julius was beginning to consider his options, a voice echoed through the darkness.

"You are finally here..."

The sound seemed to come from an immeasurable distance, as though the speaker were standing thousands of miles away.

Yet at the same time, it felt impossibly close, almost as if the voice had been spoken directly beside his ear.

There was something deeply unsettling about it, something that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise before he could even begin to understand why.

Julius stopped moving.

The threads around him began to shift, their previously scattered paths gradually becoming denser and more coordinated.

Strands that had seemed to stretch independently across the darkness now converged toward a single point, weaving together into an intricate arrangement that drew his attention despite his growing apprehension.

The change spread through the surrounding expanse, and the longer he watched, the more it seemed as though the entire network was responding to the arrival of someone whose existence carried an authority beyond his comprehension.

Then a throne appeared.

It materialized only a few meters away from him, its enormous frame forged from a black substance that seemed to absorb the darkness around it.

Sitting upon the throne was a man whose appearance was almost entirely obscured, leaving only his long, faded blonde hair and the horrifying emptiness of his eye sockets clearly visible.

Thick crimson blood streamed continuously from those hollow sockets, running down his face before disappearing into the darkness below.

His features were difficult to distinguish, as though reality itself refused to acknowledge the existence of the being seated before Julius.

The man’s face looked exhausted beyond description, carrying the weariness of someone who had endured countless ages without the possibility of rest.

Yet despite that exhaustion, there was something about his presence that made Julius feel insignificant, as though the person before him existed on a level of reality that he could neither understand nor challenge.

The countless threads of Fate extended from the man’s hands, stretching into infinity as he held them with an ease that seemed almost natural.

Julius stared at him, his heart pounding so violently that he struggled to breathe. He knew that face.

More importantly, he recognized the overwhelming feeling of dread that accompanied the man’s presence, a sensation that seemed to reach into the deepest corners of his soul.

"Y-you..."

His voice faltered as he took an instinctive step backward, unable to tear his eyes away from the eyeless man.

He wanted to demand an explanation, to ask how this person had appeared before him and why he was sitting upon a throne surrounded by the Threads of Fate, but the words refused to come.

His mind had already begun racing through countless possibilities, each more disturbing than the last, while the man simply regarded him from his seat as though he had been waiting for this encounter for a very long time.

Before Julius could gather his thoughts, the man rose from the throne.

The movement was unhurried, almost weary, yet the moment he stood, the surrounding threads began to tremble.

He released the countless strands he had been holding, allowing them to drift freely into the darkness, and turned his empty eye sockets toward Julius.

Although no expression could be discerned on his face, the silence that followed carried a weight that made Julius feel as though he were standing before someone who had already decided his fate.

"Destiny couldn’t tell you the truth," the man said, his hoarse voice carrying the same distant echo Julius had heard moments earlier.

"If she had told you everything, you would never have entered this place. You would have remained outside, convincing yourself that you were protecting Rosalina, when in reality, you would only have been running away from what was always meant to happen."

Julius’s expression changed as he heard Rosalina’s name. His fear was quickly overshadowed by anger, and he opened his mouth to demand an explanation, but the man continued before he could speak.

"You came here believing that you would receive an inheritance, and perhaps that is what you were promised. However, there are some things you must understand before you can obtain what belongs to you. There is no need to be afraid, Julius. Everything that has brought you here has already been set in motion, and no matter how desperately you struggle against it, you cannot escape what has been destined to happen."

"Who the hell are you, fraud?!" Julius demanded, his voice trembling with a mixture of fear and fury. "What do you mean by that? And what have you done to Rose?"

The eyeless man offered no immediate answer. Instead, he began walking toward Julius, his movements slow and deliberate, as though he had no reason to hurry.

Julius instinctively retreated, his body tensing as he prepared to defend himself. He didn’t know what sort of existence stood before him, but the sight of the Threads of Fate extending from the man’s hands was enough to convince him that this was not someone he could afford to underestimate.

"Stay away from me, fraud!" Julius warned, gathering his strength as he prepared to attack.

The man ignored him.

Before Julius could react, the distance between them disappeared, and the eyeless man appeared directly before him.

Julius barely had time to register the movement before the man’s fist struck his body, sending a shock through him that seemed to reach far deeper than his flesh.

He tried to retaliate, but his limbs refused to respond as the force of the blow overwhelmed him, leaving him struggling against an invisible pressure that held him firmly in place.

"Now," the man murmured, his voice carrying a strange mixture of weariness and anticipation, "it is time for us to become one."

Julius’s eyes widened in horror.

He struggled desperately, attempting to wrench himself free, but his resistance accomplished nothing. Something had begun moving within him, something that felt as though it were reaching into every part of his being and claiming it for itself.

He couldn’t tell whether it was his body, his soul, or something even more fundamental that was being affected, but the sensation was unmistakable. Whatever the man was doing, it wasn’t simply an attack. It was an invasion of his very existence.

"No... stop!" Julius tried to shout, but his voice came out weak and distorted.

The man’s presence pressed against him, and Julius felt his consciousness beginning to slip away.

His vision darkened at the edges as the surrounding threads blurred together, their countless colors dissolving into an indistinguishable mass of light.

He fought to remain conscious, desperately clinging to his thoughts as though doing so might somehow prevent whatever was happening from reaching its conclusion.

Yet the harder he struggled, the more helpless he felt.

Hatred and resentment filled his heart as he stared at the eyeless man, unable to understand why this was happening or what connection existed between them.

He wanted to curse the man, to demand answers from Destiny, and to find some way to return to Rosalina, but his thoughts were becoming increasingly difficult to hold together.

’R-Rose...’

Her name was the last thing he could think of clearly.

As Julius’s consciousness finally began to fade, the eyeless man continued holding him in place, his expression as unreadable as ever.

The countless Threads of Fate surrounded them, weaving through the darkness as though acknowledging the significance of what was taking place.

Whatever had been restrained for countless ages was finally approaching its release, and Julius, whether he understood it or not, had become part of the process.

The man lowered his head slightly, his empty eye sockets fixed upon Julius as the last traces of the latter’s awareness disappeared.

"The slumber of Fate is over," he declared, his hoarse voice echoing through the boundless darkness.

"And the gods will soon awaken as well. The world is about to descend into chaos, but this time, I am prepared."

For the first time, a trace of something other than exhaustion seemed to enter his voice.

It was a cold, unwavering resolve, forged through an eternity of waiting and suffering, carrying the weight of a hatred that had survived longer than most worlds.

"I will kill you, Fate!"