Chapter Text
The sword pierces true, exhaustion seeping out from every once of his being, coagulating into a new emotion.
Relief.
Pure, untethered relief.
It was finally over.
The pain is everywhere, constant and burning, unforgiving in the way even the Fourth Wall couldn’t offset all of it. Kim Dokja is thankful, still. It off-set enough of the agony to keep him alive, conscious. Vision darkening at the edges, he forces his gaze forward, smiling with bloody teeth as he forces himself to see.
He needs to see the people he put through this. He needs to see they’re all alive, that he didn’t injure any of them too much. He needed to see they were breathing, that his sacrifice wasn’t for naught.
This Fate, it was a curse. Calling it a fate would be too kind to Olympus.
He finds Sanga through the fog of his vision, looks at her from over Joonghyuk’s shoulder. He hopes she knows it wasn’t her fault, even if her supporting constellation was the reason this happened.
He finds Heewon, and his eyes flit upwards towards the sky, imagining what Uriel must look like in that moment. He hopes they know it wasn’t their fault either.
He spots the dragon in the corner of his vision, and his eyes fall to Gilyoung and Yoosung. He hopes his kids know that he was sorry for putting him through something like this.
His vision blurs too much to focus on anything far away, and a bubble of discomfort forces him to cough up blood. There was a numb-stabbing feeling of his lungs collapsing from the blade wracking his body with tremors.
He looks at Yoo Joonghyuk.
He stares. His smile softens.
These people, they will always be his salvation, the people he loves the most.
“We had a great run, didn’t we?”
“Kim Dokja.”
Joonghyuk withdrawals the blade form his chest, hastily lowering him into the devastated throne, flicking away rubble so he could sit easier.
It was never easy to sit knowing his family was watching him die.
Uncertainty clawed at his chest, deranged with the disease of fear Dokja refused to indulge in. He didn’t have a soundproof backup plan this time. He didn’t know what he could do to reunite with them. It wasn’t just his true death without a cushion of resurrection to bring him back, it was the penalty for the scenario that made him anxious.
He would be exiled. Where would he end up?
How would he get back?
The world was smearing like water spilling over ink, blurring the edges of faces and objects alike. His body felt tight even as it unwound on the seat of the throne, wings unfurling limply at his sides, rumbled with viscera and loose plumage. The tautness in his chest from blood flooding his lungs was the least of his worries at that moment.
[A fate has been realized.]
There were voices, wailing, crying, calling out to him. There were hands trying to hold him, even as the feelings in his body began to unwound.
Kim Dokja fought to keep his eyes open even if he couldn’t see, fought to keep smiling even if his muscles burned, fought to get in the last word even as his voice was reduced to a gurgle.
“Survive.”
[You have died.]
Oblivion was as suffocating as it was absolute.
There was no room for movement, pressing in on all sides, like greedy palms finding any surface they could to strangle. Movement was a concept, yet stillness wasn’t possible.
It was like drifting, unwilling paralysis sinking weight deeper into a flowing stream of water. The absence of anything took him away from the presence of everything, and Kim Dokja truly experienced death for the first time.
Alone.
Without interruption.
Without thought.
Without hovering over someone’s shoulder like a ghost with attachment issues.
He was alone, drifting, however slow and mindless it may be. Time didn’t matter, it didn’t exist, not in oblivion.
Yet, travel suggested a destination. A destination suggested a story. A story suggested existence.
The system was not done with him yet.
With a cold clarity of ice touching his skin, Kim Dokja’s muddle mind unified on the thought.
The system was not done with him yet.
His eyes snap open, unseeing from the electric pressure of probability correcting him into submission of the system.
Sensation in his body comes back first, albeit distant. He feels the pressure of solid ground under his thighs and against his back first, makes sense of the orientation of his body second, and finds that he can feel the sensations of new limbs he had yet to get used to third.
He’s sitting, he decides. It felt exactly like how he just died, arms resting on the stone armrests of the throne, the backrest straight up and down without any give for comfort. His new wings drape over the edges of the throne on both sides, stretched out smoothly instead of crumpled, unlike his death. When his vision swam back into focus, he half expected to see his friends still in front of him.
He was in the same room, this was the first thing his disoriented mind grasped. It had to be decades younger, or perhaps just younger than whatever tragedy left it in ruins in the future. There were the same columns holding the ceiling, the same archway of the entrance, the same marbled floors. Except in this setting, the ceiling didn't collapse, the floors weren’t dulled by debris, and there were actually decorations adorning the hall. Red carpet extended from the steps leading down from the throne, across the polished marble floors. Banners in the same red hung from golden decor, details weaving a story Dokja struggled to piece together.
Where… where was he? When was he? This throne room was surely the same one as the tenth scenario. It just felt… untouched. Timeless.
Then his eyes finally found their way to the figure in the center of the hall runner. Blood red plates of armor knelt unmoving. His helm was dipped, the plume from the crown of his metal skull draping down like elegant silk, gauntlet resting atop his knee in the picture perfect act of subservience.
To serve his king, it was all Commander Igris the Blood-Red needed. To kneel before his form, to pledge fidelity.
Kim Dokja stared.
Commander Igris the… what?
Why did—how did he know that name?
Why did it feel so familiar?
Dokja couldn’t move, couldn’t open his mouth to speak. Instead, he stared as a blue, holographic window popped up.
[Skill, The Fourth Wall, says come back soon, Kim Dokja. Bye-bye, Kim Dokja.]
A sense of dread settled in his gut.
[Skill, The Fourth Wall, is forcibly deactivated.]
[Skill, The Fourth Wall, is removed from Skill List.]
[Skill, Bookmark, has been altered in Skill List.]
[Multiple other skills have been altered in Skill List.]
[Skill List has been updated.]
Before he could process exactly just what happened to the personal skills he earned as the sole reader of TWSA, another window blinked into existence in front of his face.
[Processing fable transfer...]
[Character assimilation in progress. Character lore has been updated from Fallen Constellation to Forsaken Sovereign.]
[Your modifier has been chosen.]
[Character, Demon King of Salvation, has been successfully assimilated into Architect’s System.]
[Character, Demon King of Salvation, has been removed from Star Stream with a minor delay due to a Skill Removal.]
As if ropes that tied him down suddenly went slack, Kim Dokja found himself suddenly able to move. He slumped forward, head hanging low, and he found himself rapidly blinking back tears.
Overwhelming emotion of panic, grief, and anger flooded through him like a tidal wave. He had gotten so used to the Fourth Wall blocking out emotions and numbing the shock that these horrid things nearly burned his soul. Panic latched onto every fiber of his skin, infecting him until he trembled with misery.
Where the fuck was he?
This—? Being removed from the Star Stream—? This was not in the fucking plan—
He choked on a hysterical sob, wings twitching to life as they curled in closer out of instinct, aching with the movement. It was the first noise he had made so far, and to his chagrin, the knight (Commander?) at the base of the throne twitched to life in response.
His helm raised sharply, pauldrons drawing tight with a clinking tension.
’My Liege—‘
In a single, quick, distressed leap, Igris (how did he know that name?) was at his side, ragged cloak billowing behind him. He didn’t dare touch, not when black wings were actively cocooning around his king to block him out.
The tears poured faster, and Kim Dokja felt like the swords still had to be impaled through him. Why else could he not breathe right? Why else could he feel a physical agony in his chest?
’My Liege, what ails you?’
And then there was this knight (commander, stranger—) speaking to him, the voice rattling inside his skull because it wasn’t spoken aloud but through some sort of magic. He sounded distressed, unsure, confused.
Ridiculously, a manic laugh bubbled out of Dokja from the absurdity of his new reality, but all the emotions were so crushing that it petered off into a wail. How did he handle any of this? Why did he know of Igris when he also knew nothing about him?
Dokja was inconsolable.
Igris realized it quickly, as he had never known his king to be so unreachable.
He just needed a minute. Or a few.
Or an hour.
Fortunately, it seemed like the timeless throne room had nothing to give but time.