End of the fight, is it an illusion?

Karsu slid into the room like a shadow fleeing the daylight, closing the door behind him slowly, as if to conceal the exhaustion in his eyes. On the wall, he noticed the cracks... and a map stained with black ink.

"Plan a thousand times… fail not even once," he told himself, his cold gaze sweeping across the details like a hawk stalking an unseen prey. His fingers clung to a yellowed paper inscribed with cryptic symbols, but the faint tremor in his left hand betrayed that something... was wrong.

When the sunlight pierced his eyelids like a silver dagger, his awakening was anything but ordinary. He jolted from his bed as if something burned beneath his skin, his hands obsessively patting the pocket of his black coat—making sure the item was still there. In the darkest corner of the room, he opened a wooden box carved with strange markings, pulling out a glass vial filled with a shimmering blue powder—glowing like dying stars. He wrapped it in a black cloth before vanishing into the city's narrow streets.

The marketplace was a chaos of voices and drifting souls, yet Karsu's footsteps cut through the noise like a blade. He stopped in front of an old shop, the air thick with the scent of rare herbs. With a dry tone, he addressed the vendor: "I want exactly what I ordered."

The old woman behind the counter studied him with eyes clinging to life before her trembling hands passed him a bundle tied with a red string. "Be careful..." she rasped, but he snatched it before she could finish, offering a smile that never reached his eyes.

On his way back, Karsu suddenly turned, his instincts whispering of an unseen presence trailing him. His grip tightened around the bundle as if clutching the heart of an enemy. The wind carried a distant murmur from somewhere unseen.

When he reached his room, his mind sharpened, his eyes scanning every detail. The cracks on the wall weren't merely structural flaws—they were the result of an immense force pressing against them. A force that no one in this city should possess. Its presence was undeniable.

As he examined the wall, his gaze landed on the slightly tilted map. This was not the work of a careless intruder but the precise touch of a master spy. Had it not been for his sharp sense for detecting auras, he might have fallen into the trap.

A grim realization dawned on him. "Could it be… the detective? The one who has been interfering since the noble swine's incident?"

It was no coincidence. This was a carefully orchestrated move by an investigator whose aura was rumored to be unmatched in the city. A man whose presence alone commanded respect—an invincible legend in the eyes of many.

Karsu sensed the walls closing in. There was no point in delay. He would face this persistent adversary head-on. With his final preparations complete, he left his room, heading toward the grassy outskirts of the city—where paths converged and confrontation was inevitable.

As he walked, he pieced together the fragments of a deeper truth, recalling the veiled messages from the organization—reminders that the matter was far from over. Every step he took along this path of hidden secrets led him closer to a shocking conclusion: the detective from the noble's case had aligned himself with the organization… or, at the very least, circumstances had allowed their objectives to intertwine.

From the scattered flow of information, Karsu deduced that spies had been monitoring him all along. The moment his whereabouts became known, word was sent to the detective. But with no solid evidence against him, the detective must have begun questioning his own instincts. Unlike other shadow-grade investigators, whose insight was their greatest weapon, he had hesitated.

Ahead, a large hill loomed, its broad stones resembling the entrance to a barren wasteland. Yet, Karsu's steps remained steady, his map precisely guiding him. The illusions of the terrain did not deceive him. He pressed on—until a figure blocked his path.

A man in a brown cloak.

He was massive—thickly bearded and towering over Karsu's 180 cm frame like a mountain eclipsing the setting sun.

A hot wind stirred, carrying specks of sand that grazed Karsu's face like hidden blades. The cloaked man stood firm, his shadow devouring the fading light.

A heavy silence stretched between them until Karsu broke it with a cold smile.

"So… you finally step out of your shadow, detective who chases ghosts."

The cloaked figure raised his hands slowly. His voice rumbled, deep as the earth itself.

"Ghosts? No… I see a specter standing before me. Karsu… or should I call you the noble's murderer?"

A sharp grin played on Karsu's lips as his fingers crept toward the inner pocket of his coat.

"Murder requires proof… and you don't even have a fly to accuse me with."

The detective stepped forward, his shadow swallowing more of the ground between them.

"Proof isn't just paper that burns… it's witnesses who disappear. Like the old woman at the market… do you know what happened to her after she handed you that bundle?"

A muscle in Karsu's face tensed for a fleeting second—then he let out a hoarse chuckle.

"Oh… looking for a confession? I don't play with those who hide behind masks."

In a flash, Karsu hurled the blue vial toward the ground, but the detective snatched it mid-air with inhuman speed. He turned it under his gaze, smirking.

"This blue powder… reminds me of the poison used in the noble's mansion. Funny how history repeats itself."

But what the detective didn't know—this vial contained more than just poison. The moment his aura touched it, an unexpected reaction began.

"Or how fate changes its colors!"

Karsu lunged, twisting his legs around the detective's arm in an attempt to bring him down. But the detective countered with cold precision, his grip tightening around Karsu's throat with a single hand.

"Playing games with me will cost you your life… but I'd rather see you in the organization's cage, a rat destroying itself in desperation."

A distant wolf howled.

Karsu wrenched himself free with a serpentine motion, abandoning his black coat in the detective's grasp. He stumbled back, panting.

"Despair is but a passing storm… but the rain that follows… will wash even your sun away!"

As Karsu vanished behind the rocks, the detective unfolded the coat, finding a yellowed paper marked with the organization's own symbols.

"Strange… he knows more than he should..."

A gust of wind carried another paper toward him.

"The rain begins with a drop… and the game begins with a move."

Then—"Tssssss..."

A sharp hiss.

"Huh? What is that—?"

The vial exploded.

A viscous gray liquid mixed with toxins erupted into the air. The detective's arm recoiled from the searing pain, blood trickling from his wounded limb—his dominant arm, the very core of his aura's strength. Though his aura had lessened the explosion's force, the damage was severe—the poison had fused with the blast's energy.

In the aftermath, as the storm of dust settled, Karsu whispered from the shadows:

"The flood is coming… and all your little puppets will drown in its darkness."

But fate wasn't done.

A figure emerged through the swirling dust.

A woman—draped in black like a serpent poised to strike.

"Do you think chaos will save you?"

Karsu didn't look back. His fingers traced an unseen shape in the dust with his own blood.

"Flies pollinate flowers… but you? You're just barren wind."

Karsu didn't turn. His fingers traced a cryptic shape in the sand—drawn with his own blood.

"The fly pollinates flowers… but you? You're nothing but a barren wind."

At the very moment the razor-sharp gusts rushed toward his throat, the black vial in his hand shattered, releasing an amber cloud that strangled the air itself. But this time, the poison wasn't meant for the Saboteur… it was for the Detective crawling from the rubble.

"What are you doing…?!" the Saboteur gasped, knees buckling under the weight of the gas.

"Fixing your mistake," Karsu smiled, pointing at the Detective, whose aura began to crack like glass cast into fire.

"His aura was an unbreakable wall… so I dug a tunnel beneath it."

The Detective, clutching his severed arm like a battered shield, suddenly lifted his head. His eyes no longer reflected pain… but a terrifying realization.

"The yellow document… it's not fake," he rasped, pulling a torn paper from his pocket.

"This code… it leads to the organization's main hideout."

Karsu froze. His smirk melted like wax.

"Impossible… I burned every—"

"Shadows don't burn," the Detective interrupted as he rose—like a titan from myth.

The shattered aura around him was reassembling, but this time, it was jet black.

"You were the one who taught me that a plan needs a thousand faces… so why did you use mine?"

The wind fell silent. The Saboteur, struggling to rise, stopped like a puppet with its strings severed.

"What… what did you do?!" she screamed at the Detective.

"I accepted Karsu's gift," he replied, crushing the yellow paper in his fist.

"He gave me the organization's key… so I opened the gates of hell."

Karsu stepped back. For the first time in years, fear seeped into his features.

"You're… insane! The organization will erase you before you can—"

"The organization is dead," the Detective whispered as his black aura stretched outward, an ink-stained octopus devouring the sky.

"You killed it the moment you made me read its codes… and now, I will build an empire from its ashes—one where you have no place."

Before he could finish, the ground exploded beneath them.

Karsu vanished into the tunnel he had carved long ago, leaving behind a muffled laugh—and one final note:

"Empires are built on corpses… be careful yours isn't the first."

The Saboteur collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath, while the Detective's looming shadow swallowed the horizon.

"What… will you do now?" she whispered, pale as death.

The Detective looked at her, his eyes burning with the knowledge of life and death.

"I will do what should have been done decades ago… I will rewrite the rules."

As the last trace of Karsu vanished, the Detective picked up his tattered coat and wore it like a banner of victory.

The game wasn't over… it was reborn. And this time, on a chessboard with no boundaries.

The black cloud burst from Karsu's vial like ink bleeding from the night's veins, drowning everything in a suffocating fog.

"The real game begins now…" he whispered, disappearing into the smoke, leaving behind the echo of a stifled laugh.

The Saboteur was the first to fall. Her copper eyes widened in shock as her fingers clawed at her throat, as if trying to stop a nightmare from escaping.

"No… this can't be real!" she shrieked, collapsing like a lifeless husk—a victim of the black cloud's hallucinations, which twisted its poison into deadly illusions.

As for the Detective, his immense aura held firm, the last fortress standing. He did not die… but the black fog slithered into his mind like a worm feasting on his dreams.

Suddenly, he saw himself victorious—draped in the golden robes of the organization, stepping over Karsu's corpse as the crowd chanted his name.

"I… am the new sovereign!" he roared in the illusion Karsu's poison had woven.

But deep within him, a single pulse of remaining awareness screamed:

"This isn't real… this isn't real!"

His legs carried him forward—toward Karsu, who stood under a lone tree, smiling in resignation.

But in reality… Karsu stood behind him. His cold blade kissed the Detective's throat.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Karsu whispered into his ear.

"I see you're enjoying your fake victory… Don't resist. You'll only wake up when I allow it."

The Detective tried to move his arm, but the cloud had turned it into a statue of lead.

In his mind's eye, he barked orders to soldiers who did not exist.

But in reality… his blood was seeping into the grass, and the poison was crawling toward his heart.

Karsu knelt beside him, his gaze gleaming with a predator's satisfaction.

"You will die believing you won… and that is the greatest gift I could ever give you."

Just before the Detective's eyes closed, he saw Karsu raising a black dagger over his chest in the illusion.

But in reality, Karsu simply walked away, leaving him to fight ghosts of his own making.

As the Detective gasped for his last breaths in the world of hallucinations, Karsu picked up the red bundle from the ground and slipped it into his pocket, smiling.

"The organization will think you won… when in truth, you're just a corpse waiting to be buried."

Then, he heard the Detective scream.

---

Under the moon's dim glow, the Detective knelt on the grassy field—his body a broken tree after the storm.

Blood dripped from his many wounds, staining the grass beneath him with the color of rust.

With great effort, he lifted his head toward Karsu, who stood like an ice-carved monument.

His voice wavered, fragile as a leaf in the wind:

"W…who are you? Are you from the same place I came from?"

Karsu tilted his chin, his cold eyes devouring his opponent's weakness.

A wide, venomous grin curled his lips as his fingers tightened around the hidden blade's hilt.

"There's no point answering the dead."

The Detective's blood-soaked eyes trembled. His fingers dug into the ground, trying to hold his collapsing body together.

His voice broke, as if calling out to a ghost from his past:

"How pathetic… how cursed I am…"

—He stopped suddenly, his teeth grinding from pain.—

"When I was born… I thought I was gifted… My mental potential was ranked B…"

—A single, hot tear traced his left cheek.—

"I thought I would achieve what no one in my district ever could… But then, fate birthed that boy…"

—His hands clutched his chest, as if trying to stop his heart from shattering.—

"Ten years younger than me… yet his potential was S… a prodigy beyond compare…"

—His ribs shook from a heavy sigh.—

"I was twenty-six… he was sixteen…"

—His eyes flickered with the sting of old memories.—

"He became a legend in investigations… surpassed me… surpassed everyone…"

—His voice faded into a haunted whisper.—

"Until he met the Emperor himself… a man even nobles fear to request an audience with…"

—His fingers clawed at the grass, as if digging his own grave.—

"Only then did I realize… how insignificant I was."

Karsu took one final step forward, his shadow swallowing the crumpled Detective.

His gleaming blade caught the moonlight—a hungry wolf's fang.

His voice dripped with mockery:

"Are you saying I'm as gifted as Arin?"

The Detective's lips quivered. His voice rose in a desperate cry:

"Someone your age… as smart as Arin… how could you not be gifted?!"

Karsu leaned in, their faces inches apart. His cold breath ghosted over the Detective's skin.

"Me? Gifted?!"

—His laughter shattered the silence.—

"No. You're just a failure who blames others for his own weakness."

The Detective fell onto his back, his wide eyes locked onto the sky—a ceiling of iron.

His final breath slipped out like a drowning man's last bubble:

"My potential was B… If only I were like you…"

Karsu raised his sword high, the moonlight glinting off its edge—a smile of death.

"Talent E... Yes!"

—The sword shimmered in the air—

"If I were as weak as you… I would have faded into a corner years ago!"

The detective's face twisted in agony, his severed hands struggling to block the strike. His final words echoed into the void:

"My name… I never told anyone… It's…"

But the sword struck like lightning, severing his head in an instant. It rolled onto the grass, his eyes frozen in eternal disbelief.

Karsu wiped the blade against his leg, his cold gaze surveying the scene. He murmured to the corpse:

"I didn't come to hear the story of a failure."

Under the moonlight, the trees bent as if bowing in mourning, while Karso's footsteps vanished into the darkness. On the detective's chest lay a yellowed piece of paper, marked with bloody script:

"Talent is an illusion… and weakness is an art only the clever can master."