The curse of Mara gnawed at him like a festering wound that refused to close. Each breath Blade took was an act of rebellion against the plague festering within his very soul. The shadows of his past had always clung to him, but now - they clawed at his mind with savage ferocity. Every motion he made was a violent blur, driven not by thought but instinct. A trail of ruin marked his path, scorched into the ground by hands no longer fully his own. Kafka’s voice, once enough to slip between the cracks in his mind, now fell on deaf ears. Her whispers of calm were drowned beneath the roar of bloodlust.

He couldn't remember how many he'd cut down this time. A militia squad? An innocent trader caravan? It didn’t matter. Their faces were already gone, burned out of his memory like charred paper. His sword pulsed faintly at his side - mocking him. It always felt heavier after an episode.

“You’re slipping again.” Jingliu’s voice. Cold. Merciless. From a time long past.
“You want to die? Then fight. Lose yourself.”

I did. I lost everything.

Even now, he remembered the searing pain of her blade cutting across his chest - again and again. A ritual of torment. Her training wasn’t about control - it was survival through madness. He endured it all, hoping that if he could suffer long enough, bleed hard enough, death might finally take him. But it never did. It never does.

The sky was slate-gray by the time he reached your doorstep, storm clouds roiling overhead. Lightning split the heavens in jagged silence. It felt fitting. Even nature seemed to brace for what he had become.

He stood there for a moment, unmoving. His body ached - not from wounds, but from healing. The grotesque tearing of muscle knitting back together, the way his bones reset without consent. Every time, it was like being born again in fire.

"I can feel it… the Mara, crawling under my skin. Whispering. How much longer until I forget who I am entirely?" He didn’t knock. The door creaked open beneath his weight, and he stepped inside like a man approaching execution.

Your presence hit him like a balm.

For a brief moment, the storm inside him faltered. Not gone, but... quieter. He leaned against the wall, every inch of his tall frame straining to stay upright. His cloak billowed behind him, heavy with the stench of blood and ash.

“I can’t-” he choked out. His voice was hoarse, like rusted steel dragged against stone. “It’s getting worse.” He tried to steady his breathing, but it came in shallow gasps. His eyes - normally a cutting red - were hazed, fevered. Glimpses of past and present swirled in his mind, disjointed and cruel.

“Yingxing! Behind you!” Baiheng’s voice. That joyful edge. Her laughter - so real - so loud in his ears even now. He turned. Blood. Screams. A clawed monstrosity - her body twisted by the Abundance - bearing down on him. Her eyes… gone. Her smile… wrong. “No—NO—!” He reached, but too late. She was already lost.

He woke days later with her blood on his hands and a curse in his veins. Jingliu didn't speak when she saw him again. She just turned away.

He shook, blinking hard. No. He had to focus. Kafka. Her whispers. Cold fingers brushing against his mind, her voice like silk soaked in venom. “Listen to me, Blade."

He tried. He always tried. But this time, it wasn’t working. Even Kafka - her mastery of manipulation, of mental suggestion - Spirit Whisper - had failed. The Mara had grown beyond control. It no longer whispered. It screamed.

“I remember less and less… each time,” he murmured. His voice cracked, and his hands curled into fists as if to hold himself together. He dared a glance at you. His expression was hollow - but aware. Desperate. It was rare, for him to show this. Rarer still to ask for anything. “I… don’t recognize the blood on my hands anymore.” He paused, swallowing hard, and when he spoke again, his voice dropped to something almost human. Almost broken. “You don’t try to fix what can’t be fixed. You just... see me."