My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Chapter 798: Chapter 799: Dear To Defy

”Why would I want my brother to die?”

Lazarak answered immediately, as though the question itself wounded him.

”I am not saying you want him to die. I am asking what happens if he does.”

Damon replied with a calm expression, stepping over a fractured ice sheet where Matia’s cold magic had frozen another stillborn midreach.

Lazarak hesitated as they approached the distant echoes of battle. The air was colder here, carrying the sharp bite of Matia’s frost.

”If my brother was to die then nothing would happen. His authorities would simply be transferred to me. But if I was already dead then the world would die.”

He bit his lip, the very thought leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. His steps slowed as though the idea itself weighed him down.

”You have a sibling, do you not. I do not imagine you would want your sister to die.”

Damon pictured his younger sister’s face. Pale white hair and grey eyes. The smile she tried to wore when she was happy.

”I would die for her.”

Lazarak smiled softly at that.

”I would die for my brother too. Even if we have our differences.”

They walked until the bleak sunlight touched their faces. They stepped onto a round balcony overlooking a wide plaza. Damon approached the railing, watching Matia below. Ice mist swirled around her as towering piles of frozen corpses formed. She moved like a dancing fairy, each graceful step reaping another life. Flashes of different elemental spells burst around her in deadly harmony.

Damon merely observed. Matia was powerful, and swarm battles were where she shined. She was strongest when she had no allies nearby, free to unleash her ruinous winter. Freezing the world into the cold silence of ruin’s end.

”What is your brother like?” Damon asked as he watched Matia’s lethal elegance.

Lazarak smiled faintly, looking down at his hands.

”He is truly amazing. Aetherus is charismatic. He inspires others simply by existing.”

There was a faint pang of envy in his tone. A small shadow in his voice that Damon understood all too well.

Damon had lived his whole life with a tiny mana pool while his sister had been born overflowing with magical talent. She was brilliant, blessed with natural pools of mana. And though Damon excelled in his own ways, he still knew the sting of ugly envy.

That was why he understood Lazarak.

”We are different. While I represent darkness, peace, serenity, and repose, my brother is the opposite. Aetherus is light to my darkness. He is war and conflict to my peace and serenity. He is the god of life and struggle, while I am repose. Complete opposites.”

Lazarak’s gaze softened with an old ache.

”Having an overachiever sibling is difficult. People compare you. They wonder why you are inferior.”

He looked toward the distant plaza where Matia’s ice spread like a frozen tapestry.

”Our philosophies are opposite as well. He believes conflict brings progress. But I know conflict breeds extinction.”

He tilted his head slightly with a faint, selfmocking smile.

”No wonder everyone chooses to follow his way.”

Then he shook his head and looked at Damon again.

”My brother and I used to be the only two. We got along well. But we grew apart. That happens to everyone. It is inevitable. He followed his nature. And I... I follow mine.”

The sadness in his voice sat heavy between them.

”I just hope he knows it is alright to set down his sword. To stop struggling. I want him to understand that conflict does not need to be eternal. It is alright to live without fighting. Peace is boring. And boring is fine.”

Damon watched him closely.

Was this why Lazarak refused to kill? Was it his nature as a god? Or was it something he forced upon himself. Was he trying to live up to his role as peace. Or trying to prove he had worth beyond the purpose he failed to fulfill.

The bleak sunlight framed Lazarak’s figure as he stepped forward. Damon saw something in him. Something quietly tragic.

The god of darkness stood with a soft smile, and Damon felt a heaviness in his chest. He could almost see the future where Lazarak was dead. Not slain in battle, but forgotten. A god erased from hearts and memory.

Damon’s heart ached at the thought. He could feel Lazarak’s fear. Not fear of pain. Not fear of destruction.

Fear of being forgotten.

A god only truly dies when the world forgets them.

’Lazarak, you are... I understand you.’

Damon thought as he watched him in the pale light.

Lazarak was a tragic god.

Peace in a world of war. Created first but not chosen. Lonely at his root because the only person he had, his brother, left him behind.

His self-doubt grew into a quiet, poisonous form of self-hate.

’That is why he calls himself a clay figure. Because in his heart he believes he is expendable.’

He wanted to be remembered but believed he was not worth remembering.

This was the core of his sorrow. His defining fear. The heart of his tragedy.

To a mortal, death is a wound. To a god, death is oblivion.

Lazarak feared fading from memory. Being replaced, discarded and erased forgetten by all.

And still he chose kindness.

Damon clenched his fist.

Lazarak was kind. Genuinely kind.

But he saw that kindness as a weakness.

Proof he was unworthy. Proof he had failed to become the world. Proof he was not enough.

He valued life because he had never been born.

He cherished family because he never had one.

He admired mortals because they could choose who they became.

He rebelled because he wanted an identity beyond the role forced upon him.

Damon’s heart stung.

”If you continue down this path you will die and be forgotten.”

He spoke the truth quietly, no judgment in his voice.

Lazarak already knew. Damon could see that in his eyes.

Even then, Lazarak lifted his chin with a soft resolve.

”I would rather be forgotten for kindness than remembered for cruelty.”

Damon felt his throat tighten.

He knew that by the end of this... if he survived... he might watch a friend die again.

The thought alone brought a single tear to his eye.

Lazarak smiled at Damon.

”Dear to defy.... I dare.”