They didn't understand that he no longer sought survival.
He sought liberation from everything.
And if that required burning this world to the ground, so be it.
When he was returned to the black room, his eyes had become even wider than before. The blackness within them was no longer just darkness, it had become a shell that enveloped his mind. Everything in that room was surrounded by waves of blackness, as if the entire room had been swallowed by the void.
At first, he didn't think of escape. He was still unaware of his pain, but his mind had become more detached. He no longer saw himself as that broken body, that body condemned to pain and torment. Symptoms were starting to appear: his eyes wouldn't fully close, and his eyelids were black like dark vapor. It was as if darkness had invaded him from within, not just as a color or an external entity.
For the first time, he felt complete disorientation. He could still see mana in everything:
In the air, in the walls, in the ground beneath his feet. He saw particles of light, the air flowing through his body and shifting within the room's void, swaying in a space where there was nowhere else to go. He saw things as if they were massive collections of particles carefully woven together.
But, despite all of this, a part of his mind screamed in bitterness:
"Is this the end? Was I just a game from the beginning?"
His mind fed a sense of constant pain, surrounding him from every side. His core continued to glow, still growing, becoming stronger, but nothing could stop it. Not the observers, not the doctors, not even Elin herself.
As he sat in the darkness, he felt his body gradually decay. Or maybe it was his mind that was decaying first, leaving his body to suffer alone in this silence. He remembered the days that passed in that room, the days he was treated like a doll, as if his whole life was just one big test.
"Everything is fake... it's all fake."
He thought that if he could see beyond this existence, if he could fully harness mana, maybe he could survive. But as he busied himself imagining his attempts, the particles of mana danced around him, flowing through the air as if responding to his call, though he could not control it.
He closed his eyes, feeling increasing pain in his head, only whispers. There was nothing real in this world. He was nothing but an illusion… just an idea trapped in a confined place.
But something strange was happening, something no one had noticed.
The mana field began to expand.
It had turned into an invisible arena, as though something had torn apart the fabric of this universe that was driving him toward madness. But he felt no pain from it. He was simply trying to understand why the mana was expanding and why he could see it.
He saw humans as a red mass, as though they were all cells jammed into a pool of blood, packed into an undefined shape. He no longer saw them as anything but a mass of energy devoid of beauty. They were like a lump of plastic that stretches and distorts over time.
Every time they forced him to fight, he didn't see a human face. He saw particles, eyes gleaming like rays of light, and bodies scattering whenever his hand touched them. He was fighting pure energy, something with no connection to humanity.
He realized now that he no longer cared who died.
He saw only the explosion of mana before him, saw only the blood spilling from all sides, from the bodies that decayed and exploded. It was all just a chemical reaction.
Everything around him scattered like dead dust.
---
They placed him back on the metal bed, but this time, he didn't resist. His hands were bound. His body was completely exhausted, but he felt something else. Something strange began to ignite inside his heart.
At that moment, Elin stood before him, her eyes watching him intently.
"Can you do it now, Reis?" she whispered, her words slicing through his mind like knives.
"You don't understand anything," he whispered back.
Suddenly, she stepped back, and her words after this declaration were no longer calm. She spoke in a soft tone, as though talking about a dead project, "We've really started now. It's time."
Then, without giving him a chance to respond, she leaned toward the device. On the screen, it showed an unusually high mana value:
[Activity: 185% of the allowed limit.]
[Rating: ★★★★★]
[Type: Unclassified.]
"He's approaching the point of no return," Elin said, reading the data, then smiling slyly. "There's nothing else that will stop him now."
At that moment, Reis began to move with difficulty. He felt blood dripping from his nose, and around him, he saw tissues intertwining into huge clusters. The field expanded in a remarkable way around him, and he released another "Illusion Blade," larger and stronger than ever before.
But with that blade, he whispered to himself:
"It won't end unless… I destroy everything."
But Elin still didn't understand.
She stood before him, her eyes glowing with caution, unaware that the moment of reckoning was closer than she imagined. She had become accustomed to his tests, his experiments, and his pain. But what she didn't realize was that Reis had crossed the point of no return, and he was no longer just a tool to be reshaped or broken. He wasn't asking for just one thing: death. He was asking for freedom.
Freedom from everything.
As he lay on the metal bed, his body was more fragile than ever before, but his mind was becoming clearer. His eyes were closed, but something inside him was growing quickly. His mana core was glowing, not just becoming stronger but starting to break free from its restraints. This wasn't a natural progression. It flowed from his body like a massive torrent of white light.
At that moment, he felt something strange creeping into his mind. One thought followed him: escape. No, not escape—destruction. Destroy everything around him. He no longer feared the consequences, for he knew that staying here would only add more pain. If only he could escape.
But how? How could he do that, trapped in this body that was beginning to fall apart?
He closed his eyes and imagined himself outside this metallic prison. He imagined himself outside, beneath the sky, away from these dark rooms that sucked the life out of him. His mind began to move quickly, his emotions torn between pain and destruction, and a strange hope to free himself.
He began to expand the mana field without realizing it. The field was growing gradually, but they hadn't noticed. The mana seeped into the dark corners of the room, spreading around him as if it were responding to his silent calls. It flowed into the void, touched the air, breathed it in, then scattered around him like broken waves. He didn't need to issue a command. His mind had begun to control it unconsciously, without fully understanding what was happening.
Then came the voice.
"Reis…"
It was Elin's voice, but it wasn't the one he was used to. It was cold, harsh, carrying something strange and deadly in its concern.
"Do you think this is enough? Do you think your power will stop us?"
Reis laughed inside his head. He didn't answer. His mind had freed itself from this argument. He no longer cared about her words, nor did he care about his future here. Everything in his eyes was tainted with blood, and every thought the mana whispered into his mind grew more complicated.
At that moment, he closed his eyes again and focused.
He imagined the place he wanted to be.
Outside this lab… away from these dark rooms.
Then, with a powerful strike, the field expanded even further. It swept across the room, touching its walls, breaking through barriers. The mana accumulated around him, covering the air, flooding the ground, and affecting everything within the room.
Yet, his core had reached a critical point. Its glow was like the destructive rays of the sun, scattering in the air like an underground volcano's eruption.
And at that moment, he saw everything accelerate. He saw chaos breaking apart in front of him. He saw his body, saw the interaction of mana with his body, and realized that he was standing on the edge of explosion.
Elin had begun to realize something was wrong. He saw the fear in her eyes, a fear he had never seen before. Her features began to change, and the words she spoke carried a tone of tension unlike anything he had heard before.
But Reis no longer cared.
He was trying to escape, to escape from all this madness.
He moved his hands, trying to expand the field again, but this time, it was different. The mana responded to him in an unprecedented way, intertwining with the particles of air, moving between the walls, and penetrating the ground. But in that deep moment, he realized he couldn't control what was happening.
He closed his eyes once more and fell silent, but his mind was racing. He was astounded by the results he was achieving. The walls were collapsing around him, the ground was shaking, and the entire lab began to tremble.
Everything was collapsing around him, and in that moment, as the mana reached its peak, Reis decided to take a step forward.
In a decisive move, he reached out, and delved into the field. At that moment, he knew he wouldn't be able to control it. The field had exceeded the limits he once thought possible.
Then the light exploded.
When the walls shattered, existence around him vanished, and the world flipped upside down.