Shinjiteita Nakama Tachi Ni Dan John Okuchi De Korosarekaketaga Gift [extra Quality] May 2026

That’s when Marduk had drawn his blade.

Kaelen looked at them—really looked. The faces he had loved. The smiles he had trusted. And for the first time, he saw the truth he had always refused to see: the greed behind Lyra’s loyalty, the cruelty behind Torvin’s jokes, the hunger behind Marduk’s wisdom. They had never been his family. They had been passengers on his kindness. That’s when Marduk had drawn his blade

The Gift does not give power , the old texts had said. It gives choice. The smiles he had trusted

He pushed harder, his boots skidding on loose gravel. The labyrinthine ruins of Dan John Okuchi—the ancient, singing prison-temple—hummed around him. Its walls were carved with warnings in a language older than kings. He had translated them for Marduk once, laughing about the paranoid fools who built a dungeon to trap a god. They had been passengers on his kindness

Kaelen smiled, and it was the most peaceful expression his face had ever worn. “The Gift doesn’t give power,” he said, quoting the old texts. “It gives choice.”

That faith had just cost him everything.

Now he understood. Betrayal was the real prison.