Extra's POV: My Obsessive Villainous Fiancee Is The Game's Final Boss-Chapter 229: Messenger In The Fog

The morning haze clung to the road like a heavy curtain, curling around the hooves of the horses as Ren and his companions pushed on toward Edenhold.

If they'd been in a movie, it would've been a particularly dramatic shot. But here? It was just annoying. It meant their hackles were raised and they were alert for anything out of the ordinary. After all, visibility was lower than usual.

The sun was weak behind the clouds, casting pale light over a world that seemed to be waiting for something big. The wind had died sometime after dawn, and with it, the birdsong. The silence that filled the air was… expectant.

Ren rode at the front, eyes narrowed on what little he could see of the horizon. Lilith was just behind him, her white hair tied back in a loose knot.

Thorn rode beside Elias, slouched slightly, his expression neutral. Valen kept to the rear, his eyes roving around them, with his twin blades strapped across his back for easy access.

They had all felt it. Something was off.

And then, they saw him. It was as if he appeared out of nowhere.

One moment, there was nothing there, and the next, the mist passed to reveal a dark figure standing alone in the middle of the road, not blocking it so much as existing in the center of it.

He wore simple clothes, the same dark traveler's cloak Ren had seen before. His hands were clasped behind his back, his head was tilted, and that smile, that awful, amused smile that was tinged with just the perfect amount of hatred, was already on the man's lips.

Vesper.

Ren pulled his horse to a stop, and the others followed.

"Hello again." Vesper said cheerily, as if he were greeting them at a dinner party. "Lovely morning, isn't it?"

Thorn's hand drifted toward his sword, but Ren held out a hand. Not yet.

Vesper chuckled. "Come now. I didn't come here to fight. If I wanted you dead, I'd be the last to lift a hand. That isn't my job. At least, that job has been taken away from me."

Lilith leaned forward slightly, her eyes narrowed, a few wisps of soul energy coiled faintly around her fingers. "Then what is your job?"

"To speak." Vesper said simply. "To pass on a message. And maybe to watch the strings twitch."

Ren frowned. "What strings?"

Vesper's smile widened. "You think you're driving your own story. But you're not, Terence Ross. None of us are. We're all pieces. Moving on a board built by hands far older than anything we could ever imagined."

He took a few slow steps forward, boots crunching softly against the fallen leaves on the ground.

"The Chained Man." He said, and the name seemed to pull the warmth out of the air. "One of the Three. And you're all dancing exactly how he wants."

Silence fell. Even the horses shifted uneasily.

Ren narrowed his eyes, suspicion in every inch of his body. "The Chained Man? Who's that?"

"A man. A god. A prisoner. A monster. It depends on the day." Vesper said with a shrug. "But he's real. And he's very interested in you. He orchestrated everything. The war." His eyes flicked to Lilith, his smile growing darker. "The Calamities."

Ren's eyes widened, but he quickly controlled it, mastering himself. Someone was behind the Calamities?

"I can see the question in your eyes, and I'll answer them." Vesper chuckled. "If only to imagine the despair in your eyes when you die. It'll certainly be a fond memory. Especially if you die by my hands."

"Talk." Ren growled, his fists tightening around the reins within it.

"Did you think I was the first Calamity?" Vesper chuckled. "Your father died to prevent that one. Glad to see you'll be following in his footsteps."

Ren was trying the best he could to control himself. He needed to hear this, not act like a child. Fury would be of no use here.

But he'd learnt something. This… Three, this Chained Man, he was behind the Calamities. He'd set off the first Calamity as the Green Tree Dryad. And the Red Plague was the second.

Were there still seven Minor and three major Calamities? Or could these Three create as many as they wanted?

"Wait a minute." Vesper tilted his head, as if he knew a particularly juicy secret. "Maybe it's not the Three anymore. Maybe it's the Four. After all, there's someone else who is not of this world, isn't there?"

Lilith stiffened. Thorn muttered a curse.

"That was the one thing the Chained Man failed to account for." Vesper said proudly. "You." He paused. "And that soon would be taken care of."

Ren narrowed his eyes. It didn't matter if the whole world knew he was not of this world. They wouldn't understand anyways. They would just treat it as part of his growing legend anyways. So, in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter.

A confident smile came over his face. "So, what exactly did you want from me, Vesper? Because you're not getting it."

Vesper only laughed. "Oh, I want nothing, Ross. That's the beauty of it. I'm just the self appointed messenger."

"Oh, and don't try to even attack me. You can't kill me." And then, Vesper did something none of them expected.

He reached into his chest, his fingers curling around flesh and bone. And then he pulled.

His heart came free with a wet sound, beating once in his hand before stopping, a dark grin still pasted on his face.

His knees buckled, he collapsed, and the body hit the dirt.

And then it began to change.

The skin paled, and the face bubbled. Vesper's face warped and melted into that of another man. Someone none of them recognized.

Just another infected. Just another puppet.

Thorn let out a shaky breath. "Holy shit."

Valen dismounted and walked forward, nudging the corpse with his foot. No movement. No tricks.

Lilith's eyes glowed faintly. "That wasn't the real Vesper. It was just a… conduit."

Ren stared at the body, his eyes narrowed. Vesper had given him a lot to think about. He had opened his eyes to the fact that he was fighting against an enemy that knew more of him than he did of them.

The Three.

The Chained Man.

He'd have to get to the bottom of it. But for now, they had somewhere to be.

"Let's go." Ren said.

No one argued.

They continued the journey without another word, the usual silence filling the air.

The fog was slowly clearing, and the road to Edenhold stretched before them. But now, it felt like they were walking straight into something else from what they expected.

They were walking into a design.

And the designer was watching.