In the darkness of his room, King Percy felt like he was going mad. He sat up in bed, not a single expression on his face, but inside he was screaming.

He wanted to rip his own heart out. He wanted to take a knife to his throat. He had wanted to try to drown himself in his bath earlier. But there was so much resistance from his soul to his body. He couldn't even tremble.

Percy couldn't stray from the story. He couldn't end his story his way.

Thousands upon thousands of years had gone by. King Percy, the Host, should have been used to it. He should have been okay with this.

But he wasn't.

He could still remember the day he had died and then met System 225. He still remembered their interactions and the promise to help people. He still remembered the promise to let his soul go back into the Reincarnation Sea once he had gone through 100 worlds.

This promise was etched deep inside his soul, but he yearned for it less and less as the years had gone by. What he wanted was death, for the void to consume his soul so that he'd cease to exist altogether. What he wanted was destruction.

He didn't want to close his eyes, but he could feel that his body was fighting him. System 225 forcefully had him lay down and closed his eyes. It was forcing him to shut his eyelids and dream once again.

He tried to refuse his dreams. He didn't want to relive nightmare after nightmare.

Every single night.

If he could stay awake until he died, until his heart stopped, until his brain no longer worked, he definitely would.

But it was no use.

He had no free will on his body or his soul. He could not die when he wanted to, and he could not rest when he wanted to.

He was nothing but a puppet for the System.

Did it like to see him in pain? Did they want to see him suffer?

King Percy felt his body shake, and his mind shut down. Once again, he spiraled into a long night of nightmares.

*****

The room was deathly silent. A pin could drop, and it would echo throughout his ears.

King Percy glared at the man who knelt in front of him. This man was important. He was supposed to be "the right-hand man" of the "mastermind" behind the rebellion. But King Percy, the Host, knew that this man wasn't important at all. Multiple people were the "masterminds," while this man was the decoy—the sacrificial lamb.

Even if Percy knew about the world's plot, he had to be the cruel Tyrant King and end this man's life anyway.

"Any last words?"

The man looked up and stared dead into the King's narrowed eyes. He grinned and laughed.

"While you sit there on your throne of lies, there are people who will have your head on a silver plate."

A dagger flew out from King Percy's sleeve, stabbing the man between the eyebrows. The man, who was once laughing, had the face of shock, blood spilling out from his mouth and nose.

"But for now, I will have your head on a silver plate, then hung on my wall."

Even with the audience of people watching, the only thing that could be heard was breathing and the slight sound of everyone's heart's rapid beating. Fear and panic visible in their eyes.

The man that sat on that throne was no longer the King that everyone once knew and loved.