Cameraman Never Dies-Chapter 260: The beauty and the man

The golden particles spun slowly at first, drifting upward from the candy as if reluctant to leave the child’s side. Then something in the air shifted — a pull, a recognition — and the particles gathered into a spiraling column. Light wove around itself, threads tightening, the glow intensifying until it hummed with a subtle, ancient power.

Behind the altar, the light collapsed inward.

A man fell out of it.

He hit the polished floor hard, elbows scraping stone, breath ripping into his lungs like he’d been drowning for centuries. His fingers dug against the marble, trying to grip the world back into focus. His shoulders shook. His spine curled. His body trembled violently from the strain of existence itself.

For a long moment, he didn’t move.

Then, slowly, breath by breath, his trembling began to ease. The temple waited around him, silent, reverent, as if holding its breath for him alone.

A faint rustle came from the altar.

The girl blinked awake, her lashes fluttering like someone waking from a soft dream rather than death. She sat up gingerly, rubbing her eyes, the altar’s glow reflecting in her pupils. Confusion dawned slowly — she remembered running, and fear, and darkness — but none of that mattered to a world that had rewritten itself around her.

She slid off the altar. Her feet made soft, bare slaps on the marble as she moved.

That was when she saw him.

A man, collapsed. Strange-featured. Skin darker than anything she’d ever seen. Her breath hitched. Her small hands curled into fists at her chest.

But she didn’t try to run. Where did she have to go?

Terror had already chased her to the ends of her world. One more fear couldn’t break her now.

She swallowed hard and approached with halting steps. Inch. Pause. Inch. Her fingers reached out, trembling, and gently poked his shoulder.

Much to her surprise, he jerked awake with a sharp inhale.

His eyes — dark and ancient — locked onto hers. For a heartbeat, he seemed shocked to see her. Then something softer replaced the confusion.

"Was it you... Who woke me?" He asked in a hoarse voice, with a forced benignity.

She thought he meant now. Not remembering the offering, nor anything happened after the altar. Just now.

Her head bobbed in a tiny, scared nod.

He smiled, weary but warm, and lifted a trembling hand toward her head.

She flinched.

His hand froze midair. He did not understand the mortals much, but even he could tell that the girl had been through a lot of daunting experiences.

Then she, shaking like a leaf in storm wind, leaned forward just barely... just enough for his palm to settle on her crown.

His fingers threaded gently through her hair.

"You’re safe," he whispered. "You’re alright."

The words hit something locked deep inside her.

Her face crumpled.

And she broke, as she let go of all her guard. What could she do? She was just a child and had found safety after hours of running.

She collapsed against him, burying her face in his abdomen, little fists clutching his tunic while her voice tore out in ragged, gasping wails. She sobbed without rhythm or shame, the kind of grief that only children know — the kind that splinters the soul when the world becomes too big and too cruel.

He wrapped both arms around her, holding her tight, chin resting lightly against her head.

She shook for what felt like forever.

Eventually, her sobs softened. Her breathing evened. She fell asleep tucked against him, exhaustion claiming what grief could not.

He sat silently for a long time, staring at the far wall. Slowly, it began to change.

The lustrous walls became ancient and crumbled, the floor became dusty, and overgrown vines intruded into the room.

Then he looked down.

On his lap, lying instead of the living illusion, was her true body. Pale. Cold. Throat pierced. The truth he could not erase.

His lips parted.

"Is this the world you promised to create, Rey?" he whispered, voice fraying at the edges.

No answer came.

His hand hovered over the corpse for a moment, then rested gently atop it.

"I’ll fix this then, Princeps, you seem to have made a terrible world," he murmured. "And I’ll make her live. Properly. Somehow."

At first, they walked through forests. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

She liked trees. She said they felt safe. He didn’t argue.

The world outside the temple was loud, foreign, alive in ways she couldn’t understand but tried to. She asked questions constantly, her small voice carrying curiosity instead of fear now. He answered every single one, even the ones that made no sense.

Why do leaves fall? Why is smoke shaped like that? Why do birds sing in the morning? Why doesn’t the moon ever fall?

He learned that immortality felt less like eternity and more like walking beside a child who never stopped asking why.

They crossed villages where laughter echoed between rooftops. Then villages where laughter had been replaced by screams.Then villages where no sound remained at all.

War crept across the land like a slow disease.

They watched kingdoms clash. Armies devour one another. Cities burn down, rebuild, then burn again under someone else’s flag.

She never aged. Her hands stayed small in his. Her legs remained short. Her hair stayed fine and soft. Her voice stayed young.

Her mind... it never grew. Nor did the wound on her throat heal.

She learned to read. She learned to cook, terribly. She learned jokes and tried them on him at the worst possible moments. She learned sadness when she saw the graves of people she’d known only for a day.

He never told her why she couldn’t grow. She never asked, but she understood with what her little mind could bear — she was dead, a soul borrowing a corpse.

Seventy years passed. Then a hundred. Then two hundred.

She never loosened her grip on his hand.

The final battles of the continent’s unification thundered across the world. They stood on a distant hill as the war ended in a storm of fire and wings. Wyverns descended like living calamities — massive, armored in scales harder than steel, breaths that burned armies into silhouettes.

When the smoke cleared, the Eldris Empire written in fang and flame stretched across the land.

The girl stared at the sky, eyes wide, trembling. He stood behind her, expression darkening like a storm held in human form.

Not rage. Something heavier.

A promise breaking all over again. Rey was the prince of dragons, and the only mortal who could challenge the gods. He had been sealed by Rey after he was promised a new and better age for humanity, one without the gods.

Even now, almost all his powers were sealed. It took a lot of effort to keep the child alive

He said nothing as she held his hand tighter.

———

The duo met a strange woman in a quiet valley years later.

A woman with silver-threaded hair, skin traced with glowing, arcane marks, and eyes that had seen more betrayal than most mortal lifetimes allowed. She wrapped her face with a bandage, and there was something sinister in place of a heart; it sucked in ether like an endless abyss.

She had come to find them, the immortal duo, of her own accord. She introduced herself as Mina.

"I know what she is," Mina said, gaze flicking to the girl. "A soul in a borrowed vessel. And I know you made it."

He went still, waiting for her to make a move before he did anything of his own.

"I can give her a real body." She continued, disregarding the man’s threatening gaze. "One that grows. One that belongs to her."

The man’s gaze shifted, but still cautious. The girl’s eyes lit, unaware of the weight in the air.

"But," Maya added, "I want your help."

Her lips curled into something sharp.

"I want the life of a single dragon... Rey Drakonis"