Maybe he didn't know the answer?
But then he nodded in affirmation. Tristan didn't fully trust it.
A brief silence hung in the air.
"I can see through the mist…
so stay close to me."
The creature's face showed no reaction at any moment. Tristan found it unsettling, it was like talking to a doll.
Even so, as he walked beside it, he could feel that this being's behavior was different from the other Marked, even though they looked very similar on the outside.
Tristan narrowed his eyes as he thought:
'Where do I go now?'
Returning the way they had come would mean certain death. Would they have to wait until the other Marked left?
How long would that take?
Would they really leave at some point?
In that white world, while Tristan reflected, all he could hear was the sound of his own breathing, the dog's, and the constant rhythmic beats.
Remembering that, he wondered where the sound was coming from.
There were three beats, two alike and one different, slower and weaker.
What could be causing it?
Some kind of danger? A way out? Or something else entirely, beyond comprehension?
Whatever it was, searching for answers was better than standing still.
Tristan decided to follow the source of the third beat, hoping to find some kind of anomaly in that place.
***
Time passed. Tristan had no idea how much.
He had been counting the seconds he spent there, but something felt off. He constantly found himself doubting his perception of time.
Sometimes minutes felt like hours, and hours like seconds. The constant uncertainty irritated him, so he gave up trying to keep track of time in that place.
The white hue of the mist never changed in intensity. Even the temperature remained strangely neutral—neither warm nor cold.
'This place is perfect for psychological torture.'
Tristan ran a hand through his wet hair, squeezed it, and water dripped down his body.
That was another peculiar trait of this place—droplets of water appeared out of nowhere, clinging to his skin.
He and the runic dog were completely soaked, as if they had just come out of a pool.
Tristan's Light magic told him that this was pure water, about as pure as water could be.
The other anomaly he found wasn't in the environment, it was in himself.
Tristan felt it was unusually easy for him to move through that world—not only because of his eyes, which let him see every tiny detail with clarity and notice differences in the environment.
It was as if he had a mystical intuition guiding him through the place.
He had returned a few times to where the golden flames were, just to confirm it wasn't an illusion.
Still, the doubt lingered. Could he really trust this newly discovered intuition, or was the world playing tricks on him?
With nothing else to do, Tristan examined his unlikely companion. The scars that formed the runes on its skin were much more recent compared to those of the hare he had fought earlier. They couldn't be more than a year old.
Tristan squinted.
There was something more to that creature, but no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't tell what was wrong.
He just had this persistent feeling that, for some unknown reason, he already knew the answer.
Something was brushing against the back of his mind. He felt like he knew what it could be—memories. Old and unpleasant memories.
'Is something about him related to my past?'
But what could it be?
Had he seen a similar species before?
Or did the mystery lie in the runes?
No, that wasn't it.
He felt far from the truth.
Tristan's head ached.
'Damn it, what's the answer? Everything about him is strange…'
The Marked's expression remained unchanged as always, but Tristan felt the creature watching him back—returning the unease in silence.
Tristan frowned and began focusing on the details—its breathing, the pulse of thick bluish veins beneath pale-pink skin, the slight tension in its muscles with each movement. Something was wrong. Something subtle.
And then, he saw it.
The paws.
More precisely, the way they moved.
'That movement…'
To anyone else, the dog would seem normal. But not to Tristan. The movements were… wrong. That way of walking… it was familiar.
That wasn't how creatures born into quadruped bodies moved.
It was awkward.
There was a slight misstep. An almost imperceptible imbalance, as if the body itself were an ill-fitting costume.
The same clumsiness he himself had experienced in his first reincarnations as a beast.
'…Impossible.'
A thought struck him like thunder.
'Could he be like me?'
Another reincarnated...
Another soul trapped in endless cycles of reincarnation?
***
Tristan remained silent for too long, stunned.
He didn't know how to react to that hypothesis.
He had always believed he was alone. The only one cursed. The only one wandering from body to body, from world to world, slowly losing his humanity.
But what if he wasn't?
Perhaps others shared his pain.
He shook his head.
'Calm down. Don't jump to conclusions.'
All he could say for certain was that the hound didn't seem familiar with its body. There could be other explanations.
But... it didn't matter. He was sure of one thing.
That Marked one was going through something similar to him.
It was like looking into a mirror of his past.
And at that moment, something rare bloomed inside Tristan — something he hadn't felt in a very, very long time:
Empathy.
As he processed that possibility, he realized the sound of the third heartbeat was now close. Very close.
Tristan snapped out of his daze.
In front of him, a chamber revealed itself — colossal in size.
At its center, hanging by thick cables, something pulsed. An object as massive as it was monstrous.
"...A heart?"
That was the only way he could describe it.
A gigantic heart, over fifty meters in diameter.
Tristan remembered the vision he had when arriving in that region — a colossal hand atop a mountain. Could it be connected?
Then he saw it.
Something unmistakable:
The golden flames.
They pierced through the heart, forming a tunnel.
The same oppressive heat, the same insatiable aura as before.
But at the same time, it felt like hope.
"This is it! This could be the exit!"
He turned to the hound.
"You can see that, can't you?"
The hound nodded.
Tristan took a deep breath. His time there was coming to an end.
They moved together, walking across the cables toward the tunnel of flames. When they were close enough, Tristan gave a warning:
"Remember — don't touch the flames."
Then, they jumped together into the tunnel.
***
When Tristan opened his eyes, he saw the sky.
Dark.
Dirt and stone beneath his feet.
He had returned.
It was night.
He had entered the mist in the afternoon. Was this the night of the same day… or several days later?
A cold breeze brushed his face. He looked around, trying to recognize where he was.
Then he saw it.
A monument. Strange. Massive.
The runic hound, upon seeing the monument, froze. Then, it turned and ran away at full speed.
"What was that? Did that ugly thing scare him?"
Tristan approached cautiously.
The structure was surrounded by a circular platform about a meter and a half high.
He climbed up, took a few steps... and heard something crack under his feet.
He pushed the dirt aside with his foot.
A skull.
He examined it more closely using magic.
The entire ground was made of skulls.
Human skulls.
And only skulls.
"Someone must've put a lot of work into this."
Around the platform, a grotesque statue towered. A pile of bones: femurs, ribs, teeth...
He tried to make out the shape — it resembled a giant worm.
An altar?
But who in their right mind would worship something like this?
It was ancient. Very ancient. Possibly millennia old.
There was nothing of value there. Tristan believed the place had remained untouched for ages.
He took another step.
And then — impact!
Something struck his ribs brutally. His body was thrown from the platform.
He hit the ground, breathless.
He tried to get up, but something emerged from the earth and grabbed his leg.
A wrinkled hand, crooked claws.
The grip was brutal, nearly breaking his tibia.
He focused the essence of Darkness in his fist and struck hard.
The hand loosened. Tristan leapt back.
But before he could retreat further, he felt the ground give way beneath his feet.
A massive hole opened under him.