The valley opened into silence.
Etherfall wasn't what Rei expected. No temple. No gate. No altar. Only water. Yet the surface rippled as though it were alive, as though it had been waiting for him.
The Black Stone pulsed in his hand. He felt its weight, heavier than when Shira had first placed it in his pack. He took a breath, his reflection trembling on the water's skin, and stepped forward.
The moment the stone touched Etherfall, it broke.
Not shattered like glass, but dissolved like bone in fire. Cracks webbed across its surface, light bleeding out before the fragments sank into the water and vanished.
Etherfall answered.
The pool roared without sound, pulling him under before he could resist. Water filled his mouth, his lungs, his veins, and then there was no water, no breath. Only light.
The world shifted.
He was back in Hurukoya. The streets. The laughter. The warmth of home. Shira's voice carrying across the courtyard. For a moment it almost felt real. But the vision twisted, burning. The sky cracked open. The Elders descended.
And then he saw it.
Not through his eyes, but through truth itself.
Hurukoya had not been erased for weakness. Not for rebellion.
It was because of what lay hidden.
Enso was divine. Ordinary wielders touched only its surface. But within Hurukoya, generation after generation, there had been whispers of something deeper. Not just Enso. Not just control.
Guardian Zone.
God Enso.
A higher state, buried and sleeping in their blood.
The Elders feared it. They feared what would happen if an entire village awoke at once. A village that could rival gods.
So they burned it. Erased it. To stop a threat before it could breathe.
The vision cracked. Rei screamed as the truth clawed into him. His Enso surged, no longer unstable, no longer faltering. It pulsed steady, strong, infinite. Etherfall crowned him, power swelling, veins blazing with light.
The Guardian Zone—God Enso—stirred awake.
And then it broke.
Not because of him. Not because of Etherfall.
Because something else was already there.
A shadow deeper than shadow. A pulse colder than death. The demonic mark buried inside him flared, and Etherfall's gift collided with it.
The water convulsed. Rei's body seized. Agony ripped through every nerve as divinity and damnation rejected one another. He gasped but no sound came, his chest splitting open under forces that could not coexist.
He should have ascended.
Instead, he fractured.
The Guardian Zone flickered, incomplete. His Enso roared alive, but chained. Not whole. Not free.
And then the visions ended.
Rei burst from the water, collapsing on the banks of Etherfall. His body was whole, yet trembling, his eyes faintly aglow with a rhythm he didn't recognize. He pressed his palms into the earth, gasping, remembering every image, every word of the truth.
The Elders destroyed Hurukoya because they feared it.
Because they feared him.
The water behind him stilled. The night grew cold.
And in the silence, a voice.
Not loud. Not sharp. Just there. Inside his skull.
"So this is living."
Rei froze. His blood turned to ice.
The voice chuckled once, low and steady, dripping with amusement.
"I like it."