Leon's voice hadn't stopped Originus out of pride or recklessness. It wasn't stubbornness that drove him to endure the agony threatening to tear him apart, it was instinct, the raw and terrible certainty that if the bond was severed now, he would die.
"I… can feel it," Leon gasped through clenched teeth. "If the binding stops, I die."
At first, he hadn't understood the pain. It was so immense, so absolute, that thought itself became a blur. His mind had been nothing but chaos, every nerve screaming in protest. But then, amid the burning, something in him shifted. A spark of clarity pierced through the torment, and his instincts screamed the truth at him.
This pain wasn't an accident. It was a clash, a collision of existence itself.
From his earlier exchange with Originus, Leon had learned something impossible yet undeniable: his true origin traced back to the Primordials. And that revelation explained everything that followed.
He was no mere human.
No simple vessel.
