CHAPTER 12
The island did not open like a gate.
It unfolded.
The ground rippled like fabric being stretched, stone reshaping into pathways that had never existed an instant before. Trees twisted, bending their trunks in slow, creaking arcs as if bowing to something hidden deeper inside. The black fog thickened, curling around Orion's legs like living smoke.
The woman walked ahead of him without speaking.
Her feet barely touched the ground; each step left behind a faint imprint of blue light that dissolved almost instantly. Orion followed, hand resting near the hilt of his weapon, senses sharpened to the point of pain. Every direction felt wrong—too still, too aware. Even the island seemed to breathe in anticipation.
He didn't ask questions. The woman clearly wasn't the type to answer them unless she chose to.
Instead, he observed.
The deeper they walked, the stronger the pressure grew—an invisible weight pushing down on his shoulders, forcing his body to move as if underwater. Even at full strength, it would've been taxing.
But here… it felt targeted.
Like the island was testing him.
The woman finally slowed. The fog parted around her, revealing a vast field of white sand shimmering under a pale sky. Black bamboo rose in perfect lines around the clearing, the stalks whispering despite the absence of wind.
At the center of the clearing lay a stone altar.
Carved into its surface were countless symbols—some familiar, some older than anything Orion had seen. They pulsed faintly, reacting to his presence. He felt his Domain tremble inside him, like a beast stirring.
The woman tilted her head.
"You feel it, don't you?"
He said nothing, but she smiled as if he had spoken.
"This altar remembers the first time you stepped here."
His jaw tightened.
"I've never been here."
"You have," she answered simply. "Just not as you are now."
Before he could press further, the ground rumbled.
This time, it wasn't a distant tremor. It was close—terrifyingly close. Sand rippled outward from the altar, and a deep groan echoed beneath the earth. The air thickened with pressure so immense that Orion instinctively activated his innate instincts. His stance lowered, hand gripping his blade, eyes narrowing.
The woman remained perfectly calm.
"It wakes because you stepped onto this island," she said. "Because you bear her Domain."
"I don't even know who 'her' is."
"You will," she replied softly.
The sand split open.
A massive tendril—thick as a tree trunk and covered in gray fog—burst upward, striking the sky. Orion leaped back, blade flashing. The tendril slammed down where he stood, cracking the ground, sending white sand exploding into the air.
More tendrils rose, twisting violently, searching.
No—recognizing.
They pulsed when they sensed him.
The woman watched the chaos with serene detachment.
"You shouldn't fight it."
Orion didn't listen.
One tendril coiled toward him like a serpent. He stepped forward, slicing the air with a clean arc. His blade connected—but the tendril dissolved into fog before the strike could land, reforming behind him and lunging again.
It wasn't a creature.
It was something conceptual.
A manifestation.
A memory.
The tendril wrapped around his leg and dragged him toward the altar. He jammed his blade into the ground, stopping his slide, muscles straining. The fog surged, thickening as if trying to swallow him whole.
"Stop resisting," the woman said.
"You expect me to just let this thing pull me under?" Orion growled.
"It's not pulling you under." Her voice held no urgency—only patience. "It's returning you to where you started."
The tendril tightened.
Pain flared.
The fog surged.
The altar's symbols ignited with blinding silver light.
Orion's vision blurred.
The world flickered.
The fog erupted upward like a storm, swallowing him in an instant.
For a moment, everything was silent.
Then space itself tore open.
He fell—not through distance, but through memory.
Thousands of whispered voices passed by him. Rivers flowed upward. Mountains inverted themselves. Bamboo groves surfaced out of nothing, then dissolved into mist. A shape waited at the end of the collapsing visions.
A silhouette.
A presence wrapped in gray mist.
A gaze he felt through closed eyes.
The woman from his memories.
Not the one on the island.
The original.
The island's heart beat once.
Orion crashed into the sand, gasping, as the fog fled from his body. His blade quivered. His vision steadied slowly.
The woman stood over him.
Her expression had changed.
"So," she said quietly, "you finally touched it."
Orion rose to his feet, breathing hard.
"What… was that?"
She turned away, looking toward the endless bamboo forest.
"The first gate," she murmured. "You've been here before—long before this lifetime. And now the island remembers you again."
Her gaze shifted back to him.
"And it won't let you leave until you reclaim everything you erased."
Orion froze.
"I erased…?"
But the woman was already walking deeper into the forest.
"Follow me," she said. "Your past waits."
The fog thickened again.
And the island closed behind them.