Upon this sight, He knelt next to Itsuki, and all his usual smugness was just gone. Seeing the boy up close it was worse. Crushed ribs, Fractured skull and internal bleeding that should've killed him hours ago.
But somehow itsuki was still breathing, The essence around the space was keeping him alive.
But why?
Tsuyari looked up around him, Then his expression shifted.
"This place..." Tsuyari's voice came out barely above a whisper. "This isn't a trap"
While to others this place seemed like it was empty and infinitely white, To tsuyari he saw towers, Gardens where flowers bloomed in reverse. Fountains that flowed up into constantly shifting skies.
"This is the beginning." Tsuyari said finally realizing where he stumbled into.
Where it all began, The creation of the realm, The makings of all creatures.
The starting point of all living beings currently existed in Vilaris.
The Kurieitā's world.
The First Dreamer. The one who made Vilaris out of nothing but imagination. Who breathed life into the first essence flows, who shaped the beings from raw possibility and then just...vanished.
Three thousand years ago, they fell into a sleep so deep everyone eventually figured maybe they were never real to begin with. The Trueborns searched for centuries but nothing came.
Tsuyari reached out, touching the edges of Itsuki's fading mind.
What he saw in there twisted something in his heart.
The amount of pain Itsuki felt when the beast tore into him. Tsuyari was rewatching all the scenes stored inside itsuki's mind.
He slowly removed his hand from itsuki's head, His facial expression changing instantly.
That bastard hadn't just broken his body.
It shattered his mind.
"You didn't deserve this," Tsuyari said quietly, hand hovering over Itsuki's chest.
Nobody deserves this.
He hesitated.
At that point Tsuyari could not worry about anything else, The boy was been chased by everyone and everything who had knowledge of his ability and knew the length they would go for it.
Looking at Itsuki broken and dying in this place of pure creation, Tsuyari remembered something he forgotten over millennia of scheming.
Power without purpose is just destruction. And destruction without meaning is waste.
The child was extremely valuable and one of a kind. Tsuyari, in his infinite years, had never encountered such a power as that of Abstract Shift—the capacity to alter the very laws of existence.
But his age was the main factor...
He was only a child.
Seventeen years old.
Physically, he was barely an adult. To Tsuyari, he might as well have been an infant.
And death was upon him.
Tsuyari chewed through his thumb, letting out silver blood which shone with concentrated essence. One drop landed on Itsuki's chest, exactly on his heart.
Color instantly came back to Itsuki's face. His breathing got deeper and deeper. The major wounds began to close up as the Trueborn's essence came into his body like liquid light.
But all that was not as important as the fact that the overwhelming despair began to go away.
The trauma could not disappear, The essence make it bearable for Itsuki's mind.
A pulse stirred in Itsuki's essence.
He was either experiencing the vitality of the Tsuyari blood or the restorative feature of the kureita's realm, in any case, something of his inner self came back to life.
Hope.
And that was the moment when everything turned cold.
Itsuki had been wandering through infinite whiteness, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. But as his eyes open slightly, He heard the waterfalls sing.
The aurora sky was glowing with dying embers. Itsuki glanced and perceived tints that he had never encountered before—very vivid deep reds melting into purples, and gold that constantly changed like a dying candle. The light traveled across the sky in slow waves, similar to blood through water.
This was the most beautiful sight Itsuki's eyes had ever witnessed in his entire life.
He tried to move but his body didn't respond as he was still recovering from the earlier assault.
He looked sideways and saw a man wearing a mask. Tsuyari had forged essence into solid form to hide his face, so Itsuki wouldn't see him.
"Ex-...Cough cough" Itsuki tried to speak but his lungs hadn't fully healed yet.
"Don't speak now, child. Who I am or what I am is of no importance," Tsuyari said, closing his eyes slightly.
Itsuki didn't feel any malice coming from Tsuyari. Instead, he felt safe.
Shortly after, a massive shadow covered the entire area. Itsuki's instincts screamed at him—that primal part of his brain that knew when danger was close.
The beast that broke him was coming back.
Tsuyari did not have to turn around. However he turned anyway. Slowly.
The beast raised from the dying light. Its black, shiny, and terrible scales slowly reappeared. Its yellow and hot eyes showed an awareness that was even more frightening than the mindless desire of a starving beast.
The beast stayed at the boundary of the grove and remained silent for a long moment.
Looking at Tsuyari directly in his eyes.
Finally, It began to speak, Raising it voice to cause the surroundings to tremble.
"TRUEBORN!"
Tsuyari stood slowly, putting himself between the beast and Itsuki.
When he spoke the beast's name, it sounded wrong to Itsuki's ears.
"Vorthak."
He was speaking in Virelic—the original language of the first beings, before words had been simplified and weakened by time.
The beast's eyes widened. No one had spoken to it in that tongue for millennia, Let alone call it by its name.
"I was hoping we'd get a chance to talk." Tsuyari continued.
The beast tilted its head, eyes sharp and aware.
"TALK? THE CHILD IS MINE. I HAVE TASTED HIS FEAR. HE BELONGS TO ME NOW."
"Does he?"
Tsuyari's smile formed into a chilly expression.
"Because from where I'm standing, he looks pretty alive. Healing, even. Maybe the void isn't as final as you think."
A low growl rumbled in Vorthak's chest.
"YOU DARE—"
"I dare many things," Tsuyari cut in. "You, however, made a mistake."
He gestured to the realm around them, where the very air quivered with creative energy.
"Did you think you'd face no consequences? The realm dragged you both here for a reason. This place remembers everything, Every story. Every dream."
The beast's eyes narrowed.
"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?"
Tsuyari's smile grew sharper.
"I'm saying, Vorthak..."
"STOP CALLING ME THAT."
"...the Kurieitā may be asleep."
Behind him, Itsuki's face grew less pale. His essence grew stronger.
"But the realm is fully awake."
"And it doesn't appreciate guests who break its domain."
Storm clouds began gathering in the aurora sky.