The world held its breath.
The white-haired man's eyes opened, golden light bleeding from their edges like dawn breaking through storm clouds. The air thickened, heavy and ancient.
Dawn stumbled a step back as his bow began to hum, reacting on its own.
> [Sequence fluctuation detected.] <
The voice again. Colder this time. Almost reverent.
The man sat up slowly, each motion deliberate, as though the act of moving reshaped the air around him. The golden light rippled across the ground, running through the cracks like veins of molten metal.
Elara straightened beside him. Her tone softened. "You're awake."
He blinked once, eyes focusing, then fixed his gaze on her. "…Elara?" His voice was low, echoing faintly, almost harmonic. "It's… you."
"I suppose so," she murmured. "Though I'm not sure which 'me' you remember."
He frowned, the expression too measured, too composed for someone newly risen. "Fragments, then. You've lost sequence stability."
"I'm aware," she replied, almost dryly.
Dawn looked between them, bow still drawn, expression hard. "Okay, great reunion and all, but the hell are you people?"
The golden-eyed man turned toward him. Just a look, calm, assessing, and the ground cracked faintly beneath Dawn's boots.
His breath hitched. "What the,"
Elara stepped forward, lifting a hand. "Stop. He's not your enemy."
The man's gaze lingered, then eased. The pressure vanished.
"Your control's still as cruel as ever," Elara muttered.
He ignored her. His eyes shifted back to the ruined horizon, scanning the dead forest, the broken lake. "This isn't Solace," he said quietly.
"No," she answered. "It's not."
The man rose fully now, golden aura dimming. "How long have we been gone?"
Dawn exhaled sharply. "Gone? You mean dead?"
Elara's lips pressed into a thin line. "…Maybe both."
The golden-haired man looked at her, something grim settling in his tone. "Then the Reversion failed."
"Reversion?" Dawn muttered. "Damn it, you know what, I need to get the hell out of here. The Jester will definitely reach here soon."
His pulse quickened. "Actually, I don't even know these people.", he thought bitterly. "Damn it all… if Rain makes her way here looking for me, and the two cross paths those damn battle junkies might brawl it out…"
He swallowed hard. "No. I can't let that happen."
He took a step forward, voice firm but strained. "Alright, listen up. I don't care if you listen or not, but pick up your friend and follow me. Now."
Elara raised an eyebrow, faint amusement flashing in her eyes. "You're ordering us?"
Dawn didn't respond. He simply turned and kept walking.
The golden-eyed man, his name still unknown, glanced at Elara, then gave a slight nod. She sighed, kneeling beside the crimson-haired woman to help her stand. The golden-haired man raised his hand, using some unseen force to lift the unconscious black-haired figure effortlessly from the ground. Shadows coiled faintly around the man's limbs as if reluctant to let go.
They moved through the trees. The forest was unnervingly quiet. No wind. No birds. Only the hum of residual mana in the air.
"Where are we going?" Elara asked.
"Somewhere that's not here," Dawn replied, scanning the treeline. "There's a cliff to the east. From there, we can,"
He stopped mid-sentence.
The trees ended abruptly. Beyond them stretched open sky.
Dawn's pulse spiked. "The hell…?"
He stepped closer, peering past the treeline, and froze.
Where the land should have sloped down toward the capital of Rinzard, there was nothing.
No horizon. No city. No plains.
Just emptiness.
A sheer cliff that fell into endless clouds below, the edges of the forest torn as if the world itself had been ripped from its roots and left to float in the heavens.
"We're… floating?" Elara whispered.
Dawn's throat went dry. "Dammit."
The golden-haired man stepped beside him, his expression unreadable. His gaze swept the endless clouds and fractured terrain.
A low rumble echoed across the sky.
Dawn gritted his teeth, tension coiling through him. "I should've stayed home damnit"
Elara frowned. "I-..."
Her words died in her throat.
A pair of crimson eyes blinked open behind one of the distant clouds, vast and unblinking. The temperature dropped instantly, frost forming along the ground, creeping over the trees.
Without warning, hundreds of spears of ice erupted from the cloud bank, cutting through the air with terrifying speed.
Dawn reacted before the others even processed the threat. His bow lifted, his eyes igniting with a golden glow.
The weapon thrummed, alive.
He loosed a single arrow, golden and searing. It split mid-flight into dozens of smaller arrows, each one growing to match the size of the first.
The air blazed with golden light as the storm of arrows clashed with the descending spears, detonating in a cascade of molten sparks and frost.
The shockwave sent debris flying, the cliff trembling beneath their feet.
Elara shielded her face from the blast. "What in the stars,"
Dawn didn't answer. His gaze locked on the horizon.
The crimson eyes had vanished.
But a voice remained, low, distorted, echoing through the clouds like a whisper.
> "You humans truly are far to arrogant…" <