Tsana knitted her eyebrows as her nose caught the smell of blood and dust mixed together. Her pair of eyes, still closed, slowly opened, appearing unfocused, then blinked several times.
Suddenly, the memory of the giant red eye in the sky, the huge silver gate, and Cayn's body being torn apart before her eyes spun in her head like a broken tape.
Tsana gasped, she looked down at her hands trembling violently, her green hair falling forward to cover part of her face, her gaze vacant.
It was a very horrible sight in her life. Before her very eyes, someone's body was destroyed by the iron chains, and it was someone she knew.
Fear.
This was a new feeling for Tsana.
Horror.
Something Tsana had never imagined in her life.
Her heart felt as if it was being cruelly squeezed.
'Is Cayn really dead? Was that real? Why am I still alive? What happened?'
Suddenly, a hand appeared in Tsana's field of vision, touching her chin, and slowly lifting her face up, and when Tsana saw who the owner of the hand was, she froze.
Then a second later, Tsana's expression turned emotional and relieved.
Cayn, without a mask on his face, was now right in front of Tsana, with the same smile, and still alive.
Cayn gently wiped away Tsana's tears that were streaming down her face, and his voice sounded soft as he said, "Don't cry."
Tsana leaned the side of her face into Cayn's palm. "You're alive."
"Of course, if I were dead, then who would guide you to the Dragon's place?" - Cayn.
"But I saw you die in front of me." - Tsana.
Cayn shook his head. "You were only dreaming."
"You're not deceiving me, are you?"
Cayn chuckled and placed his right hand on Tsana's waist and his left hand gripped Tsana's right hand and pulled her to her feet.
"We have entered the first time dimension," Cayn said, not answering Tsana's question.
Tsana raised an eyebrow. "How?"
"When I caught up to you, I found you passed out by the riverbank, but alone, while the Demon General was not there, and that's when the dimensional gate that appeared in the middle of the river pulled us into it," Cayn explained.
The two began walking out of the alley while talking.
"Then what about the others?"
Tsana's question referred to the group of Zephyr, William, Rolan, and Helena.
Cayn shrugged. "They stayed in the forest. Besides, only the two of us can enter this dimension."
"Why is that?" Tsana asked.
Cayn smiled mysteriously. "You'll know soon enough."
They were both almost at the end of the alley, and Tsana could see very thick dust flying at the far end.
Cayn's grip on Tsana tightened, causing Tsana to turn towards him.
Cayn said, "After you remember your past, please don't hate me."
Hearing that, Tsana remembered Kylos. When Kylos faced Cayn, an aura of hostility constantly emanated from his body. He also repeatedly said that Cayn tried to kill Tsana in the past.
"You haven't answered my question from when we first passed through the ancient gate, Mr. Cayn." - Tsana reminded him.
Cayn smiled bitterly, then continued his sentence from that time. "I still can't reveal my true identity to you, but if it's the past... You loved me very much."
"If I loved you very much, then why did you want to kill me so badly?" - Tsana asked.
Cayn shook his head. "Mistakes are often born from decisions made before asking the heart. There are times when someone chooses the wrong direction, rushes into a step they haven't thoroughly thought through... That was the biggest mistake I ever made."
Cayn's gaze turned melancholic, as if his thoughts were drifting somewhere. Pieces of the past continued to haunt his mind, drowning him in immense guilt and regret.
Something soft and cold touched his face, bringing Cayn's mind back to reality. He realized it was Tsana who was touching his face. Perhaps seeing Cayn's sadness, Tsana tried to comfort him. Then Cayn took that hand and kissed it.
"Maybe this sounds selfish, but promise me that you won't hate me."
Tsana reply. "If it's someone I love, how could I hate them."
Cayn almost cried right after Tsana said that, but this was not the time.
"How old are you, Cayn?" Tsana asked.
"I'm 3 years younger than you." - Cayn.
"I see... Then where have you been all these hundreds of years?" - Tsana.
"I was asleep." - Cayn.
"Really?" - Tsana.
Cayn nodded, then looked at Tsana with sparkling eyes. "I woke up at the same time as the Dragon's emergence. We are like sharing one body and one soul."
Tsana nodded. "Since you are the Dragon's very close friend, as if sharing the same body and blood, that's why you both appeared simultaneously."
Cayn. "..."
The two had reached the end of the alley, and as they stepped out, a heartbreaking scene immediately entered their field of vision.
They were in a city that seemed to have just lost a war.
There were many building ruins scattered everywhere, and abandoned houses.
There were many human corpses everywhere, filling the city with the combined scent of blood and dust.
It turned out this was the source of the smell of blood and dust that Tsana first smelled moments ago.
"This place feels familiar," Tsana muttered.
*Creak*
*Clank*
*Clack*
A sound like something being dragged was heard very clearly in the middle of the dead city. Tsana and Cayn turned towards the source of the sound.
There they saw, not far from where they stood, a small brown-haired girl, wearing ragged clothes stained with mud and dust, walking staggering.
Her body was very thin and her skin was pale, like a child who was malnourished and whose nutritional needs were unmet.
When she saw a dead rat carcass lying in front of her, she dropped to her knees, and slowly picked up the carcass, then gnawed on it, as if the child was very starved.
Perhaps because she knew it was disgusting and tasted bad, she threw up all the contents of her stomach, which made her much weaker.
There were many chains binding her, on both her wrists, both her legs, and one of them was connected to an iron collar around her neck.
When she walked, the sound of the chains being dragged on the ground was very clear.
She was like a prisoner in a dungeon.
The little girl continued walking, wandering through the dirty alleys, searching for leftover food in the trash.
On her back, which was slightly exposed because of her torn clothes, a mark shaped like a bird inside a circle, which looked like a tattoo, was visible.
When the child turned towards them, and Tsana saw those sage-green eyes and that small face. Suddenly, images like the ones she saw at the entrance to the forest and when freeing Kylos, reappeared in her vision.
This time she was seeing her own past, and the little girl she was seeing now was her childhood self.
"Is that... Me?"
Cayn looked at Tsana with an equally shocked face, and his expression seemed full of pain as he turned back to look at the child who was still searching for food scraps in the trash.
His chest felt very heavy, and his legs felt weak.
Cayn lost his composure.