Rolin sank…
and fell.
There was no direction to the fall,
no sense of distance,
no promise of an end.
An eternal darkness—
where nothing could be seen,
nothing could be heard,
nothing could be felt.
No pain.
No cold.
No fear.
Absolute stillness.
Terrifying in its essence…
and yet—
strangely calm.
Or perhaps more accurately—
there was no feeling at all.
No peace, no anxiety.
A pure void,
as though existence itself
had grown tired
of asking questions.
Then—
something happened.
A flicker.
Not light…
but an idea.
Images began to appear before him,
not like dreams,
not like memories,
but something else entirely—
as if they had been torn
from a place that did not belong to him.
He saw—
A wolf-like creature.
Enormous in size,
its eyes burning,
dark crimson flames erupting from its fur,
so deep they leaned toward black.
A fire that did not warm—
but devoured meaning itself.
Then—
A girl.
Hair blond like pale sand,
skin as white as the light of a sickly moon.
Yet her face—
he could not see it.
As if something
refused to allow him
to know her features.
Then—
A forest.
Vast.
Ancient.
Trees that pierced the sky,
their trunks like mountains,
their branches… unseen,
as if they stretched beyond reality itself.
Then—
A temple.
Dark.
Unfamiliar.
Ancient in a way that made it feel
as though it belonged to no era at all.
It collapsed.
Stones fell.
Symbols cracked.
And in the center of the ruins
stood another girl—
her features unclear,
but one emotion screamed louder than all else:
Regret.
Then—
A young man.
Standing.
Bound.
Engulfed in flames.
No screams.
No resistance.
Just silent surrender
to a fire that knew exactly
what it was burning.
Then—
An ocean.
Endless.
Dark.
Black, unmoving water,
as though it were waiting for something
that would never come.
Then—
Another girl.
Hair pure white,
her beauty painful to behold—
a beauty that did not comfort,
but made it clear
that merely looking at her
carried a price.
Then he saw—
A group of people,
laughing together,
sharing food.
Then—
Then—
Images without end.
Faces.
Places.
Destruction.
Fire.
Silence.
As though the universe itself
were flipping through the pages
of a book
never meant for him to read.
Until—
the final image appeared.
The building.
That black structure
at the mountain's summit.
But—
it was open.
Its doors were no longer sealed.
And at its center
stood someone.
Strange.
Indistinct.
Their features shifting,
as if refusing
to settle into a single form.
They were there.
Waiting.
Then—
nothing.
The images vanished.
The darkness returned.
The stillness reclaimed everything.
Rolin remembered
what people always said—
that at the moment of death,
one sees their life
pass before their eyes.
But this—
this was not his life.
These were things
he had never lived,
never seen,
never known.
Things that did not belong to him.
Or so
he wanted to believe.
He told himself,
without sound,
without feeling:
Just hallucinations.
The remnants of a dying mind.
But—
deep within that eternal darkness,
in a place where there was no body
and no thought—
something was watching.
And something
had just begun.
Then—
a sensation.
Warm.
Gentle.
Beautiful.
Rolin felt as though clear, warm water
were flowing through him slowly—
not drowning him,
but cleansing him.
The warmth spread through his body,
through shattered bones,
through torn flesh,
and when it touched his wounds—
it did not hurt.
It soothed them.
Caressed them.
As if an unseen hand
were apologizing
for everything he had endured.
Rolin could not describe the feeling.
It was not pain fading,
nor fleeting pleasure.
It was something… deeper.
And with everything he had lived through,
with all the fear, hunger, and blood—
he knew only one thing:
This
was the best sensation
he had ever felt
in his entire life.
Then—
a voice.
Gentle.
Pure.
So calm it was unsettling.
A voice that did not rise,
did not press down,
but slipped into the soul
the way light
enters a room
dark for centuries.
"I have seen everything…
I saw you fight,
I saw you resist
to save a girl
who had nothing to do with you."
The voice echoed within the void,
from no direction,
from no distance.
"I saw you break all your principles,
and for the first time—
place someone else
before yourself."
Rolin wanted to answer.
To ask.
To scream.
To understand.
But he could not.
Not because he lacked the will—
but because the beautiful sensation
had grown deeper,
sweeter,
heavier
than words could pass through.
"You possess rare courage,
to stand against a creature
stronger than entire squads,"
the voice continued,
calm as still water.
"And a remarkable mind,
to devise a plan
at the deepest point of despair,
while knowing
that your chance of survival
was less than zero."
Rolin felt as though the voice
was not merely speaking to him—
but reshaping him.
As if everything broken within him
were being rearranged,
quietly.
"Since you entered the mountain…
I have been watching you."
The voice paused,
and silence returned like sudden weight.
"I paid you no attention.
I thought you were weak."
Then—
"But you shattered my expectations."
A subtle shift—
something like genuine surprise.
"And that…
has never happened before."
At that moment—
the warm sensation
touching his wounds
vanished.
Gone in an instant,
as though it had never existed.
The emptiness returned,
but this time—
it was no longer terrifying.
"I will grant you
what you deserve…"
the voice said,
slower than before.
"…the further you advance."
Rolin felt his awareness
being drawn back slowly,
as though rising to the surface
after a deep dive.
"And I will give you
only one command…"
The voice began to withdraw.
Not disappearing—
but retreating.
"Live."
Then—
"And become
stronger."
Rolin began to feel again.
His body.
Its weight.
But before everything returned—
he heard one final thing.
A faint whisper,
like an oath,
or a prophecy:
"…until you can
break the swords."
Then—
the body returned.
The world returned.
But Rolin…
was no longer
the same.