Everywhere felt hazy yet razor-sharp, the world shrouded in a dense, blinding mist, and yet every single detail around him was vivid and hyper-clear. He couldn't feel the physical weight of his own limbs, yet he felt everything simultaneously, as if his very consciousness had expanded to become the environment itself.
Where was he? He couldn't quite place it. He only remembered the heavy, synthetic drowsiness dragging him down before everything went black. But now, his mind felt sharper than it had ever been.
Luke opened his eyes—or more accurately, he felt the sensation of eyes opening.
He knew this place intimately, yet he was certain he had never physically set foot here in his life. *Where had he seen this?*
Ah. He finally remembered. This was the exact cavern where Kaizer had first met August. He recognized it instantly because he had relived that historical echo before through Ingis's recovered memories.
*Why am I here?*
Nothing made sense, but something was fundamentally different this time. He didn't feel the phantom weight of wings, feathers, or a beak like he had when experiencing Kaizer's perspective. Instead, he felt human hands. He felt the brush of long hair fluttering wildly in a cold gale.
The heavy roar of a violent rainstorm battered the mouth of a cave. He wasn't trapped inside Kaizer's memory anymore. Somehow, impossibly, he had slipped directly into **August's** memories.
The young patriarch stood in the dim light of the grotto, quietly burying something. For a long, agonizingly silent while, he shoveled dark earth into a shallow pit. When the trench was finally filled, he knelt and carved a simple sentence into the stone marker with his bare fingers:
> *'Rest well, Blazing Star. Your light has led me till now.'*
>
Hot tears threatened to spill, but August ruthlessly sucked them back, his jaw clenching. *Why was he crying? And what on earth did he bury?* Luke wondered, watching through another's eyes.
Suddenly, a shimmering tear in space—a massive gate—tore open the sky behind him.
August turned his back on the grave and walked straight through the threshold.
When he emerged, he stood within the **Forest of Alduir**—or at least, what it used to look like during its ancient, glorious era. Back then, the primeval forest was a writhing hellscape teeming with ancient beasts, apex nightmares, and primordial terrors that ruled the dark.
Yet, wherever August walked, the monsters fled in abject terror. He wasn't even in the mood to acknowledge them. Any stray beast blockading his path began to convulse violently the moment he drew near, their minds shattering. Those foolish enough to make eye contact with him dropped dead on the spot, their life force snuffed out instantly.
*What terrifying, overwhelming strength...* Luke thought, a deep, primal awe gripping his soul. This wasn't merely the power of a peak monarch or a high-ranking master; it was something so fundamentally incomprehensible that it bordered on absolute divinity.
August came to a sudden halt, lowering his piercing gaze to the ground.
Miraculously, the earth beneath his boots seemed to visually unravel, parting like water as August's gaze pierced straight through miles of subterranean stone until it reached the hidden labyrinth below.
With a casual flick of his wrist, complex golden runes materialized instantly in the air, flashing as they activated with terrifying autonomy. One second, Luke saw the forest canopy far above ground; the next, reality folded, and he was standing right at the iron gates of **Gorgoroth**.
The colossal void entity that served as the outer guardian stirred, rising from the shadows. It was larger, denser, and infinitely more powerful than the broken variant Luke and his strike team had encountered in the present, or more put, they'll encounter in the future.
Yet, in the presence of August, the anomaly was nothing more than a stray ant attempting to block an elephant.
"Move," August commanded. His voice was devastatingly sharp and firm, carrying the weight of a universal law.
The guardian locked its single crimson eye with August—a fatal mistake it instantly regretted. The void creature shrieked, its hands flying to its head as its entire consciousness and synthetic brain fried from the inside out. August didn't even slow his pace to look at it. He hadn't come here to waste his breath bullying insects.
The giant, sealed iron doors—massive barriers that not even a sword god's absolute, monstrous strength had been able to budge an inch during past centuries—simply blew apart under the sheer, ambient pressure of August's aura.
Watching through this vision, Luke finally understood the sheer impossibility of history. Now, he couldn't even fathom how Zurack had managed to survive a direct conflict against a monster of this caliber.
*So this is what the city looked like before the rot,* Luke observed.
Through August's eyes, the subterranean streets were unnervingly lively. But looking past the surface illusions, Luke saw the terrifying truth: the figures walking about the grand avenues weren't humans at all. They were hollow fragments of the void, wearing human skin like stolen garments.
Far in the distance, the silhouette of the monolithic castle pierced the gloom, and the strange, artificial star high above burned with a dim, sickly pulse.
August walked calmly down the stone steps. The skin-walkers scattered, refusing to even cross his path. It was chillingly erie how mechanically they reacted, moving like mindless cogs in a colossal, city-sized machine.
Even now, deep within the dreamscape, Luke could feel the ever-watchful, malevolent gaze of the ancient entity hiding within the dark heart of the castle. But unlike before, that suffocating gaze was more oppressive, absolute, even for the man walking