"And—that's the gist of it." Rover's voice lingered down the dark-wood corridor, footsteps echoing as she and Kyorin traversed deeper into City Hall.
She had just finished explaining the tokens' labyrinthine logic—messages wrapped in riddles, each message having multiple meanings.
"This makes my brain hurt," Kyorin muttered, thinking to himself, 'That's a lot. I probably would've given up trying to figure these things out after an hour.'
'Too much labor,' he thought. The tasks and events Rover had gone through sounded overly complicated—no, perhaps... excessive.
"Don't you get tired of all this?" Kyorin asked with a groan. To him, the tokens' complicacies felt unnecessary if they were only meant to convey a message.
"I do," Rover admitted, her voice steady despite the truth. "But if I want to uncover my past, I have to endure."
She glanced at him. "If you were in my shoes… would you have given up?"
"Probably, yeah," Kyorin replied without hesitation.
Rover blinked, her eyes widening slightly. "Why?"
"If it's already passed, should I chase it just to say I remember?" Kyorin asked, as if the question itself felt unnecessary. "I don't want my life entangled in so much just to remember something that's already passed."
"But what about your forgotten loved ones?" Rover asked—a question driven more by feeling than curiosity.
Kyorin's brow drew inward—not in confusion, but in quiet bafflement at such a redundant question. "Is it impossible to forge new bonds again?"
"—!!?" Rover paused, a flicker of realization crossing her face.
She hadn't thought of it that way. What Kyorin said was undeniably true—even if old connections were lost, new ones could still be made.
But… would it be the same?
Unable to answer, Rover asked, "Would it be the same?"
"Everything changes with time," Kyorin stated matter-of-factly. "The friend-friend relationship of the today might not be the same in the futures."
"What about the memories?" Rover asked.
Kyorin replied calmly, "Are the memories what matter—or the mutual feelings of care?"
Rover fell silent, unsure how to respond. That's when Kyorin spoke again, his voice quiet but firm. "Obsession."
"Obsession?" Rover echoed.
"And regret," he added.
Kyorin's steps halted as he continued, "Rover, it feels like your past holds regret."
His words weren't cold—only observational, and etched with a deep concern. "That's why you're obsessed with it."
"You've become stagnant… unable to move forward," he said with quiet empathy. "If you uncover your past, it might trap you again, risking you your freedom."
He looked at her seriously. "Are you willing to risk that?"
"I..." Rover hesitated, then resolved, "...wish to have no regrets."
"I see." Kyorin let out a quiet sigh—not of frustration, but of quiet acceptance. He didn't press the matter further. Instead, he asked softly, "Rover."
"Hmm?" She looked at him.
"Are we friends?" he asked.
"Why are you asking that?" Rover replied, her brow quirking slightly.
Kyorin paused, then answered honestly, "I once heard that friendship—and enmity—should be shared between equals. Since I'm… lacking in many ways, I wondered if that disqualifies me."
"Are you stupid?" Rover asked, genuinely baffled by his logic. "Didn't you say that if feelings are mutual, the past doesn't matter?"
"Then—" Kyorin stepped in front of her, turning to face her fully. Without warning, he dropped to his knees with a thud.
Rover instinctively stepped back, eyes widening as Kyorin bowed his head and pleaded, "Please... don't tangle yourself any further."
What he asked for was simple: Let go of the past.
"Kyorin..." Rover stepped forward and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm sorry."
She felt his body slump faintly under her touch, his sigh deep and quiet.
"I see," he murmured.
"You're not going to stop me?" she asked softly. She could feel it—there was no resistance in him.
Kyorin lifted his head slightly, eyes calm. "I will trust you—and your judgment."
"Just as you've accepted me as a friend despite my flaws," Kyorin said quietly, "I accept your answer and your judgment. In the end, it's your life—you're the one who gets to choose how to live it."
"I see," Rover smiled at his response. An unknown worry she'd carried—that Kyorin might be the indignant or forceful type—quietly faded. His acceptance put her at ease.
She helped him to his feet as Kyorin asked, "Would you be willing to hear a piece of advice from me?"
"Go ahead," Rover said.
Kyorin met her gaze and spoke plainly, "Don't rely solely on your observations."
"Why not?" she asked.
"At your current, amnesiac state," Kyorin began, "what you see and hear will feel like the truth. But…"
He grew quiet for a moment before explaining, "What we observe invites contemplation, and contemplation sparks thoughts."
"Those thoughts," he continued, "in turn, shape the very fabric of one's character."
His tone sharpened slightly—still calm, but carrying a subtle weight. "Be cautious. Right now, your sense of self is like an untied boat adrift on turbulent waters. It can be pulled in any direction."
"I'll keep that in mind," Rover said with a nod.
Kyorin returned the gesture. "Thank you. Well then… I'll be hitting the sack now," he added with a lethargic stretch.
"Yes—good night," Rover let out a yawn, and with that, both decided to call it a day.
***
In the boundless chasm of solitude, Kyorin found himself once more standing before the enigmatic Yiliang.
His eyes, wide and filled with disbelief, mirrored the tumultuous thoughts swirling within him.
"How is this possible?" he whispered, the words barely audible against the void's oppressive silence. "Why is that sword still here?"
It stood before him—the broken sword—unchanged, untouched, unwavering, as though time itself had no claim over it.
Embedded in shadow, it remained, unyielding. As though it had never left… as though it had always belonged to this desolate realm.
"Am I dreaming?" he murmured.
With slow, deliberate movements, he rubbed his eyes, attempting to dispel the vision.
Yet, as his eyelids fluttered open, the sword remained, half-veiled in shadow, its presence as undeniable as ever.
"Was the one I summoned... a mere illusion?" he wondered aloud, his voice threaded with unease and faint curiosity.
Tentatively, he reached out, fingers curling around the hilt.
He let out a long breath. Closed his eyes.
And when he opened them again, he was back—in the quiet solitude of his assigned room. Not nearly as lavish as Rover's quarters, but there was a humble calm in its plainness. A certain stillness.
Kyorin glanced at his arm.
There, bound like a hairpin, was the sword—brand new, just as it had emerged from that mysterious realm.
"So… I possess an endless supply of them," he mused, a small grin tugging at the corner of his lips. "At least I won't have to worry about wea—"
He halted abruptly, the thought choking in his throat.
Shaking his head, Kyorin muttered to himself, "Bad thoughts… I mustn't confuse abundance with the liberty to become careless."
But… just to be sure, Kyorin had set the hairpin aside before closing his eyes and stepping into the enigmatic domain—yet the sword was still there.
"This is a good fortune," Kyorin murmured, smiling with quiet satisfaction at the discovery.
"??##**^^^$$$"
"…??" Kyorin's ears perked up, catching faint, unfamiliar noises.
At first, they were barely more than whispers—muffled echoes rippling in the void.
But gradually, steadily, they grew—rising in volume, layer upon layer—until the once-inaudible murmurs sharpened into something clear as day.
"I HATE YOU!!!"
The scream reverberated in his skull, crawling beneath his skin.
Something foreign and malicious wormed its way through the silence—a venomous current that made his teeth ache.
Kyorin staggered back, knees bent, and body curled up. "Who—?" he started, but another voice surged over his, sharp and shrill like a wounded child:
"WHY IS THIS SO UNFAIR!!!"
"Who—?" He tried to speak, but—
"TODAY IS THE DAY I CUT YOU!!!"
"Argh—" Kyorin groaned, his breath ragged.
Voices—countless voices—all boiling with hatred, crashed into him in waves.
Their rage wasn't just loud—it was real, thick and corrosive, vibrating his body in and out of existence.
"WHY DID MY LOTUS PLANT DIE?!!!"
"DAMN IT! IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF THAT CURSED YILIANG!!!"
"HEY! WHY DID THE BRANCH SNAP OFF?!"
"WAIT—WHY IS IT BEING ASSIMILATED?!"
"DAMN IT ALL! IF ONLY ONE LOTUS CAN BLOOM—THEN I'LL CUT THAT YILIANG!!!"
"MAKE THESE VOICES STOP!!!"
"ARGH—JUST KILL ME ALREADY!!!"
"IF YOU CAN ONLY GIVE ME LIMITED POWERS, THEN WHY DO YOU EXIST?!"
"IF YOU'RE DESTINED TO STAY AT THAT HEIGHT AND NEVER ASCEND—WHY BLOCK THE PATH FOR ME?!"
"CURSE THIS LIGHTLESS VOID!!!"
"HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO RISE ABOVE?!"
"EXACTLY WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"
The cacophony of hatred echoed through the emptiness. Kyorin had clamped his hands over his ears—but it did nothing.
The voices tore through him all the same. Yet it wasn't the volume that drained the color from his face. It was recognition.
Those voices… Those persons exhibiting their hate… Was him.
All of them—every scream, every shriek—they were his.
"No," Kyorin told himself, struggling to stand up. "The pitch… the hoarseness—they're different." He tried to deny it. To reason it away.
But the void answered his doubts with a wave of madness:
"HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE!"
Though each voice differed in pitch, in timbre, in tone, they all felt like his own—like echoes of a soul fractured into countless shards, all screaming the same word.
And somewhere inside… He feared it might be true.
"Tch." Clicking his tongue, Kyorin pushed himself upright, bones trembling from the cacophony that still rang through him.
Every hateful voice scraped across his nerves like rusted blades, but he forced himself to stand. He scanned his surroundings, searching for any sign of life, but found only the silent Yiliang and the decaying stalks of countless Lotuses.
"Can it be?" he murmured to himself, reaching for a nearby stalk.
As his fingers curled around it, a jolt of energy surged through him.
"Gah!" A vision unfurled before his eyes.
In this vision, a fierce female warrior wielded an enigmatic black sword, executing the very strikes Kyorin had performed earlier. "Those moves," he whispered, "they're the ones I did, or is it hers?"
The warrior stood unrivaled among her peers, her future seemingly bright. Yet fate, as it often does, had other plans. She encountered a stagnation upon reaching the pinnacle of her world, unable to ascend further.
Months passed as she practiced diligently, seeking enlightenment, but she made no progress. Until one day, a realization dawned upon her—it was the fault of the Yiliang.
"For a lotus to ascend, it must reach new heights," she had concluded.
She attempted to nourish the Lotus with her energy, hoping it would grow, but it remained still, as if declaring that its destiny was beyond her control.
The warrior aged, her time dwindling, and in desperation, she resolved to create her own Lotus. Yet each creation crumbled to ruin before her eyes.
Shocked by this revelation, she tried again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again—until one day, her hands became a wrinkled, weary mess.
"ARRRGH!"
In the end, frustration and death claimed her life, leaving behind a decaying fossil, a flowerless lotus stem—a testament to her futile struggle.
As the vision faded, so too did the storm of memories. Kyorin found himself once more in the suffocating stillness of the void.
The cacophony of voices had ceased. The silence that followed felt heavier than the noise. He stood there, breath ragged, sweat clinging to his skin, his eyes wide with unspoken horror.
Around him—the lifeless, crumbling stalks of lotuses stretched in every direction.
Now, he understood. "…They are…" He rasped, the words caught in his throat, choked by disbelief. "…all me," he whispered.
His chest heaved, shallow and uneven, the rhythm of a man clawing through the remnants of a nightmare.
He looked above—nothing.
No sky. No sun. Just a choking, starless black.
Not even the faintest glimmer of a heaven to ascend to. A ceiling-less prison where the concept of light had long since rotted.
He whispered, "Terrifying…"
And it was. It felt like watching lifetimes die in a blink. Like witnessing a soul ferment under the weight of unrealized longing—of obsession shackled to futility.
A life without salvation. Only endless grasping, writhing regret.
"Rover…" he murmured under his breath, the name barely audible in the stillness.
A knot of unease twisted in his chest. 'If she ends up carrying regret that never finds peace…' The thought stopped there—unwilling to take form.
He could still feel it—the fury, the bitterness, the hopeless anguish of that warrior whose years had withered into ash, whose dream of ascension had devoured her from within.
What he'd seen—what he now knew—was horror beyond words. During the final flicker of that vision, Kyorin had glimpsed what the woman had become.
Not a corpse.
Not a fossil.
But something else entirely—something still alive in form alone, twisted beyond recognition.
A cluster of bones—elongated and blooming like mock-petals—pierced out of her back, fanning in grotesque symmetry.
Her limbs were stretched into unnatural proportions, bound together by sinews of calcified lotus stems.
Her face, or what remained of it, was an open wound of anguish—no mouth, only a gaping hollow where ceaseless howls should have been.
And she was not alone.
Now, in the void, they emerged.
Dozens—no, thousands—of them, each with disfigured traces of humanity left behind. Monstrosities that walked on fractured knees, clawing at the invisible ceiling of this reality with arms too many and eyes too vacant.
Their mouths hung open—not to scream, but to echo.
Whispers bled into howls.
"I ALMOST MADE IT—HAHAHA—WHO AM I KIDDING?"
"WHY AM I THE ONE TO SUFFER THIS CURSE OF DENIAL?"
"IS THERE NO DIFFERNT END FOR ME AND MY FUTURE SELVES—ARE ALL DOOMED TO NOT ASCEND BEYOND?"
"MADNESS AND OBSESSION ARE ALL BUT I KNOW."
"GIVE ME ONE MORE CHANCE—PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE—DAMMIT JUST GIVE IT TO ME!"
Each voice carried not anger, but desperation. The kind that smothered air. The kind that made the soul itch.
Kyorin stumbled backward, heart thundering as his breath grew shallow.
This was no enigmatic void.
This was no house of memory.
This was a cemetery of lost ascendants—every figure an echo of a life spent in pursuit of transcendence, every shape a caricature of ambition mangled by time and regret.
He fell to one knee, clutching his head as their words slithered through his skull, each one tightening the grip of madness.
A life without salvation. Only endless grasping, writhing regret.
He tried to close his eyes—but the visions burned against his lids.
He tried to shut his ears—but their voices were inside.
He tried to deny it—tried to cast this as illusion, fever dream, some false conjuration of the void. But the truth lay bare before him.
His eyes fluttered, strained and trembling, fixating upon the grotesque figures. "... They... They are me..."
Yes, these figures were no strangers. Each face carried a twisted reflection of him—fragments of his past selves (egos), warped and fractured.
Tick... Tick...
The pendulum swung on without pause.
Tick... Tick...
The river pressed forward along its winding course.
Tick... Tick...
The sands began to collapse inward.
Tick... Slash... Tick... Slash...
"—!!?" A sudden lapse—Kyorin's grip faltered, and his sword struck the ground with a metallic clang.
"What was I…" Kyorin clutched the hand that had been swinging the blade.
He didn't remember when it began, but at some point, he had picked up the sword and started mimicking the exact movements the female warrior had shown him.
Kyorin had perform basic attack moves perfectly.
"This..." Kyorin's eyes widened as he picked up his sword again. As he resumed swinging, the Fibonacci patterns surfaced naturally.
His movements grew faster, more intense—and most notably, they began to rise.
"Why am I doing this?" Kyorin asked himself, shaken by the sudden feeling that he'd just lost a part of himself—some fragment of control slipping away.
"I want to be strong." The thought echoed from his heart as he wrestled with the urge. "The past is the past. Right now, gaining strength is all that matters."
He tried to reject the idea, but these were his own words. How could he deny them?
Just as he struggled, a burst of laughter rang out across the void.
"Hahahahaha!"
"Look—we've got a fresh one!"
"—!!?" Kyorin turned toward the bud-less stems.
His eyes widened in horror as distorted heads emerged from the empty stalks—each one a grotesque version of himself.
He hurled his sword in revulsion, but this only sparked another round of laughter as the voices echoed around him.
"It's useless, kid!"
"The spiritual lineage of our soul is intertwined with the essence of Xian (僊)—Transcendence. You can't fight the pull of fate."
"You have no choice but to transcend. Without it... moksha will forever elude you."
"Once you become stronger... you'll end up just like us."
"I..." Kyorin struggled to resist. "I'll give up ambition."
But the withered stems showed no reaction.
Their voices remained calm, almost pitying.
"You will continue to grow stronger—even if you don't try to."
"Your body will naturally be shaped by the countless experiences of life, even if it's against your will."
"Only transcendence is your salvation."
"Take our advice, kid. If you want strength, learn from us. It would benefit you while its still a blessing."
"No, I..." Kyorin stepped back—only to brush against another stalk. A jolt surged through him, and another memory unfurled.
Once that memory faded, Kyorin returned to the void. Now, he felt confident he could face that Saurian form from yesterday—without sacrificing his sword, at least for a while.
"Keh!" Kyorin clicked his tongue, only to notice the lotus stalk beginning to disintegrate, its purpose fulfilled.
"Kukuku... thrilling, isn't it?"
"Power without effort—tempting, isn't it? Don't hold back now. Wasn't strength what you wanted?"
"Just absorb us."
Kyorin scoffed, trying to maintain a hardened front. "Hah. All I've gained is experience—my body hasn't changed at all," he said, pointing to himself.
A voice interrupted him.
"Is that so...? Hmm... Tell me—has there been an instance where your heart went like thump-thump-thump-thump?"
Kyorin's eyes widened as the sneering faces jeered at him.
"Hoh? You've already felt the miraculous effects of the Slaughter Heart... and you haven't even begun absorbing us. Good, it seems you are a natural."
"You seem capable of evoking the Slaughter Heart at will... ahh, how enviable. Could it be that you can evoke the Sanguine Gaze as well?"
"Truly, a genius."
"What's so genius about it? Am I not just slacking off?" Kyorin asked, trying to deny his own potential as the mocking, bud less lotuses sneered around him.
"Being born lucky is a kind of talent too."
"But my body—" Kyorin tried to argue, but his words were cut short.
"The Slaughter Heart will reshape your body the next time you fight. Drawing from the experiences you've absorbed, it will mold you to endure—and wield—that power."
"Go on, take in as many of us as you like. That hunger of yours... it's practically screaming. At least you'll grow stronger—and hush this wretched emptiness."
"Unlike us—who coveted strength for a reason—you seek it for no purpose other than to be strong. Oh, those greedy eyes... I like them."
"I want strength." Kyorin's heart screamed as his legs and hands moved toward another decaying stalk. Even as he resisted, his hand brushed against it—"Gah!"
"Careful now. Don't get too greedy. Otherwise, the transformation brought on by the Slaughter Heart might overwhelm you... and you might die."
To be continued...