Voidspace.
A silence deeper than death stretched in all directions. No sound, no gravity—only the low, pulsing hum of ancient machinery buried beneath dimensions. Fragments of the shattered realm floated like drifting tombstones: bone towers, frozen lightning, blood-soaked glass.
And in the center of it all, beneath a cracked obsidian moon, an adult stirred.
Dylan.
Hair like burned copper. Skin pale as candle wax. His eyes opened slowly—silver irises ringed with black. He took one breath, then another, shuddering as if learning the rhythm of existence. Around him, the void vibrated with names
Lilith.
Tenshin.
Necros.
Zephyr.
The last name made his heart seize.
He sat up. The ground beneath him was an unstable mesh of timelines—ghost-echoes of battles long lost playing and rewinding at random. A thousand Zephyrs died. A thousand Gatekeepers screamed. A thousand Liliths wept and vanished.
And in the center of it all, Dylan existed.
He didn't know how.
He didn't know why.
And then the air shimmered.
Ash began to fall sideways, and the darkness twisted into color—blues, silvers, reds. Dylan blinked as a vision unfolded before him, not quite real and not quite memory.
A cathedral formed in the mist, built from memory and pain.
Inside it stood the cohort.
Lilith, hands still wrapped in black ribbons, blood trailing from her lips. Her gaze found Dylan's, and softened.
Tenshin, flickering in and out of sync, fragments of equations scrawling through his eyes.
Necros, pale and grim, half of his body skeletal, half flesh. The crown of bone he wore shimmered faintly.
They were not ghosts.
They were echoes.
"You're late," Lilith said, smirking weakly.
"We didn't think anyone would make it," Tenshin added, voice split into overlapping timelines.
Dylan took a step forward. "Are you dead?"
"Not exactly," Necros said. "But we still exist inside you.
"I don't understand," Dylan said, shaking. "I wasn't part of this. I never fought. I never—"
"You were all of it," Lilith said gently. "The parasite soul was never just a monster. It needed a future. You are that future. Not a weapon. A decision."
Dylan looked around, trembling. "And Zephyr?"
Tenshin's expression darkened. "He chose wrong."
Necros stepped forward. "And he will try to end you. Just like he ended us."
Lilith touched Dylan's face. Her hand was warm. "But you don't have to fight alone. You carry fragments of us. Our echoes. Our will."
Dylan closed his eyes—and light bloomed inside him.
Ribbons like Lilith's snapped from his wrists.
Equations shimmered behind his irises.
Bones cracked into armor beneath his skin.
When he opened his eyes, the vision had faded.
But the power remained.
And then he heard the voice.
"You are not alone."
He turned.
And Zephyr stood before the Gate.
Zephyr stood before the Gate, soaked in blood that shimmered like broken stars. The portal pulsed with light and gravity, beckoning him.
His expression was unreadable. Not triumph. Not sorrow.
Just inevitability.
The Edilion Fang was now silent—its black glow cooled to dull ash, its edge slightly chipped. His hands trembled.
"One escapes."
He stepped forward.
But the Gate did not open.
Not fully.
A force pushed back, resisting.
Behind him, the realm collapsed into a vortex of erasure. Time, matter, memory—unraveling. But the Gate? It waited. And at its threshold, a sound echoed through Zephyr's fractured mind:
"You are not alone."
He turned.
And Dylan stepped through the void.
But he was no longer a child.
His form had changed. He walked with the calm, deliberate weight of someone who had aged through endless echoes. His body was tall now, draped in a cloak of shifting crimson and silver. Long, wild hair, the color of deep flame, cascaded down his back in tangled waves. His once-pale skin now carried faint traces of radiant etchings—runes that pulsed softly, breathing with every step.
His eyes were the same: silver-ringed and watchful. But they held storms behind them.
This was not a boy.
This was the echo of every death made flesh.
This was Dylan, returned.
Zephyr stared. "...You."
Dylan met his gaze. "You killed them."
"I freed them. I ended the loop."
"You chose yourself."
"I did what I had to do," Zephyr said, stepping closer. The Edilion Fang reignited, shadows curling up its length. "You think you're some miracle? You're just what leaked through. You're error."
"And yet you're afraid of me."
Zephyr bared his teeth. "You weren't supposed to be born."
"Neither was the Gatekeeper."
Lightning cracked in the sky. The Gate pulsed behind them.
"You don't understand what I gave up," Zephyr hissed. "I watched every version of myself fail. A thousand lives. A thousand deaths. I saw children burn. Worlds end. I chose to survive. To win."
"You chose to betray everyone who trusted you."
"And they died anyway!" Zephyr roared. "Don't you see? We were never meant to win! The loop was a cage!"
Dylan stepped forward. "Then why do you still carry the sword?"
Zephyr hesitated.
"Because you're not free. Not really," Dylan whispered. "You think you escaped, but you're still a prisoner of the Gate. I'm the only one who wasn't written in."
Zephyr struck.
The Fang screamed as it tore through the air—but Dylan blocked it with a wall of bone and light. Ribbons lashed out, snaring Zephyr's arm. Time fractured as both twisted sideways into mirrored realities, where each saw the other's memories.
They saw Lilith screaming.
Tenshin breaking.
Necros falling into silence.
They saw a world where Zephyr didn't betray them—and died screaming in the void.
They saw a world where Dylan never awakened.
And then the vision broke.
Dylan gasped, staggered.
Zephyr slashed again, cutting into his side.
"You're just a child!" Zephyr shouted. "You don't know anything about suffering! About choice!"
Dylan looked up, blood on his lips.
"But I know what hope looks like. And it's not you."
Dylan raised his hand. The voices of the dead spoke through him.
"Reset denied."
A beam of light erupted from his chest, striking Zephyr and shattering the ground beneath him. The Fang flew from Zephyr's grip. He tumbled backward, crashing against the threshold of the Gate.
The Gate flared. The new Gatekeeper emerged.
Zephyr's body convulsed on the shattered stone, trembling as the blast faded. But something in him refused to die. The Gate's glow pulsed again—and this time, it wrapped around him.
His skin tore. His bones liquefied and realigned. Wings of fractal shadow burst from his back. His scream became inhuman—elongated, metallic, laced with static.
Dylan stepped back as Zephyr rose.
Where the man had once stood, now hovered something alien.
Its frame was tall and lean, stretched like it was trying to remember how to be human. Its eyes glowed like twin eclipses. Veins of raw void pulsed beneath translucent skin. Horns of bent light curled upward from a fractured skull.
And when it spoke, the voice was layered—Zephyr's, and something far older.
"If I cannot escape... then I will become the Gate."
The sky fractured.
The void screamed.
Dylan raised his eyes to the storm above—and saw Zephyr ascend, no longer bound by body or blade.
TO BE CONTINUED...