Beyond Reality: The Honoured One
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The door was wooden.
Unlike the last.
No machines. No gears. No glowing runes.
Just aged timber—splintered, cracked, scorched with old burn marks.
A single phrase carved into its surface in trembling, childlike handwriting:
> "Do not open me again."
EXIN placed his palm against it.
It was cold.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Like it had been waiting to be touched again... and hated him for it.
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The door creaked open.
No resistance.
No grandeur.
Just silence—and the scent of rain.
He stepped through.
The world that greeted him was not a Tower.
It was a memory.
His memory.
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It was raining.
A small village.
Wooden homes.
Dirt roads turned to mud.
Children screaming—then silenced.
A beast tore through the streets, all claws and teeth and mana-corrupted rage.
He remembered this day.
He had been nine.
He had been helpless.
He had watched it happen from under a burning roof.
He had watched his father die.
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But this time, something was different.
This time…
He was there, too.
Standing in the middle of the chaos.
A grown version of himself.
EXIN... now.
Watching it happen.
Watching the younger version of himself sob under a beam.
Watching the beast move toward the child.
And this time...
He could stop it.
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He moved to step forward.
But the air resisted.
Thickened.
Solidified.
Like glass.
The memory wasn't letting him interfere.
> "You're not allowed to change this," whispered a voice behind him.
He turned.
It was her.
Not the Tower.
Not Remi.
But his mother.
---
She stood whole.
Alive.
Unscarred.
Exactly as he remembered her before the fire took her life just one week after this event.
> "You always run," she said gently.
"Even when you're strong enough to stay."
He stepped toward her.
> "You're not real."
> "Neither are you," she said.
"You're just what's left of a boy who couldn't let go."
---
Behind them, the beast roared.
The memory continued.
He saw it tear through the street.
He saw the villagers scream.
He saw the boy—his younger self—crawl toward his dying father.
Then stop.
Then look up.
Right at him.
> "Why didn't you save him?" the child asked.
His voice broke.
> "Because I didn't know how yet…"
The boy stared.
Then whispered—
> "Then why did you forget?"
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The world cracked.
The sky tore open like paper.
And everything dissolved into ash.
---
EXIN collapsed to his knees in an empty black void.
The spiral on his arm bled—not light, but memory.
He clutched his chest.
He could feel it now.
All of it.
The weight he'd buried.
The lives he didn't save.
The faces he never dared remember.
He screamed.
And the void screamed back.
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But from the darkness…
A new voice spoke.
Soft.
Clear.
> "You didn't forget because you were weak."
> "You forgot… because you wanted to be strong."
A new figure stepped from the dark.
It was the child again.
But this time, older.
Different.
Balanced.
He reached out a hand to EXIN.
> "Let's carry it together."
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EXIN took the hand.
For the first time, the void pulsed gently.
Like a heartbeat.
Like forgiveness.
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A new mark burned onto his back:
> A burning child wrapped in flame that doesn't consume.
The Symbol of Burden Carried.
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The next door opened.
No voice.
No sound.
Just a scent:
Ashes and hope.
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To be continued in Chapter 17 — The Chains of Godhood.
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