Aloysius woke to the sensation of damp soil beneath his palms.His lungs pulled in air that smelled of rain and moss soft, clean, untainted by the divine radiance that had once saturated the world.
He opened his eyes.Above him stretched a sky unfamiliar in every way an endless gradient of pale amber fading into deep sapphire. No suns. No moons. Just an ambient glow that seemed to come from the air itself.
The silence was heavy, yet not oppressive. No clash of steel, no hum of godly power.It felt… ordinary.
He pushed himself upright. His body was lighter than before, but weaker too. His once-searing aura was gone. No divine essence thrummed in his veins. In its place was something quieter, almost human.
For a moment, he thought he might have been reborn entirely.Then the memories returned the Weaver's challenge, the shattering of the Loom, the scattering of creation into fragments.
He stood, scanning his surroundings.The forest was alien: trees like spires of glass-veined wood, leaves shaped like curling ribbons of silver-green. Strange winged creatures drifted between the branches, their translucent bodies catching the light.
A voice called from a short distance away light, almost hesitant."You're not from here, are you?"
He turned to see a young woman standing among the roots of a massive tree. Her hair was a soft shade of blue-white, and her eyes… her eyes were unlike anything he'd seen before each iris a swirl of multiple colors, as if they reflected entire sunsets.
"I could ask you the same," Aloysius replied, his voice rough from disuse.
She tilted her head, studying him with a cautious curiosity."This world… doesn't remember you. It doesn't remember anyone like you."
Her words cut deep, though she spoke them without malice.No songs. No stories. No trace of his battles or sacrifices.The name Aloysius Herrold meant nothing here.
For the first time in years, he realized he wasn't a savior, a warrior, or even a threat.He was just… a man.
The girl stepped closer, her gaze sharpening."But I think you still carry something the rest of us don't. Something… dangerous."
And in that moment, Aloysius felt it too a faint pulse deep inside, like the echo of a god's heartbeat, stubbornly refusing to fade.