Chapter 14
The island reacted first.
A deep, resonant hum rolled through the ground, vibrating through Orion's bones like the sound of an ancient world waking from a long sleep. The shoreline trembled. Every tree on the island bent in the same direction—as if bowing toward him.
Orion felt something snap open inside him.
Not a door.
Not a seal.
Something far older than either.
A pressure erupted from the center of his chest, expanding outward in slow, unstoppable waves. The air around him collapsed inward, then exploded outward again as space itself bent like heated metal.
The woman standing in front of him didn't step back, but her eyes widened for the first time.
The island roared.
The sky cracked open.
Orion dropped to one knee, his hand slamming into the ground as a violent surge of energy tore through his veins like molten eclipse-light. His breath hitched—he felt his bones stretch, his blood ignite, his heartbeat synchronize with the trembling core beneath the island.
Then—
His shadow rose behind him.
Not a simple silhouette.
A towering outline of something colossal, divine, and monstrous.
Twelve wings—six black cosmic wings on the left, six white-gold temporal wings on the right—unfolded slowly behind him in shadowed form, stretching across the beach like a second sky.
The woman stiffened.
"So," she whispered, "you finally remember how to breathe."
Orion's skull throbbed violently. His vision blurred, then sharpened—too sharp. His left eye saw the shoreline in layered distances all at once, as if space had become transparent glass. His right eye saw the same shore rotting, healing, shifting through possible futures.
He steadied himself, but the ground no longer felt stable.
Time lagged behind his movements.
Space folded ahead of them.
His transformation was not complete, but the island sensed the awakening.
The sea split open.
Not slowly—instantly. A massive trench tore itself apart from the island outward, water falling into a hundred-meter drop as if the entire ocean had forgotten gravity.
Something massive stirred beneath.
Orion's pulse aligned with the tremor.
The shadow behind him grew denser, clearer, its wings beginning to take form in reality. His skin cracked with lines of silver and black light.
The woman's voice reached him through the distortion.
"If you awaken here… the island will no longer hold back."
He lifted his head, his breathing ragged.
The world around him warped—trees stretched into the horizon, rocks folded inward, the air swirled with tiny star-like motes.
"What… is happening?" Orion growled.
"Your true form," she answered. "It's forcing the island to reveal its original shape. This place is older than your Domains. Older than the rivers and mountains you command. It responds only to what you are… not who you think you are."
Another tremor.
The sea floor cracked like glass.
From the abyss below, a deep wail shook the island—low, guttural, echoing through both space and time. Orion's wings—though still only half-manifested—reacted instinctively, folding around him as the pressure intensified.
The woman finally took a step back.
"That cry…" she murmured, "means it recognizes you."
Orion forced himself to stand. The air around his body shimmered, fragments of reality flickering and dissolving in pulses. His hair shifted into silver shadow-light, floating as if underwater. His aura expanded into an eclipse ring behind him, rotating like a colossal wheel.
Something inside the trench below shifted again—an immense shape, huge enough to distort the horizon.
A presence older than the island itself.
A presence calling to him.
The woman's expression hardened.
"You are nowhere near ready for what's waking," she said. "But your body doesn't care. It will complete the transformation whether you survive it or not."
The ground beneath Orion split into glowing cracks.
He felt it.
His mythical creature form—
the Eclipse Paragon Beast of Space & Time—
was beginning to pull the world into alignment with itself.
He staggered forward, gripping his pulsating chest.
"This… pain…" he muttered.
"It's not pain," she corrected softly. "It's memory."
Orion's heart pounded once—
—space folded around him.
A second heartbeat—
—time stuttered like broken film.
A third heartbeat—
—the shadow behind him fused into his body.
Light and darkness exploded outward like a supernova.
The sky dimmed into eclipse.
The woman shielded her eyes.
And Orion—
—finally opened them.
The left eye burned like a living galaxy.
The right eye rotated with a golden clock halo.
The island froze.
The trench below fell silent.
Even the ocean paused its movement.
He stood tall, breath slow, aura monstrous yet divine.
The woman lowered her hand, staring at him as if seeing a ghost.
"So," she whispered, "the Eclipse Paragon has returned."
Orion flexed his fingers. Space cracked around them like thin ice. He felt heavier, yet freer. Stronger, yet strangely… incomplete.
He took one step toward the trench.
Every shadow on the island bowed.
"I'm going down there," he said quietly.
The woman inhaled sharply.
"If you descend now, you'll meet it."
He looked back at her.
"That's the point."
The island's core groaned in response, as if welcoming him.
And the ocean collapsed downward once more.
He stepped toward the abyss.
The abyss responded.
The island awaited.
The true awakening had begun.