Chapter 15
The trench gaped before him like the throat of a sleeping titan—vast, silent, lined with jagged stone that glowed faintly from the pressure of the awakening force below. Orion stood at the edge, space bending around his feet in slow, spiraling distortions.
The woman did not follow.
She remained where she was, watching him with an unreadable expression—equal parts fear, reverence, and familiarity. The wind howled between them, twisting unnaturally as if caught between two overlapping worlds.
Orion's twelve-winged shadow loomed behind him even though the wings had not yet fully formed in reality. The island felt smaller now. Fragile. Like a shell meant to be cracked open.
He lifted his foot and stepped into the trench.
Instantly—
The world inverted.
Light turned to shadow.
Shadow turned to light.
Up became sideways.
Sideways became falling.
Time bent like a ribbon twisting in a storm.
His body dropped through layers of distorted reality, each one collapsing behind him. Space folded like pages being turned. Stars blinked in and out around him though he was underground.
He felt weightless.
Then unbearably heavy.
Then neither.
He hit something that wasn't ground but stopped him all the same—like landing on solidified fog. Shapes moved beneath him in the darkness.
A heartbeat pulsed through the entire trench.
Not his own.
Not the island's.
Something else.
Orion exhaled, steadying himself. His breath came out as black mist shimmering with gold light. The air was thick with energy so old it felt like breathing the first second after creation.
The darkness parted.
Ethereal blue light rose from the depths like awakening embers. It outlined a colossal structure below—half temple, half living organism. Massive rib-like arches curled upward, each covered in thousands of glowing symbols that pulsed with the same rhythm as the island.
At the center of the structure… something stirred.
A vast, coiling silhouette.
Massive. Ancient.
Waiting.
Orion's eyes sharpened—the left flickering with galaxies, the right rotating through timelines.
A voice spoke behind him.
"Going down alone is reckless."
He didn't turn, but he recognized the tone. Calm. Soft. Inevitable.
The woman.
She stood on nothing, suspended in the same void-like layer he was, untouched by the distortions. Her white-gold hair rippled like moonlit waves.
Orion narrowed his eyes. "You followed."
"Someone has to make sure you don't unravel the trench by accident," she replied, stepping beside him. "Your power isn't stable yet."
He didn't answer.
His gaze remained locked on the shape below. Something about it called to him in a way no Domain ever had. Not even when Immortal and Asura clashed inside him.
The woman exhaled deeply.
"It's beginning to recognize your presence," she whispered. "You're waking its memory. That creature… it knows what you are."
Orion's fingers twitched as a faint pain shot through his veins. Time rippled around him, distorting into looping spirals.
"What is it?" he muttered.
She lowered her head slightly.
"Not what," she corrected. "Who."
The trench deepened beneath them, the structure shifting—as if rolling over in sleep.
Orion clenched his jaw.
"Speak."
The woman's voice softened, almost mournful.
"It is the first guardian of the island. The one who came before all Domains. Before the pillars. Before the ten stages. Before even the Outer Gods."
He felt his heartbeat slow.
"And why," he asked, "is it reacting to me?"
She turned to him.
"Because its last master had the same eyes you do now."
The world stopped for a breath. Even the abyss below hesitated.
Orion felt a sharp pull inside his chest—memory, instinct, something deeper.
Then the island trembled violently beneath their feet.
The ancient being below opened its eyes.
Two colossal orbs of swirling black space and white time snapped awake in the darkness—mirroring Orion's own but far older, far deeper, impossibly vast.
The air shattered around them.
The woman whispered one trembling word.
"Run."
Orion didn't move.
The creature's eyes locked onto him with terrifying clarity.
And the trench roared as the true guardian awakened.