Chapter 17
The night over Black Shore Island never settled into true darkness. Void-light shimmered across the water, the sand pulsed like a sleeping heartbeat, and the air carried whispers that did not belong to any era that still existed.
He stood at the edge of a cliff, the sea below bending like warped glass. The vision from earlier still felt too real—his future self speaking, granting him full authority over the island's forbidden records… and admitting to erasing every trace of their own existence.
And now, something else stirred.
A tremor rippled outward.
The ocean rose, not splashing upward but lifting, forming a colossal floating sphere. Inside its watery shell, shadows shifted like kneeling silhouettes.
A record.
The Black Shores stored their past in any substance they touched—rocks, winds, even the sea.
The sphere cracked open.
A voice echoed from within:
"YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE, PARAGON."
Not the island's will.
Not the past self.
Not a god.
Something older. Something deeper.
Mist poured out, coiling into serpentine forms. But these weren't normal fogs—each tendril had structure, weight, intention. The shape hinted at tentacles, limbs, and wings made of shifting galaxies.
A forgotten evolution of the creature within him.
Not the Eclipse Paragon Beast…
but a prototype.
A version erased from existence.
Its eyes were rings of nothingness.
Its presence distorted gravity with each breath.
"What are you…?"
The fog answered, voice layered with infinite timelines:
"I am one of the futures HE erased."
His heart froze.
His future self erased not just memories—
but entire versions of him.
The fog-beast continued:
"HE purged dozens of possible evolutions.
Only one was allowed to remain."
Dozens.
Every erased path became a ghost of mist.
"…Why erase so much?"
The fog trembled violently.
"Because your future self was afraid."
The world quieted.
Afraid?
Of him?
Or of something he would become?
The mist-creature leaned close, its form destabilizing as time cracked around its shape.
"He erased me because my version of you…
ended the Outer Gods in a single heartbeat."
Silence.
The waves stopped.
The wind halted.
The beast's final words drifted as it broke into stardust:
"Be careful which version of yourself you awaken."
The mist vanished.
The sea fell.
And the island remained completely silent, as if holding its breath.