CHAPTER 18
The Black Shores were never meant to be quiet.
Yet now, after the erased future emerged and dissolved into cosmic dust, the island felt as if it were holding itself still—watching Orion, measuring him, waiting for his next breath.
Fog thickened along the shoreline, swirling in patterns that mimicked constellations. Space folded in slow waves, and the cliffs pulsed with faint temporal aftershocks. Every step Orion took made the sand ripple like water, as though the ground was not solid but a memory trying to replay itself.
He hadn't moved far from where the sea had risen. But the air felt different now—heavier, ancient, dense with timelines. His mythical creature form simmered under his skin, not fully awakened but restless, reacting to the echo of the erased future.
The fog whispered.
And the island whispered with it.
For a moment, he felt the presence of his future self again—distant, layered, like a voice speaking from behind the fabric of reality:
"Do not trust the remnants. They are fragments that were never meant to awaken."
But there was something else beneath those words. Something the future self didn't say.
Something he concealed.
The realization crawled across Orion's spine like an eclipse shadow:
His future self didn't just erase records.
He hid the truth behind those erasures.
Orion stepped deeper into the fog.
The island reacted.
Lines of light—thin, like needles of time—rose from the sand and wove themselves into a spiraling path. It felt like walking through a living scroll. Each glowing thread revealed etched scenes: battles, catastrophes, forgotten gods, defeated Outer horrors.
Some images showed him.
Or what could have been him.
One version had wings made entirely of shadows.
One had a skeletal astral frame.
One had a halo of collapsing stars.
One had no physical form at all—only a moving eclipse burn.
Dozens of possibilities.
All erased.
All staring back at him like ghosts of choices he never made.
His breath trembled.
Not out of fear—
but from the sheer weight of potential.
He stopped at one frame where a monstrous silhouette with 18 wings stood atop a dead universe, its body larger than galaxies. In its hands was a sphere of annihilated reality.
The mist rose beside him.
It shaped itself into a half-formed creature, the remnants of the erased future he had met earlier. It had no full body now—just swirling tentacles of cosmic fog and a single cracked eye that flickered between space and time.
It spoke with a voice that stretched across millennia:
"He feared that version of you the most."
Orion narrowed his eyes.
"…Why?"
The mist-creature trembled violently, as if answering that question caused it pain.
"Because that you… was no longer a being."
"He was a law."
A law?
A law that replaced space.
A law that replaced time.
A law that even the Outer Gods couldn't influence.
Orion felt his chest tighten.
He reached out and touched the glowing image—and the entire island reacted with a low, subterranean roar.
The sky fractured.
The cliffs bent outward.
The sea reversed direction.
The island was alive, and it disliked what he had touched.
The mist flickered, voice fracturing:
"He hid this from you."
"He forbid the island from showing you this future."
Orion stepped back, tension building. Power crawled under his skin, threatening to burst out. His wings—twelve, colossal, cosmic—threatened to manifest without his will.
The island's voice rose like a choir made from collapsing stars:
"THE FUTURE YOU SEEK HAS BEEN ERASED."
"YOU WERE NOT PERMITTED TO VIEW THIS PATH."
Orion growled. "I don't need permission."
He thrust his hand into the light-thread projection.
Reality convulsed.
The path shattered, and the mist exploded like a dying star. The fog-creature's voice tore into pieces:
"Careful—"
"He will feel this—"
"THE FUTURE SELF WILL—"
Silence.
Then—
A crack tore open in the sky.
A single eye appeared.
Not an enemy's.
Not a god's.
Not a monster's.
His own future eye.
The Eye of Time—but magnified, expanded, evolved into something divine. Rings of temporal laws spiraled behind it, and its gaze burned with cold authority.
Orion's blood chilled.
The eye blinked once.
Space shattered around him.
Time buckled.
The island screamed.
And the voice of his future self echoed through every molecule of existence:
"Do not look further."
Orion clenched his fists, defiant. "Make me stop."
The eye narrowed.
Cosmic pressure fell.
The island trembled.
The sand cracked.
Fog turned into spirals of stardust.
But Orion didn't bow.
Didn't fall.
Didn't break.
He took a step forward.
And the future eye widened slightly—surprise flickering across its cosmic surface.
The pressure increased tenfold.
The cliffs collapsed.
The sky twisted into a vortex.
The beach exploded into dust.
Still—
Orion did not kneel.
The eye stared long enough to confirm something.
Something unexpected.
Something dangerous.
Then it faded.
The sky stitched itself back together.
The sea returned to normal.
And the mist fell silent.
Orion stood alone in the settling fog, pulse steady, gaze sharp.
If the future version of him wanted to stop him from learning more—
Then there had to be a reason.
A secret.
A truth buried deeper than the island itself.
Orion took another step forward into the mist.
And the island responded with a whisper:
"WELCOME TO THE FORBIDDEN HALF OF THE BLACK SHORES."
"YOUR FUTURE SELF NEVER WALKED HERE."