Chapter 21
The island breathed with a quiet that felt old enough to remember the birth of oceans. As dawn crawled up the sky, the mist thinned along the coastline, revealing the silhouette of Orion standing alone on the obsidian sands. The tide slowly rolled forward, each wave carrying fragments of memories that were not his—yet somehow belonged to him.
Since merging with his past self, a strange harmony flowed through his soul. His strength had surged to Stage 1, but it wasn't simply a leap in power. It was a reshaping of his existence. His mythical creature form—the Crimson Abyss Seraph—now dozed somewhere in the depths of his veins, like an ancient beast waiting for a reason to rise.
Today, something was calling him deeper into the island.
He followed the pull inland, passing through black bamboo groves that whispered with unfamiliar voices. Some murmured warnings, some murmured recognition. All bowed slightly as he walked. It wasn't respect—it was memory. His past self had walked here too.
But the island was different now.
The Black Shore's atmosphere had changed ever since he absorbed the past version of himself. The air grew heavier. The shadows lengthened. Strange ripples appeared in the edges of reality, like the world was adjusting to his new presence.
Orion paused at an ancient archway of dark stone. Covered in glowing red lines, it pulsed faintly with the same energy he felt now in his blood.
He lifted his hand.
The stone reacted instantly—splitting open like a living creature opening its eye.
A tunnel revealed itself, spiraling down into the earth.
He stepped inside.
A Descent Into Memory
The deeper he walked, the more the walls shimmered with scenes—shadows of steps he had taken in another life, another version of himself, a timeline that no longer existed. His past self had sealed away these recordings with deliberate intent.
The first showed him standing before a storm of tentacles and fog—his mythical creature's true form, but incomplete. A half-ascended beast, held back by something. His past self reached toward it, then deliberately turned away.
"I wasn't ready," Orion murmured.
And now, he was.
The second memory showed books—thousands of them. Each one held a fragment of a civilization long erased. He saw the moment his past self burned his own record, erasing every trace of his journey.
He remembered the words spoken before they merged:
"Good to meet you, my future self."
"I trusted you to resolve the problems I left behind."
"You now have full access to the Black Shores."
"Our record is missing because I erased it."
He didn't speak them aloud. He didn't need to. They echoed in his bones.
The tunnel widened into a vast cavern.
The Library of Drowned Years
Pillars of black crystal rose from the floor, and rivers of crimson fog flowed through them like blood. Books floated in the air, orbiting around a central altar made of obsidian and molten markings.
This was the Black Shore Archive—the soul of the island.
When Orion entered, every book instantly stopped moving.
Then, one by one, they turned toward him.
The cavern trembled.
A voice—not a person, not a creature, but the island itself—spoke from everywhere and nowhere:
"The keeper returns."
Orion stepped closer.
"Grant me access," he said.
The altar lit up beneath his feet. A surge of force hit him—not painful, but overwhelming, like a universe whispering into his skull all at once.
He staggered.
Images flooded him.
A war between the earliest gods.
A sea of primordial beasts tearing the sky apart.
A figure that looked like him, but wasn't him at all—older, colder, holding a scythe shaped from crystallized time.
A throne made of collapsed stars.
And then—
Nothing.
A black cut.
Something missing.
He gritted his teeth. "There's a hole… something you removed."
The island answered:
"The erased memory belongs to you alone. Only when you reach the peak will it return."
His heart tightened.
So even his past self had feared the full truth.
A New Threat Moves
Orion sensed it then—a disturbance far beyond the cavern's edge. A presence approaching the island at great speed. Inhuman, sharp, and ancient.
Not an enemy he had seen before.
Not from the sea.
Not from the sky.
Something from between.
He exhaled slowly.
"So my merging drew you in."
The cavern reacted immediately. The crimson fog rose, swirling around him like serpents coiling protectively. The books shut themselves tight. Even the island quieted.
Outside, the sky dimmed unnaturally—like a massive shadow moved across the sun.
Orion closed his eyes and reached inward.
His mythical creature stirred.
Tentacles of fog rippled behind him.
Six wings of burning crimson light unfurled slowly, though not fully manifested.
A single, massive eye formed behind his back—a phantom, not flesh—opening to scan the world beyond the cavern.
A whisper crawled across the wind:
"Found you…"
Orion opened his eyes.
"Come then."
Return to the Surface
He walked out of the cavern, climbing the tunnel until the blinding daylight hit him again. The sky had split with a long crack of black lightning, stretching across the horizon like a wound.
The sea roared violently.
From the fissure in the sky, something massive slowly pushed through—an arm made of cosmic dust and bone, reaching toward the island as if it meant to rip it from existence.
Orion felt the island beneath his feet react with fear.
He stepped forward and the fog around him thickened.
"Your timing is terrible," he said quietly.
His wings snapped open, fully formed now through instinct, the power from his past self stabilizing around him.
He lifted his hand—
The fog surged upward.
The sea froze mid-motion.
The sky's crack shrank violently as if forced closed by unseen fingers.
The cosmic arm writhed, struggling to emerge.
Orion whispered one word, not a spell, but authority:
"Fall."
The crack shattered.
The arm disintegrated.
The sky returned to normal.
The island trembled, relieved.
Orion lowered his hand.
"That was only the first one," he murmured. "More will come."
He turned as the black bamboo rustled, bowing once more to him.
This was his home now.
His sanctuary.
His battlefield.
His inheritance.
And for the first time since arriving…
He felt ready.