CHAPTER 25
A deep fog rolled across the Black Shores as the thin blade of dawn cut through the sky. The island breathed slowly, like a beast slumbering beneath the crust of reality. Orion stood at the place where the obsidian sands sloped downward into a trench of dead roots and broken stone—the place the Past Him had once called "the spine of the forgotten world."
Since merging with his past self, his presence had grown heavier, layered with centuries of instincts and half-remembered knowledge. His Domains—Ink, Rivers and Mountains, Black Bamboo, Immortal, Asura, Space, Time—rested beneath his skin like sleeping giants, humming quietly.
And yet, the island remained silent. Watching him.
The wind shifted.
The sand moved.
Something stepped out.
Not a creature—
Not an enemy—
But a footprint.
A footprint that appeared in the sand before the weight touched it, as if the step belonged to someone who walked one second in the future.
Orion narrowed his eyes. His left iris, holding Space, expanded like a collapsing star; his right, holding Time, vibrated with a cold hum.
A voice drifted through the fog.
"You felt it," it whispered.
"The island is moving again."
Orion turned.
A man stood there—hooded, ragged, barefoot—his feet shifting between present and future like flickering film. But his presence wasn't unfamiliar. It was distant. Echoed.
"Another… version."
No.
Not a true version.
A residual echo the island generated from Orion's own erased timeline: a guardian left behind by his Past Self to warn the future Orion of threats only the island remembered.
The echo bowed.
"Stage 1 Orion… you carry the merged soul. Good."
"Now listen carefully."
The air thickened.
Ink inside Orion's veins stirred.
THE WARNING OF THE ECHO
"My existence," the echo began, "is what remains after you—after we—erased our original history from the Black Shore Archives."
Orion stayed silent, listening.
"The island recorded everything. Every life, every death… every error."
"But your existence was too dangerous. So your past self removed you from the timeline and hid the truth inside me."
The echo raised his hand.
Instantly, the fog split like a torn curtain, revealing the obsidian ocean. Beneath the waves—shifting shadows… spiraling currents… and teeth shaped like shattered moons.
"The thing beneath the island is waking up again."
Orion's grip tightened on his relic blade.
"What is it?"
The echo's form flickered.
"A being that predates Domains."
"A creature older than the Law of Realms."
"A hunger that even the Forbidden One avoided."
Then his voice softened.
"In our old life… it devoured us."
Orion's heart slowed.
"You're telling me we died here?"
"Yes."
"And Past Me erased it?"
"To give you one more chance."
The island trembled, as if agreeing.
THE CALL FROM BENEATH
The ground split.
Not violently.
Like lips gently parting.
Fog rushed downward, dragged into the abyss. Dark tentacles made of fog and ink twisted upward slowly, brushing the air. They were thin, elegant, and impossibly long—whispers of the Mythical Creature Orion would one day become when he ascended to Stage 0.
The echo took a step back.
"It is calling for you… again."
The tentacles curled, sensing Orion.
For a moment, the fog trembled under his presence.
Orion exhaled, drawing the Domains around him like layered armor.
"What's its purpose?"
The echo answered:
"To test you before the island chooses to remember you."
"Fail… and you will be erased again."
Ink surged around Orion's feet.
Space bent.
Time slowed.
THE FIRST DESCENT
Orion stepped into the opening trench.
The tentacles recoiled, then coiled around him—not attacking, but measuring his existence.
The island rumbled.
The ocean howled.
The sky dimmed.
The echo's final words drifted into the abyss.
"Chapter twenty-five ends here, Orion."
"The next step belongs only to you."
The fog swallowed the world.
And the descent began.