CHAPTER 26
The island shook gently, like a heartbeat waking from sleep. Orion stepped through the thinning fog, boots sinking into obsidian sand that pulsed faintly with hidden veins of silver light. The Black Shores were breathing again—slowly, deeply—echoing the presence of the merged timeline inside him.
The sky hung low, the clouds dragged down by threads of ash and crystallized starlight. The wind carried whispers of memories that didn't belong to him, memories of the Past Orion he had merged with, echoes stretching back tens of thousands of forgotten years.
Orion did not blink.
His power, even at Stage 1, was heavy—dense with Domains, dense with the weight of timelines stitched together inside his soul.
He stepped forward.
The sand trembled.
And something answered.
THE ISLAND'S RESPONSE
A thin crack appeared under Orion's feet. Not violent—more like a seam in reality being pulled open with careful fingers. A pale glow spilled upward, swirling like the residue of ancient dreams.
The ground whispered:
"Found… you."
Orion didn't move. His left eye of Space glimmered sharply, and the right eye of Time pulsed once, slowing the drifting fog around him.
The island's whisper deepened.
"You returned. Not the same… yet still you."
The fissure widened.
Black fog—dense, heavy, alive—flowed upward like ink rising in reverse. It twisted in the air, forming long, graceful tendrils. Not hostile. Curious. Studying him.
They resembled the tentacle-fog limbs of the Mythical Creature he would one day become at Stage 0… just faint shadows of that destiny.
A reminder.
A warning.
An inheritance.
The fog-tentacles reached toward him.
Orion did not draw his weapon. He simply let his Domains hover around him—mountains rising in the air as silhouettes, the river flow humming at his feet, black bamboo chiming like metal, Asura aura vibrating, Ink stirring, Space folding, Time breathing in spirals.
The tentacles recoiled slightly.
Then they wrapped gently around his arm.
The island's voice echoed in his mind.
"Three pulses remain. Pass them… and the island will restore what it forgot."
Orion's breath slowed.
"What did you forget?"
The island answered:
"Your death."
THE MEMORY THAT WAS ERASED
A sudden wind blew across the shoreline, carrying sparks of crystallized ink. Visions flashed in the corner of Orion's sight—shadows of an erased timeline:
A failed version of him.
A collapsed Domain.
A scream swallowed by fog.
An ancient hunger rising beneath the island.
Light fading.
Body falling.
Death.
Erased.
Hidden by his former self.
The fog-tentacles tightened around his wrist—not hurting, but anchoring him to the vision.
The island whispered:
"Your past self removed the truth. But the truth remembers you."
Orion's eyes narrowed.
"What is waking beneath the island?"
A pause.
Long.
Heavy.
Dreadful.
Then—
"A creature that feeds on eras."
"The one that consumes timelines, memories, and endings."
"The oldest hunger buried under all black shores."
The ground shuddered.
The glow beneath the crack brightened.
THE SECOND PULSE BEGINS
The fog-tentacles slid away from Orion, sinking back into the fissure. The ground widened, revealing spiraling steps made of obsidian roots.
The island spoke again, voice resonating like a drumbeat under the ocean:
"Descend, Orion."
"You survived the first pulse when you merged."
"Now face the second pulse and reclaim the memory that killed you."
Orion took a step forward.
The steps pulsed beneath him.
His Domains shivered, aware of something ancient watching from the deep.
He descended.
One step.
Two.
Three.
The crack sealed behind him.
Darkness swallowed the sky.
And the second pulse began beneath the island.