CHAPTER 27
The staircase spiraled downward like the spine of an ancient beast. Each step pulsed faintly beneath Orion's feet, glowing with dim twilight—neither light nor dark, suspended in the same half-existence as his own merging with his past self.
The deeper he descended, the thicker the air became. Not suffocation.
Memory.
The walls of the passage were not stone.
They were recordings—layers of shadow-glass showing fragments of what the island had erased. With every step, more scenes flickered awake, as if sensing his presence.
But none showed a clear picture.
Just silhouettes. His silhouette.
Bleeding. Burning. Falling.
Being unmade by something that did not belong to any known Domain.
Orion's eyes narrowed.
But he kept walking, letting the fog-thick air cling to his skin like cold silk.
THE CHAMBER OF ERASED TRUTH
After several minutes—or perhaps hours, for time twisted here—the steps ended.
Orion stepped into a vast underground cavern.
A black ocean stretched out before him, swallowing the horizon.
Not water.
Not liquid.
Condensed forgotten time, rippling like oil touched by moonlight.
Above it, dozens of huge rings of space floated slowly—broken, incomplete. Each ring was a collapsed pathway to another erased memory.
At the center of the ocean stood a single stone platform, no bigger than a room. Ancient. Old enough to predate kingdoms, gods, even the Law of Realms.
And on that platform…
Something waited.
Something kneeling.
Something shaped like a person.
Something wearing a shattered mask.
Orion stepped forward, his boots touching the surface of the black ocean—
and the ocean solidified beneath him, forming steps out of the silky dark.
The masked figure slowly lifted its head.
And the island whispered inside Orion's skull:
"This is the last memory you fear.
The one your past self sealed.
The one he didn't want you to face."
The masked figure stood up fully.
The mask fractured further, leaking threads of white and black smoke.
It spoke in a distorted voice that echoed like overlapping timelines:
"You finally came back."
Orion's heart did not race, but something instinctive inside him stirred—
recognition, but distant, like a nightmare remembered too late.
He asked quietly,
"Who are you?"
The figure tilted its head slightly.
"I am the memory of your death."
THE ERA-EATER'S SHADOW
Before Orion could respond, the cavern began to tremble.
The black ocean churned violently, forming spirals and depressions. The floating broken space-rings cracked further, releasing sharp distortions that sliced through the air.
A groaning sound, deep and terrible, rolled up from the depths beneath the ocean.
Something enormous was rising.
Something older than Domains.
Older than the Law of Realms.
Older than space and time themselves.
The masked figure stepped aside and pointed toward the sea.
"You died here."
A colossal shape rose from the dark ocean—
No eyes.
No form.
No limbs.
Only hunger.
A gargantuan void-mass, twisting like a black sun melting on itself, devouring its own body, constantly shifting in and out of existence. It pulsed with a sickening rhythm, bending reality with each heartbeat.
The island whispered one word into Orion's ears:
"Era-Eater."
A monster that fed on entire timelines.
A creature that ended ages.
A predator of eras.
And Orion now remembered—
he had confronted it once.
And he had been erased by this thing.
The past Orion sealed the memory so the present Orion would not fear it.
But now the seal was gone.
THE MEMORY SPEAKS
The masked figure—Orion's erased memory—looked at him directly.
Its cracked mask began to bleed smoke, revealing beneath it a face almost identical to his own, but warped by temporal distortion.
"You swore you would face it again."
The Era-Eater lifted a tendril of non-existence, the sheer pressure bending space around Orion's body with ease.
The memory continued:
"You promised the you of yesterday…
that the you of today…
would not run."
Orion's wings of Space and Time flared out behind him for the first time since entering the cavern, their glow forcing the ocean to ripple upward like tall waves.
He spoke, voice steady but cold:
"Then I won't."
The Era-Eater roared without a mouth, its sound tearing ripples through time itself.
The masked memory stepped back, dissolving slowly.
"Face your death.
And take back the strength you lost when you died."
The cavern darkened.
The void-mass lunged.
And Orion launched forward, the platform exploding behind him as he flew.
The Second Pulse had begun.