My vision was blank. Not black, not white... just… nothing. The kind of nothingness that didn’t feel empty but smothering. Oppressive. A weightless void pressing down on every fiber of my existence, as if it wanted to crush me into oblivion.
Thoughts? Erased.
Feelings? Stripped away.
Time? Nonexistent.
I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t move. It was as if my soul had been ripped from my body and hurled into an abyss that defied all logic.
And then, through the suffocating silence, something stirred.
"0924…"
The voice was faint, barely more than a whisper, yet somehow it pierced the void like a blade.
"0924…"
It grew louder, its tone calm, steady... unnervingly so. It wasn’t harsh, but it carried the weight of inevitability, like an ancient echo clawing its way through the dark.
"0924… Wake up."
Huff!
I gasped. My lungs burned as if I’d been submerged underwater for an eternity, clawing for air. My chest heaved, every breath a painful reminder of my existence.
Huff! Huff!
I forced myself to exhale, slow and deliberate. The raw panic ebbed, replaced by something steadier. Gradually, my senses returned, sharpening one agonizing piece at a time. I blinked. Once. Twice. The void peeled away, and the world came crashing back.
Ithelvaire.
The Battlefield of the Forsaken Heart unfolded before me like a cursed tapestry. It was alive with decay, every detail an affront to sanity. The ground was a quagmire of red ichor, pooling in raw sickening veins that twisted and writhed as though the earth itself was bleeding. The black mud sucked at everything it touched, thick and cloying, saturated with blood and the remnants of countless battles.
The air was heavy, oppressive. A miasma of ash hung low, carrying with it the acrid thick stench of burnt flesh and rotting corpses. It clawed its way into my lungs with every breath, a suffocating reminder that this was a place where death thrived.
Above, the sky churned in hues of ashen gray, its expanse marred by rolling storms. Streaks of lightning carved jagged scars across the gloom.... red, white, yellow, each flash illuminating with a deafening Boom, the desolation for a fleeting heartbeat before plunging it back into shadow.
No rain fell, yet the moisture in the air clung to my skin, sticky and suffused with the iron tang of blood. It was the kind of place where hope came to die, swallowed whole by despair.
I groaned, my head throbbing with the echoes of fragmented memories. My body ached as if it had been dragged through hell... and perhaps it had. Images flashed through my mind, disjointed and hazy: Geralda. Altronotch, The Knight of the Void.
My gaze shifted, and there she was.
Geralda knelt beside me, her figure as imposing as ever. Her armor... void-black with intricate ash-gray etchings... pulsed faintly, its energy subdued yet undeniable. It clung to her form like a second skin, more alive than mere metal should be. Her eyes, brown flecked with glowing gold, bore into me with an intensity that was both reassuring and strange.
"Are you alright?" she asked, her tone calm, almost detached. But in her gaze, I caught a flicker of something deeper... concern, maybe.
I opened my mouth to respond, but my attention snagged on something.
Her hair.
Once a cascade of deep crimson, it now shimmered faintly, the strands tinged with a soft golden hue. Like sunlight struggling to break through a storm.
"What happened to your hair?" My voice was hoarse, though calm, each word scraped from my throat.
Her fingers brushed through it absentmindedly, her expression unchanging. "Nothing. It changes like this when I use my trait ability," she said, her voice trailing off as though the explanation held no importance.
"So it’ll go back to normal?" I asked, though I already suspected the answer.
She nodded faintly. "Eventually."
I forced myself to sit up, biting back a groan as my muscles protested every movement. My eyes scanned the horizon, a futile attempt to anchor myself in the chaos.
"What about Altronotch? Is he…"
She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she lifted her right hand. In her grasp was a severed head, still encased in its helmet. The thing was horrific, its surface rippling like a dimensional rift made solid. From its base dripped a viscous, pitch-black liquid... too strange to be blood, too wrong to be anything else.
The Knight of the Void was dead.
I nodded slowly, the sight stirring no relief within me.
"The knight said only by his defeat would you return," Geralda murmured. Her voice was as calmly as ever, but there was something in her tone... a quiet gravity. "He wasn’t lying, it seems."
"Did he tell you where he took me?" I pressed, desperation creeping into my voice as I clawed at the fragments of memory.
Her gaze shifted, distant, unreadable. "He called it a place meant for waste," she said finally, each word deliberate. "Did you see anything? Remember anything?"
I shook my head, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. "No. Nothing."
Before I could dwell on it further, my detection screamed as a notification struck like a dagger in my mind.
[NOTIFICATION]
+
TIME BEFORE YADRED’S REBIRTH: 45 MINUTES LEFT.
REBIRTHING.
+
My eyes snapped to the place my detection showed.... to the horizon. The Tower of Rebirth loomed, a monolithic horror against the landscape. It was a twisted, jagged structure, its spires clawing at the heavens like the talons of some ancient beast.
At its base, a beam of raw, crackling energy surged into the earth, carving deep, glowing scars into the ground. The air around it shimmered, warped, as though existence itself recoiled from its presence.
This was no ordinary portal. It was a wound in existence, a gateway forged by the Void Hands.
And now, it widened. Its edges unraveled with malice, a forewarning of the thing it was meant to birth.
Yadred.
Geralda’s gaze locked onto the tower, her eyes narrowing.
"It’s about to start," she said quietly, her voice a blade of calm against the chaos.
I nodded, the weight of inevitability pressing down on me.
Whatever happened next, there was no turning back.
Not anymore.