The cave near the coastal edge of the Dummer continent had been silent for five years.
Hidden behind a curtain of twisted vines and jagged rock, it sat untouched—untrespassed. No beast dared to enter. No insects hummed within. Time itself held its breath around the cave.
Deep inside, past the darkness that not even moonlight could penetrate, was a pool of water—small, still, and ancient.
And above it… he floated.
Asari.
His body suspended in midair, legs crossed in meditation. His breathing had stopped long ago. Life did not course through him the way it used to—it had transformed, evolved, burned down and reborn a thousand times inside his still shell.
Then—
His eyes opened.
The air cracked.
Right eye, deep and thick black—like a void that devoured light.
Left eye, deep red—like the core of a dying star. Both silent, yet screaming.
The water below rippled.
Then churned.
Then turned dark.
No longer water, but a thick, ink-like fluid. No—blood. It festered with a foul aura, and within its depths, distorted faces surfaced. Screaming, wailing, laughing—tormented echoes of the men and monsters he'd slain. Their mouths stretched into smiles as if they welcomed their creator back.
His body slowly descended to the pool's edge.
Splash.
He stepped into it. The blood-stained water recoiled, hissing.
He stood fully now, the moonlight from a crack in the cave's ceiling barely reaching him. The glow revealed what time and torment had done to him.
His once-boyish face had hardened into that of a man. His muscles, now carved with brutal definition, bore scars—long, old, savage. Across his arms, his chest, his back. Like claw marks and blade kisses from battles too vicious to be remembered by ordinary minds.
From his waist, curling to the left side, was a black half-moon tattoo—ancient, arcane, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.
His hair—long and ghost-white—fell to his lower back, matted from years of solitude. Each strand whispered of stillness and slaughter.
His hands—large, powerful, and brutal—bore the most scars. They were no longer the hands of a teenager. These were the tools of a warrior, of a killer. And now, of a man the world had tried to forget.
He exhaled.
Just one breath—and the illusion of the cave shattered.
The walls screamed. The blood in the pool boiled and danced upward like tendrils of a demon summoned. Shadows warped and bled together, forming a spiral above his head before bursting into mist.
The illusion had broken—because the one who birthed it was awake.
Outside, the forest bent.
Birds took to the sky in terrified flocks. Predators stopped in mid-hunt and fled. Even the clouds trembled as they twisted violently over the sea.
On a distant cliff, standing beneath the faint light of dawn, Aicha watched the horizon.
For five years, she had lived. She had endured.
The insults.
The whispers.
The shame of being left behind.
But she never moved on.
Her sword skills had sharpened—but not as much as her loneliness. She was still strong, but not enough. The world was too cruel for growth that wasn't guided by obsession.
She clutched her chest now.
Her heart was racing. She didn't know why—until she felt it.
That pressure.
That terrifying wave of presence.
Like the world itself blinked in fear.
Her lips trembled.
"Asari…" she whispered.
She didn't know what he had become. She didn't care.
But she knew he was back.
Back from the dark. From the dead. From somewhere even hell had feared to hold him.
Back to this world.
And somewhere, buried deep in her chest… she smiled.