The three men were dead.
General VAREK.
ZARQEN.
Minister NAREV.
Their bodies lay among the ruins of Odania.
Safuu stood before them.
Jalatta remained behind her.
Beside him stood the golden knight.
Neither of them noticed it.
None of them did.
Something was standing on the battlefield.
Watching.
Waiting.
It had been there before the three men died.
Before Safuu manifested her full Origin.
Before the battlefield fell silent.
It had been watching everything.
And no one had felt its presence.
Its name was NAREZEN.
NAREZEN was not a man.
NAREZEN was not a woman.
It was something else.
Something that had already lived once.
And died once.
But death had not ended it.
NAREZEN had been reincarnated.
And when it returned...
it remembered.
Everything.
Its previous life.
Every event.
Every decision.
Every death.
Every mistake.
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Every person.
It remembered what had already happened.
And because of that...
the future was not truly the future to NAREZEN.
It was something it had already experienced.
It knew Odania.
It knew the war.
It knew VAREK.
It knew ZARQEN.
It knew NAREV.
And it knew Safuu.
Especially Safuu.
She was a problem.
An obstacle.
A person who had survived when she was never supposed to.
A person whose existence stood in the way of what NAREZEN wanted.
That was why the three men had been chosen.
VAREK.
ZARQEN.
NAREV.
Three men.
Three systems.
Three different forms of control.
Military.
Economy.
Information.
They believed they were making their own decisions.
They believed they were controlling Odania.
They believed they were moving the pieces.
But every important decision had been pushed in one direction.
Toward Safuu.
NAREZEN had never needed to control them completely.
A thought was enough.
A suggestion.
A piece of information.
A door that appeared at the right moment.
A person placed in the right position.
A consequence that seemed like coincidence.
They moved themselves.
NAREZEN simply knew where they would go.
And now...
they had served their purpose.
They were dead.
But NAREZEN was not finished.
It was still standing there.
On the battlefield.
Only a short distance away.
Safuu could have looked directly at it...
and seen nothing.
The golden knight could have walked past it...
and felt nothing.
The man behind Safuu could have stood beside it...
and never known.
NAREZEN remained completely still.
Waiting.
Because there was one thing it had been waiting for.
Safuu's full Origin.
It had known she would eventually reach this point.
It had known that forcing her into the right situation would make her reveal more of herself.
And now...
she had done it.
The air still trembled around Safuu.
Her full Origin had manifested.
Her will had spread across the battlefield.
Reality itself seemed to acknowledge her existence.
NAREZEN watched.
For the first time...
it moved.
One step.
No sound.
No warning.
Nothing.
Safuu did not notice.
NAREZEN looked at her.
Not with hatred.
Not with anger.
With certainty.
“You are the last obstacle.”
Safuu suddenly stopped.
Something felt different.
She looked around.
Nothing.
The battlefield was still.
Smoke moved through the streets.
Fire burned in the distance.
The bodies of the three men remained where they had fallen.
Safuu narrowed her eyes.
She felt nothing.
NAREZEN stood behind her.
Waiting.
Because killing Safuu while she was weak would have been pointless.
NAREZEN wanted her at her strongest.
It wanted to see the full manifestation.
It wanted to know exactly what Safuu had become.
And now...
it knew.
The moment had arrived.
NAREZEN raised its hand.
Safuu turned.
Too late.
Something moved.
The golden knight suddenly looked up.
For the first time...
he felt something.
Not a presence.
Not an attack.
Just...
a change.
Safuu's eyes widened.
And then—
NAREZEN appeared.
Not from the sky.
Not from the ground.
It had simply been there.
All along.
Safuu stared at it.
Neither spoke.
For a moment...
the battlefield disappeared.
There was only Safuu.
And NAREZEN.
Then NAREZEN looked at her.
“You should never have survived.”
Safuu's expression hardened.
NAREZEN continued.
“But you did.”
It took another step.
“And that made you a problem.”
Safuu raised her hand.
Her full Origin responded.
The air shook.
NAREZEN smiled.
That was exactly what it had been waiting for.
The battle between them began.
Far away from them...
Safsan lay among the ruins.
His body had endured too much.
The sudden movement.
The blood.
The destruction.
The fear.
The exhaustion.
Everything had finally caught up with him.
His breathing was shallow.
His muscles felt impossibly heavy.
His vision had already begun to disappear.
He knew he was losing consciousness.
But before the darkness completely took him...
he heard a voice.
A familiar voice.
The same voice he had heard before.
The voice from Chapter 10.
Ayla.
“Safsan...”
His eyes moved slightly.
He could not see anyone.
He could barely move.
But he knew that voice.
For a moment, the chaos around him seemed distant.
The fires.
The screams.
The battle.
Everything faded beneath that single sound.
Safsan tried to answer.
Nothing came out.
Then the voice came again.
Quiet.
Almost as if she were speaking from somewhere impossibly far away.
“Safsan...”
His eyes slowly closed.
He did not understand how he could hear her.
He did not know where she was.
And he did not know why her voice had reached him now.
But he remembered it.
He had heard it before.
And somehow...
it was the last thing he heard before the darkness took him.
At the same time...
the battle between Safuu and NAREZEN continued.
Neither of them knew what had just happened to Safsan.