THUMP.
Safsan's fingers moved.
THUMP.
His breathing changed.
Slowly...
he was waking up.
And with every part of Safsan that returned to consciousness...
the energy became stronger.
THUMP.
The ground beneath him trembled.
People across the battlefield could still feel it.
Soldiers.
Civilians.
The wounded.
Safuu.
The two knights.
NAREZEN.
And SEENEE.
SEENEE watched Safsan carefully.
Something bothered him.
Actually...
several things bothered him.
“You're probably thinking the same thing.”
SEENEE looked toward the audience.
“Origin.”
He looked back at Safsan.
“That would be the obvious answer.”
A pause.
“But there's a problem.”
SEENEE knew pieces of Safsan's future.
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He had seen possibilities surrounding him.
He had seen things connected to his life.
And SEENEE remembered Safsan's birth.
His first birth.
His death.
His impossible return.
Yet through everything SEENEE knew about Safsan...
there was one thing that had never happened.
“Safsan has never awakened his Origin.”
SEENEE's expression became serious.
“Not once.”
He looked at the energy surrounding Safsan.
“In fact...”
“It is almost as if he doesn't even have one.”
THUMP.
SEENEE went silent.
“So whatever this energy is...”
His eyes narrowed.
“It's new to me too.”
And that was not the only contradiction.
Safsan should already be dead.
SEENEE knew that.
The Reality Book had shown it.
The future had shown it.
The consequences had already been set in motion.
Kairo had saved Safsan.
But saving someone did not mean removing consequences.
Sometimes...
saving one life simply changed where the price would be paid.
Safsan's survival after Kairo's interference should have led him here.
To his death.
And yet—
THUMP.
He was still alive.
Back on the battlefield...
something manifested.
A chain.
Pure black.
Not dark metal.
Not shadow.
Black.
Absolute black.
It emerged beside Safsan.
Then another appeared.
And another.
They did not shine beneath the fires surrounding the battlefield.
They did not reflect the green flashes.
They did not reflect the red.
Light touched them...
and seemed to disappear.
The chains moved around Safsan.
Some passed across his arms.
Others twisted behind his body.
But there was something strange about them.
They did not feel like chains that had just captured him.
They felt older than that.
As though they had always been there...
and everyone was only now becoming capable of seeing them.
NAREZEN stared.
This was not in its memory.
The Knight of the Spear tightened his grip on his weapon.
The Guardian of the Roots watched without moving.
Safuu forgot about NAREZEN for a moment.
Her eyes remained on Safsan.
Then—
a voice.
Safsan's voice.
Quiet.
Almost peaceful.
“How peaceful...”
The battlefield became still.
Safsan slowly lifted his head.
“...it feels to breathe for the first time.”
He inhaled.
Deeply.
Like someone who had been holding his breath...
not for minutes.
Not for hours.
But for his entire life.
Green lightning exploded across his body.
CRACK.
Red followed.
The two energies moved across him simultaneously.
Green.
Red.
Green.
Red.
His body struggled to remain standing.
Every muscle seemed to tell him to fall.
His legs trembled.
His breathing was uneven.
But Safsan stood.
The black chains moved around him.
His head slowly rose.
Then he opened his eyes.
Completely black.
No white.
No visible iris.
No visible pupil.
Nothing.
Pure darkness.
NAREZEN took one step back.
Not because it understood what it was seeing.
Because it didn't.
And that was worse.
SEENEE said nothing.
The energy continued growing.
THUMP.
Then—
somewhere far away...
a page moved.
Ayla was back in her room.
The crowd surrounding the statue was gone.
Jalatta was no longer beside her.
Books once again surrounded her.
But Ayla was not reading.
She stood in front of the book she had left open earlier.
Safsan's book.
The Reality Book.
She stared at the page.
Something had changed again.
The sentence about Safsan's death was gone.
Ayla slowly sat down.
Her fingers touched the edge of the page.
She could feel something.
Not from the book.
From him.
Safsan.
Her Origin was connected to emotion.
And what she felt now...
was difficult to describe.
It was not simply anger.
Not sadness.
Not fear.
Not relief.
It felt like someone experiencing something they had denied themselves for so long...
that even breathing freely had become unfamiliar.
Ayla closed her eyes.
For an instant...
she felt it.
A breath.
Then another.
And beneath it...
something else.
Something hidden.
Something she could approach...
but not enter.
A place inside Safsan that belonged only to him.
The Hidden Truth.
Ayla opened her eyes.
She stared at his name on the page.
“Safsan...”
The book remained silent.
Then—
THUMP.
Ayla's eyes widened.
She heard it.
The heartbeat.
Across an impossible distance.
Across time.
THUMP.
Ayla slowly placed her hand against the page.
And for reasons she could not explain...
she smiled.