Nagara's eyes fixed on Azlin's floating form.
And then, the world around them began to shift.
The air grew thick with heat. Flames leapt across a broken landscape, twisting and dancing in the air like living things. The sky above was a jagged wound of red and gold, as if the heavens themselves had been slashed open. Torrents of fire rained down, scalding a crumbling city below. Amidst the chaos, there was a figure—Azlin—but not as he was now.
This Azlin was older, his features more regal, draped in radiant robes etched with sigils older than time itself. His eyes—those same green eyes—were sharper now, more intense. His stature had grown, his frame taller, broader. But there was something in his gaze—a burning desperation, a purpose that clung to him like a second skin. He was not the boy they knew. He was something else, something torn between who he was and who he might become.
Rania and Nagara stood frozen, helpless witnesses to a past—or a future—they could not comprehend. Somehow, impossibly, they were inside the memory—pulled into it as if it were a living thing, playing out before them like a storm with no end. They did not know which one of them was watching the true Azlin—the boy they knew, or this stranger, older and driven.
The winds screamed, carrying with them the acrid scent of burning cities. Ash thickened the air, settling over everything like a suffocating shroud. A voice cut through the madness, raw and seething:
"What have you done?!"
Stone cracked. A tower, once proud, buckled under the weight of ruin. In the distance, the earth groaned beneath the fires, and screams echoed like the last breaths of a dying world.
"Have you gone mad?!"
Azlin—older, far more powerful—turned to face the figure who had emerged from the flames. He was nothing like any man they'd ever seen. His presence consumed the very air, his movements graceful as if he were walking through a world that was far too slow to keep up with him. His silver hair trailed behind him like the tail of a comet, shimmering with an unnatural light. His eyes—those pale, glowing eyes—burned with an intensity that could melt the stars themselves.
In his hand, he held a sword of fire, its blade curved and silent, but it burned with an eerie power. The ground beneath his feet hissed and cracked as he moved, the air around him warping and distorting like heat waves on a summer day.
The unknown man smiled, but it was a smile laced with sorrow, as if mourning a choice already made. The smile vanished almost as soon as it appeared, replaced by a coldness that seemed to swallow the light around them.
Then, his voice—calm, but imbued with the weight of an unstoppable force—rang out, carrying the promise of destruction:
"I'm here to destroy everything."
He raised the flamesword high, a flash of searing light erupting from the blade.
Azlin—his older self—stepped forward, his voice breaking the tension, a desperate wail of pain. His hand trembled as he shouted the name that could no longer be retracted, the name that would forever seal their fate:
"Saerus Magdalene!"
The name cracked through the air like a curse, a jagged shard of sound that reverberated in their very chests. It was a name born of fury, of loss, of something deeper than regret.
In an instant, the world shattered.
The man—Saerus—struck with terrifying speed. Light and flame collided in a cataclysmic explosion, so bright it threatened to burn the very memory from their minds. The world around them seemed to unravel, the ground beneath their feet splitting apart, consumed by a brilliance so pure, so devastating, that it left nothing in its wake but silence.
In that silence, Rania and Nagara were left trembling, the weight of Azlin's past—or future—crushing down on them. The very foundation of their world had cracked open before them.
...
Azlin—his older self—stepped forward, his voice breaking the tension, a desperate wail of pain. His hand trembled as he shouted the name that could no longer be retracted, the name that would forever seal their fate:
"Saerus Magdalene!"
The name cracked through the air like a curse, a jagged shard of sound that reverberated in their very chests. It was a name born of fury, of loss, of something deeper than regret.
In an instant, the world shattered.
The man—Saerus—struck with terrifying speed. Light and flame collided in a cataclysmic explosion, so bright it threatened to burn the very memory from their minds. The world around them seemed to unravel, the ground beneath their feet splitting apart, consumed by a brilliance so pure, so devastating, that it left nothing in its wake but silence.
In that silence, Rania and Nagara were left trembling, the weight of Azlin's past—or future—crushing down on them. The very foundation of their world had cracked open before them.
...
Azlin's body convulsed once, then fell limp, the last shudder of his muscles fading into stillness. The memory—or was it a vision?—faded as quickly as it had come, leaving only the echo of its weight hanging thick in the air, like smoke that refused to dissipate.
Rania pressed her hand to her chest, her breath shaky, as if she couldn't quite gather the courage to speak. "That man…" Her voice cracked, faltering. "What was he? Why—why did he...?"
Nagara was frozen. His eyes wide. His heart thundering like a war drum. He stared at Azlin, but all he could see was the pale-eyed figure from the vision—no, the memory. That power. That presence. "He was going to destroy everything," Nagara breathed, voice tight with disbelief and something worse—fear. A chill crawled down his spine, bone-deep and ancient.
Then Rania spoke again, softer this time, but with a weight that turned the air heavy.
"…I've heard that name before."
Nagara looked up sharply. "You have?"
She nodded slowly, her eyes unfocused, as if seeing something far away. "When I was young, I overheard my grandfather telling a story… not to me, but to the elders. He spoke in hushed tones—as if the name itself could summon death." She swallowed hard. "He called Saerus a fallen angel. A being who once guarded the borders of light but fell so far he became the shadow that lurks behind all things."
Nagara felt his throat go dry. "A myth?"
Rania shook her head. "Worse. A warning. Some say he was the source of every great war. The puppetmaster behind plagues, the fall of kingdoms, the whispers in madmen's ears. That when he walks, reality bends. That his eyes—" her voice lowered, "—his white, hollow eyes see through time, through the soul. They called him the most feared, the most powerful being to ever set foot in Aroken."
Nagara gulped. The man he had seen… if that was the being she was talking about—no wonder. No wonder his bones had trembled, no wonder the air had thinned. That wasn't just power. That was annihilation. A force of nature. A walking death sentence to history itself.
He turned his gaze to Azlin, whose chest still barely rose and fell, each breath a ragged whisper. A flicker of movement from Azlin's fingers. A twitch. A whisper.
Then Nagara said it, almost afraid to ask: "And the person we just saw with him… is it Azlin?"
Silence.
Rania didn't answer immediately. Her brows were drawn tight, her lips parted slightly. Finally, she spoke, reluctant.
"…He resembles him. Older. Worn. But—Azlin."
Nagara shook his head in disbelief. "Then what we saw… was it a vision? Or a memory?"
No one answered.
The shadows in the chamber stretched, as if reacting to the question itself. The air felt too still, too aware.
Azlin's lips parted, his voice hoarse, fractured. "I… I didn't mean to. He's coming. He's coming." The words trembled from his lips, raw with dread. "I couldn't stop him... I can't stop him."
The walls of the ruin seemed to breathe, pulsing softly as if the place itself was responding. Rania took a shaky breath and steadied herself, brushing her fingers along her brow.
"We need to get out of here," she said finally. But there was no escape from what they had just witnessed.