---
The Tower didn't open with light.
It exhaled.
Like something had been holding its breath for ages, waiting for him to leave.
EXIN stepped beyond the final threshold, and the door behind him vanished.
No sound.
No wind.
Just a quiet emptiness.
The world had changed.
But it had also stayed the same—uncaring, restless, dreaming in silence.
He had climbed for what felt like lifetimes.
And now…
He was home.
If this world could still be called that.
---
Smoke greeted him first.
Thin ribbons of it curled across the ruined landscape like memories too fragile to hold.
The sky above was cracked—not with clouds, but with veins of dim mana bleeding from reality's skin.
Civilizations had risen and crumbled while he was gone.
He could feel their bones beneath his feet.
Dead cities.
Vanished names.
Forgotten languages.
The world had moved on.
But it had not healed.
---
He walked.
Not toward anything.
But away—from everything he'd remembered.
The Marks on his body pulsed softly, each one humming a truth the world refused to say aloud:
That pain could build power.
That regret could forge weapons.
That memory could be a curse... and a key.
And that somewhere, beyond the veil of silence, something else was awakening.
Something that had waited for him to remember.
---
EXIN passed through a field of abandoned monoliths.
Each carved with a different symbol.
Some ancient.
Some newer.
Some made by his own hand—though he didn't remember carving them.
He paused before one:
> "HERE SLEEPS THE GOD WHO CHOSE TO BLEED."
The words were fresh.
As if someone had written them today.
He knelt, touched the stone, and closed his eyes.
A pulse of mana ran through his palm—
And a vision surged:
---
Flashes of a girl with fire in her eyes.
Her voice calling his name in a forgotten dialect.
A sword shaped like guilt.
A war not yet begun.
And a city in the clouds, burning from within.
---
He staggered back.
The vision faded.
But the emotion remained—clawing at his chest.
> "Remi…" he whispered.
Her name tasted like old blood.
He didn't know if she was alive.
But something in him hoped she was.
Which terrified him more than anything else.
Hope was dangerous.
Because now, he wasn't alone in his mind anymore.
The god he had locked away had returned—
Not as a voice, but as a presence.
A sleeping thing within his soul.
And if EXIN faltered—
If he broke again—
The god might wake up.
---
He kept walking.
Toward the place where mana sang loudest.
Toward the capital once called Kairis.
If anything still stood there, it would be the key to understanding the future war.
The one his past self had warned him about.
---
The wind shifted.
Dust danced.
And in the sky above, a figure appeared.
Not winged.
Not divine.
Just still.
Watching.
---
EXIN did not stop.
He did not raise his hand in greeting.
He simply walked.
Because the world may have forgotten its god—
But its monsters had not.
---
> Next: Chapter 20 — The City Beneath the Dead Sky
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