"How did you feel after being sliced in two… in the dream?"
This time, her question was precise—too precise.
Nyxara's smile didn't fade. In fact, it widened. Her face seemed to glow with something unnatural, something unsettling.
Oliver blinked, heart racing.
"Who are you… really?" he asked, breathless.
"Why am I having dreams like these? Why are the symbols the same as the ones on that mutilated man—the one whose head grew back in the dream?"
His voice cracked under the pressure of urgency. The questions spilled out of him like blood from a reopened wound.
At first, she pretended ignorance. Her gaze wandered, her posture relaxed.
But slowly—inevitably—the truth began to flow from her lips.
"The countless people you saw... they're all you," she said. "Your past lives. Each of them went through exactly what you're going through now. But one of them… one of them caused it all."
She sat down on the edge of the bed, locking eyes with him. There was a weight in her stare. A gravity that pulled at the very core of him.
"It all began thousands of centuries ago," she continued. "The first you was among the mightiest warriors in the Celestial Cities. It wasn't just a city—it was paradise."
Her tone grew distant, reverent.
"Everyone loved him, praised him, followed him. But the praise wasn't meant for him. It was meant for someone else—someone who used to walk beside him."
She paused to take a breath. But Oliver couldn't hold back. His voice cut through the air, desperate.
"Then what happened? What started all of this?"
Nyxara didn't flinch.
"Before the praise, before the glory, he was just a worker. Nothing more. But one night... something happened. Something new. That night was the beginning of the cycle you're trapped in now."
Her voice darkened.
"On that night, the sky changed. The air froze. Sound vanished. Time itself faltered. Most of the world was paralyzed—but not everyone. A few still moved. A few still breathed. They were different. Special."
She leaned forward slightly.
"They had something in them. A seed. Not just blood, but a golden seed—meant only for the higher gods. The Supreme Ones. But somehow, two mere workers had it in their veins."
Oliver's breath caught in his throat.
"You and your companion were chosen—tasked with confronting the first beast that emerged after the shift. Back then, there were no beasts. But after the sky turned crimson, they began to appear. First in the shadows. Then in cities. Then across continents."
Her voice tightened.
"The gods could have ended it... but they didn't. They watched. They waited. And you—still mortal, still fragile—were thrown into the fire. You fought. And you had the upper hand, at first. But the cost…"
Oliver interrupted, eyes wide with dawning horror.
"Wait. I had a companion? Another with the golden seed? Who was he? What was his name? What kind of seed are we talking about?"
Before she could respond, Oliver doubled over, coughing violently. Blood sprayed into his hand.
He stared at it. Thick, dark red. Too real.
"Why am I coughing up blood?"
Nyxara's tone was oddly calm. "Don't worry. Your body is regenerating. Realigning itself."
Oliver slowly turned to her, face twisted in disbelief.
"Wait… was I physically sliced as well?"
"No!" she snapped, cutting the question off before it finished unraveling.
Oliver exhaled, relief washing over him. "Thank God. For a second, I thought—hew…"
Nyxara leaned back slightly, her smile returning.
"Yes. Just like you have the seed, all your past selves had it too. And your companion—his name… was…"
She paused.
The silence stretched.
"Tharn."
The moment the name left her lips, a violent force slammed against the door—bam!—tearing it off its hinges and flinging it across the room toward Nyxara.
For the first time, fear touched her face.
Not her usual smirk. Not her calm, unreadable mask.
Fear.
Raw, startled, and genuine.
The pressure surged through the room, like a sudden change in atmosphere. It struck the bed Oliver was on, hurling it across the floor. He gripped the edges tightly—so tightly that the bones in his fingers cracked, the sound sharp and splintering.
The bed slid to a stop just as the white veil at the far end of the room—once a silent, untouched curtain—tore open.
And then he saw it.
A body.
No—pieces of a body.
Torn. Sliced. Mutilated beyond recognition. It was as if someone had shoved human flesh into a grinder and spilled the remains across a metallic altar. Chunks. Slabs. Strings of torn sinew. Ribbons of blood.
It didn't look like an animal.
It looked mostly human.
Seventy percent, maybe more.
The stench hit next—a rotting, acidic stench that clawed at the back of the throat. The sight alone pulled a scream from Oliver's chest.
He howled.
His voice wasn't just loud—it tore out of him like a siren and shot through the room, through the corridors, into the atmosphere.
It reached Leo.
Wherever he was, it struck his ears like a whip, and without thinking, he charged back into the room.
But everything was different now.
The pain he'd felt earlier—gone.
The blood that once stained him—vanished.
Even the fragrance on his skin had changed—richer, darker, unfamiliar.
As Leo stepped in, Oliver turned—and froze.
Something was wrong.
The color in Leo's eyes.
The texture of his skin.
The sensation Oliver felt when he looked at him—it was identical to what he had just experienced while staring into the disjointed, still-living eye of the mutilated body.
His breath caught.
Then he screamed again.
"WHAT THE FUCK!
WHO IS THAT!?"
He leapt off the bed, heart racing, shoving it between himself and the grotesque table now drenched in remnants of human flesh.
The silence that followed was thick and unnatural.
Then—Nyxara moved.
She stood slowly and walked toward the edge of the room, choosing an angle where she could see all three: Leo, Oliver, and the mangled remains.
She looked between them, her face unreadable.
And then—her expression shifted.
First, a smile.
Then, in an instant, her face darkened. Cold. Hollow.
She spoke.
"That," she said softly, "is the companion of the previous you, Oliver."
The words crashed into the air like thunder.
"Yrrakal! The one everyone feared to mention his name and also the one who fought against Yama till death!"
And as her voice faded, so did the pressure.
The force that had flung the door across the room.
The weight that had pushed the bed.
The suffocating air itself.
Gone.
Silence reclaimed the room—so complete, so unnatural—it felt like someone had just died.
Freshly.
Permanently.