Erza stood in the center of the ruined apartment, torn between two worlds, two lives, two futures. The cracked floorboards creaked beneath her feet, and the morning light filtered through the broken windows, casting long shadows across the debris. Dust still floated in the air, stirred by the chaos of the night, and somewhere outside, a bird sang—oblivious to the war being waged inside her heart.
She did not know which one to choose.
The room had fallen quiet. Isvarn knew that the best decisions were made in silence—that silence forced you to think, to weigh, to confront the truths you had been avoiding. He did not interrupt. He did not offer more advice. He simply stood by the window, his ancient eyes fixed on his granddaughter, waiting for her to find her own answer.
Erza stood still. Numb.
Her grandfather's words echoed in her mind like thunder—cold, unforgiving, honest. But not cruel. Everything he had said was true. Every warning, every prediction, every dark possibility he had laid before her—she turned them over in her head, one by one, examining them from every angle, searching for a flaw, a loophole, a way out.
She imagined the elders killing Yuuta after she left for war, their claws tearing through his fragile human flesh while she was miles away, unable to save him. She saw his blood pooling on the marble floor of the Crystal Spire, his crimson eyes staring at nothing, his hand reaching for her even in death.
She imagined what would happen if she died in battle—if her enemies captured him and tortured him, using him as a weapon against her memory, parading him through the streets of Atlantis as proof that the great queen had fallen in love with an insect. She imagined his screams echoing through the dungeons, and no one coming to save him.
She imagined her children growing up without her, caught between two worlds, belonging to neither, hated by both. She saw them running through the wilderness, hunted by dragons who wanted to erase the stain of human blood from the royal line. She saw them crying for a mother who was not there, for a father who could not protect them, for a home that did not exist.
She imagined numerous paths. Countless futures. Endless possibilities.
And every single one ended in death.
She could not find another way. Not one. Not a single path that led to a future where they all survived, where they were all happy, where the world did not tear them apart. She searched her mind, her memories, her knowledge of magic and politics and war. She searched for a loophole, a secret spell, a hidden alliance, a forgotten prophecy. She searched for anything that would give her hope.
There was nothing.
Slowly. Painfully. She began to accept it.
She was doomed. The moment she became queen, she had been doomed. The throne had chosen her, and the throne did not let go. It never let go. There was no escape, no happy ending, no fairy tale conclusion waiting for her at the end of this road. The throne, her people, her children's future, her identity, Yuuta's life, her heart—everything was tangled together, knotted so tightly that she could not untangle them without cutting something loose.
And so she finally decided. She chose the painful reality over her delusional dreams. She chose duty over desire. She chose the kingdom over her heart.
"I agree," she said, slowly, painfully, each word a blade drawn across her own flesh.
Isvarn turned, his silver hair catching the early light. "You agree?" he repeated, caution threading through his voice. He had expected resistance, argument, tears. He had not expected her to surrender so quickly.
Erza's face was dark, hidden behind the curtain of her silver hair. Her voice trembled, unable to accept what she was saying, unable to believe that the words were coming from her own mouth.
"I will return," she said. "To Atlantis. To my kingdom. To my duty."
A long pause stretched between them. Isvarn smiled—a victory smile, the smile of a man who had succeeded in convincing his queen to make the right choice. It was a smile that might have seemed wrong to those who did not understand, but he had done it for the good of the kingdom. For the good of the bloodline. For the good of everyone she loved, even if she could not see it now.
"Then let us depart," Isvarn said. "Now. We should erase his memory before we leave. If we wait, you may change your mind. We must do it now."
He lifted Elena into his arms, the little girl still sleeping, her small face peaceful, her silver hair spilling over his shoulder. She did not know that she was being taken from her father. She did not know that she would never see him again. She did not know that her mother was about to make a decision that would shape the rest of her life.
Isvarn was ready to depart. Ready to return to the world he had come from. Ready to take his granddaughter and great-granddaughter back to where they belonged.
But Erza could not bring herself to move.
She stood in front of Yuuta, who was still sleeping on the floor, his face peaceful, his breath steady. He did not know what was happening. He did not know that she was leaving him. He did not know that she was saying goodbye.
She wept.
Tears rolled down her cheeks—silent, endless, hopeless. They fell onto the cracked wooden floor, onto the dust and debris, onto the remnants of the life they had built together. She knelt beside him, her knees pressing into the cold ground, and gently kissed his forehead.
His skin was warm beneath her lips. His breath was soft against her cheek. His heart beat steadily beneath his chest—alive, human, fragile.
She lingered there, memorizing the feel of him, the smell of him, the sound of his breathing. She wanted to remember this moment forever—the warmth of his skin, the softness of his hair, the peace on his face. She wanted to carve it into her memory so deeply that no spell, no magic, no amount of time could erase it.
Isvarn watched her, knowing fully that she was now ready to leave him forever. Once she returned, he would have to make sure she forgot him. He would have to seal away these memories, bury them so deep that she would never find them again. She would live the lie she had created—the lie of the magical accident, the lie of the spell gone wrong, the lie of a pregnancy with no father.
She would be the queen again. Cold. Ruthless. Untouchable.
And she would never know what she had lost.
Erza raised her arm, ready to seal his memory forever. Her hand hovered in the air, trembling slightly, the weight of centuries pressing down on her shoulders. She was ready now. Ready to erase the past weeks from his mind, to wipe away every moment they had shared, every meal, every dance, every touch, every whispered word in the dark. She was ready to become a stranger to him again. Ready to return to her throne and pretend that none of this had ever happened.
Isvarn watched her with quiet satisfaction, his ancient eyes gleaming in the dim morning light. He was glad. If he had been late by more than a week, things would have gone too far. She had fallen in love within weeks—a rapid, desperate, consuming love that had already begun to change the very fabric of who she was. The cold queen who had never shown weakness was now trembling at the thought of losing a mortal man.
If he had come a year later, she would have fallen into dragon bound—a state from which there was no return. She would have been bound to Yuuta's soul, tied to his existence, unable to live without him. Her heart would have been lost forever. Her mind would have been consumed. Her throne would have crumbled.
He smiled. The thing had been caught just in time. A week of memories was easy to forget compared to a year. A week of love was a scratch on the surface of her ancient heart. She would heal. She would return to her throne. She would be the queen she was meant to be.
Erza raised her hand higher, ready to cast the spell—the high-level spell that would seal his memory forever. She used her Zani power.
The air around the room began to shift.
It started as a whisper—a soft, keening sound that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. The temperature dropped so fast that frost crept across the floor, spreading outward from where Erza stood like the roots of an ancient tree. The light from the broken windows dimmed, as if the sun itself was afraid to shine on what was about to happen.
The very fabric of reality seemed to bend and warp as she gathered the particles of creation in her palm. The power was magnificent, terrifying, beautiful—a force that could reshape the world, that could create and destroy with equal ease. It was the power that had been hidden from God, the shadow of creation, the breath of Zareth herself.
Isvarn watched in astonishment. He had never seen Zani used so close. He had heard stories, read reports, studied the ancient texts in the deepest vaults of the Crystal Spire. But to witness it—to feel the weight of it pressing against his skin, to see the violet light flickering in his granddaughter's eyes, to hear the soft hum of reality bending to her will—was something else entirely.
It was like standing at the edge of the universe and watching the stars being born.
Erza began to prepare the Zani particles to erase his memory. Her mind was focused, her will iron, her heart closed. She would do this. She would save him from herself. She would let him go.
But as she worked, something began to shift.
The power in her hand became unstable. The violet darkness began to writhe, to twist, to throw off violent bursts of energy that scorched the air and cracked the floor. The walls groaned. The windows shattered further. The very building seemed to tremble as if it were afraid.
Erza felt the unstable energy hitting her palm, damaging her scales—scales that had never been damaged by anything less than a god's blade. She tried to control it, tried to force it back into submission, but this had never happened before. The Zani particles were not listening. They were not obeying.
They were reacting.
Not like magic. Not like power. Like something alive. Like a dog recognizing its owner after years apart. Like a lost child finding its way home. Like a key turning in a lock that had been waiting for centuries to be opened.
Isvarn's eyes widened. His ancient heart stopped. He had never seen anything like this. Never read of anything like this in any text, any scroll, any whispered legend. The particles around Erza's arm suddenly broke free, rushing toward Yuuta's sleeping body like water toward a drain, like moths toward a flame, like souls returning to the afterlife.
They were sucked into him. Absorbed by him. Swallowed by his fragile human form.
Erza's eyes widened. Her hand dropped to her side. She did not know what had just happened. The Zani particles—the power that could drive a being insane, that could turn a mind into a beast, that could only be wielded by dragons and gods—had just been absorbed by a human. By Yuuta.
Her hand trembled.
Several minutes passed. Nothing happened. The room was silent. The dust settled. The morning light continued to filter through the broken windows, painting the ruins in shades of gold and gray. Erza and Isvarn stood frozen, both shocked, both waiting for something—an explosion, a transformation, a sign that the world was about to end.
Maybe it was a mistake, Erza thought. Maybe the particles dispersed. Maybe nothing will happen.
She reached out to touch him, to make sure he was alright. Her fingers brushed his skin.
And then her mana was sucked out of her.
It was not a gentle pull. It was violent, desperate, hungry. Her power flowed into him like water through a broken dam, drawn by something she could not see, could not control, could not stop. She tried to pull her hand back, but she could not. She was stuck. Trapped. Connected to him in a way she had never been connected to anyone.
She ripped her hand away.
And then Yuuta screamed.
His eyes flew open, glowing violently, lighting the whole room in crimson red. The walls, the floor, the ceiling—everything was bathed in the light of his eyes. It was the color of blood, of fire, of something ancient and terrible and broken. The light pulsed, flickered, grew brighter and dimmer in waves that seemed to match the rhythm of his heartbeat.
He was screaming. Begging.
"No... please... Doctor... Yuuta will be a good kid... please don't hurt me..."
His voice echoed with agony, with pain that seemed to leak from his very soul. It was not the scream of a man in physical pain. It was the scream of a child—a small, frightened child who had been hurt and abandoned and forgotten. A child who had learned to beg because begging was the only thing that sometimes made the pain stop.
Erza's heart shattered.
"What is happening?" she whispered.
The light grew brighter. The room grew hotter. The shadows in the corners writhed and twisted, and something ancient stirred in the depths of Yuuta's soul.
Something that had been sleeping for a very long time.
Something that was finally waking up.
Yuuta's mind was shattering.
It was like his consciousness was splitting into several pieces, each one tearing away from the other, each one fighting for dominance. The memories he was unaware of—the ones buried so deep that even he did not know they existed—were trying to rush into his body, forcing their way through barriers he had not known were there.
He screamed in pain. His very soul was shattering, breaking apart under the weight of something he could not understand, could not control, could not escape. His body arched off the floor, his hands clawing at his head, his mouth open in a scream that started low and grew louder and louder until it filled the room, until it seemed to shake the very walls, until Erza thought her eardrums would burst.
The sound was not human. It was not dragon. It was something else—something caught between, something that did not belong to either world. It was the sound of a soul being torn apart from the inside.
Erza's heart froze. Fear gripped her—not the fear of battle, not the fear of death, but the fear of watching someone she loved suffer and being unable to do anything about it. Her hands trembled as she reached for him, her magic already flowing to her fingertips, already preparing to heal, to soothe, to save—
But she was too late. The pain was too great. Yuuta's body was failing, his mind was breaking, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. His eyes—those crimson eyes that had looked at her with such warmth, such hope, such love—were glowing brighter than she had ever seen them. They burned like twin suns, like stars about to go supernova, like the end of something that had been waiting to end for a very long time.
Then Isvarn tapped his cane on the floor.
Tap.
The sound was small, almost delicate, barely audible above Yuuta's screams. It was the sound of a single drop of water falling into a still pond. It was the sound of a door closing softly in a quiet house. It was the sound of time itself being told to stop.
And it obeyed.
The whole room slowed. Time itself seemed to stretch, to thicken, to become something that could be touched and shaped and molded like clay. The dust motes that had been floating in the air froze mid-dance, suspended in golden beams of morning light like tiny stars caught in amber. The shadows that had been crawling across the walls stopped their slow migration, frozen in place like photographs of themselves. The air itself grew heavy, thick, syrupy.
Yuuta's scream slowed to a low, rumbling vibration, his body moving in agonizing slow motion, his hands still raised to his head, his mouth still open in a cry that would never be completed. His eyes, still glowing, pulsed with light in slow, rhythmic beats—like a heartbeat, like a countdown, like a timer ticking toward something terrible.
Isvarn had used his special magic. The Dragon Art: Chrono Lock. It was one of the great saint abilities, a power reserved for the most dire of circumstances. It was designed to stop enemy attacks by slowing time itself, to give the user a chance to think, to plan, to act before disaster struck. He had used it in battle before, against nightmare creatures and rogue dragons and beings that should not exist. But he had never used it on a mortal. He had never needed to.
But he had seen something. In the moment before Yuuta's scream, in the flicker of his crimson eyes, in the way his soul had trembled—Isvarn had seen something that made him act without thinking. He had seen the shadow of something vast and terrible lurking behind the mortal's consciousness, something that had been sleeping for a very long time and was now beginning to wake.
If he did not use this spell, he might witness a disaster beyond his imagination.
Erza panicked. She turned to her grandfather, her voice sharp with fear and confusion, the words tumbling out in a rush.
"What happened? Why was he screaming like that? I have never seen—I have never heard—what is wrong with him?"
She looked back at Yuuta, frozen in slow motion, his face twisted in agony, his eyes glowing brighter than she had ever seen them. They were like twin suns, burning with an intensity that should have been impossible for a human. They looked like they were about to explode, to consume him, to burn away everything that he was.
"Why are his eyes glowing like that?" she demanded, her voice rising. "What is happening to him? Why can't I—why can't I help him? I am the most powerful being in existence. I wield Zani. I can bend reality. Why can't I—"
Isvarn did not answer immediately. He was staring at Yuuta's frozen form, his ancient eyes wide, his face pale. His hands, which had been steady for centuries, were trembling at his sides. His voice, when he finally spoke, was barely a whisper, rough and strained.
"This is… no. I cannot believe this. It cannot be."
He raised his hand, and the whole room went white.
The white was not the white of light or snow or clouds. It was the white of emptiness. The white of a blank page before any words are written. The white of a mind before memories are made. It was the color of potential, of possibility, of a story that had not yet been told.
Erza found herself standing in a vast, featureless space. There was no floor beneath her feet—she simply stood on nothing, suspended in the void. There was no ceiling above her head, no walls to mark the boundaries of the room. There was only white, stretching in every direction, endless and absolute, like the inside of a cloud or the surface of a blank canvas.
She looked around, confused and disoriented. Her voice echoed strangely in the emptiness, bouncing off nothing and returning to her distorted.
"Where are we? What is this place?"
Isvarn stood beside her, his tall frame somehow fitting into the emptiness, his silver hair catching a light that had no source. His voice was calm, but there was a weight beneath it—a tension that she had not heard before, a note of something that might have been awe or might have been fear.
"This is Yuuta's mind," he said. "His deepest memories. His sealed past. I have used a technique to penetrate his consciousness, to allow us to see what has been hidden from him—and from us."
Erza's breath caught. She had read memories before. She had slipped into the minds of enemies and allies alike, had walked through their pasts, had seen their triumphs and their failures. But she had always done it through touch, through direct contact, through the careful application of her power. She had never been transported into a memoryscape like this—a place so vast, so empty, so full of potential.
She looked around again, searching for something—anything—that would tell her what was happening. But there was only white. Only emptiness. Only silence.
"Why is it empty?" she asked, her voice echoing. "Where are his memories? Where is his past? Where is everything that made him who he is?"
Isvarn did not answer immediately. He was staring at something far above them, his ancient eyes wide, his face pale. He was more confused than Erza had ever seen him—more confused than he had been in centuries. He had expected to find a mortal mind, simple and straightforward, easy to read and easy to understand. He had not expected this.
The mortal was suffering. His soul was in agony—not the kind of agony that came from physical pain, but the kind that came from being torn apart from the inside. And someone had used a forbidden spell to seal his memories away. Someone had reached into his mind and locked away parts of him that he was never meant to lose.
Isvarn looked up at the sky of this strange white room. And then he smiled.
It was not a smile of joy. It was a smile of astonishment—the most genuine, the most surprised, the most awed expression Erza had ever seen on his ancient face. He had lived for thousands of years. He had seen miracles and catastrophes, had watched the birth of stars and the death of gods, had looked upon things that would drive lesser beings mad. But he had never seen anything like this.
Erza's frustration boiled over. "Why are you smiling? What is happening? I cannot understand any of this! What is this place? Why is it empty? Why—"
Isvarn cut her off, his voice calm but firm. "Look up, my Queen."
Erza looked up.
And she froze.
Horrified.
To Be Contiune..