When Astraeus dove,
it was not a descent.
It was a crossing.
The moment his body broke through the surface, the sea closed above him like a door that had been waiting for him to return.
No splash followed.
No sound.
Only a heavy blue silence swallowing everything he thought he understood about water.
For a moment, Astraeus could not tell if he was sinking… or being pulled.
The current did not move around him naturally. It wrapped itself around his arms, his chest, his throat — not like water, but like memory trying to hold him still.
Cold pressed against his skin.
But it was not the cold of the sea.
It was older.
Deeper.
The kind of cold that belonged to places where light had died long ago and never found its way back.
Above him, the surface disappeared.
The world of Aria, the shore, the forest, the voice inside the shell — all of it faded into a distant blur.
Below him…
something waited.
Astraeus opened his eyes.
And the depths opened back.
Memories rose around him like bubbles.
Not clear memories.
Fragments.
A hand reaching through blue light.
A child crying without sound.
A door closing from the inside.
A voice — his voice, but younger — whispering:
"Don't leave me here."
The bubbles reached his face and burst.
Each one broke without sound.
Each one left behind a feeling he could not explain.
Guilt.
Fear.
Recognition.
The Origin Seed pulsed inside his hand.
Once.
Twice.
Then its light dimmed into a darker blue, as if even the Seed understood that this place was not meant to be awakened.
Lian swam ahead of him.
But he did not move like someone fighting the pressure.
He moved as if the sea knew him.
His faded blue scarf floated behind him, untouched by the current, drifting slowly like a piece of sky that had drowned years ago.
He glanced back at Astraeus.
His expression was calm.
Too calm.
As if he had brought Astraeus here before.
Or worse—
as if he had failed to stop him before.
Astraeus tried to speak.
No sound came out.
Lian raised one finger to his lips.
Then he pointed downward.
The darkness beneath them trembled.
At first, Astraeus thought it was only a shape in the distance.
Then the sea shifted.
And the city emerged.
Not slowly.
Not from shadows.
It appeared as if it had always been there, waiting for his eyes to remember how to see it.
A drowned city stretched across the ocean floor.
Towers leaned at impossible angles.
Bridges hung broken between buildings, their ends disappearing into clouds of silver sand.
Streets spiraled downward into pits of blue darkness.
Glass domes cracked under the weight of centuries.
And everywhere—
light.
Dead light.
Thin, pale, broken streams of glow moved through the ruins like veins inside a corpse that still refused to fully decay.
It was not beautiful.
It was not ugly.
It was something worse.
Forgotten.
Astraeus drifted closer.
The buildings watched him.
Their windows were wide and black, staring like open eyes.
Some windows flickered as he passed, revealing figures behind the glass.
People.
Or echoes of people.
They stood motionless inside flooded rooms, facing outward, their faces blurred by time and pressure.
Then Astraeus saw the statues.
Hundreds of them lined the main avenue.
All kneeling.
All broken.
All facing the same direction.
His chest tightened.
Because every statue carried his face.
Not perfectly.
Some were older.
Some younger.
Some cracked down the middle.
Some had no eyes.
Some had mouths carved open in silent screams.
But each one was him.
Astraeus stopped moving.
The water pressed harder around him.
Lian's voice entered his mind, muffled by the sea, but clear enough to cut through the silence.
"You were here…"
A pause.
"Not you."
His eyes lowered toward the statues.
"Your copy."
Astraeus looked at him.
The word struck deeper than it should have.
Copy.
The city around them seemed to react to it.
Windows flickered.
Broken towers groaned.
A low vibration passed through the drowned streets, as if the ruins themselves had heard the word and remembered pain.
Lian continued forward.
Astraeus followed.
They passed through an avenue of collapsed light poles, each one still glowing faintly beneath layers of coral and black moss.
Small fish moved between the ruins.
But they had no eyes.
Their bodies were transparent, and inside them floated tiny sparks of blue light — as if they had fed on the city's dead memories for too long and become part of them.
At the center of the city stood a circular plaza.
And inside it—
three stone gates.
They rose from the ocean floor like ancient verdicts.
The first gate was shattered.
Its pieces floated around it, never rising, never falling.
The second gate was sealed by chains made of blue crystal, each chain pulsing with a faint warning light.
But the third gate…
The third gate was alive.
Not fully.
Not openly.
But softly.
It pulsed in the darkness.
Once.
Twice.
Like a child's heart beating inside stone.
Astraeus felt his own heartbeat answer.
The Origin Seed trembled violently in his hand.
Lian stopped beside him.
For the first time, his calm expression cracked.
Just slightly.
"The tenth prototype passed through here," he said.
The water seemed to grow heavier.
Astraeus stared at the third gate.
Prototype.
The word did not belong to fantasy.
It belonged to laboratories.
Systems.
Failed designs.
Experiments.
A cold pressure spread behind his eyes.
He saw flashes.
A white room.
A body floating inside a vertical tank.
Blue cables entering the spine.
A screen displaying numbers.
MODEL 10 — STABILITY UNKNOWN
Then the image vanished.
Astraeus clenched his hand around the Seed.
Lian's voice dropped lower.
"He escaped…"
The pause that followed felt longer than the sea itself.
Then Lian whispered:
"Before he was born."
The third gate pulsed again.
This time, the city answered.
All at once, the statues turned their heads.
Slowly.
Silently.
Toward Astraeus.
He did not move.
He could not.
Their stone eyes opened.
Not with light.
With darkness.
The plaza trembled.
A path appeared between the gates, forming from cracked tiles that lifted from the ocean floor and locked into place one by one.
The path led to a sunken hall behind the plaza.
A tomb.
Astraeus did not ask if they should enter.
He already knew the answer.
The city had not brought him here to choose.
It had brought him here to remember.
They entered the tomb hall.
Inside, the water became still.
Completely still.
No current.
No bubbles.
No movement.
Even Lian's scarf stopped floating.
The walls were covered in inscriptions, but most had been scratched out, not by time — by hands.
Desperate hands.
Hands that wanted to erase what had happened here.
At the far end of the hall stood a black stone tablet.
The Origin Seed rose from Astraeus' palm without warning.
It floated forward.
Then its light touched the tablet.
Words appeared.
Slowly.
One line at a time.
The tenth model did not drown.
Astraeus felt the air leave his lungs, even though he was underwater.
Another line appeared.
It was hidden.
The tomb hall darkened.
Lian stepped back.
"Don't go closer," he warned.
But Astraeus was already moving.
Each step pulled memories from the floor.
A child's hand dragging across stone.
A body sinking.
A voice begging.
A shadow watching from behind glass.
Then the water beneath the tablet began to rise.
Not upward.
Inward.
It folded into itself, gathering darkness from every corner of the hall.
A shape formed.
First, a face.
Then shoulders.
Then arms.
A body made of drowned blue shadow.
It stood before Astraeus.
His reflection.
But drowned.
Its hair floated around its face like black smoke beneath water.
Its skin was pale and cracked.
Its eyes were hollow, filled with the same dead light that moved through the city's veins.
When it opened its mouth, the entire tomb shook.
"You came back."
Astraeus stared at it.
The reflection tilted its head.
A slow, broken smile appeared.
"You always come back after leaving me to die."
The Origin Seed flickered.
Lian whispered from behind him:
"Astraeus…"
But the drowned reflection raised one hand.
And every statue outside the tomb answered.
A thousand stone bodies turned toward the hall.
The reflection stepped closer.
Its voice became softer.
More human.
More painful.
"You killed me here…"
It leaned forward.
Its face nearly touched Astraeus'.
"Didn't you?"
Astraeus said nothing.
He couldn't.
Because somewhere deep inside him—
something remembered holding the door shut.