Nir did not understand the sentence at first.
Not because its meaning was obscure.
But because his mind refused to accept it.
A door behind the void.
How could there be anything behind the void?
If the void was the absence of everything, what could possibly exist beyond it?
The question kept spinning in his head while the earth shook around him.
The cracks spread beneath their feet.
The air grew heavier.
Even the darkness at the far end of the chamber seemed to move.
Nir said:
"What lies beyond it?"
The man did not turn around.
He kept watching the colossal eye beginning to emerge from the darkness.
"Something this world has no right to know."
"That is not an answer."
"Because the answer itself might change you."
Nir stepped forward.
"I have already changed."
The man turned toward him.
He looked at him for a long time, then said:
"No. You do not yet know the meaning of change."
Nir raised his hand.
Around his fingers appeared that black stillness which no longer needed to be summoned.
"Then tell me."
The man looked at the void forming around Nir's hand.
Then he said:
"This power you possess is not a weapon."
"It is a language."
Nir's movement stopped.
"A language?"
"A language with which you can address things that ordinary language cannot reach."
The man stepped closer.
"When you erase something, you are not killing it."
"You are telling existence that it no longer needs to hold onto it."
Silence fell.
The words opened up a new meaning of his power to Nir.
He remembered the crystals.
The seal.
Magic.
Every time he had used his power, he hadn't shattered them by force.
He had made them lose the reason for their continued existence.
He said:
"That is why I can cancel magic."
"Yes."
"And that is why the Aura could not enter my body."
"Yes."
"And that is why they fear me."
The man answered:
"That is not the real reason."
Nir looked at him.
"Then what is?"
Before the man could answer—
The eye in the darkness opened fully.
A wave of pressure swept through the chamber.
Lyra screamed and dropped to her knees.
As for the man, he stretched his hand out before her.
The wave stopped before it reached her.
Nir did not move.
He was staring at the eye.
Then he heard a voice inside his head.
"You have returned."
He froze.
The voice didn't sound like the previous one.
It was closer.
Deeper.
As though it came from inside his own body.
Nir said:
"Who are you?"
The reply came:
"The question is wrong."
"What is the right question?"
The entity fell silent for a moment.
Then it said:
"Why you?"
Nir's hand lowered.
He found no answer.
The entity said:
"Because you are the only one who can open the door."
Nir looked at the man.
"Is this what you wanted?"
The man shook his head.
"No."
"Then what do you want?"
"To prevent you from opening it."
Silence fell.
Nir raised his eyes to him.
"Yet you created me."
"Yes."
"And then you feared me."
"Yes."
"And you want to stop me from reaching the door."
"Yes."
Nir's expression shifted.
"Then why didn't you kill me?"
Pain appeared in the man's eyes.
"Because we tried."
He paused.
"Many times."
Then he looked at Nir.
"And every time, you returned."
Nir's eyes widened.
"Returned?"
"You do not remember your past life."
"Because every time you reached the door, the world began anew."
Nir heard nothing else.
The world begins anew.
The sentence was too vast to comprehend.
All the pain he had lived through.
All the years.
All the people he had known.
Every moment he had thought was his first life...
Perhaps it hadn't been the first at all.
Nir said in a low voice:
"How many times?"
The man bowed his head.
"I do not know."
"How many times have I died?"
He did not answer.
And right there...
Nir understood.
The answer was worse than any number.
There was no number.
Perhaps he had died thousands of times.
Perhaps millions.
And every time...
He had returned without remembering.
Lyra approached him.
"Nir..."
He did not look at her.
He was staring into the void.
Then he said:
"Did I know you in a past life?"
The man looked at her.
Then returned his gaze to Nir.
"Every single time."
Lyra froze.
"And me?"
"You were always trying to reach him."
The man said, looking at Nir.
"And every time, you failed."
Nir closed his eyes.
He did not fall.
He did not scream.
He did not rage.
He simply stood still.
As though something inside him were trying to rebuild itself from scratch.
Then he opened his eyes.
His gaze was different.
Calm.
Cold.
Yet not devoid of humanity.
He said:
"I will not open the door."
The man looked at him in astonishment.
"What?"
"If the world resets every time I reach it..."
Nir raised his eyes toward the colossal eye.
"Then I will not reach it."
A long silence stretched out.
Then the man smiled for the first time.
"Only now... do I understand why we chose you."
Before he could finish—
The door behind the void began to appear.
It did not open.
It did not break.
Instead, it began to take shape.
And right in its center, a single handle appeared.
Black.
Ancient.
Waiting for a single hand.
Nir's hand.
The moment it appeared...
Nir heard another voice.
A voice coming from behind the door.
A voice he knew.
A voice he had heard since his childhood.
"You've finally come back to me."
Nir froze.
Because the voice...
Was his mother's voice.