Phainon stepped deeper into the cave.
The ground beneath his feet pulsed with a rhythmic beat.
It wasn't a tremor, but a breath.
As if a prehistoric beast, imprisoned for eons, lay beneath, each of their heartbeats causing the rock layers to tremble slightly.
He walked deeper and deeper.
Strange anomalies began appearing on the cave walls around him.
More and more amber-colored crystals, like tumors, were embedded in the rock, emitting a faint glow.
Phainon reached out and touched the warm, smooth surface of the crystal.
"Amber..."
Further in, the cave walls were completely replaced by this eerie amber, bathing the entire passage in a viscous, dim yellow.
Amber... Preservation... Qlipoth... Countless clues intertwined in the scorched earth of Phainon's chaotic memories, and a forgotten chain of logic gradually became clear.
He seemed to see an ancient scene.
A colossal beast of calamity, greedily siphoning the planet's nutrients, was instantly solidified by divine power descending from the heavens, sealed in the endless depths of the earth's core.
Something personally suppressed by Preservation... and also the most interesting collection of Destruction.
[Current Emotion: Frenzy]
Destroying what Destruction cherishes is very important!
"Heh heh..."
An uncontrollable chuckle rolled from his throat, echoing in this amber cage.
He quickened his pace, his demeanor like a diner rushing to a doomsday feast.
However, the next moment...
The amber crystals beneath his feet began to feel soft.
The hard ground turned into warm earth.
The amber-colored walls around him began to flow, twisting and stretching into an endless golden wheat field.
The stench of decay and chaos that permeated the air had, at some point, quietly dissipated.
In their place was a pastoral fragrance of earth and wheat.
The entire world, in a moment he hadn't perceived, was completely altered.
He had returned to his homeland—Aedes Elysiae!
Was the authority of the mask... touched?
"Hehe..."
A bell-like laugh, piercing through the swaying golden wheat, entered his ears.
This voice... he had reincarnated thirty million times, and at the end of each cycle, it would echo wildly in his mind.
It was Cyrene... sure enough.
At the end of the rice field, the figure he yearned for stood quietly.
As a gentle breeze blew, the girl's hair danced with the full wheat ears, and she turned back with a smile, as if the entire world brightened.
Still so... beautiful.
"This is a... different kind of romantic story. Right?"
"Cyrene."
Phainon's voice was a little hoarse, and he slowly raised his hand, for the first time, actively removing the golden mask that isolated everything.
"You... how are you here?"
The girl tilted her head, her smile pure and flawless: "Because this is your home, Phainon!"
Phainon's gaze swept across the boundless fields, and a hint of daze appeared in his eyes.
"No, I'm not in Amphoreus... I'm in a place called... Belobog..."
Cyrene's face was filled with confusion: "What Belobog? Haven't you been sleeping here all this time? Did you have a... very, very long dream?"
Dream...?
Phainon was slightly startled.
"If it really was a dream... that would be good..."
"Alright, my Savior." Cyrene reached out to him, her eyes full of heartache, "Get some good rest... you're too tired..."
Tired...?
He didn't know... he seemed to not even remember the purpose of embarking on reincarnation... Phainon gazed at her, at this face, this scene.
Everything was so real.
So real that... it made him feel sick!!!
The next instant.
All the daze and tenderness in his deep pupils faded, leaving only the dead stillness of an ancient well.
"If I could... I really want to stay here..."
He said softly, as if bidding farewell to the girl in his dream, and as if whispering to his last remaining humanity.
"But..."
His gaze met the girl's bewildered face.
"You shouldn't use her tone... to say such things to me..."
The next second, his figure had already appeared before "Cyrene"!
Whoosh—!
The crescent-shaped ritual sword, without the slightest hesitation, pierced Cyrene's chest with extreme precision.
The smile on Cyrene's face in the illusion instantly froze, replaced by extreme shock and fear, "Why... you..."
Phainon's words were colder than the chilling winds of the abyss.
"She would only smile and say to me,'Smile, okay?', not like you with a look of fear..."
"And, you got one thing wrong."
"My heart..."
He slowly drew out the longsword, watching the beautiful world before him shatter like glass.
"...It was already burned to charcoal... in those thirty million reincarnations..."
"It... won't hurt anymore..."
Before he finished speaking.
The ritual sword was ruthlessly pulled out.
A large gush of golden blood spurted from Cyrene's chest, splashing onto Phainon's expressionless face.
Finally, Cyrene slumped to the ground, golden blood still on her lips, eventually turning into points of light and dissipating without a trace.
[Emotion Threshold is breaking through... 101%... 102%... 103%...]
Phainon opened his palm, and a button that should have vanished with the illusion, by his will, re-condensed in his palm.
[Emotion Threshold: 150%]
Phainon remembered, that was the first time, and the beginning of the eternal reincarnation... it was also like this, he slowly, slowly plunged the ritual sword into Cyrene's chest.
That time, he still cried.
But this time, he seemed to have been stripped of the code for tears, unable to cry anymore... "I remember... my name..."
"Khaslana..."
[Emotion Threshold: 200%]
The moment this true name was uttered, the entire underground world trembled violently!
The illusion of Aedes Elysiae completely collapsed!
In their place were constantly writhing walls, a mixture of countless amber crystals and flesh and blood tissue.
And before him, a behemoth emerged from the shattered illusion.
It had no fixed form, merely a chaotic, constantly shifting geometric mass, with countless agonizingly twisted faces floating and screaming within theirflesh.
Just one glance was enough to completely evaporate the sanity of mortals.
But all of this was irrelevant to Phainon.
His spirit was already scorched earth... what angered him was that on the monster's flesh, familiar faces were emerging, melting, and reorganizing.
It was Cyrene's face, with the smile from their first meeting.
And then... Mydei, Aglaea... those companions who had fought alongside him, and whom he had personally destroyed!
The monster's enticement completely ignited Phainon's rage!
[Emotion Threshold Breakthrough: 300%]
The monster spoke in human tongue, their voice a mixture of Chrysos Heirss, each word changing into a familiar face:
"Look... Savior... you have failed again..."
"Every one of your salvations... is merely the beginning of another destruction..."
"Embrace us... become one with us... this time... you will never lose us again..."
Watching this scene, Phainon said, word by word, "They... would not say... such things..."
[Emotion Threshold: 500%]
The surrounding temperature began to skyrocket in an unnatural way!
One drop!
Two drops!
Countless melted amber dripped from the cave walls!
The next moment, Phainon's body slowly ascended, and his hand plunged fiercely into his chest.
This time it was no longer burning flames, but golden blood enveloping his entire body.
His white hair was rapidly stained with a brilliant golden hue!
His pupils turned to the pure color of molten gold, reflecting twelve Titan imprints!
The black robe on him quietly receded, revealing a body covered in cracks, as if it would shatter at a touch!
Within that fractured shell, what flowed was not blood!
It was boiling fury, enough to incinerate stars!
One bright, one dark.
Two gigantic wings, constructed of light and shadow, tore through his back and unfolded defiantly!
Phainon floated high above, like a fallen god emerged from myth, gazing down at the foul conglomeration before him with golden eyes devoid of any emotion.
This was his true form.
This was his forgotten name.
Khaslana.