Looking at the shattered face right in front of him, Ren could only gasp for breath...his breaths hoarse and broken, dissolving into the air.
The mirrored mask was in ruins. It reflected nothing anymore.
No longer his reflection. No more judgment. Nothing at all.
Only shards of glass like ashes, fading into the silent cracks of the world.
The entire room fell into silence.
A strange kind of silence, as if even time was holding its breath, waiting for something beyond human understanding.
Then...
Tick.
A sound echoed through the void. Not mechanical. Not metallic. But… a reminder from the deepest layer of the system.
[You have released the wretched one bound by expectations.]
[You have reclaimed four shattered swords.]
[You have obtained a fragment of memory...]
The message appeared...slowly, like a whisper from a world long dead.
Ren remained kneeling. His eyes wide, not in shock, not in relief.
Just… empty.
He didn't know what had just ended.
Nor… what had just begun.
As the final system message faded, the world sank into an unreal silence, so deep and hollow that Ren could no longer hear even his heartbeat.
No breath. No echoes. Only a dense void, frozen in a blink stretched to eternity.
Then… a faint, sharp sound rang out, like fingernails brushing glass, shattering that eternal stillness.
One gold coin. Then two. They trembled, stirred, as if called from a long slumber.
Coin by coin, they rose against gravity, like raindrops swimming upstream in a storm.
A silent golden tide flowed in reverse, flipping the dust of memories.
Not falling..but resurrecting. Not vanishing, but returning.
Ren didn't move. He only stood there, voiceless amidst a world rewinding itself, as if even time was gasping, panicking over what it was about to reveal.
No sound. No gravity.
Only a dry, hollow beat echoing from somewhere far away, the echo of a heart that had died long ago.
The gold coins passed through Ren's body. They were as light as dust, as brilliant as stars, and as cold as morning frost brushing a forgotten grave.
He was no longer human. Only a trace.
A faint imprint within memories fracturing apart.
Then the sky opened.
A smudged shade of blue appeared above, ripping through the mist surrounding him.
Ren floated... not falling, not flying, but suspended between the universe's final two breaths.
The geological layers dissolved.
Soil, roots, massive stones crumbled into millions of glowing particles,
spiraling like flower petals melting in slow fire.
Trees… creatures… even monsters, they all unraveled into blurred outlines, dissolving into the void, as if the world had never truly existed.
As if the essence had been drained, leaving only fragile shells, beautifully surreal, vanishing without a sound.
They scattered, like crystal petals reflecting shattered light. All of them spun, then gathered into a shape.
A figure… or something not quite human…?
Ren wasn't sure.
He didn't dare to be.
He only knew his chest was tightening, each breath too costly to be called existence.
Memories reversed like a frozen river flowing uphill. Ren forced his eyes open, trying to see clearly that faint form, something both familiar and alien, standing at the center of all collapse.
But then...
A soundless wind swept through, ruffling his tangled black hair.
And when Ren opened his eyes again… he saw Aincrad.
Not from the usual perspective. But from the outside. From afar.
The floating tower suspended in endless space, like a living being gasping within a desolate universe.
The floors stacked like an endless cycle of reincarnation. And then… they began to unravel.
Chains connecting each level slowly retracted. Each landmass, each part of Aincrad's structure, broke apart like shattered memories.
They fell.
Gently. Piece by piece, like souls returning to their origin.
Some floors came into focus.
Others blurred.
Some sank into clouds, some reflected like still lakes.
All of it…
Little by little…
Was returning to where it once belonged.
The stream of ancient memories hadn't stopped.
It didn't let Ren breathe.
It kept pulling him further, and further, deeper into the strata of a forgotten age, as if the world itself was forcing him to witness.... something that should never have been recalled.
The space around him was suddenly swallowed by darkness, not mere shadow, but a primordial night, so thick and ancient that even light trembled.
And in that heavy silence, Ren saw cities...
Not human cities… but not entirely non-human either.
Beings shaped like men, living in fortified citadels with architecture, like they had stepped out of a vibrant fantasy world...
It should have been so, bright, vivid, magical, alive...
But in Ren's eyes, in the memories he was being forced to see...only two colors remained:
The color of darkness, and the color of flickering flames...burning gently in fortresses guarded like the last embers of faith.
The sky above, when Ren looked up, had no sun.
Only a pitch-black eclipse, spiraling deep into the heavens like a cursed eye, casting down a light that was cold, weary, and despairing, as if the emotions of every living thing had already been drained, leaving only walking shadows...
And then...
...from the engulfing night, a flood of monsters surged forth.
Grotesque, shapeless beings... screamed in silence, attacking the cities lit by the last flickers of mankind's fire.
They could not be seen in the light, for they were the embodiment of darkness itself... of chaos and hatred built up through tens of thousands of years of imprisonment in silence.
They swept over the fortress walls like waves breaking ashore, crushing every district, every tower, every tiny lantern still clinging to hope...
And each flame faded one by one, like constellations plucked from the sky, falling into an unseen abyss, vanishing without a goodbye.
Amidst the flood, Ren saw people…
They wore no armor. Carried no weapons.
Only strange robes.... like priests, like devotees of some nameless god, souls abandoned at the world's very end.
Ren could hear whispers of prayers, faint and distant, like echoes from the bottom of a well of time, even as he was being swallowed by the reverse whirl of memories.
"Those soulforms once bestowed the title of the mighty…"
"Proud existences who once dared to gaze upon the throne of the divine realm."
"They entered a place built so that no one would ever return...
...The Prison, where remnants of forsaken Elder Gods are kept."
"Some entered with the feet of faith."
"Some knocked because their hearts had rotted in despair."
"Some were banished from all living lands, with no place left to turn."
"And some… went all the way."
A strange collision of memories burst before Ren's eyes, as if all eras, all fates, all ends...were converging into a single point.
He saw a man in tattered robes, eyes blazing like a sacred furnace, shouting a forbidden vow into a howling storm.
A female warrior knelt in a ruined temple, her hands soaked in blood, yet her eyes gleamed like mirrors.
A boy stood amidst ashes, lifted his head, and smiled gently, as he was consumed by a shadowed light that did not belong to this world.
"One among them… the one who walked through blood, darkness, and the silence of gods... survived, and returned with a blade stained in ancient memory."
"The first to bring fire back, to the night that would not end."
"The one who did not kneel before gods, nor was cursed by death."
"And when He spoke His name… the sky bowed, the earth split, and time itself froze."
"His true title was…"
An ancient name flared in the dark, engraved into the heavens like a burning golden scar...the wound of a closing age.
And Ren, without knowing why, found himself mouthing it instinctively, as if some part of him had always known.
"RAZGAR."
"The Beast God."
"The Moon Sovereign."
"The Sower of Seasons."
"The Flame of Harvest."
"And the first Light not divine… to step out from the Mouth of the Void."
"The one who would lead mankind through the Dark Age...without the shelter of gods."
At this moment… everything seemed to stop.
The stream of memory no longer dragged Ren further, perhaps because it was not allowed beyond this point, or perhaps because even time dared not touch, the sealed depths beneath the warped shell of history.
In that solemn darkness, Ren saw a young boy, eyes burning with hatred, heart screaming from loss, but the light of the Beast God shone upon him, lifting his steps from the abyss of shadow.
That boy… became one of the Oathbound Four...four beings who raised their swords in answer to Razgar's summons, swearing life and death to guard the final root of humanity...from the fangs of oblivion.
The four swords stood, not for glory, not for reward, but under Razgar's gaze, they fought to sustain the final breath of life.
And then...
Battles against the nameless flood of dark creatures raged for decades.
Sacrifices left unwritten.
Deaths without meaning, victories no one had strength to celebrate, all flickered past Ren's eyes, like cinders swept away by the wind.
He could not touch them.
Could not hold on.
He only knew he was being pulled back to the present, dragged away from the past, like a shadow that had dared peek into a forbidden book.
Until, in the bloodiest hour, seven heroes...or as some called them, the Seven Sins...together rekindled the sun, at a cost so great the sky itself trembled.
And that boy from long ago…
…had become a king.
But the light dimmed. Truth cracked. The throne ceased to be a symbol of protection, and became shackles of desire.
"A worm of doubt crept into the righteous heart of the king."
"Spoils of war piled around the throne. Honeyed praises turned to chains."
"Loyalty became falsehood. Honor turned to greed. Golden radiance clouded reason."
"And then, he turned his back, on those who had once fought beside him."
A kingdom once mighty rotted from within. Its former glory twisted.. into something far more terrifying...an abyss of suspicion and betrayal.
"When the crown rusted, stained in blood…"
"The king was no longer king."
"Only a sinner, clawing for the last gleam of the god's light…"
"And then… when the land split into a hundred shards, he was sealed."
"Buried deep underground, in a tomb of gold, where the very gold consumed his soul, bit by bit, until nothing remained, but a hollow name...enduring as a curse, with a spirit that would never find peace…"
"The four swords were shattered."