Sai's grip tightened around his daggers as he faced the mysterious hooded man standing in the vast hall. The golden chains binding the massive doorway behind him shuddered, as if sothing on the other side was reacting to Sai's presence.
The air was thick with old power, the kind that felt like it had been lingering for centuries, waiting.
"You are not the first to stand here," the hooded man said, his voice calm yet heavy. "And you will not be the last."
Sai's eyes flicked to the mark on the man's palm—the sa symbol that had appeared on Sai's body when he first awakened the Lost Gate System.
"Who are you?" Sai demanded.
The man tilted his head slightly. "I could ask you the sa question."
Sai exhaled sharply, irritation creeping into his voice. "Enough riddles. Where am I? What is this place?"
The man regarded him for a mont before finally speaking.
"This is the Hall of Remnants. A place between what was... and what should have been."
"That doesn't answer anything."
"Doesn't it?" The man took a step forward, his movents unnaturally smooth, like soone who had long since abandoned the need for hesitation. "This hall is where the mories of those who touched the Abyss remain. And now, you stand among them."
Sai frowned. "mories?"
The hooded man raised his hand, and the statues lining the hall began to move.
The stone warriors that had stood silent now trembled, their massive forms shifting as golden light flickered within their eyes.
Then—the world around Sai shifted.
For a brief second, he was no longer standing in a ruined hall.
He was sowhere else entirely.
A battlefield.
The air was thick with smoke, and the ground was littered with corpses of hunters in unfamiliar armor. Beyond them, creatures of pure shadow twisted and shrieked, their forms shifting unnaturally.
And at the center of the battlefield—
Were hunters unlike any Sai had ever seen.
They fought not just with weapons but with abilities that bent the very fabric of reality. One moved faster than sight, cutting through shadows with a blade that burned like the sun. Another raised a hand, and the air froze solid, trapping creatures in ice that shattered instantly.
These were not normal hunters.
These were the first.
The ones who had sealed the Abyss.
And then—just as quickly as it appeared—the vision ended.
Sai was back in the hall, breath sharp, mind reeling.
"What... was that?"
"The past," the hooded man said. "Or at least, what remains of it."
Sai's heart pounded. He had always known the first hunters were legends, but what he had just seen was beyond anything he had imagined.
"They were stronger than anything I've ever seen," Sai muttered.
"Because they had no choice," the man said, stepping closer. "You believe the Lost Gates hold monsters. But you have not yet seen what they were truly built to contain."
He gestured to the golden chains on the massive doorway behind him.
"The Abyss was not sealed away with magic alone. It was sealed with their very existence."
"Their existence?" Sai repeated.
"The first hunters did not simply defeat the Abyss." The hooded man's voice was calm, but absolute. "They offered themselves to contain it."
Sai's stomach twisted.
"You're saying... they sacrificed themselves?"
"Not just their lives." The man finally stopped walking, standing just a few feet away now. "Their very identities were erased. Their nas, their histories... forgotten, so that the Abyss would never call to them again."
A chill ran down Sai's spine.
That would explain why there were no records, why no one truly knew what had happened during the first war.
It wasn't just history that had been erased.
It was the people who had fought in it.
"Then why do I still exist?" Sai asked.
The hooded man studied him for a long mont.
Then—for the first ti, he hesitated.
"Because sothing went wrong."
Silence stretched between them.
Sai could hear the faint creaking of the golden chains behind the man, the slow, rhythmic pull of sothing waiting to be freed.
"You were never ant to survive the Lost Gate," the man continued. "The Order erases them for a reason. To stop the cycle from repeating."
Sai clenched his fists. "What cycle?"
The man finally lifted his hood slightly, revealing eyes that glowed with golden energy.
"The cycle of Chosen."
The word echoed in Sai's mind.
That woman in the ruins had used the sa word.
"What does that an?" Sai demanded.
The man's expression didn't change.
"It ans you are closer to the Abyss than you realize."
Sai's breath caught.
"And the more you seek the truth..."
The golden chains behind the man shuddered violently.
A deep, inhuman sound rumbled from beyond the sealed doors.
"...the closer it cos to waking up."
Sai took an involuntary step back, every instinct screaming at him that sothing was very wrong.
The whispers that had filled the city were growing louder now, slipping into his thoughts like fragnts of sothing half-rembered.
"What's behind that door?" Sai asked.
The hooded man exhaled.
"Sothing that should have stayed forgotten."
The ground trembled.
The chains began to break.
Sai's pulse spiked.
"Then stop it!" he snapped.
"I can't," the man said simply. "I am only a Remnant."
A final snap—
And the golden chains shattered.
The massive door lurched open, revealing nothing but endless darkness.
A single tendril of black mist drifted out from within, curling unnaturally through the air.
And then—
A voice.
"You ca back."
Sai's vision blurred.
The world tilted.
And suddenly—
He was falling into the Abyss.
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