"Wait. You can really restore my mories?"
Marcus Hanlon snapped his head up, eyes burning with sudden hope.
"If you can give back what I lost," he said hoarsely, "you can have anything. The Divine Forge. Every artifact I’ve ever made. All of it."
He had loved chanical craft since childhood. His great-grandfather had taught him the Divine Forge, and he’d mastered it so quickly that the old man once called him a genius who had surpassed his own bloodline.
Then, when Marcus was fifteen, everything broke.
His great-grandfather was attacked and left crippled. While he lay in a hospital bed, he finally told Marcus about the Eight Great Techniques and insisted the whole family had to disappear.
Marcus rembered leaving the hospital.
Getting into the car.
And nothing after that.
When his awareness returned, he was alone.
His family was gone.
That was when Quinn Thorne found him.
She took him in. Treated him like a younger brother. Helped him survive. Helped him search for his missing family. And slowly filled his head with a vision of a world where everyone would awaken mystic power and no one would ever be prey again.
Biyou Village had been built for that dream.
The Refinent Furnace had been built for that dream.
And beneath all of it was one desperate hope.
That the Furnace might also fix what had been taken from his mind.
"I don’t need anything except the Divine Forge," Rowan rcer said calmly.
He placed his palm on Marcus’s forehead.
Invisible pressure flooded Marcus’s skull as Rowan’s awareness pushed into his mind.
"Interesting," Rowan murmured. "Your mories weren’t erased. They were sealed."
He moved deeper.
mory wasn’t stored in the brain alone. It was bound to the core of a person’s being. You could bury it. Suppress it. Lock it behind layered barriers.
But you couldn’t destroy it.
Rowan reached the deepest layer and crushed the seal apart.
Marcus scread.
Then froze.
Then started shaking.
"Oh," Rowan said quietly. "So that’s how it really happened."
The truth unfolded in his mind.
Quinn Thorne and her people had intercepted Marcus’s family after they left the hospital.
She had wiped their mories of the Eight Great Techniques.
Then she had erased Marcus’s mories alone and let the rest of his family disappear.
Not killed.
Removed.
Hidden.
She had chosen him because his talent surpassed Arthur Hanlon’s.
Because he was perfect.
Because she needed the Divine Forge to build an army.
And she needed a broken boy with nothing left but hope to build it for her.
"Quinn..." Marcus whispered.
His knees hit the floor.
"It was you. It was always you. Why would you do this to ?"
His chest convulsed.
"I trusted you. I loved you like family—"
His voice shattered.
Rowan stepped back.
"Our deal is done," he said flatly. "You have your mories. I have your technique."
He vanished.
Minutes later, villagers rushed into the workshop, drawn by Marcus’s screams.
Cole Grant was the first to reach him.
"Chief, what happened?" he asked urgently.
Marcus didn’t answer.
Then, slowly, he looked up at Evan Clarke.
"I’ll surrender," he said dully. "All of us will."
Evan stiffened.
"On one condition."
"What condition?"
"You promise two things."
Evan’s eyes narrowed.
"Did Rowan rcer co here?"
Marcus closed his eyes.
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