Even before the sun had risen over the eastern hills, I left the comfort of the hotel room.
Kaelira was still asleep, curled beneath the sheets with one arm draped across her stomach, breathing evenly. I didn’t bother waking her. She needed the rest. What I needed was answers.
But the truth was—I already knew I wasn’t going into that forest for peace.
My boots crunched softly over the morning dew as I crossed the overgrown path, until I once again reached the cursed portal. It floated in the air like a jagged wound in the world—black and purple, pulsing like a living organ. A rift that defied explanation, the sa one I had visited before.
The wind carried an unnatural chill near it. And yet... I wasn’t alone.
This ti, it wasn’t one of the [Spawns of Vorr’Kael] waiting for . No twisted abomination. No bestial monstrosity.
Instead, a man crouched on the forest floor in front of the rift.
His skin was pale and mottled with black and purplish rot, like necrosis that refused to die. His height—tall, imposing—reached nearly six-foot-eight. His hair was unkempt and raven-black, his eyes a dull, familiar brown.
No. Not just familiar.
Painfully familiar.
He looked like soone I knew... soone I used to be.
Arawn.
My old body. My old face.
I stopped in my tracks, breath caught in my throat. I didn’t move, not yet. Just stared at the figure in front of , my hand slowly slipping into my hoodie pocket, fingers brushing against the familiar leather of my knife’s hilt.
He sensed , slowly raising his head. And then—he smiled.
Rotten teeth, twisted lips. But unmistakably my smile.
"Finally," he rasped, voice gravelly and ruined. "You’ve returned... Arawn."
His voice grated against my spine. I narrowed my eyes. "How the hell do you know that na?"
He chuckled—or tried to. The sound that ca out was a low, guttural screech, like tal dragged across wet bone. "You speak as if I’m a stranger... but I rember what it’s like. To stand where you stand. To look at myself and hate what I see."
I stepped forward, boots pressing down hard against the soil. "You’re not making sense. No one knows that na. Not in this world. So how the hell does an abomination like you—"
"Because I am you."
I froze.
He stood now, slowly, deliberately, like every joint was stiff from centuries of decay. "Not a clone. Not a doppelgänger. Not a trick. I’m you, Cassius. I’m Arawn. Just... further down the line."
I scoffed, hard. "Bullshit. If you were , you’d be in my current body—not this corpse I left behind. You expect to believe you’re the future while wearing a skin that’s six feet under?"
A sad smile touched his ruined lips. "I knew you’d say that. You always were cynical. But it doesn’t change the truth."
Silence thickened between us like a hanging fog.
Then I spat to the side, glaring. "If you’re here to waste my ti, then do it quickly. Because I’m this close to ending whatever half-life you’re pretending to live."
His black eyes glinted. "I’m not here to waste your ti. I’m here to warn you."
My expression didn’t change, but sothing in my chest tensed.
He continued. "While Vorr’Kael is using this planet like an appetizer—this infestation of his Spawns—it’s only the beginning. He’s not the threat. Just the storm’s first breeze."
I frowned. "You an the sa Vorr’Kael whose minions are tearing holes across Cronica? The one causing rifts to erupt all over the continents?"
He nodded. "Yes. Him. But in the scope of the cosmos, he’s nothing. A pawn playing god."
I crossed my arms, voice dry. "Right. The guy casually warping reality is ’nothing’. You got any better jokes?"
He stepped closer, and I didn’t miss how the air turned heavier with every inch of distance he closed.
"Three years from now," he said softly. "Your powers will start to shift. Not just grow—but awaken. And when they do... they’ll call others. Other Incarnations."
That word. Incarnations.
I tilted my head. "And what happens then? I suddenly beco the apocalypse incarnate?"
He looked at —really looked at —and said grimly, "That would be a rcy."
Sothing cold pressed against my spine.
He continued. "When your powers awaken... the cosmos will notice. You will be hunted. Not by mortals. Not by monsters. But by the other Incarnations who walk under different skies, in different realms. And all of them much stronger than you."
I didn’t speak. My jaw clenched.
He raised his hand—rotten, trembling—and pointed at the rift.
"Vorr’Kael is a warning bell. The first scream in the dark. But the true horrors lie beyond the rift. You think you’ve seen evil? You think you’ve survived cruelty? You haven’t even glimpsed the depths yet."
I swallowed dryly. "...Why are you telling this?"
"Because in my ti... no one warned ."
I wanted to believe the guy in front of —this abomination wrapped in my old flesh—not out of blind faith, but because...
If even a sliver of what he said was true, then I needed to know more. I needed to change it. Maybe I couldn’t save myself now—but I could damn well prepare.
My tone dropped, quiet but firm. "What exactly are Incarnations?"
He didn’t look at . Instead, he turned his head toward the pale sky above the treetops, where the sun had only begun to bleed light into the horizon.
"Incarnations..." he began, his voice dry like crumbling parchnt, "are exactly what the na implies. Beings that embody. That are. Concepts. Laws. Principles. They are the walking manifestations of the fundantal truths of the cosmos. Ti. Death. Chaos. Void. Realm. Divinity. Even lies. Even love."
He paused, letting the words linger.
"So are born from creation. So existed beyond. So from destruction. Others just... awaken."
I frowned, absorbing the gravity of it all. "So they’re like cosmic avatars? What—are they evil overlords or sothing?"
He slowly shook his head. "No. They’re not evil, not in the sense you understand. They simply are. They don’t act out of malice. It’s just their nature. When an Incarnation walks... stars weep. Realities bend. Universes—entire fucking universes—implode because they breathe in a direction reality doesn’t like."
I swallowed hard. The scale was... absurd.
Universes?
This was way beyond rifts or Spawns or even Vorr’Kael.
Still, sothing didn’t sit right. "If they’re that strong... why do they destroy? For fun? For dominance? Or just boredom?"
He looked back at then, his rotting features still, his dead eyes sohow deeper than the void. "They hate discomfort," he said. "They hate being used. We—mortals, creators, gods—use them. Tap into them. Base our existence, magic, physics—life—on their principles. They see it as a violation. An infestation. So they cleanse it."
I rubbed my temples, trying to grasp the logic. "So they’re pissed because the cosmos uses them as a blueprint to build shit?"
He shrugged. "So say that. Others say they just want silence. To return to Stillness. To be left alone, undisturbed by lesser echoes of themselves. But the truth?"
He tilted his head slightly, and for the first ti, there was... fear. "No one really knows. No one’s ever spoken to an Incarnation and returned the sa. Or at all."
I scoffed. "And yet here you are, talking like you’ve seen them all."
He leaned forward, and sothing in his voice shifted. Quieter. More pointed. "But don’t you feel it, Arawn? Haven’t you sensed it? That pull... that dissonance when you cast magic? That hum in your soul that doesn’t match this world’s tune?"
My heart skipped a beat.
"Wha—what are you talking about?"
He muttered under his breath, voice nearly inaudible. "Maybe it hasn’t matured yet. Maybe it’s not you... maybe it’s still Cassius who listens to them..."
He looked up, and the mont his eyes t mine, the world tilted.
"I wasn’t lying before," he said softly. "We’re an Incarnation too."
Silence dropped like a guillotine.
He stepped closer, his presence now pressing against my lungs like a vice. "We are the Incarnation of Nothingness."
The mont the word Nothingness left his mouth—
My pupils contracted, shrinking to a size so small I couldn’t see. The forest vanished. The sky vanished. Even the sound of wind and breath vanished.
I saw nothing.
And then I saw sothing worse.
His violet eyes clouded over, the irises shrinking until only the white remained... and then even that was consud by a foggy, hazy mist—white, but so empty it felt wrong. Like a void masquerading as purity.
The man before straightened his posture.
But he wasn’t the sa.
His entire deanor shifted. He was no longer a future version of , rotting and sad.
No.
Now he was sothing else.
Sothing beyond identity.
His presence rippled through the forest like waves crashing against an unprepared shore. The air cracked. Trees bent inward as though trying to flee without moving.
The space around him shuddered, and even the rift behind him flickered like it was afraid.
The pressure wasn’t like mana. It wasn’t power.
It was absence.
A complete and utter rejection of presence.
It wasn’t darkness. Darkness still exists.
This was... anti-being.
My knees nearly buckled as my body scread at to run. But there was nowhere to run.
He was standing still. Not moving a muscle. Yet I could feel him breaking rules just by existing. The birds stopped singing. The insects froze mid-air. Ti itself felt slower.
He was Dread. Not fear. Not terror.
Dread.
The kind that doesn’t scream at you to fight or flee—but makes you realize neither would matter.
My voice croaked. "What... are you?"
His smile returned—but this ti, it wasn’t cruel.
It was peaceful. As if he had finally returned ho.
"I am what you will beco," he said.
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