In the circular chamber drowned in crimson light, a sphere of flowing silver, tainted with threads of black, hovered above the dais.
At the entrance, with his back resting casually against the wall, a boy who looked no older than sixteen stood in silence. His eyes, pale and colorless, stayed fixed unblinking on the Serpent King's Elemental Domain, as if he could see through it.
'Following Aeon cost me a Gold-grade wish, but taking the slate from him will be worth the price,' Zarach thought, anticipation simmering beneath his still expression. The delightful moment he could envision was almost here.
He tilted his chin upward, watching the strands of his own fate. Colorless strings stretched from him like straws of a puppet, but creeping darkness had begun to stain some of them, inch by inch, growing ever closer to him.
'I do have to be careful, my fate still points to my death in some time,' He mused silently.
Yet the threat of death did not weigh heavily on him. If anything, his lips curled faintly, as though it were a minor inconvenience that he had dealt with a thousand times.
He waited leisurely, patient as a shadow, prepared to swoop in the instant the battle reached its end, and claim the prize that others bled for.
After nearly six minutes, the sphere of silver above the dais began to collapse, rippling outward with a shockwave that blurred the very color of reality. 'Finally...'
For a breath, the crimson chamber wavered before the vision settled back into focus.
Where the sphere had been, a towering naga emerged, scales cracked and flesh torn. A deep gash split across his face, carving through one eye and stretching down his neck and chest.
One of his four arms was nothing more than a bloody stump, while the others hung heavy with mutilation and blade wounds. His single remaining eye was dark and crystalline, the fury it once held extinguished, now nothing but lifeless stone.
Zarach's gaze slid past the corpse-like figure and rested on Aeon, whose dark armor bore some damage, but the extent of it was minor. 'He sure has improved quite a lot, but I expected nothing less from him,' Zarach mused, his tone inwardly mocking yet edged with recognition.
Then his pale eyes narrowed toward the woman beside him. Cloaked in silver, she bore even fewer scars than Aeon, something he had expected since she had stayed on the sidelines the entire battle.
But that didn't mean she was any less dangerous than he believed her to be, because surviving a clash with a peak Seventh Rank Elemental Ruler without suffering grievous harm was something no mere prodigy could achieve.
His eyes returned to Alex, who stood before the fallen serpent king, rambling about fulfilling his promise to bury Ozythar in the Rage sea, according to his wishes.
Zarach's lip curled into a faint scoff. 'Still playing the noble hero, as if dignity matters to the dead.'
The corner of Zarach's lips curled. 'Let him taste victory before I take it away.' He pushed off the wall and silently strode forward, a scroll clutched loosely in one hand.
Zarach watched as Alex cut into the abdomen of Ozythar in one swift slash, and a second later, tendrils of darkness slid in and took out a palm-sized, pitch-black slate, its surface etched with ancient glyphs of unknown origin.
Zarach's eyes gleamed. He watched as Alex turned the slate over in his hand, curiosity and excitement written openly across his face.
The sight of it only made him more delighted, knowing the more attached his old acquaintance was to the slate, the more he would suffer once he took it from his hand, and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
He stopped a hand distance away from Alex, his features twisting in delight, mana coiling sharp and ready at his fingertips. 'You were always fated to be my stepping stone.' The scroll in his grasp waited only for his command to trigger teleportation.
Zarach lingered deliberately, savoring the moment, allowing Alex to enjoy his victory, knowing that once he took it away, it would eat at his mind, making him question. If only he had placed the slate within his space ring, then he could have kept it.
Not that placing it directly within his space ring would have changed anything, since Zarach could simply make Alex fated to drop it in the event of his death as the penalty.
Though with that unknown female around, he didn't wish for things to reach that point, not that he even felt any doubt about his victory if he faced the two of them.
However, it would mean using his true strength, something he wished to keep a secret.
"Huh!" The surprise gasp tore from Alex's throat, and another, silent one escaped Zarach at the same instant.
Zarach was imagining Alex's stunned expression when he was stripped of the prize, but what he saw instead froze his thoughts in horror.
The glyphs etched into the slate flickered to life, breathing out a tide of abyssal darkness.
'No…' Zarach's eyes went wide. He watched as the edges of the slate dissolved into black mist, unraveling in a way that should not have been possible.
'How…? 'The word rattled in his mind. 'Eclipse Matter is one of the hardest substances in existence. It forms in the hearts of black holes... it is near indestructible...'
The realization hit like ice. 'The glyphs...' His thoughts trailed off.
There was no time left to think, and no space for hesitation. A broad dagger materialized in his right hand, as invisible as he was. His arm was already amid a wide swing, blade arcing straight for Alex's neck.
Zarach wasted no time questioning why the glyphs responded only to Alex, what would be the result, or whether killing him would change anything at all.
The broad dagger met Alex's neck a heartbeat later, yet instead of the clean slice and fountain of blood he expected, the blade froze. The steel pressed harmlessly against Alex's throat; the momentum behind the blade vanished, as though it had never been swung.
Zarach's thoughts stuttered. 'Ohh...' The thought flickered and died. In the same breath, a cold went through his being, his stretched arm fell, his legs buckled, and the light drained from his eyes.
A moment later, his body collapsed, lifeless, like a puppet with its strings cut, and with his death, the borrowed veil of invisibility died with him.
In Zahra's eyes, shocked yet bright with sudden delight, one moment Alex stood frozen, darkness swimming in his gaze, and the next, a body was crumpling to the floor right next to him.
She was beside him in a single step, her presence sharp and immediate. Black-and-white eyes burned with anger, but beneath the fury lay unmistakable relief.
She was no stranger to the fallen figure. It was Zarach, the other-worlder Alex had told her about.
Questions swarmed her mind, but beneath the confusion and anger, a strange mix of relief and alertness stirred.
Alex stayed oblivious to what had just happened, since he had lost consciousness moments after he took hold of the dark slate, his mind plunged into another dream.
Alex was lost in studying the Dark slate, his fingers brushing the strange glyphs that glowed with darkness. They were unfamiliar, yet not unknown, as he quickly realised he had seen them somewhere.
'Where have I seen these before?' As he searched his memory, Alex quickly reached an answer.
The runes carved into the slate mirrored the strange symbols he had glimpsed in his very first dream of Dark. These unknown symbols had an uncanny resemblance to the runes that were used to forge the ethereal dagger.
The very dagger Dark had given Cosmorian to end his life.
At least that was the impression he had of that vision.
He was lost in that discovery when it happened. The world faded in silence, and his mind went blank without him even realizing it, and before he knew it, his consciousness surrendered to the silent embrace of sleep.
A moment later, Alex regained his vision, his thoughts returning, and as his consciousness collected itself, he uncoiously took in the sight before him and, in a glance, the sight before him struck like ice along his spine, fear clenching tight around his heart.
Stretching before him was a desert of endless golden sands, glowing faintly beneath an eternal sun. But his fear stems from the entity looming above it.
A massive serpent loomed in the distance, its jaws wrenched open in a predatory snarl. From its abyssal maw jutted endless rows of needle-like teeth, massive fangs jutting at the forefront.
Two pairs of eyes glared out, one a lifeless, colorless gray, the other black as the void itself.
Yet, this dreadful visage was only the second thing that grabbed his attention, what truly froze him in fear was its form.
Half of the serpent's face was cloaked in golden scales, bright and untouched as the sun, while the other half rotted, twisted flesh peeling back to reveal bone.
Its body stretched in all directions, coils rolling across the golden sands like endless hills.
The horror that entity exuded didn't end there, as if he were a creation of nightmare, his Golden scales blackened and decayed, while the rotting half renewed into pristine gold, unscarred and whole in all but a few seconds.
It was as if with every breath the serpent was going through an endless cycle of death and renewal.
"Ouroboros," a voice called, deep and resonant, and edged with unmistakable excitement. "How have you been?"