Late in the morning, Deep opened his eyes, waking from a night of untroubled, dreamless sleep. Velis's parting revelations had left a cascade of thoughts swirling through his mind, with his mysterious origins taking center stage. How had he ended up abandoned on the streets at an age when most children were protected by their families and attending school? Furthermore, how could he possess absolutely zero memories of his early life?
He felt no bitter resentment. In truth, he wouldn't have cared about those absent biological figures at all, were it not for the fundamental shift in his perception of reality that occurred the previous day. Now, however, the questions demanded answers. Because of this mental preoccupation, he had drifted off exceptionally late.
Yet, upon waking, he found himself in astonishingly good form—brimming with raw, pulsating energy. He suspected that he could have bypassed sleep entirely and still remained wide awake. It was becoming increasingly clear that the physical and metaphysical changes overtaking him far outpaced his conscious comprehension.
He swung his legs out of bed, leaving behind the tangled sheets. Clad only in loose pajama pants and bare from the waist up, the morning sunlight streaming through the windows sharply outlined his physique. He reflexively ran a hand through his short, naturally curly bob.
His flat comprised a single open space where everything converged: the bed and living area occupied one side, while the kitchen and dining table anchored the other. Near the entrance stood the apartment's single washroom. Compact and simply decorated, it was an all-in-one stop that suited him perfectly, reflecting a life with few possessions and zero clutter.
He headed toward the kitchen and whipped up a modest breakfast of eggs, toast, and coffee. Sipping the piping-hot brew, Deep paused to hold his hand up against the morning sun, inspecting it with a strange, foreign expression. He felt as though he could snap steel between his fingers—not out of logical certainty, but with the quiet, instinctive surety that one knows they can move their own limbs.
His hand looked no different from before, save for a smoother, more delicate complexion. The hardened calluses of his past life had completely vanished.
Buzz.
He glanced down as his phone's notification light flashed. Dropping the half-eaten toast back onto his plate, he checked the screen. Velis had sent a set of coordinates, presumably their destination for tomorrow. Curious, Deep tapped the link, discovering they pointed toward an isolated mountain range on the outskirts of the city.
If his memory served him right, the location was Mount Lomer, a pristine expanse untainted by urban smog and civilization's fumes. A favorite haunt for camping enthusiasts and mountain climbers, it stood as the most popular natural landmark near Conhan City.
What could possibly be in a place like that to help me master mystic energy? Or perhaps a better question: who? Deep wondered quietly as he finished his breakfast.
He took a quick shower and pulled on a generic black hoodie, matching pants, and white sneakers before grabbing his keys and heading out. The heavy, familiar smell of exhaust greeted him instantly.
The surrounding neighborhood featured a chaotic mix of older structures and newer builds bearing the weathered scars of time. Small businesses and local shops lined the streets, offering basic goods and services to a community already bustling with midday activity.
Deep walked for a few minutes through the lower-middle-class district before arriving at the bus stop. He wasn't heading to work today; Velis had granted him time to recover and adjust. More importantly, with their upcoming trip outside the city tomorrow, the antique shop would remain closed.
The bus arrived within five minutes. Climbing aboard, he claimed a seat near a window and pushed it open slightly to let in fresh air. Deep harbored a quiet aversion to public transportation—the suffocating proximity of bodies packed tightly into a moving metal tin always grated on his nerves.
Choosing the rear window seat was his habitual strategy to minimize unwanted contact with fellow commuters. Once everyone settled, the bus rumbled into motion.
Deep slipped on his earbuds, shutting out the world with a heavy wall of sound. He appreciated how a pair of headphones and music played at an unrecommended volume could carve out a pocket of absolute solitude, even in the middle of a crowded bus.
Lost in the rhythm, his mind drifted back to a brief detour he had taken just moments after leaving his apartment.
He had unconsciously stopped before the mouth of the very alleyway where he had confronted the horrifying monster the day before. Pausing at the entrance, he noted how the midday sun struggled to pierce the narrow gap, leaving the interior in muted shadows. Wary from recent experience, he stepped inside anyway.
The alley was entirely ordinary. It bore no scars of yesterday's violence, save for a suspicious, rust-colored stain baked into the pavement. He scanned the brickwork methodically, but nothing out of the ordinary revealed itself.
Velis had insisted that Deep himself had neutralized the threat while unconscious. Yet, try as he might before falling asleep the previous night, his memory of the actual battle remained an impenetrable blank.
Standing in the quiet alley, Deep closed his eyes and let his senses expand, allowing his newly awakened psyche to imprint upon the surroundings. A sudden surge of memory swept forward, crashing against his mind as though it had been held behind a fragile dam, waiting for the right prompt to break free.
Yet the memories felt strangely detached, as if they belonged not to him, but to the very walls of the alley which had silently recorded the event. The sensation defied description.
He watched like an external spectator as his own badly mutilated body suddenly released a brilliant crimson radiance. The catalyst was the object resting in his pocket, reacting to the blood pouring from his chest wound.
In the memory, the corpse-like assassin had panicked, brandishing its blade to deliver a swift decapitation. But Deep's lifeless frame had jerked upright like a puppet manipulated by invisible threads. His silver-slitted, dragon-like eyes snapped open, and his short hair whipped violently around his face though no wind blew.
Behind him, a pair of colossal, majestic wings burst into existence, stretching far beyond the physical confines of the narrow alley. They appeared spectral and distant, drifting somewhere in the void, able to phase effortlessly through brick walls while radiating an aura of lethal sharpness.
".... .... ..... .... !!!"
An ancient, guttural language tumbled from his lips—a tongue laden with buried secrets and immense history.
Though it took a moment to recount, the entire sequence had unfolded in the span of a single heartbeat as the adversary swung its blade. Ignoring the incoming strike entirely, Deep simply shifted his right wing into a solid barrier.
Clang!
A sharp metallic resonance echoed through the alley, the enemy's lethal blade bouncing harmlessly off the ethereal defense. Before the reanimated corpse could recover its footing, Deep's fist crashed directly into its withered, raisin-like face.
What followed was an incomprehensible, blinding beatdown. In the space of a single breath, Deep dissolved into a blur of overlapping afterimages, appearing to move at impossible velocities while remaining perfectly stationary.
This was the chaotic scene Velis had stumbled upon upon shifting into the alley.
Finally, Deep delivered a single, definitive punch straight into the monster's head—the final blow to a body already reduced to ruin.
To his astonishment, the fist punched completely through the target. Robbed of its remaining vitality, the headless corpse collapsed to the pavement, disintegrating into fine dust before it could even hit the ground.