Two weeks had passed since the encounter with Mü Thanatos.
And yet, Sakolomi was no longer the same.
Each day, he felt a little weaker.
The black marks covering his body sometimes glowed with a sickly radiance, as if they were breathing on his behalf. His mana seemed to be slowly leaking away from him, absorbed by something he did not understand.
Even his steps, once light, now dragged.
Deviants never feel fatigue—their energy is infinite, their mind beyond the flesh—but Sakolomi felt it. A deep weariness, foreign, almost human.
Back in Oniyurei's imaginary world, everyone was intrigued by his state.
Shylty often frowned, observing those marks pulsing like a second heart.
Salomi tried to analyze his aura but found nothing.
Kai, for his part, refused to believe it—he could not accept that Sakolomi could simply be "getting sick."
But no one… no one understood what he had.
Even his deviant energy, normally able to regenerate in the face of the impossible, seemed to be crumbling little by little.
And yet, Mü Thanatos, when she last spoke to him, had whispered calmly:
"It's nothing serious. Rest. Everything will be fine."
But he had felt it.
She was lying.
Elsewhere, far from everything, at the exit of the sacred cave, the cold wind rippled Mü Thanatos's white veil. She stood there, upright and silent, her eyes lost in an inaccessible distance.
Beside her, Saiko watched her profile, worried. He had sensed a new tension in her—something undefined, like a remorse mixed with fear.
He spoke softly:
— Mother… since Sakolomi returned, something is happening within him. I can feel it. When I was inside him, his essence was unstable. It's as if… something older than him was stirring inside.
Mü Thanatos remained silent. Only the rustling wind answered her.
Then, slowly, she closed her eyes.
— I know it, she finally said. I feel it too.
Saiko frowned.
— Then why did you tell him it was nothing?
A long silence followed. Then Mü Thanatos slightly lowered her head, her gaze lost in the valley mists.
— Because it's not a disease… she murmured.
— It's a truth awakening. Something he should never have borne.
Saiko shivered.
— You mean this mark… is not from you?
Mü Thanatos finally looked at him, and in her red eyes, he saw both the majesty of a goddess and the terror of a mother.
— This mark is not from me, she said slowly. It comes from what he denied, from what he really is. And if it continues to grow… it's not him who will disappear, Saiko.
She paused.
The wind fell silent.
— It's the whole world that will go dark around him.
The silence of the wind caressed the surface of ancient rocks. Mü Thanatos, motionless before the horizon, seemed lost in an ocean of reflections. Her red eyes, as deep as the night before creation, remained fixed on an invisible point—where her mind still sought to understand.
She now knew what she had awakened.
Her look, this will to bring Sakolomi to self-recognition, had not only opened a door: it had cracked the seal of something that should never have breathed.
"What is he really?…" she whispered.
The marks eating away at Sakolomi's body were not simple divine scars—they were signs of summoning. An ancient entity, lurking in the deepest layers of his being, claimed its place.
It had waited since his birth, stifled by the Deviant's consciousness, and now… it was awakening.
Mü Thanatos closed her eyes for a moment. She recalled Saiko's gaze, merged with Sakolomi—the unstable mixture of two beings refusing to admit they formed but one. Perhaps she had made a mistake. Perhaps she should never have forced that recognition.
A breeze passed, slowly lifting her azure hair. The world seemed to breathe with her.
She inhaled deeply.
Yes… she had to consult Zeus. Or even Odin. For if this thing kept growing, no one could stop it.
The primordial gods, too, had sensed the anomaly.
But all remained silent, looking away—out of fear, or resignation.
How much longer would they pretend not to see?
A spirit's breath pulled her from her thoughts. Saiko, standing beside her, looked up at her.
— Mother… are you alright?
Mü Thanatos slowly reopened her eyelids. A tender, almost melancholic smile brushed her lips.
— Yes… don't worry.
But her gaze stayed fixed on the horizon.
She knew destiny had already chosen its path.
Sakolomi could not escape what he was—for she herself, Mü Thanatos, was not merely a witness: she was the structure that contained him. The God Father's dream had taken flesh, and no one could now close their eyes to what it housed.
The sky of the mythical world was liquid gold, crossed by ancient winds singing between pillars of light.
In the home of the dragon god Orlongue, even the stone seemed to breathe, covered with carved scales and runes softly pulsing like a cosmic heart.
Sakolomi, shirtless, stood motionless in the center of the hall. His breath was short, his skin covered with dark marks glowing as if something tried to escape them.
Before him, Orlongue, draped in a long robe woven with gold and jade, silently observed him, one hand on his silver beard, his gaze heavy with ancient knowledge.
A long moment passed. Then the dragon god finally broke the silence.
— I have never seen anything like this… not even at the beginning of time, when the skies were still forming. These marks… come from no known law.
Sakolomi gave a tired, almost ironic smile.
— Wow… if even a god as old as you says that, I guess I'm off to a bad start.
Orlongue placed his large hand on his shoulder. Its warmth was comforting but also overwhelming—as if it held the weight of entire eons.
— You must understand, young Deviant, that there are forces beyond all divine wisdom. Even gods of certain levels cannot fathom some depths.
He paused, his eyes darkening.
— You said it all started when Mü Thanatos looked at you, right?
Sakolomi slowly nodded.
— Exactly at that moment. Since then… I feel like she awakened something I don't understand.
Orlongue remained silent, thoughtful, his claws tapping the floor at a slow rhythm.
— Then maybe you should see her again. If anyone holds the key to what you carry, it's her.
Sakolomi put on his t-shirt, the fabric sticking to his skin still warm from residual energy.
— I intend to, he said calmly. Mü Thanatos knows what she's doing. If she wants to speak to me… she will.
An almost fatherly smile spread across Orlongue's lips.
— If she decides so, then everything is already underway.
Sakolomi turned his gaze to the large draconic bed, covered with veils and precious stones.
— Can I lie down for a bit? I'm completely drained.
Orlongue chuckled deeply, like thunder inside a mountain.
— This bed has never been used. Great mythical beings don't need sleep, you know that. But you… you are different. Rest.
Sakolomi nodded with a weary smile.
— Thanks, old friend.
He let himself fall onto the bed. The fabric seemed to adapt to his shape, almost alive.
His eyelids slowly closed, and the world around him dissolved into a misty light.
But in the silence of this divine chamber, Orlongue kept his eyes on the young man.
Beneath the sleeping marks, something vibrated…
an irregular beat, like a heart that was not his own.
Night had fallen over the mythical world, spreading its ethereal veil over draconic citadels and suspended seas.
In the chamber of stone and light, Sakolomi still slept. His breath was calm, but his body seemed to struggle against something invisible, as if resisting a presence buried in his dreams.
Outside, Salomi wielded her draconic art under Zelongue's supervision.
The scale flames bursting from her hands illuminated the celestial terraces, and Ysolongue, leaning on her spear, watched the scene with a gaze mixed with pride and astonishment.
Since leaving the Inverted Tower, Salomi had changed: more confident, livelier, her aura vibrated like that of a freed dragoness.
A little higher, on the temple peaks, Kai meditated beside Orlongue.
The timid wind dared not disturb their silence. The two beings seemed made of the same essence: serenity and strength.
But at the heart of the chamber, where sleep wove its abysses, Sakolomi drifted.
His dream had neither shape nor language.
He walked in the impossible—a space that was neither space nor nothingness, where each step dissolved logic.
He lifted his eyes, and his red pupils began to glow with forbidden light.
A cold sensation bit his legs. He lowered his head…
The ground moved.
The black marks on his body had spread out, winding on the surface of his dream like a tide of living ink. All around him twisted, swallowed by a centerless darkness.
Then a rustle.
A sound that should not have existed.
He lifted his eyes, and saw.
Colossal, massive, formless shapes.
Entities that defied language, thought, possibility.
Bodies that were neither bodies nor matter, neither shadow nor concept.
They were not looking at Sakolomi—they were doing something older than looking, a raw perception that pierced to the being.
And through this perception, Sakolomi felt his consciousness fracturing something it should never have touched.
Because these things… were not meant to be seen.
They existed on a plane where even the notion of seeing was denied.
A cold panic seized him—as if his naked soul stood before the unspeakable.
His body, in the chamber, tensed suddenly.
Sweat beaded on his forehead. His hands searched to grasp something.
The nightmare devoured him.
Then, in the silence of the night, a silhouette appeared.
Mü Thanatos.
Her red eyes opened in the darkness, casting a soft but inhuman glow.
Without a word, she approached the bed.
Her step made no sound—as if the world refused to disturb her arrival.
She sat on the edge of the mattress, and with a gesture of almost unreal tenderness, placed Sakolomi's head on her lap.
At this single touch, the shadows of the dream collapsed.
The tumult ceased.
The monstrous shapes vanished in one last breathless sigh.
Sakolomi stopped moving.
His face regained peace.
Mü Thanatos slowly lowered her eyes to him, a blue lock falling over her face.
— Sleep… she murmured.
Her voice was a cosmic whisper, a chant that even the night listened to in silence.
And for the first time in a long time, the Deviant slept without pain.