Chapter 34
The moment the throne dissolved into crimson dust, the world did not settle.
It convulsed.
The chamber buckled inward like lungs taking a sudden breath, space wrinkling and unfolding in jagged pulses. Orion braced himself, sliding a foot back as the floor fractured into spiraling lines beneath him.
The island—
the entire island—
was waking up.
Not slowly.
Not naturally.
But violently, as if ripped from a sleep so deep it bordered on death.
A low, guttural rumble echoed from the abyss around him, shaking the ground hard enough to send fissures racing across the chamber walls.
The crimson fog wound tightly around Orion's arms, as if preparing itself for something it recognized.
"Again?" Orion murmured, narrowing his gaze. "This island… is alive."
The darkness above him peeled away like torn fabric. Light—silver, cold, and unnatural—poured through the cracks. The ceiling evaporated.
Then the floor tore itself apart.
Not downward—
but outward.
As though the island had flipped itself inside out.
A vast, kaleidoscopic whirlpool of memories spiraled beneath him, opening into a massive expanding hollow. Orion didn't fall—because space froze beneath his feet, stabilizing itself in response to his existence.
Even the collapsing world feared touching him directly now.
A new landscape emerged like a blooming flower.
Forests that glowed with drifting lights.
Mountains carved from transparent stone.
Rivers flowing with liquid shadows.
A sky filled with enormous hourglass-shaped storms.
This was the island's true form.
The awakened form.
The form it had hidden until the throne's final message released the lock.
A whisper followed with the wind—soft yet cold:
"He has taken the ember."
Something stirred in the distance.
Something massive.
Old.
Shackled.
Orion turned toward the voice, scanning the terrain. His Eye of Space burst open, galaxies swirling inside the iris. Layers of folded landscapes peeled back like pages of a book.
There—
At the mountain's core.
A colossal black shape.
A creature buried but still breathing.
Chains made of crystallized time wrapped around its enormous form, locking each limb, each fang, each fragment of its existence.
The creature's breath alone shook the horizon.
Its heartbeat fractured the clouds.
Its presence made Orion's fog tremble violently.
"What are you?" Orion whispered.
The creature's many eyes—sealed shut behind layers of calcified memory—did not open. But something else answered.
A ripple in the air.
A soft distortion.
A presence materializing behind him.
Orion didn't turn.
"You again?" he asked.
The woman from the storm—the one who had commanded the ocean—stood behind him, her expression unreadable. Her hair drifted in the wind, though there was no wind where they stood.
"You unlocked the second core," she said softly. "Now the island can no longer restrain itself."
Her gaze fell toward the chained beast.
"And neither can he."
Orion's eyes narrowed.
"You know what that is."
"I do."
"Then tell me."
She didn't.
Instead she stepped past him, descending the slope with slow, graceful steps. She stopped at the edge of the fissure where chains glowed across the monstrous figure.
Without turning, she asked:
"Orion… what did the throne leave you?"
Orion lifted his right arm.
The crimson ember pulsed under his skin.
His armguard glowed faintly—almost anxious.
"A fragment," he replied. "A memory. A power. Something unfinished."
Her shoulders tensed—barely, but enough for Orion's senses to catch it.
"That fragment," she murmured, "was never meant to be touched again."
Now she turned, and the faint silver glint in her eyes sharpened like a blade.
"If you absorbed it… the island will not let you leave."
Orion's voice dropped to a razor's edge.
"I'm not trying to leave."
Her expression softened—almost relieved.
"Good," she said. "Because the island isn't done testing you."
The chains trembled.
Dust fell from the mountain.
The creature beneath them shifted for the first time, exhaling a breath so powerful that entire chunks of sky shattered and reformed.
A single eye cracked open—just a slit—revealing a swirling nebula of crimson and gold inside.
Orion felt his heartbeat falter.
The woman whispered one final warning:
"That creature is the Third Core."
Lightning tore across the sky.
Time fractured around them.
And the island roared like a god reborn.