Time in the Sanctuary was a useless concept. Here, the sun never rose, and the moon never set. There was only the swirling nebula, perpetually rotating, watching everything with a cold, indifferent gaze.
Atop the expanse of white sand—now a graveyard for a thousand twin-headed monsters—a small body lay helpless. Azril was unconscious, yet his body never ceased its work. The Star-Crust Veins in his chest pulsed slowly, resonating with the Sanctuary's atmosphere, which was thick with wild energy.
Slowly, the remains of the monster carcasses around him began to evaporate. Their essence did not drift toward the sky; instead, it was drawn like a magnet into the pores of Azril's skin. Every drop of black energy from those monsters was absorbed, tempered, and solidified into Azril's bones. Year after year passed in deathly silence. The small body did not rot; rather, it was gradually covered by a thin layer of cosmic dust, making him look like a forgotten stone statue in the middle of a desert.
Six years had passed.
The Azril who was once four years old had grown in his sleep. However, that hollow peace shattered when the Sanctuary's sky seemed as if it were about to collapse.
Right above where Azril lay buried in dust, two ancient entities were locked in a battle that transcended mortal logic. One was a giant scorpion with a shell as hard as a star, fighting a creature shaped like a gargantuan eyeball with four arms resembling writhing tree roots. Every clash between them created ripples in space, tearing the dimensions until small black holes manifested in the air.
The two beings were eventually sucked into a dimensional rift of their own making, vanishing in an instant. Yet, the impact of their battle left devastation in its wake. Dead planets hanging in the sky shattered into pieces. One small shard, no larger than a human palm, hurtled down and struck right beside Azril's dust-covered head.
BOOM!
The shock forced Azril's consciousness back. His eyelids flickered, shedding the cosmic dust that had crusted over the years. Slowly, he opened his eyes. His vision was blurry; his head felt heavy. He thought he had only slept for a moment after slaughtering the monsters.
But as he tried to stand, he froze. His legs were longer. His hands were larger. The clothes that once fit him were now tattered and torn, no longer able to contain his physical growth. Azril was now ten years old, but his eyes possessed a depth no child of his age should have.
He looked around. Not a single monster carcass remained. Everything had been vanished, completely absorbed into his body. He looked up at the sky, seeing the shattered remains of planets drifting aimlessly.
"How long... have I been asleep?" he whispered. His voice was raspy, foreign even to his own ears.
Azril began to walk aimlessly. His feet tread upon the endless white sand. Day after day he spent searching for signs of life, for an exit, or at least for something familiar. But the results were nil. The Sanctuary gave him nothing but silence.
At one point, he fell to his knees. A profound sense of loneliness hit his chest harder than any monster's attack. Tears, which he thought had dried up long ago, began to wet his grimy cheeks.
"Mother..." he whimpered. The memory of Lana's warm embrace in the hut at Remnant Village suddenly replayed in his head. He wanted to go home. He wanted to stop being strong. He wanted to go back to being a boy who only cared about his wooden toy.
However, before he could wipe his tears, a large shadow swept over him. A giant bird flew low toward a different horizon. Azril jolted. That wasn't the bird that had attacked him before. That was hope.
With his predatory instincts reawakening, he immediately stood and followed the bird. He ran across the sandy plains, which gradually began to turn into firmer, unfamiliar ground. But the bird's speed was extraordinary. Azril lost its trail in a region filled with the ruins of an ancient civilization.
There, only the remnants of a destroyed civilization remained. Azril searched every corner, hoping to find someone, but all he found were silent stones. He decided to use one of the ruins as a shelter. He took a very hard root, wrapped it with fabric from his torn clothes, and hammered it into the ground as a territory marker.
After a short rest, he returned to exploring the strange plains. After walking for a long time, his eyes caught something unusual. There was a beautiful light radiating from a distance, so bright it pierced through the Sanctuary's indigo mist.
Azril approached with caution. The light came from a very deep abyss. From the bottom of the gorge, golden-yellow dust particles drifted up like steam, dancing in the air. Beautiful, yet deeply mysterious.
He tried to look down, but the mist of light obscured his view. However, something strange happened. The Star-Crust Veins in his body throbbed violently. Unintentionally, his consciousness seemed to "detach" from his body and plunge into the depths of the abyss. He could see across a vast distance using only his mind.
Azril froze. Down there, at the bottom of that lethal gorge, was an impossible sight. There was a river with water that flowed with light, beautiful glowing plants, and lush trees. It was an oasis in the middle of hell.
Yet, amidst the beauty, his instincts screamed. Near the river of light, a terrifying creature of colossal size lay fast asleep. The mere energy of the creature was enough to make the golden light particles around it tremble.
Azril pulled back his consciousness. His heart hammered in his chest. He had just found "paradise" in the Sanctuary, but that paradise was guarded by a sleeping death.