The gate responded not to Hin Yu's body, but to his soul.
And his soul... remembered.
Light rushed in—not blinding, but cleansing. Not heat, but weight. Every locked door inside him flung open. Memories long buried surged like rivers breaking ice.
He saw himself—not Hin Yu, the man of silence and solitude—but the one before. The one the world had whispered about in fear and reverence.
Alturus.
The man who defied death, defied gods, defied fate.
He had once stood atop mountains carved by battle, soaked in blood not just of enemies but of comrades. He had climbed from mortal soldier to divine symbol, dragging himself through flame, through betrayal, through despair. Not because he was chosen. But because he refused to stop.
When his blade broke, he kept fighting.
When his bones shattered, he kept walking.
When kingdoms fell, he kept going.
They called him The God of Perseverance.
They called him The Goal Made Flesh.
Even the celestials feared his name.
But amidst the storms and fire, one memory glowed brightest.
Hin Xue.
The child born not of divine will, but of human choice. His son. Not a prince. Not a weapon. A boy who had grown beneath his shadow, learning to endure, to strive, to surpass. Hin Yu — Alturus — remembered now the countless nights they sat beneath two moons, speaking not as god and heir, but as father and son.
He taught Hin Xue compassion. Honor. Resolve.
But he had not taught him how to lose.
And that had been the seed.
---
The Betrayal
It came not during war, but at peace.
Alturus stood at the threshold of Ascension — the divine gate above the lower world, where only the gods born in the Upper Realms dared tread. The sky itself cracked to let him pass. All eyes looked upward.
And in that final moment, a hand reached out.
His son's.
"Come with me," Alturus had said. "Together."
But Hin Xue's eyes were cold. Not filled with hate — ambition. "I will not be second to a god I once called father."
The seal ruptured.
Hin Yu felt it again, freshly: the sting of betrayal not in the flesh, but in the soul. Hin Xue had not stabbed him. He had unmade him — shattered his divinity with an ancient rite, scattering his essence across time and memory.
You will forget, Hin Xue had whispered.
And the world will forget you.
---
The Present
Hin Yu fell forward, gasping. The gate loomed behind him, humming low like a storm behind stone. The void beyond was gone — in its place, a shifting sky of broken stars and flickering memories.
But he was no longer just Hin Yu.
He was more.
His bones felt heavier. His skin tingled with power long dormant. The air seemed to fold around him, hesitant. As if reality itself recognized his return.
Then—
The world trembled.
Cracks split the mist ahead. The ground broke open. Something was coming. Not a beast, not a god — but a memory, alive and wrathful.
A guardian?
A punishment?
No. A test.
A massive figure rose — its body formed from blackened stone and lightless fire. Its face was a mask of weeping iron. It knelt.
And spoke in a voice like mountains collapsing:
"Welcome back, Fragment of Flame."
Hin Yu stood. He did not feel fear. He felt the weight of choice.
He shook his head slowly, strands of memory still burning in his mind.
Does it even matter anymore?
He had remembered who he once was — a god, a warrior, a symbol. But all of that felt like another life. Because it was.
Now, he just wanted peace.
Not vengeance. Not ascension. Just… peace. A quiet life. Something simple. Something human.
Then he laughed — short, dry, almost bitter.
"I died, didn't I?" he muttered to no one. "Guess peace isn't part of the deal anymore."
A long silence followed. Or perhaps it wasn't silence. Perhaps it was simply the absence of time, the illusion of stillness in the space between death and whatever this was.
Is this the afterlife?
Limbo?
Punishment?
He didn't know. He didn't care. Or at least, he told himself he didn't.
Then something shifted.
In the far distance of the void — or maybe just beside his soul — a tiny flicker appeared. Smaller than a pinprick. A dot of light, fragile and pale, floating in the sea of darkness like the last ember of a dying fire.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then, without thinking, he reached toward it.
His finger brushed the light—
And the world shattered.
No warning. No sound. Just raw sensation. The void around him convulsed, and something vast and cold and ancient began to collapse inward. The light wasn't a key.
It was a trigger.
It wasn't pulling him through — it was assimilating him.
The world folded into him, like pages of a burning book forced into flesh. Pain exploded across every fiber of his soul. He screamed — or thought he did — but no sound came. No breath. No body. Just agony. Endless. Eternal.
His soul was being torn apart and stitched back together.
Not just moved, but rewritten.
He fell.
Not through space, not through time — through meaning. Through everything he had once been.
And then, just as suddenly as it began—
It ended.
Hin Yu gasped as his eyes shot open.
He lay on cool stone, heart racing. Breath returned, ragged and real. A ceiling stretched above him — high and unfamiliar, woven from steel and glowing glyphs. He sat up slowly, eyes wide.
He didn't recognize anything.
Not the architecture. Not the air. Not the gravity. Not even the language carved into the walls.
Then — a flicker in his vision.
A soft chime.
A translucent panel shimmered to life before him, hovering in the air like a hologram. Lines of ancient yet familiar script scrolled across the interface.
[System Update Completed.]
Initializing soul synchronization…
Welcome back, User: Alturus (Status: Fragmented)
New World Environment Detected.
Mission Parameters: Undefined.
System Reboot: 1%...
Hin Yu blinked.
For a long time, he simply stared.
"…What the hell is this?"