---
It began with a sound.
Not thunder.
Not wind.
But teeth.
A grinding of reality so loud it splintered clouds, bent light, and twisted the sky into a spiral of screams.
EXIN stood beneath it, unmoved.
Because it wasn't new.
He had heard this sound before.
Once, in a dream.
Once, in a war.
And once, when he shattered a god's spine with his own bare hands.
---
> "It remembers," he said softly.
"The world remembers what I am now."
Above him, the sky opened.
Not a portal.
Not a tear.
But an eye.
Massive.
Blinded by time.
But still burning.
It gazed downward—not at Kairis, not at the ruins—
But at him.
---
Lightning fell in spirals.
Not to strike him.
To test him.
The ground shattered in rings around his feet.
Mana warped into symbols that bled like veins.
The air twisted into a voice:
> "Return what you stole, Honoured One."
> "Return the truth you buried."
EXIN raised his hand.
His Marks flared—one by one.
1. ☉ The Spiral
2. ◉ The Hollow Eye
3. ⚙ The Shattered Chain
4. ✴️ The Thread Between Stars
5. ☼ The Machine's Dream
6. 🜂 The Broken Return
All burned into his flesh.
All whispering different truths.
---
> "I didn't steal anything," he said to the sky.
"I lived it."
"I bled for it."
"And I'll use it—if you force me."
The sky blinked.
And from the clouds fell a figure.
Not an angel.
Not a demon.
But something far worse—
A Remnant.
Born from the world's grief.
Shaped like a man.
Powered by everything EXIN had abandoned.
---
The Remnant's voice echoed like wind across corpses.
> "You chose to forget us."
> "Now we will make you remember every scream."
They clashed.
---
The battle wasn't physical.
It was existential.
EXIN was hurled into memories not his own—
A child watching her village burn.
A god failing to protect his prophet.
A soldier executing his family for faith.
Each strike the Remnant landed opened someone else's pain inside him.
But EXIN endured.
He knew this test.
This suffering.
Because now… he had a weapon the Remnant didn't expect.
---
Branching Sight.
The Thread Between Stars.
He chose a different future.
He bent the fight.
He let himself lose in one branch—just to learn the Remnant's pattern.
Then he rewound.
Adjusted.
Adapted.
And in the final moment, EXIN whispered:
> "You don't carry truth like I do."
And struck.
Not with power.
But with memory.
---
He stabbed the Remnant with a shard of his own broken past.
A piece of the battlefield where he failed to save his sister.
The pain wasn't just his now.
The Remnant screamed.
Because truth hurts everyone the same.
---
The sky shook.
The Remnant dissolved into dust—
Not dead.
Integrated.
EXIN absorbed its echo.
And the sky dimmed.
The world grew silent again.
But not in peace.
In anticipation.
Because only one Mark remained.
And only one place held it.
---
Far across the continent.
Where the world ended.
Where EXIN was born.
Not in flesh.
But in meaning.
---
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