The hideout was hidden in the bowels of an abandoned industrial complex on the outskirts of Onité. Through the cracks of the opaque, dusty glass windows, the light of the city's pale neons filtered in cold lines, cutting through the darkness of the polished stone warehouse. Outside those walls, Orhtid's surgical silence weighed like a lead coffin; no voices were heard, no hurried footsteps, or the common noise of a living civilization. It was, in every sense, a morgue suspended in space.
Ethan sat on a metal crate, his head lowered. The transmigrator rested on the floor, a few centimeters from his feet, dormant, but still exuding the odor of ozone and torn reality from the portal that had brought them. Every time the boy closed his eyes, the scene repeated itself: the roar of the fifth world shattering, the blood, and the desperate faces of Ana, Sara, and Ariny being dragged into darkness. His chest constricted so much that breathing became a painful task.
Slow footsteps echoed from the back of the warehouse. They were not Ether's footsteps.
Ethan raised his head, startled, his hand instinctively searching for the hilt of his weapon. From the shadows, a figure emerged of an almost divine grandeur, though deeply worn by time.
He was an incredibly tall man, of such extreme paleness that his skin seemed made of sculpted marble. A thick black ribbon covered his eyes completely, but his posture suggested he saw far beyond the physical spectrum. His hair was a perfectly white, long cascade that fell down his back and dragged softly across the dusty floor with every movement. He wore a platinum-blue mantle that elegantly covered only the left half of his body; underneath, an immaculate white shirt was rigidly tucked into trousers of the same color.
But what most shocked Ethan were his back. Two long white wings projected from his shoulder blades, but they were bound, severely wrapped and manacled by bands of gold and *preturyum*, preventing them from opening. Above his head, floating in static silence, a black ring — once the symbol of a cosmic authority — was displayed, cleanly cut into four floating pieces.
"Hold your steel, boy," the man's voice was an ancient echo, deep, devoid of haste. "If I wanted your blood, your heart would have stopped beating before your brain even formulated the thought of attacking me."
Ethan swallowed hard, paralyzed by the creature's presence. He looked to the side, seeking support, and saw a beige silhouette emerge from a dark corner.
Ether stepped forward. His new voluminous mantle and the completely smooth, featureless porcelain mask gave him the appearance of a faceless statue, an unpredictable and terrifying force that seemed to absorb the room's scant light.
"Ethan," Ether's voice flowed with his usual magnetic eloquence, addressing the young man with a softness that contrasted with the horror he usually sowed. "This is Wermilyass Ol'Clor. A Salrim who once shaped the lines of time and space under the Universe's will. He is the man who agreed to convert your weakness into the strength you need. And, above all, he is an old friend."
Wermilyass turned his face, covered by the black ribbon, toward Ether. A glimpse of bitter respect passed over his pale lips.
"Friend is a strong term for two exiles, Ether," said Wermilyass, his voice with a dry tone, but without malice. "But I admit your company is one of the few I tolerate. At least, when you fell from your pedestal of nobility, you had the decency to bleed in the mud with simple men, instead of crying on golden thrones. You know well the disgust I have for royal bloodlines and their filthy courts."
Ether slightly inclined his beige mask, a silent gesture that accepted the comment without contesting it.
Wermilyass turned again to Ethan. His physical frame was thin, visibly weaker and less robust than Ether's imposing stature, but the energy emanating from the Salrim of over three hundred million years was overwhelming.
"Get up, boy," ordered Wermilyass. "Ether says you want revenge. Says you have a prince to hunt in the third world. But I look at you through the fabric of your destiny and I only see a kid drowning in his own grief. Pick up your blade. Attack me."
Ethan hesitated, looking from Wermilyass to Ether. Ether's smooth mask remained motionless, an abyss of beige porcelain that only watched.
"I... I don't want to hurt you," Ethan stammered, his voice betraying the fragility of his psychological state.
Wermilyass let out a short, humorless laugh.
"Hurt me? Boy, my wings were chained with the densest matter in the cosmos and my authority was broken into four by the Universe itself. A human child crawling on the outskirts of O is not a threat. Attack. Now."
Ethan bit his lower lip. The latent rage toward Zirinos mixed with despair. He drew the blade. The metal shone faintly under the neon. With a cry lashed by pain, he advanced, delivering a downward blow toward the Salrim's unprotected shoulder.
Wermilyass did not use magic. He did not invoke space or time. He only took a half-step sideways with millimeter precision. Ethan's blade cut through empty air.
Before the boy could regain his balance, Wermilyass's pale hand moved like a whip, grabbing Ethan's wrist and twisting it slightly. The steel fell to the ground with a shrill clatter. With the other hand, Wermilyass pushed the boy's chest, making him step back and fall heavily to his knees, right in front of the master.
Ethan gasped, sweat mixing with the tears that insisted on rising to his eyes. In his mind, the reflection of the blow was not against Wermilyass; it was the image of the moment he tried to stop the destruction of Endomyar and failed. Self-pity, the suffocating grief for the Decatry sisters... everything worked like a rope that bound his muscles.
"Do you see?" Wermilyass turned his back to the boy, his long white hair swaying around his feet. He wiped his hands on his white shirt with icy indifference. "Your strike has no intention to kill. You hesitate because your heart is too heavy. You feel sorry for your target, you feel sorry for yourself, you feel sorry for the females you let die in the fifth world. The hatred for the women who betrayed me taught me that emotion is a design flaw in mortals. And you, boy... you are pure emotion. You are sentimental garbage."
Ethan covered his face, sobbing softly in the warehouse dust. The weight of his inability was crushing him.
It was then that Ether's beige shadow loomed over him. The voluminous mantle dragged across the floor until it stopped beside Ethan. The smooth, mysterious mask tilted slightly downward. Ether's presence was frightening, but his voice was the whisper of a savior who understood the boy's agony.
"He is right, my dear Ethan," murmured Ether, the eloquence flowing like sweet venom. "You are trying to fight like a *Whole*. You are trying to carry Endomyar's corpse on your shoulders while walking toward the battlefield. Look out these windows. Onité's citizens walk with their heads held high because they understood a fundamental truth: the soul can be pruned."
Ethan raised his reddened eyes to Ether's flat porcelain.
"What do you mean by that, Ether?" he asked, his voice trembling.
"In Orhtid, when a memory or a feeling prevents you from surviving, you tear that part from your being. It's called the *First Cut*. If you want to reclaim Ana, Sara, and Ariny from the world of the dead, you need to stop crying for them today. You need to tear pity and grief from your chest to become the weapon I need. Do you want to continue being the weak boy who watches worlds fall, or do you want Zirinos's head?"
Wermilyass remained a few meters away, arms crossed, watching in silence with his black ribbon. He did not interfere with O's culture, nor did he try to stop Ether's manipulation. For him, the choices of mortals were just grains of sand in a broken hourglass.
Ethan looked at his own trembling hands. Ether's words echoed in his mind as the only way out of his pain. The temptation to feel nothing, to erase that unbearable tightness in his chest, was beginning to seem like the most desirable thing in the universe. He was about to take the first step toward creating his own monster.