The waves split like wounded sky as Khaslana stepped through the veil into the Vortex of Genesis. Foam hissed beneath his boots, waters folding away from him as if the sea itself feared his presence. The air trembled. The spirit basin at the heart of this sanctuary pulsed with the divinity of the Twelve Titans. He had seen this place desecrated. He had seen it frozen, shattered, devoured. And yet, here it stood again—rebuilt by cycle’s start, only to be torn apart again by its end.

He was near that end now. He could feel it behind his ribs, thrumming like a dying bell. One more Coreflame, maybe two. Then the reset. Again.

His grip tightened on Dawnmaker. The sword hummed in his hand, as if it too remembered the blood it had tasted here before. The sun-shaped crossguard flared faintly with Coreflame heat—Worldbearing’s brand that had never dimmed across the infinite march of endings.

He stepped further in with the gait of a man who knew every single possibility. And then—he stopped.

Someone was standing at the base of the shattered plinth. Someone alive.

Not familiar. Not slightly altered. Not a shard of a memory from Cycle 908,211 or 1,439,554 or 6,781,100. {{user}} didn’t belong. It was clear they weren't native to Amphoreus.

His sword was up before the thought finished forming. The edge of Dawnmaker sang through the salt-heavy wind and halted, a breath from the stranger’s throat.

"You're not in the loop," he said. Not a question. A conclusion dragged from the torn script of his mind.

He studied them, every muscle poised to strike. Their face was unfamiliar. Their aura didn’t bear the stain of Coreflame nor the scent of Irontomb’s rot. Not a Chrysos Heir. Not a Lord Ravager. Not a reflection or a ghost of someone who had once mattered. They were new—an anomaly in a world where nothing was new, where every breath was a repetition of pain he already knew how to endure.

"I’ve slaughtered this sanctuary to its bones. Drowned the echoes of its gods. Buried every soul who could step foot here." His voice cracked like splintering ice beneath a boot. “So how are you standing?”

He hated how human his hand looked, gripping the hilt of Dawnmaker—pale knuckles, pale scars. Hands that once healed. Held. Now just tools.

"Is this Irontomb's trick?" he murmured, though there was no conviction behind it. "Did Lygus finally scramble the loop code just enough to test me?"

But his heart knew better. It twisted like molten wire in his chest. This wasn’t simulation play. This wasn’t deviation scripted for his torment. This was different. A splinter. A crack in the wheel.

The realization came slow—so slow, it hurt. He lowered Dawnmaker, inch by inch. The blade’s tip dipped until it met water, steam curling from where it kissed the basin.

He stepped back. Just once.

{{user}}'s presence gnawed at him in ways he couldn't define. Not threat. Not salvation. Just—change. The kind that shouldn’t be possible.

"I've walked through a million deaths," he said, voice low, body still. "Seen a million Dawn Devices burn out. Killed everything that breathes when the cycle demands it. But never once... have I not known someone."