Author: Trash (Instagram: smol_trashy_art_child, I have character designs on there)

Editors: Fisa, Lorraine

Proofreader: Gyro, Ian

Word count: 4646 words

"Mmmmn," groaned a young man as he slowly pushed himself up from lying on the grass, with little dew drops hanging from his eyelashes and resting on his dark hair.

He opened his eyes slightly with a squint before closing them again when blinding sunlight pierced into his eyes. He scrunched his eyebrows and frowned, trying to deal with a splitting headache and slight buzzing in his ears.

After sitting in the grass for a few minutes, the headache subsided, allowing him the space to think a little more clearly.

This moment of clarity made him realize one important factor: He couldn't remember anything, not even himself. Although it seemed like an urgent topic, he didn't feel too panicked or scared, and instead had the lazy bliss of a warm summer day.

He leaned against a tree and stood up, shaking out his arms and legs. It felt like he had just run for hours, and his whole body was sore. He stretched out his limbs, and then looked around him, surveying his surroundings.

He was in a forest with trees that stretched as far as the eye could see, with lush foliage growing near the base of the trees. Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the leaves, dappling each tree to make a beautiful scenery as if it was painted. He was currently standing near the edge of a clearing within the trees.

The strange thing about the forest was that all the trunks of the trees were the same size. All the trees had grown in different ways, yet it seemed like all of the trees and plants were the same age. There were no saplings on the grounds, and no signs of new life poking through the ground. Other than that strange factor, it seemed like there was no visible immediate danger.

After confirming that there was no danger around him, he examined himself for any injuries or possible clues as to who he was or where he originated from.

He was wearing a white undershirt with baggy sleeves and nice material, tied with a golden-colored metal right above the elbow, leaving his forearms exposed. The inner shirt appeared to be buttoned in the same gold-like material as the tie above the elbows. He was wearing a fancy black vest on over the white shirt that reached a little bit above the middle of his thighs, and again, that goldish material lined the edges. He had a black neck-cloth with a golden gem resting in the middle, and baggy black pants with a blue tinge. Black boots laced with those gold-colored laces reached to around his knee level, and the baggy pants were tucked into the boots neatly.

The strangest thing about his outfit was the black blacksmith's apron that didn't seem out of place with his fancy garments. It had many pockets, and the apron's straps reached over his shoulders and attached to the belt around his waist that helped his outer vest hug his body and match his form. The apron itself had many tools attached to it, with most of them being related to smithing. The belt had many cloth containers attached to it, and each one had items inside of it and a large, gold-colored gem on the outside.

The left pouch on his belt held random multi-colored gems of different sizes, with a bunch of sweets mixed in. The right pouch held a bunch of throwing charms, with uses that the young man could not discern. The two bottom pouches near the bottom of his apron were filled with scrap metal and small tools.

Although he had lost all of his memories, he still retained common knowledge that everybody knows. Simple things like the planet being called, Morunda, having one sun and three moons, many different gods and races, and people can only practice one path of power. These small facts floating inside his pool of knowledge helped him realize multiple strange factors about his clothing.

The quality and style of his clothing obviously pointed to an extremely rich noble, but the type of metal lining his clothes didn't quite match any identity available in his pool of common knowledge. It wasn't gold, but the color was similar to gold. Gold was heavier and weaker than this metal. It was a precious metal called kourite, but that was hard to believe due to the rarity of that specific material. Kourite was light, easy to carry, and was strong. If handled by a professional, it could even take on the texture of different material like silk. Some people even found kourite acting like gems, even though it was a metal and nobody could figure out how. Not even rulers or leaders of the gods' temples had the ability to fashion clothes lined in kourite due to its rarity and use. Only weapons or common useful objects like instruments or tools have been randomly found made completely out of kourite.

Kourite only had a single source in the entire world, and he didn't know where that was. And if he was wearing clothes lined in kourite with kourite gems, where did he get them? Did he personally know the person, creature, or thing that could create kourite, or was he rich and powerful enough to commission partial kourite clothing?

Another problem with the clothing was the apron that he was wearing with the tools in it. The tools were obviously used and the apron was fit to match his body, but the attire didn't match the status of a noble. But if he wasn't a noble, then it was impossible for him to be a mere, dirty commoner that lives among dirt and filth. Peasants would never be able to protect kourite, and the nobles would massacre a peasant's entire family if they ever stole kourite.

Although he hadn't taken off his gloves yet, he could tell that he had no blisters that indicated that he was hard at work in a forge, but that could be due to the strong protective aspect of his gloves and the rest of his clothes. Even when he was laying on the ground earlier, none of his clothing was stained by the grass or covered in dirt smears. That was most likely due to the clothing being enchanted with some sort of self-cleaning spell.

Most of his questions could be answered with the idea that he is a noble that is also part of the higher-ups of the Temple of Technology, but something just felt *off* about that speculation. He felt a disdain to the people in general.

He lifted his arm to feel his features through his gloves. He had a long, straight nose that was a bit thin, and a mouth that seemed to naturally curve in a slight frown. His eyelashes were average length, and he couldn't tell what his eye color was for now. His eyebrows were slim at the start and a little thicker near the ends, and always pulled together giving him a natural look that told others to go away. He had black hair that was a tiny bit longer than shoulder length, but was pulled back a little to keep the hair out of the eyes, except for the side of his bangs. His jawline was rather nice, if he would say so himself.

After inspecting himself and pulling out what muddled information he could think of, he came up with a basic action plan. His main goal for now would be to get out of this forest as fast as possible by picking a direction and walking in it.

Just as he was walking out of the clearing in a random direction, a voice called out, causing him to snap his head in the direction of it while his gloved right hand instinctively reached up to his kourite neck gem.

"Aurum! Where are you going? Don't think you can leave without bringing me along!"

Aurum slowly lowered his hand from the gem and felt his awful headache slowly creep back into his mind at the sound of the voice, causing him to furrow his eyebrows even more.

'That person seems to know me... Is my name Aurum? It feels like it should be my name... Did he cause my current situation, and how much does he know what happened? How much does he know about me, and is he a threat? Gathering information of what he knows about me would be the best course of action for now.'

Aurum stood near the edge of the clearing, allowing the young man to approach. He didn't say anything, and studied the young man as he walked closer from across the clearing.

The clothes seemed to be from a different region with a different style from the ones that Aurum was wearing. The man's voice also had an accent that obviously wasn't the same as Aurum's. He had silky jet-black hair that was long and straight that was around waist-length, and a little bit was pulled into a half-bun with a fancy pin going through it. His clothes were long and seemed to flow as he walked, and it had large sleeves that matched the style. The white of the clothes was complemented with purple and black, causing his bright blue left eye to feel out of place. What felt even more out of place was the large bandage that completely obscured his right eye. Otherwise, the face was handsome in a different way compared to Aurum.

"Awwww, Aurum? Why are you staring so hard at me?~ Is it because my face is so handsome and you can't look away from my beauty?~"

The voice grated even more in Aurum's ears and the headache got even worse. Once the man almost got within arm's reach and was going to slap Aurum's back in a playful manner, Aurum quickly dodged before saying in a flat tone, "Don't touch me."

The other man sighed before completely dropping the act and pulling out a flask of alcohol and rambling.

"It was worth a try, but you're always so cold... Thanks for the gift earlier, but I don't understand why you would randomly give it to someone you just met. The only asset I had that you knew about at the time was my amazingly handsome face, but you obviously don't want my body or face, so I have nothing else I can use... I won't make a good slave either because I'm not that great at physical work, but I guess maybe I can use my prowess in the fire path to warm your feet? Anyways, I went out and hunted a Grassboar for you because I noticed you didn't eat or drink anything when you were making those two swords for me. Come back to the clearing and I'll cook it for you before conjuring water to drink. And again, thank you for making me Peiskos and Aequoreal, I can't imagine the advanced techniques needed to make things this powerful and beautiful! I'm so glad that you named them for me, I probably would've named them something like Shit and Piss, or maybe White and Black... OwO and UwU also could be good candidates!"

Aurum's headache got even worse the more the man talked, so he snapped, "Hasn't anyone ever told you that you talk too much? Shut up."

The man looked a bit hurt, but didn't say anything more and just guzzled alcohol from his gourd.

Aurum could barely think from the pain, so he judged the man as less of a threat for now, and decided to stay in the clearing with him for the time being. it was more important to deal with the killer headache.

Aurum sat far away from the fire being used that the man had set up with the sword called "Peiskos." Aurum closed his eyes, while remaining vigilant of his surroundings, in case the man decided to assassinate him in his sleep, or in case a wild animal attacks him. Unknowingly, Aurum fell asleep.

The man looked at Aurum sleeping, and sighed, readjusting the bandage over his right eye. Aurum's usually creased brows were finally relaxed and his mouth was open a little, with a tiny dribble of drool seeping out. The man had been around Aurum for only around a week, but Aurum had worked nonstop on those two swords for days and nights on end, with no breaks for sleeping, using bodily functions, eating, or drinking. It was as if he was being chased by something, or was in a rush. Aurum hadn't said a word to him for the whole week. The only things Aurum ever said were a few words to get him to stay in the clearing, and when he handed over the two swords with their names. After he handed over the two swords, he told the man that his name was Aurum, and to remember that name. After that, Aurum closed his eyes and meditated in the middle of the clearing.

The last time he had seen Aurum, he was high and mighty with power radiating out of him. But when he came back from hunting the food, Aurum had seemed *different.* He gave off a weaker vibe and seemed much more grumpy, snapping every time he rambled on and on. He also seemed more wary. Well, it's not like the Aurum before wasn't wary, it was more like the one before was practically emitting vibes that said *you are so puny and weak that I would love for you to just try to hurt me.*

Aurum snapped awake when he felt something approaching him. He immediately jumped to his feet and his arm shot to the gem on his neck. It was only the man approaching him with roasted Grassboar on a bit of bark, so Aurum lowered his raised hand and ignored him while thinking of what happened when his head was hurting.

His eyes turned to look at the man again.

*Wait a moment.... Didn't he say before that he was in the fire pathway, but he could conjure up water as well? And why does he need two swords with two different elements? Every person can only learn one pathway. You can dabble in others, but if you start to specialize in two then your soul can't take the stress and you will blow up. And if it is two opposing elements like fire and water, then your body won't be able to handle it either. He obviously should've passed the threshold for an exploded soul a long time ago, so how is he still alive? He should know this information as well, this is the most common thing that any sentient, and even non-sentient living and non-living thing can know.*

"Give me water," stated Aurum bluntly. He wanted the man to demonstrate the water power. He had seen the fire, but not the water yet.

"Sure!" Kai conjured water and gestured for Aurum to open his mouth. "We don't have any cups or anything, so I'm going to have to just pour it in your mouth.

Aurum was going to refuse, but then he realized that he hadn't drank anything for a while and the water would most likely help with his headache. After pondering it a bit, he still ended up refusing because the other man could not be trusted. The man stood there dumbfounded, with the bit of water he summoned still floating in front of him. He ended up drinking the water himself so it wouldn't go to waste.

"How can you have two paths," Aurum asked directly, almost like he was ordering the other man to answer.

The man looked over, and his jaw opened slightly as he gawked at Aurum.

"Wait, but when we first met, you said a few words to get me to stay in the clearing with you, and it was almost my entire life story including that part... It convinced me you were too powerful for me to oppose, but what happened? Did you lose your memory? Do you have amnesia? I know you've been acting a little different, but how could I not tell at all?? Wow, I guess that's what being quiet with a frozen face does to you, everyone would immediately tell if I ever lost my memory. But do you remember my name?

I have two names, both are birth names, it's super complicated and it would take forever to explain. Wow, imagine not knowing my name and I've been with you for a few hours now! My two names are both Róng Xiào and Kai, with no last name for Kai. Kai is probably easier for you to pronounce. What have you been thinking of me as? A strange man? Oh, no wander you're so wary, you probably lost your power, which should be why your aura is so weak! This was probably a super scary experience for you, in a strange place, with a stranger, without even knowing who you are!

We're in the Forest of Time, Serim, and I'm sorry but we won't be able to get out. I ran in here without knowing where I was heading, and by the time I realized where I was, it was too late. I was too busy escaping because the high bounty on my head almost made me die multiple times. There should be a city in the middle of the forest though, near the Tree of Life and Time, and the trapped Order of the Light Elves are the ones that founded the city. Or that's at least the rumor, nobody's come out of this forest alive."

Aurum's head started to throb a little, but he ignored it. This man, Kai, was actually spouting useful information for once.

"Why can we not get out?"

"Serim used to hold the complete power of Time before the gods existed and the Deity of Time took over, so it still holds quite a lot of power, nobody below demigod level can escape alive, and demigods are super rare so they never come here anyways... Maybe demigods are just a myth, but anyways, you might have noticed that all the trees here are the same age. They are all the same size, and they never grow any older, and they never die. The farther out of the forest you go, the younger the trees get, until they are saplings, and then seeds. The animals also get older and older as you go in, and so do the plants besides trees.

The problem is, if you try to walk out of the forest, you start aging backwards like the trees, until you become a toddler, and then pop out of existence as just a sperm and egg on the dirt. It's ok to walk in and out as long as you don't pass your own age, but once you do, you can never go back.

The only way to go is in, where the Tree of Life and Time is, to meet the Elves. It's the oldest tree, and its free of the aging effect. It doesn't stay only one age, it just grows taller and bigger. Since it has a shard of the power of Life, it never dies. That allows the Light Elves to live there, but their home is also their prison since they can never leave unless someone lives to over 1000 years old or becomes a demigod. As the legend says, they are still trying to raise a demigod so that they can finally free their people. That's what the legend says at least, I can't guarantee it's true, though. The biggest problem right now is that the Tree of Life and Time is dying, look."

Kai pointed over the tree tops at a giant tree in the forest center. It stretched over all the other trees, and went even farther than the clouds. The visible branches near the bottom of the tree were barren, and it looked brittle, even from afar.

"Let's head there now, don't talk on the way," Aurum stated flatly. The more Kai talked, the worse his head would hurt. Thinking took up all of his brain capacity right now, and he didn't like the constant jabbering. Kai nodded, but opened his mouth anyways.

"What about the Grassboar I made for you?"

Aurum looked down at the bark with the meat on it. "It's too dirty, not to my tastes." He stepped over it and started walking towards the giant tree, and pulled out a sweet from his left pouch to eat: It was vanilla, and tasted like pudding.

Kai looked forlornly at the lonely piece of meat, and then took it for himself to eat so it wouldn't go to waste. He scrambled after Aurum.

-----

"Are we almost there???" whined Kai. "I'm not that physically endowed, can I fly on my sword? You gifted it to me, after all! I just learned this difficult skill not too long ago, just for the reason not to walk..."

"No."

"I'll carry you too! You can go on the other sword and I'll learn to control both of them!"

Aurum once again felt the familiar ache in his head throb a bit more. He couldn't balance on a flying sword, and he doesn't trust Kai to have his life in his hands.

"I don't care even if you say no!" complained Kai. "Look at my fire skill! Look! I'm the best for my age, I've been told that ever since I was young- Or at least, when my village was still around..." He finally quieted down for a bit, half-heartedly waving Peiskos to conjure a wall of flames.

"Wait. Stop." Aurum put out his arm, and Kai bumped into it. Aurum withdrew his arm and brushed of the area that Kai touched.

"What's wrong?" Kai looked around, and didn't see anything wrong. He lowered Peiskos and fiddled with the tassel on the end.

Aurum frowned again, looking around. There was a strange feeling coming from the area that they were in. Something about the forest was different, and it gave off an ominous, possibly deadly vibe. He cocked his head to the side.

"There's no sound."

Kai widened his eyes, and for once, didn't say anything. He listened, and Aurum was right. There was no birds singing, no animals or bugs rustling in the fallen leaves, only silence.

As they looked around, they realized that it wasn't that the animals had disappeared, it was just that everything was fleeing silently, as if they were trying to hide from some sort of predator.

A whole family of Blazing Kounai ran off, completely ignoring their prey running away alongside them.

A beetle on the forest floor scurried into a hole in the dirt, and tried to burrow itself further into the dirt so fast that it hurt itself, but it kept going.

Even a nearby plant uprooted itself and started using its leaves and roots to move away.

The birds flew away as fast as possible, and the Grassboars nearby all sprinted into the outer forests, not caring if they were aging backwards or disappearing from existence.

A baby Grassboar got caught in a bush while running away, and the adults abandoned it without even looking back. It went into a frantic struggle before freezing completely, as if it was trying to hide its presence.

Even the grass wilted slightly, like it was trying to play dead, or hide.

"What do we do?" whispered Kai. It felt weird to talk out loud when everything else was trying their best to stay completely silent.

Aurum may have lost his memories, but he still has his instincts. He put his headache to the back of his mind and focused hard on his surroundings, on high alert. "Something is coming, something we don't want to meet. Up here." Aurum climbed up a tree in a few seconds. Kai tried to climb up, but couldn't, so Aurum helped him up by lending a hand.

And soon enough, *something* did come.

Not long after, it came out from behind a few trees, walking towards where Kai conjured the wall of fire. Not really *walking,* but like the act of walking. Every time it neared the dirt, it absorbed it all, making it seem like it was floating.

It was like a mini black hole, a blank spot in space. It sucked everything up that touched it, even light. Nothing could escape. As long as it gave off any energy that wasn't from the Time pathway, it pulled the energy towards it and it disappeared into the black hole like it never existed in the first place. A humanoid blot of nothingness in the scenery, with the scenery leaning to it.

Aurum froze. This thing, whatever it was, it was an abomination. It shouldn't exist. It gave off a corrupted aura, like its only purpose was to suck up everything with a bit of power it could find. It must have been attracted by the fire that Kai released earlier. It radiates fear, levels of paralyzing fear that shouldn't be possible. Like a never-ending abyss, swallowing everything that goes into it forever.

The baby Grassboar that got stuck in the bush decided to make a final stand before the thing got too near, and tiny tendrils of grass started to grow up to the black hole creature. The creature absorbed the tendrils without trying, and pointed a "finger" at the Grassboar.

The Grassboar squealed and writhed in the air as it was sucked from the bush into the thing, and the sound of it squealing was cut off immediately.

It reached the area where Kai summoned the fire, and everything in the area got pulled into it. The slightly burnt grass, the smell of burning embers, and even the leftover floating flame energy, ready to ignite, became absorbed.

It paused and stood there, as if trying to sense other types of energies.

Kai was staring at it while hidden in the tree, and his eye was wide open, his line of sight frozen on the creature. He was holding his breath, with his hand over his mouth. He had never felt this scared before in his entire life.

Aurum was right next to him on the branch, not covering his own mouth but staring intensely at the creature. On the outside, he didn't look too scared, but in reality his heart was drumming for the first time since he could remember. His eyes were also wide, and he was gripping the branch extremely tightly. His headache was forgotten, only to be replaced with a dreadful fear.

Aurum sharply inhaled, as he realized something. He pulled Kai's shoulder over so that his head turned closer to him.

He leaned in close and whispered softly into his ear, "*Put Peiskos away.*"

Kai felt his heartrate increase until it felt like it was going to burst. The creature looked like it was sensing energies other than the Time power that made up the forest, and he left Peiskos out! He quickly let go of Peiskos, and it dissolved into its pocket dimension.

But it was too late.

The black hole creature turned its "head," or more accurately, moved the face area of the space that the empty suction was sucking the light out of, in the direction of both of them, like it was piercing through their souls. It had no eyes, but it could read everything about them.

Kai started shivering, and Aurum moved his shaking hand up to clench the gem near his neck, both of them scared to the point that they have stopped thinking.

It found us.

We're going to die.