Airen's eyes fell shut for a moment, gathering himself. "Of course you wouldn't know," he said softly. "I didn't know either. But do you remember what you all performed on me back then?" He opened his eyes, a faint, bitter smile tugging at his lips. "It was called a Status Reset, wasn't it?"
Her brow furrowed as she considered his question, struggling to understand why he was bringing this up now. It was just a Status Reset, she thought, though something about his words made her stomach clench.
Airen's voice lowered, and he stared at the floor, eyes unfocused. "Maybe…maybe you think it was just a Status Reset. That's what I thought too." He paused, then continued, his words calm but laced with an ache he couldn't hide. "But it wasn't. What you all performed on me that day was a spell—a curse, really—called the Bloodline Curse. Do you know what that means?"
The Tower Master's eyes widened as he spoke.
"The Bloodline Curse," he continued, "is a magic that erases any lineage passed down through generations, transforming the one afflicted into a pureblood—without family, without connection. It severs everything. It takes away their ties and…takes away their life. The curse only allows the person three years left to live."
She drew a sharp breath, her face ashen, but Airen continued, his words spilling out in a quiet, controlled flow.
"But what you all did to me, every one of you—the Tower Masters, my own parents, and every disciple—because all of you are were mages, the effect became…worse." He took a shuddering breath. "Your power didn't just increase the speed of the curse—it destroyed my soul container entirely."
He looked away, his face shadowed, his voice now barely a whisper. "Since then, I've been having this…dream."
He clenched his fists, voice cracking as he described it. "I see a stagnant sea floor, with two small islands in the distance. Each has a single tree in the center. The one on the left is cut down, fallen before it ever reached full maturity, the ground beneath it withered and lifeless. The one on the right... it hasn't matured either, but it's not dying. It's…stuck."
He paused, his gaze distant, haunted. "Between the islands, there's an hourglass. It's broken, with its bottom shattered—only emptiness lies beneath. Still, the sand falls, grain by grain, spilling into that void."
At this, his voice grew softer. "For the first month, I ignored it. But the dream kept coming back, again and again, until I…until I couldn't look away. So, I tried to catch the sand. I'd stand beneath the hourglass and reach out, grabbing at the grains of sand just before they fell into the void."
He swallowed, looking down at his hands, as if seeing the sand slip through his fingers even now. "And then I'd wake up…shaking, exhausted. Every time."
The Tower Master's hand trembled, but she couldn't look away.
"That hourglass," he whispered, "that's my existence. And the sand… that's my soul. The curse you all cast didn't just make the sand fall faster. You shattered the glass itself, so that now…there's nothing to hold the sand in place."
He let out a hollow, bitter laugh. "When the last grain falls, I won't just die. I'll be erased. My soul, my existence, it'll be cast into the void—gone. I'll disappear completely."
A silence hung between them, heavy and unbreakable, until he raised his head, his gaze piercing. "Do you understand now?"
She felt the weight of his words, her chest tight, her heart heavy. All she could do was stare back at him, unable to speak, unable to breathe, caught in the horror of what she had unknowingly helped to do.
---
"Since this place isn't the real world, I can do anything I want to your bodies—even kill every single one of you as an act of revenge." Airen's voice was cold, his hand moving dangerously close to the mage's neck beside him. "And no one could stop me." He paused, his expression shifting. "But I won't."
Standing up, he steadied himself, then lifted two of the mages onto a mud platform he created with a spell, guiding it toward the Tower Master. "Come on," he said, crouching down in front of her. "Climb on my back, and let's get out of here."
Without a word, she climbed onto his back, the tense silence hanging thick between them. She held on tightly, avoiding any chance of slipping and adding more trouble to their escape. As they made their way toward the exit, she could hear his heart pounding steadily, as if matching the rhythm of their cautious steps.
They passed the cavern where the monstrous battle had taken place, and a strange feeling of safety settled over her as she saw the remnants of the struggle left behind.
Then, as they neared the cave's exit, that familiar sensation of distortion filled the air—a feeling just like when they'd first been pulled into this strange domain. Another pocket dimension, Airen thought, raising an eyebrow with a resigned expression. He seemed almost prepared for it. "This place is too big to be just a cave.
---