The sky above the Dummer Continent hung low and heavy. Storm clouds gathered in the distance, as though the land itself mourned the departure of one of its most dangerous inhabitants.
Asari walked ahead, silent as always, his long white hair fluttering behind him. Aicha followed in her wheelchair, her gaze locked on his back. The forest path they tread wasn't marked on any map. The trees here were old—older than memory—and their trunks twisted as if they'd been grown by an unseen hand.
"We're not heading to the port yet?" Aicha asked softly.
"No," Asari replied. "There's one more place I must visit."
His voice was low but firm, like stone grinding against stone. The weight behind it made Aicha's chest tighten.
They arrived at a dead end—an ancient cliffside veiled in moss and time. It looked ordinary, but Aicha could feel it: something ancient slumbered here.
Asari lifted his hand.
A strange symbol glowed faintly on his palm. It wasn't magic. It wasn't qi. It was something deeper—something only passed down through blood and bond.
A pulse erupted from his palm. The cliffside trembled.
Then—space itself split open.
Like glass being peeled back, a tear in the world widened before them. It wasn't a portal. It was a domain.
Aicha gasped as the entrance revealed a vast, glowing expanse—an entirely separate space suspended beyond time and place. Floating rocks, shimmering skies, and winding stone paths stretched across the horizon. There was no sun or moon, yet everything was bathed in a soft, otherworldly light.
"This is…?"
"My master's legacy," Asari said.
He stepped in, and the air around him rippled. Aicha hesitated for only a moment before wheeling herself in after him. The moment she crossed the threshold, the world shifted behind them. The tear sealed.
Inside, the space was silent and vast, like a universe condensed into a temple.
A colossal statue stood at the center—Asari's master. Carved from black stone, he wore a hood and held a sword to the sky. Beneath the statue was an altar surrounded by books, scrolls, and relics suspended in the air, untouched by time.
"He made this… for you?" Aicha whispered.
"He said I'd only be ready to enter when I shed everything—attachments, identity, weakness." Asari paused. "I suppose five years was enough."
They moved closer. The altar pulsed faintly. From its center, a sealed box hovered in midair.
Asari reached out.
The box opened with a whisper.
Inside was a weapon.
It wasn't a sword, or a spear, or anything known to the common world. It looked like a jagged shard of darkness, forged from something beyond mortal comprehension. Its edge pulsed like a heartbeat. Its hilt responded to Asari's touch, as if recognizing him.
He took it in his hand.
The moment he did—the entire domain vibrated.
Dozens of scrolls and books descended from the air and neatly arranged themselves on a wide stone platform nearby.
"These are… techniques?" Aicha asked.
"More than that," Asari murmured. "Philosophies. Forbidden arts. The true path he walked—the one the world feared."
Aicha looked at him. "And you're going to learn all of it?"
"I must." His eyes—one black, one red—glowed faintly. "If I want to surpass him. If I want to survive what comes next."
Aicha moved closer to the altar, eyes scanning the scrolls. Some of them pulsed with qi so thick she couldn't breathe near them. One was sealed in a chain of crimson light.
"Some of these… feel wrong."
"They are." Asari didn't look away. "But they're mine now. I choose what to embrace. What to master. What to leave behind."
He turned toward her.
"This place is bound to me. I can summon it at will now. It exists within me—as long as I live, this legacy lives."
Aicha blinked. "So… it's your domain?"
He nodded. "My master created it as a reflection of his soul. Now it's mine. I'll reshape it… make it stronger."
The statue behind them pulsed.
A voice—faint, echoing—rippled through the air.
"Do not become me… become greater."
Asari didn't flinch.
"I will."
Aicha watched him in silence. He looked the same—and yet completely different. The boy who once sat at the academy's edge, cold and unreadable, had returned as something else. Something deeper. Darker.
She didn't know what kind of man he would become.
But she knew she would be by his side.
"Let's go," Asari said. "There's nothing left in this land for me."
Aicha nodded. "Where to next?"
He glanced toward the shimmering horizon of the domain, then summoned the tear in space once more.
"Wherever strength takes me."
They stepped out together.
The domain sealed behind them.
And with it, the first true step of Asari's rise began.