Lian Yu stared at the kneeling guardian, his heartbeat steady despite the storm of questions in his mind.
"I was never meant to return?" he repeated, his voice sharp. "What does that mean?"
The guardian's molten eyes flickered as if struggling against an unseen force.
"You… were erased."
Lian Yu's fingers curled slightly. Erased?
A sudden pain lanced through his skull. Flashes of memory—faint, fragmented. A vast battlefield, a broken sky, voices calling a name he could not yet remember.
But the memory slipped through his grasp like sand.
The guardian's voice rumbled again.
"This temple is a prison. Not for me—but for knowledge that was never meant to be known again."
Lian Yu's breath slowed.
"A prison for knowledge… then why do I remember being here before?"
Before he could ask, the temple itself shuddered.
The guardian's eyes widened. "They have noticed."
Lian Yu felt it too. A presence. Something vast, something that had been watching from beyond this world.
The guardian rose, and for the first time, Lian Yu noticed the cracks forming along its body.
"I no longer have time. But you must listen." The guardian's voice was strained now. "Your past was buried for a reason. The Heavens do not allow what should not exist."
Lian Yu's eyes sharpened. "And yet, here I am."
The guardian let out something close to a bitter laugh. "Yes… here you are. A mistake… or perhaps a defiance of fate itself."
Then, without warning, the guardian turned and struck its own chest.
Crack!
A pulse of golden light surged from within its body, breaking its form apart.
Lian Yu's instincts screamed—this was not destruction, but release.
The guardian, or what remained of it, turned to him one last time.
"Your name… was once feared across the heavens."
The light consumed everything.
And then—silence.