Dancing on the golden ashes

I didn't know if she had read my mind, or if she simply felt it—sensed it from the way the aura wrapped itself around me like old skin. Either way, it was too much. Too sudden. Too real. The fact that someone out there knew this secret, a truth so buried that even the Creator himself had never pointed it out, shook something loose inside me. It made my throat tighten. My flames flicker unevenly.

How? How did she know?

And more than that—why?

Where was the connection between me and the other me supposed to end? Did she also possess this power when she lived in this demon world?

She must have... right?

It would make sense. It would explain everything. But then again, what if it was just my mind twisting itself in circles, trying to find clarity in a storm that never truly stopped? What if there was no connection, no answer, just fragments of pain and echoes of lives that were never mine to begin with?

Or worse…

What if I wasn't remembering at all?

What if I was becoming her?

"How do you know all that?" I asked, my voice cold, quiet, but sharp enough to cut through the heat between us. My eyes searched her face, hunting for a flicker, a twitch, a single betrayal of thought—but there was nothing. She gave me no hint of what she was thinking.

She was unreadable. Like a book written in a language I was never meant to understand. There was something about her... something too vast, too ancient, as if she wasn't just a person, but a being layered in centuries, riddles, and power. I couldn't read her because I wasn't meant to. Because she stood above me—in presence, in knowing, in weight. And deep down, I knew the truth.

I was still just a mortal.

And she… she was something far more.

She was an expert who had long since broken through. Someone who had touched the Immortal Emperor's realm and stepped beyond the veil where gods whispered and mortals burned.

"You seem surprised, Lee Gaon..." she said gently, almost wistfully. "Many years have passed since I last saw those powers. But they've emerged again... and your original one—she's the one who created this technique. Likely, for you."

That word—original—stabbed deeper than it should have.

I didn't like it.

I hated it.

I hated the way she said it like a fact. Like history. Like I was just the echo of someone else's legend, like I was a footnote to a name I couldn't even remember. A fake. A clone. A placeholder for a soul that had already burned itself out. She is the original one. Those words... they hurt like hell.

"Enough," I snapped, voice low, sharp, and cold as obsidian. My entire demeanor shifted. The fire around me calmed, but only because it was burning inward now, feeding something harder. If she kept insisting—if she kept looking at me like I was nothing more than the shadow of someone long dead—I would leave her here to rot in this strange, forgotten space. Let her memories be her only company. I didn't need her. I didn't need anyone to tell me who I was.

Her gaze shifted. Something in her eyes changed. She looked at me like I was someone she had never met before—and maybe that was for the best. Maybe the woman she once knew didn't talk to her like this. Maybe the past me had bowed her head or softened her words. But I wasn't her.

"I came here to find out what the hell is calling me from within this place," I said, voice echoing with steel. "Not to listen to stories about a life I never lived. If you keep rambling about the past, about her, then I'll leave. Right now, there's only me. And that's all that matters. I am me. I am Lee Gaon. And I'm the original one now. I don't care if you don't see me that way—I'll show you. I'll make you believe it."

She didn't flinch. Not even a little. But her words turned sharp—aimed to cut.

"And how do you plan to do that," she asked, voice low and bitter, "when you don't even own your own heart? You'll never become powerful enough to forge your own fate."

The moment the words left her mouth, I knew she meant them to hit me. And they did.

Shit... She was right.

And I hated that she was right.

But it didn't matter. I clenched my fists, let the fire surge through my bones like molten defiance.

I'll find my own way. Even without a heart. Even if I have to forge a new kind of fate altogether.

Suddenly, the fire around us began to rage—no longer calm, no longer curious. It howled like a beast awakened, thrashing against the walls of this realm as if mirroring her emotions. The air thickened, the pressure multiplied, and in that instant, I felt like the entire world had decided to turn against me.

"Do you really believe," she roared, her voice rising with the storm, "that you can defeat anyone with this pitiful strength you carry? Do you think this world will kneel before you just because you've managed to crawl this far?!"

Her presence swelled, monstrous and divine all at once, and I could barely keep my footing under the weight of it.

"Listen to me, child—yes, child, because that's what you are. Even if you've lived for thousands of years already, I've lived thousands of lifetimes longer than you. You're still young. Still foolish. Life is not that simple. Fate doesn't bend just because you scream at it."

The flames spiraled higher, licking at the sky, and her eyes burned like twin stars about to collapse.

"So what if I call you a secondhand imitation?" she spat. "So what if I say you're the leftover scrap of someone who was actually great? What will you do, Lee Gaon? Fight me? Then come."

Her aura erupted, shaking the realm, and the ground cracked beneath our feet as the fire began to swirl around her like a crown of war.

"Show me what you've got. Because I won't hold back. I'll crush you like a bug beneath my heel. And when I'm done, I'll march out of this realm and kill that despicable—"

She tried to say his name.

But once again, I couldn't hear it...

It was like the world itself silenced her—like the truth was forbidden to reach me.

A blank space. A swallowed sound. Just like every time before.

And it still gnawed at me.

Still.

Even to this day.

Why...?

"Kill... Kill them all, Gaon..."