Shadow Slave: Not a very laid back life.

The winds howled as Asher slowly opened his eyes... 

Pain washed over him as a hazy picture entered his vision.

He was in the air.

Memories crashed into him like a storm. An hour ago…

'Right...' That damned woman, NO, 'thing' sent a spire messenger at him.

He tried to look up, gritting his teeth to suppress a scream. The clarity he had received earlier still lingered in his mind, but it did nothing to quell the fear clawing at his chest. 'How am I going to escape this?' Asher thought for a bit.

He had no idea.

And then, everything changed.

The air shimmered strangely. The Spire Messenger, until now silent, let out a guttural, broken howl—like its very mind was tearing itself apart. Its eyes rolled wildly. Its body convulsed mid-flight.

Asher's stomach twisted.

And then... the Messenger vanished, shooting off like a crazed comet, leaving him completely from it's grasp.

He looked down.

Four thousand meters—easily. Maybe more.

Nimble intellect kicked in.

'7 minutes. Roughly.'

[A/N: Its not that hard. (4000/10)/60 =20/3 (This does not include acceleration)]

Asher gritted his teeth as he commanded gravity to slow his fall. 

Asher body immediately began to twitch. 

A warmth ignited in his core—gentle at first, then blistering.

Pain bloomed. Then fire.

He screamed.

A miniature sun had erupted inside his soul. The heat spread fast, devouring him from within. He writhed, thrashing in open air. Above, through blurred eyes, he spotted the Spire Messenger falling too—its head snapping in every direction, as if some unseen force had shredded its mind.

Panic surged, but Asher couldn't move. Couldn't think.

His body wasn't his.

His eyes slammed shut as something ancient and alien took over. Every muscle fiber tore, then rebuilt itself—denser, stronger. First his chest, then his limbs. Then finally—

A silent, shattering scream echoed inside him as even the deepest muscle chains in his Lharax were reborn.

His mind shattered next.

For a fleeting moment, he felt everything—grief, rage, joy, love, fear, shock. All at once. Then, the next second, nothing. Blood crashed in his head like a smith's hammer.

Throbbing and paining.

His head pulsed with memories—some familiar, some foreign. Faces he didn't know. Names he couldn't place.

He lost his grip on gravity.

The fall resumed.

A gust of wind tore past him. He forced his eyes open.

The world was a swirl of shifting colors. Hues bled into one another—sky, land, and sea blurred into a kaleidoscope.

'I'm changing.' He definitely was.

His mind finally relented as he tried to command gravity again, except... It didn't work.

His aspect wasn't working!

He tried to summon his runes in all the chaos but even that didn't work.

It seemed as though his mind changed before everything else in his body. The change was subtle, but he could feel it. [Nimble intellect] evolved. Or a similar attribute hastened his mind.

The pain receded at last, leaving him in eerie silence. Even the wounds on his shoulders had sealed, as if they'd never existed.

And in that strange silence, as the sky around him turned dreamlike…

The world felt almost… welcoming.

He felt strong.

Stronger than ever—despite losing every last soul fragment.

But that moment of triumph ended the instant he hit the ground. Or rather… something on the ground.

The impact sent a jolt through his body. Pain flared everywhere. He groaned, opening his eyes through the haze.

He was surprised that none of his bones broke but felt a headache creeping through.

He shifted slightly—and felt it. Coarse, thick fur beneath him.

He looked down.

It was the Spire Messenger. Still alive.

The beast twitched beneath him, disoriented and struggling. Asher didn't hesitate. He summoned the Azure Blade. A loud shriek was let out as Asher's ear throbbed in pain, yet, no blood was let out.

It did help Asher find the head though.

It helped, though. He spotted the head.

The Messenger was clearly in agony. Its claws gouged furrows into the earth, wings flapping erratically, as if its nervous system was short-circuiting.

'What happened to it?'

Asher wasn't clueless. That thing—the woman—must've done something.

He glanced at his blade. Could it cut deep enough to kill this monster?

He doubted it.

But he tried anyway.

Reaching inward, he commanded gravity once more—and this time, it responded. Power surged through him. He infused the sword with weight until it strained his grip.

He stepped forward and locked eyes with the creature.

And saw his reflection.

Not the one he remembered.

His expression was eerily calm. His hair, now streaked with fading strands of black, and his eyes—shifting from an unknown color back to their usual blue—made him look like a stranger wearing his own face.

He raised the sword.

And drove it into the creature's eye.

A spray of vermillion blood exploded across him. He gagged but held it down, twisting the blade deeper as the Messenger writhed. It flailed, trying to rise—but its muscles failed it. As if it had forgotten how to move.

Asher gritted his teeth, pushing harder.

Minutes passed.

Then, a soft chime whispered in his ear:

[You have slain a Fallen Monster: Spire Messenger]

[Memory Acquired: Spirewind Mantle]

Asher collapsed onto the ground, his body trembling.

He was safe. For now.

'The growl from earlier should have scared away most of the scavengers' Asher thought. After all, which prey would voluntarily come to it's predator?

He leaned back, eyes fluttering shut against the exhaustion. The world around him dimmed into abstract contours—edges outlined in his mind like phantom shapes, a byproduct of the clarity still lingering.

But then—he felt something.

A subtle vibration. Far away.

The gate.

His eyes opened.

"Around a month's travel," he muttered.

Still, he didn't rise. There was too much to check—his runes, the new memory, the effects of his transformation. But for now... it could wait.

He closed his eyes again—and opened them within his soul sea.

The familiar woman stood there, cloaked in starlight, playing idly with shimmering motes of star dust in her palm.

"What did you do?" Asher asked bluntly. No point in hiding the question.

The woman smiled a bit, playing with bit of star glitter in her palm, "I used whatever residual effect I had over my Domain to fry the monster's brain."

She let the stardust drift away and sighed.

"Though I can't do it again. I'm cut off from the realm—thanks to your soul sea." Her scarlet eyes met his. "Hope that clears it up."

Asher frowned.

Domain...

He'd read of the term in the novel, but his understanding was vague at best.

"So," he asked, "why are you helping me?"

The woman tilted her head with narrowed eyes.

"Come on, my epigone can't be this dumb." 

'Epi- what?'

"If your die, that would mean, this fragment of mine would also be destroyed. And I would stuck again, in 'that' place. Plus..."

Asher flinched as the woman teleported beside him. "Didn't I say I need you to do something."

***

Asher blinked, staring blankly at Sunny in the present.

'Yeah… No way I can explain any of that…'