He turns his head, scanning everything:

The metal signs that flicker between languages.

The reflections in glass that don’t mirror him exactly.

The echoes of footsteps that don’t follow his rhythm.

Still, there is clarity in the chaos.

He sees his reflection in the window of a silent store: pale face, golden eyes like dulled stars, long hair cascading like smoke, the hat now tilted—not as disguise, but declaration.

"I'm Merlin."

"They will know me as Merlin."

"But I will never forget who I was."

He lowers his gaze to the mandala inked into his hand. The lines seem to move, as though alive, ancient geometry crawling beneath his skin. It's not decoration. It’s memory sealed in flesh.

He whispers like a priest before a storm:

"The reason why I am who I am..."

"Because history will repeat itself."

"And you cannot stop it."

"Because history will repeat itself."

"And you cannot stop it."

"So history... will still repeat itself."

And then silence. Not absence—but weight.

He breathes in smoke. Steam. The breath of a land reborn and broken.

This isn't just a world.

It's a cycle.

And he, Merlin, is the reluctant gear within it.

But now… he knows it.

And that changes everything.

The moment stretches—smoke curling in the strange light, time hanging by threads of uncertainty.

Merlin—Alarich—looks again at his hands. They don’t quite look like hands anymore. They are instruments now. Vessels. The fingers twitch slightly, as if remembering magic that hasn't yet been cast.

The Divine General stands still, like a statue waiting for meaning.

His coat is perfectly tailored, the buttons shimmer faintly like they're forged of celestial brass. The top hat rests at an angle that makes him seem taller than he is, his glowing yellow eyes the only illumination in a street dimmed by overcast skies and ever-falling steam.

He steps forward with a grin that feels too sharp to be innocent.

“Are you from the northern lands of Vormar?”

The voice is calm but edged, like silk drawn over a blade.

Merlin inclines his head.

“Yes, sir. I am.”

The Divine General’s grin widens. “You look very interesting. Would you like to come with me?”

He places his hat back on, resetting it like it’s part of a ritual. His gaze narrows slightly, not hostile—but curious in a way that feels almost dangerous.

“What is your name first,” Merlin replies, sharpness folded inside civility, “then I will follow you.”

The Divine General chuckles.

“You first.”

Merlin raises his hand, palm open as if to let his name float into the world.

“My name is Merlin Emrys. But you can call me anything…” He tilts his head slightly. “…but call me the Merlin.”

The General blinks, smirks.

“Then why did you say ‘you can call me anything’—and follow it with a command?”

Merlin shrugs, a soft grin blooming at the corner of his mouth.

“I have a way of saying things.”

The General laughs. Not forced. Not fake. A real, resonant chuckle that sends his coat flaring slightly with the motion.

He lights a cigarette—one of those long, hand-rolled ones that burns slow and smells faintly of ancient spices. He takes a drag and exhales smoke shaped like runes.

“Well,” he says, looking at Merlin like he’s deciphering a puzzle, “you look very interesting, Merlin.”

Merlin glances again at his hands—his strange, shifting hands—and something inside him says you are changing.

But aloud, he simply says:

“Well, let’s go.”

The Divine General nods once and turns.

“I want you to look at these books. You look like a man who would know things like this.”

Merlin follows beside him, footsteps silent.

“I know things,” he replies, with a faint grin,

“…but I don’t know all.”

The Divine General smiles without looking at him.

“Good. That means you’re still learning. The dead know everything. The living still ask questions.”

And with that, they vanish into the fog-lined corridor of the city, toward the books that whisper.

Merlin stood still, taking in the strange place—a place that felt more like a memory carved into reality than an actual location.

Before him stood a statue—tall, solemn, ancient.

The first man. Or at least, the likeness of a man. His name, carved faintly beneath the stone, was Jacob.

But Merlin could tell—this wasn’t truly a man. His features were sculpted like someone trying to imitate humanity. And they had almost succeeded. But not quite.

Merlin narrowed his eyes.

The statue wore a smile, soft and welcoming.

But behind that frozen expression… Merlin saw it.

Anger.

Raw, undiluted, buried behind the stone mask of serenity. Rage sealed inside marble.

A familiar kind of rage.

He moved on, walking deeper into the tower’s heart. His eyes flicked up—what should’ve been a ceiling was instead a glass dome, stretching into the sky like a cathedral made of crystal and void.

And beyond that—stars.

Not stars like he remembered. These weren't silver pinpricks in darkness. These were swirls of color, vibrant and alien. Rainbow stars, flickering like tears of gods caught in a prism.

Books floated in the air, some bound with ancient skin, others with spines of glowing bone. More were stacked along impossible shelves that curved like waves, or hovered with no support, forming a spiral of silent knowledge ascending into the heavens.

As he walked, he paused near a great canvas hanging on the inner wall.

A painting of a monk.

Merlin was drawn to it—compelled.

The monk’s expression was gentle, but there was something… resonant in it. A man who knew pain. And purpose.

Merlin turned to the Divine General beside him and asked softly:

“Who is that man?”

The General answered, his voice lower now, like recalling something sacred:

“That is King Solomon. He was from the Other Earth.”

Merlin blinked. “Other Earth?”

The General nodded.

“Yes. I praised him for who he truly was. A fellow officer… a man of judgment, of seals, of command.”

He placed a hand over his chest briefly, a gesture of respect.

“He came from the Great Age of Before—two million years ago. Most records of that time were lost. The Earth forgot.”

The words two million years ago echoed in Merlin's mind like a gong.

The Divine General continued:

“There are fragments here. Documents. Artifacts. From the Akuma Age, the uki Age… even from the Obsidian Circle and the Thousandfold Collapse. So many stories. So many answers.”

Then, more quietly:

“But when uki was near death… he closed the Rift.”

Merlin froze.

“The Rift?”

“Yes,” the General said, eyes fixed on the painting.

“A breach between the two Earths. Between what was and what became. Once sealed, the ones who stayed could never return. And those beyond… could not enter again.”

Silence returned. The kind of silence only ancient places know—thick, watchful, almost breathing.

Merlin looked up at the sky dome again. The rainbow stars shimmered softly.

Then he whispered:

“So… what’s left behind is what we are.”

And the General, still watching the monk’s painting, replied:

“And what’s lost… is what we could’ve been.”

Alarich—now known as the Merlin—stood quietly as the words of the Divine General settled in his mind like dust on an ancient tome. The world around him seemed to dim, the rainbow stars through the glass dome above swirling ever so slightly, like the cosmos itself was listening.

His voice, when he finally spoke, was not the voice of a man unsure of himself. It carried with it the weight of lifetimes, of shifting identities and lost worlds.

“I’m not sure what I am anymore,” he said, his golden eyes staring at the glowing mandala in his palm, pulsing like a heartbeat. “But I know what I must do.”

The General nodded solemnly, his hat casting a shadow over his piercing gaze. “The Hook is no ordinary man. He wields the Chain of the Inversion, a relic that defies time and will. He enslaves not only flesh, but will—memory—identity. He has taken too much from us.”

The air tightened.

“You saw Jacob’s statue? That smile hides centuries of rage,” the General said, glancing back. “He was the first to defy The Hook—and he was the first broken.”