The torch's emerald flame flickered from a halt, then slowly turned back to its bright and yellow hue.
A woman, lying on the cold ground, suddenly moved, convulsing... as a sound of soft cracking of bones reverberated throughout the dim hall, fixing her body, while her chest with a gaping hole knitted like a worm absorbing its own kin, regenerated till no scar existed.
Then it stopped.
After a few minutes, she moved again... this time, she raised herself up and scanned her surroundings...
She touched her body and searched for wounds, but only found damaged clothes.
Heaving a sigh of relief, she smiled after the realization that she had survived.
Yet, it turned to panic as her gaze swept to the center of the hall.
Staring worriedly at the child lying on the cold ground with a dagger just beside him.
"Lidien... Lidien!"
The woman ran and immediately knelt beside the child, rolled him onto his back, and tapped his face to wake him up.
"Lidien! Wake up!" the woman screamed.
Lidien then opened his eyes to an angelic face staring down worriedly.
As he sat up, Lidien's head throbbed from a flood of information searing his mind and very being.
The woman raised her hand and looked at it with uncertainty as it glowed golden before she pressed it to Lidien's head...
"Purify. Please, work!"
Yet the pain didn't stop.
Lidien shouted and cried, tears flowing uncontrollably, saliva scattering with every scream.
He couldn't speak; he only gritted his teeth against the physical and emotional agony.
He watched himself praying with his grandfather as they were called madmen by his own tribesmen,
He saw his village burning as their captors laughed at them,
His father telling him to live till his neck got slashed and his head rolled on the cold ground,
The wailing of his tribesmen, screaming, as they watched their own kin being killed or violated.
"Lidien! Calm down!"
With one last scream, Lidien smashed his head against the ground to regain his sanity.
'What the hell was that? It... It wasn't my memories...' Lidien held his head; his eyes turned crimson, fangs forming and sticking out.
In just a few seconds, he relived the gruesome experience of the original owner of his new body.
The tragic life he lived, until he sacrificed his life for someone he genuinely loved.
Lidien then stared at the woman in front of him.
'Lily... my adopted sister, and the one who truly cares for me... no, for the original owner of this body, also named the same as me.'
He forced a smile. After calming himself, his crimson eyes turned dark, same as his fangs being gone.
He looked around. Towards the deeper end of the room, he saw a single table sculpted with beings having wings and horns, with a small ancient-looking chest.
He then turned to his left and saw a corpse, skeletal, wearing heavy armor... the guardian.
His head throbbed again, replaying the scene where the original body unlocked his new demonic transformation upon witnessing Lily die from the guardian of the Relic, before he killed it.
Ironically, with the old memories being implanted into Lidien, or more likely he became a parasite inhabiting the old owner's body including his fragmented memories after stabbing his own chest and dying...
Lidien still didn't know how to survive in this world full of monsters and unknown entities...
Last time he tried fighting he got shot in the head.
Lily's eyes widened.
Her gaze darted from Lidien's face, to the dagger, to the unmarked skin on his chest. Her hand trembled as she touched where the fatal wound should have been.
"Lidien... What did you do?" she whispered, her voice fragile.
Panic, cold and sharp, seized him.
'She knows. If she finds out I'm not him...'
As his survival instinct, honed in a different life, took over. He flinched away from her touch and shrank back.
"W-Who are you? Where am I?" he rasped, forcing his voice to sound small and scared.
Lily's face shattered. A choked sob escaped her as she pulled him into a crushing embrace.
"No... oh, Lidien, no..."
Lily knew... she had died trying to protect Lidien, and with her final moments, she saw Lidien conduct a ritual before stabbing his own chest.
Seeing both of them was okay, except Lidien who she thought lost his memories, made her realize one thing...
Lidien offered something of great value for her to live.
'It's better to act like I forgot the original owner's memories than to try escaping this hell... outside this place is much more chaotic!'
Lily helped Lidien stand and requested him to follow her, then they proceeded to the table where the Relic was placed.
Lily then opened the chest, not empty, but full of ashes.
"With this... Mother will give you a Title... solely for you..." Lily smiled, as she stared at Lidien's eyes full of curiosity.
Giggling, Lily then stored the Relic in her ring.
Though Lidien wasn't new to fiction he read when he had free time in the Library, seeing a space ring personally was different.
He gulped as he stared at Lily's space ring intently.
"May I ask something, Ma'am? What is that small chest you got?" Lidien pointed at her ring with a trace of fear touching it.
"Ohh... that? I don't know either, but Mother wants it for the clan... to establish our kingdom... And don't call me Ma'am... 'Sis' is enough..."
Lily held Lidien's hand. Though their age gap was large, he almost reached her ears in height.
"Shall we go, my little brother?"
As they exited the ruined temple, Lidien saw a familiar cave where the original owner and his grandfather had prayed. He tried recalling the prayers from fragmented memories but failed.
'Yeah... I forget past memories too. How much more with fragments?'
They followed the cave wall until morning light greeted them, rays reflecting off the dewy mouth.
As they exited the cave, what greeted them wasn't birds' tweets and beast howlings, but a war.
It was chaotic enough that dead bodies were scattered on the ground, in the trees, or just hanging from the branches.
Lidien couldn't force himself to stop from retching, though he had prepared himself for this event.
Having seen its brutality from fragmented memories, still, experiencing it and seeing it with his own eyes betrayed his second life's goal.