The cold wind swept across the plains, carrying with it the distant echoes of the village's cries.
Ryo walked without looking back.
Each step took him farther from the ruins, farther from fear — and farther from everything he had tried, and failed, to protect.
Behind him, the voices of the villagers still echoed:
> "It's him! The monsters came because of that boy!"
"He's cursed!"
"Ryo, stay away from us!"
Their words pierced deeper than any blade.
Eran had tried to defend him, but fear had won. Even the eyes of those he had saved now looked at him with distrust.
Ryo clenched his fists, rage and shame boiling in his veins.
The power inside him growled, ready to burst.
But before he could lose control, that familiar voice echoed in his mind.
> Gabriel: "Then become stronger, Ryo… but not here."
"Your power isn't yours yet. If you use it now, you'll destroy everything — and yourself along with it."
Ryo froze, his breath catching.
The world around him seemed to darken.
A strange pulse filled the air, as if reality itself bent to the voice's will.
> Ryo: "Then… where? Where can I learn to control it?"
Silence answered him — deep, endless.
Then Gabriel spoke again, calm and vast like an ocean.
> Gabriel: "I will open a place for you — a sanctuary shaped within the void itself.
There, time will obey your will.
One minute in the real world equals one month inside."
Ryo's eyes widened in disbelief.
> Ryo: "A month… for every minute?!"
Gabriel: "Yes. But be warned. This place is not without danger.
It is your mind that will shape it. Your fears will take form.
If you falter, they will consume you."
The ground beneath him trembled.
A dark light rose around his feet, forming a glowing circle of shifting runes.
The air thickened — heavy and alive.
> Gabriel: "Speak these words, and the Sanctuary of the Void will answer you:
'Let the world fall silent. Let the void receive me.'"
Ryo closed his eyes. The wind stilled. Time itself seemed to stop.
And in a low, steady voice, he whispered:
> Ryo: "Let the world fall silent… let the void receive me."
A wave of energy burst outward.
The sky cracked open — and then, everything vanished.
---
When Ryo opened his eyes again, he was elsewhere.
An infinite space — no sky, no ground, only a vast sea of white light and shifting darkness.
Each breath made the air ripple, and each thought birthed reflections of entire worlds around him.
> Gabriel: "Welcome to the Sanctuary of the Void."
Ryo looked down at his hands — faintly glowing with an ethereal light.
Here, everything was possible.
But every step he took in this place would have a price.
> Ryo: "So this is… where I'll become stronger."
Gabriel (calmly): "Yes. This is where you'll learn to master what you truly are."
Ryo clenched his fists, eyes fixed on the endless horizon.
> "Even if it takes a thousand years… I won't run anymore."
And as his voice faded into the endless void, the light of the sanctuary wrapped around him.
The true training had begun.