He remembered it as if it had happened yesterday.
The betrayal.
The moment he struck.
Shadow stood atop the peak of Mount Veris, the sky burning red with divine energy. Freya was in its golden age—unshattered, alive. Pugh had approached him from behind, his hand trembling.
In his grip was Wolfbane—the only weapon in the universe capable of wounding or killing Shadow. A weapon forged from the remnants of Shadow’s godly soul, locked within a fang of void-ice and eternal silver.
And Shadow… had entrusted it to him.
“I give you this,” Shadow had said once, “because only you and Zic would know when to use it. If I fall. If I lose myself. No one else can carry this burden.”
But Pugh didn’t use it in mercy.
He used it for Noel.
The strike landed deep, cutting through Shadow’s side, weakening his core. For the first time in his divine life, Shadow staggered.
He turned, stunned not by pain, but by the sight of Pugh.
“You?” Shadow whispered.
The wound bled slowly. He didn’t even raise his hand to retaliate.
“Even my own creation can betray me…”
His voice wasn’t angry. It was broken.
Pugh couldn’t speak then.
He couldn’t know.
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The bitter memory burned as he traveled toward Freya’s ruins. The world he once served. The god he once guarded. Now a corpse of stars and a shattered land.
Far away, Shadow and Varn walked through a pale wasteland—a silver desert under an unreal sky. Shadow’s face was stern, but not angry. Determined.
His focus: Axel.
“Half my memories have returned,” he said, “but I still can’t locate the exact seal. I hid it too well, even from myself.”
Varn followed beside him, arms crossed, eyes lowered. He hadn’t spoken much since Sasha’s death, and since Shadow’s reveal about the Creator.
But something had been gnawing at him.
A guilt. A half-formed memory. A sense of two selves.
He finally broke the silence.
“Shadow… what do you know about me?”
Shadow stopped.
The wind around them was still.
“You were someone who attacked me,” Shadow said calmly. “And… someone who saved me.”
Varn’s eyes widened.
Shadow looked forward again.
“You stood at the edge of both mercy and betrayal. I haven’t seen the full picture. And I think… neither have you.”
Varn remained silent.
“Take your time,” Shadow continued. “When the memories return, I’ll be waiting.”
Then, a faint smile crossed his lips.
“And this time, I’ll repay my debt.”
Varn let out a quiet breath.
So I wasn’t his enemy after all…
The weight on his chest lightened slightly, but the mystery of who he had been still haunted him.
They continued forward until the land changed.
The sand gave way to mirrored ground—silver and glass, reflecting the clouds, the sky, even their movements in strange, fluid ways.
And then, the city appeared.
A landscape made entirely of mirrors. Towering reflective buildings stood motionless, their surfaces flickering with distortions of time and space. The reflections didn’t match the real world. In some mirrors, Shadow was still a wolf. In others, Varn wore armor he didn’t recognize.
“What is this place?” Varn asked, unease creeping in.
“A memory trap,” Shadow replied. “A place where echoes gather.”
They walked carefully, each step bouncing off a thousand glowing surfaces. The city stretched endlessly.
And then—they saw it.
At the center of it all, rising higher than anything either of them had ever seen, stood a tower made of pure crystal and mirror glass. It shimmered like a beacon, yet felt completely foreign to Freya’s essence.
“The Tower of Echoes,” Shadow whispered.
“You’ve been here before?”
“No. But… it knows me.”
The tower pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
And somewhere, beneath its endless mirrored floors, a fragment of something ancient stirred.
Something is calling to Shadow.
To be continued...