Back in the real world-
A mere fraction of a second had passed.
Within that instant, Axiros had endured hours inside his soul space, yet not even a single millisecond had elapsed in the outside world.
The time dilation there was absolute. Hours within translated to nothing more than a fleeting fraction beyond.
The Noevar left behind by his mother had still not reached his physical body. Even so, the brief window was enough, more than enough, for him to analyze it.
The moment Axiros returned, time normalized once again.
But his eyes did not.
A profound transformation had taken place.
They had become a deep, abyssal blue, not reflecting light but absorbing it, as though reality itself hesitated at their surface. Existential energy flowed through them in silent currents, refined and compressed into something impossibly dense.
To ordinary beings, his gaze seemed unchanged. But to those capable of sensing existential forces, it was unmistakable.
It felt as though his gaze no longer observed the world, but measured it, its weight, its permanence, its right to exist. Layers of meaning unfolded within those eyes: causality, identity, continuity. Things once hidden from him now aligned naturally, as if the universe itself had adjusted to accommodate his perception.
These eyes were no longer tools of sight.
They were instruments of discernment.
The former eyes had merely seen phenomena.
These ones perceived existence itself, its structure, its flow, and the fractures running beneath its surface.
'So this is what my mother was trying to do.' He sighed, after knowing the truth.
His mother was only performing a routine welfare scan, a quiet check to ensure he was healthy, unharmed, and free from any hidden illness. It was an act born from concern, not doubt.
Axiros understood that.
Even so, he remained careful.
It wasn't that he didn't love her, or that he believed she meant him harm. Caution had simply become a part of him, shaped by years of experience he could never truly forget. Trust, once broken, did not mend easily, especially when it was broken by those who were supposed to protect him.
There had been times when family had stood beside him. And times when they hadn't.
Because of that, he had learned to guard himself, not by building walls, but by keeping a quiet distance. He still spoke, still smiled, still listened. He just no longer gave all of himself away.
Deep bonds carried weight. They carried endings.
And Axiros had lived through enough farewells to know that loving carefully hurt less than losing completely.
'Well that's a relief. At least I won't be in severe danger like times in my other lives, this early.' He recollected.
"Hmm. Nothing is wrong with him. Might just be his natural, native intelligence." She said, contemplating.
She found nothing wrong.
No imbalance in his body, no disturbance in his soul. Everything appeared aligned, healthy, and natural. The faint trace of energy she had released earlier returned to her unchanged, carrying no warning, no anomaly, no cause for concern.
His soul, however, was sealed completely shut.
What she sensed was not the truth, but a carefully constructed image, a shallow, harmless persona layered over his true existence. It concealed everything beneath it with deceptive simplicity, offering nothing for prying senses to latch onto.
From the outside, Axiros was utterly ordinary.
Neither gifted nor flawed. Neither exceptional nor disappointing.
Just… normal.
Satisfied, she relaxed.
Axiros responded with a small, clumsy nod, his movements exaggerated by his infant body. The simple gesture, paired with his wide, unfocused gaze, was enough to dispel the last of her unease.
Her heart melted.
She lifted him into her arms without hesitation, holding him close as she laughed softly. Her fingers gently tugged at his cheeks, showering him with affection and warmth, the kind given freely and without expectation.
Axiros allowed it.
"Aww, my little Axiros. You are so cute." She squealed as she flung him around in her arms.
'Ahhh. Wait i just ate. Stooop!' Was Axiros's last thought before he puked himslef. His body wasn't mature enough to handle all of that.
"Ohh. Looks like I was bit too harsh wasn't I? Let me clean you up. " She said as she put Axiros back into his crib.
'Ughhh. Goddamn that was bad." He thought, absolutely delirious.
She cleaned everything up with a single, effortless wave of Noevar.
The energy swept through the space quietly, gathering stray traces, smoothing disturbances, and restoring order as if nothing had ever been out of place. There was no excess, no waste, just clean, precise efficiency born of long familiarity and control.
In moments, everything was pristine again.
'Ohhh. That's some fine control right there.' He said, quite satisfied.
"Well then, my sweet baby. I will see you later." She said as she left the room.
His eyes darted across the room, sharp and alert, scanning everything with quiet intensity.
The space around him no longer felt static. It pulsed, subtly, rhythmically, alive in a way he had never been able to perceive before.
With his newly altered sight, layers that had once been invisible unfolded naturally, revealing depth, flow, and structure beneath the surface of reality.
Everything was clear to him now.
His eyes were no longer just organs of sight. They had changed at a fundamental level, altered in essence rather than form. Through them, he could sense the movement of energy itself, the hidden currents that shaped matter, space, and intent.
They were connected directly to the fabric of energy.
One of the fundamental fabrics of existence.
'My Absolute Aperture eyes are absolutely fantastic. Those years weren't in vain after all.' Axiros said.
'The only downside, it has a time limit. I have almost... ten years under my belt until it's expiration. Long enough for me to find an alternative.' He said, contemplating his next moves.
He had created this technique in one of his later lives, after an incomprehensible amount of time and trial. It had not been born from curiosity or ambition, but from necessity, and a very real fear of death.
He had needed a way to know.
To sense danger before it arrived. To perceive threats that hid beyond normal awareness. To never again be caught unaware by something he could not see or understand.
The technique allowed him to sense every kind of change, no matter how subtle. Anomalies, distortions, fluctuations in space, thought, or energy itself. Nothing escaped its reach. No form of power was excluded, no phenomenon too alien or abstract to be perceived.
It did not rely on classification.
It simply observed.
Through it, Axiros could sense every kind of energy, every deviation from the natural order, every fracture or ripple across existence. Its perception extended beyond defined limits, brushing against the infinite itself.
It allowed him to sense the limitless.
And now, in this new world, it had opened its eyes once more.
'Now what is this material?' Axiros looked around the room, his eyes darting around the material with curiosity.
A memory stirred at the back of his mind.
It wasn't vivid, not yet, more like a quiet pressure, an echo brushing against his thoughts. Something old, something heavy, waiting just beneath the surface. The kind of memory that didn't demand attention, but refused to be forgotten.
Axiros didn't reach for it.
He knew better than to force memories of his previous lives. It emerged slowly but surely.
'Wait, is it that? But how? How? How? How? How is it possible?' His thoughts were in clear disarray.
In that moment, he began to question his entire existence.
The certainty he had carried for so long wavered. Everything around him, his body, his memories, even the continuity of his own self, felt strangely false, as though reality itself were a carefully maintained illusion.
The weight of countless lives pressed in on him at once, blurring the line between who he was now and who he had been before.
For the first time in a long while, doubt crept in.
Not fear.
Not confusion.
But a quiet, unsettling sense that something fundamental had never been as solid as he believed.
'No… it can't be' he told himself. 'It simply can't.'
That life was finished. Ended completely. He had lived it, every moment of it, firsthand. There was no ambiguity, no missing pieces. He remembered the beginning, the struggle, the end. He knew it was over.
And yet the feeling wouldn't leave.
His thoughts circled endlessly, returning to the same conclusion only to reject it again. Denial layered upon denial, each one thinner than the last. He refused to examine the doubt too closely, afraid of what it might unravel if he did.
So he repeated it to himself, over and over.
'It was finished.
It had ended.'
It had to have ended.
But the certainty no longer felt absolute.
'How the fuck is this even possible? It fucking can't be. No. No. No..' He repeated over and over.
It took him hours to finally calm himself.
The process was anything but gentle. His thoughts fought one another relentlessly, rising and falling in uneven waves until exhaustion dulled their edge. Each attempt at reassurance felt hollow, every conclusion fragile, as though it might shatter the moment he examined it too closely.
He forced himself to breathe, slowly, deliberately, grounding his awareness in the present until the turmoil gradually subsided.
When it finally did, only a quiet bitterness remained.
He wished he had never learned its origin.
Some truths were not meant to be remembered.
'How is it possible?' he thought.
A material, an exact copy, crossing over into this life. That alone defied everything he understood. But what unsettled him even more was the energy signature. It was identical. Not similar. Not derived.
The same.
He took a moment to stabilise his racing breath and heart and spoke-
'Either somebody created an exact copy of this in this reality or something which I can't comprehend is going on.' He said now analysing his options.
He took a deep breath in and spoke-
'Either way around, I need to get to the bottom of this. There have been so many things which have gone wrong in this reincarnation. First my imprisonment in the void. Then this?'