He finished his meal quickly, far quicker than usual, eagerness seeping into every movement.
"I am going now, ma. I'm going to open the presents!" he announced, already halfway to the stairs.
He vanished upward in a blur.
His mother smiled softly at his retreating figure and returned to her meal, outwardly calm. Inwardly, her senses spread out in absolute silence, threading through the house with careful precision. She wanted to monitor the process—every fluctuation, every reaction.
Axiros caught it instantly.
A faint smirk tugged at his lips as he climbed the stairs. He had anticipated this. There was no way she would let him open those gifts without oversight. Her caution only confirmed his suspicions.
Whatever lay within those boxes was not merely valuable.
It was dangerous.
He entered his room and closed the door behind him, the familiar space suddenly feeling far more confined. From beneath his bed, he retrieved the four boxes and placed them carefully on the floor, arranging them in a neat line.
Each box radiated its own presence.
Their auras were distinct, oppressive in different ways, one heavy and crushing, another sharp and invasive, another cold and distant. They were restrained only by the boxes themselves, the engravings etched into their surfaces acting as absolute suppressors.
Axiros inhaled deeply.
He reached for the first box, the very first gift his mother had given him, on his first birthday.
The moment the seal broke, an aura enveloped him.
It was not hostile. It was protective.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he analyzed it. The shielding wasn't meant to protect him from the item within, it was meant to protect everything else from reacting. Possibly even from his mother's senses. Or from the runes collapsing under the pressure.
His eyes pierced through the veil instantly.
The aura of the item inside was overwhelming. Dense. Alive.
Then he saw it.
A heart.
Not metaphorically, an actual heart, suspended within the box, still pulsing rhythmically. Each beat sent ripples of power through the surrounding space, energy surging and retreating in perfect cycles. The glow surrounding it was ethereal, almost sacred, yet deeply unsettling.
With every pulse, his vision fractured.
Broken timelines flashed before him. Undefined realities twisted and folded, dancing wildly in synchrony with the heart's rhythm. Futures that never came to pass. Pasts that should not have existed. Each beat altered its presence, its aura swelling and receding like a cosmic breath.
Axiros felt his chest tighten, not in fear, but recognition.
He took a slow, steady breath.
And thought,
'Wahh? This is crazy. What did she even kill to give me this? How did she even manage to kill a being which possessed this?' Completely and utterly confused.
"Honey, drop a single drop of blood onto it. You will form a bond with it." His mother's voice rang out from the hall.
"Oh, okay." He replied innocently, putting on a fake act. He already knew what to do.
He did not hesitate.
Axiros pricked his finger and let a single drop of blood fall onto the pulsing heart.
The reaction was immediate, and violent.
Runes burst forth into the air, tearing themselves free from unseen constraints. They hovered chaotically, spinning and colliding as raw energy surged without direction. Space itself seemed to shudder as power clumped together in indefinable, writhing masses.
The heart rose from the box.
It throbbed fiercely, beating faster now, its will asserting itself with terrifying force. It resisted the bond instinctively, violently, attempting to break free and escape. The intent it radiated was absolute, primal, ancient, unyielding.
But resistance was meaningless.
Axiros's body lifted from the floor as well, drawn upward by the convergence of power. At the same time, he spread a thin, precise layer of existential energy throughout his soul space, sealing it tightly. Residual wills were dangerous things.
He knew this better than anyone.
Hearts, especially ones like this, almost always carried remnants of their original owner, fragments of intent, obsession, or rage. Axiros had learned that lesson the hard way, across lives stained with failure and near annihilation.
The heart drifted toward him.
It phased through his chest as though flesh, bone, and matter were nothing more than suggestions. There was no resistance, no tearing—only inevitability.
It aligned itself with his original heart.
Then it merged.
The fusion was slow. Agonizingly so.
Power spread through his body in relentless waves, rewriting pathways, reinforcing structures, forcing his existence to adapt. The pain was overwhelming, enough to shatter lesser beings instantly, to rupture souls and erase identities.
Axiros did not scream.
Pain was an old companion. A familiar presence he had long since stopped fearing. Compared to the void, compared to eternity spent alone with one's own consciousness, this was almost comforting.
Minutes passed.
The pulsing stabilized.
The glow dimmed.
The heart fused completely, becoming indistinguishable from his own.
He exhaled slowly. He could check out his gains later. There was always time.
There was a residue, faint, buried deep within the heart. A dormant will, quiet and suppressed. He had already scanned it during the fusion and found no immediate threat.
Still, caution was habit.
Axiros layered existential energy seals over it with surgical precision, locking it down completely.
A final precaution.
Only then did he allow himself to relax, just slightly.
Three boxes remained.
He reached for the second box.
It was identical to the first, same construction, same rune patterns engraved along its surface, the same restrained yet oppressive energy signature pulsing faintly beneath the seals. There was no mistaking it. Whatever method his mother had used to obtain these, she had done so with deliberate consistency.
Axiros took a slow breath and opened it.
The aura surged outward instantly, slamming into him like a tidal wave. Space distorted for a brief moment, the air bending under the pressure.
He remained unmoved.
The protective barrier around him flared once, then stabilized. It absorbed the force effortlessly, its purpose proven once again.
Inside the box rested a bracelet.
At first glance, it looked simple, almost deceptively so. A smooth band, unadorned, lacking the extravagance one would expect from an artifact of such magnitude. There were no visible gemstones, no excessive ornamentation.
Yet the longer one looked, the more wrong it felt.
Space curved subtly around it, lines bending where they shouldn't. Time itself seemed to hesitate in its presence, flowing unevenly, stretching and compressing in imperceptible pulses. The bracelet existed slightly out of sync with reality, as though it occupied multiple moments at once.
Axiros's eyes traced its structure.
Layers upon layers of folded space were compressed into its form, while temporal anchors stabilized it from tearing itself apart. The craftsmanship was absurdly precise, beyond what most civilizations could even conceptualize.
This was not an accessory.
It was a regulator.
A control mechanism for space and time.
And someone, his mother, had given it to him as a gift.
'Hmm, a storage unit. Sweet. But why is it so powerful?' Axiros recognized its presence and aura.
What startled him was not its function, but its presence.
Despite its compact form, the bracelet's existence dwarfed everything else in the room. The air felt heavier around it, reality subtly yielding as though acknowledging something far greater than itself. Compared to the heart, this artifact was quieter, but far more absolute.
Once again, Axiros pricked his finger and let a single drop of blood fall onto the bracelet.
This time, there was no violent reaction.
No surging runes. No chaotic upheaval.
Only silence.
The bracelet accepted him.
It dissolved into motes of light, vanishing from the box entirely, only to reappear a moment later around his wrist. It settled there naturally, as though it had always belonged, locking itself into place without resistance.
He tried, out of instinct, to move it.
It didn't budge.
Not even slightly.
The bracelet was now part of him, bound by laws he had yet to explore. It radiated restraint rather than force, secrets layered deep within its structure—secrets that would reveal themselves only when the time was right.
Axiros did not rush it.
He turned to the third box.
The moment he opened it, the room warped.
Inside lay a key.
Its form was simple, almost mundane, yet its presence alone bent the dimensional fabric. Space folded subtly around it, layers of reality brushing against one another as though the key acted as a point of convergence.
This was not a key meant for a door.
It was a key meant for existence itself.
He dropped a drop of blood onto it, completing his bond. He kept it aside for a but.
'A sealing key? Or an all opening key? Nonetheless extremely useful, thank you ma.' He thanked his mother silently within his heart.
He did not linger.
Axiros moved on to the fourth box, opening it immediately after the third, one seal giving way after another in smooth succession. By now, his movements were calm, practiced, there was no hesitation left in him.
The final box opened without ceremony.
Inside lay a cloak.
At first glance, it looked almost laughably simple. No radiance spilled out. No oppressive aura flooded the room. No distortion of space or time announced its presence.
And yet,
Axiros froze.
His eyes widened imperceptibly.
The cloak did not exist, and yet it undeniably did.
Its presence was erased so completely that reality itself refused to acknowledge it. There was no energy signature to trace, no fluctuation to follow, no shadow cast where one should have been. It was as though the concept of the cloak had been excised from perception.
Only with his Absolute Apertured Eyes did he barely manage to perceive it.
Even then, it was faint, less an object and more a contradiction. A thin outline where nothing should be. A suggestion of form imposed upon emptiness.
This was not concealment.
This was non-recognition.
A cloak that did not hide its wearer, but removed them from the act of being perceived altogether.
Axiros slowly exhaled.
Whatever had been used to craft this… it was not meant to exist. And whoever could wield it freely was someone the world itself could never find.
His mother had given him that.
'What the actual fuck? Why is there such an advanced mechanism, that too for a cloak?' He told.
He had seen many things across his countless lives.
Rare artifacts. Condemned relics. Concepts forged into form. Yet even among those, this stood apart.
This was a gem among gems, an absolute prize.
Without hesitation, Axiros let a single drop of blood fall onto the cloak.
Once again, there was no reaction.
No surge. No resistance.
Only simple, unquestioning acceptance.
The cloak vanished.
In the next instant, it had attached itself to him completely. There was no sensation of weight, no shift in balance, no visible sign that anything had changed.
To the world, Axiros stood exactly as he was before.
And yet, it was there.
Wrapped around him, layered over his existence itself, cloaked so thoroughly that even presence was denied. It did not conceal him with shadows or distortions, it erased the very notion that something was being worn.
Even his Absolute Apertured Eyes could barely perceive it now, the cloak blending so seamlessly into him that it was indistinguishable from his own being.
Axiros stood silently, absorbing the moment.
Four gifts.
Each more absurd than the last.
And all of them, without question, had come from his mother.
Then-
Time around him stopped.
Not slowed. Not distorted.
Stopped.
Reality froze mid-breath. Dust hung motionless in the air. Light itself halted, trapped between moments. Beyond the room, beyond the house, beyond the world, timelines folded in on themselves, collapsing like brittle glass under impossible pressure.
Past, present, and future lost their distinction.
It was absolute anarchy.
Axiros felt it instantly.
This was not the result of the artifacts. Not backlash. Not resonance. This was intervention.
A presence pressed down upon existence itself, vast, formless, and indifferent. Laws screamed as they were overridden. Causality unraveled, reduced to something optional.
Axiros's mind sharpened.
'Why is a higher being involving right now?' he questioned, his thoughts precise despite the chaos.
He had been careful. Meticulous. Every seal, every bond, every precaution accounted for. Nothing he had done warranted this level of response. Whatever had frozen reality had done so deliberately, without warning, without negotiation.
A being that could halt timelines so casually did not act on impulse.
Which meant one thing.
They had noticed him.
Or worse,
They had noticed what had been given to him.
Axiros remained still, his existence tightly compressed, every trace of himself locked down beneath layers of suppression. His cloak denied perception. His bracelet stabilized the collapsing framework around him. His heart pulsed steadily, anchoring him to continuity even as continuity itself broke down.