Chapter 11: The Thing That Came Back With Him
Alex woke up choking.
Air tore violently into his lungs as his body convulsed, pain crashing down on him all at once. His throat burned. His chest felt like it was being crushed from the inside. He rolled onto his side and coughed, dark blood splattering against the cold stone floor of the ruin.
For several long seconds, he couldn't breathe properly.
His limbs shook uncontrollably as if they no longer trusted him to live.
When his vision finally steadied, the first thing Alex noticed was the silence.
No growls.
No pressure.
No presence looming over him.
Just stillness—thick and suffocating.
He pushed himself up weakly, every muscle screaming in protest. His body felt wrong. Heavy. Not broken the way he expected after everything he remembered… but not normal either.
That was when he saw them.
Kael was gone—what remained of him scattered across the ruined ground in a way Alex refused to stare at for long. Tavik lay nearby, eyes open yet empty, his face unnaturally calm. Mara's body was a few steps away, blood dried across her chest, expression frozen mid-thought.
Alex's breath hitched.
His hands trembled.
"No…" he whispered.
Then panic seized him.
"Liora!"
He crawled across the stone, ignoring the pain tearing through his body. She lay where the monster had dropped her, pale and motionless, her throat torn so badly it made his stomach twist.
He reached her and froze.
Her chest moved.
Barely.
So faint it felt unreal.
Alex pressed his fingers shakily against her neck. There—weak, uneven, but unmistakable—was a pulse.
"She's alive…" His voice cracked. "How?"
His eyes fell to her wound.
It should have killed her.
He knew that much.
Yet beneath the torn flesh, something faint shimmered—deep under the skin. Not the familiar glow of divine protection. Not a blessing.
Something darker.
Colder.
Alex staggered back, nausea rising sharply.
Fragments of memory slammed into him without warning.
Darkness.
A voice that wasn't his.
Shadows moving when he hadn't commanded them.
And then—his hands on Liora's neck.
Not choking.
Not killing.
Doing something else.
Alex recoiled as if burned.
"No… I didn't—" He clutched his head, breath coming fast. "I don't remember… I was dying."
The gaps terrified him more than the memories.
He swallowed hard and forced himself to move.
Whatever had happened, staying in the ruin wasn't an option.
The journey out felt endless.
Alex moved like a man half-awake, dragging Liora's fragile body through corridors stained with blood and ruin. Every step sent sharp pain through his legs, yet his body obeyed in a way it shouldn't have. He was exhausted—beyond exhausted—but something pushed him forward regardless.
He tried not to think about it.
When he finally emerged from the rift, the pale light of dawn washed over him.
Shouts erupted immediately.
"Someone's alive!"
"Is that—Liora?!"
"She was dead—she was dead!"
Hands reached for them. Medics rushed forward. Liora was taken from his arms, her faint heartbeat sending shockwaves through the gathered adventurers.
Alex barely registered any of it.
His vision swam.
His head throbbed.
The world felt slightly out of place—like he was half a step out of alignment with it.
At the Adventurer Guild, chaos followed.
Healers swarmed Liora, voices overlapping in disbelief. Guild officials pulled Alex aside, forcing him to sit while they treated his wounds.
Too quickly.
That's when he noticed it.
Cuts that should have taken weeks to close sealed within hours. Deep gashes faded into angry scars. His body felt sore—but functional.
Unnaturally so.
"What happened inside the rift?" a guild officer demanded.
Alex stared at his hands.
"…It talked," he said quietly.
The room went still.
"The monster," Alex clarified. "It spoke like a human. It knew things. It… worshipped something."
Several officials exchanged tense looks.
"What killed it?" another asked sharply. "A B-rank doesn't just disappear."
Alex swallowed.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "I was dying. I think I passed out."
"That's impossible," someone snapped.
Alex looked up, eyes hollow.
"So is Liora being alive," he replied.
No one had an answer for that.
Later, alone in the infirmary, Alex sat on the edge of a bed, staring at his reflection in a cracked mirror. His face looked the same—but his eyes felt different.
Deeper.
He pressed a hand against his chest.
His heartbeat felt heavier than it should. Slower. Stronger.
He didn't hear voices.
Didn't see messages.
Didn't feel anything supernatural.
And that frightened him most of all.
Across the hall, Liora lay unconscious but alive. The healers whispered about it. About how her body refused to let go. About an unfamiliar energy stabilizing her from within.
Alex looked down at his hands again.
"I don't know what happened to you," he murmured, thinking of her. Thinking of himself. "But whatever it was… it shouldn't exist."
Far beyond ruined Earth, in places where gods watched the flow of worlds like pieces on a board—
Something ancient shifted its gaze.
Not urgently.
Not aggressively.
With interest.
A law long buried adjusted slightly.
And without knowing it, Alex Rim walked back into human society carrying something that would one day tear the universe open.
Something that had chosen him.
Something that was waiting.