Youri watched Lea in silence as she came closer, calm and deliberate in every movement, like someone who had long ago learned to exist without urgency. She circled him slowly, her sharp, observant gaze passing over every inch of his battered body, and her gloved fingers hovered near his shoulder without ever quite touching it, as though she were searching for something unseen — something deeper than flesh.
"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice strained but steady.
She didn't answer at once. She tilted her head slightly, studying him, and then spoke in the same low, measured tone. "I'm trying to understand how you're still alive."
Youri frowned. "That's not an answer."
"It is the only one that matters," she said. "People don't survive encounters with Tikadello. Not the way you did."
He let out a slow breath as the memory of the fight flashed through his mind — the crushing force, the endless cold, the overwhelming presence of something far beyond him — and looked away, his jaw tightening. "I didn't survive," he muttered. "Not really."
Her gaze sharpened, but she said nothing, and after a moment he raised his head again. "I was brought here. This wasn't my choice."
Something in her posture shifted — slightly, but unmistakably. "Brought?"
He nodded. "By something. Or someone. You don't happen to know the name Altopereh, do you?"
For the first time, Lea froze. It wasn't fear — not exactly — but something in her tightened. Her hand curled into a fist beneath the folds of her cloak, and she turned her head toward the mouth of the cave, away from his eyes. "I see…" she murmured.
Youri noticed. "You know it."
She didn't answer that directly. She took a slow step forward, her gaze fixed on the distant horizon beyond the cave. "That still doesn't explain why you were in Tikadello's domain," she said quietly.
He blinked. "Tikadello?"
She turned back to him. "The creature that nearly tore you apart. Tikadello the Frozen. One of the oldest rulers in Tartarus."
His face hardened. "That thing has a name?"
"They all do," Lea said. "Names, and histories. Far older than anything you understand." She started toward the entrance, her cloak trailing behind her like a shadow stretching over the stone. "That machine of yours," she added without looking back, "is barely holding together. And worse — it reeks of him."
Youri pushed himself slowly to his feet, wincing as pain shot through his ribs. "Yeah," he said under his breath. "I figured as much."
She paused at the threshold. "I'll take a look at it. If it can be fixed, I'll know." And she stepped outside.
Youri stood for a moment looking at the empty space she had left behind while his mind raced. None of it made sense — this world, these creatures, Lea, and most of all the fact that he wasn't alone. He staggered forward with one hand pressed to his side and made his way to the entrance. The moment he stepped out, the world opened before him and stole the breath from his lungs.
This was no frozen wasteland like the domain he had just escaped. An immense, rocky expanse stretched out before him, jagged and wild, as if the land had been shattered and reforged countless times. Towering cliffs rose in uneven layers with sharp, broken edges that threw long shadows over the ground, and massive stone pillars jutted from the earth like ancient spears, some standing tall, others cracked and leaning at impossible angles. And then there were the floating formations — entire slabs of rock hanging in midair with nothing beneath them, drifting slowly as though caught in an unseen current, some turning lazily and grinding against each other with deep, echoing groans, others perfectly still in defiance of all logic. The sky was no less strange: a deep crimson void streaked with darker currents, like blood flowing through invisible veins, with no sun and no stars, only an ever-present glow that lit the world in an eerie, dim light.
Youri stepped forward, his eyes moving across the endless terrain. "This place…" he whispered. "It's completely different."
A powerful gust surged through the cliffs, howling like a distant chorus and carrying dust and fragments of stone that brushed against his face and clothes. Then a massive shadow passed overhead. He looked up just in time to see it. Gaisen. The colossal creature soared through the sky in silent dominance, its wings stretched wide and cutting the air in slow, deliberate beats. Its form, which had once seemed so terrifying, looked almost natural here — like a ruler surveying its domain. For a brief moment, as it glided between the floating pillars, it seemed far more graceful than monstrous, like a great bird riding the currents of its own world.
Youri stared, captivated. "It doesn't feel like a monster here," he muttered.
"Because it isn't."
Lea's voice came from behind him, and he turned. She stood just within the cave's shadow with her hood lifted slightly by the wind, showing faint strands of silver hair beneath it; her masked face was unreadable, but her presence carried a quiet weight. "You should be resting."
He shook his head. "I can't." He looked back out at the vast expanse. "If I stay still, I feel like I'll disappear here. Like I'll lose myself."
She stepped up beside him, following his gaze. "And become a ghost?" she asked softly.
He didn't answer, but his silence was enough.
The wind picked up again, stronger, pulling at his hair and her cloak alike. After a moment he spoke. "How did you find me? Back there, in that ice hell."
Her eyes moved toward the distant horizon. "Tartarus is not random chaos. It may look that way to you, but it isn't." She took a slow step forward, her voice steady but far away, as though she were recalling something ancient. "It is a realm of domains, each one ruled by a being you would call a monster — but that word is too simple. They are not creations. They were not born from something greater. They are what remains."
"Remains of what?"
She turned to him. "Of everything." He frowned, and she went on. "Every ruler in Tartarus was once something else. A being. A soul. A will. Just like you. They were shaped by this place — or perhaps they shaped it." The wind howled louder between the cliffs. "Tartarus feeds on whatever enters it. Time, memory, identity. It takes everything, slowly, until all that remains is something new. Something absolute."
Youri clenched his fist. "You're saying they became those things?"
She nodded slightly.
"And you?" he asked. "What are you, then?"
She looked away again. "I told you. I'm just a ghost."
He stepped closer. "That's not an answer."
She didn't reply. Instead she lifted her gaze to the crimson sky. "Do you know what Tartarus truly is?"
Youri stayed silent, and when her voice came again it was softer, but it carried a weight that made the very air feel heavier. "Tartarus is not a prison. Not a world. Not even a dimension." She turned slowly to face him. "It is where everything begins, and everything ends. This place is older than creation itself."
For a moment the wind fell silent, as if the world itself were listening.
"Tartarus," she said, "is the origin of all things."
Youri stood there staring at her, unable to speak. And for the first time since arriving in that broken, impossible world, he truly understood. He wasn't just lost. He was standing at the beginning of everything.