Chapter 74: Three Different Branching Ends
Samael stood quietly for a moment, her eyes trailing across the lines of the shrine carved into Yoiglah’s shell, as though reading ancient verses that no longer spoke aloud. Her wings tightened once, her horns tilting ever so slightly in thought before she finally broke the silence.
"It appears," she began, her voice even, "that not everyone resets with each timeline cycle. There’s a... selection. A criterion."
Kivas raised an eyebrow. Her halo dimmed for a moment, as though reacting to the implication.
Samael continued, "When you die, the world resets. We’ve confirmed that, twice now. You carry your skills, your memories, your progress—but it doesn’t seem like you’re the only one who persists. I came back with you. So did Yoiglah. I think it’s not a coincidence."
Kivas crossed her arms, brushing back her windblown hair with a slow hand. "Then what do you think determines it?"
Samael turned to her fully, gaze narrowing. "Spiritual resonance. That’s my theory. I’m your soulmate—our Wells of the Soul are intertwined in a sense that you have embedded the Genesis Core onto my being. Yoiglah, on the other hand, is your shrine bearer. His entire existence is knotted to your divinity too in that sense."
Yoiglah’s massive form shifted in acknowledgment. His great, rumbling voice followed with a low cadence. "I am indeed anchored to her sanctity. Her presence fuels the shrine’s growth. Where she exists, I am willed to remain."
Kivas turned her attention downward, staring at the moss-laden ground beneath her feet. "Then what happened?" Her voice was quiet, but a tremor haunted its edges. "Back then. At the end. How... did I die?"
Kivas’ fingers twitched as she brought both hands up, clutching her temples as if trying to hold the pieces of a broken memory together. "I remember it all, but... it doesn’t sit right. I remember you fighting. Yoiglah was gone, devoured by hundreds of teeth of the fleshy mass. Lyenar was taken. The sky turned to a ceiling of flesh and eyes, and the ground swallowed prayers like corpses..."
Kivas then proceeded to elaborate the entire thing, including the red hooded individual, the time anomaly, and how it appeared like Kivas was not in the picture at all when everyone was striving for survival.
Her explanation triggered Samael and Yoiglah to voice out their point of view.