Thales, with his abyssal eyes, peered into the expanse of this "Place."
He was disoriented—his senses spiralling in revolt. He felt like throwing up, forced to reconcile memories he once lost with those that were never his to begin with. Now they were being torn from him again.
A fog of immeasurable darkness followed as a distant melody drifted in—a lullaby.
He stumbled forward and found himself in a golden garden, vibrant and blooming. Yet with each step he took, the earth beneath him withered into rot.
"Well, that's depressing," he mumbled.
Such was the path of his bloodline. Unfiltered. Raw. Destructive by presence alone.
Still, he continued—until he saw her. Not fully, just a shimmer at first, like a firefly against sunlight.
And then, with a voice unusually soft, he asked:
"I'm sorry I interrupted your peaceful sanctuary… but my dear—may I have this dance?"
For him, it was like moving through a snow globe—sealed in fragility.
For her, she was sunlight itself: radiant, untouchable, the unconquered sun.
And yet she took his hand.
She sang the melody he remembered—but could not place. Not yet.
They danced.
Their steps were ferocious: seven that brought down heaven, seven that sank the earth. The interplay of light and dark spun like wildfire in a storm of opposites.
And in this chaos: joy.
They danced in snow, in rain, in collapsing stars.
She passed through light like a ghost; Thales bowed through shadow like a prince of dusk. They spun together in perfect double-time, like lovers suspended in eternity.
And for a moment... Thales felt elated. Alive. Entranced by joy and memory. Enthralled by something real.
He threw her upward, lifting her toward the starlit sky like a coronation of light.
Then—
the stars exploded.
The sky cracked. A meteor shower of agony fell.
The angelic light was shot down by self-made cannon fire.
Her face, once brilliant, now twisted in horror. A veil of shadow swallowed her radiance whole.
He tried to catch her—but too late.
And then—he remembered.
The black sheep who tarnished the sun.
His mistake.
Her name.
"*******!"
"WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME AGAIN?!"
Shadowy puppet-hands raised her like a martyr into the sky.
Her lips curled into a cruel, knowing smile.
She spoke, in a tone colder than winter:
"You couldn't save me.
You could never be my prince."
He saw her in an icy tower, spiralling endlessly into the unreachable.
The world froze.
A knight on a white Pegasus rose toward her—sword drawn.
The knight slashed the shadows, slew the dragons, shattered the tower.
The knight didn't make her wait an eternity.
And Thales… just stood there. Frozen.
"I'm not enough," he whispered.
Then louder:
"Well then… I'll become it all. Everything and everyone.
Free.
What can stop the strongest being whose mere thoughts paint existence?"
He laughed—wild, broken, divine.
"Haha... *******... *******! Your knight-errant is coming."
His new cultivation answered.
Thales stole time itself from the knight—the rushing saviour who dared try to replace him.
He laughed again.
"Yes… now I will have all the time in the world.
Duration means nothing to me in my righteous quest.
Who can stop me now?
If they have time to stop me—
Then I will remove that."
"I walk through time."
It began to rain. Then the raindrops froze midair.
In Thales' city of time, all was still.
And then—he woke up again.
Back in the labyrinth.
"Like a god, all was still—
And then I wake, and it all flows again."
"I march like time's arrow.
Backward and forward.
The hands of time.
I understand the preciousness of time—
And I will not lose sight of The Mystery
in all time."