A Fragmented Eternity and the Rebirth of Memory

Time ground to an absolute halt.

The precise realization that the macro-level progression of the world had fractured registered the exact moment I caught Kaian’s collapsing, weightless form within my arms.

The crimson bursts of flame Kallios had unleashed across the battlefield, the tangled masses of monsters and imperial knights locked in a desperate struggle, and even a warhorse frozen mid-rearing while its muzzle remained parted in a silent, structural shriek—every single element was completely immobilized, locked within that solitary increment of existence.

Exactly what mechanism had engineered this structural anomaly?

The brief query surfaced within my consciousness only to vanish instantly. At this current juncture, the reality that time had ‘merely’ ceased to progress was an issue of absolute insignificance. Kallios tightly embraced Kaian’s physical frame, which felt remarkably more hollow and emaciated than the last time his eyes had cataloged his brother’s form.

“Kaian.”

Pressing his lips directly against the shell of the elder’s ear, Kallios delivered a quiet, desperate whisper.

“I have arrived.”

Absolutely zero verbal acknowledgement returned. Extending his fingers with absolute caution, Kallios hovered his hand right beneath Kaian’s nose before sliding his palm downward to rest flatly over the center of the chest.

Kaian was failing to execute a single breath. Kaian’s heart refused to beat.

“Kaian.”

Kallios gently stroked Kaian’s bloodless, ash-white cheek. The residual internal heat lingering within the elder’s frame transferred directly into his palm. It felt intensely hot.

“Older brother. Everything is perfectly fine now. I…”

…will protect you.

Swallowing the unuttered declaration deep into his throat, Kallios traced the surface of the peacefully closed eyelids before pressing his lips squarely against Kaian’s. Forcing his own breath past the tightly shut lips into the interior of the lungs, he called his title once more.

“Older brother…”

A sharp, violent tremor commencing from the absolute tips of Kallios’s fingers radiated instantly throughout his entire anatomy. Attempting to escape the suffocating sensation that threatened to constrict his windpipe, he forced a heavy, ragged sigh past his teeth before sealing his lips against Kaian’s once more.

Despite executing the resuscitation sequence countless times, Kaian failed to expel a single breath in return.

“Kaian.”

Resting his forehead flatly against Kaian’s brow, Kallios closed his eyes. His eyelids felt intensely hot and thoroughly parched.

The exact fraction of a second prior to the total cessation of time… Kallios had undeniably captured a sharp, resonant cracking sound echoing through the space.

That was the structural audio of the heart he had previously surrendered to Kaian completely shattering. It was the definitive sound marking the absolute conclusion of the life Kallios had expended immense effort to patch together.

Kaian’s fragile mortal vessel had been forced to contain a volume of power far too grand for its baseline parameters. Had Kallios failed to execute timely structural repairs on Kaian’s internal reservoir and heart, the elder’s existence would have fractured and scattered into absolute nothingness long ago. However, because Kaian harbored an intense desire to survive and Kallios desperately yearned for his living presence, Kallios had willingly severed exactly half of his personal life force to deposit it within his frame. He had operated under the absolute conviction that executing this action would facilitate their eternal coexistence.

He had trusted that outcome.

He had craved it.

Then for what reason, by what cruel metric, had reality culminated in this disaster?

An intense urge surfaced within Kallios to wrap his hands around his own throat and compress. He desired to violently crush his own searing eyeballs into dust. He wanted to plunge his fingers deep into his chest cavity to rip out the heart that was currently beating with such obnoxious, solitary clamor inside a completely frozen universe. He yearned to tear his personal limbs into ragged fragments and scatter them into a blazing furnace to endure eternal incineration. He desired to achieve death utilizing the absolute most agonizing methodology imaginable.

Forcibly relaxing the immense tension that had commenced to coil within his hands, he extended his fingers to trace the contours of Kaian’s cheek with absolute gentleness.

“Older brother. Please rise from your slumber.”

The elder was an individual who, rather than choosing the absolute peace of death, had explicitly desired to maintain a painful, arduous existence. Because he had craved that outcome with such profound intensity, Kallios had ‘bestowed’ life upon him. While personally slicing open his own chest to hack his heart into fragments, Kallios had harbored a singular thought:

Since I am the entity supplying this life, his survival and his ultimate demise belong exclusively to me.

…

Kallios utilized his hand to rub away the moisture accumulating over Kaian’s cheek. It was a thoroughly bizarre phenomenon. The elder had closed his eyes while flashing a peaceful smile, yet no matter how many times Kallios wiped the skin, the heat-laden cheek remained completely drenched. Falling prey to a deep anxiety that his coarse touch might scrape or injure the elder’s delicate flesh, Kallios utilized the fabric of his imperial robes to gently press against the dripping moisture. The surface of Kallios’s busy hands became thoroughly soaked in an instant. “Older brother,” Kallios called out, his voice entirely choked with unshed emotion as he retracted his clenched fist to press it squarely against his own chest.

He had foolishly believed that surrendering half of his existence constituted an absolute salvation for the elder.

What a pathetic assumption.

He had idiotically reasoned that relinquishing half of his life force meant the elder’s survival transitioned into his personal property.

How thoroughly moronic.

For what reason had his past self concluded that exactly half would suffice?

He should have surrendered the absolute entirety…

The violent onslaught of regret caused his breathing to fracture into rapid, shallow gasps. A torrent of bitter remorse became intricately entangled within his harsh exhalations. Kallios began hammering his fist directly over the heart that stubbornly continued to beat despite losing half its structural mass. Thud. Thud. Thud. Possessing half was a baseline necessity to ensure he could remain by the elder’s side. Retaining the remaining half was required to guarantee he could operate as his shield.

He had simply failed to anticipate a scenario where this organ would continue to beat inside a universe completely devoid of the elder’s existence.

Since we share a divided heart, our ultimate conclusion should naturally unfold together. That is the single, absolute law…

The universe ground to a halt, causing the elder’s personal timeline to freeze. Or perhaps the structural reality was the exact inverse.

The elder’s timeline froze, commanding the entire universe to grind to a halt.

Encircled by an absolute, flawless vacuum of silence, Kallios remained completely submerged within a sea of profound loss. He blamed himself, he blamed the structural matrix of the world, and he blamed the elder—before ultimately directing his deepest resentment toward his own cowardice for failing to surrender his entire existence, spending the frozen hours in absolute solitude. He endured a fleeting fraction of a second that stretched into an eternity, an eternity that compressed into a mere instant.

Every single day, every single minute, every single second, Kallios harbored an intense desire to achieve death. Yet, executing that action remained a structural impossibility. The surface of Kaian’s cheek resting beneath his fingertips maintained a persistent warmth. Kaian’s non-breathing, non-beating physical frame remained anchored within Kallios’s embrace. The macro-level universe was entirely frozen, and Kaian’s existence mirrored that exact state.

If the progression of time suddenly resumed its forward momentum, a distinct possibility existed that Kaian would expel the residual breath Kallios had forced into his lungs and part his eyelids. Kallios desperately desired to witness Kaian looking back at him. He yearned to capture the exact cadence of the elder’s voice articulating the name ‘Kallios.’ He missed him profoundly. This longing persisted despite the reality that he had held the elder tightly throughout the entire duration of that eternal instant, that compressed eternity.

Because if their eyes failed to lock, they were structurally not together.

Clutching an emotion that hovered ambiguously between a desperate prayer and an absolute certainty that they would be reunited the exact moment this long, condensed silence concluded, Kallios maintained his vigil.

Within a universe where absolutely every element was frozen, Kallios’s personal timeline was the single, solitary force that continued to flow.

Utilizing a hand that had transformed into a skeletal, heavily wrinkled structure over the passage of time, Kallios gently touched the closed eyelids of Kaian, whose frame remained remarkably warm. His completely silvered, white hair had grown in a chaotic, unrestricted fashion, scattering across the surface of the floorboards. His ancient joints, thoroughly eroded by the weight of centuries, emitted a sharp creak every single time he executed a physical movement with his arms.

A distinct possibility loomed that the absolute duration of time permitted to Kallios would conclude prior to the exact moment Kaian opened his eyes. Pressing his forehead flatly against Kaian’s, sealing his lips against the elder’s to rub them gently, and drawing the limp, unresponsive anatomy close to his chest, Kallios unleashed a desperate internal plea.

Please…

[‘■■ ■■■■■.’]

A sudden wave of static distortion fractured the perfect silence. Kallios opened and closed his fist. His ancient, decrepit joints refused to comply with his mental commands.

If the elder awakened only to behold Kallios’s current appearance, he would likely fall prey to immense shock. While this interval constituted an incredibly protracted vigil for Kallios, to the elder’s consciousness, it would appear as though his ‘younger brother’ had mysteriously aged a lifetime within the blink of an eye. Exactly what explanation should he articulate to soothe his bewildered form? If he announced that he had maintained a continuous vigil waiting for his return, the elder’s tender heart would naturally plunge into deep sorrow, meaning it would be structurally superior to claim he had fallen victim to a demonic curse.

[‘Yo■ ■■.’]

The auditory hallucination resonated through his consciousness once more.

[‘Wak■.’]

What exactly was this?

[‘Gra■■.’]

Throughout his long isolation, Kallios had cataloged a staggering volume of visual phantoms and heard an even greater quantity of auditory illusions. The vast majority were reflective visions tracing historical incidents spent alongside Kaian, while a fraction constituted idealized scenarios Kallios desperately craved.

Yet, among that immense archive, absolutely zero references to a ‘bow’ had ever manifested. Was this a novel structural pattern engineered by his deteriorating mind? Realizing anew that his cognitive faculties had fractured significantly, Kallios pressed his cheek flatly against Kaian’s.

It was exclusively the lingering warmth radiating from Kaian’s frame that had preserved Kallios’s life through the thousands and tens of thousands of instances he had desired to perish.

[‘■■mmit. Is an■one e■se even go■ng to r■spond?’]

Kallios froze entirely, suppressing his breath.

[‘Kall■■os!’]

Though the audio was heavily garbled and compressed, he possessed the immediate capacity to discern that the voice currently resonating did not belong to Kaian.

Furthermore, throughout the immense duration of his vigil, Kallios had never once encountered an auditory hallucination that utilized a vocal print alternative to Kaian’s.

“A bow?”

A thoroughly fractured, raspy vocalization escaped his throat, a consequence of leaving his vocal cords unutilized for centuries.

[‘■an you hear me?’]

“Are you commanding me to grasp the bow?”

“Th■t’s righ■, grab the one right n■xt to your position!”

A pitch-black composite bow was resting over the floorboards a short distance away. Navigating across the space utilizing his knees, Kallios advanced toward the weapon and wrapped his fingers around the grip.

[‘Dam■ it, f*ck! Do you possess any r■alization of exactly how long I have been call■ng your name?’]

The auditory transmission achieved a fraction more clarity. Supporting Kaian’s limp anatomy so that the elder’s frame rested securely against his chest, Kallios carefully gripped the bow utilizing both of his hands.

[‘Kall■os.’]

“What is the meaning of this?”

[‘There is zero t■me to offer a structural expl■nation. At this rate, your own ex■stence is going to conclude as well.’]

“There is zero time to explain?”

[‘You truly r■semble your older brot■er in the absolute worst ways. Exactly how much of my vocal transm■ssion can your consciousness decode right now?’]

“The vast majority.”

Though distinct segments remained heavily compressed and garbled, it wasn’t to a degree that rendered the underlying meaning impossible to decipher. Prompted by Kallios’s confirmation, the vocalizations emerging from the bow—Arjen—accelerated significantly.

[‘It appears Capr■’s structural interference was rem■rkably severe. Though it makes sense. The f■rce field generated by the P■rtal has completely van■shed. At any rate, Kall■os, we are entirely out of t■me.’]

Despite the reality that this was the first external voice he had encountered over the span of several decades, Kallios failed to experience a single shred of curiosity. Discerning Kallios’s absolute emotional stagnation, Arjen unleashed a frantic vocalization.

[‘Kai■n!’]

Kallios, whose focus had been entirely anchored on Kaian’s facial features, abruptly lifted his gaze.

[‘A structural m■thodology exists to sav■ Kaian!’]

Kallios desperately desired to behold Kaian’s eyes once more.

[‘An individual currently ex■sts who has received the supreme bles■ing of the Dragon, if we utilize that entity…’]

The vigil endured for the realization of that solitary desire had been far too protracted.

That was the single, absolute reason he complied instantly with the sudden commands emerging from the ‘bow.’

A profound, crushing wave of slumber—a sensation that had failed to manifest even once throughout the years or decades he had spent waiting for Kaian to open his eyes—surged over his consciousness like a massive tsunami. Kallios forced his eyelids open with absolute desperation, yet maintaining his focus proved structurally impossible. The surrounding landscape began to blur and intermix before plunging into absolute, pitch-black darkness.

And the exact moment he parted his eyelids once more, Kallios located his existence nestled amidst an immense, shifting crowd of ‘moving human beings.’

The primary object that materialized within his visual field was a low dining table that hovered below knee height. Beneath the wooden structure, a pair of legs clad in dark trousers was entirely visible. Blinking his eyes rapidly while compressing his temples to dispel the deep cognitive fog, Kallios processed the structural reality that his physical form had been resting in a reclined posture.

As Kallios forced his disheveled frame into a sitting position, a middle-aged woman extended a gentle, warm vocalization: “Why on earth are you sleeping out here instead of stepping inside the room to rest properly?” His eyebrows knit together in a sharp frown before smoothly relaxing. The individual was ‘my’ maternal aunt. Despite the reality that the demise of her younger sister caused her an agonizing volume of grief, she was a thoroughly compassionate individual who feigned absolute stability simply to care for the vulnerable children her sister had left behind.

As his consciousness fully awakened, a massive torrent of localized memories surged into his mind.

‘My’ identity was Jung Eun-ho.

Our father had succumbed to cancer during my elementary school years, and from that historical juncture onward, our mother had executed every imaginable form of grueling labor to raise the ‘three brothers’ independently. The three brothers. An older sibling currently executing his mandatory military obligations, and a twin younger brother. While returning home from her corporate shift, our mother was forcefully struck by a drunk driver, perishing instantly at the scene…

A violent wave of profound sorrow crashed over his soul. Kallios aggressively rubbed his burning eyes with his bare hand. This immense grief belonged exclusively to ‘Jung Eun-ho,’ not Kallios. While he possessed an absolute comprehension of how agonizing it was to lose a cherished individual, he reasoned that loudly weeping over a sorrow that wasn’t genuinely his own constituted an act of supreme deception, prompting him to firmly suppress the sob threatening to rupture from his throat. The sight of his younger twin, ‘Jung Eun-soo,’ collapsed flat before the funeral portrait while wailing in absolute agony, provided a substantial amount of structural support to maintain his rigid posture.

Milling his hand over his churning chest, Kallios adjusted the slightly disheveled chief mourner’s armband encircling his sleeve before rising entirely from his position. In the absolute absence of the ‘eldest brother,’ Jung Eun-chan, Kallios was structurally mandated to operate as the chief mourner for this funeral proceeding. The volume of tasks requiring execution was immense. While his maternal aunt was currently managing the responsibilities on his behalf, allowing that dynamic to persist until the conclusion was unacceptable. While the localized persona ‘Jung Eun-ho’ would naturally remain entirely incapacitated by the sorrow of losing his mother, his core identity was ‘Kallios.’ He desired to grant his aunt a sufficient window of leisure to process her personal grief.

Have I already achieved absolute synchronization with Jung Eun-ho’s psychological matrix?

Trimming his lips into a bitter smile, Kallios began clearing the residual debris left behind by departing guests. He had executed the sequence of gathering the plastic table coverings along with the waste to deposit them inside the trash bins roughly four or five times when the anomaly manifested.

“Mom!”

A soldier sporting a freshly shaved military haircut came sprinting violently through the entrance of the funeral hall, his eyes scanning the interior with frantic desperation. The absolute volume of tears he had shed left his face intensely flushed and his eyelids profoundly swollen.

Kallios watched the soldier collapse instantly onto his knees the exact moment his eyes locked onto the funeral portrait, before initiating a slow, deliberate advance toward his coordinate.

Flowing alongside the natural progression of time, a living, breathing Kaian was present.

“Mom, Mom…”

Kaian, the soldier, Jung Eun-chan wailed at the absolute limit of his vocal capacity. Kallios wrapped his arms tightly around Kaian’s frame, weeping alongside him. I lack the certainty regarding whether this torrential downpour of tears originated from the residual sorrow of losing a mother lingering within Jung Eun-ho’s physical vessel, or if it was a consequence of finally encountering Kaian after enduring a vigil spanning several decades.

In all probability, it was a combination of both.