Extending the tether proved challenging, but he managed. From being an eye above the kid's head, he was now an observer trailing along within a meter of distance. The kid's memories and emotions were still connected, feeding into Vell's thoughts, letting him taste them and process them.

Terror, abject horror, yet shock and anger. One part despaired, screaming into the void as even now the avatar tried to wrestle control and run away. The other, more natural half experienced the accident for what it was: a whirling blend of confusion and surprise.

But what caught Vell off guard the most was the anger. It burned in a fury that felt hot enough to melt steel, yet it remained level, calm. It was anger at the memory, anger at him, the vehicle, himself, the mount, and even the kid's own parents.

Then it was whisked away, funneled into a direction he couldn't pinpoint. It was near, close even, but not within reach of his senses.

All at once, the tether whipped, pulling him closer until he hovered above the wreckage lying against disturbed ground. The mount had sported clean, slick metal and glass with an interior made of strange cloth.

Now? There wasn't a single piece of material that was bent or damaged. Dinged up and scratched, or missing entirely as its remains littered the mountainside. The windows were gone, replaced by broken branches and twisted metal barricading the gaping holes. Near the front of the metal contraption, liquid oozed and smoked as a fire burned somewhere inside the broken mess.

Vell pulled closer, finding the bodies strangely intact despite the destruction. Actually, on closer inspection, that wasn't a true statement. Both had a myriad of injuries, and the woman's right arm bent at an unnatural angle. Blood dripped down their faces, which had been protected by a strange white bag coated in powder. Straps around their bodies held them in place, having secured themselves despite the chaos.

His gaze returned to the boy. He had the least amount of injuries, but he was smaller, and from the confusing web of emotions, Vell understood that the smaller human's body ached all over—especially the neck.

Shock and confusion were the dominant emotions, but fear and anger started to spike as the boy's eyes fluttered open. It went as expected. Between the concussion, the smoke, and the dirt, it took a minute for the boy to come to. When he did, his first instinct was to ignore himself and look for his parents.

He found them, and the tears started coming. The kid unlatched himself from the seat and started tugging on the adults' sleeves. When that didn't work, he resorted to banging on their cheeks with his fists. The father stirred, but the mother did not.

STOP!

Vell spun around, heart rate spiking as he prepared his defenses. He heard the voice, a violent scream in his ear but there was nothing, not even a trace of mana. The threads in his arm flared and stabbed into his shoulder but lost steam and returned to being a limp distraction.

What was that? That didn't come from the kid… No. It did. How?

Vell pulled at connection, finding nothing amiss. Below the kid had roused the father who had managed to free himself and start kicking the bent door. It held, but eventually gave. The fire in the front had spread, growing in size and widening to encompass the surrounding grass and leaves.

Whatever. Nothing is normal right now. Of course the kid managed to fight back for a second. You shouldn't be surprised at the insanity, he already resisted a tier four artifact.

As the father worked to free child Cyrus from the back seat, he ran through the emotions and let them flow through him. It wasn't hard to see why this memory was so guarded, so repressed. Trauma of this level was more than enough. But something was off. Even repressed memories—those locked tight and buried under a sea of lies and comfort—were at least partially accepted.

The memory, no matter how raw and traumatic, wasn't this fresh. Not from something so long ago. If he had to guess purely off biology, the kid was pre-awakening—probably nine or eight, given his size. His thoughts processed like a child's—not so young that he couldn't understand the danger, but not old enough to weaponize his adrenaline in a logical manner.

So why did the memory feel new? It wasn't worn down nor frayed at the edges. Every emotion was felt in its full capacity, not relived. If he had to judge, the memory was as fresh as yesterday—or an hour ago. Not something from more than a decade past.

Oh? He obviously survives this, perhaps the father too. There's too much trauma and pain. If he's not the focal point, and neither is the father… Ah, yes, that would do it.

The father broke down the door after diving through the glass and steel to extract the kid. He came away with deep gashes on his arm, but he pulled young Cyrus free and dashed away—not too far, just enough to be clear of anything flammable while staying within sight.

The man handed the kid a device that, using unknown enchantments, lit up the night in a flash of color. He rattled off some instructions in the strange language, pressing it into the kid's hands and forcing him to sit.

He ran off before the kid could cry, and from the memories, Vell knew none of the instructions had stuck.

STOP! STOP! STOP!

Wha-

STOOOOO-

The scream ended. The golden threads flashed and searing pain shot up Vell's avatar. The thread sprouted from his shoulder and snaked around his throat before it setttled with a single needle-like point hovering before his eye.

Thump, thump, thump.

In an instant, the needle slammed and pieced through. Not into his avatar like he expected, but down and through the black threads of the runic device. At once, the world stilled and golden lines took up his vision.

Click!

The memory resumed, and the emotional feedback hit him in full force. Even above as a ghost, he crumpled forward and steadied himself, wilting lower until he was nearly at the same eye level as the child.

From this vantage point, it was easy to see how much smoke filled the area. It was cloying, and through the memories, he could taste the ash. Vell shook his head. More than that. The anchor was soon. Every emotion was too heightened. If he had to guess, the mother would die before the father could save her. Once she did, the memory would shatter, and he could replay it again and again.

Or move on and find more to use. The strange sea of thoughts looked far emptier than it should have been, but not all of his targets had easy anchors to manipulate. Hells, Mind Scavenger wasn't really a torture skill either. He simply had enough practice to use his skill as one, and with the device empowering him, it would be all too easy to break the kid.

The scene continued to play out. Emotions spiking, roiling underneath. The memory child fought to stay seated, but the avatar hung limp.

Even with adrenaline empowering his body, the father struggled to free the door. He tried the window, but it was too small, and he couldn't release the straps around the woman's body. Eventually, he did it. He pried the mount's metal door loose enough to shove a branch between the crack and leveraged it open.

Almost ironically, the moment it swung free, the metal gave, and it collapsed to the ground. It should have been a victorious moment. The man reached in and undid the straps. The woman stirred but did not wake.

Ah. There it is.

She would die, because he couldn't extract her. Through the chaos it had been impossible to tell, but with the door free and the flames lightning the night, the wind blew at the right moment tot expose to rod of jagged metal. It impaled the woman's leg, and it bled profusely as the man tried to pull her free.

He realized it fast, and stopped.

Fear, anger, no… Fury. Fury and fright.

The kid had seen the metal but didn't understand. His attention was on something else. Vell hovered as the kid stood on shaky legs. He screamed. Even without knowing the words, Vell felt the desperation.

Cyrus ran—no, he charged—at his father with his arm extended. The man turned in time, confused, but the flame caught and touched the slick liquid on the ground. One moment, he was there yelling, and then the world erupted into flames.

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Vell waited as the memory slowed to a crawl. It was unusual, but at this point, what wasn't?

Fire had consumed the mount and the man. His outline was nonexistent as the explosion rushed toward the kid in a wave. Any second now, it would reach him. The slowed perspective gave Vell time to examine the surroundings.

As he thought, this was truly it. Memories like this weren't truthful—not fully. During the roll down the mountain, it would have been impossible for the kid to know what the world looked like outside of that mount. His skill filled in the gaps, using the information the kid himself would have used to reconstruct the scene. Logically, Vell understood that Cyrus wouldn't really know what the trees looked like or how the specific ones broke and dented the metal mount.

He didn't need to. Now, at the anchor point, the memory lost its details. The surrounding forest and trees blurred and faded. Moonlight from the cloudy sky above dimmed—banished by the growing wall of flames.

Any second… Now… Wait what?

A golden orb appeared before the kid's face. Even as the fire continued to approach, the coin-sized sphere hovered closer, nearly touching him. Then it stretched, and a golden hand—small and thin, feminine—appeared. It caressed the child's cheek, and a woman's face formed. She kissed his head, her features made of blinding light.

The flames reached them and washed over, not touching a barrier but splitting as if cut down the middle. Reality bent around them with the kid still frozen, the fire leaving them unharmed.

Wha-

She looked at Vell. She SAW.

"Begone pest. You do not belong."

His avatar was thrown out of the memory and into the void. Burning hellfire scratched at his chest, and the relic whined and rotated. It cracked, runes surging with red light. With a click, it shattered, and the threads fell away.

The golden thread burrowing into his skin yanked his head upward, forcing him to look away and into the void. There, a giant ritual circle hung in the emptiness, made of fire in different colors, with gold weaving through the rings and sigils. Like the device, the runes glowed and shattered. One by one, like broken glass, the ritual winked out. Where the fire broke, it faded and spewed forth a sea of stars.

They darted by too fast to see, but one barreled toward him, hitting him in the chest and passing through. His mind reeled as a scene played between two children. One clutched at his leg and pulled away, revealing blood.

The memory faded, and he vomited. Bile and blood sank into the void, and he wiped his mouth before more memories assaulted him. Scene by scene, piece by piece. Fear, happiness, sadness, depression, anger, joy, exhaustion. Everything and anything, all at once.

When it stopped, he hung there in the air, not of his own will. The threads kept him steady and frozen. Vell couldn't think. He couldn't breathe.

The thread pulsed and forced him to look up once more. The void was no longer empty. Memories hung like stars. Some shone brightly, others were dim and barely visible. More than half were in a half-state, one part of their whole pitch black while the memory burned inside.

"Even with the seal preserving his soul, the memory lock wasn't foolproof," came a familiar voice.

Vell rolled over, finding enough freedom to move his head to the side. He froze, unsure if what he saw was real.

Cyrus stood before him, except it wasn't the beastkin illusion, or the human child. It was a felkin, but more. Silver hair glowed like the moon. Eyes flashed in a thousand patterns never settling on a single color. Along his skin stretched a glowing tattoo. In the center of his chest where his heart should be the lines strangled something small as pink blood dripped into the void.

Crystalline claws grabbed his face and forced him to focus. "Normally, I'd be happy. To see I'm finally free of myself. I'm an asshole after all, so emotionally stunted that I lock half of myself in a cage. It's gone, all of it. If I wanted to, I could have free reign."

"Wh-who are you?" Vell managed.

The felkin, the entity cocked his head. "You know the answer to this. I'm Cyrus. A part of the one who's memory you been spying on."

"How. His avatar is still here. In my grip!"

"Tut, tut." The entity pressed closer, touching their noses. Inside his eyes he saw fury. "I'm the part of this idiot who is neglected. Yet I'm expected to pick up the pieces whenever something bad happens. Now isn't that unfair? It's not like anything truly horrendous has happened to me. You saw that memory. So what, my parents died tragically, and I lost my best friend but so? Bruises scrapes, torture, surviving a god's wrath. Blah blah blah, it's not like the others complain about their trauma."

"I-"

"No talking. I don't have much time. Frankly, I'm tempted to burn it all away." The entity gestured to the blinking stars. "I'm a useless, pathetic thing with a gun in my hands but no incentive to use it. It'd be so easy to remove the sludge, keep the core bits, and take over. Well, that or merge."

He paused, staring at Vell. When Vell refused to speak, the entity cracked a smile, exposing crystal fangs.

"Smart man. I'd almost forgive you. Helping destroy the memorylock, shattering the barrier to forming the seed in my chest. All in all, what you did—and tried to do but failed—was a good thing. Normally, my instincts tell me to tear off your limbs one by one. Break your fingers, rip them off, and then shove them back into your body as I scream your name in a blood-fueled frenzy."

He had to get away! He had to escape! He had-

Vell blinked, and reality fractured. His second blink brought him outside of the void, and he saw the arena. The barrier around the marble island was blackened, impossible to see through. Cyrus held him up, looking upward into his gaze.

No. He wasn't holding him up. His eyes trailed downward and saw the arm protruding from his chest. No, it wasn't holding onto his armor. The arm was through him, his claws digging into his back and keeping hold.

Cyrus no longer looked like the entity. His hair was silver, and he wore armor that covered his chest and hid the rune. However, the eyes. There was no mistaking them.

Cold, eyes, inhuman and monstrous. The rainbow lights seared into his own.

"Hopefully now, I'll stop being dumb and I can finally accept what I am. Only then will I stop being weak."

Cyrus shook his head and smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.

"Are you going to torture me?" Vell said, or at least he thought he did.

Why was he so calm? Shouldn't he be screaming right now? The injury looked bad, Diabella would be furious. He should probably bring her something tasty to snack on. A new poison perhaps?

Oh right, the kid was saying something.

"I should. It'd feel damn good too, but I won't. You were hired to torture my mind, to break me, but alas. I'm playing a villian but not a psychopath and besides that isn't why I won't torture you, not you who helped me in such a big way."

"I don't un-derstand?"

Something rose above the kid's shoulder but he couldn't make it out. The kid's eyes drew him in, the patterns changing into they reached a red he had never seen before.

"Simple, Vell. I won't destroy you and this arena in a frenzy because I'm more. More than such a simple word."

"You're angry… I don't-"

"Hey me, when you relive this memory from Galarion, brand this into your mind and don't forget."

Cyrus pressed something against his head and his vision started to fade. Thoughts of Dibella flashed in sequence, and he smiled at her smile.

Then it was gone and he felt a surge of loss so fierce he wailed at it's absence.

"Bring it back! Give her back!" Vell cried.

He tried to struggle, but his limbs didn't respond. Again he looked down and was drawn into the kid's gaze.

"Never forget what I am, who you are. I don't torture this fool because I am not the anger you wield like a sharpened club. I am not anger. I am not rage. I am a demon of Wrath."

Something flashed in Vell's vision. He caught it at the last second. A tail. On the flaming arrow-like tip was dripped blood that sizzled in the flames.

Huh.

That was all he could thing before the world split in two and his heart stopped beating.

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