From that point onward, Zen ventured through each cycle alone.

At first, he believed Melissa would eventually return as she always had.

Perhaps she had simply reincarnated farther away than usual.

Perhaps she needed more time for her memories to awaken.

Perhaps she was intentionally avoiding him for a few decades before finally showing up one day to complain about something trivial.

"...."

...But she never came.

One cycle passed.

Then another.

Then another.

And no matter how hard Zen searched, he could not find her.

At first, he searched methodically.

He spent an entire developing spells specifically designed to locate souls tied to higher-dimensional phenomena.

"...."

But there was nothing.

Eventually, Zen arrived at only two possible conclusions.

The first possibility was that Melissa had finally become completely done with him. After everything that happened and the way their final conversation ended, perhaps she simply no longer wished to see him again.

The second possibility was worse.

Perhaps she had accepted whatever offer Araxys had presented to her and left the reincarnation cycle entirely.

And if that were true, then there would be nothing for Zen to find.

"...."

Whatever the answer was, Zen had to admit.

It was depressing.

And unfortunately, solitude gave him too much time to think. Over and over again, his thoughts always returned to that final conversation.

He shouldn’t have shouted.

He shouldn’t have grabbed her.

He shouldn’t have lost control.

And most of all... he shouldn’t have killed her.

The memory haunted him relentlessly.

No matter how many lifetimes passed, he could still see the look in Melissa’s eyes. He could still hear her voice.

And because of that, something inside Zen gradually began deteriorating. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

The current cycle was short.

After spending years wandering through a desert while pursuing rumors of a soul phenomenon that ultimately led nowhere, Zen died from dehydration.

By the time death arrived, he barely even cared.

The next cycle was shorter.

He died from a disease before reaching adulthood.

The cycle after that ended when a monster attack destroyed the village where he was born. He didn’t even bother fighting back.

The one after that ended during a war.

Then another.

And another.

Sometimes he died young.

Sometimes he lived for decades.

Sometimes he became powerful.

Sometimes he never touched magic at all.

The outcome no longer mattered.

Because every life ended the same way.

Without Melissa, eventually, Zen stopped trying.

Then one day, many cycles later, Zen found himself sitting alone on the rooftop of an academy.

The sun was setting.

Students laughed below while discussing futures they believed would last forever.

Zen just watched them in silence.

Then, for the first time in centuries... he laughed.

"Haha..."

Because he finally understood what Melissa had meant.

The tragedy was never forgetting people.

The tragedy was remembering them long after the world had moved on.

* * *

On a certain cycle, something unexpected emerged.

At first, Zen paid little attention to the rumors. Throughout the centuries, countless saints, prophets, chosen ones, and divine messengers had appeared across different civilizations.

Most were frauds. And almost all of them eventually faded into history like everyone else.

Yet for some reason, this one caught his attention.

"Hail the Saintess!"

The chants echoed throughout the city wherever she went. Crowds gathered around her, and stories of miracles spread across the continent. Some claimed she could heal incurable illnesses, while others claimed she possessed knowledge of events that had not yet happened.

Ordinarily, Zen would have ignored such stories.

However, something felt strange about her existence. As if his gut were telling him something was fundamentally different.

So he went to see her.

The moment he laid eyes on the Saintess, he froze.

"M-Melissa...?"

Because standing before him was a young woman who looked almost identical to Melissa. No, it was not just a resemblance. The similarities were so overwhelming that for a brief moment, Zen genuinely believed he had finally found her after all these years.

For the first time in a while, hope surfaced within him.

After centuries of searching. After centuries of disappointment. After centuries of wondering whether Melissa had truly disappeared forever.

He thought he had finally found her.

"Y-You’re Melissa... right?"

The Saintess blinked.

Then she tilted her head slightly as though she did not understand the question.

"Uhm... excuse me?"

The excitement that had surged through Zen vanished almost instantly. For several moments, neither of them spoke as he carefully scrutinized her expression.

"...."

She did not recognize him at all. That much he could tell.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Because as Zen focused his senses on her soul, he immediately noticed something that made his heart pound.

The signature was there.

Melissa’s signature.

In fact, Zen could clearly sense Araxys’s essence flowing through her soul. The same essence that had accompanied Melissa throughout countless reincarnations. The same essence he had spent centuries searching for.

And yet... this woman genuinely did not seem to know who he was talking about.

"...I know who you are, Archmage." The Saintess smiled awkwardly after noticing his reaction. "But I think you have the wrong person."

"...."

A chill ran down his spine.

Because that statement should not have been possible.

Throughout this cycle, Zen had deliberately hidden himself from the world. He had no interest in fame anymore and had spent most of his life remaining in the shadows. Very few people knew of his existence, and even fewer knew his true identity.

The title of Archmage should not have been public knowledge.

Yet she had recognized him immediately.

"...How do you know that?"

"Ah..." She awkwardly scratched her cheek. "That part is kind of difficult to explain."

Zen narrowed his eyes. The young woman glanced around before lowering her voice.

"I have these visions."

"Visions?"

She nodded. "Yes."

Her expression gradually became more serious.

"Ever since I was little, I’ve been seeing things that shouldn’t be possible."

The sounds of the crowd gradually faded into the background as Zen focused entirely on her words.

"I see places I’ve never visited."

She looked down briefly.

"I see people I’ve never met."

Then she raised her gaze once more.

"And sometimes..."

A strange uncertainty appeared in her expression.

"I see entire lives that don’t belong to me."

Zen felt his heart skip a beat. He knew exactly what that sounded like.

The Saintess continued speaking.

"At first, I thought they were dreams."

Her gaze slowly drifted toward the crowd gathered around her.

"I would wake up remembering places I had never visited, conversations I had never had, and people I had never met. I thought they were nothing more than strange fantasies my mind had created."

She paused briefly before letting out a small laugh.

"Then those dreams started coming true."

The smile on her face gradually faded.

"At first, it was little things. Someone saying something I had already heard in a dream. A carriage arriving exactly when I remembered it would. Small details that seemed insignificant enough to dismiss as coincidence."

Her expression became more complicated.

"But the older I got, the more detailed the visions became."

The cheering crowd continued celebrating around them.

"I started seeing events that hadn’t happened yet."

"...."

"Things that should have been impossible for me to know."

Her gaze eventually settled on him.

"And in those visions... I’ve seen you, Archmage."

The sounds of celebration continued throughout the city, yet the words seemed to drown everything else out.

The Saintess continued speaking.

"I’ve also seen things that never happened."

Zen’s eyes narrowed. "Things that never happened?"

She nodded. "Yes."

A strange look appeared in her eyes.

"Visions of events that don’t exist. Places that shouldn’t exist. Lives that belong to no one."

"...."

"At least... that’s what I thought at first."

The Saintess lowered her gaze.

"I would see things months before they happened. Sometimes, a day before. Sometimes a year before. Sometimes even longer."

She let out a small sigh.

"Eventually, people started noticing. Every time I warned someone, the event happened exactly as I described. Every time I predicted something, it came true."

The crowd nearby suddenly erupted into another cheer.

The Saintess glanced toward them.

"Ever since then... people started calling me a messenger."

The smile slowly turned bittersweet.

"Then they started calling me the Saintess."

Zen remained silent.

"...."

There was no longer any doubt.

This woman was Melissa.

And yet, she also wasn’t.

Zen finally understood what Araxys had offered her.

An escape.

Freedom from the endless accumulation of grief. Freedom from carrying centuries of memories into every new life. Freedom from remembering every person she had ever lost.

A normal life.

The realization should have upset him.

After all, Melissa no longer remembered him. She no longer remembered their promises, their adventures, their arguments, and the lifetimes they had spent searching for one another.

To her, he was a stranger.

Yet strangely enough, Zen felt relieved.

Because when he looked at her, he did not see the exhaustion that had haunted Melissa during their final conversation. He did not see the despair of someone slowly withering from the inside.

"...."

Right now, she was happy.

And perhaps that was enough.

Perhaps it had always been enough.

A small smile slowly appeared on Zen’s face.

If this was the escape Araxys had offered her, then he could not bring himself to hate it.

A chance to start over.

And if that chance required her to forget him, then for once, Zen was willing to let her go.

"Saintess," he began. "If you ever need anything, just give me a signal. I’ll be there to support you."

In the next cycle, another strange anomaly emerged.

At first, Zen dismissed it as yet another bizarre movement destined to disappear with time.

But this one was different.

"A cult?"

Zen frowned as he read through the reports.

The information had come from multiple regions simultaneously. Entire communities were beginning to gather under a singular belief system that had spread with alarming speed despite having no centralized authority or visible founder.

Ordinarily, that alone would not have concerned him.

What concerned him was the name they worshipped.

"Araxys?"

For several moments, Zen genuinely thought he had misread the report.

Then he read it again.

And again.

The result remained the same.

"You’re kidding..."

Out of all the entities in existence, Araxys should have been one of the last names humanity knew. Very few individuals throughout history had ever learned of its existence, and most of them had long since died.

Even among the most ancient records, references to Araxys were pieces at best.

Yet somehow, people were now worshipping it.

Why was this development happening?

Over the centuries, Araxys’s influence had inevitably spread throughout civilization. Certain concepts, systems, and remains of its existence had become woven into reality itself. Zen had already accepted that much.

But this was entirely different. And most importantly, this implied knowledge.

Someone knew enough about Araxys to spread its name.

That alone sent a chill down Zen’s spine.

He immediately began investigating.

The deeper he dug, the worse it became.

The cult’s followers referred to Araxys as a savior. They viewed it as a guardian watching over humanity from beyond the veil.

And disturbingly enough... they were not entirely wrong.

Eventually, Zen decided to confront them directly.

The moment he arrived, a chill immediately ran down his spine.

"...What?"

Amongst them were nobles, scholars, mages, military officers, and even individuals with powerful stigmatas.

———!

A massacre followed.

The battlefield transformed into a slaughterhouse.

Entire formations shattered before his magic. Scholars were reduced to ash before they could finish chanting their spells. Even the powerful stigmata users found themselves helpless before Archmage Zen.

Eventually, bodies piled up. Blood stained the ruins. And still, Zen continued moving forward.

Until eventually, he stopped.

"...You."

Standing amidst the chaos was a lone figure.

Unlike the others, he had not joined the battle.

Unlike the others, he showed no fear.

"Hm?" The man tilted his head slightly. "Do you recognize me?"

The question sent a strange feeling through Zen.

He recognized him immediately.

"...Fyodor?"

It was Fyodor.