Ryn didn't answer.

For a moment, he wasn't sure he could.

The words echoed in his head, stripped of context, stripped of sense. Not because they were unclear, but because they fit together too cleanly, like pieces that had never been meant to be assembled all at once.

Like you…

Why?

He had come here chasing power, but hadn't expected to uncover something like this.

Ryn exhaled slowly, steadying himself. The breath came out in a thin mist that lingered longer than it should have.

"…I don't understand," he admitted quietly.

Ryn didn't look back.

His thoughts raced, colliding with everything he thought he knew.

The Evernight had happened before. The world had ended, and was rebuilt. The Cult wasn't a new threat, but a remnant.

And the Hero… hadn't won.

He had delayed the inevitable.

Ryn's fingers curled slowly at his side.

If all of that was true…then this place wasn't a reward.

It was a contingency.

A hand reaching forward through time, hoping—gambling—that someone would arrive before it was too late again.

And somehow…

Somehow, the dragon believed that someone was him.

The dragon's gaze did not leave Ryn.

"I am a guardian," it said.

Not arrogantly nor condescendingly, but stated as a fact.

Ryn listened, unmoving.

"When Asteris remained behind, he understood that power without restraint would doom the world faster than the night itself," the dragon said.

"So he placed guardians."

Jay swallowed.

"Each guardian was meant to decide whether the one who arrived understood what was at stake," the dragon continued.

"Whether they sought dominion… or responsibility."

Ryn's jaw tightened.

"I accepted this role," the dragon said. "I was not bound. I was entrusted."

Only then did the ice along its chest begin to shift.

Slowly, as frost peeled back to reveal something…a single scale, beneath its throat.

Where the dragon's other scales layered outward like armor, this one curved against the natural flow of its body, set deliberately at the center of its chest.

The reverse scale.

It was smaller than the rest, yet looked like some kind of gem.

Ryn realized it instantly, taking out the gem he'd taken from the flower. Both jewels resonated instantly, like confirming one's presence.

It was the second key.

"The second," the dragon confirmed.

"If you take it," the dragon said, "this form cannot endure."

Jay stiffened. "You'll—"

"I will fade," the dragon corrected calmly. "Not immediately. Not violently."

A pause.

"But I will not remain."

Ryn stared at the scale, his fingers flexing once at his side.

"You're giving this to me knowing that," he said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

The dragon did not hesitate.

"Because my duty was never to survive," it said. "It was to decide when the path should continue."

The scale hovered between them now, close enough that Ryn could see the faint imperfections within it—fractured light caught in crystal, layered like frozen time.

"Take it," the dragon said. "Or leave it."

"I will not compel you."

Silence stretched.

Ryn reached out.

The moment his fingers closed around the reverse scale, the cavern shuddered.

Fine cracks spread through the ice binding the dragon, lines of pale light tracing across its body like veins.

The dragon exhaled slowly.

Still alive.

Still watching, but weak.

"There is one last thing you must hear," the dragon said.

Ryn looked up immediately.

"The next isle is not guarded as this one was," the dragon continued. "Its keeper did not accept its role."

Jay's throat went dry.

"She was left behind without understanding," the dragon said. "She believed herself abandoned by Asteris."

The dragon's voice hardened, just a fraction.

"Do not expect a conversation," it warned.

"Millennia of waiting have eroded her reason."

A pause.

"She no longer remembers why she was meant to guard."

Only that she was left.

Silence settled in the cavern.

The dragon did not speak again right away. Instead, the frost around its body shifted slowly, the sigils embedded in the ice dimming as if their purpose had been fulfilled.

Then the cavern responded.

A low, resonant sound rolled through the ice beneath Ryn's feet. The frozen basin trembled as ice began to part. A narrow passage emerged, its walls smooth and untouched, leading upward into shadow.

The path forward.

The dragon exhaled once more, slow and heavy.

"My duty ends here," it said quietly.

Ryn turned back toward it.

The massive form remained coiled within the ice,

The dragon's eye lifted to Ryn one final time.

"Remember what you have been given," it said. "And what it cost."

Ryn nodded, once.

The dragon closed its eye.

The cavern stilled.

No final breath, only stillness as the dragon remained in its position. unmoving.

Ryn turned toward the open path, Jay by his side, unnaturally quiet.

Then they began the ascent.

And the ice sealed behind them, slowly, silently—leaving the guardian to its rest.

The passage narrowed as they climbed, the air gradually losing its biting cold.

They emerged onto the surface in silence.

The Snow Isles stretched out around them, pale and endless beneath a muted sky. Even if the snow was present, it felt like the weather of the Snow Isles was managed by its guardian.

Jay was the first to stop.

He dragged a hand down his face, exhaling hard.

"…Okay," he said. "I just need to say this out loud, or I'm going to lose my mind."

Ryn glanced at him.

"We just spoke to an ancient dragon," Jay continued.

"One that guarded the remains of a fallen world, handed you a piece of itself, and casually confirmed that some kind of apocalypse already happened once."

Ryn didn't respond.

Jay laughed weakly. "Just checking—did that forbidden book you read with the swordmaster mention anything like this?"

Ryn shook his head in response.

"No."

His fingers tightened briefly around the reverse scale, the crystal cool against his palm.

Denied the key.

The thought surfaced on its own, unwelcome but persistent.

Rora had never spoken of this place. Not once. He had mentioned the ice path—nothing more. The story had ended there, abruptly, as though the rest had simply… stopped.

At the time, Ryn hadn't questioned it.

But now—

If the Isles filtered rather than tested, if guardians were the ones handing out keys.

Then it was possible, no—likely, that Rora reached the dragon, but never received the key.

Ryn's gaze drifted to the crystal in his hand.

If this was the second key… then the first hadn't been a reward at all. It had been a fragment.

Each key didn't open a door alone.

They each carried a part—a piece of the final technique.

Ryn exhaled slowly.

That meant Rora hadn't failed to learn it. He got the first key, got the first piece of the technique and booked it.

Rora had treated the technique like a badge of honor. He'd flaunted its power, taken pride in how easily others fell behind him, how quickly his name spread.

Strength as spectacle.

Not as a responsibility.

Ryn's jaw tightened.

That technique hadn't been meant for applause. It wasn't crafted so someone could boast about being better than the rest.

It was a legacy.

The answer the First Hero had left behind when he could no longer stand himself.

And Rora had squandered it.

Ryn clenched his hand around the reverse scale and slid it into his Dimensional Ring.

Below, the next stage of his journey came into view.

An island of shifting sands, dunes sweeping endlessly across cracked stone as though the land itself refused to remain still. Even from here, he could make out the remnants of civilization—collapsed structures half-buried by time, worn smooth by something harsher than weather.

Ryn kept his gaze fixed on it.

He knew this part of the journey would be the hardest yet.

Not just because of what awaited him—but because of what it demanded. He had inherited a power that was never meant to be owned.

A technique forged by someone who had carried the weight of the world and paid for it in years.

Ryn, just like the hero, had failed once before…

But now, he had gained the power he never had before, one that belonged to someone else.

This time, Ryn would not treat it as a prize.

He would carry it as it was meant to be carried.

With responsibility.

"I won't make the same mistake twice."

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