The memory fractured violently, and Oliver was torn through the collapsing remnants without resistance, dragged from one existence into another in a single unbearable transition that left no sense of direction or stability.

For a brief moment there was nothing at all, not even darkness in any meaningful form, only a complete absence where thought itself struggled to maintain coherence, and then sensation began to return in slow, layered increments.

The first thing that struck his skin was frigid air, followed by the gradual realization that he was no longer inside the glass house.

His body felt small again.

Oliver’s eyes opened.

’...Where am I now?’

The world that met him was collapsing into war.

He stood upon ground that had once been soil but now existed solely as scorched ruin, fissured and blackened as though it had been incinerated countless times.

Across the expanse stretched dead trees that stood like bleached bones driven into the earth, their trunks stripped of all color and vitality until they resembled nothing more than vestiges of a forgotten world. Their branches extended outward in grotesquely twisted formations, frozen mid contortion, while ash drifted endlessly through the air like fragments of a dying sky surrendering itself to oblivion.

Above everything, the sky itself was no longer a sky. It was suffocated beneath smoke.

A vast, oppressive mass of burning clouds and collapsing embers stretched across the horizon, transforming the entire battlefield into a realm suspended beneath devastation.

Light fractured into unstable flickers that revealed and concealed the chaos below in intermittent, disjointed pulses.

Oliver tried to move once again, but his body still did not respond.

Needless to say, he was the same child again.

Smaller, weaker, confined within a frame of vulnerability he could not override no matter how fiercely his consciousness resisted it. His awareness remained fully intact within the form.

Then he saw her. Oliver’s mother.

She knelt directly in front of him upon the scorched earth, her body broken. Her clothing was now torn and saturated with deep crimson that spread across the fabric and dripped downward into the ash beneath them. Her posture was unstable, sustained only by sheer will, and every breath she drew seemed to exact a heavier toll than the last.

The Imperial Sword rested within her grasp.

Its blade was no longer pristine.

It bore streaks of blood that slid downward in slow motion, reflecting the chaotic firelight above in fractured patterns that refused to settle.

Behind her, across the vast expanse of devastation, corpses lay scattered without order.

Some were human, their bodies torn apart by forces that left no discernible pattern of injury, while others belonged to entities that did not fully resemble anything alive in the first place, their forms distorted and incomplete, as though they had been erased mid existence.

Weapons lay embedded in the ground at broken angles, and fragments of armor were scattered everywhere, half melted into the ash laden terrain.

Far beyond them, at the edge of the battlefield where smoke gathered so densely it became almost solid, something moved.

A colossal presence.

Its shape could not be properly identified, only inferred through destruction itself. Every movement it made erased formations of Awakened fighters who attempted to resist it, their abilities flaring violently across the field before vanishing without impact. Entire groups were swept away in moments, their existence reduced to fading remnants of energy that dissolved into nothing.

The humans fought in waves, rushing forward with coordinated desperation. Their powers ignited across the battlefield in bursts of color and force that briefly illuminated the surrounding horror, but none of it mattered.

Each wave collapsed faster than the last, and every attempt to advance only added more bodies to the already boundless field of ruin.

The woman lifted her head.

Her obscured face met Oliver’s eyes.

And in that moment, he understood something without needing explanation.

She was still holding on, still attempting to protect the young boy as any mother would.

She spoke in a hoarse voice.

"Oliver, come here."

The child hesitated for a brief moment, but then moved slightly toward her anyway, trembling with fear.

She reached out slowly.

Her hand was stained with blood, yet her movement remained careful and tender, and her fingers gently brushed through his hair.

"I love you..." she said calmly.

Her breathing grew heavier, yet he still could not see her face.

The battlefield around them continued to collapse into chaos, but her attention never wavered from him.

"You will grow," she continued as her voice weakened gradually, "you will become stronger than I ever was, stronger than anyone will ever expect you to be."

Her hand remained resting on his head.

Oliver strained internally, attempting to force movement, attempting to break free from the constraint binding him to the child’s perspective, but nothing responded. His awareness remained locked, compelled to endure every second without the ability to intervene or fully comprehend what was unfolding.

Her voice softened further.

"I wanted... to give you more time," she said, barely audible now.

The world around them began to destabilize.

Fire above flickered unevenly, and the ash slowed in its descent.

Even the distant colossal presence seemed to blur at its edges. The memory itself was struggling to maintain coherence and was already beginning to collapse once more.

"Remember... you are not alone. Te—"

Her hand pressed gently once more against his head, and the words she was about to say ended abruptly.

In a fraction of a second, everything collapsed.

The battlefield, the sky, the trees, the corpses, the fire, the colossal presence lingering at the edge of existence, all of it fractured simultaneously into absolute darkness that consumed every remaining trace of form and sound until nothing remained at all.

Then, without warning, another small hand touched him.

His gaze snapped backward.

There, he saw a little girl with white hair...

***

Oliver’s eyes flew open violently.

Frigid mountain air flooded his lungs immediately, dragging him back into physical existence with such brutal suddenness that his entire body jolted.

He was still leaning against Rook’s warm flank, yet his clothes were drenched in sweat that clung heavily to his skin, and his breathing escaped in harsh bursts as though he had been running without pause for hours.

His chest rose and fell rapidly.

His hands trembled uncontrollably.

Rook shifted slightly beside him, instantly sensing the change in his condition, yet remained close without retreating.

Oliver attempted to steady himself, but before he could fully regain control over either his breathing or thoughts, a faint flicker materialized directly before his vision.

[You have received a Keepsake: Mother’s War Attire]

[Your fractured memories surfaced as a mother’s final gift to her son. An armour of soft fabric possessing the greatest defensive strength across the Garden...]