But, despite their incessant demands, Malik remained standing. His mind was a fortress. A million blinks had built it. A million steps had carved it. A million voices had crashed against its walls, only to shatter and fade into nothing. They could scream, they could cry, they could claw at him all they wanted. It wouldn't matter. He had already endured worse. And so, a thousand years had passed. By that point, the darkness shifted again, warping, bending, curling in on itself until suddenly— The alleys. The scent of spice, shit, sweat, and sand in the air. The sound of distant bells, of children laughing, of bastards swearing, of life. For the first time since his arrival in this... place, something inside him stirred. The illusion didn't attack him. The city crumbled into dust, slipping through him. Just like that, Zawaya was gone. Only darkness remained. Had it lasted a second? A minute? A year? Two thousand two hundred years. That was his best guess. Malik's face didn't change at that. It hadn't changed in a long time. His golden eyes didn't flicker. His steps didn't falter. The voices, the illusions, the memories—they were nothing. They were specters, nothing more. Just empty ghosts in an empty dream. Three thousand years. Time stretched, bent, warped. There were moments—brief, fleeting moments—where he felt himself slipping. The whispers weren't just around him anymore. They were inside him. Inside his soul. And still, he pressed forward. Then… four thousand years. Malik had realized something. Something horrifying. They weren't a trick. They weren't something lurking in the dark, waiting to break him. They had always been him. His voice had whispered in his own ears. His breath had filled the void. It was he who echoed. Now, his lips were moving. And he was screaming. Time still refused to end. It stretched on, unraveling endlessly, like some sick joke. Ten thousand years vanished into the abyss. His screams tore through the void, ceaseless—until even they were swallowed whole. One foot. Then the next. Never hesitating. Never stopping. Because stopping meant death. Malik no longer felt his body. His feet… they weren't feet anymore. Just things attached to him, dragging along. His hands—gone. His arms—gone. But he moved forward, inch by inch, scraping himself across the dark. A hundred quadrillion. His flesh had long since peeled away. Whatever remained of his body left a trail—of blood, of bone, of something far worse. Or maybe there was nothing left at all. A hundred quintillion. Time itself seemed to have lost interest in him. A hundred sextillion. His body was nothing. Just a thought, an idea, scraping itself forward through the abyss. A hundred septillion. His mind had unraveled. There was nothing left of him. Nothing but the movement. He should have stopped existing. He should have. Until finally, the darkness shifted. The whispers returned. They slithered into the cracks of his mind, settling deep in his bones. "Life, Depravity, Death—such a saccharine fragrance!" "Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, KILL! Let life's jasmine bloom brightly in crimson!" "Walk, walk, walk. Keep walking your path of corpses." "The strong rise, the weak fall. Crush them beneath your feet." "Let the world burn. Let the heavens weep. It is your birthright." "Let darkness flow. Let it eat. Let it slither. Let it corrupt. Win." His very being stirred. Not in fear. Not doubt. No. It was something older. Something buried beneath the weight of mortality itself. Faint. Distant. Flickering like a dying flame. It shouldn't have been here. It couldn't have been here. The Edge had no end; it was as unseen as it was endless. It devoured all who entered. It only spat them out if they were deemed worthy. Malik was more than worthy. If he wasn't, then no one before him would've lived. And yet, something different was happening, something outside the books. A glow had called to him. The instant his fingers brushed the light— It didn't burn him. It became him. It surged through his veins, through his flesh, through the very fabric of his being. Every inch of him ignited—not in pain, but in something else. Something purer than life. Something older than the stars. Something that predated Aether itself. It was in the wrath of the storm. It was in the scorching heat of the Shams. It was in the howl of the wind before the world was even born. The darkness congregated around him but he remained standing. It had robbed him, but not of his life. He was no longer bound. His golden eyes burned, brighter than ever, but now… they held something more. Something that had been waiting for him to see it. The word rang through his soul. Not a curse. Not a title. A being that was never meant to be bound. A being of fire and blood, of ruin, of rebirth. Of destruction and creation. He exhaled, and the darkness trembled. He moved, and the void obeyed. Malik was no longer just Malik. Now... he became Jinn Al-Naqi.