"Do you remember the bargain, Omega? The day of the Fracture? The prophets trusted you to save the world, Your mission was simple: carry the healing orb, seal the wound, and make sure I don't get into your head and manipulate you until you place the Healing Orb in between us, so as to heal the blooming Great Fracture.

"Because even then the Great Fracture had not sent me free from Azrax, the process was still about to occur, and you came right in time to set it right. But yet… you failed. I manipulated you, and then together we caused the Great Fracture, which led to the Bloodbath."

The dragon's laugh echoed, thick and triumphant, as if the darkness itself applauded. Seeing how he made Simma uncomfortable, the Umbrax continued.

"Now, because you caused the bloodbath the Azrax cursed you.... You see...The Great Fracture did not merely shatter the world... it cleaved into you as well. Just as you had split the Azrax in two, he returned the cruelty, binding his vengeance into your very soul. He fractured you as you fractured him."

The Umbrax hissed, his voice dripping with triumph.

"Just as you split him into two... the noble half and his shadow, which is me... he split you as well. You became divided, a storm of duality: the Path Demon, fuelled by me, and Path Zelihuth, fuelled by the Azrax. You became like a living yin and yang, two storms circling endlessly within one vessel."

"Don't you see? The Azrax exacted his revenge. You divided him into duality... his luminous self, and his darker anti-self, which is me. And he did the same to you. He carved your essence apart, forging two halves: the demonic figure with the red eyes and predatory grin, and the man you know as yourself, Zelihuth... for that.... that is your curse"

The Umbrax stared at him. Its voice dropping to something captivating, luring, and compelling.

"All I ask is simple... bow to me, and together we will strike down the Azrax for good. Then, and only then, will you finally do something right."

Zelihuth faltered. The Umbrax's voice was no longer just sound; it was an invasion, threading through his mind like venomous vines. Memories uncoiled, rushing back with suffocating clarity.

A war ignited within him, not against an enemy outside, but against himself: his demonic half clawing for dominance, his truer half fighting to remain sovereign. The Umbrax had wedged itself into his very thoughts, and for a moment, Zelihuth's head bowed under the weight of its persuasion.

But...

"No."

He snapped his eyes open. In that instant, the dark patterns scarring his body receded, vanishing like smoke scattered by the wind. The suffocating aura collapsed, dissolving into silence.

A searing pain surged through him; not from without, but from within, as though his soul was tearing free from the rage he had been nursing like a poisoned flame all this while.

His demon-red eye softened, bleeding back into calm blue. His elongated fangs dulled into human teeth. The monstrous claws shrank into hands. And at last, the crawling demonic sigils etched across his flesh evaporated, leaving bare skin. He staggered, dropping to one knee in exhaustion.

But, slowly, stubbornly, he rose, standing again in his true form.

The Umbrax's voice slithered back.

"What are you doing, Zelihuth? Bow. Did you not hear me? All you must do is pledge your allegiance. Together we could take the world that turned its back on us."

But Simma raised his hand, halting the words the way a god stills a storm. He was no longer a half-breed form of demon and man, he stood wholly himself again.... Simma, unmasked, and very much unbroken.

"You are wrong about me," he said, his tone unflinching, his eyes cold steel.

"I am not only Zelihuth. Remember... I am still Simma. And I will never bow before you, Umbrax. My allegiance lies with the Azrax."

He stepped forward, slow, amble and deliberate, each footfall echoing like judgment. His expression was carved from stone.

"It is you who should bow."

"HOW DARE YOU!"

The dragon's eyes widened, its body rearing high with wrath. From deep in its belly, a glow began, a molten radiance, swelling like a sun being born in its gut. Simma saw it blazing upward, rushing through its throat, until...

BLURGHHT!

The beast unleashed its inferno. A torrent of golden flame, laced with crackling veins of red lightning, erupted from its maw. It consumed the darkness itself, scorching the void until it glowed with unbearable brilliance.

This was no ordinary fire, its heat could melt iron, could turn diamond to dust. And all of it hurtled toward Simma.

But Simma stood unyielding. Planting himself firmly, he thrust out one hand. As the inferno slammed against an invisible barrier before him, piling up like a furious ocean wave against a cliff.

The fire rose into a blazing wall before his stretched hand, roaring, snapping, and clawing violently, yet it did not touch him.

His face was stern, his eyes narrowed with absolute focus. He held back the tempest with a single hand.

"You forget yourself, Umbrax," he taunted, his voice sharp as a blade.

"You are still imprisoned. The only reason you can speak through my dragon is because of the curse I carry. This demonic blight seeps into my within-beast as well... And i think you know that."

The dragon roared, its flames surging hotter, deadlier and more intense. Yet Simma did not waver. The inferno bent and buckled as though meeting an immovable mountain, flames breaking and crawling upward into the void.

Simma smirked, effortlessly.

"If not for the curse... if not for both you and the Azrax being bound within me... you would not even be here. Tsk. Do you truly believe my own within-beast could harm me? Pathetic."

At last the beast's breath faltered. The fire guttered out. Its body hunched, as though ashamed of its assault. The dragon's eyes flickered with sorrow, as if it, too, regretted. But within, the Umbrax's soul stirred ceaselessly, unrepentant.

Well, Simma understood. The Umbrax lingered because the Azrax had not yet been restored into the dragon. He was waiting for the right time to bind them together again.

"You dare defy me, Zelihuth?" the dragon spat, its voice split with venom.

Simma's reply was calm, and solemn to the very core.

"Even though I caused the Bloodbath, I also lessened it. Yes, I wrought evil, I was its architect, and for a time, I did not care. But afterward, I awoke. And I sacrificed myself to seal you into this mirrored prison. That alone proves there is still good in me. No greater honour exists than to give oneself for the world."

He stepped closer, voice heavy with finality.

"You have broken me through every life. You have used me as a puppet, pulling my strings across reincarnations. But it ends here. Because now.... I have what I never had before."

He pressed a hand to his chest.

"Simma... I have Simma," he said.

"He is the anchor. The binding thread that holds my three selves together, Zelihuth, the demon within, and the man I am. Three minds fused into one. That is my strength."

His gaze sharpened, a storm gathering in his eyes.

"I was once the Omega, yes. But that was a title drowned in blood. Now I rise anew, a Fluxborn, reborn not into ruin, but into resolve. And I swear to you, Umbrax, I will slay every one of your Waithraites until you are nothing. I will chain you here for eternity if I must, until I find a way to merge you back with the Luzrax to form the Azrax into the whole Entity it once was... and in that merging, purge the world of your evil once and for all."

He lifted his chin, power radiating from him.

"I am no longer your victim. I am Simma. And you... are.... my... beast. Not the other way around."

From the depths of the void, another dragon emerged. Its eyes burned blue; a soul of Azrax's making. It strode forward, light piercing through the shadow. The Umbrax's dragon recoiled, growling, and cursing widly.

"No, Zelihuth! You will not escape me!"

The blue soul surged into the beast's body. It resisted, thrashing in rage, wings battering the dark floor, claws tearing trenches in the void. One eye flared crimson, the other azure, the two battling for dominance.

Then, slowly, inexorably, its form began to change. From the tail upward, its scales hardened into clay, as if unseen hands were sculpting it anew. The petrification spread, climbing its body until at last, its furious snarl froze into stone. The dragon became a statue.

Simma collapsed to his knees, drained of strength. The battle had taken everything... the weight of resisting the Umbrax, the heart it demanded of him, the energy it cost.

But now… he was whole again.

Now he knew who he was, and all his memories were back. He was not just the once great Omega that caused and reduced the bloodbath.

But something more... someone more...

Someone who needed to be redeemed since he had reincarnated once more to become the cursed.

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