Oblivion's Throne-Chapter 76: Visions of Ruin

Orion gasped awake, his body lurching upright as if wrenched from drowning depths. His breath came in sharp, ragged bursts, his chest aching with the phantom sensation of something tearing through it. His hands clutched at his torso, fingers curling over untouched skin, but the absence of wounds did nothing to banish the visceral certainty that he had been split apart, that he had felt the bitter finality of death.

It lingered in him, imprinted, as though his cells had carried the trauma back with him.

The darkness of his quarters felt oppressive, pressing down on him like a weight. The only sound was the steady hum of the environmental regulators, their rhythmic drone indifferent to his unraveling. Beads of sweat clung to his skin. His heart pounded against his ribs.

But it wasn't just fear—it was something deeper.

Something more real than any nightmare could ever be.

The memory was too vivid.

The snap of air as he moved, his footfalls near silent, each motion a practiced flow of deadly precision. The resistance of flesh splitting beneath his blade, the grotesque warmth of blood spraying across his arm. The thrill of battle clashing with the horror of what he had faced.

And the pain.

A phantom agony still clung to him, rooted in his bones, pulsing in the places where he had felt his own body torn asunder.

His breath hitched as he squeezed his eyes shut, as if that could block it out.

But the vision would not leave him.

It replayed, over and over, a merciless cycle:

Ingrid's severed head.

His own severed limbs.

The beast's twisted grin, relishing his ruin.

A fresh wave of nausea twisted in his stomach. He swallowed hard, forcing down the bile rising in his throat.

This wasn't a mere nightmare. It wasn't the distorted fabric of a half-formed dream.

It was something else.

A vision.

A glimpse of what was to come.

Or worse—what was inevitable.

He didn't know how he came up with this conclusion, but as soon as he voiced his thoughts, he couldn't refute the certainty he felt in his conclusion.

No matter how much he tried to dismiss the thought, it refused to fade, lingering in the back of his mind like an echo that wouldn't stop repeating itself.

Orion's hands trembled as he ran them through his damp hair, his fingers knotting in the strands. He needed to breathe. To think. But his mind was a tangled mess, a thousand disjointed thoughts crashing against each other, each one screaming for attention.

Why had he seen that? How had he seen that?

Had it already happened? No, impossible—he was here, wasn't he? In his own bed, in his own time. He was alive. But the sheer clarity of it, the sheer intensity, made him feel as if some part of him had truly lived it.

And if that was true—

A shudder wracked through him.

If that was his future, then he was already dead.

His mind lurched to Ingrid.

The look in her eyes.

It was as if she were silently telling Orion not to blame himself, as if she had already accepted the outcome. But that only made the pain cut deeper leaving him with the unbearable weight of guilt he couldn't shake.

Orion's stomach twisted violently, and he had to lurch to the side of the bed, barely catching himself as he gagged on nothing. The image wouldn't leave him.

And in that moment, he wished she had looked at him with anger instead. He wished she had blamed him, shouted at him, cursed him. Anything but that silent acceptance. Anything but that quiet, unspoken acknowledgment that this was always how it was going to end.

Orion pressed his fists against his forehead, his skin clammy and cold. No. No, this couldn't be real. This couldn't be set in stone.

I won't let this happen.

But how?

How had he seen it?

His breathing steadied as he forced himself to analyze, to push past the raw fear and revulsion. There had to be a cause. He wasn't some prophet, wasn't some seer doomed to witness his own demise. This was something else.

Something within him.

His thoughts drifted to the Xenothalamus, the organ that had awakened within him after his exposure to the Hekatrya Orb. It was meant to enhance him, to shape him into something beyond human—but had it done something more?

Had it shown him a future he was destined for?

Or had it shown him a possibility?

A self-fulfilling prophecy?

He didn't know which was more terrifying.

Could this vision be nothing more than a loop, a cycle already set in motion? If so, then every step he took from this moment on was nothing more than walking toward his own inevitable demise.

The uncertainty was maddening. He had never felt so powerless, and yet, within that powerlessness, a spark of defiance ignited. He refused to accept that he was bound to this fate?

Orion exhaled slowly, his breath still uneven, his hands still trembling, but his mind grasping onto threads of reason.

Maybe this was a warning.

If that was the case, then he had two choices.

One: Follow the same path but push himself harder—train his Wraith, his footwork, his movements, his mind—for the inevitable outcome.

Two: Follow a different path—perhaps embrace the path of a mage? Perhaps let go of the Wraith style entirely? Try to master Sensoria and Hekatryon at the same time?

He clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms.

That second option—it was the only choice.

But how?

The Orion in that vision had been different. He hadn't just been stronger; he had been faster, sharper, beyond what he was now.

And yet, even that version of him had died.

That means even as I am now, I'm not enough.

The thought sent an ice-cold shiver through him. He wasn't just weak—he was insufficient. A lesser version of the warrior he needed to become. And even that warrior had failed.

His breath hitched again, but he crushed the panic before it could spiral further. No. He could change this. He had to.

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Because there was something even more terrifying than the idea of his own death.

He forced himself to move, to shake off the lingering dread that clawed at his spine. He rubbed his arms, as if trying to wipe away the phantom pain, trying to convince himself that his limbs were still attached, still his.

They still felt foreign.

Still felt like they shouldn't be there.

His gaze flickered around his quarters, grounding himself in the present. The dim blue glow of the holo-displays on his desk, the sleek metal walls, the faint scent of the sterilized air—these were real. This moment was real.

What he had seen was just a vision.

He clenched his jaw.

I won't let it happen.

His fingers curled into the sheets.

I refuse to let that be my fate.

And with that, he made his decision—an unshakable resolve born not just from fear, but from the necessity of survival.

He had always been driven by goals, by the relentless pursuit of improvement, but now, for the first time, his motivation was not just to reach something—but to avoid it.

The vision had given him a glimpse of ruin, of his own inevitable destruction, and that alone forced a shift in his mindset.

He would not simply train to grow stronger.

He would train to survive.