Novels by OGU

The light struck Maya before Derick could even breathe. “MAYA—NO!” he screamed, voice tearing at his throat.The explosion swallowed her whole. Dust and golden fire erupted skyward. Shockwaves threw Derick backward inside the golden chains, slamming him against the warped sky of the memory realm.He gasped violently, eyes burning, lungs collapsing. “Maya… Maya… Maya…”As the smoke thinned, her silhouette appeared, crumpled on the broken battlefield, motionless. Derick’s blood froze.“No… please… please get up…” His voice cracked. “You promised. You said you wouldn’t leave me again…”A low rumble rolled across the battlefield. The God of War, Derick’s past self, descended through the smoke, each step shaking the ground. His golden armor gleamed like judgment itself.The giant, thunderous voice boomed: “Attachment weakens you.”Derick snarled through gritted teeth, tears streaking down his face. “She cared about me! She believed in me! How is that weakness?!”The armored titan lifted it

The cavern trembled as the torches guttered out, plunging everything into a suffocating blackness. Only two burning red eyes hovered ahead, cold, ancient, and agonizingly familiar.Derick’s breath came sharp and uneven. “I… I don’t understand. You can’t be me. You can’t.”The Warden’s voice echoed in the darkness, stripped of the mask but no less terrifying. “You have not awakened enough to comprehend it. But yes, I am what you once became. Your former self. Your final evolution.”Derick felt the world tilting under him, his heartbeat hammering painfully in his ears. “You… you’re telling me I turned into this? A Dominion killer? An executioner?”The Warden stepped closer, the air chilling with every footfall. “I became what was needed. What the world demanded. What power demanded.”“Power doesn’t demand anything!” Derick snapped. “People choose what they become!”The Warden paused. “You think so?” he murmured.“You truly believe you’re free?”Derick tried to stand straighter. “I have

Darkness. Cold. Silence. Derick floated through nothingness, weightless, as if the world had dropped him into an endless void.He tried to breathe, but there was no air, only the sensation of drowning in shadows. Then a voice whispered through the emptiness: “Derick…”Soft. Familiar. Painful. He twisted toward it, gasping. “M-Maya…?”Light flickered, weak, golden, like fireflies struggling to stay alive.The voice came again, trembling. “Please… wake up.”Derick reached for the light, but his hand passed straight through it. He flinched. “Maya! I can hear you! I’m here, where are you?!”Her voice shuddered, distant. “You’re fading… please hold on…”Derick’s chest tightened. “No! Don’t leave, tell me where you are!”But the golden light dimmed, flickered, and then vanished. Derick screamed into the void, “MAYA!”Silence swallowed his voice whole. A sudden impact slammed him onto a rough stone floor. Derick gasped as his lungs filled with air, cold, sharp air that burned his throat.His

Rain hammered the alley like a thousand tiny bullets as Derick stood frozen, Kael blazing gold on one side, the Warden radiating cold crimson on the other.His breath came out in sharp, uneven bursts. Kael shouted, voice raw: “Derick! Don’t let him touch you!”The Warden’s voice slid through the rain, calm and patient: “Do not fear me, Warborn. Fear what will happen if you refuse.”Derick’s hands shook violently. “Maya… she… she could really die?”“Yes,” the Warden replied. “Every second you hesitate, her soul fragments further.”Kael snarled, stepping forward. “HE’S LYING!”Derick’s gaze darted between them. “Kael… tell me the truth. Can she die because of me?”Kael flinched, barely, but enough. The Warden noticed. “There,” he murmured. “He hesitates because he knows the binding is real.”Derick’s heart cracked. “Kael…?”Kael swallowed hard. “Listen to me, Derick. Soul-binding is… possible. But Maya wouldn’t use that technique. She would never erase her existence for anyone. She, she

The explosion hurled dust and debris into the night sky, rattling windows along the street. A shockwave slapped across Derick’s back as Kael dragged him into the alley.Derick twisted around. “MAYA!”Kael yanked him harder. “Don’t look back! She made her choice!”Derick stumbled. “We can’t leave her”“You don’t understand what a Warden is!” Kael snapped. “We stay, we die!”The street behind them burned with black fire, warping the air like heat over asphalt. Shadows writhed unnaturally along the ground, reaching, searching.Derick’s heart hammered. “She’s fighting that alone !”“And she wouldn’t last ten seconds if she had to protect you at the same time!” Kael shot back. “MOVE!”They sprinted down the alley, shoes splashing through puddles as the rain hammered harder. A deafening blast erupted behind them, followed by Maya’s voice, fierce and commanding: “STAY DOWN!”Another explosion. The sky flashed white, then purple. Derick’s legs faltered. He gripped the wall, gasping. “I can’t

Wind howled across the rooftop as the figure stepped fully into the moonlight, dark cloak whipping behind her, boots planted firmly on the concrete edge.Derick stared up at her, chest tightening. “Kael…” he whispered. “Why did you say her name like that? Who is she?”Kael didn’t answer immediately. His eyes were sharp, guarded, an expression Derick hadn’t seen before. Maya’s voice drifted down, calm and unnervingly soft. “Derick Hayford. Rise.”Derick stiffened. “Why do you sound like you know me?”Maya descended in a single leap, landing lightly on the street without a sound. Her dark hair clung to her face in the rain, but her emerald eyes glowed faintly beneath her hood.Kael stepped in front of Derick. “Stay behind me.”“No,” Derick said. “I want answers.”Maya smiled faintly. “Good. You’re learning to speak for yourself.”Kael’s jaw tightened. “Derick, she’s dangerous.”Maya tilted her head. “Dangerous to you, perhaps. Not to him.”Kael narrowed his eyes. “You interfered with th

Spencer slammed back into his body like someone dropped him from the stratosphere. He gasped, air stabbing into his lungs, vision spinning, Concrete above him.Moonlight. The cold loading dock. He was back. But something was wrong. “…Lira?” he croaked.Silence. He blinked hard. The world was unfocused, edges bending like heatwaves. He pushed himself up, trembling.His hands shook violently, silver light flickering under his skin like trapped lightning. “Lira… where are you?”Still nothing. His stomach dropped. She wasn’t here. “LIRA!” he shouted, louder, desperate.A faint echo responded, like his voice bounced off the wrong angles of the building. But no Lira. No shadow. No warlock. Just silence.Spencer whispered, “No. No, nononono, she wouldn’t leave me.”A cold voice answered from behind him: “You’re half-right.”Spencer spun, Lira stumbled out of the darkness. But she didn’t look like herself. Her face was pale. Eyes unfocused. Breaths shallow. Like she’d run for miles through ni

Falling wasn’t the right word. Spencer wasn’t falling. He was dropping through himself.Blackness tore apart into shards of blinding white, flashing like broken mirrors, each reflecting pieces of him he didn’t recognize.A voice echoed, layered and ancient: “Remember.”Spencer shouted into the void, “No! I don’t want to remember anything!”Another voice, his own, whispered directly behind his ear: “You don’t have a choice.”He spun, His shadow stood inches from him in the empty void, more solid than before—bone structure forming beneath the darkness, faint muscles shaping. “Stay away from me,” Spencer breathed.The shadow stepped closer. “You called me.”“I DID NOT!”“You awakened. That is a call.”Spencer clenched his fists. “Where am I? What did you do to me?”“This is inside your remnant. Inside us.”Spencer’s heartbeat thundered. Inside them. Inside a past he didn’t want. Inside a truth he wasn’t ready for. “Let me out,” he said. “Now.”The shadow smiled slightly. “Escape requires

Darkness wasn’t absence. It was presence. It pressed against Spencer’s skin, cold, aware, predatory. A voice echoed in the void: “Breathe, vessel.”Spencer flinched. “Stop calling me that!”“Then stop behaving like one.”Light ripped open the darkness, He stumbled backward into a half-collapsed rooftop, heart hammering.Lira stood across from him, blade drawn, panting, eyes wild with panic. “Spencer, DON’T MOVE!”He froze. “What, what happened? Where’s the warlock?”“Forget him!” She pointed past Spencer.“Look behind you.”Slowly, dreading it, Spencer turned. His shadow was still there. Standing upright. Detached from his feet. Breathing in slow, unnatural rises. “Spencer,” Lira whispered, “it followed you through the shift.”Spencer backed away. “How?! Shadows don’t teleport!”“That’s not your shadow. That’s your remnant’s… shape.”The shadow tilted its head, perfectly matching the motion Spencer had just made. Except… slower. More deliberate. Hungrier. “Stop copying me!” Spencer sn

Spencer woke to the taste of metal. Blood? Power? Both?The world was a blur, shattered concrete, twisting fog, the faint echo of his own heartbeat returning in slow, brutal thumps. Lira’s voice cut through the haze: “Spencer, answer me. Spencer!”He groaned. “D-did I… die again?”“No. But something inside you woke up in your place.”“That’s… terrible news.”“Yes,” she said quickly. “That’s why we need to move, NOW.”But Spencer couldn’t move. His limbs trembled like electricity was still crawling through them. “What happened to the warlock?” he whispered.Lira stiffened. “I don’t know. You, your remnant, repelled him. Violently.”“Repelled him how?”She swallowed. “It screamed.”“That’s… disturbing.”“You’re telling me.”Spencer tried to sit up. “We need to check if he’s gone.”Lira grabbed his arm instantly. “No. Absolutely not.”“Why?”“Because if he’s still conscious, he’ll finish the extraction.”“And if he’s NOT conscious”“Then that’s even worse.”Spencer blinked. “…Why worse?”

The shadow at the end of the ruined road didn’t move. It didn’t breathe. It didn’t even sway in the wind. But Spencer felt it, in his bones, in the back of his skull, in the thing pulsing inside his chest.Lira whispered, “Spencer… don’t blink.”“I’m not even breathing,” Spencer whispered back.“Good. Don’t. Any movement might”The warlock’s voice suddenly slid between their thoughts: “Move. Don’t move. It makes no difference.”Spencer flinched. “Lira, he’s inside my head again”“He’s not,” she said.“Then what is he doing?”“He’s inside your remnant.”Spencer’s throat tightened. “Is… is it talking back?”Lira’s silence answered for her. The warlock lifted one hand, slowly, precisely, as if raising a curtain. All the fog around them tightened inward, spiraling like a slow-turning whirlpool.Lira stepped in front of Spencer. “Don’t respond,” she hissed.“I’m not!”“I meant the remnant.”Spencer swallowed. “Can you stop it?”“No. I can only delay it.”“How long?”“Minutes,” she said. “M

The symbols on the ground glowed faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat. Spencer stumbled backward as the message dissolved into dust. “Lira… what does it mean? Awakening too fast? How fast is too fast?”Lira didn’t answer. She didn’t breathe. She stared at the dust as if it were something alive. “Lira?” Spencer whispered. “Talk to me.”Finally, she spoke, soft, strained, terrified. “It means your remnant isn’t dormant anymore. It’s… accelerating.”“Isn’t that good?” Spencer asked desperately. “Doesn’t that mean I’m getting stronger?”“No,” Lira said sharply. “Awakening doesn’t mean strength. It means instability.”“Lira”She grabbed his wrist. “Spencer, listen to me carefully. If the remnant wakes too fast, it won’t merge with you.”“Then what does it do?”“It replaces you.”Spencer’s breath froze. “You’re joking.”“I wish I were.”He stepped away from her, chest tightening. “No, no, this can’t be happening. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want any of this!”Lira followed him slowly. “No