Zayne is the second love interest introduced in Love And Deepspace. Though he seems cold, indifferent, and imposing at first, Zayne’s warm heart and dry humor won the hearts of players worldwide. Now the MC’s primary care physician and foremost cardiac surgeon in Linkon, Zayne was once her quiet and serious childhood friend.
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When they were children, Zayne and the MC used to spend time together eating Old Popsicles and having snowball fights. Zayne had been a steadfast friend in the MC’s life until his parents moved him away. Now, Zayne’s back and ready to pick up where they left off.
This article contains spoilers for Zayne’s main story chapters, Memory Cards, Myths, and Anecdotes.
Who Is Zayne?
Zayne is a 27-year-old heart surgeon living in Linkon City. He and the MC have been friends since childhood. After a few years apart, the pair reunited in Linkon. Zayne became her primary care physician at the behest of her grandmother, Josephine.
Zayne’s birthday is September 5, making him a Virgo.
Zayne is also the third tallest of the love interests at six foot two inches tall (187.96 cm). His Evol is ice manipulation. He can summon ice and snow as well as cool objects down.
Personality
Zayne’s demeanor may seem cold and aloof on the outside, but on the inside, Zayne possesses a warm heart and a deep drive to help people.
He’s a workaholic, but on his rare days off, Zayne likes to go skiing, try new restaurants, and spend time with the MC.
As expected of a surgeon, Zayne is very health-conscious. He goes for a run every morning, avoids alcohol, and for the most part, eats regularly. However, Zayne has a notorious sweet tooth which has led to the occasional dentist visit.
While he may seem stoic, serious, and even scary to some, Zayne has a sense of humor, albeit a very dry one. He enjoys movies and jokes as much as anyone else, he’s just a little quieter about it.
Zayne’s aversion to alcohol comes from a strong sensitivity to it. One piece of liquor-filled chocolate is enough to get him drunk, as seen in the five-star memory, Zayne: Absolute Zeal, which was available during the Nightly Rendezvous event.
Work Life
Zayne is a cardiologist and heart surgeon at Akso Hospital. Due to his dedication and his work treating patients with Protocore Syndrome, Zayne has earned his hospital much acclaim.
He has won many medical awards including the prestigious Starcatcher Award and the Linde Award, of which he is the youngest recepient. However, despite his considerable acclaim, Zayne has never been motivated by praise.
When Zayne was in school, Zayne met Carter, another brilliant medical student who shared a professor with Zayne. Zayne and Carter never saw eye to eye, as Carter was interested in experimental science using Protocores to enhance people.
Carter believed that infusing Protocores with humans was a way to not only save lives but enhance them. His radical views drove him to work for Xander Sciences, a research company that was recently acquired by Ever. At Xander Sciences, Carter would receive full funding for his human experiments.
Protocore Syndrome is a disease caused when Protocores (special energy cores dropped from high-level Wanderers) negatively affect a person’s body. There are three types currently known to affect humans, and each one causes different symptoms and levels of disease progression.
Zayne also still researches the effects of Protocores on humans. He and Dr. Noah, his former professor, conduct this research in the Arctic near Mt. Eternal.
Zayne’s research focuses on saving people from the damaging side effects of Protocores and on preventing certain Protocore crystals from turning people into Wanderers. Through this research, he and Dr. Noah have discovered ways to stop the progression of humans into wanderers by removing the infectious crystals.
Zayne’s Past
Zayne has known the MC and her family since she was very young. His parents were old friends of her Grandma Josephine. Back then, Zayne was a soft-spoken, serious boy who didn’t get into much trouble unless the MC (and presumably her pseudo-brother, Caleb) dragged him into it.
Zayne and the MC spent their time as children together going to parks, eating Old Popsicles, and playing games. Before his family moved him away from the MC, Zayne gifted her two baby seals that he made of snow using his Evol.
Since his control over his Evol was less than perfect, the MC mistook the seals for snowballs, a fact that Zayne still reminds her of to this day.
Once, when the MC was around eight or nine years old, she and Zayne were playing together when Zayne suddenly lost control of his Evol. The MC was badly hurt in the outburst, but has no memories of the encounter, unlike Zayne who still feels guilty for having hurt her to this day.
Zayne’s guilt may have contributed to his decision to become a heart surgeon and ultimately, her primary care physician.
Zayne lost control of his Evol many times since then, and despite having found ways to cope with his meltdowns (or in his case, cooldowns) Zayne still loses control over his Evol from time to time.
This usually happens when he’s experiencing strong emotions or exertion, such as in his memory card, Zayne: Absolute Zeal where rime forms on the window beside him and the MC during their intimate encounter.
Both of Zayne’s parents were doctors and Zayne decided to follow in their footsteps and become a heart surgeon. With his calm demeanor and studious determination, Zayne quickly surpassed his classmates and colleagues and became the best heart surgeon in his field.
While he loved and looked up to his parents, Zayne was seldom around them. His parents’ careers often took them abroad to remote places for long periods. Zayne was often alone and rarely spent birthdays or holidays with his family.
The MC is not Zayne’s only friend. He is also friends with Caleb, the boy she grew up with, as well as with members of his medical staff, Greyson and Yvonne, among others. Zayne also regularly keeps in touch with Dr. Noah, his former professor with whom he now conducts medical research.
Dawnbreaker
Zayne’s fear of hurting someone he loves was made worse by recurrent nightmares that have plagued him since he was twelve years old. In these nightmares, Zayne sees through the eyes of an alternate version of himself, a man known as Dawnbreaker.
Dawnbreaker, also named Zayne, lives a bleak, lonely life. In his world, Wanderers have completely taken over the streets, forcing people into their homes. Some of these Wanderers are mere amalgamations of energy, while others were once humans.
Dawnbreaker has taken it upon himself to hunt and kill these humans-turned-Wanderers using his Evol.
Dawnbreaker’s Evol is also ice, but unlike Zayne’s pure white ice crystals, Dawnbreaker summons black ice.
Zayne has seen each of Dawnbreaker’s kills in his nightmares. Each one haunts him, and while he isn’t the one to make those kills, Zayne still considers Dawnbreaker’s victims his own.
Above all else, Zayne is determined never to become Dawnbreaker, who he sees as a heartless killer.
Desperate to prevent himself from killing anyone and becoming a husk like Dawnbreaker, he devoted his life to saving lives in the operating room. Furthermore, he became the MC’s primary care physician to keep an eye on her own fragile heart.
While he technically isn’t the Zayne we meet in the timeline of the main story, Dawnbreaker is an incarnation of Zayne who lives many decades after the events of the main story.
Mt. Eternal
When Zayne had only recently begun practicing at Akso Hospital he was called in as a medical backup for a rescue mission in the Arctic. A surge of Wanderers had appeared on Mt. Eternal and many soldiers and Hunters were badly injured.
The situation was dire, and so the best of the best were called in to assist with the rescue efforts. Zayne was among the doctors chosen for the mission. As wave after wave of injured soldiers came in, Zayne and his colleagues cared for each patient day and night. Zayne seldom slept, but despite his exhaustion, saved countless lives.
As the situation on the mountain grew worse, a special unit was formed to head to the center of the Protofield on Mt. Eternal and stop the influx of Wanderers once and for all. Zayne volunteered to accompany the special operations team, along with his colleague and friend, Dr. William.
The team fought their way up the mountain, suffering heavy casualties as they fought for each precious mile. Half of the team remained by the time they reach the Protofield’s center. When they arrive, they set up devices to contain the Protofield and prepare for its ultimate destruction.
Throughout the mission in the Arctic, Zayne is haunted more and more by visions of Dawnbreaker and his kills.
However, before the operation is complete, the group is ambushed by powerful Wanderers. Zayne and the others fight valiantly to destroy the Protofield.
When the dust (or snow, in this case) settles, several team members are injured and must be evacuated back down the mountain. Thinking all is well, the team prepares to leave.
As William goes to collect equipment from a nearby bunker, Zayne stops him, realizing that strange glowing blue crystals have begun to spread from William’s chest. William tries to get rid of the crystals, but with each new touch, they spread faster and faster until his whole body begins to warp and transform into a Wanderer.
The crystals that infected William are the same ones that infect the people that Dawnbreaker kills. Zayne panics when he sees William undergo this transformation as he has seen Dawnbreaker’s countless kills in dreams for years.
Terrified, William realizes that he can’t save himself, and rather than let the crystals take over and turn him into a monster, William begs Zayne to kill him. Zayne tries many times to freeze the progression of the crystals using his ice Evol, but it’s no use.
Zayne has a tough decision to make. He feels thrown into his nightmares, realizing that he is now in Dawnbreaker’s shoes. He tries to suppress the progression of the crystals as much as he can to save his friend, but eventually, he realizes he’s powerless to save him.
In the end, Zayne relents and uses his Evol to kill William. That fateful day haunts Zayne. He had never wanted to kill anyone, let alone a friend, and he now lives with that blood on his hands and William’s life on his conscience.
Yet, despite the tragedy on Mt. Eternal, Zayne uses William’s death to motivate him to find a cure for similar illnesses. He and Dr. Noah, a professor of his and the MC’s previous cardiologist, research ways to prevent and reverse a person’s transformation into a Wanderer after being infected by the same Crystals as William.
Zayne’s Myth – Tower Of Secrets
In Tower of Secrets, Zayne is known as the Foreseer, the immortal divine emissary to the god Astra. He is an all-knowing seer who tells the future of the royal family by relaying it to the royal family’s envoy.
In the myth, the MC suffers from a disease known as Cryoriasis — a deadly disease that slowly freezes a person from the inside out. The disease is ultimately fatal and each prophet the MC has consulted has told her that she has only three more years to live.
Her only hope is to pose as the royal family’s envoy and travel to the Tower of Thorns, where the Foreseer resides deep in the mountains. She intends to steal the Creatio Protocore from the Foreseer. The Creatio Protocore is the only known cure for her illness.
The Creatio Protocore is a special Protocore placed onto the Foreseer’s staff by Astra himself. The Protocore lends the Foreseer Astra’s power.
The MC believes that by using the power of the Creatio Protocore, she can save herself from her fatal condition. She enters the Tower of Thorns and finds the Foreseer frozen onto his throne, completely still.
Thinking him asleep, the MC approaches the Foreseer’s throne and tries to take the Creatio Protocore from him. The Foreseer wakes up and immediately knows that the MC is not a royal envoy, but rather an impudent intruder who intends to steal the power of the Creatio Protocore for herself.
The Foreseer freezes the MC in place in the throne room for several days. While she stands there, frozen, she notices the Foreseer reading a book about gardening. Believing this could be her only chance to save herself, she admits that she is a gardener by trade and that she can be of use to him.
The Foreseer relents and takes the MC to the top of the Tower of Thorns where a solitary jasmine flower grows from the stone walls. He tells her that if she can make the Jasmine bloom, she may leave the Tower of Thorns alive. The MC agrees to these terms, believing she may find another opportunity to steal the Protocore from him.
Over time, as the MC cares for the jasmine flower, she and the Foreseer get to know each other. She learns that he waits for the Arcticyons to migrate each year, and watches them from atop the tower. He also helps her make a wish to Astra on Wisshen day by creating hundreds of floating lanterns for her out of ice.
One day, as the MC explores the castle, she finds a book called Philos: Floral Inquiry, which she has often seen the Foreseer reading. Opening the book transports the reader into a field of endless jasmine.
As her bond with the Foreseer grows, so does the jasmine atop the Tower, until the flower finally blooms. The MC takes the Foreseer — whom she now only calls, Zayne — to the top of the tower to show him the flower.
Zayne explains that others before her had tried to make the flower bloom, but that she was the only one ever to succeed. He then takes her into the field of Jasmines in Philos: Floral Inquiry. There, he tells the MC that he wishes to confirm that he won’t lose her again.
Zayne starts to believe that the jasmine bud represents his memories of the MC in every lifetime. He makes this connection upon watching the flower bloom.
In all of his memories, Astra has erased the MC and replaced her with the jasmine. In every life, Zayne meets and falls in love with the MC, only for her to ultimately die.
While they converse in the field of jasmine, the MC’s heart suddenly starts to freeze. Zayne realizes that the MC’s illness is not a normal one and that Astra is the one who has sped up the progression of her Crioryasis.
Zayne uses that time to confirm his suspicions that the MC is the jasmine in his memories. Though Astra forbade him from looking into his own destiny, Zayne unwinds the strands of fate and searches for the future of the MC, as her life is eternally entwined with his.
The punishment for defying Astra is meant to be death. However, Astra decides to punish Zayne instead by chaining him in the Tower. As he is restrained, icicles sharper than glass impale his body, unable to be removed entirely.
The MC comes upon Zayne shackled in the Tower and frees him, deciding that his life is worth more to her than curing her illness. She unshackles him and takes him to the roof of the Tower.
There, Zayne reveals to her that her illness is caused by resonating with the Creatio Protocore. As her life fades away, the Protocore grows stronger. Because her fate is entwined with Zayne’s, they are being punished together.
Rather than let her die, Zayne gives her the Creatio Protocore. In doing so, Astra’s power becomes hers. The MC panics when she realizes that by defying Astra, Zayne will be eternally punished. She clings to Zayne and tells him that no matter what happens, she will never forget him.
A blizzard rips through the Tower of Thorns and the MC is sent far away. Before Zayne is encased in ice and snow forever, he uses his remaining magic to give her a jasmine encased in ice, his promise to never forget her.
- Released
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January 8, 2024
- Developer(s)
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INFOLD
- Publisher(s)
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INFOLD