The storm broke at dawn.
A quiet one. No lightning. No sound. Just a heavy mist curling down from the peaks like the mountain had finally exhaled.
Aiden stood at the edge of the camp, cloak soaked with dew. Torran was still asleep, curled beneath a scaled blanket salvaged from Vel'Serin. The world felt... different now.
Not hostile.
Not welcoming.
Just uncertain.
---
> [System Sync: 30% – Class Evolution: The Hollow Unbroken]
Effect Active: Echo Feedback Loop
Threat Signature: Faint. Tracking… lost.
Threadline Status: Uncharted
---
He hadn't expected that.
Since the evolution, the System had gone quiet. Not shut down—just… unmoored. Like he'd stepped somewhere even it didn't recognize.
He opened the map Elya had given him weeks ago.
The ink shifted on the page.
Lines blurred. Towns erased themselves.
The page no longer knew where it led.
Aiden looked down at the warped parchment.
And threw it into the fire.
---
> [System Update: Manual Threading Activated]
> No path ahead. You must carve it.
---
Torran stirred beside him. "Did you just burn the map?"
"Yes."
"You're insane."
"Probably."
Torran sat up, rubbing his face. "Then where are we going?"
Aiden watched the embers rise.
"Wherever they won't expect me."
---
Elsewhere – Empress Caelia's Private Sanctum
The mirrors were gone.
Shattered days ago.
Now she read from nothing. From symbols carved into her blood, drawn from scryed echoes only she could still see.
"He's off the thread," said the masked scribe beside her.
"No," she replied. "He's becoming one."
The glass shards at her feet vibrated.
And the sky above the capital dimmed—without a cloud in sight.
---
Far Away – Forgotten Observatory
An old man stirred from dreamless sleep.
He hadn't aged in centuries. Not since his timeline collapsed.
He stepped to the edge of his stone tower, gazing at a sky painted with fracture lines only he could see.
"He's chosen recursion," he murmured. "Of course he did."
He opened a sealed case.
Inside: a single quill made of memory.
He began to write.