The shadow left behind by the battle in the transit zone still lingered in the air, even though reality seemed to have resumed its flow. Far from the eyes of ordinary beings, above the city of Virelle, a circle of eight figures watched through runic mirrors what had just occurred. Each wore a black cloak with a lining of living silver, and their faces were hidden beneath veils of unstable matter — their identities could not be perceived, not even by gods.
— He activated the white code of judgmentless truth, one of the shadows said. Without hesitation.
— That means he's not just a pretender, added another, deeper voice. He is the true Bearer of the Eyes.
A third figure raised a hand, and the runic mirrors slowly dissolved.
— According to the laws of the Eternal Council, we are not allowed to interfere. But he just rejected an imposed reality. That's a declaration.
— A declaration of war? someone asked.
— No. Worse. A declaration of creation. He will rewrite the rules — not just break them.
A heavy silence fell upon the gathering. One of them whispered softly:
— Open the Living Archive. Begin the tracking.
---
At the same time, on the ground level, Albert, Kaelya, and Leon were walking along a path that seemed to lead nowhere. The area they had been transported to after the test with the Sentinel wasn't marked on any guiding artifact — not even magical maps.
— There are no orientation points, Leon said, looking around. No natural magic flows, no distortions to indicate a destination.
— That's exactly why we're in the right place, Albert replied. Old rules don't work here.
Kaelya kept her hand on the hilt of her sword.
— And how do we know it's not a trap?
Albert closed his eyes. For a moment, the light fractured around him, and a projection of energy emerged from his forehead — a circle of pure white light, nearly blinding.
— Because I see what others cannot. This place doesn't want to be found. But now… it has seen me too.
From afar, a dull sound echoed — like a single heartbeat of something colossal.
Kaelya froze.
— Did you feel that?
Leon nodded.
— Yes. And it's not from this world.
The heartbeat came again. This time, closer. It wasn't a sound in the traditional sense—it echoed through their bones, reverberated in their thoughts, like a memory that hadn't happened yet.
Albert stopped. His eyes narrowed.
— This place is responding. It's adjusting itself to us.
Before them, the terrain began to ripple—stone shifting like water, earth rearranging into deliberate patterns. In seconds, the lifeless path became a spiraling corridor of black crystal, pulsing faintly with internal light.
— That wasn't there before, whispered Leon, readying his weapon.
Kaelya stepped beside Albert.
— Is it welcoming us… or warning us?
— Both, said Albert. This path wasn't constructed—it was remembered into existence.
They began walking again, the black crystal humming beneath their feet. Above them, the sky seemed fractured, like glass veined with impossible colors.
Then, a voice—ancient, mechanical, and somehow weary—resonated around them:
"Initiation Protocol Verified. Entity recognized: Bearer of the Infinite Eye. Designation: Albert. Access granted to: Corridor of Absent Tomorrows."
Leon frowned.
— Corridor of… what?
— It's a dimensional term, Albert murmured. A place that exists outside of all expected futures.
As they stepped forward, sigils activated along the walls, each one displaying a memory not their own. Battles in ancient worlds. Lost gods screaming at the end of time. A mirror shattering under a sky that bled stars.
— These are visions, Kaelya said. But none of them are ours.
— No, said Albert. They're warnings. From realities where I never existed.
A new presence shimmered ahead. It looked like a child—no more than ten years old—wearing ceremonial robes too large for its frame. But its eyes… its eyes were identical to Albert's.
— That… that can't be, Leon whispered.
Kaelya drew her sword halfway, just in case.
The child spoke.
— I am the one who never became you.
Albert stepped forward, calm.
— Then you remember what I must do.
— I do. And I came to ask you not to.
Albert tilted his head.
— You know that's not possible.
— I know. But I had to ask.
The child vanished, fading like breath on a cold mirror.
Kaelya exhaled.
— What was that?
— A reflection of refusal, Albert said. Part of the corridor's final challenge.
And from above, a new crack split the sky—vertical, silent, leaking a blue light so intense it silenced thought.
— That's the exit, said Albert. And also the test.
The shadow of the alternate dimension began to unravel, but not completely. It was like an open wound on the skin of reality, refusing to close. From within, a pale light pulsed slowly, like a barely perceptible breath, and Albert walked calmly toward the edge of the fissure.
— This is not just a gate, he said. It's a conscious wound. Someone tried to destroy this crossing point, but the entity behind it resisted.
— An entity? Leon asked, approaching cautiously.
— A living memory, a fragment of will that became space, Kaelya answered, her voice taking on a grave tone. They are rare… and extremely dangerous.
Albert raised a hand. He didn't cast magic, only activated his eyes — the violet hue of dreams lit up gently.
— Yes... it's alive. And it's dreaming.
Suddenly, a silhouette took shape from the light. It had no stable form — merely a sketch of a human with trembling edges, like an unfinished thought. No mouth, no eyes, but conscious. And in a slow gesture, it extended its arm toward Albert.
— I accept, said Albert. I want to see your dream.
When their fingers touched, the world transformed. Not explosively, not abruptly — but like a slow fall into something else. The landscape turned and reshaped itself, and in place of the ruins around them appeared an endless green field, where a warm wind blew. The sky was split into four colors, and in the distance, a fortress of shadows floated suspended in the air.
— We're inside a dream that tried to become reality, Kaelya murmured. But it was abandoned.
— An abandoned dream becomes a fracture, Albert said. And if you enter it, you must either complete it or be lost.
Leon clenched his fingers around his spear. — And if we complete it, what happens?
— Then the entity will be freed… or it will disintegrate.
A female voice, coming from nowhere, echoed:
— Who are the ones walking into my dream?
Kaelya turned slightly pale. — That's not just a fragment of will. She's… she's complete.
Albert smiled slightly. — Then we must introduce ourselves. With respect.
He turned toward the source of the voice and said:
— My name is Albert. I walk between worlds. I seek not to conquer, but to understand.
The silence that followed was thick. Then the voice said:
— Then… step deeper. But leave your fears behind. Here, they take form.
As they stepped deeper into the dream, the air grew viscous, as though each step was a choice in itself. Every movement left behind visual echoes—shadows of other versions of themselves, slowly dissolving. The green field stretched in all directions, but above them, the sky divided into four colors pulsed in unison with the heartbeat of the dreaming entity.
"She's testing us," Kaelya said. "Not with strength. With reflection."
Albert's gaze scanned the field, but his eyes remained lit in violet. He saw the structure of the dream, saw the fractures. He saw what the dream wanted them to see.
"Look at the silhouettes in the distance," he said, pointing at the trembling outlines. "They're unspoken thoughts. Fears that never found voice. If you touch them... you become part of them."
Leon, who had been walking silently, stopped. One of the shadows looked at him—it had the appearance of his father, just as he remembered him from a childhood day before his death.
"Albert... this... this isn't just the entity's dream, it's mine."
Albert nodded, calm. "All dreams overlap here. This space is made of fragments of personal realities. It's a place where truths collide."
Kaelya placed a hand on her chest. A subtle tremor coursed through her. "It showed me something. I don't know what it means... but I think it saw me completely. Not just my body. Everything I am."
"Are you ready?" Albert asked.
She nodded, and Leon, gritting his teeth, stepped forward again. As they neared the fortress suspended in the air, a bridge of light formed under their feet, with no real starting point.
As they ascended, the voice spoke again, this time directly into their minds:
"If you wish to end my dream... you must bear my burden."
Albert stopped, then responded in thought:
"We're here to understand it. Not to reject it."
At that moment, the sky split open. From one of its corners, a gigantic feminine form descended—without clear outlines. She was made of fragments of memories: an embrace, a betrayal, a farewell, a smile, an agony. All of them together shaped the figure.
"She... she's not just an entity," Kaelya whispered. "She's a world that was never born."
Albert stepped forward.
"Then let's give her the ending she deserves."
The silence that followed the entity's descent felt like a heavy cloak, draped over the entirety of the dream's reality. When the woman-fragment raised her arm, no sound was heard, but all three felt a powerful current, as if the past, present, and future had been funneled through pure emotion.
— This isn't magic, Kaelya whispered. It's unlived history.
Albert closed his eyes. The violet hue was replaced by blue — the absolute level of his eyes. When he reopened them, the dream stopped. Everything froze. The air no longer flowed. The wind no longer moved the blades of grass. And the entity looked directly at him, though it had no eyes.
— You... you see too much.
Albert replied simply:
— And yet, I do not judge.
The dream-woman seemed to tremble. Her arms unfolded into dozens of branches, like roads leading to hundreds of possible endings. Each showed a different version of what her world might have been.
— I was a world denied, she said. A world that never received a chance. I was never reality.
Leon stepped forward, fist clenched.
— And yet you survived, even so. You breathed in the darkness.
The entity seemed to smile without a mouth.
— I breathed through dreamers. Through those who had lost hope and still closed their eyes. I grew in their tears.
Kaelya knelt, without knowing why. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
— You are... beautiful. Sad, but beautiful.
Albert approached her.
— Do you want to become real?
— The price... is the end of me as a dream. As an idea.
— Or your rebirth as a world, he said.
She seemed to dissolve for a moment, then reformed.
— Then... you have permission to try. But you must enter my core. Into the heart of where the dream was abandoned.
The ground opened beneath them, but they did not fall. They had already been absorbed into the new reality.
Leon closed his eyes and said:
— Let's do it. Let's give it shape. Let's create a world that was refused.
Albert smiled.
— Then... we begin.
Reverberations of an Abandoned Gate
In the Watcher's Tower, at the highest peak where only the chosen may ascend without space collapsing, a boy with crystal glasses and a black cloak lifted his gaze from a Codex of Censored Time.
— A rejected dream has been activated, he whispered. This… hasn't happened in seven cosmic cycles.
A hologram of nine circles lit up around him. The circles vibrated, but only one flickered chaotically — the one tied to the Fractured Region.
Thousands of kilometers away, in the Sanctuary of the Silent Ones, ten Masters of the Hollow Dream opened their eyes at once. They had all shared the same vision. At their center, an old man with a silver scar across his throat spoke:
— The complete entity from the abandoned dream has awakened. Someone gave it form. And it... accepted.
On the Continent of Smoke, before a mirror that reflected only what does not exist, Zhelenya flinched. A single tear slid down her cheek, and she didn't know why.
— Who dove so deep into the unborn layers of reality?
Behind her, a woman's voice replied:
— Albert. Only he can speak to something that never was.
In a forgotten corner of a sealed library, where time clings to books like a dying breath, a scorched page reassembled itself. On it, a new title emerged, written in the language of dreams:
"The Fragment That Wanted to Become a World."
In the Vigil Room of the Eternal Council, one of the Nine opened their eyes and spoke for the first time in 17 millennia:
— The dream that never was, but now wants to be, has been accepted. Next comes interference with the Absolute Equilibrium.
But Sypherion, hands resting on the Neutral Throne, closed his eyes and simply said:
— Let him be. Let's see how deep he can reshape what never existed.