Aetheron coughed, breathing heavy. "…Shit…"
His armored body glowed in weaker pulses, like a dying signal, not a person.
Chronos looked down at him, then back up. Calculating. "Shukan. Stay here with him."
Shukan clicked his tongue. "Huh?" his face was riddled with exhaustion. "What do you think I can do? I'm basically in the same situation as him."
"Well, you still have stamina left. That's all you need."
"But– "
"Me and Yurei will go."
Shukan didn't argue again. He just ran his hand down his face in a lazy manner.
"Great. Love the plan of leaving a Half-dead guy with the guy who's already half-way out."
Aetheron snorted weakly.
"You're the emotional support, apparently."
"Creators help us both."
Yurei was already walking forward.
She didn't look back. Didn't argue.
Chronos joined her, and they moved into the deeper section of the field.
Burnt grass crunched under their feet.
The sky looked too clean—like someone hit the reset button too early.
"You feel that?" Yurei muttered.
"Yeah," Chronos replied. "Something's watching."
"Still?"
"No. Now it's listening."
They crossed a ridge. Trees twisted like they were drawn wrong.
At the top—
Silence.
But a pressure under it.
The kind that means something's about to snap.
Then—
CRACK.
The ground beneath them split.
A pulse of glyphs shot out in a circle—like a ripple through reality.
Yurei shouted, footing gone.
Chronos reached for her—but too late.
They dropped.
Both of them.
Straight into a rift.
Not a hole.
Not a cave.
A space between things that should never touch.
Color inverted.
Sound dulled.
And the only thing below?
A platform made of frozen glyphs.
They landed hard.
Yurei hit first, rolled, and came up ready.
Chronos dropped beside her, hand already glowing.
They weren't alone.
Five shapes stood at the far edge of the platform.
Not moving.
Not clones.
Not finished.
More like ideas wearing bodies—fragments of intent.
And in the center?
A light in a chain.
Not blinding.
Just wrong.
It pulsed with anticipation.
"They're not attacking," Yurei said, breath low.
"No," Chronos answered. "They're waiting."
The silence was too clean.
Chronos scanned the platform, glyphs dimly flickering beneath his armored feet.
But Yurei?
She wasn't moving.
Frozen. Eyes locked on the far side—where the light didn't quite settle right.
"Yurei?" Chronos said.
She didn't answer.
"Yo. Talk to me. You see something I don't?"
Still nothing.
Then she spoke.
"…No way."
The shapes ahead shifted.
Not stepped. Not walked.
Just… existed slightly closer.
One of them had a chain dragging across the ground—slow. Heavy. Like it didn't care how long it took to reach them.
"It's an Anchor-Born," Yurei said, voice low.
"A what?"
"You don't see it the way I do. Just—keep your glyphs ready."
Chronos moved closer.
"Yurei. Explain. Now."
"It's not a clone. Not a rewrite.
It's worse.
It's real."
The air pulled tighter.
Like gravity was picking favorites.
Yurei's frost-arm hissed, a shimmer of frost pulling toward her back—like something else was trying to grip her aura.
She finally spoke, her voice calm but tense:
"Anchor-Born. I've seen one before. Just one."
"What is it?"
"A Dravai. The kind that doesn't pull you down with power—
It pulls everything.
Memories. Time. Emotion. Even fate."
The figure stepped forward now—slow, deliberate.
It didn't glitch.
Didn't flicker.
It dragged something behind it.
A long, thin black chain, etched with symbols that hurt to look at.
"That chain…" Yurei muttered. "That's no weapon."
Chronos stayed silent, reading it with his eyes.
Couldn't translate it.
But he felt the pressure.
"Last time I saw one," Yurei continued, "it anchored a whole city to its grief."
"Grief?"
"Every person inside it relived the worst moment of their lives.
Over.
And over.
Until they gave up."
Chronos blinked.
"And you got out?"
Yurei didn't answer.
The Anchor-Born stopped ten feet away.
And the chain lifted.
Not high.
Just enough.
Like it was about to remember what pain felt like.
"What type?" Chronos asked.
"Gravebind," Yurei said. "One of the worst."
The Rift pulsed once.
Then everything tilted.
Not literally—but emotionally.
Like standing in a room where grief lives in the walls.
Yurei whispered:
"You ever felt your guilt get heavier?"
Chronos nodded slowly.
"Now it wants you to wear it."
The chain lifted.
Not fast.
Not threatening.
Like it had all the time in the world and just wanted to be noticed.
It scraped across the Rift-floor, glyphs around it dimmed like they were bowing.
And then—
It dragged the anchor forward.
Not a symbol.
Not a metaphor.
A real, massive thing.
Jagged. Uneven. Taller than both of them.
Spiked edges like broken timelines fused into iron.
It slammed once onto the ground.
The sound didn't echo.
It just ended.
Like it killed the idea of sound for a second.
Yurei staggered.
Not from the impact.
From the pressure behind her own eyes.
"...Don't let it hit you," she muttered, ice curling out from her shoulder.
Chronos took one step forward. Armor hummed low.
"I won't let it touch either of us."
The Anchor-Born looked at them.
It still didn't have a face.
Just a void where recognition should be.
But the chain moved.
Pulled back.
Getting ready to throw.
Yurei didn't wait.
Her frost-arm pulsed once.
She stepped into stance.
"Chronos. Back me up."
"What's the play?"
"We don't win.
We survive long enough to be forgotten."
But the Anchor didn't swing.
Instead—
The world shifted.
The Rift cracked at the edges like it couldn't hold the moment.
Light reversed.
And suddenly—
They were back.
Same glyph field.
Same air.
But the Anchor-Born was gone.
No chain.
No noise.
Just the ripple of something leaving through a door no one saw.
Chronos stared at the space it vanished from.
"It could've hit us."
Yurei didn't respond.
"It didn't even try." Chronos said.
"Because it wasn't here for you."
She flexed her frost-arm once.
The cracks in it hadn't healed.
"It was here to see if I remembered."
Chronos turned to her, armor shifting silently.
"You knew it would be here."
"Not that one. But something like it.
Anchor-Born don't move without intent."
"And you fought one before."
She nodded, barely.
"Yeah. I was the only one who made it out."
Chronos processed. Fast.
"It was testing your memory. Your regret. Your link to a past event."
Yurei looked at her frost-arm.
"And it almost worked."
Then she whispered—
Like the words weren't hers anymore.
"Every time you survive one, it marks you.
And the mark waits.
For a moment just like this."
Then—
Her body twitched.
Fast.
One leg shifted too far forward.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Chronos raised a hand—
"Yurei—"
Zeyth.
Triggered.
It wasn't visible like an explosion.
It wasn't a transformation.
It was just presence.
Yurei moved half a step back—
Then forward again.
In the time it took to blink.
She didn't glow.
She didn't shout.
But the air knew.
Reflex took over.
A hairline crack split the ground beneath her.
Not from strength.
From pressure.
Chronos backed up—instinctively.
"...Zeyth?" he muttered.
Yurei didn't answer.
She just turned her head slightly.
Eyes sharper.
Body quieter.
Like her thoughts turned off and her survival kicked in.
"Don't talk," she said flatly.
"Just tell me where to go."
Meanwhile–
The world was too still again.
The wind moved like it forgot how.
The fire they'd built earlier had gone out without a hiss.
And Shukan?
He was pacing.
One hand on the back of his neck. The other just—clenched.
"I don't like this," he muttered.
Aetheron didn't answer.
He was seated now, leaned up against a broken piece of stone, wings dimmed and twitching every few seconds like they were dreaming something violent.
"They've been gone too long," Shukan said again.
No reply.
He crouched, grabbing a chunk of the shattered glyph nearby.
"If Chronos was gonna say something clever and vague, he would've done it by now."
Aetheron let out a weak breath.
Didn't open his eyes.
"Maybe they found something that doesn't like conversation."
"Great. Real comforting, sunshine."
Shukan stood up again, jaw tight. He looked around—again.
Nothing.
No movement.
No pressure like before.
Just air and fragments.
And yet—
His body was on edge.
Not fear.
Instinct.
That itch behind your ribs that says something just shifted—but you don't know what yet.
Aetheron finally opened his eyes.
They weren't glowing anymore.
Just… tired.
"Shukan."
"Yeah?"
"You ever get the feeling something's not trying to hurt us… but rewrite us?"
Shukan blinked.
"...Yeah," he said slowly. "Today. Right now."
Aetheron leaned his head back, exhaled hard.
"Something changed. I don't know what it was. But it wasn't a weapon.
Felt more like a… decision."
Shukan looked at him sideways.
"Whose decision?"
"Not ours."
The glyph fragments under their feet pulsed once.
Then died again.
Like something had poked them from far away.
Shukan stepped forward, eyes narrowing.
"If that core thing's still watching us... it's getting bolder."
He turned toward where Yurei and Chronos vanished.
Still no portal.
Still no signal.
Still no word.
"They better come back soon," Shukan said, voice low.
"Because if they don't—"
He paused.
"I'll have to go find them."
Aetheron snorted, wings twitching faintly.
"You could barely stand five minutes ago."
"Yeah, well…" Shukan cracked his neck.
"That's just the default state now."