The amphitheater breathed with old power—quiet and pulsing, like the heartbeat of something buried far beneath the stone. Haraza could feel it vibrating faintly in his boots, in his bones, and most of all in the Seed nestled deep in his chest. The fire at the center of the stone circle was not fueled by wood, yet it burned bright and steady, casting flickering shadows across the ancient statues that loomed like watchful giants.
The cloaked woman took her place at the edge of the circle, while Haraza remained standing, his glaive planted in the ground beside him like a banner. The Echoed—those strange, timeless Riftborn—continued to regard him with varying degrees of interest.
It was the feathered one who spoke first.
("You feel it, don't you?") its voice echoed with unnatural cadence. ("The tremor beneath your skin. The pull. You stand on the fault line between worlds, Haraza Genso. And the Rift does not choose lightly.")
Haraza frowned. ("I've heard riddles before. From spirits. From Tarsis. From the Rift itself. If you want me to listen, speak plainly.")
The scarred man with the wind-blade let out a dry chuckle. ("Plain talk is for flatlanders. What we deal in is myth. Fractured truths. Memories older than time. You think the Rift sings because it likes you?")
("It chose me,") Haraza replied. ("Isn't that what matters?")
The child stood up. Her chains rattled as she moved, and the broken hourglass in her small hands spun once, releasing a puff of glowing dust that hovered in the air before sinking into the fire.
("That's not what it wants, though,") she said. ("The Rift chooses seeds. But it's the world that waters them. Feeds them. Prunes them.")
She looked up at him with eyes too deep for her youthful face.
("And this world is dying.")
Silence followed. Not heavy, but absolute—as if the world itself paused to listen.
Haraza stared at the child. ("What do you mean dying? The Rift spawned the monsters in the forest. The Warden I fought. Even the Seed. It's the danger here. Isn't it?")
The cloaked woman shook her head. ("The Rift did not break the world.")
Her voice was low, nearly reverent.
("It is the scar left by something else. The Rift is the wound… but not the blade.")
Haraza turned to her. ("Then what was the blade?")
The answer came not in words, but in vision.
The fire at the center of the amphitheater flared, and for a moment, the world around them fell away. Haraza's senses twisted—not painfully, but unnaturally. His skin crawled as his sight bent inward. The stone seats vanished. The statues disappeared. Even the trees and the sky were gone, replaced by a roiling void of deep amethyst and seething crimson—colors that had no place in any sky.
He stood at the edge of nothing.
And in that nothing, something moved.
Vast.
Unfathomable.
Dreaming.
It had no shape, not really, but he saw it anyway. A form as large as the horizon, composed of tangled limbs and wings, mouths and eyes, constellations swirling within its mass like insects trapped in amber. Its breath was a galaxy. Its heartbeat was a storm. And though it did not speak, Haraza heard it.
Words too vast for language. Concepts too old for thought.
-The Dream That Broke.-
-The Sleeper Beneath the Hollow World.-
-The End That Waits Between Stars.-
He gasped and staggered back as the vision receded. The world snapped into focus again, the fire low and crackling, the amphitheater quiet as before.
The cloaked woman approached and steadied him with a hand on his shoulder.
("That,") she said softly, ("is the thing that lies beneath this reality. It stirs. It remembers. And it dreams… of returning.")
Haraza was silent. He stared into the fire, jaw tight, eyes hard.
("I've seen horrors,") he said quietly. ("The Sanctum showed me the birth of Riftspawn. The memories of broken timelines. I've faced beasts made of echo and madness. But that…")
He looked at them all.
("That wasn't madness. That was order. Twisted, yes—but deliberate. Calculated.")
The child nodded. ("Its dream is not chaos. It is design. It wants to remake the world as it was before—when only it existed. Before life. Before will. Before choice.")
The scarred man spat into the fire. ("It sleeps now, somewhere beyond the Spiral Gate. But its thoughts bleed into the Rift. Its will leaks through cracks in time, shaping monsters, spawning Wardens, twisting what once was sacred.")
("And how do we stop it?") Haraza asked. ("If it's so powerful, so ancient?")
The feathered one chuckled softly. ("We don't stop it.")
The air grew cold again.
("We survive it.")
The words landed like a hammer.
But the cloaked woman shook her head.
("No,") she said. ("We resist it. We fight. Every echo, every Riftborn, every fragment of memory that still burns—we gather them. We learn its shape, its mind. And when it wakes… we stand between it and the world.")
Haraza stepped forward, his voice quiet but unwavering.
("Then show me how.")
The cloaked woman looked at the others. A silent exchange passed between them.
Finally, the scarred man nodded.
("Fine,") he said. ("We start with the map.")
He reached into his cloak and pulled out a scroll bound in chains, sealed with a glyph that shimmered and flexed like a living eye. He tossed it into the fire.
The flames did not burn it.
They read it.
Light spilled upward in columns, weaving into patterns—geometries that defied the natural order. A three-dimensional construct formed above the flame: a spire, shattered at its peak, floating over a black ocean that spun in reverse. From the spire, roads of light branched out like spiderwebs—some crumbled, others flickering, and a few that pulsed with life.
("This is the Tower of Unknowing,") the cloaked woman said. ("The last vault of the Echoed Order. It lies beyond the Ashplains, past the Veil of Lanterns. Few who travel there return.")
("But it's where we go next,") Haraza guessed.
The girl nodded. ("There is something buried beneath its roots. A relic. Older than the Rift. A memory stolen from the Sleeper itself.")
Haraza's heart pounded.("A weapon?")
The feathered one's mask tilted. ("A question. One it cannot answer. One it fears.")
And that, more than anything, gave Haraza pause.
Not a sword. Not a spell. A question that the Dream could not face.
He had no idea what that meant.
But he was going to find out.