The Collapse of Illusion
> "Dreams don't die. They shatter."
---
Time began to bleed.
Not in seconds or minutes, but in twisted fragments — reality warping, overlapping. Shadows peeled away like skin from the world, and what was once stable began to pulse like a dying heartbeat.
Yuji's feet dragged across the endlessly folding halls of Flame Land Academy — or what he thought was the Academy. The walls weren't solid anymore. Doors whispered his name. His reflection in glass stared back with a smile that didn't belong to him.
Every few steps, he passed someone he knew — a student with no face, a teacher with insect eyes, a version of Aika crying blood.
He blinked. They vanished. Or maybe he did.
The Eternal Ring around his finger trembled violently. His wind element sparked and died. His dark element surged, then failed.
Nothing obeyed him anymore.
"Where am I?" he muttered.
But the question echoed back as ten thousand voices: Where am I? Where are we? Are we real?
Then silence.
At last, he reached the central hall. Or what was left of it.
The warped corridors gave way to a grand auditorium, empty… lifeless.
In the center stood a single statue — made of obsidian and silver, smiling cruelly.
It was him.
Yuji Kazehaya.
Or the version Mina built from fragments.
Its eyes glowed with the same violet color as Mina's pulse.
Yuji clenched his fist. The statue laughed without sound.
The Eternal Ring exploded in his hand.
Not physically — but spiritually. A surge of wind burst through him, blades of unseen air slicing the illusions to ribbons. The ceiling cracked.
The sky shattered like glass.
Reality screamed.
---
Meanwhile, in another corridor of that collapsing lie, Aika's footsteps echoed like funeral drums.
She was alone. Again.
Except… her wrist now bore a glowing red thread, delicate as silk, yet pulsing with warmth.
She followed it, her boots crushing blood-soaked flowers. Her breath steamed in the cold illusion. The thread tugged her toward a door that wasn't there before — wooden, burned, but glowing.
Around her lay bodies.
Yuji's face. Over and over. Dead, broken, whispering:
> "Don't leave. You need me. Stay."
"We were happy here."
"Why suffer more?"
They reached for her ankles. One even grabbed her wrist.
Tears stung her eyes.
But she looked up, breathed deep, and whispered:
> "You're not him."
The red thread pulsed. The door opened. She stepped through fire, through fear, and vanished into light.
---
Ryen, meanwhile, ran through the floating forest — but even trees bent and looped like Mobius strips. Time blinked forward and backward, showing him visions of himself as a boy, as a man, as a corpse.
He finally reached the old portal — carved into stone with ancient runes. It flickered like it remembered what it once was.
He stepped through.
And on the other side…
He saw them.
The real Yuji. The real Aika.
Both were collapsing, barely holding their souls together. Their forms flickered like candlelight in a storm.
Then—
A soundless pulse shattered the ground.
The illusion world began to collapse inward. Buildings melted like wax. Time cracked like ice. Clock hands spun wildly in the sky. Screams from past timelines rang out like a twisted choir.
The three fell.
Fell through the world.
Through layers of memories, of regrets, of Mina's lies.
Clocks floated around them, broken and ticking in reverse. Words whispered through the void:
> "You're too late."
"You never existed."
"It was always going to end this way."
Yuji's eyes fluttered. His mind began to dissolve into the swirl of stolen memories.
Aika clutched her chest, gasping. Ryen held onto a fading flame in his palm.
Then—
A voice.
Clear. Ageless. Feminine.
Xioner.
> "The key… is pain."
Yuji's eyes snapped open.
His hand reached toward a floating shard of his Eternal Ring — now broken, flickering like a dying star. Inside it was embedded a shard of elemental crystal.
Without hesitation, he grabbed it and stabbed it into his chest.
Pain surged. Real. Blinding. Burning. But anchoring.
Aika saw him, understood. She reached into her memory — pulled a blood-soaked wind crystal from her own illusion. With trembling hands, she plunged it into her arm.
Ryen, gritting his teeth, grabbed a flame crystal from a vision of his brother's blade. And pierced his side.
The pain made them scream.
But it pulled them out.
---
FLASH.
The void cracked.
Light flooded.
They woke up.
---
Not in the Flame Land Academy.
Not in Xina.
Not in any city or sanctuary.
But on cold stone, surrounded by silence.
Their bodies were real. Their breaths shallow. Their hearts racing.
Above them, the sky was blue. The real sky. No clocks. No echoes.
Only the sound of the wind — raw and honest.
Yuji groaned, his hand clutching his chest. The crystal had vanished, but the pain remained — grounding him.
Aika sat up, whispering, "Is it over?"
Ryen stood slowly, looking around. "No… it's beginning."
In the distance, faint blue trees shimmered under sunlight.
And somewhere nearby…
A presence stirred.
---
> "Some things are too true to stay hidden forever."
The silence that followed their awakening was not peace—it was memory rearranged.
Yuji's eyes fluttered open first. A cobalt glow danced above him. Branches, unfamiliar and dreamlike, stretched toward a starlit canopy where no stars truly shined—only drifting blue embers suspended in stillness.
Aika stirred next, coughing lightly, hand pressed to her chest, her ADM Ring dull against her wrist. Then Ryen, ever the fighter, sat up with a grunt, glancing wildly for threats—only to find trees that pulsed with rhythm, like they were breathing.
They were no longer in Flame Land Academy. No battlegrounds, no endless loops. No illusions whispering lies into their bones.
Instead… a forest.
Not just any forest, but a Blue Forest, forgotten by history and untouched by dominion. Here, the grass shimmered with memory. The bark of trees hummed in frequencies deeper than sound. Mist curled through the undergrowth like ribbons from time itself.
Yuji staggered to his feet, swaying.
"Where… where are we?" he whispered.
Before any answer could form, a voice cut through the haze—soft, tired, but laced with steel.
"You broke through."
The three turned at once.
There—leaning against the base of a glowing tree, hair tangled with luminous blue leaves, was Xioner. Pale, panting, alive.
Her eyes, cracked open just enough, studied them with something between wonder and relief.
"I followed the bleed. When the timelines fractured… this place pulled me in."
Aika rushed to her first, kneeling beside her. "We thought you—"
"Died? Maybe I did." Xioner gave a weary smirk. "This forest doesn't follow life or death. It… remembers both."
Yuji narrowed his eyes, scanning the trees. "Where exactly are we?"
"The Blue Forest," Ryen answered quietly, recognition dawning. " i have read about it… a neutral zone. No nation owns it. Not even Xina."
Xioner nodded. "The Blue Forest was the first place the timelines fractured decades ago. Mina tried to burn it once. Failed. The forest refused to forget. It kept truth alive. That's why we're here now."
Truth.
A strange, forgotten word.
Suddenly—a shift in the sky.
As if a giant exhaled in the clouds above, the cobalt leaves trembled, and the mist thickened.
A shadow formed overhead. Neither fully formed nor truly void—it was a being cloaked in brilliance and darkness, balanced on the edge of contradiction. It didn't speak. It didn't descend.
It simply was.
In its hand: a sealed scroll wrapped in blood-threaded chains, pulsing with forbidden energy.
With a gentle flick of its wrist, it dropped the scroll. It didn't fall—it floated, descending like a memory from a forgotten dream.
The four stared.
Yuji reached first, but the chains burned his skin.
Ryen stepped beside him, Fire crackling in his palm. Together—Yuji's Dark aura and Ryen's Flame spark touched the seal.
The blood chains evaporated in a scream of vapor and light.
The scroll unfurled mid-air—like it breathed.
Lines of blood drew themselves, moving like rivers on parchment. The map came alive.
Nation IVAS—etched in haunting beauty. Valleys made of molten sapphire. Cities shaped like spirals. Sky-bridges connecting floating islands.
At its heart: Blood Vein No. 3.
A forgotten gate. A forbidden passage.
A possible road… home.
Yuji stepped back in awe. "This… this could be it."
Aika stared into the living parchment. Her voice cracked. "Why here? Why us?"
Ryen's answer was simple, but raw: "Because we remembered who we are."
Xioner stood now, leaning against the tree for balance. Her voice had steadied.
"No one was supposed to survive the illusion layers. Mina made sure of that. But we did more than survive. We broke her design."
The map pulsed—its borders glowing a deep red.
A trail of light extended from the Blue Forest, slithering like a serpent across the land, stopping just at the edge of IVAS's capital.
Yuji tightened his fists.
"Then we walk through fire. Together."
Aika's gaze hardened, and she touched the base of the map, whispering, "No more shadows. No more lies."
As the scroll gently folded itself, embedding its image into the air like a tattoo on the wind, the entire Blue Forest reacted.
The leaves shimmered brighter. The trees leaned, aligning. A distant rumble echoed underground.
A path, made of pure red light, carved itself through the cobalt mist—heading straight toward the unseen roads of Nation IVAS.
Xioner exhaled slowly, brushing a leaf from her shoulder.
> "We have the truth now," she said, her voice like a flame refusing to die.
"All that's left… is to survive it."
They didn't speak again.
But in the silence, a decision was made.
Not just to leave the Blue Forest.
Not just to reach Blood Vein No. 3.
But to face everything that had hunted them—Mina, false gods, collapsing timelines—and find the world they once called home.
Even if they had to tear reality apart to do it.
---
Toward the Nation of Beauty and War
> "Even broken wings remember how to fly."
The forest did not say goodbye.
It simply released them.
When dawn broke over the Blue Forest, the sky was no longer blue. It burned with a strange crimson blush—colors bleeding into one another like old wounds reopening beneath the clouds. Somewhere far ahead, the heavens themselves rumbled, and the light bent in the direction of Nation IVAS.
That was where they were headed.
And this time, they walked with purpose.
Yuji stepped first onto the red-lit path, his boots pressing gently into soft, cobalt grass. The wind stirred, curling around him like an old friend. His Eternal Ring, once dim and defeated, now pulsed softly—no longer screaming, but humming. Awakened.
Behind him, Aika carried the sealed scroll against her chest. She didn't speak, but her eyes were sharper than before. The kind of clarity that only comes from surviving lies and walking through fire.
Ryen checked his blade—lightweight, worn, reliable. His fire element flickered at his fingertips, more reflex than intent. His silence was not from fear—it was reflection.
And Xioner… she walked last. Quiet. Shadowed. Her steps gentle but sure. Her eyes occasionally lifted toward the sky, as if something in the clouds whispered to her alone.
No words were needed. The air had already spoken.
Still, the pain of survival lingered in the bones. Flame World was not made for gentleness. It tested not just strength, but identity.
They walked through the misty edges of the Blue Forest, gathering what little they could—twilight fruits that restored energy, cracked minerals that vibrated with slow, residual Flame Essence. The map in Aika's hands had begun to dim now, but the trail it revealed remained vivid: a thread of red woven through the heart of the land, leading them forward.
Toward Nation IVAS.
Toward what lay beyond blood and memory.
---
By mid-day, the Blue Forest faded behind them, giving way to deadlands where the old battlefield of Xina once thrived. Scorched earth. Blackened branches. Remnants of broken stone monuments and shattered ADM rings.
It was here that Aika paused, her boot sinking slightly into soft ash.
Then she saw it.
A single flower.
Fragile, pale, shivering against the wind—blooming in the heart of ruin.
She knelt beside it, brushing soot from its petals.
"Hope never dies." Her voice was soft, carried gently by the breeze.
"It just hides."
Yuji turned back and looked at her. He didn't speak—but a faint, tired smile curved at the edge of his mouth. Something had bloomed in all of them.
They gathered what little they could: scorched cloth for binding, a few stray EB flasks buried beneath broken weapons, and two still-functioning Element Stabilizers. Just enough to keep going—but not enough to feel safe.
They didn't want safety anymore.
They wanted truth.
Ryen sat on the edge of a fallen monument, the old emblem of Xina barely visible on its cracked face. A sunburst surrounded by war glyphs.
"This world," he said suddenly, "hasn't just tested our strength."
Yuji glanced at him. "No?"
"It's tested our minds. Our memories. What we believe. What we fear. Everything we thought was real… was just scaffolding for someone else's game."
Yuji's fists tightened slightly, but not in anger.
"It doesn't get to be their game anymore."
Ryen nodded.
They left the deadlands by dusk. Ahead, rolling plains turned into jagged plateaus—sharp, red cliffs that split the horizon like scars. Above it all: crimson clouds, churning slowly in the distance.
The sky of IVAS.
They camped at the edge of the cliffs. No fire. No sound. Just presence.
Yuji sat against a stone, the stars reflecting in his now glowing ring. A low wind rustled through the rocks, and for a moment, he imagined another version of himself—a boy who had never left his home, never learned the cruel mercy of illusions, never watched shadows bloom inside his veins.
That boy was gone.
But in his place stood something better.
Someone becoming.
---
Later that night, Aika dreamed of the flower in the ash again—but this time, it bloomed into a tree. Its roots curled through timelines. Its leaves shimmered with voices. When she awoke, she didn't cry.
She just whispered, "We're not far now."
---
The final stretch of their walk was uphill.
The cliffs thinned into jagged, crimson rock. Then—suddenly, as if Flame World itself took a breath—they stood atop a high ridge… and beheld Nation IVAS.
It did not disappoint.
Vast fields of firelit grass, rivers flowing sideways across floating islands, cities built into mountain faces that glowed with crystal veins. Towers that twisted like art, painted by the sky. Armored airships hovered silently over royal bridges. The smell of war lingered in the wind—but so did something else.
Beauty.
Ryen stepped forward, silent.
Yuji's voice cracked the moment. "They say IVAS was once a kingdom of poets and warriors."
"Looks like both are still standing," Aika whispered.
Far below, a path stretched toward the capital gates. The red trail from the scroll flickered briefly one last time—then vanished.
Their path was clear.
They would not return to the Blue Forest. There was no going back.
Only forward.
To the Vein.
To the gate.
To the truth.
To whatever waited on the other side.
And maybe, if fate was kind, to home.
Behind them, the winds rustled softly.
Ahead—drums of destiny, still far, but closing.
Xioner looked once more at the sky.
> "The timeline was theirs again," her voice barely a whisper.
"And this time, they would choose how the story ends."
---
END OF CHAPTER 34