The creature's breath rumbled like distant thunder, its molten-gold eyes reflecting the three of them with unnerving clarity. The question hung in the air, simple, short, yet impossibly heavy.
"WHAT IS UNITY?"
Albedo let the silence live for a moment longer. He felt Lilian's tension beside him, Elara's steady presence, Ember's warmth radiating against his hand. The answer pulsed through him, not as a rehearsed idea, but as something born from the trials themselves.
He stepped forward, not aggressively, but with the certainty of someone who had walked through illusions and shifting labyrinths and come out the other side unchanged.
"Unity," Albedo said quietly, "is not obedience. Not people following one leader, not bodies walking in the same direction…"
