[World Status Update – ORRAK'ZHAL: MEMORY LAYER]
Survival Year Progress: [8 / 10]
Origin Fracture – Status: Stabilized
Iden – Level 80
Summon Capacity: 1,409,286,144
(Next Doubling: Level 82 → 2,818,572,288)
Crownfall and Fallout – Standby
Final Quest – In Progress
Two full years passed.Not a single Titan. No distortions. No mass collapses.
It was unnatural.A silence that made even the wind sound guilty.
Kael stood atop the reengineered Citadel gates, now fused with fragments of Origin metal.
"This is the type of silence that precedes a culling," he said.
And he wasn't wrong.
Still, life in fractured Earth continued.New structures rose from repurposed world layers.Factions began holding peace pacts under Sanctum's banners.Kael and Rael officially declared their Promise-bond, with Rael saying:
"If we survive ten years... I want cherry blossoms at the wedding."
And Iden, for the first time in his long march through war, made his own announcement—broadcast through every anchor and speaker across the world:
[GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT – FROM HIGH COMMANDER IDEN]
"Sanctum will endure. For ten years, we've walked through hell."
"And when this Final World Quest ends... I will marry."
"Not as a symbol. Not for politics. For myself."
"You all deserve joy after this."
"So I'll take the first step forward, for all of us."
"This is not just the end of survival. It will be the beginning of something real."
In Sanctum's inner courtyard, Rael heard the message—and found Iden waiting beside the old Earth oak tree he had summoned years ago.
She approached, arms crossed, a curious glint in her eye.
"You're getting married?"
"I am," Iden replied softly. "I was hoping you'd be the first to know."
Rael didn't answer immediately.She looked away, smile unreadable.
"Then you'll have to wait a little longer."
"Until when?"
"Until the quest ends," she whispered. "When it's over, I'll tell you everything."
And she left.
Peace ended without warning.
A rip formed in the skies above Sector 33—not a portal, not a dimensional tear, but a reversal.
Mana and gravity twisted.Fragments of forgotten civilizations returned, distorted and screaming.
It was the Inverted Pulse Storm, and at its center marched the first true Omega-beast in two years.
Codename: Pale Cartographer.
Classification: Unscannable.
Purpose: Unknown. Possibly observation.
But it brought with it waves of collapsing echoes—world-eaters that feasted on reconstructed reality.
Kael's undead tyrants met them head-on.
Nyra unleashed the Crimson Collapse, a spatial fold assassination art she had refined over the years.
And Iden—Iden activated the Anchor Directive, flooding the battlefield with skeletons upgraded beyond comprehension: Mageflayers, Archon Archers, Abyss Walkers, and over a billion frontline variants.
Even then, the storm almost reached the Origin Core.
But Sanctum held.
Barely.
Beneath the rebuilt garden, Rael sat alone, sharpening her wedding blade in silence.
Iden joined her, kneeling beside the same tree they once climbed as children.
"Two more years," she said.
"Then what?"
"Then I tell you," she said quietly. "Everything I held back. Every promise I couldn't say aloud before the end."
"And after that?" he asked.
She looked at him—truly looked—and smiled.
"Then you ask again."
At the edge of the fractured sky, a massive red ring appeared.Its circumference spanned an entire reality layer.
It pulsed—not with mana, but intent.
[GLOBAL SYSTEM NOTICE – THE FINAL SHIFT HAS BEGUN]
All Memory Fragments will begin collapse in 400 days.Only stabilized worlds will transfer to the New Cradle.
"The Architect has opened His Eye. Orrak'Zhal will close."