They followed the Rootspire's pull through a clearing that shouldn't have existed. The trees parted not with wind or weight, but intention—like something wanted them to pass through.
The ground pulsed beneath their boots.
Then it shifted.
Roots convulsed. Trees twisted in protest. The very soil screamed.
A massive shape rose in the distance.
It wasn't the apex threat.
It was something older.
The Caretaker.
It crawled from the cracked basin beneath the Rootspire, dragging a hundred limbs stitched from bone and vine. Its face was a mask of bark nailed over something churning and wet beneath, and from its shoulders grew lanterns filled with trapped whispers—each one pulsing with memory.
Kaelen stopped cold. "It's not dead."
"I thought we already killed it," Wren muttered.
"We banished it," Kaelen said. "But it never left. It just retreated. The Rootspire must've reawakened its function."
Riven raised his blade. "Then we finish the job."
But the air changed.
Above them, the sky went silent.
A second presence pressed down. Not with noise, but absence. It didn't step into the clearing.
It descended.
The treetops swayed toward it. Light dimmed. And far above, a vast silhouette shifted—seen only through the distortion of space and breath.
Joe felt his lungs compress. His storm pulled tighter to his bones.
The Caretaker paused. Its limbs writhed, the lanterns dimming.
It wasn't looking at them.
It was looking up.
Something else was here.
The air cracked like old ice.
Kaelen whispered, "It's him. The one above. The one that isn't part of the cycle."
Joe stumbled. "What the hell is it doing?"
"Taking control."
Suddenly, the Caretaker screamed.
The lanterns around its neck burst one by one, releasing memory-ghosts into the clearing—fluttering echoes of people who had died screaming beneath the Timber. They howled. They spiraled. And then they froze midair.
Shattered.
By something unseen.
The forest bent beneath the weight.
The apex threat—the one even the Watchers feared—had begun to rewrite the Hollowed Timber's laws.
Joe's vision flickered.
[SYSTEM OVERRIDE IN PROGRESS]
[Local Authority Conflict: PROTOCOL_CARETAKER vs. ENTITY_UNKNOWN]
[Memory Stream Access Denied]
[Error. Error. Error.]
The Caretaker lunged but not at them, but at the Rootspire. Its limbs tried to anchor themselves, to maintain the last vestige of order in a place that was unraveling. It roared but not in anger, but in defiance.
Above, the sky cracked. A seam opened, just briefly, and something looked down.
Not a face.
Not a form.
Just... presence.
Wren staggered backward, bleeding from the nose. "We shouldn't be here."
Kaelen threw a ward of frost, shielding them from the surge of static.
The Caretaker's vines coiled upward like a hand reaching for a vanishing god. The apex did not strike.
It simply dismissed.
The Caretaker unraveled in place.
Its bark peeled into splinters. Its limbs fell in slow motion, already turning to ash. Its lanterns shattered into salt and bone dust.
And then it was gone.
Not dead.
Just removed.
Silence fell.
Joe collapsed to one knee.
Kaelen helped him up, face pale. "That… wasn't a predator. That was a system error with teeth."
"What was it?" Joe asked.
Kaelen didn't answer right away.
Wren whispered, "He's not part of this world, is he?"
"No," Kaelen said. "But he wants in. And if the Rootspire opens the door, he'll step through."
Joe stood.
His lightning had gone cold.
And the Rootspire still pulsed like a wound.
"We keep going," he said.
Above, in the branches of the broken sky, the flame mage watched all this from his perch beside a molten sigil.
"He's not ready," the mage whispered. "But the gate is waking. And the next time the cycle turns, he won't be able to close it."
The crawling construct beside him whirred softly. "Then the storm will break?"
"No," the flame mage said. "Then the storm will choose."