The sky stood open like a wound.
No storm, no thunder. Just a sound that shouldn't exist – the cracking of space that had held for too long.
The Rift stretched across the western zone, flickering as if someone was turning the world inside out.
The colors disintegrated: Gold, Violet, then Black.
Rhea cursed. "This isn't a reset. This is restructuring!"
Eiko ran to the Terminal, hands trembling. "The Field... it's trying to reconstruct itself. But there's something foreign inside it. Not code, not energy – a will."
I stood on the Platform, feeling how the wind changed.
It no longer smelled of metal, but of dust, of earth.
Like something breathing from within.
"He's there," I whispered.
"Alaric?" Rhea asked.
I nodded. "And something with him."
---
In the west, sparks of violet and gray flared.
The zone that Malrik had left behind was empty – or should be.
But now it was filling. With shapes.
Bodies that didn't yet know what they should be.
