The sky above Virellion did not belong to any season Aster recognized.
Clouds hung unnaturally low, layered like sheets of bruised glass, their edges faintly glowing with traces of distorted mana. The city beneath them—once a proud convergence of academies, guilds, and ancient relics—felt smaller now. Not physically.
Conceptually.
Aster stood at the edge of the elevated causeway, overlooking the sprawling districts below. Wind tugged at his coat, carrying whispers that were not wind at all—broken thoughts, unfinished outcomes, possibilities that should have died but hadn't.
Arc One had ended with truth.
Arc Two began with consequence.
Behind him, the academy's outer gates sealed themselves shut with a deep, echoing resonance. Runes flared briefly, then vanished, as if embarrassed by their own fear.
"You feel it too, don't you?"
The voice came softly.
Aster did not turn immediately. He already knew who it was.
Lyra Eveden stepped beside him, silver hair tied loosely, eyes fixed on the city as if trying to memorize it before it changed forever. Her presence was calmer than before—no sharp sarcasm, no restless tapping of fingers.
Just quiet vigilance.
"The world's rhythm is off," Aster replied. "Like a story that forgot its own beginning."
Lyra let out a breath. "That's a terrible metaphor."
"It's accurate."
She glanced at him, then looked away again. "The council has confirmed it. Three minor timelines collapsed overnight. No resets. No echoes. Just… erased."
Aster's shadow twitched at his feet.
Erased timelines were not supposed to happen without divine intervention—or a catastrophic paradox.
And yet.
"Did they trace the cause?" Aster asked.
Lyra hesitated.
"…They traced it to movement."
Aster frowned. "Movement?"
"Someone—or something—has been walking across timelines instead of through them," she said. "Leaving footprints where laws shouldn't even exist."
Aster felt the faint pressure behind his eyes again.
The Thread-Reaper.
Or something worse.
---
The City That Should Not Exist
Their destination lay far beyond the academy's jurisdiction.
Eidolon Reach—a city officially listed as abandoned, erased during the Third Temporal Audit. No population. No history. No present.
And yet… reports claimed it was active.
Lights seen at night. Signals detected where causality said there should be none. People remembered visiting it—until they tried to explain when.
Aster, Lyra, Raven, and Elias stood at the boundary marker where reality subtly warped, like heat above stone.
Raven crouched, hand resting on the hilt of his shadow-forged blade. "This place is wrong," he said calmly. "My shadow refuses to enter."
Elias swallowed hard, clutching his satchel. "That's… not reassuring."
Aster stepped forward.
The boundary reacted instantly.
The air folded inward, threads of pale light spiraling toward his chest. His mark burned—not painfully, but insistently.
Lyra grabbed his arm. "Aster—wait."
He looked back at her.
For a brief moment, something fragile surfaced between them—unspoken fear, concern neither wanted to name.
"I won't disappear," he said quietly.
Lyra's grip tightened. "That's not what scares me."
He stepped through.
---
Inside Eidolon Reach
Sound arrived late.
Then color.
Then gravity remembered what it was supposed to do.
Eidolon Reach was intact.
Buildings stood tall, streets clean, lanterns glowing softly as if the city expected company. People walked the streets—laughing, arguing, living.
But none of them cast shadows.
Elias froze. "They're… incomplete."
"No," Raven corrected. "They're placeholders."
Aster's shadow peeled slightly away from his feet, stretching unnaturally.
This place was rebuilt using memory, it whispered inside his mind.
Not history.
Aster felt it too.
Every structure here was stitched together from recollection—what the world remembered Eidolon Reach to be, not what it ever truly was.
A city made from consensus.
A lie strong enough to walk.
Lyra whispered, "If this city is sustained by memory alone… then something at its center must be feeding it."
Aster nodded.
"And whatever it is," he said, "knows me."
---
The Girl Who Recognized Him
They found her near the central plaza.
A girl dressed in white, sitting on the edge of a dried fountain. Her feet barely touched the ground, as if she wasn't entirely anchored to the city.
When she looked up—
Her eyes widened.
"…You're late," she said.
Aster's blood ran cold. "Do I know you?"
She shook her head slowly.
"No. But another you did."
Lyra stiffened. "Another—"
The girl stood.
The city trembled in response.
"I am the custodian of what remains," she said softly. "The one who keeps this place from collapsing into silence."
Her gaze locked onto Aster.
"And you're not supposed to be here yet."
Aster felt the Seventh Note stir violently.
"What happens if I am?" he asked.
The girl smiled—sad, distant, ancient.
"Then Arc Two truly begins," she replied.
"And this world will stop pretending it can be saved."
The sky above Eidolon Reach cracked.
Threads of light bled downward like falling stars.
Aster's shadow laughed.
And somewhere far beyond the city, something colossal turned its attention toward him.