Isa's leadership style was unmistakably that of the Winged Ones—she wove a silver divine thread into a rope, gliding Silas through the air like a kite, only about ten meters off the ground.
Silas's broken ribs groaned with each gust of wind, but he gritted his teeth, remaining silent. He was doing something far more difficult than enduring the pain: rebuilding his memories.
Because he was doing something far more difficult than enduring the agony: rebuilding his memories.
"Old Dirk...lost half an ear, a dwarf...my guardian."
"Riften...I was scavenging for junk there."
"My sister...Princess Sissi."
His heart clenched as he spoke the last name.
That memory was like a charred scroll—the edges were mottled. He remembered having a sister, remembered her disappearance, but what terrified him was that he couldn't recall her face.
This was the price of replicating "Shadow Strike."
He had traded his precious memories of his loved ones for a sliver of hope for survival.
"Damn oracle," he cursed under his breath.
"Stop talking to yourself. We're here," Isa said, landing lightly as the silver thread retracted into her back.
Before Silas lay the barbed wire outpost—a fortress carved into the mountainside. There
were no grand palaces, only rugged black stone buildings and awakened creatures roaming the streets.
Humans, dwarves, and orcs mingled here, the air thick with the sweet scent of evaporating high-purity energy.
In the center of the outpost stood a massive bronze loom pillar, its surface covered with intricate runes.
"That's the Balancing Loom," Isa explained, pointing to it.
"It monitors the sacred stability of this area.
You can't start a fight here—unless you want the Pantheon guards to weave you into a pile of scrap metal."
She led Silas into a tavern called "The Headless."
In a corner sat a gaunt old man, untangling a tangled mess of gray thread with a glowing needle.
"Bard, register this child," Isha said, tapping on the counter.
The old man looked up—his eyes were mechanical gears, clicking slightly as they turned.
"Just awakened? Ordinary Dreamweaver (Level 1)?" he sneered, his voice hoarse like sandpaper. "Isha, when did you start scavenging? His divine power is as messy as a junkyard."
"He fused with a fragment of a Dreamweaver's divine core and survived," Isha replied coldly.
Bard's gear-like eyes stopped turning, locking onto Silas. "A surviving Dreamweaver spaceship? Interesting."
He put down his needle, gesturing for Silas to sit down, his tone suddenly turning serious.
"Boy, since you're at the outpost, you must understand the basic laws of this world.
Don't think that awakening will make you a god—here, even gods are just bigger prey."
Silas gave a wry smile. "I just want to know when I can eat."
"Eat? In the shattered universe of the gods, every bite of bread consumes divine embers."
Bard pointed to the pillar. "The pantheon is collapsing, the universe's energy is dissipating.
Mortals who wish to become stronger must steal energy from the divine threads left behind by the gods.
Every new thread you weave is a race against time."
He held up three fingers:
"Remember these three ironclad rules:
First, the number of threads equals lifespan. If your threads break, you vanish—soulless, without a trace.
Second, balance is truth. The stronger your imprint, the more fatal your flaws.
Third, all gods are competing. No god will protect you for free—unless you can mend the loopholes in their laws."
Silas felt a chill. This wasn't cultivation—it was a cosmic-scale resource war.
"Alright, registration fee: three standard divine threads." Bard said, holding out his hand.
Silas froze. "I don't have any."
"Of course he didn't," Isa said, tossing a shimmering crystal onto the counter. "I'll pay. But Silas, you understand—this debt is tied to your life."
She turned, her purple eyes locking onto him, a predatory glint in them:
"I saved you because I need your Broken Mirror.
In three days, the nameless ruins of the Divine Weave will open—a door sealed by the laws of dreams. Only those fused with the Dream Weaver's fragments can take me in."
Silas leaned back, feeling the shadowy lines from the replication technique.
He understood—she was never a savior. She only saw him as a useful tool.
"What if I refuse?"
"Then you can leave now." Isa said, nodding towards the door. "Those Purifiers lurking in the shadows would be happy to dig out your brain, fused with a divine core, to brew wine."
Silas remained silent. He touched the copper needle in his pocket, trying to recall his sister's name.
"Deal." He raised his head, his gaze sharp and cold. "But I have a condition. Before we go to the ruins, I need to find a way to use my power without losing my memories."
"Even a god couldn't do that," Bard chuckled grimly. "But if you weave a second main thread and ascend to the rank of Divine Contract Weaver, perhaps you can slow down the fading of your memories.
Provided you live that long."
Just then, the tavern door was flung open.
A winged warrior, covered in blood, staggered in, his voice hoarse.
"It's cracked! The Third Continent of the Ordinary Layer... the Storm Lord's Sacred Domain has cracked! The Godfall Tide has arrived ahead of schedule!"
The tavern was silent, then erupted in commotion.
Isa jumped to her feet, her face pale.
Silas stared at the sky outside the window, suddenly dyed crimson.
A thought lingered in his mind:
This damned world, can't it even let people breathe?
The sky outside the outpost was no longer the warm orange of dusk, but a sickly, blood-red.
The clouds hung like tattered cloth, as if torn apart by an invisible hand, blue-purple lightning churning violently within the cracks.
These were sacred sparks—fragments of the Storm Lord's Sacred Domain, burning as they pierced the atmosphere as they fell into the Ordinary Layer.
"High alert!""Godstorm level—Cataclysmic level!"
The guard's shout mingled with the urgent tolling of bells.
The tavern was instantly emptied. Even the most reckless scavenger knew that in the face of a god-falling tide, hesitation meant death.
"Kid, take this."
Bard slid a small black bag across the counter, making a dull tinkling sound. "Holy Embers. It can temporarily stabilize your core loom. Take it if you want to stay conscious during this storm."
Silas took the bag, his gaze fixed on the blood-red sky.
Beneath the blood-stained sky, Thunderwing Beasts darted through the rifts, their three-meter-long bodies crackling and crackling with electricity.
These were once guardians of the Storm Lord, now twisted into mindless hunters.
"Where are we going?" Silas asked Isa.
Isa spread her silver wings, the threads at the edges humming. "To the fortress of the Balance Loom. If that pillar collapses, the outpost will be torn apart by spatial chaos. No one will survive."
She grabbed Silas by the collar and leaped into the sky.
Boom!
The powerful impact made his ribs creak and his internal organs shift.
They pierced the night sky like silver arrows, hurtling towards the bronze pillar.
Below, awakened warriors clashed fiercely with the swooping behemoths.
Flames, frost, and holy blades erupted in the chaos—a harbinger of Ragnarok.
"Isha! To the right!" Silas shouted.
A massive thunderwing beast swooped down from the flank, its electric claws gripping Isha's wings tightly.
Isha hissed, twisting in the air and hurling a string of silver feathers.
But the behemoth, amplified by the remnants of the Storm Lord's divine power, deflected them with a distorted electric field.
"Damn it, this power is almost on par with the Divine Contract Weaver!" Isha cursed, her wings trembling from the recoil.
Just then, Silas felt his shadow threads surge.
[Skill Detection: Thunder Domain (Incomplete)]
[Activate Shattered Mirror?]
"Put me down!" Silas yelled.
"Are you insane! You haven't even woven the first main thread!"
"If we don't stop it, neither of us will get to the pillar!" Silas's voice was sharp, carrying the weariness of years of struggling to survive on the streets. "Trust my 'garbage power'!"
Isa gritted her teeth, releasing him five meters away.
Silas crashed heavily to the ground, rolling to cushion the impact.
He knelt down, meeting the gaze of the beast pouncing on Isa.
His vision shifted. The beast was no longer flesh and blood, but a tangled ball of blue threads, one thick thread pulsating at its electric core.
"Weaving...begin."
A searing pain pierced his skull.
A bolt of lightning appeared in the air before him.
[Mirror Weaving Successful.]
[Price: Memories of your fifth birthday erased.]
A blank appeared in his mind—a boy in a red sweater blowing out candles, the image then collapsing and disappearing.
In its place was a cold and merciless rage.
"Break...now!"
Silas swung his sword at the air. Threads of lightning lashed out like whips, striking the monster's core.
The true power of the Shattered Mirror lay not in replication, but in exploiting the flaws of the original.
The monster's electric field shattered like glass.
Isa seized the opening, a flash of silver light piercing the monster's chest.
The monster crashed heavily beside Silas, smoking and motionless.
Silas gasped, blood trickling from his nostrils.
He stared at the corpse, a bitter smile on his face. "Fifth birthday? Whatever—I didn't eat anything that day anyway."
"Silas!" Isa landed, her purple eyes wide, filled with an unfathomable expression.
For the first time, she realized that this ordinary weaver (level 1) boy possessed power sufficient to disrupt divine logic.
"No time for nonsense," Silas said, wiping his face. "That pillar won't hold."
In the distance, the bronze woven pillar swayed precariously under the onslaught of the storm, its runes disappearing one by one.
At its highest peak, a figure clad in a scarlet robe and wearing a golden mask hovered in the air, wielding a massive pair of scissors.
They weren't repairing the pillar; they were severing the sacred threads that held the outpost together.
"The Purifiers..." Isha's pupils contracted sharply. "They're not here to save us—they're here to harvest the outpost's divine power."
In this shattered universe, sometimes the most powerful monsters wear human skin.