The instant Yuto exited the Forbidden Archive, the sanctum began to shake. Bookshelves twisted. Sigils burned white-hot. Entire sections of the memory-vault collapsed into nothingness.
[Warning: Dimensional Instability – Threadcutters en route.]
[Threadcutters?] Yuto asked through the link.
[System's elite culling units. Killers designed to eliminate rogue evolution branches and timeline glitches.] Nyx's tone was sharper now. [You qualify as all three.]
Yuto didn't wait to argue. He skittered toward the nearest escape rift, but the sanctum warped—and three figures appeared midair, descending slowly as if gravity asked their permission.
Threadcutters.
They didn't wear armor.
They wore threads—raw strands of time and possibility wrapped around them like divine robes.
Their faces were masked by runes, and their eyes pulsed like dying stars.
[Threat Level: Cataclysmic.]
[Entities: Judicator Varn | Seamstress En'Luth | Cutter Sigma]
Direct Combat: Impossible. Escape: Recommended.
One of them raised a blade made from severed timelines.
Another held a needle of unraveling, dragging the world apart with every stitch.
And the third—stood still, silent, watching.
"Target located. Anomaly ID: Final Seed 00-Null."
"Threadlink unstable. Evolution not yet complete. Cleave it."
The Cutter named Sigma vanished.
And reappeared right in front of Yuto.
SLICE—
A line of searing agony tore through Yuto's carapace.
Blood (if it could be called that) spilled in black streams.
[Damage Taken: 62% of Core Integrity]
[Alert: Sovereign Thread Fracturing!]
"Not good!" Nyx hissed.
"You need to leave—now!"
Yuto summoned every ounce of energy. Warp Skitter, Illusion Cocoon, Fear Bloom—all at once.
The cavern burst into a storm of web illusions and shrieking mental static.
The Threadcutters barely blinked.
But one paused. The Seamstress.
She looked at Yuto as if she remembered him.
"The last time we failed to cut one… it became the Endfather."
"He's still sleeping," Judicator Varn said coldly.
"This one won't get that far."
Yuto didn't wait to find out what Endfather meant.
[Dimensional Tear Detected – Dormant Sanctum Gate.]
"Punch it open, Nyx!"
[Opening… Now!]
The wall behind him tore open into a swirling tear, light pouring through it like salvation.
Yuto dived.
Behind him, a blade whistled through the rift—
And caught the edge of his hind leg.
It tore it clean off.
Yuto screamed—but didn't stop.
[Escape Successful. New Zone: Obsidian Hollows.]
[Damage: 1 Limb Lost. Core Fracture: Minor.]
[Evolution Interruption: Threadcut Signal Active.]
Yuto lay there, trembling, missing a leg, still bleeding shadow—and more afraid than ever.
Not of death.
But of the fact that he was still alive.
"Nyx," he rasped, "they'll come again, won't they?"
[Yes.]
"Then we get stronger. Smarter. We don't run next time."
[Understood.]
From the collapsed sanctum behind the gate, Seamstress En'Luth knelt and ran her fingers across Yuto's severed limb.
"He bleeds like the others," she whispered.
"But his thread… is knotted with something else."
"He is not the same Sovereign we once erased."